Enter The Net

This website represents my business – helping businesses market themselves SUCCESSFULLY on the internet.

The most important factor for the success of any website is ORGANIC SEARCH ENGINE RESULTS. These are the most visited results because searchers know they are the product of a search engine formula that values relevance and popularity.

My approach to helping my clients get these results could be described as “old school” because it follows the tried and true methods to getting a website noticed and ranked well by the major search engines – Google, Yahoo and MSN. I do not employ methods to trick, spam or spoof the search engines. People who promise too-good-to-be-true results (like you get in email messages from mysterious people) are just that: not true.

In May of 2007, I was honored to present a workshop titled “Marketing Your Business Successfully On The Web” through the Oregon Small Business Development Center and Clackamas Community College. Since then, I have taught workshops and mini-seminars for the SBDC, various title companies, Ladies Who Launch and Keller-Williams Realty. I am also a member of the River City Marketing Team – a group of diverse individuals who train and provide services for all businesses.

Please bookmark this page (Ctrl-D) and check back for updates.

To reach me, please send an email to: rob@enterthenet.com

Thanks to Melony Buenger for the portrait photo.

Next dates for this workshop:

February 11, 2012, 9:00 AM – 3:50 PM

Learn the ins and outs of running your own blog. We’ll show you how to set up and administer your blogspace using WordPress. We’ll teach you how to market your blog so that more people than just your friends and family are paying attention. We’ll teach you the lingo so you’ll understand RSS, pings and trackbacks. We’ll also spend time exploring various plugins for photo galleries, tag libraries and other useful ways to extend your WordPress installation.

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This is posted from Inside Main Street. Be sure to check it out for more great stories.

While visiting a local Starbucks coffee shop this week, I recognized the brightly colored wristband sold at the counter as the wristband for Starbucks’ Create Jobs for USA campaign. I had read the premise of the campaign and posted it on Inside Main Street a few months ago, but I had yet to see the actual thing.

The idea is simple: if you donate $5 or more, Starbucks puts 100% of your donation to the Opportunity Finance Network, “to create and sustain jobs in communities across America.” And, you get a stylish wristband. So, I added another $5 to my total, and studied the wristband as I waited for my coffee. That is when I noticed the literature available at the sugar and cream station that read “Visibly Indivisible.” Inside the paper brochure were easy to read facts, blurbs and images that helped to describe the Create Jobs for USA campaign in more detail.

As I sipped my coffee and continued reading, I saw an old man who slumped over a cane as he shuffled to the counter loudly ask if they had the Small Business donations at this location. When he heard they did, he put a $20 on the table and told them to give the bracelets to some kids. I also saw a middle-aged couple come in with their two elementary age children. As they waited in line I heard the wife say, “Look at this honey.” Followed by the husband asking the barista for two of the bracelets.

All of it made me smile; a main stream effort to help Main Street from a Fortune 500 corporation. An old man visiting his first Starbucks just to donate. A young couple who are just now appreciating what small businesses do for communities. It was all there, and gave me a warm and fuzzy feeling about the future of America’s Main Street, and all because of Starbucks.

Starbucks Announces “Create Jobs for USA” Initiative in Collaboration with Opportunity Finance Network

“Indivisible” Wristband to Serve as Symbol of Americans Helping Americans Create and Sustain Jobs

SEATTLE–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Starbucks Coffee Company today announced that it is teaming up with Opportunity Finance Network® to launch Create Jobs for USA. Create Jobs for USA will pool donations from Starbucks customers, partners (employees) and concerned citizens into a nationwide fund for community business lending.

Starbucks chairman and ceo Howard Schultz said, “Small businesses are the backbone of America, employing more than half of all private sector workers – but this critical jobs engine has stalled. We’ve got to thaw the channels of credit so that community businesses can start hiring again. Create Jobs for USA empowers Americans to help other Americans create and sustain jobs, with Starbucks and OFN as a catalyst and the Indivisible wristband as a symbol of our country’s unity.”

Starting November 1, Create Jobs for USA will accept donations online at www.CreateJobsforUSA.org and at nearly 6,800 company-operated Starbucks stores in the United States. Donors who contribute $5 or more will receive a red, white, and blue wristband with the message “Indivisible.” The wristband is designed to serve as a symbol of Americans uniting with other Americans to help create jobs. One hundred percent of donations will go to OFN to help fund loans to community businesses—including small businesses, microenterprises, nonprofit organizations, commercial real estate, and affordable housing— all across the country committed to creating and sustaining jobs.

OFN represents a nationwide network of 180 Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) set up to provide financing to community businesses in underserved markets where accessing credit through traditional lending institutions is challenging or not available. The Create Jobs for USA Fund at OFN will be seeded with a $5 million contribution from the Starbucks Foundation.

OFN president and ceo Mark Pinsky said, “We are thrilled to partner with Starbucks on this innovative and high impact solution to help put America back to work. For more than two decades, OFN’s network of premier CDFIs has financed community businesses, delivering both sound financial returns and real changes for people and communities. Create Jobs for USA will unlock the power of CDFIs to finance community businesses and create new jobs and help grow our economy.”

Every $5 donation will result in $35 in financing to support community businesses. The CDFI community lenders will issue $30 in financing, on average, for each $5 donation through their respective financing sources. Based on conservative forecasting models developed by OFN with input from independent economists, one new job will be created or retained for approximately every $21,000 in loans – or approximately every $3,000 in donations. Since CDFIs in the OFN network have an average 98 percent loan repayment rate, virtually every $1 donated will be re-loaned indefinitely, compounding the job-creation impact.

Moody’s Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi said, “Create Jobs for USA is exactly the kind of innovative and entrepreneurial solution that America needs to get its economy back on the right track. CDFIs are well known to be highly effective at creating local jobs in communities that need them the most, especially when it comes to helping community businesses that are having difficulty securing credit during the current economic climate.”

About Starbucks Coffee Company

Since 1971, Starbucks Coffee Company has been committed to ethically sourcing and roasting the highest-quality Arabica coffee in the world. Today, with stores around the globe, the company is the premier roaster and retailer of specialty coffee in the world. Through our unwavering commitment to excellence and our guiding principles, we bring the unique Starbucks Experience to life for every customer through every cup. To share in the experience, please visit us in our stores or online at www.starbucks.com.

About Opportunity Finance Network

Opportunity Finance Network (OFN) is the national network of Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs)—private financial institutions that are 100 percent dedicated to delivering responsible, affordable lending to help low-income, low-wealth, and other disadvantaged people and communities join the economic mainstream. CDFIs in the OFN network serve all 50 states, and OFN Member CDFIs originated more than $23.2 billion in financing in urban, rural, and Native communities through 2009. More information is available at: www.opportunityfinance.net

We loved working with Dr. Jennifer Karon-Flores at Nurture Clinic and we love the mission of her clinic!  “No matter where you are on your journey to full body wellness, we’ll meet you there, and support you every step of the way.”  The Nurture Clinic in Portland, Oregon focuses on creating personalized wellness plans for clients to achieve their natural state of great health.

We worked with Dr. Karon-Flores to build a blog for the Nurture Clinic website.  We built the blog to be a seamless addition and integrated the logo and patterns from the website.  Blogs aren’t very useful if you can’t access them regularly so we taught Dr. Karon-Flores how to update and make changes within the blog without having to learn code or HTML language.  Now she can log in to her blog and create new posts and updates whenever she’s ready to publish.

We look forward to learning more about Nurture Clinic and naturopathic medicine on their new blog!

[Click HERE to see the live website, http://www.nurtureclinic.com/blog/]

[Click HERE for more information about WordPress Website Design with Enter The Net]