We are into the second month of a new year, how is it going? Are those new year’s resolutions just a faded memory? Are you still doing the same things you did last year. Have you even taken a closer look at what you did last year? We can all admit that it’s been a pretty rough ride for most business owners, regardless of the size of your business, big or small.

It has been said that the only thing that’s constant is change, and if you’ve been in business for any length of time, you know how true this is. If there’s one thing that sets companies that have been successful over the long haul—think IBM, General Electric, Wal-Mart or Microsoft, for example—apart from all the others, it’s their positive reaction to change.

There’s no question that the financial crisis and ensuing credit crunch have made it more difficult than ever to secure small business financing and raise capital. This is especially true for fast-growth companies, which tend to consume more resources in order to feed their growth. If they aren’t careful, they can literally grow themselves right out of business.

For us small to medium business owners, promoting our websites online which is also known as online marketing needs to meet two conditions. Low investment is the first condition so TV ads are probably out of the question (for now) and for many of us, it needs to work almost as a do-it-yourself marketing task. Here are a selection of online marketing tips which are both budget minded and require very basic previous experience.

Every so often, I'm reminded of the power of SBA loans.

Some of the country's largest companies got off the ground thanks to an injection of small business funding through one of the U.S. Small Business Administration's finance programs. That list includes companies like Apple, Intel and AOL.

The past couple of years have been an especially challenging time for most business owners as they’ve struggled to maintain sales and profitability in the face of one of the worst economic downturns in our nation’s history. As a result, many owners and entrepreneurs have been only too glad to say goodbye to 2009 and welcome in a new year.

The global recession may be coming to an end, but it’s not time to crank open the bubbly quite yet; unless, of course, it’s a bottle of Walmart’s cheap sparkling wine.

You see, if anything is to be gleamed from the past twelve months, it’s that we shouldn’t take anything for granted. Whilst things may be rosy one day, they might not be tomorrow; so by being thrifty when times are good, this will help take care of things when times are tough.

If your site doesn’t solve a consumer’s problem, you’ve got a big one of your own.

Getting viewers to your website is a win all by itself. But solid traffic won’t necessarily put dollars in your pocket. There’s both an art and a science to converting site visitors into actors, and you’ve only got a few seconds to seal the deal.

A year or two ago, your business was probably running pretty smoothly, with sales and profits growing. And then the recession and credit crunch hit—a brutal double-whammy—and everything started slowing down almost overnight, including your accounts receivable collections.