Hi,

Why did switch the name? It is more professinal sounding. I like the old name though.

No biggie...

Yeah, That was a bit of a shocker to me also. Guess I know why it was down earlier now

We switched the forum over to the new address so we could couple the resources site with the forum. We hope that when we post new articles there will be discussion about them in the forums... specifically SEO chat!

How about putting a link on the forum menu for the Smallbusiness site.

Birdman,

Click on the link "Small Business" right under the forum logo... is this what you meant?

Thanks that is what I meant. Hard to tell what is a title and what is a link when the underline is turned off.

COOL. What do you think about the site Birdman?

Don't know about Birdman, but I think it is a good resource for your customers, and looks like it could draw in new business by being an asset to potentials or people using the competition.

The ability to integrate the forum and site is also a great way to encourage community growth here -- look forward to what will develop from here.

I like it and I like what I am seeing there.

I was e-mailed an interesting idea and I want to get feedback from the forum...

A MC client wrote saying that we should open up an area within the Small Business site and the forum where Small Business owners can write short articles about experiences they have had building online businesses. Whether it be about tips to achieve search engine rankings, how to incorporate a business or an article of things to avoid when building an online business....

The idea was a section called "Articles from real online merchants" or something along those lines and at the end of every article would be a link to the store owner's/ author's site?

I am not sure if this would interest anyone... so please share feedback. I would guess it would bring some traffic to your store over-time... as the site gets more popular (it is brand new)...

Is this something we should look into or is everyone very busy with running their own business?

Captain,

Yes, we are busy running our own business. However, I think that is a great idea.

How about the articles relate to our buseinss experiences in general. While online business certainly have their unique features, business is business. I for one am new to the online arena, but can contribute experiences that relate to general business issues.

I suspect there may be other merchants in the same position.

Yep... I think that is a great idea.

Having such an area moderated by a couple of savvy store owners, as well as MC staff, would be a great idea, too. Community playing back into community. Storeowners could get more hits on their stores, share what they've learned (how many people here have wished someone who would have shared that precious nugget BEFORE you got into a hornet's nest?) AND make it a great testbed for new ideas or features. Kind of like an about.com for ecommerce.

Another area maybe would be one devoted to
"Customers From HELL!"

We have all had them, how do we handle them when nothing you do to make things right is good enought for them?

Great ideas Benson and Ultimate. When you have a moment, compose an article and I will create a section on the MSB site that caters to your articles as you suggested.

Ryan