Our SBDC office is closed for winter break until Monday, January 4. We’ve been busy planning for 2016, and look forward to sharing new resources, workshops, and events with you in the new year. Until then, have a happy and safe holiday season! Sue Pitts          Jennifer Kalstrup Director          Assistant Director (Photo credit: Bunches and Bits {Karina} / Flickr) #SmallBusinessDevelopmentCenter #iowawestern #hours #SBDC #iwcc #Iowa

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the practice of optimizing the content of your webpage  so that your site is easily and readily found by your potential customers who are using search engines to research their purchases. SEO is necessary and although time consuming, can be done fairly easily. Whether or not you choose to tackle your own SEO on your website or you choose to hire an SEO to do it for you, you need to know that there are good, ethical SEO practices (White Hat)

by Julie Mierau Nothing — truly, nothing — is more frustrating than trying to figure out how to access the government procurement process. And yet government contracts can be extremely lucrative for small business owners. His expertise includes government business development as well as teaming with federal agencies in new product design and introduction.  He has leveraged management of vendor and sub-contractor compliance issues dictated by product, corporate and government

I am a big coupon user and have many experiences with coupons.  Some of these are bad experiences and they have determined if I will ever return to a business. I recently went into a chain store type business where they have weekly ads with coupons.  I like to stop by and check out the weekly specials, even if I don’t need something.  I often pick up a bargain or stock up on some things that I use a lot of.  Who doesn’t in this economy? During this visit, there was already a

In an announcement from Governor Chet Culver, we learned today that Iowa Western Community College in Council Bluffs, Iowa  is among 44 Iowa recipients of grants designed to create jobs by helping businesses get started or expand in rural areas.  Governor Culver highlighted these awards from the Federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. IWCC Entrepreneurial Center and Economic Development will use these funds for a revolving loan fund.  Low interest loans will be availa

The Iowa Money Map has more than 800 listings, broken down by county. This comprehensive database includes Iowa’s grants, loans, equity investment opportunities and other financial incentives available to small business and entrepreneurs. The map is housed on the MyEntreNet Website, but you can access it easily by creating a quick account. There’s no fee! In addition to the county listings is a statewide listing, including a grant program from the Iowa Department of Economic

Hopefully at this point you have at least a facebook account where you socialize with friends and family. You may also have a Linked In account where you “network” with colleagues in the community and industry. If you don’t have these things I would suggest getting these things going and start building those natural contacts with the friends you already know. Setting up basic profiles and socially participating is the easy (and fun!) part. Now you want to determine how to use

How do you buy products and services today? What is the first couple of things that you do to begin the process? I am guessing that some type of internet research was very close to the top of your “to do” list. The fact of the matter is that the evolution of technology has completely changed how we as consumers make purchase decisions. So if consumers have changed the way that they buy products and services, small businesses need to change the way that they market to their cu