We’re moving! Tomorrow we’ll be saying goodbye to our legendary office of the last two years, and joining our friends at MeZine Inc. (our parent company). It’s been a magical time, and as this is my last day with CityMax.com, I thought a little retrospective of our highlights in our Gastown office would be fitting.

From having two office dogs, to street hockey and yoga, to hosting 300+ entrepreneurs and City Council for Spirit Day, to even having an Alaskan king crab run around – it’s been an amazing place. Check out the videos/pics if you don’t believe me.

Shaw TV Feature

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We have some pretty cool customers at CityMax.com, and we love hearing their stories. Recently we came across one that really takes the cake! Shane Harding (pictured here with his daughter) is a NASCAR driver based out of Langley, British Columbia (just outside Vancouver). His crew chief Joe reached out to us about getting involved with the team and we jumped at the chance to be a part of it!

Check out the new car below:

With over 20 years of racing experience and countless wins under his belt, Shane recently had an amazing outing at the 45th annual Apple Cup race in Yakima, Washington. Joe emailed us the story behind the race and we thought you might like to hear it too (it’s a bit of a read, but well worth it!).

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Search engine optimization.

You’ve heard about it from friends and all the experts say you should do it, but do you know why? According to Wikipedia, SEO is “the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines via the “natural” or un-paid (“organic” or “algorithmic”) search results.”

In plain English: how will anyone ever buy from your business if they can’t find your website in the first place?

A good chunk of customer questions we receive at CityMax.com revolve around improving website search rankings, so we thought we’d point you towards some helpful resources to get started. Keep in mind many people devote their entire lives to SEO so this is just the tip of the iceberg!

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Happy Friday! In this week’s Small Business Roundup, you’ll find helpful tips on topics such as finding the right photos for your website, increasing your email subscribers, and even how a 400+ year old Asian war textbook is still relevant in today’s business world.

1) One of the most important keys to making online sales is having professional and relevant images on your site. We have 1000+ images in our free library for you to customize your website with, but what if you’re looking for something a bit more unique? Guaranteed you’ll find something on TJ McCue’s list of 50 Stock Photo Sites for small businesses.

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This week President Barack Obama declared March 8, 2011 as International Women’s Day, as part of Women’s History Month. International Women’s Day honors the history, accomplishments, and contributions of women in America and around the world. To celebrate, we took a closer look at the impact of women in the business and found some very interesting numbers!

For other interesting stats and info, check out our other small business infographics.

Love the infographic? Copy this code to embed it in your website.

<a href=”http://www.CityMax.com/?track=2817″ mce_href=”http://www.CityMax.com/?track=2817″><img src=”http://www.citymax.com/r/wd_host_content/1/pages/118/WomenMeanBusiness_500px.png” mce_src=”http://www.citymax.com/r/wd_host_content/1/pages/118/WomenMeanBusiness_500px.png” alt=”Women in Business Infographic” width=”500″ border=”0″ /></a><br /> <font style=”font-weight:bold;font-size:14px;font-family:’Trebuchet MS’, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif” mce_style=”font-weight:bold;font-size:14px;font-family:’Trebuchet MS’, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif”>Source: CityMax.com <a href=”http://www.CityMax.com/?track=2817 ” mce_href=”http://www.CityMax.com/?track=2817 “>Website Builder</a></font>

Most business owners know about word of mouth marketing. “How do I get people to talk about my product/brand/company?” is a common question we hear. Today we’ll look at five ways you can start and see some instant results in your marketing efforts.

1) Ask Your Customers the Hard Questions

These aren’t difficult questions, but sometimes the answers might be tough to hear.

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Starting a small business website is stressful enough – you have to worry about a business plan, funding, suppliers, your market, marketing and all the rest. But unless you have a great name that fits what you are doing, it won’t matter how large your margins are.

Your business name is the core of your brand. Is it memorable? Does it have personality? Does it explain the service/product you are providing?

Entrepreneurs not only have to worry about having a catchy name, but its search engine optimizability, potential misspellings, and embarrassing alternate meanings. (You probably don’t want to make our list of the 50 Worst and Most Embarrassing Domain Names Ever Purchased!)

Here are five basic guiding principles as you start to figure out how to make this all-important decision:

1) Do a search for the name you have in mind – is it available or already being used? Can you legally use this name in your state/province?

2) Is it unique, short and/or easy to remember? Does it describe or indicate what your business does?

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Kenneth Cole, international shoe brand and fashion trend-setter, decided to comment on the horrific situation in Egypt this morning. In past blog posts, we’ve explored how your small business can leverage timely events to boost marketing efforts, but we didn’t mean like this:

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Ever heard of Yahoo Answers? LinkedIn? How about Quora?

These are all online communities where people go to ask questions and find answers about anything under the sun. These forums are also an excellent place to generate new business.

How?

Simply join the conversation! Answering questions in an open forum is a great way to: build credibility, demonstrate expertise, and discover potential customers. Because these boards “never” disappear, they rank highly in search engines when people asking the same questions or use similar keywords. Whether you sell a service or a product, chances are someone is out there asking a question that you have the answer to.

To begin:

1) Start Googling for any of the keywords that your website already uses – just add “How” and turn the phrase into a question.

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What is a social entrepreneur?

According to Wikipedia: a social entrepreneur is someone who recognizes a social problem and uses entrepreneurial principles to organize, create, and manage a venture to make social change.

That’s definitely something we believe in at CityMax.com. So when we heard that Ashoka International, the world’s largest global association of leading social entrepreneurs, was coming to Vancouver to hold a Social Finance and Innovation Tour, we jumped at the chance to participate. We invited some of North America’s top movers and shakers in social innovation to hold their first day of workshops at our office!

Speakers came from exciting organizations such as:

PLAN Institute – using social innovation and social enterprise to mobilize the creativity of individuals with disabilities and their families and to scale up solutions to poverty and social isolation.

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