Small Business E-commerce Link Digest – February 29, 2008

Happy Leap Day, folks. Here’s this week’s group of reading goodness to help grow your small business online.

Aaron Brazell leads off with a spot-on post about why it is important to cultivate a personal brand to help grow business. While it’s an open question whether business can be social, people sure are. Your employees should be well known, which will help you be well known, too. Look at these leadership qualities and notice how well they align with helping your employees gain recognition, both for themselves and for your business.
Now even if you – or your employees – gain awareness among your customers, that doesn’t matter if they don’t think of you when they’re in the market for your products. Seth Godin recognizes this fact. Sorting out customers to recognize their needs is becoming a crucial skill for successful businesses.
Fortunately, Bryan Eisenberg shows a method to help you prioritize your website optimization. Because those relationships don’t matter – in a business sense – if they’re not profitable relationships.
Finally, SMX West hosted a panel discussion about what customers of the future will look like: Generation Google. While I agree with Rebecca at SEOmoz that the panel could have provided greater depth into unique insights among this group, it’s worth the read.

Tim Peter is the founder and president of Tim Peter & Associates. You can learn more about our company's strategy and digital marketing consulting services here or about Tim here.