6 Useful Tips For Small Business Websites
Whether you are an entrepreneur, manufacturer, and trader or even if you provide services, everyone comes across the need for a website, especially these days when the major mode of communication is the internet.
Having an attractive and user friendly website definitely helps a lot in giving you the boost you need in your business. Some of us ignore this fact, and rely on traditional methods of marketing and interaction with customers.
It is very important to have a website that not only attracts a lot of traffic to your page, but also keeps that traffic glued to your page. However, having a good website to attract traffic is only effective when the user finds what he is looking for.
Many of us ignore some basic tips and tricks while designing small business websites. Those who are aware of these tricks and incorporate them via small business web design services, get an extra edge and easily sweep the market in terms of customers and profit.
Keywords and keyword density
The first and most important tip for designing a website is choosing the right keywords for your page. If that is done, half of your job is done as the keyword will automatically attract traffic. However, keyword density plays a vital role as well. Keyword density determines the number of times you use keywords on different pages and will help you a lot in attracting a large amount of traffic to your page.
Relevance
The second tip is that once you have the appropriate keywords, your website should be relevant to what the user is looking for and it should cater to the needs of the users. Once a user visits your website, he should get satisfied in finding what he is looking for. Talk about what you can do for the customers and how your services can be beneficial for them. Moreover, the information that you provide should be correct, up-to-date and in accordance with the latest trends. For instance, if your article is on fashion, it should cover what is “in” right now or a latest fashion show instead of delving on past trends or shows.
Be available for your Customers
The third tip for having an effective and successful website is that once the user finds what he is looking for, he should face no difficulty in contacting you for placing his order or asking some query. Everything should be explained step by step and all the information should be readily available without any hassle.
Easily accessible Contact Information
Next you should place your contact information e.g. your email address, mobile number or business address at easy to find spots. Sometimes the user gets offended when he is unable to locate your contact information.
Go for Simplicity
Use simple and basic graphics for your website that are user friendly. Don’t overdue it, many of the users only have the basic know-how about using the internet, so you should keep that in mind while designing your website.
Update the Website regularly!
The sixth tip for your small business website is the need to keep your website up to date and keep it fresh. If a user visits your website and finds it not up to date, he will get discouraged and leave the page. This will ultimately undermine your good will.
Keeping the above tips in mind while designing your website will no doubt give you long term benefits. Make your website according to the latest trends and include all the new services e.g. flash development and 2d and 3d animations as well. There are many small business web design services which will aid you in getting the desired results.
About the Author: Brendan Egan own Simple SEO Group that works to provide small online businesses e-marketing and web design services. Brendan can be contacted at www.SimpleSEOGroup.com
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Checklist for Working Virtually From Home
Many businesses are seeking virtual workers in order to keep costs down whilst still maintaining a high level of customer service. If you are interested in working from home and operating your business ‘virtually’, you might want to follow this checklist:
1. Get the right equipment
There are many home workers who don’t have the right equipment available to them. You really need to be able to connect with clients, co-workers and business contacts so you have to have a reliable computer. This computer should have the basic essentials installed, such as the latest word processing software so that you can effectively send and receive documents in different formats with no trouble. Make a list of what tasks you will need a computer for to help determine what software you are likely to need. Make sure you have a scanner, printer and even a fax machine.
2. The internet
The internet is probably your number one priority. You should have a top speed internet connection available and if this ever goes down, you should create a plan of action to deal with this situation. A business continuity plan in case of Internet failure is crucial to allowing you to maintain business as usual, so make sure you have one!
3. Skype
Skype is great for those who work virtually from home as it enables you to hold business calls and conferences for no cost. The instant message feature of Skype means that you can stay in touch with contacts quicker and easier than sending e-mails back and forth.
4. DropBox
This allows you to share files with colleagues and clients as well as between your laptop, desktop, iPad, etc. Useful if you have lots of files to share with multiple users.
5. A virtual address
Working from home doesn’t always represent the most professional image to clients. Using a virtual address offers the prestigious and professional image that using your home address can lack for a significantly lower price than the cost of renting office space in a prestigious area.
