Category: Online Business

Article Contributed by Amin Ghale

Small businesses SUCK at SEO. There I said it. Yes, it’s a hard term but that’s the reality.

According to the findings of Clutch survey, still 29% of small businesses don’t have websites. And 17% out of the 71% don’t have a responsive website. Yes, the numbers have grown significantly but it doesn’t change the fact that small businesses don’t take online marketing seriously.

The major reason behind it seems to be the lack of technical skills and monetary resources. However, these problems can be easily sought with CMS like WordPress.

Here’s how:

Get a theme for less than $50 and hook up with a hosting server for $3 per month. This is all it takes for a small business. You don’t need a big dedicated server for a small space business.

If you can’t do it find an expert that will do everything in a cheap rate.

So, you have got a website live and running. Now what?

Follow these 4 tips to make sure your small business is off the charts.

Make sure your on page is correct

This is the first and foremost thing you should do after your website is live. On page deals with anything as small as page title to making sure your content has a decent list of LSI keywords.

You should always target your best keyword in homepage. So, if you offer airport taxi service, have the content around that keyword. Sprinkle the variations of the keywords in heading tags and body. It shouldn’t look like you are forcing the keywords into it; rather it should blend with the content. The graphics in the content should have variations of keywords in the shape of alt tags.

The concept isn’t about making it look real; it’s about making it actual “REAL.”

Technical SEO is crucial

Okay, relax now. Before you start scratching your head, hear me out.

Technical SEO isn’t as complicated as you think. Yes, if you need to dive deep, it will take more than just a basic knowledge. But for small business, understanding few terminologies will be enough.

I haven’t come with serious technical SEO issue when I’m working with small businesses. It doesn’t mean it can’t come ever. But the chances are low.

Know how to setup some easy configurations like robots.txt and htaccess. These two elements play a huge part in crawlability and indexibility. So grab a better grip of the two elements.

Focus Local

Have you ever searched for some location based terms like electrician in Sydney? Probably you have. If you have noticed it, you will find that 3 local businesses come up with some ratings and directions, right?

That’s the local SEO.

One big advantage that small businesses have over Ecommerce website or any other websites is the power of local SEO.

Getting ranked in local isn’t a tough ask like organic rankings. Unlike many ranking factors for an organic result, local SEO has limited factors. Elements like proximity level of search, reviews, citations etc can easily help you get ranked locally.

Earn backlinks

This is the most important and fun part of a small business for me. You need to earn backlinks to not only rank organically but also in local results. There is a definite correlation between organic SEO as well as local SEO. So, if you can rank well in organic, there is a huge chance that you will also get ranked in Google local map pack.

So what are the types of links that you can build for small businesses?

Unlike many competitive niches, you don’t need a tonne of high-quality links to get you ranked. Well, it helps if you have it.

But, even with links from directories, web 2.0, citation sources, blog comments, and few quality guest post links can get you ranked in local SEO. Never the less, you should never stop building links for your site.

Engage in social media

Social media like Facebook and twitter can not only hook you up with decent clients, it can also have positive impact on SEO of your business. Although, Google denies that they don’t take social signals as the factors for obvious reasons. But we have seen the data where social links do work at times.

Build a social media foundation and work on it. Every social media isn’t going to work for your business. So, explore the one according to that fits your needs and audience persona.

Closing Down

Doing SEO for small businesses isn’t a tough ask. It’s the lack of knowledge and dedication of small biz owners that results in poor SEO value. Apply the above 5 tips for your business, and you surely will be of course.

Author Bio

Amin Ghale is a Web developer from Sydney and SEO consultant at WP Creative. He loves to play around with codes on WordPress and build strategies to grow his client’s businesses. In free time he hunts down for news on WordPress & entrepreneurships.

Article Contributed by Bill Brown

To start and run a business online, you’ll require five most essential skills. It is important to identify and develop or improve these skills to get success in your business.

Before starting any business, you need to figure out what are the resources required for starting the business and also accounting for those resources need to acquire after launching the business. Resource planning is very crucial that involves how many stuff, what types of equipment and how much fixed asset you’ll need to start your business.

Analytical Skills

Analytical skills are the most required set of techniques which help you to understand the opportunities, area of potential growth and work towards that. In order to become a successful online businessman, you need to have these following analytical capabilities.

