Hi All,

Bear and I have been working hard to improve the look and feel of the website.  We are still getting tens of thousands of hits each week and search engine visibility for all linked sites in your articles are gaining valuable links.

We are looking for a couple more featured columnists.  If you have a topic you would like to take on, then please visit the Columnists page and complete the form.

Be sure to visit your Profile page and update your biography.  We now have that information listed as part of your posts.

Since this site is meant to help you run your business better, we have put articles on “Management” top and center!  The scrolling articles at the top are automatically created from the management category.  Please make sure your article is covering a management related topic!

directly below the rotating section on the home page are articles written about the economy.  This section will change from time to time based on local happenings.

The elevator speech feature is still alive and well.  Use the Elevator Speech category to get your company message listed.

As usual, if you feel we should add a new category, drop me or Bear a note.

Thank you all for your continued support and Happy Business Blogging!

Ed Bejarana

Good Morning All,

The Submit A Link feature is working again.  Please feel free to submit a link to your company website and add a description.  Your link will then show in a categorized format and you’ll gain a valuable inbound link to your company website.  For the effect to be maximized, you should add a link back to PortlandBusinessCommunity.com to a links page on your website.

ALSO

You can submit your company elevator speech (or position statement).  Your elevator speech (unlike a blog article) can be sale pitchy.

1. Click on “Create Article”
2. Choose the “Elevator Speech” category
3. Type your presentation as if it were a blog article, make sure to include a link to your company website
4. Publish

That’s it!

Why should you add a link and elevator speech to this web site?

Two good reasons:

1. This website has over 2,000 unique visitors per month clicking on an average of 4.4 page per visit.
2. This site has gained good importance by the search engines and the robots crawl this site several times per day.

Both reasons translate into more visitors and search engine visibility for your company website.  On average, I receive 600+ visits per month from web folks who originated on PortlandBusinessCommunity.com.  People read my articles here on PortlandBusinessCommunity.com and click over to visit ZenithExhibits.com and BusinessBlogging.net websites.  PLUS I have several first page google listings, in part, because I have relevant information here on this website.

Bear and I created this site to help you, the small business owner, reach more customers and gain more search engine visibility–plus you’ll learn stuff great stuff!

Happy Blogging

Ed Bejarana

Good Morning All,

Over the last two month, PortlandBusinessCommunity.com has increased in size and activity by an exponential amount.  For that reason, we have been working to improve the layout, login, article publication and business promotion opportunities.

The Stats

Unique Visitors:  1,785
# of Visits:  5,170 (2.89 visits per visitor)
Pages Viewed:  27,487 (5.31 pages per visit)
97,655 Hits
(note: the 27,487 and 97,655 does NOT include robots — only Human Users)

Robots read 34,404 pages and generated and additional 39,096 hits.  That means your articles published on this website ARE index by every search engine.

Layout

We have changed themes to make it easier for you to navigate the site, learn about new business opportunities, gain insight into how to build your business and network with other community members.

Login

No longer are you redirected to a secondary screen.  You can now login from the home page.  This will help you keep track of where you are on the site.

Article Publication

Rather than having to go to the dashboard, you can click on “Create Article” and jump right to the editor.  We have also added a new, easier to navigate “Help” section where you can learn more about business blogging.

Business Promotion Opportunities

You can now publish your company Elevator Speech ONLINE!  Provide links back to your website and build your customer base.

This site is FREE to use, will remain FREE to use forever!  Our monetary support to pay for site operations come via the sponsors (listed on the left), who pay $25 per month to have their ad listed.  We ask that you please visit the sponsors and if you are in need of their typs of business, please give them your business.  This site is helping ALL of us by improving our:

• Search Engine Visibility!
• Connection to the local business community, and
• Ideas for improving business operations

Thank you for your participation!

Happy Blogging

Ed Bejarana
PortlandBusinessCommunity.com LLC

Are you getting what you need from the local chamber of commerce?  Do you wish your words spoken at the chamber could also serve to improve your company website’s search engine visibility?  You are NOT alone!

Bear and I created PortlandBusinessCommunity.com to be a FREE supplement to your chamber of commerce experience.  If you attend a chamber for any of these reasons:

1. Find new customers
2. Improve business operations
3. Build a stronger tie to the community

Then you should ALSO publish on PortlandBusinessCommunity.com

How does it work?

Simple, when you gain insight from a chamber meeting and wish to share it with Google, Yahoo or MSN; then sign on to PortlandBusinessCommunity.com, Create an Article, and write about your new idea.

If you wish to give kudos to someone from the chamber who has helped you AND you would also like Google, Yahoo, and MSN to take note of your words; then sign-on, create an article, and write your kudos (providing links to your friend’s/customer’s website as well as your web site.

If you want to expand your recognition as a “helpful” industry expert on Google, Yahoo and MSN; then sign-on, create an article, and teach the more than 80,000 readers what you know.

If you are like me, then you’ve already paid your annual chamber membership dues.  It is time for your words at the chamber to help you be found on Google, Yahoo and MSN.  Join PortlandBusinessCommunity.com (IT IS FREE!!!), write you elevator speech, comment on other articles, and publish your own words.  Now THAT is business networking.

Ed Bejarana
BusinessBlogging.net
a division of Zenith Exhibits, Inc.