6. Time
When working virtually you must have the time to commit. It can feel difficult to make yourself motivated when you work from home because you are at home. Some people say that they have to set the alarm in the morning, get up and walk out the front door of their home, and go in the back door as if they were “going into work.” This may seem silly but it can help to get you in the right mindset. You must have the time to dedicate to your virtual office and if you have children, you should arrange your time around the children and make sure you get the right work and home life balance. This means you can truly get on with your work and earn the money you need to keep your virtual office going successfully.
With all this in mind, you can have the perfect running virtual office which keeps both you and your clients happy.
About the Author: The article is written by Melanie, an author writing for a UK call centre with over ten years experience in working virtually, virtual assistant services and virtual office solutions.
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Why an Actionable Budgeting is a Must?
A pre-requisite to implementing a financial plan is adhering to a planned budget. The starting point in preparing a budget is identifying your expenses, aggregating your income from all sources and arriving at the income surplus. The key to achieving your financial goals lies in your ability to meet your expected monthly investments. A disciplined approach to budgeting and sticking to it will help you meet your short term and long term financial goals. Let us look at several expenses during the course of the year and how to plan for them.
While budgeting, it is important to remember certain expenses that are not recurring expenses every month. These periodic expenses include vacations, gifts and festival expenses (Thanksgiving and Christmas). Though we know the time of occurrence and the quantum of expense, these do not get the attention they should. There is also a tendency to underestimate these expenses. Therefore it is important to start saving and investing early on for all such expenses. In this article, we will list down some of these expenses and how to plan for them. Even if all these cases do not apply to all of you, it will help you realize the importance of spending wisely and saving to achieve your financial goals.
| Month | Likely Expense |
| January | Annual Portfolio performance review and rebalancing |
| February/March | Planning for taxes and additional outflows to meet tax obligations before tax filing deadline in April |
| November/December | Gifts and festival season expenses during Thanksgiving and Christmas |
| Others | Birthday expenses, wedding gifts, anniversary celebrations and vacations |
Budgeting and planning for vacations
It is prudent to save for a vacation, once you decide on the destination and the budget. Relying only on credit cards will leave you with significant repayment obligations and interest on revolving balances on credit cards can be usurious. A good way to save for a vacation would be to transfer a regular sum to your savings account so that you can accumulate a corpus. What you should avoid is breaking any of your existing investments that are earmarked towards meeting your financial goals.
Gifts and festival expenses
During the year end, there is a tendency to shop impulsively as this season coincides with heavy discounted sale season and the festive occasion. It is imperative to make a list beforehand to eliminate unnecessary items from the shopping list. And once the budget is frozen, there should be prioritization of items to ensure that you stick to the budget. Items low on priority should be removed from the list to ensure that you do not overshoot your budget. Online shopping can again get you some good deals.
Tax related expenses are non-discretionary and need to be met. It would be prudent to utilize any performance related bonus to invest in IRAs or any other such avenues to reduce your tax obligations.
Portfolio rebalancing
If your existing portfolio has not been reviewed half yearly, or annually, it would be prudent to do it and make appropriate adjustments to your portfolio. As a thumb rule, you should increase your investments every year at least in proportion to your increase in earnings.
In summary
Here are some ideas that you can use:
Plan for all major heads, draw up the budget for the same and mark them out on a calendar.
Set aside money in savings accounts every month. Depending on the time horizon, you will need to calculate these contributions, assuming equal contributions each month.
You should use any lump sum amount that you receive in the form of IRS tax refunds or performance bonus to retire your debts or save towards one of these goals.
Evaluate discretionary and non-discretionary items in your wish list.
Most importantly, keep reviewing your budget throughout the year and ensure that you are on track.
About the Author: Christopher is a full time finance writer and blogger who is a champ in this field. He also runs couple of finance blogs like www.elitemoney.co.uk which provide valuable advice for intellectual readers. Christopher’s leisure interests lies in playing golf and underwater swimming.
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How to Avoid a Wholesale Supplier Scam
If you’re an e-commerce merchant planning to re-sell tangible products, law requires you to have a supplier’s agreement. This is an agreement that states the terms and conditions between you and your wholesale supplier. However, if you’re a start-up e-commerce merchant or you’re thinking about selling products online, you need to be aware of the wholesale supplier scam.
What Is a Wholesale Supplier Scam?