• Breakdown Problems
• Gathering and evaluating all the necessary information
• Managing Information Effectively
• Generate Alternatives and Solutions
• Comprehend difficult Reading material

A better understanding of these skills will help you to maximize conversions of visitors and also increase ROI (Return on Investment). Remember, whenever you face any crisis or struggle with uncertainty in your business, the only analytical approach can get you back on track.

Managerial Skills

As a manager, you need to make sure that your employees have the required skills to develop and grow your business. You should also have a critical approach to financial management which demands the forecast of cash flow and sales, while monitoring your profit and loss.

Having sound managerial skills will help you to run your business smoothly. Allocate some time so that you can mentor your employees.As a leader, you must be able to motivate your employees in order to get the best out of them which will boost your business.

It is up to you to make sure that you have the necessary managerial skills to help your employees to grow, as this ability to lead doesn’t just appear overnight. Earning an MBA online is a great way to develop skills in relevant areas like:

• Critical Thinking
• Systems Thinking
• Decision Making
• Problem Identification
• Communication
• Diversity
• Ethics

In addition, when taking this program online, you won’t have to worry about missing work to take traditional MBA courses and you will also be able to incorporate what you are learning through your coursework into the workplace environment immediately.

Soft Skills

This one is the most overlooked area in online business, soft skills are the particular set of skills which virtually binds together every aspect of your business. Every employee must have a sound set of soft skills. However, these skills are often difficult to assess upon hiring, but they can get stronger with practice. Soft skills include

• Communication skill
• Teamwork
• Problem-solving skill
• Work ethic
• Critical analysis
• Adaptability
• Time management

In order to assess your employee’s soft skills, you have to catch them and also demonstrating them. For that, you can utilize feedbacks from your customers as well as from employees.

Technical skills

Online business is where your technical knowledge will be put to the test. In order to manage your website or blog you need to have sound knowledge of followings

• Hosting and Domain.
• Graphic Design
• Web design and Development
• Valuable content writing
• Basic knowledge of SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
• Knowledge of Google Analytics
• Networking
• Internet marketing/ media marketing
• Social media for building rapport with your customers.

Though registering a domain and buying a hosting plan for your website is easy, but the real job comes after that. In e-commerce business, the most important skill is to know how to generate more and more traffic which also required the knowledge of SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

Expertise in a given Niche

In today’s’ competitive market, every businessman is seeking ways in order to differentiate their offerings in the minds of customers. You need to be knowledgeable enough in the specific niche on which you are going to target your business. In order to build trust with your customers, you have to show your expertise in a given niche. The ultimate success formula in online businesses is to find a niche you are passionate about.

Author Bio:

Bill Brown is an American content writer who loves reading and writing different blogs. He is working with a car insurance company and has vast knowledge about how to save money on car insurance, how much is car insurance and much more.

eCommerce is not any recent-year phenomenon like the iPad or Facebook. It has been around for decades. In fact, history says that eCommerce transactions have been happening ever since the late 90s. However, their role and preview was limited to a very tiny user group consisting mainly of the government, tech lobbyists and IT enterprises.

But today, eCommerce is a massive industry with its own identity. At least one-third of the consumer goods we own have been home delivered by an online store.

What is eCommerce?

Common knowledge, yet so many seem confused about this term. eCommerce is the use of Internet and its network prowess of any commercial transaction. If you thought online shopping is only for of eCommerce, you are wrong.

eCommerce includes a variety of other transactions like online banking, ticket booking, B2B selling and buying, etc. In other words, any monetary or business transaction completed with the help of Internet is referred to as eCommerce.

The beginnings of eCommerce

As we said before, eCommerce dates back to the 90s. But they were miniatures of the real eCommerce process and were short-lived. The real beginning of eCommerce happened with Amazon. Launched in 1995 as an online bookstore, Amazon rapidly grew becoming an everything store.

Why is eCommerce so popular amidst vendors?

A handful of reasons why eCommerce has become popular than it was ever imagined to be:

1. Breaks all distance barriers. You can reach for products and customers anywhere in the world.
2. The costs are fractional compared to the costs of running a physical store
3. The profit margin is higher since there is high business flexibility
4. Inventory management is easier since distribution centers can be located close to customer-centric regions
5. Digital advertising helps cut costs further compared to tangible marketing campaigns

What are the risks involved in eCommerce?