Co-founder of PortlandBusinessCommunity.com

Hi All,

You may notice on the right side bar we now have an Elevator Speech grouping.  It is our goal to provide YOU, the local Portland Business Owner / Operator, a valuable resource you can use to:

1. Reach more customers
2. Build more search engine visibility
3. Develop new relationships
4. Improve your business

This site is FREE for you to use and now you can add you Elevator speech for ALL to read.  At this point we will show the last ten elevator speeches in the site bar.  Clicking on “Archive for Elevator Speech” will take you to a list of all elevator speeches.  Soon we will add a “Most Popular Elevator Speech”.  These presentations can be of a more direct selling presentation, since they will only appear in the blog space “if” a visitor clicks on the title.

To add your elevator speech, first you must register an account on this site.  Complete your user profile with a real name and working eMail address.  Once your account is approved, then you simply create a “New Post” and select the “Elevator Speech” category for your article.

Any Elevator Speech published in a category OTHER than “Elevator Speech” will be unpublished.

If you need help learning how to use WordPress, please call Ed Bejarana at (503) 709-1454.

Bear and I are developing a WordPress / Business networking meeting.  Look for more information to be forthcoming in July.

Thank you for your participation.  With your help, this site has reached the 70,000+ hits mark.  We now have over 450 unique visitors per week, clicking on almost 5 pages per visit.  Please continue to support our sponsors, for it is their modest $25 per month ad that pays for the operation of this site.  If you are interested in purchasing an ad space on this site, please contact Ed Bejarana at (503) 709-1454.

Ed Bejarana
BusinessBlogging.net
a division of Zenith Exhibits, Inc.

Portland Business Community is committed to helping local business grow and thrive in these tough economic times. To that end, we are announcing plans to host a FREE training seminar and business networking event.

The training will be a hour and a half long session on how to create effective business blog articles to:

1. Gain better search engine visibility
2. More web traffic
3. Strong ties to your industry

The event will also include time before and after the seminar for face-to-face business networking. No membership fees, no seminar fees; just valuable information you can use to grow your business.

Why are Bear and I doing this?

Because we know the secret to succeeding in business is helping others come together to network and learn. Through stronger bonds with our community everyone in the network will benefit from increased commerce and cooperation.

More information will be forth coming as we secure meeting space and finalize the details.

Ed Bejarana
BusinessBlogging.net
a division of Zenith Exhibits, Inc.

Hi all,

Sorry for seeming to be absent for a while, I’ve been working extra hard on creating online power point presentations for using Social Networking to advance your businesses internet marketing effort.

PortlandBusinessCommunity.com is designed to give you, the user, more search engine visibility and better connection opportunities to the business community around us.  However, internet marketing doesn’t stop and blogging.  There is a social networking component you can take advantage of too.  For instance, Yahoo Answers gives you an opportunity to search for people who need specific questions answered and interact with those people directly.  Ken and I are producing a How-to video to teach you HOW to use this valuable FREE tool (Yahoo Answers).

Over on BusinessBlogging.net I have created three online power point presentations, one on Yahoo Answers, one on using Digg and other Social Bookmarking sites and one on using Facebook.  With the economic conditions being what they are, my thought is you would appreciate something for FREE than can help your business.  No strings attached, except one.  To view the presentations, you do need to create a FREE Google account; but you WANT to create a Google account.  FREE Word, Excel and Power Point are three great reasons.

Blogging TIP of the Week

When writing your blog articles, introducing us all to you and your business, be sure to write to major keywords in the top 25% of your article.  If possible, use bullet points too.

1. Bullet points get noticed better
2. Bullet points are read more
3. Bullet points become search engine keywords

The key to blogging is ACTION.  PortlandBusinessCommunity.com is a FREE site for your use.  everything you write is indexed on the search engines, the same can NOT be said for your time spent at the chamber meetings.

Happy Blogging,

Ed Bejarana
BusinessBlogging.net
a division of Zenith Exhibits, Inc.

Welcome to Portland’s news online business community.  This site is designed to help business owners come together online to learn more about doing business, find new business opportunities, share business success stories or gripe about the local business environment.  With the recessions being announced across the globe, business owners must find new ways to market their business.  Joining networking groups to share ideas is one of the more popular marketing approaches; but most networking groups cost money and have very little internet marketing value.  This site is designed to be FREE and FAST.

Blogging has become the number one way of gaining search engine visibility.  70% of all American adults turn to the internet to find information.  Is your business listed high enough on Google and Yahoo?  Could you use one more avenue on the information super highway where customers can find you?  Writing articles on PortlandBusinessCommunity.com is free and easy.

Never blogged before?  Don’t know how to write for search engine visibility?  No problem, I have created a FREE website designed to help you learn how to use blog technology to gain more customers (BusinessBlogging.net).  What’s the catch?  No catch, blogging is absolutely FREE.  You need only follow a couple simple rules:

1. No direct sales pitch.  Talk about your business, how you got into business why you feel your business is the best for consumers, but no direct selling allowed.
2. No writing bad things about other Portland businesses or the people who run local businesses.

This site is for everyone, business owners and consumers a like.  Writing here gains you and your business web site valuable links and search engine visibility.  Reading articles published on this site give you ideas for how to improve your life.

To become an author, simply sign-up and follow the instructions listed on the blogging instructions page.  For more information, you can reach me by phone at (503) 709-1454 or via eMail at ed@zenithexhibits.com.

Happy blogging

Ed Bejarana
BusinessBlogging.net
a division of Zenith Exhibits, Inc.