Last week, we discussed 5 web marketing tools that are essential to helping small green businesses establish their web presence on a low-cost budget. This week, we’re going to look at five  online marketing tools that will help you grow your green consumer base, communicate with your customers, and convert your website traffic.

Use Google Alerts to Capture More Customers

Google Alerts is a great keyword tracking tool that can help you stay on top of your industry and understand what your customers really want. You can set up Google Alerts to be delivered to you by email or RSS, so that time a particular keyword gets indexed by Google, you are notified.

You can use Google Alerts to monitor online mentions of your brand, products, your employees or your competitors; track green business trends; track search keywords, and more.

While Google Alerts is great for industry research, you can also use it to grow your online brand presence and your green customer base.  Google Alerts shows you what blogs are publishing content related to your niche, which allows you to head over there and comment, which increases your visibility and drives traffic.

You can even set up specific queries related to the kind of questions your target green consumer would ask, such as “what’s the best residential solar power system” or “what’s the best solar heater”? These questions often show up on Q&A sites like Yahoo Answers, or even on Twitter. You can then reach out to the individual, educate them on your products or services, and even land a sale!

Campaign Monitor – Email Marketing Made Easy

If you’re looking for a way to launch an email marketing campaign, then Campaign Monitor is a very popular choice. Use Campaign Monitor to tie your email campaigns in with your online marketing strategy – send email newsletters, product launch emails, press releases, and more. Then track the results (who opened, demographics, click-through rate, and so on) and manage your email list. One of the best features of this program is that it allows you to test the layout and design of your email marketing campaign in multiple different email providers so you can ensure a consistent, professional appearance. Though Campaign Monitor is not free, it produces a much more flawless, simple method for initiating email campaigns than simply throwing images and text into your email software program and clicking “send”.

Aweber – Another Email Marketing Option

A standard in the email marketing industry, Aweber is another very common choice for green small businesses in need of help with their online marketing strategies. Though not as user friendly as Campaign Monitor, they do offer plenty of tutorials for navigating your way through the process.

Their pricing is a bit different as well – they charge a flat $19 per month for up to 500 members, and $49 for 2,500-5,000 people. Campaign Monitor, on the other hand, has a flat $5 per email and 1 cent per recipient, bringing the cost for a 500-person email campaign to $10, and one for 2,500 to $30. Great features of Aweber include advanced autoresponder options, integration with things like e-commerce shopping carts, and hundreds of templates you can use for sign-up purposes.

Google Website Optimizer – Tweaking Website Content

A free online marketing tool from Google, their Website Optimizer puts the power to increase conversion rates from your website into your hands. If you’ve ever wondered what website design and copywriting generates the greatest sales or sign-ups, this is the tool for you. By testing various changes in content – text, images, video, polls – you can quickly learn what works best to attract your green consumers. It’s a very simple system that helps you tweak your green content until you’re achieving the highest conversions possible.

Highrise – Professional Customer Relationship Management

Keeping track of your eco-conscious consumers is a must if you want to gain customer loyalty and build a big following for your green business. For that purpose, you’ll want to look to a customer relationship management (CRM) system like Highrise. While not technically an online marketing tool, a CRM application helps you manage your customer relationships in important ways. And we know that happy customers make great repeat customers.  With Highrise, you can pool all of your company’s contacts into an online software tool where you can track current customer information, log communications (including email marketing campaigns), and review conversation histories so that you maintain a personalized approach with your clients. This is an absolute must if you endeavor to create a professional online marketing campaign for your small business.

These 5 awesome online marketing tools are great resources as you set up your small green business and get it going full steam ahead. Useful for small virtual offices for any eco endeavor, they should help you develop your green enterprise on a small budget with limited staff.

With these internet marketing solutions, you’ll find the job of promoting your green business from your virtual office inexpensive and simple, even if you’re your only employee!

Best of luck!

Main Image Via Flickr – Ed Yourdon

As a business owner, the decision to go green requires research, cost-benefit analyses, and changes to operations and procurement strategies. But, when planning for green, don’t overlook the importance of employee buy-in.

For your green programs to have the desired positive impacts on your operational costs and overall savings, your employees must be invested in your environmental goals and objectives. Not only that, but they’ll need a basic understanding of environmental issues in general in order to implement specific programs around your company’s resource use and environmental impacts. Joel Makower of GreenBiz.com says “the more employees understand about the impacts of their jobs and the opportunities to make them greener, the greater the chances they’ll rise to the occasion.”