Just like any other type of scam, a wholesale supplier scam comes in different shapes and sizes. The most important thing you need to know is that the scammer created their website to trick you into thinking they’re going to offer you a great deal on wholesale products. Here are the top three most common wholesale supplier scams.
1. Replica Scam
Not all replica merchandise suppliers are trying to rip you off. However, there are several wholesale suppliers who claim they’re selling you an authentic product—Louis Vuitton handbags, Nike sneakers, Rolex watches—when it’s actually a replica. If you want to sell replica items, that’s fine, but make certain you’re advertising your goods as replicas to avoid any legal problems.
2. Pay First Scam
You call your wholesale supplier and ask for a shipment of Dell laptops, but they claim they’re out of stock. Before they can re-order their stock of Dell laptops for you, they ask you to pay first. If you run into a situation like this, you should definitely err on the side of caution. While you feel like you can trust the company, this may be a wholesale supplier scam trying to swindle you out of your money without delivering the goods.
3. Drop Ship Scam
It’s rare to find a wholesale supplier who will drop ship your products for you, but it’s not impossible. You find a supplier, receive a product sample of what you’ll be selling, and its quality is great. However, here’s where the scam kicks into play. When your supplier starts shipping items to your customers, the products they receive are of poor quality. As a merchant, you get stuck with a chargeback as well as having to pay your wholesale supplier for shipping your products.
Warning Signs of a Wholesale Supplier Scam
Spotting the warning signs of a wholesale supplier scam is easy, but takes a little investigative work. However, it’s worth the time and effort if you want to save your business money in the end. Warning signs include:
- No contact details on the website
- Fictitious contact details, such as a fake physical address, telephone number, or names
- They have stolen website content (text and images) from other wholesale supplier sites
- When you call the company, the person who answers the phone doesn’t state their name or their company name—proper etiquette practiced by all legitimate businesses
- The wholesale supplier doesn’t ask you for your business ID or tax ID number
- Your account manager stops all correspondence with you, and you can’t get in touch with anyone else at the company
- They deny your request for a product sample, or begin acting suspicious when you ask for one
How to Avoid a Wholesale Supplier Scam
Avoiding a scam is just as easy as spotting one. Here are some tips to help you prevent a wholesale supplier scam.
- Make sure your list of wholesale suppliers comes from a dependable source
- Look for a full business name on the company’s website
- Look for contact information, including a landline telephone number
- Use resources such as the Better Business Bureau and WebRank Stats Whois to help validate the company as trustworthy
- Check out other forums to see what other e-commerce merchants are saying about the supplier
- Copy and paste some text from the wholesale supplier’s website into a search engine to see if it matches content on another site
Share Your Horror Stories
As an e-commerce merchant, what types of wholesale supplier scams have you seen? What companies should your fellow merchants avoid? What additional tips do you have for merchants to help them avoid a wholesale supplier scam?
About the Author: Meghan Faye Wolff is the senior copywriter and marketing specialist for Instabill Corporation. Instabill provides international and offshore payment processing solutions to e-commerce and MOTO merchants worldwide. Meghan writes about social media marketing, tips for start-up businesses, and e-commerce and payments industry news on the Instabill blog.
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Three Things You Need To Know About Keywords
Search engine optimization tends to build a foundation in the web market and it is necessary to understand of how to establish in the right market. Moreover the perfect foundation can be achieved by the use of effective keywords. In the current trend, many small business clients do not comprehend the proper use of keywords and this gradually leads to campaign in the wrong kind of market. Hence you can’t sell designer shoes to a lower class people as that particular product doesn’t suit their interest and their budget.
Objective of using keywords
Typically it is vital to ensemble the right marketing campaign to target a particular group of customers. In order to get into the right market it is crucial to make a detailed research into the market heads and the customer’s mind. Before you chose the right keywords make sure that you utilize the keywords which most of the people are in frequent search and also the competition for that particular keyword are not too tight.
Keyword research
Subsequently there are different keyword terms and locations which gradually affect the SEO campaign. The keyword Research is implemented with the help of “SEOmooz keyword difficultly tool” with a way to show the different percentage in columns. This difficulty percentage tool involves a range of tools such as 0-25 is considered to be non competitive, 26-60 is termed as competitive and so on.
