Expanding Your Online Business By Building A Website

As business grows, it can be a good idea to support your eBay sales with a website.

The first step is building a web presence outside of eBay by creating your own website. Building a website is not a difficult task. These days you don’t necessarily need the know-how to do it all yourself – there are plenty of people who will do it for you.  Turnkey stores are an option, or you can have a designer create the basic design for a website and then purchase shopping cart software separately.

Either way, you need to think carefully about branding at this point. Branding is recognizable design features that are carried across your entire business from product to business cards, to your website and brochures.

A brand helps your customers associate your products with an over-riding concept and identify them as part of their lifestyle. For example, some brands are associated with natural and organic concepts while others are associated with fine quality or a particular lifestyle. When establishing your online business, take care to make sure the branding you have already established on eBay remains consistent across your new website.

There are thousands of stores on the web, so to be successful, you’ll need to do something to make people visit your site and stay there for longer. One of the most effective ways of doing this is by providing people with information about your products. For example, if you sell small kitchen appliances, why not add articles to your site on how to use each appliance, tasty recipes to make with each, how to fix problems, and so on? Not only are you giving your users a reason to come back to your site, you are also increasing your chances of being placed in the top search results for keyword searches relating to the items you sell. Search engines give higher priority to good quality, unique information, so this is an effective way of keeping rankings high and getting traffic from organic search results.

Another way of getting more traffic to your site is by carrying out link exchanges. Just remember to limit yourself to related sites, otherwise you may find that you end up with a lower rather than higher search engine ranking! Linking to sites not related to the content on your site can actually give you a lower search engine ranking, so stay away from sites that offer hundreds of links for a fixed price. The best idea is to link to other sites that relate to what you are selling. For instance, keeping with the appliance example above, a site such as this could exchange links with sites selling china, cutlery, linen or recipes.

Finally, you can drive traffic to your site through advertising. Your ebay listings are one way of advertising if you add your site URL to your About Me page. Google Adwords is another very effective way of getting traffic to your site. A targeted campaign can do wonders for your website.

Done well, a website should increase overall sales, increase traffic to your eBay listings, and increase your reputation as an expert in your area.

Dr. Ande
SEO Tips for Small Business

Building Your List with Give Away Ventures

With the awareness of the importance of list building, comes a recent Internet Marketing trend which was started just a couple of years ago for the mutual benefits of all Internet Marketers and mailing list owners.

This method is more recognized as a “starting a Give Away venture”.

In a real sense, a Give Away event is much like a big time version of ad swaps. In a nutshell, a group of mailing list owners partner together and pool in their individual gifts in one limited-time event.

Each participating partner contributes a gift to the event. The gift can be a free product, membership pass or a product he is already selling (if he is kind enough to offer into the event).

The participating partner prepares a Lead Capture Page where he gives the gift in exchange for the subscriber’s email address. In other words, in order for a visitor to download the digital gift, he must opt in and subscribe to your mailing list.

When the gifts are pooled together into one event (site), every partner will then endorse the Give Away event to their own mailing lists.

The result: lots of visitors to one event as a collective effort of several participating partners!

With so many visitors downloading gifts from one focused event, it is a true win-win situation. This is because the visitors get to download several free gifts for their own use and every partner gets to build their own mailing list!

You can easily get notified about a Give Away event in the making by communicating with other Internet Marketers often or participating in Internet Marketing discussion and Joint Venture boards.

Dr. Ande
SEO Tips for Small Business

Take Control Of Your Future And Start Your Own Business!

New businesses are the backbone of the American economy. They provide new innovations, new jobs, and fresh concepts to the business industry. And owning a business is the dream of many Americans as well. Being your own boss has been ranked as one of the key goals of many Americans. The attraction of the freedom of running your own business, with no limitations or glass ceilings is impossible to deny. This mutualism has created a huge growth of small businesses in the nation, and today, many more people think about owning their own businesses than ever before. But starting a business requires money. Without startup capital, very few people have the resources available to launch a successful business idea. A new business needs a dependable source of income until it can generate the profits it needs to cover its own costs and produce an income. A unsecured start up loan can alleviate a lot of stress.

If you’re thinking about starting your own business, you are probably in need of a start up loan. Unless you have a significant amount of money saved up, a unsecured start up loan is the first step in turning the blueprints of your new business idea into a reality. With a start up business loan, you can get the tools you need to make your first start the right start. You can build a strong customer base right from the beginning, a key factor in initiating and maintaining a successful business.

If you're starting a business, it's more than just a job. It's a personal dream and a quest for success. This idea may leave you feeling simultaneously liberated and inspired. But it also has an edge. Specifically, it's also your obligation to finance it beyond the "I've got an idea" stage. Starting a business requires so much more than an ingenious idea, and even more than planning, marketing strategies, and a well thought out future. How do you get start up business financing that will either advance your idea to the point where it can attract outside capital, or perhaps jump - start you into profitable operations?