Give your green programs the best chance of success by investing time in employee education. Send your team “back to school” to learn the basics of green business practices. Here are five key ways to help your employees understand the importance of going green:

1. Share your mission. You set out to go green with a specific end goal in mind – cost reduction, customer satisfaction, increased market share, new business opportunities, etc. It’s important that you be clear in sharing what you hope to accomplish through implementing sustainable practices in order for your employees to fully understand what’s expected of them and for them to feel invested in the success of the program.
2. Know what they don’t know. How much do your employees know about the green challenges facing your business? How much do they care? What is the depth of their environmental knowledge? Get a clear picture of the existing knowledge base in order to determine what – and how many – green lessons need to be shared.
3. Create a Green Team. Bring together a group of employees across all pay grades and disciplines to lead the green effort. While it’s important to have executive management buy-in, many daily responsibilities for the success of your green programs will fall to administrative staff and lower management. According to the national Environmental Education Foundation, “while there is no “one-size-fits-all” approach to environmental and sustainability education, engaging employees at every level of the company is essential to successful initiatives.” By involving them in the design of your program and oversight of your green efforts, you will create a sense of ownership and help them feel invested in the overall outcome.
4. Keep it going. Many businesses start off their sustainability programs with big kick-off campaigns, which are followed by…nothing much. Make green education a part of your every day employee communications. Allow employees to contribute ideas and suggestions and implement the best ones as soon as feasible. Send out weekly progress reports – whether a dollar amount for cost savings, or some other measurement of success.
5. Make it fun. To many of your employees, your green program may, in the beginning, seem like nothing more than extra work. Get people invested by making sustainability fun. Implement contests and games – continue the education of your team by creating an “eco-trivia” contest, or “Eco-Jeopardy” game. Pit one department against another to see who can recycle the most paper or save the most ink. Reward top “green” performers. Recognize successes.

The success of green programs lies in the overall planning AND employee execution of sustainable practices. Give your program the best chance of success by sending your employees “back to school” to learn the basics of green business.

Katherine McGraw Patterson is the Director of Marketing for the Green Business Bureau, a national third-party program that provides certification for businesses that follow environmentally responsible practices. You can get updates and news from the GBB on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.

Image: Carlos Porto / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Many people have the desire to start their own green craft business, and a popular choice start-up is an eco-friendly candle business. The idea of starting an eco-friendly candle business is popular with many people who are interested in living and supporting a green lifestyle, who want to work for themselves and work their own hours, and who have the drive and desire to start their own business selling eco-friendly products. An eco candle business can prove to be a great opportunity to make a living selling your craft, have a more flexible schedule, and promote an environmentally friendly lifestyle.

These steps will guide you to start an eco-friendly candle business.

1. Create a Business Plan. First of all, you want to create a business plan for your green candle business. When creating a business plan, you should ask yourself a number of questions about the time you can devote to your business, the costs of your supplies, who you want to market your eco-friendly candles towards, and where you want to sell your eco-friendly candles (on your own website, through your own catalog, at craft fairs, on another website, such as Etsy or eBay, or any combination of these options). You want to make sure your budget will accommodate a potential slow start in business when you first start getting your eco-friendly candle company’s name out there, and you also want to make sure your products are priced appropriately and appeal to your clientele.
2. Plan Your Products. After you have created your business plan for your eco-friendly candle business, you want to start planning out ideas and creating your eco-friendly candles. You want to come up with a variety of concepts for your candles in the beginning to see what appeals to customers. You can organic candles, beeswax-based candles, soy-based candles, palm-oil-based candles, vegetable-oil-based candles, essential oil candles, and so forth. You also can try out a variety of shapes, styles and containers of candles. Find out what works for you, production-wise, so you can sell products that will make your company grow.
3. Create Your Inventory. After deciding what types of candles you intend to sell initially for your eco-friendly candle company, you want to start creating your inventory. Make sure you have enough materials on hand to create your candles, including wax, melting pots, wicks, scents, decorative materials, containers, and dyes if you choose to use them, as well as enough materials to ship your candles.
4. Advertise and Start Selling! After you have completed all of the following steps, you should be ready to begin your business. At this point, you should begin advertising for your eco-friendly candle company. Choose affordable business advertising, whether on eco-friendly websites, in classified advertisements, in local magazines, on flyers, or on business cards. Choose the methods of advertising that meet your budget and time constraints. After you have put advertisements out your ready to start selling your eco-friendly candles!

After you’ve completed all of these steps and have begun your eco-friendly candle business, get ready to take on the demands of the business, provided your business grows rapidly. Be ready to answer plenty of inquiries (including wholesale inquiries and additional product inquiries), deal with a variety of customers, and enjoy making an income from a green product that you created!

Image Credit: pusteblume

If you enjoy making eco-friendly crafts or household products, Etsy.com offers a great green home business opportunity to make money doing what you love.

Etsy is an e-commerce website that specializes in handmade goods and offers artists and crafters of all types an opportunity to sell their work online. The site has a thriving community of eco-minded entrepreneurs and has become a go-to destination for people around the world looking for unique and specialty green products.

A sampling of Etsy’s green product offerings includes:

• recycled gold wedding rings
• organic cotton baby blankets
• purses made from recycled plastic bags
• hand-rolled beeswax candles
• reusable produce bags
• and much more

Etsy also accepts vintage goods and certain types of crafting supplies, as well as food items that meet Etsy’s handmade guidelines and are prepared in accordance with applicable local regulations.

Starting an Etsy Shop

Starting an Etsy shop for eco-friendly crafts or products is simple. Decide in advance what you’d like your username to be, as the username cannot be changed and will become your shop name. Then register for a free Etsy account.

Once you’ve registered, upgrade your account to seller status by clicking the “Sell” tab and following the directions. You will need a valid credit card in order to register as a seller on Etsy. Though registering for an account is free, Etsy does charge small fees for listing and selling items from your shop. Listing fees are $0.20 for each item; when a product is sold, there is a 3.5% transaction fee on the sale price, not including shipping.

