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Well appointed…personal accents, a new gift shop

Well appointed…personal accents, located at 617 Valley Road in Upper Montclair, opened on Thursday, October 8. Stephen and Karyn Senatore, residents of Montclair since 1990 are the store’s proprietors; for more than twenty years they were owner operators of a gift shop on Manhattan’s Upper East Side called Hyde Park Stationers. Well appointed offers an upscale collection of gifts for men, women, and the home. Gifts include desk accessories, jewelry, leather accessories, frames, journals and diaries. The store features a collection of licensed products inspired by the designs of the twentieth century architect Frank Lloyd Wright and offers a group of artist-signed, handmade greeting cards. The telephone number at Well appointed is 973 744 7500.

New Way to Promote Your Business

Small businesses have been hit hard by the current economy.  Studies going back to the 1890's have shown that businesses that advertise in "down" economies either hold or increase their market share and businesses that don't lose market share.  So smart business people know that they have to keep advertising.  The question is how?  Newspaper readership is way down.  Traditional magazines are losing readers even faster than newspapers.  Radio, TV?  What small business can afford those?

The Internet Answer

The internet provides an opportunity to "level the playing field".  At least it appears that way.  Finally, a small local business can have a website, just like a major national or international company.  The problem is, a website is nothing without visitors or "traffic".  Having a website, is like having a store on some back alley on a dead end street behind the rail road tracks.  If nobody ever goes down that street, nobody will ever find your store.  Well, if you're not promoting your website, nobody will ever find your website.  If your site is not designed properly, people will visit it once and never come back.  

Moving to 5th Ave.

Of course if you had the choice and if rent were exactly the same, you'd rather have your store on 5th Ave in NYC than at the end of an alley on a dead end street.  One of the easiest and most cost effective ways to get more "traffic" to your website is through Google, the largest search engine in the world.  People type in a word that has to do with your business, say "take out pizza" or "clock repair" or "furniture"  whatever product or service you provide and Google helps them find you.  The problem is that right now, Google really helps them find national companies or competitors who have more money than you do.  Google ranks sites by popularity, so if you compete with Sears, chances are Sears is going to come up ahead of you. They are national, you are local.  Millions of people may visit the Sears website in a day, while only 20 might visit yours in a week.

So once again the small business owner is left out in the cold right?  Wrong!  Thanks to a company called AdzZoo there is now a way for the small business to become the big winner on Google.  AdzZoo takes small businesses and guarantees them the first page on Google ad searches in their own local market in a 5, 10, 20, 50 or 100 mile radius from their business location.  They build a specially coded landing page for you that can link to your current web page, if you have one, or serve as your website (if you don't have a site yet).  They also place key words on Google adwords to get you your best placement with ads and they monitor the results to keep you on page one all the time.  You can actually beat national companies in your own market.  Most people only go to the first page of Google when the do a search so if your website does not come up on page one of Google, you are wasting money.  If you come up on page one, you are going to get more business.  

You can get more information by visiting RuinTheRecession.AdzZoo.net

Blueberry Lane "GoodBuy" sale

Blueberry Lane on Bellevue Ave. in Upper Montclair is closing and they are selling every pair of shoes in the store for $60 or less, so ladies head on over for the sale of a lifetime!

Financial Planning Made Easy

Our country (you and I) is embroiled in tough, economic times right now. These words have been used a few times during this century. Panic sets in. You don’t know where to turn.
“The biggest mistake people make in financial planning is not staying the course.  I have had many clients that have specifically told me that they would not panic if their Mutual Fund goes down, but when the Mutual Fund actually does go down, they do panic and sell their position.  The way to “right the ship” is to get back into the Mutual Fund.  Buy and hold is the key. If a Mutual Fund goes down in value, clients may want to consider that a buying opportunity and then buy more of the fund.”Click here to watch