Broader keyword does not create more sales
Apart from this, use of broader keywords does not enhance your sales unless your content is packed with full information like Wikipedia. Perhaps it is evident to focus on specific keywords in order to vitalize more traffic to your website and enhance your followers in the web.
Three essentials to know about keywords
At present trend there are loads of ways to make money on the internet but often many people forget to reside with the right foundation. Ironically the bloggers tend to forget about certain SEO techniques and it is needed to optimize the essential keywords with a way to outshine in the market. Now let us gaze the three things you need to know about keywords in the following:
1. Know your market
The major criteria of any internet based business is to investigate the market which you are going to focus and also use of reputed keywords to gain more popularity for your products. The technique acquired to analyze the market is termed as “geographical tagging” and this aspect will gear up your efforts to a specific area.
2. Enclose good content around those keywords
Consequently make sure that you implicate right keywords with proper links to be provided to the users. Hence it is necessary to provide an excellent content as to satisfy the visitors. Sometimes your website may lack followers due to inefficient usage of relevant content to the required website. The bloggers or SEO experts should make a complete research of a good content.
3. Use the right links
In case if you are using internal links or any links which adds an bounce to your website then ensure to use certain links to append an punch to SEO services. Always remember to use few respectable sites which will result in enhancement of the site rather getting penalized.
Therefore there are different types of keywords to select from the menu and you can facilitate right keywords for your suitability of your business. Thus Keywords play an important part as it is the cornerstone of SEO or internet marketing. Further your keywords should drive to greater amount of target searches.
About the Author: Diana Maria is a blogger and a writer. She loves writing on technology and luxury. Beside this she is fond of gadgets. Recently an article on Sony Vaio Z series attracted her attention. These days she is busy in writing an article on new BMW 3 Series.
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Start a Small Business in a Recession
Many entrepreneurs dream of starting their our small businesses. For many the question is not what type of business to start, but when to start up a business and cut the ties to your 9-5 job. The dilemna facing every small business start up since October 2008 is: ”Do I have enough money to start a small business during a recession?”. Here is information on starting a business in tough economic times and having success in the process.
As the ecomonic crisis of 2008 clearly demonstrated, having enough capital to see your business through is critical. During times of economic contraction banks, other lending institutions, and even venture captialists and angel investors become much more discerning regarding the quality of the business propositions they will fund. According to the Wall Street Journal even proven business models such as franchises are currently having trouble getting sufficient money to expand. International Franchise Association data shows that franchises owned by small business entrepreneurs need over $11 billion in capital this year while banks are only making available $9.5 billion. That’s a gap of over 18 percent which will go unfulfilled.
One factor cited by CNN Money in hampering small businesses is the reluctance to step up debt and borrowing while confidence on the economy is still low – both on the part of business owners and the markets they serve. In fact the United States Federal Reserve is reporting that small business loan demand has been weak of late. The assumption is that uncertainty surrounding the presidential election and what will transpire with the economy post-election is paralyzing small businesses in regard to raising new capital. A recently conducted survey of small and independent business owners by the Nation Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) shows only 7% of small business owners think that right now is good time to expand their business. This data is collected monthly by the NFIB Research Foundation. Click here to view the entire PDF of the most recent NFIB survey data.
One business owner who started his small business in the teeth of the economic downturn is Neil Heuer. Mr. Heuer along with business partner Eddie Martin founded the Naples custom cabinet manufacturing and design firm Grand Woodworking in the summer of 2011. While not the depth of the economic crisis, the timing raised a few eyebrows among competitors in the South Florida real estate and remodeling sector. Mr. Heuer gives the following tips regarding capital requirements at startup, ”I would recommend creating a business plan including finanacials for the first year of the business. Make realistic estimates of what the expenses are going to be in order to keep the business functioning at a high level. This number should be the minimum capital reserve that you consider at startup. That way, if your business takes off and you earn high revenues you’ll be covered. Conversely if the sales are not rolling in, you’ll be covered for the first year or so. That will give you the breathing room to adjust your strategy or pricing models if necessary to agressively grow the business and stay competitive.”