Once you’ve registered as a seller, it’s time to start setting up your Etsy shop. Fill in your public profile, including an avatar, location, and short biography. Then add information about your shop, including a shop title, special shop policies, and more. You can even customize the look of your shop by uploading a unique banner!

As a green seller on Etsy, it’s especially important to establish your credibility by detailing some of the efforts you take to reduce the environmental impacts of your products. You can use Etsy’s customization options to improve your green branding as well.

Once your shop information is filled in, you can start setting up the different sections of your shop and uploading products. Be sure to include relevant green tags such as “eco-friendly,” “recycled,” “upcycled,” “reclaimed,” or “organic” in order to help customers find your green products.

Promoting Your Etsy Shop

An Etsy Treasury featuring upcycled, recycled, and repurposed items

Once your green Etsy shop is set up, you’ll need to promote if if you want to make sales. Here are some tips to help promote your Etsy shop:

Join or start an Etsy Team. Etsy Teams are groups of like-minded Etsy members organized around a particular location, interest, or other factor who team up to network, share advice, and promote their shops together. There are more than 450 Etsy Teams to choose from. A few that may be of particular interest to green crafters include Eco Etsy, Etsy Clean and Green Guild, Etsy Organic, and Recyclers Guild. You can also start your own.

Start a Treasury. Etsy Treasuries are member-curated lists of items grouped according to a certain theme. Though including your own products is discouraged, Treasuries are a great way to give back to the Etsy community and get noticed by fellow sellers, who are more likely to include your products in their own Treasuries as a result. If you create an especially outstanding Treasury, it may also be listed on Etsy’s home page, gaining free publicity for your shop.

Join social networking sites. Social media marketing is an especially good tool for small green businesses such as Etsy shops because it helps create a sense of community and connection between the entrepreneur and the customer. Joining a few popular social networks such as Facebook and MySpace is a great way to promote your green products directly to consumers. A smaller social network that offers special features for Etsy sellers is Squidoo, which offers a widget-style “module” that you can use to highlight products from your Etsy shop. More great place to promote your products online include social shopping sites such as ThisNext and Kaboodle, photo and video sharing sites such as Flickr and YouTube, and niche social networks such as Ravelry, DeviantArt, and Craftster.

Start a blog. Like social media marketing, starting a blog can be a great way to build connections between your shop and your customers. Many shoppers on Etsy love in-depth descriptions of the artistic process that goes into designing and creating Etsy products, and a blog is a great place to share this kind of information. If you don’t have time for a traditional green business blog, consider using a microblogging platform such as Twitter or Tumblr to share updates and connect with customers.

Three Amazing Eco-Friendly Sellers on Etsy

2TrickPony is an artist and metalsmith working from a solar-powered, off grid studio in Northern California. 2TrickPony specializes in artisan jewelry made from reclaimed and recycled metals, and fair trade, ethically sourced stones.

Herbolution is a shop specializing in organic and eco-friendly personal care products handcrafted in small batches. Herbolution is committed to green practices, including sustainable packaging and minimal waste.

Painted Turtle Wooden Toys specializes in handcrafted, heirloom quality wooden toys made from locally and sustainably sourced hardwoods and finished with organic, food-grade hempseed oil.

After climbing to a record 69.1% in 2005, the percentage of US households headed by homeowners has undergone the sharpest decline in more than 20 years, thanks mainly to the ongoing financial crisis and to the rise of the urban creative class. The number of renters has risen accordingly, and is expected to remain high for years, if not decades, to come.

The rise of the renting class offers a great green business opportunity for eco-minded entrepreneurs. As awareness of environmental issues continues to grow, a growing number of apartment dwellers are seeking out more eco-friendly alternatives to traditional apartments and condos. A growing number of households with one or more members with a serious chemical sensitivity is also driving the movement towards greener, healthier, and more sustainable housing options.

Planning Your Eco-Friendly Apartment Complex

Here are a few issues to think about when planning your eco-friendly apartment complex:

• Location, location, location. One of the most important factors to consider is the location of your complex. The greenest option is to locate your complex in an area where residents will be able to easily walk, bike, carpool, or take public transportation to work, shopping, dining, entertainment, and other destinations. In fact, many eco-friendly apartment complexes incorporate commercial spaces such as grocery stores, coffeehouses, cafes, and gyms directly into their communities.
• Green building materials. Using eco-friendly, sustainable, and non-toxic building materials is another important consideration that can dramatically reduce the environmental impact of your apartment complex. Green interior design, such as low VOC paint and formaldehyde-free flooring is especially important for residents with chemical sensitivities.
• Reducing waste. Offering energy-efficient appliances and fixtures such as dual-flush toilets, front load washers, and LED lightbulbs can save energy, water, and money. More innovative ways to reduce waste include complex-wide recycling and composting programs, installing a living machine or constructed wetland to reduce water consumption, and powering the complex with on-site solar panels or wind turbines.
• Eco-friendly landscaping. Landscaping for an eco-friendly apartment complex should be more than just beautiful. Hiring an organic lawn care company is one way to reduce the environmental impact of your landscaping. You can also get rid of lawn entirely and instead choose a beautiful, water-wise xeriscape, or a lush native plant garden to provide habitat for local birds and butterflies. An increasingly popular option for some apartment complexes is edible landscaping, which uses ornamental edible plants such as apple trees, blueberry bushes, and flowering herbs to create gardens as tasty as they are beautiful. Some apartment complexes also offer vegetable garden plots for residents to grow their own fresh, local produce.

