“The Power Mom’s 5 Steps for Stay-at-Home Business Success” series offers new guide, “Are you Ready for 21st Century Success?” written by Kim Power Stilson. The guide is as an introduction to solutions for those who need a 21st Century way to work successfully from home.

Salt Lake City, Utah (PRWEB) December 30, 2011

Today, Kim Power Stilson, announced the release of the new guide, “Are you ready for 21st Century Success?” The new guide addresses 10 questions which gives moms, who need to work, an opportunity to consider whether the 21st Century advantages can help them work successfully from home. The “Are you ready for 21st Century Success?” guide and answer guide is a complimentary introduction to the “Power Mom’s 5 Steps for Stay-at-Home Business Success Series” available in January 2012 on Web Campus World Wide.

Kim was the Vice President in a technology firm and had to leave her preschool children with nannies until she was laid off just after the September 11th tragedy. As a mother of three kids and wife of a policeman with odd shifts, Kim needed to work but decided she also needed to be home. After reading an article about the work-at-home mom’s (WAHM’s) movement enabled by eMedia and the internet, she made the commitment to pursue a flexible way to bring in income while being home with her kids.

Over the next ten years, Kim’s business evolved with technology, growing from a consulting business to a daily talk radio show for women, which syndicated globally. After receiving numerous requests from listeners for advice on how to build a successful stay at home business, Kim decided to share what she had learned. She narrowed down the process to 5 imperative and inexpensive steps that include simple instructions on how to use technology tools are imperative and inexpensive tools for any type of small business. The “Power Mom’s 5 Steps for Stay-at-Home Business Success” series is the result. Her guide “Are you ready for 21st Century Success?” is an introduction guide that helps people decide if starting a business is for them.

“I had my doubts about being able to switch from the corporate world to working at home, yet as I learned how to use 21st Century tools it became the perfect solution for me and my family,” said Kim Power Stilson. “First, you need decide if starting your own business is for you. The introduction guide “Are you ready for 21st Century Success?” outlines the 10 questions I have found it essential to ask before making a work-from-home commitment. I hope it will help others searching for a solution to make the best decision for their families as well.”

Statistics are on the side of the “Power Mom’s 5 Steps for Stay-at-Home Business Success” soon to be launched in January 2012. With 82.8 million Mothers in the United States and 72 million women employed outside the home, there are only a little over 5 million stay-at-home mothers according to the Women by the Numbers report by the U.S. Census Bureau. The Center for Women’s Business Research says there are 10.1 million women-owned businesses and that number is projected to grow.

Kim says her experiences showed her that eMedia and all of the internet‘s vast resources are usable and practicable without a lot of technical expertise. She says she learned how to reach her goals on a boot-strap budget and passes those streamlined strategies on to those seeking assistance in her 5 steps.

“Women who have to balance their time between earning an income and raising a family need an inexpensive and simple path to success,” said Kim Power Stilson. “Technology can be daunting so I make business success tools and practices easy apply in the “Power Mom’s 5 Steps to Stay-at-Home Business Success” series. Entrepreneurial grandmas to small business mamma’s to my own kids have tried the 5 steps and say they make promoting a business simpler. I hope these steps will be a boon to families ready to have their mothers’ home more. If I can help more mothers use their talents to provide an income while working from home, with their families, I would consider it an honor.”

Kim suggests hopeful business owners first answer the questions in the, “Are you Ready for 21st Century Success?” which is the introduction to the “Power Mom’s 5 Steps for Stay-at-Home Business Success” Series. The series includes 12 volumes which you can download or study online, and is available in January 2012. For more information please visit http://www.powermom.co.

Kim Power Stilson describes herself as a megaphone for business owners. Over the last 10 years she has given an eMedia PR, Radio TV voice to thousands of small and women-owned businesses. As an award-winning pioneer of Internet Talk Radio, talk show host and co-founder of the Prepared Housewives, her mission is to change the socioeconomic status of a million homes by helping moms feed and fund their families from the kitchen. An eMedia marketing strategist, Kim shares her expert advice in magazines, and is a sought after speaker for corporations, organizations, universities and national publications.