While eCommerce opens up the world for business, it is also accompanied by a range of risks that online store owners must seek protection against.

The biggest risks involved in the eCommerce business are: earning customer trust, maintaining cash flow, logistics and timely delivery.

Winning customer trust is easier said than done. The first time a customer logs into your online store, they’ll have three questions in their mind:

• Is this store trustworthy?
• Are the products of good quality?
• Will my credit card information be handled with confidentiality?

No matter how great your brand name is, if you convince your customers of these three questions, you are saved.

Once customers trust your brand, they will place regular orders and the risk of cash flow will slowly deplete while maintaining a sturdy infrastructure for logistics.Apart from an owned delivery network, you may also want to set up third-party enabled delivery network to handle peak season order fulfillment.

Further, as a wannabe noted brand in eCommerce you might also want to secure things at your customer’s end. Here are some common customer abuse instances you must stay aware and protected against.

Common forms of customer abuse in eCommerce

• Identity theft

Identity theft is recognized as an illegal offence in most countries. Despite the legal implications, it continues to rise as a major customer abuse form that is threatening the growth of eCommerce. In identity theft, sensitive information about an individual is either stolen or faked for malicious purposes.

• Credit information stealing

VISA found in its survey, that almost 74% of online customers pay for their shopping bills using credit cards.

Now imagine the tragedy if this vital information is either lost or stolen by unauthorized process? The customer will become liable for bill charges that he never made in the first place. Not to mention the exorbitant interest costs that will leave the customer drained of finances. Furthermore, it will hurt the public image of the eCommerce store from where such information was lost in the first place.

eBay, Target, Home Spot, are some online stores where such instances have happened in the past.

• Over charging

“Almost 56% of online shoppers abandon costs when they are presented with unexpected costs.”~ Statistia

Unexpected costs are huge turn offs in online shopping. Not only does it take away the trust placed in the store but also makes the customer wary of logging into the store again.

Online stores with clear and transparent pricing systems tend to be favorites for customers. This includes costs for delivery as well as gift packing, scheduled delivery, etc.

• A messed returns policy

I don’t want to shop from that store because they won’t entertain returns.” How many of us would have felt the same while browsing things online? Unlike in brick & mortar stores, in online shopping there is no facility for the customer to trial a product before deciding to buy it. Hence, when a change is required, a clear cut returns policy goes a long way in ensuring customer satisfaction. Without it, the store will fail to sustain the customer it has painstakingly won.

How to be a reliable eCommerce brand?

• Security

The fanfare for online shopping has increased thanks to the advent of cyber security measures like SSL certificate (Secured Sockets Layer). HTTPS enabled websites make customers feel at ease. There is a reasonable amount of assurance that their private information will not be leaked or made available in the hands of unauthorized personnel.

• Ease of access

Today’s customers want to have multiple payment options available and if you don’t have their preferred method of payment, they will simply move on to a retailer that does. It isn’t enough to take traditional forms of payment like credit card and PayPal any more because customers are more aware of the fees and risks associated with those methods. Having the ability to process checks electronically through an ACH check processing system is a nice touch because it provides just one more option for weary consumers to make a purchase. Always provide the customer with as many payment options as possible.

• Customer-friendly

Amazon is counted as the top-ranking online store in the world due to its customer-centric approach. They do small things which go a long way in impressing customer and being engaged to the brand. Wooing customers with small acts of attention like customized delivery, quick returns, etc. help build an impressive brand image.

As we said before, the eCommerce industry is not an easy one to crack with so many risks involved. But with some amount of customer-oriented approach from the store;s part, it is always possible to create a reliable brand image. A recognized brand image is the quickest way to increase your sales.

eLearning Industry says the e-learning market is “growing at an unprecedented rate”.

Large corporations are turning to e-learning to train employees, and more and more entrepreneurs are starting to build businesses from online courses.

It’s safe to say that selling online courses is becoming A Thing.

An entrepreneur has many options to choose from if he wants to offer online content for profit, but most avenues involve pain in setting them up because up until recently, business owners would need different technologies to do everything that was needed to be done and getting all services to play together nicely was not for the feint hearted.