There are several options that an individual may take into consideration. If you have nothing, you may find it's difficult. If you have personal assets, the hard part is putting them at risk, and doing so is the rite of passage to both success and failure.

Obtaining financing can sometimes be the most grueling part of starting a new business. The loan approval process for a business startup loan sometimes seems like a maze, with stringent credit requirements, complicated business plans, and paperwork full of terms that are like a foreign language to the layman prospective business owner simply trying to get a loan. Options can be rather slim and unfitting when it comes to financing for the new business owner; unrealistic collateral requirements and proof of projected business profitability can sometime seem more like a joke than a reality.

Collateral is often the biggest obstacle to the prospective business owner. Not only does a new business not yet have any commercial collateral to provide; but it is asking a lot for an entrepreneur to put his hard earned personal assets at risk in order to start a new business venture. Yet, without collateral, getting a business financing can sometimes seem impossible.

The good news is, though rare, some companies to have specialized programs for exactly this scenario. An unsecured business start up loan can get a new business owner the funding he needs to cover initial business costs, without having to provide collateral and place his or her assets at risk. With this type of financing plan, the lender utilizes something the borrower has worked hard for and should be able to take advantage of - his good or bad credit. With this approach, the lender can still lend an unsecured start up loan at great rates and with a variety of programs.

Applying for a unsecured small business start up loan is easy, all the business owner need to do is just go on line and submit their loan details. Then the lenders will refer back to you with the loan decision in a few days.

Dr. Ande
SEO Tips for Small Business

Tips for Small Business Costs

Many first-time business owners are completely overwhelmed or unprepared by the amount of small business costs associated with operating a business. Small business costs often lead to the failure of many businesses, especially during the first year, or they even prevent them from getting started in the first place. Through a wide array of government and private programs, however, many small business owners have helpful options to help them finance their mounting small business costs.

A business plan is a necessity for obtaining business startup loans and funding for your business. Without one, most banks and investors will not even consider providing you with business startup loans or other funding for your new business. But a business plan provides more than just the opportunity to receive funding. Properly done it is also a blueprint for you to map out your future success in a written plan that you can stick to.

A business plan for the sole purpose of receiving a small business startup loan must contain several components. The first few pages include the Executive Summary and the Table of Contents. After this is the company description. This is one of the most important sections of a business plan. Your company description will give potential investors a short history of your small business along with the future you are planning for it. It describes plans you might have to expand your business. For purposes of getting small business startup loans, this is one of the sections that loan providers and investors are most interested in.

In the company description, you will want to avoid mentioning that your business is a startup business. Startup businesses are considered very risky investments by most investors. As an alternative, outline details of what you have contributed to the industry that you are currently in or plan on entering. Without sounding arrogant, mention some details or things that you have changed or something you have done differently than others in your market that has proved to be successful. Also, discuss how your business has grown in recent months or years and don't be shy about your predicted growth. Your excitement and passion regarding your new business needs to be seen in the writing of your business plan to help increase your chances of getting a business startup loan.

One of the last parts of a well-written business plan, but certainly not the least important, is your marketing plan analysis. This is an explanation of your demographics using facts and figures and a study done about your new, potential customers and clients. This section also explains your advertising plans, especially your target market and how you intend to reach them. This section must show that you have done extensive research, appropriate with your market to ensure that your product or service has a large demand. In order to obtain small business startup loans, you will also need to include a sound financial plan, including pro-forma financial statements for your new business.

Small business costs can be a large concern for entrepreneurs and first-time business owners. Fortunately, small business owners have access to business startup loans as well as other forms of business startup funding to help them overcome their financial stress. A business plan is an ideal way to show investors that you are serious about your new venture and that you know how to make it a success. With a some extra financial help, most small businesses can pull through the tough times and remain a viable business.

Dr. Ande
SEO Tips for Small Business

Small Business Startup - The 90/10 Rule

Small business startups require a lot of work.  You might however, be surprised by what type of work should be taking up the majority of your time.   Computer consultants, when they contemplate small business startups, tend to focus on the technical aspects of the business.  The rational is that they want to offer a decent service and must have great technical skills before anyone will be willing to pay them.

In fact, the 90/10 Rule tells us that during small business startups, 90% of your time should be spent on direct marketing activities and only 10% on building technical skills. The types of small business startup activities to spend 90% of your time on include:

·         prospecting

·         lead generation

·         going out on sales calls

·         preparing proposals

During the small business startup phase you must be much attuned to the need for acquiring high quality clients. Every non client hour that does not have to go into administrative or organizational duties should be plowed into prospecting and networking.  This can ease up a bit once you start to get beyond the small business startup phase.  For now though, client generation is your priority.