Three Apartment Complexes For Greener Living

Boutique Apartments operates 14 apartment buildings in five of Denver’s most walkable downtown neighborhoods. All buildings have been renovated rather than built new, saving energy and resources, and include energy-efficient windows, appliances, lighting, and more. Many apartments feature bamboo flooring or reclaimed porcelain tile. Boutique Apartment buildings are powered by wind energy generated nearby along the Colorado-Wyoming border and have an extensive recycling program, including free computer and electronics recycling for residents.

Inception star and environmental activist Leonardo DiCaprio made waves in 2008 when he purchased an apartment at New York City’s Riverhouse in Battery Park City, a 92 acre planned community on the Hudson River, including the 1.2 mile Battery Park Esplanade, 32 acres of gardens and green spaces, playgrounds, retail spaces, and many residential buildings. Riverhouse is LEED Gold Certified and partially powered by a rooftop solar panel installation. The lobby is heated and cooled with geothermal power. Other green features include sustainably harvested wood, low VOC paint, energy efficient windows, dual flush toilets, and programmable thermostats in every apartment.

Satori Apartments in Fort Lauderdale, FL makes taking public transportation easy with a bus stop right out the front door. Energy-efficient features such as high efficiency air conditioning, front loading washers and dryers, and programmable thermostats help residents reduce their energy consumption. The building also employs many green building materials, such as recycled concrete pavers and zero voc carpets. The car park includes plug-in stations for electric vehicles, and the zero chlorine swimming pool helps reduce chemical exposure for residents.

One major way for green businesses to reduce their environmental impact that is often overlooked is choosing green office supplies. Eco-friendly office supplies are more sustainable, can reduce costs, and can also improve the image of your company to current and future customers or clients. Green office supplies are rising in popularity, thus making them more affordable, as well as giving businesses many more options to choose from. However, the question is, how do you choose green office supplies?

Know Your Budget

Make sure you know what you can afford to spend on green office supplies. With the rise in popularity of green businesses, there are innumerable green products out there that can meet your budget and do better for the environment than conventional products, at a price your business can afford. Make sure you know how much you can spend and which office supplies you’re willing to spend more on in order to make sure they’re green.

Finding Used Office Supplies

Choosing to purchase used office supplies is usually more sustainable than purchasing new office supplies, even if they are green, because it reduces the consumption of resources. Purchasing used office supplies also saves those products from going into already overflowing landfills and gets more life out of them. They can also often save businesses a lot of money! By doing a simple online search, you can find used office supply retailers in your area or online and also find advertisements of businesses selling their used office supplies.

Purchasing Recycled Products

Purchasing recycled products, like paper and stationery, is one of the easiest ways to be greener in your office. Using recycled paper is much more sustainable than using standard, non-recycled paper. If you use an office supply company, talk with your paper distributor about their options for recycled products. You can also compare their prices to competitive distributors to find the best green office supplies that meet your budget.

Remember the Less Obvious

There are a number of less obvious types of office supplies that are frequently overlooked when businesses decide to purchase green office supplies. Some of the products that come to mind are paper towels, tissues, soap, and even cubicles. When choosing to use green office supplies, it’s important to keep these in mind, as well. There are plenty of options for all of these products, too, even the cubicles! So, next time you replace your bathroom or lunchroom supplies, remember to choose eco-friendly options that are likely already available from your distributor.

Choosing eco-friendly office supplies is an excellent way to show that your company cares about its impact on the environment. By choosing green office supplies, your company is taking the right step forward in becoming more sustainable, as well as creating a better image for your customers or clients. Remember just how important sustainability is for long term company growth, as well as the image your company presents, and the choice to choose green office supplies should be an obvious one!

Image Credit: turkeychik

Green living is on the rise for current college students and incoming first years who want to lessen their impact on the earth, yet college students still want dorm accessories that are fun and stylish. Fortunately, there are now plenty of awesome eco-friendly dorm room accessories available to choose from!

Here are some must-have green dorm room accessories that are sure to be popular with college students this year:

Reusable Water Bottle

Instead of going through hundreds of plastic water bottles every year, many environmentally conscious students are opting to use reusable water bottles instead – a much greener choice than adding more plastic waste to our already overflowing landfills. When choosing a reusable water bottle, make sure that it is free of BPA. Some of your eco-friendly options include stainless steel, glass, and aluminum reusable water bottles

Power Strip

Power strips are much neater and more organized than having a bunch of wires and extension cords strewn about your dorm room. Power strips make it easy for you to turn off all of your electronics at once, and thus save electricity, when it’s time to finally catch some sleep before the next day’s classes. No wonder this dorm room accessory is so popular: it’s convenient and green, too!

Eco-Friendly Candles

Eco-friendly candles are growing in popularity as people learn of the toxicity of paraffin and gel candles, so thankfully there are more and more eco-friendly candles becoming available, and at affordable prices. Eco-friendly candles, such as pure beeswax candles, are quickly becoming a must-have green dorm room accessory, as the aromatic scents help college students relax while studying for a major exam or writing an important research report.