Newer technology is simplifying things, and for start-ups or small to medium sized businesses, the Kajabi technology makes things easier than ever before by offering everything under one roof: building, selling online courses and marketing them.

This article provides a brief look at how this new system simplifies developing an online content for profit venture.

Why setting up online courses can be a major source of frustration

The reason for the plethora of services and technologies that was needed, was that for an entrepreneur to achieve success with an online course business, they would need individual services for:

•A website where the course would be housed.
•A method of delivering course content.
•Payment gateway systems to collect payments.
•To hire a web designer so that the website would look professional.
•Visitors to arrive at the website after an Internet search.
•Traffic that arrived at the website due to marketing activities.
•Email marketing software to collect email addresses for marketing purposes.
•To spend money on an additional service in order to build landing pages for marketing campaigns.

Usually, not possessing all the know-how about how to make all of this work together, the business owner would need to employ someone to set it all up for them. And then, and only then, could they begin loading the actual course content.

How the Kajabi technology simplifies selling online courses

Kajabi is innovative technology (more on why in a mo); their customers attest to the fact that the platform obliterates the pain of setting up and selling online courses. This is because this technology provides an all-in-one solution for entrepreneurs who just want to get their stuff “out there” without the hassle.

The Kajabi platform spearheads e-learning for the small to medium sized business by not only offering a way in which to easily deliver online content, but also by providing everything needed to set up, manage and market online courses. This eliminates the need for entrepreneurs to 1) look elsewhere for any other services required to build and profit from selling online content, and 2) fiddle around with clumsy attempts at integrating it all to make it work.

All in one – the Kajabi platform provides everything that’s needed, all under one roof in one dashboard.

The technology that’s leading the pack offers business owners:

•A themed website which is used as the core to all marketing activities, as well as the platform to house and sell courses.
•An SEO friendly website, which helps bring in more traffic.
•Blogging platform in order to offer visitors value, enhance credibility and attract more traffic.
•Ability to present material in two ways: either online, or via drip content by email.
•Pre-designed landing pages by the pros, so that all the owner needs to do is tweak things so it works the way they want it to work. Landing pages are central to online marketing, but need to be designed properly otherwise they will not convert people from mere readers into paid customers.
•Email marketing functionality. No need to use a 3rd party service for this.
•Offer digital downloads as marketing “hooks”.
•Coupons to run specials, which is also a marketing tactic.

Set up coupons from the Kajabi dashboard

•Affiliate program, which enables entrepreneurs to make more money.
•To collect payments from anywhere in the world.
•Set up monthly subscriptions to earn recurring amounts.

The simplified process

The Kajabi technology has been built so that business owners would kick off the system process by adding course content, either in text, video, audio, images and downloads, in a blog-like editor, in a kind of post format.

To organize lessons, use Categories to lump the posts into an arranged lesson plan. Add categories in any way you like.

Add announcements about anything like webinars, change of pricing, new courses, etc. The system can simplify things further by emailing announcements to members, or they can read them on the website.

Now you just need to make any small changes to how your website looks, and then you can open the course to the world. Select the Appearance tab to choose a free theme to customize.

Choose a website theme appearance and tweak it.

Simply add your Stripe account, set your pricing and there you go. Done ‘n dusted.

What’s left to do is to make sure the right people learn about what you’re offering, so head on over to the Marketing tab where you can develop customized landing pages and forms that will start building your email list.

The Kajabi marketing dashboard includes landing pages, opt-in forms, broadcasts, and email workflows

Broadcast messages to people who have indicated interest, and then, from the People tab, check out details about those who have bought your courses, communicate to anyone specifically, and monitor member’s course progress on lessons.

Conclusion

•The Kajabi technology is an all-in-one solution for building an entire business from scratch.
•Building is easier and faster than other e-learning methods.
•The business owner only needs to pay one price for everything needed to build successful online courses.
•The Kajabi system helps get more traffic to the course site because it is built for search engines.
•The system allows for customization so things can look as desired.

Article Contributed by John Stone

The internet has revolutionized the way we shop, watch TV, play games, interact with other people and many other aspects of our lives. As traditional employment opportunities and careers become rarer turning to the internet to make money makes sense in our web-friendly society is becoming a natural step in the evolution of the workforce.