Many entrepreneurs choose to start with a popular resource for those businesses needing capital – the United States Small Business Administration (SBA). The SBA has information on its website to help business owners navigate the process of applying for loans and grants. You can get started on the process by visiting the SBA.gov Small Business Loan web page here. The site includes information on small business loans, grants, venture capital and bonds. Best of luck in starting up your new business venture.
About the Author: Derek Vaughan is an Internet industry veteran and expert. Prior to entering full time consulting work, Mr. Vaughan was responsible for online marketing at The Walt Disney Company where he marketed ecommerce for the ESPN.com and NASCAR.com brands. Mr. Vaughan received his M.B.A. from Vanderbilt University and currently serves on the HostingCon Advisory Board.
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Harnessing a Clever Use of Space to Successfully Sell Online
Hard economic times make their own unique success stories – and nowhere is this truer than online retail. With traditional shop leases becoming financially untenable in the current retail climate, the Internet is strengthening its position as the most cost effective channel. But although business is booming, the flip side of this success means it is an overcrowded space for start-ups and small businesses looking to make the transition to online. Ironically, physical space is an issue when it comes to the virtual world – you might not need a traditional shop anymore, but you will need conventional space to store your merchandise (which can considerably raise your overheads and give you the hassle of turning around stock). Or do you? Many companies have found their way around the traditional merchandise cycle, which we’ll explore:
The Invisible Widget
One solution to the merchandise storage issue is not to handle the stock at all. Drop shipping allows a retailer to select a product, sell it, and hand over the delivery to the drop shipping company. This means that there are no storage or handling costs, all you need to focus on is marketing and the user experience within your online store. However, there are several things to think about. Firstly, cost. Some drop shippers will charge a membership fee and the initial cost of the product will effect your mark-up so do research to get the best deal. Stock availability and fulfilment are also other considerations. It’s no use having a great product at a low price, if it never turns up when the customer orders it. Always choose a drop shipping company that’s as close to wholesale as possible. This will keep the costs lower and improve customer service (as they are responsible for their product and not just a middle man). Do your research carefully – it’s a good idea to contact other customers of the drop shipper to ask them questions before you commit.
Another solution is to do away with physical product altogether. With the rise in online gaming and smart phone apps, virtual products are coming into their own. If you don’t own a software development company, you might not think this is an option for you – but even small businesses can find ways to get into the virtual product game. For example, a real estate company that publishes a range of selling and buying guides can sell the consolidated ebook online. The key is to do your research – is there a real desire for your virtual product and what is the competition like? If you discover a buoyant enough niche and can provide quality content or a service (like an online tool or calculator) you might not need to have any ‘physical’ product at all.
Smarter Storage
Of course, most online retailers will still need to work with traditional stock, but even here there are smarter ways to use inventory storage space. Many small online retailers start as eBay or Amazon sellers who evolve into bigger operations over time. Whereas stock might be kept at home and sent on from there when the business is smaller, this is no longer viable as the business grows. The jump to paying for storage can be quite a jolt for many. Traditional warehouses expect long leases and overheads such as business rates, VAT, utility costs and initial deposits, which can be a considerable outlay. There are some savvier solutions.
The first is to partner with another small company to keep storage costs down. Traditional warehouse space tends to be large converted barns or other re-used buildings and might provide more space than you actually need. By sharing costs with another company you can carve up the space to your requirements and share on things like trolleys and packing equipment. There are security issues though if several different parties have access, and make sure to negotiate terms of service in the contract.
If you want your own storage space, and a warehouse is too big or expensive, self storage might be the answer. The greatest draw is flexibility. A small company can hire a storage room for the exact amount of time they need. But the flexibility doesn’t stop there. Take, for example, a small company selling gift wrapping paper. They can hire two self storage rooms (one for Christmas and one for Birthday wrapping paper) and shut down the Christmas room as soon as the product sells. If there’s a good offer on a new product, the company can quickly open a bigger room and scale down to a smaller sized one as stock is turned around (the good news is that self storage rooms can also be used as distribution hubs, allowing you to break up and send off your product all in the same space). Once all the stock is sold, the rooms can be shut down completely until a new order comes in (this is especially good if your stock is seasonal).
About the Author: Drew Davies writes for Big Yellow Self Storage. Find out more about business storage and how it can help your business.