Organic Bedding

Although your dorm may already supply bedding, it is very likely isn’t eco-friendly. A must-have green dorm room accessory for many eco-friendly college students is organic bedding. There are plenty of options of bedding, including sheets, comforters, and pillow cases made from organic cotton that are much better for you and the environment – and stylish, too!

Organic Plants

One of the healthiest, most natural must-have eco-friendly dorm room accessories for college students is organic plants. Having an organic plant or plants in your dorm room is a great way to boost your mood and improve your health by connecting you with nature and improving your air quality, even when in a small, stuffy dorm room. Organic plants are awesome, affordable eco dorm room accessories that should not be overlooked!

These must-have green dorm room accessories will be sure to make your college living quarters more comfortable, healthier, and of course greener. By greening your dorm room with eco-friendly accessories, there’s always a chance you can start an even bigger trend on campus about the importance of living an eco-friendly lifestyle!

Image Credit: sj_sanders

Most small green businesses need to operate on a tight budget and use their time as efficiently as possible. After all, those energy efficient light bulbs and eco-friendly sneakers won’t sell themselves!

Good news – we’ve got a great list of web marketing tools will help any green  entrepreneur quickly set up shop on the Internet, starting with your logo and your website. Here’s how you do it:

Crowdsource Great, Professional Graphic Design on a Budget

In the Web 1.0 days, getting a professional logo and custom web design easily cost between $2,000-$5,000. Luckily for many small green start-ups, two Web 2.0 companies have now made it possible for companies to affordably crowdsource great design ideas from graphic designers all over the world through online design contests:

crowdSPRING

If you’re in the market for a new green logo, are looking for a fresh website design for your green blog, or want to have some business cards or brochures designed for your green business, crowdSPRING is a great option.

You set your budget and your deadline, define your green branding goals and design specifications. You can share examples of designs you like and indicate what you don’t want. After you post your project, your job goes out to Crowdspring’s worldwide community of thousands of designers (67,000+ at time of writing). Interested designers enter your design contest and evolve their designs based on your feedback.  Typically, the more feedback you provide, the better results you will get. On average, it takes 2-3 weeks to arrive at a quality, winning design. If you are not thrilled with the results, Crowdspring offers a 100% satisfaction money-back guarantee.

99designs

Working much the same way as crowdSPRING, 99designs is another web design tool that you can use to crowdsource great designs for almost anything. Some differences between the two design contest platforms are worth noting.

With crowdSPRING, you choose between Economy, Standard, and Pro projects and pay an up-front, non-refundable fee between $39 and $199. You also deposit the funds for the project before it goes live. When you award the project and pay the fees, they also add a 15% fee to the listing (they have a minimum award amount for each category). They offer Facebook and Twitter integration, and they also provide a custom contract if you so desire. 99designs has many similarities and a few differences. Like crowdSPRING, there are minimum rates per project (based on the type of project), and they charge a 15% fee when the prize is offered. However, their listing fee is $39 regardless of project type and you aren’t required to deposit the funds before the project goes live. 99designs also offers a 100% money-back guarantee within 60 days of payment.

Get Low-Cost Copywriting from Textbroker

While your design is being developed, now is a great time to get your copywriting done. Some of you won’t be interested in spending time word-smithing the company slogan, website content, unique blog posts, and brochure text. If you’re one of these people, then look to something like Textbroker, a low-cost source for all manner of green content development. Depending on your needs, Texbroker provides different levels of content rated by stars, from barely legible content from authors who are still learning English (2 stars) to high quality copy written by native English speaking college graduates and professional writers (5 stars). Just choose a category for your assignment, choose a budget, set a deadline, determine article word count, and explain your content requirements. All articles are proofread by Textbroker’s editorial staff, checked for copyright infringements, and then put in your client account where you review the articles, and then accept, refuse, or ask for revisions. It’s a great way to generate a lot of content, fast.

Use WordPress to Launch Your Green Business Website or Blog for Free

Nowadays, having a blog is considered to be an indispensable part of any business’s online marketing strategy.  And one of the simplest and least expensive ways to get that done is to use WordPress, an open-source content management system. All you need is web hosting, and you can download & install WordPress for free. While WordPress is best known as free blogging software, you can use it just as easily to power a more traditional business website, if you don’t want to commit to blogging. Browse the vast repository of free WordPress themes, purchase an inexpensive premium theme, or upload your custom theme.  If you’re looking for green blog post ideas or thoughts on how to create a green blog design, we’ve got those answers, too.

Start Analyzing Your Website Traffic Immediately with Google Analytics

Want to know how much traffic your organic granola bar pages receive, and how much of that traffic converts into sales? Interested in finding out which search engine keywords send the most traffic for to your reusable water bottle website? Google Analytics is a free website analytics tool that will help you understand your website traffic.

Using this simple tool, you can see demographics about your visitors, segment them into various subsets, create custom reports, and watch how they move throughout your website. Google Analytics can also be used to monitor the effectiveness of your email marketing efforts. Though there are other analytics tools available for a fee, this one provides remarkably complex reporting and statistics – more than most small green businesses will need – for no cost at all.

