Starting and running a small business is quite an intimidating project. Over the last five years we've grown from a one-person company (Holden Creative) into CartaNova.

Along the way we've read a small pile of business-advice books.
Here are top three books we recommend for small business or social initiatives.

As I type this sentence there are thousands of web sites being launched.  Some of those sites may be from your competition. In the age of globalization, social media marketing and general information overload, how can a small business get noticed?

Our answer: By being REMARKable.

CartaNova is happy to announce that two of our Search Engine Optimization clients are now receiving top rankings; Williamson Accounting in Toronto, and Alcast Technologies Aluminum Casting of Hamilton, ON.

Read on to find out how we accomplished this difficult goal.

Google's Pay-Per-Click online advertising system, Google AD Words, is notoriously intimidating to small business owners. Most people know that Google has a marketplace for those adverts you see next to search results and on web sites - but how does it all work?

Here's our guide to understanding Google AD Words for Small Business.

Twitter is a simple, easy to use social network that limits users to communicating in short messages. Each user connects by choosing other users to follow in their main feed. Each message ("tweet") is limited to 140 characters in length, and appears on the page of every user that follows the author.

Everyone knows the old business axiom: "It's not what you know, but who you know." Developing relationships with a wide-variety of professional contacts can help grow your business, but meeting the right people is not always so simple.

You have a great business established or maybe you're just starting out and it's time to get noticed.  You need to market on the web, but you're lost in an almost unfathomable jungle of shady web design firms and 'SEO' companies?  [What is that SEO thing anyway?]

CartaNova offers you some of our own practiced tips in this beginner's guide to what works for ethical marketing online.

In the heady days of televised mass media, advertising formulas were simpler:  Make a commercial or mailing, praise your product, and hope that 0.4 % of the viewers agreed.

Today the web is everywhere. Businesses face global markets and consumers have different expectations.  What follows are some best-practices to help you define a message about your business or product, and to then get it out there to people who actually want to see it.

At its best, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a process of combining great site content with great programming to extend a networked community of interested parties.  At its worst, SEO is a firm promising you the top spot in Google, horrible content-rewrites, and exquisitely useless link-building.  Read on for our guide to making SEO work for you.

While blogging has gone through numerous forms online over the last fifteen years, one thing hasn’t changed: it’s usefulness in giving your site visitors a clear impression of the timely relevance of your website.