The number of people, who work online, either part-time or exclusively, can’t accurately be judged at this moment. As in all things, human beings have outstripped society and found new ways to make money that are neither controlled nor tracked by their local and national governments. As long as a nation has unrestricted access to the internet, someone will be making money online. Until the government designs a way to track that work, the total online workforce numbers will remain unknown.

Making money on the internet can be as easy – or as difficult – as you want it to be. There are specific advantages to working online; flexible hours, the ability to do something you love and others, but there are also disadvantages including lack of regulation, the low pay of gig economy work and a lack of long-term work.

However, there are ways to make continuous money through the internet that are not reliant on gigs. Let’s take a look at some of the examples.

Become a freelancer

For many people with skills, making extra money is as easy as joining a freelance community. The merger of Elance and ODesk into Upwork in 2015 brought the two biggest names in online freelance work and joined them together. It makes it easier to market your services and reach a much wider audience for your skills.

Selling a Product

Whether you sell on eBay, through your favorite social media site, or through a ecommerce platform like Shopify, selling a product over the internet is an easy and profitable way to get rid of excess ‘stuff” or to sell products you create yourself. Starting small and building up a customer base is the tried and tested way to sell anything, but competition is fierce. There aren’t many people left who don’t or can’t use eBay. Selling in a niche market is a good strategy, but you have to have the product to sell and a decent customer base to do it over the long-term.

Create a website

The only difference between this method and the preceding one is what you are selling. Personal websites and blogs sell your opinions or writing through banner ads and sponsors. This money can be a very reliable income, but you have to provide a service or site of interest to a lot of people.

Create an app for your website

A web page might look alright on a mobile internet device like a smartphone or tablet, but turning it into an app can make a huge difference in the number of hits your site and your sponsor’s site receives. App development is a specialized field.  If your web-based business is ready for an app, consult the professionals. The money you spend on the app can quickly and easily be recouped.

Blog some

Although it can be difficult to compete with the thousands of free blogs out there, if you enjoy writing and are good at it, there is a market online for you. Many companies offer web sites for bloggers at no charge, building one of these blogs is simple and by selling banner space and accepting sponsors, you can combine income streams to make even more money.

Stock Trading

Although the risks of stock or forex trading can be substantial, as long as you stay within your means and make the effort to understand how the markets really work, a steady income can be generated. Of course, there is no telling who is going to discover the next big stock deal and we can always dream.

Writing, editing and proofreading

If you love to write, but don’t want the hassle of running a blog or website, there are a number of sites that pay bloggers or article writers. In addition to Upwork, there are many national and international online companies that put writers together with companies or groups that need blogs, articles and even books. Finding an online company that needs editors or proofreaders can be more difficult, but those jobs are out there.

A picture tells a thousand words

The ubiquity of digital cameras has revolutionized marketing photography. Professional photography has become more of a niche market while passionate and talented amateurs produce hundreds of pictures that find their way into the market through the new generation of photo websites.

Teaching, training and tutoring

One area that the internet is still revolutionizing is education. The virtue of being able to find a teacher in any subject, anywhere in the world with the click of a few buttons is such an unexpected bonus of the internet. Of course, the reverse is true as well. If you have a skill and the desire to teach others, you can make money through the many online educational programs.

Be a virtual assistant

No matter how big – or small – a company is it needs help doing the day-to-day administrative tasks that keep businesses running. The online economy has created a demand for administrative assistants that work are neither full-time nor onsite. These virtual assistants perform the same jobs online that they would in person, but the company can avoid paying benefits, healthcare or providing the assistant a physical place to work. Since most tasks that admin assistants traditionally do don’t require them to be physically present, it has created another way to make money online.

Bottom Line

None of these jobs are difficult. Some require specialized skills, but those can be learned. What they all require, however, is the desire to prosper in a non-traditional workforce that has an uncertain safety net and a large degree of self-confidence that you can not only survive but thrive, in fields that most workers wouldn’t even recognize.

Author bio: John Stone is an SEO Consultant from Sydney, Australia. Through years of experience, he became a devout believer in the notion that form should always follow function and that developing the ability to think outside of the box is a prerequisite of being a successful entrepreneur. You can find him on Twitter.