Kim hosts a syndicated talk show targeted to the world’s largest consumer group and their Health, Wealth, and other interests. You can listen to the Power Mom’s “Health, Wealth Everything Else!” her new TalkWorthy Radio Show broadcast and stream daily to almost 20 million syndicated listeners. A dual citizen, Kim divides her time between the United States, England Ireland. She has 4 dogs, 3 kids, 2 cats and 1 very patient husband. Visit her eMedia Box at http://www.powermom.co.

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Kim Power Stilson
Power Strategies, Inc.
801-358-3649
Email Information

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*Note: This was written by a Yahoo! contributor. Do you have a small business story that you’d like to share? Sign up with the Yahoo! Contributor Network to start publishing your own finance articles.

I have found throughout my 30 plus years in sales and marketing as well as in my own small business that one of the most challenging things is to think from the customer’s perspective. I have observed that it is true also with my clients and most other small business owners and managers.

I created my first website in 2001. It took me three months and the help of a programmer to get that site online. Today I can now create a vastly superior website in less than half a day. I currently have ten blogs. My aim is to advise small business clients how to use the Internet for their brick and mortar businesses.

Recently, when I was checking out a website for a restaurant I reviewed, I was reminded of several tips for your small business website as I could not get back to the home page.

First Impression

With the Internet, you have so little time to make a first impression. Researchers found that people can make decisions on whether they like a site’s appearance in as little as 1/20th of a second. My own website statistics confirm how quickly people leave a site if they decide it isn’t what they are looking for. You invest too much time, effort and money in your small business website or blog to waste the traffic you get. If people stop for less than a minute and leave, you have just wasted that lead.

To Serve Your Visitors, Use this Checklist of Ten Things to Avoid

The following things tend to turn most people off. Many will leave without trying to see if you have the information they are looking for:

- Video they must watch before they can get to your first page of information

- Flashing backgrounds – these can be really irritating to people trying to read

- Cluttered or messy look – people want information fast; they want it convenient; a cluttered or unorganized site is too much work.

- Lots of little flashing things – they become an irritation and distraction when they keep hitting your peripheral vision

- Poor contrast between words and the background color – make sure you have good contrast, i.e. light over dark or dark over light, because it’s easier to read

- Too many different fonts and too many different sizes of fonts – while some variation in font size and font typeface enables you to add emphasis, especially with subheadings, too many different sizes and styles become overwhelming and drown your message

- Video or audio that starts playing automatically – though some Internet marketing experts believe in the value of this, especially on a sales page, many people hate it

- Poor navigation including dumping your visitors on a page with no link to your home page on the navigation bar

- Pictures only without text content unless the pictures are the story – serve your customers by letting them know what your pictures are or why you are showing them

- Broken links – these happen when a page has moved or been deleted – it’s frustrating to visitors

Do You Disagree?

Doubtless, you know instances where what I say here doesn’t seem to apply because you have customers still come to you despite your site having all of the problems I describe above. My questions for you are the following:

- Were they existing customer who already love your products so they really aren’t paying attention to your site?

- Do you have such a strong position of authority in your niche that people already know they want to deal with you or get information from you regardless of appearances?

- Did you buy the traffic? If so, look at your metrics that measure how long they stay and how many buy from you.

Remember that your goal is to serve your customers and to build a relationship where they want to do business with you. If you insist on including something because you think it’s cool instead of because it serves your prospects and customers, what are you telling them about how much you care?

This list of tips for your small business website or blog will enable you to eliminate distractions and irritations that turn customers off and cause them to flee from your site as fast as they can click their mouse. If you build your site from the view of “does it serve my ideal customers,” you probably won’t need a list of ten things to avoid. Ideally, ask them what they like and don’t about your site.

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SEE ALSO: How will Digital Change Small Business in 2012?