The Bottom Line on Small Business Startup

For small business startups, following the 90/10 Rule is critical.  Spending 90% of your time on direct marketing and business development activity versus 10% on technical skills development is a trade-off that is well worth it.  There is no point gaining technical skills if you have no clients to practice them on.  Small business startup is a time that will make or break your business.  Put your training and certifications on hold for a while and get out meeting people and making as many contacts as possible.

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How to Choose a Name for Your Brand

In order to build a powerful brand, you must have a powerful name. But how do you choose the right name? Well in this article we're going to talk about choosing a name for your company or business name; your product or service line.

So what name have you decided upon for your company? You have given a great deal of attention to your company name and believe it speaks to who you are and what you do, right? Great! As far as branding goes, the name is an important part of your business acumen. But what name did you use? Did you decide to use your family name?

Again, great, but did you do your due diligence and research whether you have the right to use your family name for your brand?

That may sound like a strange thing to say, but remember some of the most successful businesses don’t use the owner’s names. For example McDonalds, may have been started by two brothers named McDonald, doesn’t mean they were the ones who turned it into the Golden Arches. In fact they sold their first and only hamburger stand to a man named Ray Crock, who put a patent on the “boy’s family name” and now owns it as a part of the brand. Oops. Great brand option for Ray not so much for the brothers McDonald.

Entertainer Thomas Dolby lost the right to use his family last name due to copyright infringement brought on by a lawsuit from the Dolby Digital Inc. the wonderful makers of the surround sound you hear in movie theatres and now on your own home stereo equipment.

So while it may seem logical to name your company after yourself, you might want to hire an attorney or work with a trademark research firm to do some checking. No need to spend all your time and money building your brand only to have it stripped away from you because someone else owns the patent and rights to your “name”.

The bottom line here when it comes to selecting a name is, that it’s better to spend money up front to keep from losing everything in the back end.

Okay now that you’ve chosen a proper name, you need to wrap a graphic image around that name to carve out a prime piece of real estate in your target customer's mind. That is exactly what a great logo can do. Be sure to read the 7 Elements of Powerful Logos.

This post provided with permission of TuxedoBranding.com

SEO Tips for Small Business Blog Admin

Great Part Time Small Business Startup Goals

There is a trend growing in today's workforce where a large number of people who want to try their skills at a small business startup company. With the flexibility and lucrative rewards available with your own small business startup, you can devote more time with your family, attend all of your kid's recitals and team sporting events without the need to ask your boss for the time off. Those people who begin a small business startup will also have more potential income than what they would have if they work at a normal job. Today, the internet and many other technological advances, entrepreneurs have many more options for starting their very own business with little cost.

Gift baskets are a superb idea for a small business startup. Being that you can build gift baskets at home and then have them delivered anywhere in the world, it is the perfect way to enjoy the luxuries and responsibilities of owning your own business while still owning the potential for a good deal of income. The internet along with websites such as eBay have helped to contribute to the popularity of this small business idea since people, your customers, can shop for gift baskets from the convenience and comfort of their own home. If you have creativity and you can turn these creative juices into product which is sent out in a timely manner, you the qualities to be successful with this kind of small business startup for many years.

Selling new and used items on eBay has become another one of the many popular business start up small information resources in recent past years. If you are a person who can sniff out something valuable at rummage sales, yard sales or in the attic, putting these items for sale on eBay can be a very profitable small business start up. Basically, you buy the items at various sales, clean them up, and turn an easy profit by selling it on eBay for a higher price. If you are good with crafts, you can make your own things to sell on eBay. If you know basic product marketing and how to attract customers, you are very much on your way to making a moderately to excellent good income by selling things on eBay from your home.

Other opportunities people have decided to start include a cleaning service that they manage on their own. Only a few cleaning supplies are required along with a little basic know-how, and a cleaning service can be a very nice profitable small business startup for self-starters and motivated individuals. With societies busy lifestyle nowadays, more professionals and even multi-income non-professionals are hiring services to clean their homes for them and you can quickly cash in on this trend with very little or no training. This is an excellent idea because you can schedule your clients on a weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly basis so you can have a regular, steady income. If your business continues to grow enough, you can hire employees who will do the services for you while you manage the company from home.

Working at home with your very own small business startup is fast becoming the new standard in today's electronic society. People are worn out from the busy lifestyles and long work weeks and have chosen to pursue different opportunities. If you have small business startup ideas with a strong desire and motivation, you can create a profitable business which could eventually take the place of your normal "day" job. Or maybe you simply want to keep it part time to supplement your regular income. However, depending on your levels of motivation, experience, and passion, it is possible to create a small business startup which could generate an unlimited amount of income for you and your family.

Good luck out there.