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5 Time Saving Systems Must Haves for the Small Business Owner
If you’re looking to grow you can’t do it all on your own. You just can’t. Your foundation must be laid so that you can be freed up to do your thing. You know, your thing? The thing that makes you money.
As much as we may look like Wonder Woman, or so as not to be sexist, Superman, and feel like them too, we cannot be a one person band and expect that the everything will just fall into place. It’ll fall alright, down, into bed, if you make it that far, from exhaustion.
A smart and successful small biz owner has back up, and I’d love to share my back up tricks honed from trial and error throughout the years that have saved me countless hours of unproductive work.
One of the best tips I’ve gotten to be constantly reminding ourselves of what is a time waster and what is a productive money making action for our day is from the wonderful business coach Jane Pollak, that goes like this: when creating your day to day tasks, use a green marker and mark which daily tasks are your business growth, money making tasks, and which are not. I usually make my list and then mark the moneymaking tasks with a green dot. If nothing else this will be a wake up call. Are you wasting way too much time on your proposals? There’s a system for that! Are you crunching all your numbers yourself for an hour a day? No need for that! Invoicing taking too long? There are a number of great programs for that.
Here’s my top 5 time saving and either free or really inexpensive systems, as I am a tightwad when it comes to these things… all designed to free you up so you can spend your day tackling the big stuff:
1) A really intuitive invoicing system
I use Freshbooks. Not only does it invoice really easily, but it sends them either by snail mail or email, does all kinds of cool numbers crunching, runs reports, allows you to send estimates that can convert to an invoice, and so much more. Bookkeeping — which I personally can’t stand to do so this forces me to do it in a fun and quick way — made easy, and quick. A nominal cost well worth the expense. Allows for customization as well
2) A proposal/Contract system
Which used to take me half a day to do — try Quotegine. It allows you to create, save, customize and re-use templates in a library, sends it out with a click of a button and allows for an e signature on your clients end so that they don’t even have to print out, excepting for themselves or mail, attach, or fax back. Just pressing a button lands it back in your hands within a fraction of the time it would take otherwise, allowing you to get going on your next project. Free up until a certain amount of clients, and again, allows you to white label it.
3) A CRM system
therwise known as a Contact Relationship Management System. Other wise known as a database. If you’re not already on Outlook, look no further than cloud based Highrise, run by the same cool, uber smart folks who created Freshbooks. If you are using your email contacts list as your database I might have to come over there and smack you. Highrise has all the bells and whistles you could ask for to allow you to keep on top of all of your prospects, clients and important business affiliates and contacts in an organized manner, create and schedule tasks and have them appear in your inbox when they come due, as a reminder to ‘get on that!’ It can also be synced with Freshbooks so that your whole client profile, jobs as well as the payments and invoicing are under one heading.
4) Housecleaning!
I know that this involves money, but again, if you are trying to be all things to all people including a family of 4 back home, something is going to cave if you’re working hard all day and then expected to come home and clean the house as well. Even if you bring someone in just once per month to do the heavy cleaning, or pay your kids to do it. A scary thought I know. The money you spend here will make itself up to you in ROI if you’re taking the time where you would have been under the bed cleaning dust bunnies to instead contact 3 more warm leads to invite them to lunch. Time much better spent. I’d give you the name of mine as a referral but am afraid she’d be spread too thin and not have time for me. Selfish, I know, but some things are more precious than others. I do know that the team at The Maids are great though. Ask for Melissa.
5) Social Media tools
I have a confession. Social media is not my biggest strength. Other than LinkedIn, I do it because I have to, not because I want to, and I make no bones about it to my clients, as they need to do it as well. What has made it tolerable for me has been a little tool called Onlywire, which allows me to share what you’re reading right here with a load of social media and bookmarking sites instead of spending oodles of time uploading things separately when I could be interacting with folks online and off. Great for the SEO.
Hope these help you be more efficient and use your time more effectively. Now run to that networking meeting!
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An Effective Catch Phrase Can Make All The Difference
It may seem odd, but a catch phrase may be the exact thing your business needs to really pull ahead of the competition. Just a simple list of words, usually between five to ten words, can make all the difference. However, a catch phrase needs to be good in order to have any benefits. If you can’t think of a catch phrase, then it is usually better to go without one. This is because a bad one can really limit people’s trust in your business.