[More from Mashable: HOW TO: Move Your Domain Name Account]

You don’t have the resources to invest in a web designer or consultant, so how do you go about optimizing your website on your own? Try the following tips.

1. Keep Content Fresh

Give current and potential customers a reason to revisit your website. Think about the websites you visit regularly and what attracts you to them. How can you tweak those attractive elements to be more appropriate for your website and your industry? Start by integrating your blog, Twitter stream, Facebook profile, and other feeds that will automatically update your website when you post content elsewhere.

Publishing white papers, podcasts, videos and other content related to business trends can help establish you as a thought leader in your industry. Encourage visitors (read: make it easy for them) to comment on your content, and start building relationships with current and potential clients to spur engagement. In this new era, it’s all about providing your users with relevant information. Doing so will help drive new and continued traffic to your website.

2. Integrate With Social Media

Engaging users and providing relevant information via social media channels is an important factor in driving traffic to your website. The more your content is shared via social media, the better your website will rank in search engines, and the more referrals you will receive.

The ultimate goal is to build relationships with your site visitors, thus creating long-term customers and brand advocates. So you need to make it as easy as possible for visitors to find and share your content and refer your services to others. Include social media toolbars on your homepage so visitors can easily find all of your profiles. Add sharing buttons to content and to your website, and encourage people to use them. Share your content on social profiles and content aggregators such as Slideshare, and do your best to bring the conversation to your website.

3. Make Ecommerce Easy

The massive amount of information on the Internet has shortened our attention spans and made it easier than ever to ”shop around” for lower cost competitors. Because of this, you need to make it as easy as possible for visitors to purchase what they want, when they want.

It is extremely important to evaluate all possible “purchase scenarios,” meaning the different routes a visitor could take in order to complete a purchase. For example, a visitor coming in through a paid search advertisement may land on a different page than a visitor who was referred from a Facebook link. Making it as easy as possible for these visitors to start and complete the purchase process will have a positive effect on your conversion rate.

Popular ecommerce companies like PayPal and Google Checkout provide free JavaScript and HTML widgets that you can add to your website. After evaluating all of the purchase scenarios, determine where to add these widgets to make it easy and timely for visitors to complete a purchase.

4. Use SEO to its Full Potential

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a huge topic, far too vast and complex to address succinctly. That said, I can recommend three relatively straightforward steps that will likely increase your website’s search engine rankings, and thus make it easier for people to find your business.

• Identify your keywords. Start by building a list of the keywords that you think potential customers will use in searches to find your business. Once you have your list, use a keyword tool like Google AdWords to determine the frequency that those keywords are used and to find other related keywords. With this information, you’ll be able to quickly identify the most important keywords for your business.
• Use your keywords in your website. For each page on your website, figure out which keywords you want to target, then use those keywords in both the page content and the meta-data (the title, description and keywords of the page, which search engines use to determine what the page is about). Then, create links on other pages of your site to this targeted page, using the selected key words in the link title.
• External link building. When other websites link to your site, it indicates to search engines that the content on your site has value, and that boosts your SEO. For that reason, external link building is perhaps the most important aspect of SEO – but it can also be the most difficult, because you have limited control. It’s best to focus on the things that are in your control, such as your Facebook and Google+ pages, Twitter feed, blog, and Yellow Pages listings. Be sure to link to your website from all of these channels.

SEO is an ongoing process, so it’s essential that you monitor your keywords, stay on top of Internet trends, and adapt your strategy accordingly.

Tackling these four activities might not be quick or easy, but once you begin updating your content more frequently, making ecommerce simple and easy for visitors and utilizing social media and SEO to their full potentials, you’ll be well on your way to improved lead generation and more visitor conversions.

When optimizing your own websites, what have you found to be the most important area of focus? Leave your thoughts in the comments section.

Images courtesy of iStockphoto, IdeaMomentLight, Flickr, Ernst Vikne

This story originally published on Mashable here.

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*Note: This was written by a Yahoo! contributor. Do you have a small business story that you’d like to share? Sign up with the Yahoo! Contributor Network to start publishing your own finance articles.