With these 5 web marketing tools, small green business owners can quickly establish a brand identity, launch a website and or blog, get well-written, inexpensive content and start monitoring website traffic and conversions, all within a typical startup budget.

Do you have any favorite web marketing tools we haven’t covered? Please share with us the web marketing tools that are vital to your green business in your comments. Thanks for reading!

Main Image Via Flickr – Ed Yourdon

If you run a small green business, it’s now easier than ever to stay on task and in contact with clients and customers, thanks to the great variety of free online productivity tools. From the comfort of your favorite chair (or wherever you happen to find yourself) you can take payments, do product or marketing research, share information or collaborate, promote your business, and manage your to-do list.

We’re worlds away from the days of needing filing cabinets, fax machines, wall calendars, printers, and an office phone system to run a small business. We can manage our appointments or shipments or deadlines with a free cloud-based calendar, send phone calls to whichever number we choose, and can even sign documents electronically. That’s a great advantage for the small green business owner who wants to keep a small resource footprint.

Communication: You need to stay in touch with your customers, your employees, your suppliers, and any future clients, and thanks to a couple of free communications services, we don’t have to spend an arm and a leg on our business calls.

• Google Voice: Part of Google’s extensive online tools, Voice gives you a unique phone number that can be forwarded to another phone at any time (your cell, your home number, etc.) or set to take a voicemail. Your outgoing message can be customized as usual, or left with Google’s default message. When a caller leaves a message with Voice, you get an email (or an SMS message) with a link to listen to it, as well as a text transcript of the call (the transcripts aren’t 100% accurate). Your contacts can be sorted by groups, and each group can have a different setting for forwarding and a custom outgoing message, so managing your incoming calls just became that much easier. You can also embed a Google Voice widget onto your website so that visitors can call you with just one click, and you can even host a conference call with your account.
• Skype: Whether you prefer audio calls, text chats, or video calls, Skype has you covered. While technically not an online service (you need to download the free software), it’s one of the handiest ways to stay in touch with business partners, customers, or suppliers. Skype chat and Skype-to-Skype calls (and video calls) are free, and credit for calls to non-Skype numbers can be purchased cheaply with PayPal or another credit/debit card. Group chats can also be managed with Skype (also free), and used for collaboration or sharing.
• Gmail + Gchat: For managing multiple email accounts, Gmail is the way to go. Set it up to send and receive as any of your different accounts (i.e. josephdreamcoat@gmail.com can be sent as Joseph@TechnicolorDreamcoat.com if you have that email account), and use the service’s extensive label and folder options and filtering to keep all of your correspondence organized. Along with Gmail, you’ll have access to the IM service Gchat, which will let you instant message your contacts that use Gmail or AIM to communicate. IM is a fast way to contact people (Gmail lets you see when they are online, so you know whether to message them or email them), plus, with the video plugin, you can make and receive video calls right within Gmail.

Scheduling: A well run business is usually a business that has a clear and efficient scheduling system. Who’s working when? When did you order those parts? What time was that appointment I made with the inspector? It goes so much more smoothly when all of the answers are in one place.

• Google Calendar: Google’s Calendar will manage multiple schedules and enable sharing of calendars, so you can see your kid’s soccer schedule and your tradeshow dates, plus your employee work schedule, all at once. You can share your calendars with others to help collaboration efforts and keep everyone on task, and they can be synced to iCal, Outlook, or your smart phone, so you always have access to your appointments.
• TimeBridge: Let the world know about your availability for meetings, phone calls, or events with this web service. Send out one email to a group of people with up to 5 times that work for you, and let them respond with the time that works best for all of you, or share your availability on sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, or your blog. TimeBridge integrates with Outlook, iCal, Google Calendar, or your iPhone, so your appointments are synced with your main calendar.
• Tungle.me: Get your own Tungle.me page and easily schedule meetings, invite others to schedule with you and propose multiple times that work for you, so you don’t have to play email tag to dial in a meeting time.

Documentation: Having easy access to the information you need, when you need it, makes for quicker decisions and a more efficient business. Organized and easily searched files, your own personal library of information, will take a lot of stress off of a perpetually disorganized person, and finding an easy process for this is important, so that it actually gets organized, not put off until tomorrow.

• Google Docs: Again, we can look to Google for a powerful free document service. You can create or upload multiple types of files, from documents to presentations and spreadsheets, and they are all searchable, editable, and shareable, with quick access from the Gmail dashboard. A basic drawing application will make short work of some basic image creation and editing. The spreadsheet functions are excellent for managing contact information, and with plenty of built-in templates, you’ll probably find something there that works for you. You can use a “Contact Us” template to make an embeddable widget for any site, and have the contact information go directly to your spreadsheet.
• Evernote: “Remember everything. Capture anything. Access anywhere.” That’s what Evernote’s home page says, and it pretty much sums it up. It’s an amazing capture and organizing tool, and Evernote has quite a few features that are not only handy, but kind of magical, such as the optical character recognition that can read and search the text from a picture of a whiteboard. Evernote is also a download, not strictly online, but the beauty is that the data is synced online – so no matter which computer you are using, you have access to the latest copy of your files, from receipts to recipes to contact lists and research folders. The web clipper feature makes it easy to grab something and file it in a jiffy, and tagging and organizing by notebook builds an easily searchable library.
• DropBox: Easily store files and folders where you can access them from any computer you are using, with another cloud service, DropBox. If you need to continue working on something at another location, simply save it in the DropBox folder on your computer, and it gets synced automatically with your account, so you’ll see it when you fire up your laptop or home computer. DropBox is also an easy way to share files with coworkers, customers, employees, shareable via email. A basic free account gets you 2 gigabytes of storage, and more space is available with an upgrade.
• Shoeboxed: Need help just getting started organizing your paperwork? You could start by sending in your receipts and business cards using pre-paid envelopes to Shoeboxed, and they will scan, data enter using OCR, and organize all of them for you. Then, you can stay organized by scanning any current receipts or cards with your phone or scanner and keep your paper trail clean.