When I first started in sales and marketing, the question wasn’t if your small business needed an ad in the Yellow Pages, it was “What size can I afford?” The next question was, “How many listings do I need?” That was based on, “Where will people look to find my products and services?” And the biggest challenge was, would people look where the telephone directory people thought they should look? For instance, does the average person look for “Car Repair” under “Automotive Services – Repair”?

Those days are disappearing. Your prospects use the Internet to find products and services. Now the question is, “What kind of a presence does my small business need on the Internet?” So just why do you need a website or blog?

Reasons You Need a Website for Your Small Business

- The Yellow Pages and other printed directories are dying

- Traditional advertising vehicles are disappearing

- Searching is faster and easier on the Internet

- Prospects love customer reviews and product ratings

- A web presence is cost effective, especially a blog

- If you can’t be found, you appear to be out of business

- Online sales are increasing year after year

The Yellow Pages and Other Printed Directories Are Dying – Unless They Have an Online Version Too

Fewer and fewer people use the Yellow Pages in the telephone book to find what they want. Whether for business-to-business or consumer purchases, buyers find it’s faster and easier to look on the web than grab a directory.

Traditional Advertising Vehicles Are Disappearing

Local newspapers are dying out unless they have an online presence. Moreover, they are facing major competition from Internet newspapers and blogs. Radio stations too are struggling since that advent of Sirius and Internet radio stations as well as MP3 players and the iPod.

It’s easy online to find the specific areas that interest you. You can also quickly make purchases or request information without leaving your computer.

Searching Is Faster and Easier on the Internet

Speed is so important today. Studies are showing that our attention span is getting shorter. People want their information with the least inconvenience and the fastest speed. Web searches deliver that.

Prospects Love Customer Product Ratings

People search the Internet for is product reviews before they buy. They love comments of users. Shoppers tend to read the review to see if that customer’s experience applies to them.

A web presence is cost effective, especially a blog

A website, especially a blog, is generally the most cost effective marketing tool you have. When you get your site to rank high in the search engines, you will stand out in generic (free) searches for those keywords.

Simple, starter websites and blogs are inexpensive to put up and maintain. You can get one from several companies, like Yahoo! Small Business. Thanks to the current state of blogging software, especially WordPress.org’s, it is easy to install a blog. Some blogs are free while others use WordPress’ free software but pay for a hosting company because we love the power to customize.

If you can’t be found, you appear to be out of business

Customers are going to look for you on the internet. If they can’t find you there, normally they will go elsewhere.

Online sales are increasing year after year

On December 6, 2011, comScore, reported that the “U.S. Online Holiday Spending Approaches $20 Billion for First 34 Days of the November-December Shopping Season, up 15 Percent vs. Last Year.” These figures represent “a 15-percent increase versus the corresponding days last year.”

A similar pattern is happening in business-to-business sales. A small business website provides a 24-hour per day, 365 days per year sales person to answer questions and provide information targeted to your ideal prospect.

While I still believe in using traditional marketing methods, the world is changing so fast. These tips for your small business website present seven reasons you need a website. Running a profitable small business is challenging enough without making yourself invisible to a large percentage of you potential customers.

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Question: Getting organized in my home office is on my New Year’s to-do list. I’ve been considering going 100% paperless, but are there any paper statements or other documents that I must keep?

Answer: For many people, saving physical documents provides a sense of psychological security. It can be comforting to have tangible proof that you actually own what you think you own or paid what you thought you paid.

From the standpoint of real security, however, that comfort might be illusory. The more financial documents you have whizzing around in the mail and sitting in files in your home office, the more you expose yourself to the threat of identity theft. Moreover, creating a well-thought-out system for storing digital information can ensure that you’re tackling bills on time and reduces the chance that you’ll misplace important documents. Cutting your household’s reliance on paper documents is also the green way to go. In short, I think the benefits of going mainly paperless far outweigh the potential risks.

To make the transition to an all-digital home office as seamless as possible, however, you must first put your own systems and safeguards in place. Take the following steps to do so.

Secure Your Home System
An essential first step when transitioning your home office to digital is ensuring the security of your in-home computer network. That means making sure you have up-to-date antivirus and antispyware software as well as firewalls and a good spam filter. A good system for periodically backing up the data on your computer is also essential.

Additionally, because on your computer you’ll be saving financially sensitive documents that could be manna for identity thieves, you’ll need to take steps to password-protect those documents. (Passwords that combine numbers and letters are the most effective.) Finally, be careful about trying to access financial information when you’re away from home, and never log in to any of your financial accounts when using a public or unsecured network.

Stress-Test Your Providers’ Information Systems
The next step before going paperless is to conduct a quick audit of the quality of the digital statements provided by your banks, brokerage and mutual fund companies, and any other companies with which you regularly do business. In most cases, you’ll find that the digital statements provide you with exactly the same level of detail as the paper documents you received in the past. (They might, in fact, be mirror images of them.) Here again, be savvy when creating passwords for your information on external providers’ sites.

In addition to getting comfortable with the retrieval your digital statements, see how long the institution will store past statements and other information on its website. Can you retrieve statements going back several years? If you expect to need supporting documentation longer than your provider will make it available, plan to save a copy of the statement on your own computer. (Be particularly attuned to this issue if a document relates to a previous year’s tax return; the Internal Revenue Service can audit tax returns for up to seven years.)

Create a Logical Digital Filing System
When creating a secure home-computing environment to safely manage your sensitive financial information, you’ll also want to create an intuitive organization system for your digital files. If your filing system for your paper files worked well for you in the past, there’s no reason you can’t duplicate it for your digital documents, too. Consider broad topic folders–”Insurance,” for example– combined with subfolders such as “Auto Insurance.” Also create a password-protected digital directory of your various accounts, including user names and passwords, and URLs as well as information about where on your computer you’re storing the related documents. Not only will such a document prove invaluable for your loved ones if something should happen to you, but it will also help you manage the plethora of information for each of your accounts. Here’s a document (http://news.morningstar.com/pdfs/MasterDirectory102610.pdf) you can use as a template for your own master directory.

Get a Plan for Receipts
Receipts and travel-related clutter can be some of the worst desk detritus. Recycle receipts for small, everyday purchases, while scanning in receipts for items you might need to return or otherwise document the proof of purchase. Nearly all stores will honor a scanned receipt just as they would an original.

Stop It at the Source
Signing up for digital document delivery is a key way to reduce the flow of paperwork coming into your house, but that won’t head it off entirely. If you’re receiving unwanted flyers, catalogs, or other solicitations, call the company’s number and ask to be removed from the mailing list. This Federal Trade Commission post (http://www.ftc.gov/privacy/protect.shtm)includes a phone number for opting out of the preapproved credit card offers that are a frequent source of noisome junk mail.

Secure Safe Physical Storage for Hard-to-Replace Documents
Although it’s possible to transition nearly all of your files from paper to digital, you can’t avoid storing at least a few physical documents. Certain very hard-to-replace items–including certificates of marriage, birth, death, and adoption; Social Security cards; deeds; and car titles should be stored in a safe-deposit box or an in-home fireproof box. It’s also a good idea to keep a copy of estate-planning documents in your home; alert a close loved one of these documents’ existence and location.

A version of this article appeared Oct. 4, 2011.

Connect LIVE with Experts to Gain an Edge in 2012

Build a strategy that works for today’s market at Morningstar’s new Individual Investor Conference on Saturday, Jan. 21. Keynote Speaker Joel Greenblatt, author of “The Little Book That Beats the Market,” will show you how to gain an edge with a value-weighted strategy. Then, other financial professionals and trusted Morningstar experts, including Christine Benz, Russ Kinnel, Paul Larson, and Josh Peters help you refine and validate your strategy for 2012!

Attend live online or in-person in Chicago.

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