Tasks and To-do List Management: Running a business requires juggling multiple task and project lists, some of which have sub-lists to them, and staying on top of all of them requires some sort of system so nothing falls through the cracks. If you want to track your items online, you’ve got some good options here:

• ToDoist: A fast, easy to learn and use online task manager that integrates with iGoogle, Gmail, Netvibes, and Launchy (Windows) or your Mac Dashboard, Todoist can help you operate more efficiently, and can be accessed via mobile as well.
• TeuxDeux: This very simple to-do list with the creatively spelled name is a straight-forward, no frills, extremely easy to read application, perfect for the minimalist small green business owner.
• Toodledo: Toodledo is accessible on your mobile phone, your email, your calendar, via your RSS reader, IM, or directly in your web browser. This comprehensive to-do list even lets you print up a foldable booklet for your pocket if you need a hard copy.
• Remember the Milk: Collaboration, geolocation, appointment reminders via email, SMS, or IM, and the options to make lists and notes make this application one of the most feature-rich.
• Text document + DropBox: Open a text document and make your to-do list, then save it to your DropBox folder for a very basic and simple task manager, accessible anywhere your DropBox folder is.

Research and Education: Small business owners looking to get ahead spend some time each day catching up on the news in their industry, and keep a close eye on competitors, suppliers, and potential clients. RSS feeds and email alerts are excellent for this, and having a place to bookmark articles to read later keeps you on task.

• Google Reader: An RSS reader should be easy to manage and use, and Reader is a great example of this. Feed your favorite blogs, websites, and news alerts RSS feeds to Reader, sort them by folders, and quickly get all the news you need to read in one place. Set up Google news blog alerts for keywords in your industry, for your business and personal names, and for any other topic you want to stay up on, and scan them in Reader each day. Or just search with keywords within Reader to find the articles you’re looking for.
• Feedly: This RSS reader works with Reader, but adds some extra features and has a great user interface. If you’re already using Reader, Feedly is a stylish way to read and share content, and it integrates with Twitter, Friendfeed, Delicious, Digg and YouTube.
• Delicious: The popular social bookmarking service can be a rich source of information for small business owners by searching for articles by tag, popularity, or date, and is a great way to keep track of helpful resources around the web. Share your favorite lists of web pages with business associates or clients easily, or see what other business owners or consultants are bookmarking.
• To Read: When you come across something you know you’ll want to read, but don’t have the time right then, click the To Read bookmarklet and have it sent to you via email. Set up a filter which sends these emails directly to a [To Read] folder, and you won’t end up cluttering your inbox with your research.
• Read It Later: Working on the same concept of saving pages to read at an appropriate time, Read It Later is available on the web, iPhone, Blackberry, Android, or in your browser, and lets you read articles even when you’re offline. Use the bookmarklet for a quick way to send your list to Read It Later.
• Instapaper: “A simple tool to save web pages for reading later.” Another great way to manage the articles you want to read when you’re ready, Instapaper is iPhone and iPad friendly, and works via a bookmarklet in your browser.

Business Website and Promotion: So you don’t have tons of cash to hire someone to build you a website, but you need a presence on the web? Whether you use their domain or one that you own, a number of free, easy to use web services will let you build a home for your small green business on the internet.

• Posterous: One of the easiest ways to post just about anything (text, pictures, music, videos), Posterous works with your own domain name if you have one, and you can post to your site on the web or via email or smartphone. A handy bookmarklet makes it simple to repost information you’ve found elsewhere, with an automatic link back to the original piece, and Posterous makes it easy to share your content via a number of social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook.
• Tumblr: Very similar to Posterous, but with their own unique features, Tumblr is one of the easiest ways to begin blogging. Choose a username, a name for your site, and a theme, and you’ll be up and running in minutes.
• Blogger: Blogger is one of the earliest platforms available for blogging, and it’s easy to use and completely free. A large support community and user base makes Blogger one of the most popular places to start a site.
• WordPress: Another well-established blogging platform, WordPress can be used to power a fully functional website that doesn’t look like a blog. WordPress has tons of extra features developed by its users, and when you’re ready to make the jump to a custom domain, is widely available as a quick install from most web hosting companies.
• Slideshare: If you create presentations that you’d like to promote, Slideshare lets you upload and share them easily. Publicize your presentations, documents, even videos, or discover a lot of free resources in other people’s presentations.
• Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, other social networking sites: Claim your business usernames in these networks if you can, and fill out your profiles completely, even if you don’t know how to use them yet. Link to them on your website, and start watching how others use them to engage clients and customers.
• Picnik: A great free online image editor, perfect for when you just need to crop or resize and compress a graphic or image, launchable from a browser extension. Picnik can easily grab an image or entire web page, or upload them from your computer.

Legal and Financial: Signing documents electronically and sending or receiving money are extremely useful to the small green business owner. Check out these two services for your needs.

• PayPal: PayPal is one of the largest payment providers, and can be used to send and receive funds quickly and securely.
• InspirePay: Request a specific amount with a secure web link, or use an open denomination ‘donation-style’ box on your site. Fast, secure, and simple.
• EchoSign: With support for many languages, secure encryption, and compliancy with all legal standards, EchoSign makes getting a signature (or giving one) quick and easy.
• Mint: Though built more for personal finance, Mint’s financial tracking features could work well for the small business owner as well. Create a one-stop dashboard for all of your banking and credit accounts and set up budgets and spending logs for your operation.

Environmental Responsibility: As a green business owner, it’s also important to monitor your company’s environmental impact, and there are some free online tools and resources that can help you with that as well.

• Water footprint: Knowing the amount of water that we use every day in our personal life is a key to wise water use, and knowing the water footprint of our business will help us to conserve this precious resource.
• Green web hosting: If you want your small business website to be a ‘carbon neutral’ one, you’d do well to consider a web host powered by renewable energy. With a number of options available, you’re sure to find something that fits your needs.
• Business energy assessment: Many municipalities offer energy (and water) efficiency audits for businesses, allowing you to find ways to use less and save money at the same time.
• Alternative energy: Consider contacting One Block Off the Grid (1BOG) to see if community solar would work for your business, and your local power company to see what renewable energy options are available to you.
• Recycled and Paperless options: If you can’t go truly paperless, choose an office paper made out of 100% recycled content and only print what you have to. Reverse the pages and send them back through a second time.

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Main Image Credit: Serge Melki

Massage therapy is a great business opportunity with a lot of potential for entrepreneurs interested in working from home. Massage therapists typically earn about $40-70 per hour for their services, and the massage therapy industry has tripled over the last decade. It is expected to expand another 20% by 2016.

By starting a home-based massage business, you can not only enjoy the flexibility of working from home, you can also reduce the environmental impact of your business by reducing fossil fuel consumption for commuting to and maintaining a separate office. Green massage therapy is a growing niche within the massage industry. Many massage clients are already highly eco-conscious, and massage therapists are in a good position to improve the eco-consciousness of less knowledgeable customers as well.

Getting Started as a Green Massage Therapist

Before starting any massage therapy business, at home or otherwise, check the licensing requirements for massage therapists in your state. Most states require practicing massage therapists to pass an exam such as the NCBTMB or MBLEx.

As a home massage business, you may also need to check local zoning requirements in your city to make sure that seeing clients at home is allowed in your city or neighborhood. If not, you may be able to use your home as an office and purchase a portable massage table so you can provide massage services for your clients at their homes.

Once your business is established, there are many ways that massage therapists can go green.

One of the most important is to use organic cotton linens. Cotton is one of the thirstiest crops in the world. Despite this, it is often grow in semi-arid regions such as Central Asia, where irrigation for cotton fields is one of the primary causes of the destruction of the Aral Sea. Cotton is also one of the most chemical intensive crops to grow, consuming an estimated 22% of all insecticides sprayed annually around the world, though it is planted on only 2% of the world’s arable land. Residues from chemicals used during growing and processing can linger in the finished linens. By choosing organic cotton linens, green massage therapists can protect both the environment and the health of clients, especially those with chemical sensitivities.

Another way to make your massage business healthier for the environment and your clients’ health is to use organic and eco-friendly massage oils and cremes. Many conventional products contain suspected carcinogens and other toxins, which are easily absorbed through the skin.

More ways massage therapist can go green include using recycled paper and eco-friendly inks for business cards and other advertising materials, using eco-friendly cleaning products or services, and using low-VOC paints, green flooring, and other eco-friendly materials in your office.

Three Green Massage Businesses That Heal Clients and the Earth

Bozeman Massage Therapy, located in Bozeman, MT, offers a variety of massage services, including Deep Tissue Massage, Sports Massage, and Pregnancy Massage. Massage oils are based on 100% pure organic grapeseed oil and can include a customized mix of aromatherapy scents based on essential oils. The sheets are bamboo and organic cotton, and the office was built using green building materials such as recycled blue jean insulation and natural cork flooring.

Lux Eco Salon, located in Bethlehem, PA, offers Swedish and Deep Tissue massage services in addition to other eco-friendly spa services such as hair care, nail care, and facials. Lux uses a variety of organic and eco-friendly products, including organic cotton towels and eco-friendly cleaning supplies. All product lines are eco-friendly, containing mostly or entirely organic ingredients, and come in recyclable packaging.

Denver-based Renew Massage Studio uses paraben-free, organic massage creams, organic sheets sets, green cleaning products, and more. The studio specializes in therapeutic massages using techniques such as Swedish Massage, Trigger Point Massage, and Deep Tissue Massage.

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Main Image Credit: Thomas Wanhoff