Diversity
Think about the thousands of businesses that populate each niche. While their products, staff and services are diverse from one another, no one is going to look into all of these factors one by one. This is because people just don’t have the time to investigate thousands of different companies before finding the best one. So, they pick the best one based on qualities such as trust and likability.What is one of the best ways to stand above the crowd? By having a good catch phrase. A good phrase is not only marketable, but it enables you to stand above all the other businesses in your niche. You only have a few seconds to gain the trust of a consumer or client, and a catch phrase gives you those few seconds to capture their attention.
Memorable
Standing above a crowd of businesses is great, but you also need to stay in the consumer’s mind. Even quick-trigger consumers will rarely shop somewhere without doing a little research or hearing about how good the business is from a friend. A good catch phrase is able to keep your business fresh in your audience’s mind.If someone can’t remember your business, then it is going to be hard for him or her to buy your products. Make yourself memorable with a good catch phrase, and you should see an increase in traffic.
Tone
Your catch phrase can also set the tone of your business. If you use a funny catch phrase, then people will expect your business to be loose and easy to engage. If the catch phrase is professional, then people will expect your business to thrive on business customers.The tone of the catch phrase should match your business, as people expect the two to match. If they don’t, then you may end up attracting customers that really won’t buy from you. While it is possible to make a catch phrase that matches all tones at once, these are rarely successful. These phrases try too hard to make everyone happy, and it doesn’t properly section off your business to the right audience.
Bite-Sized Information
Aside from standing above businesses, a catch phrase allows people to peer in your business for a second. A catch phrase will tell people exactly what your business is about, or at least what you do. For example, if your catch phrase is, “I love SEO. Ask me why,” then people will expect your business to be about SEO. While this is a rather straightforward approach, your real catch phrase should say something about your business.If you say something that isn’t true or relevant to your business, then customers will feel betrayed when they see that your business has nothing to do with the catch phrase. This obviously leads to poor sales and low customer retention.
But, if the catch phrase really does include something about your business, then it can give people a very brief insight into your business. While you shouldn’t just be blunt about what you do—some word crafting works best—make sure to slip in a few details about your business.
Conclusion
Having a good catch phrase can make all the difference with a business. It can help people remember who you are and what you do, and it also sets the tone for your business. Your catch phrase can also be used to garner trust in your business, which leads to sales. Having the perfect catch phrase can lead to a huge boost in sales, while a bad one can sink your business. When choosing a catch phrase, make sure it is good or hand it off to a professional. The DIY approach sometimes works, but there are horror stories that are best avoided by using someone who knows this field.About the Author: Stacy Dewald is a blogger for the official Moby Tickets Site.
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How To Know If You Should Advertise Somewhere Or Not
Locally advertising your business, such as through billboards and newspapers, is a great way to bring people to your business. However, advertising in the wrong areas only wastes money, and it may even risk your reputation if your advertising space is very bad for your business. Go through this checklist to make sure you are advertising in the right area.
Demographic Information
Most businesses sell products or services to a certain demographic. If you are an office supply store, for example, then your main demographic will be small business owners. However, this type of store can also be popular with regular homeowners, teachers and anyone else that needs office supplies. With this wide a demographic, it can be easy to advertise in most places.
However, some businesses have very specific demographics. For example, if you run a gym that specifically trains people in the onset of becoming seniors in the 65 to 70 range, then you should research the area very thoroughly. If you advertise in an area with few seniors, then you won’t make a dent in the market at all.
Research the area and make sure your main demographic is available. If it isn’t, then you probably shouldn’t advertise there.
Traffic
This is especially important for billboards, but it is important for any advertising method. You need to make sure that there is traffic that will see your advertising. Otherwise, no one will see your business information.
For example, if you take out a billboard, make sure it is near a busy road or one that gets a good amount of drivers. If you make an ad in the newspaper, make sure there are enough readers to justify the advertising cost. You want to make sure that people see your ad in order to get people into your business.
This is often very easy to find out. If you are make a location-based ad, like a billboard, then look at the road where the billboard is located. If you are make a print-based ad, then make sure it is attached to a magazine or newspaper with enough readers, or that your flyers are posted in good areas.
Competition
How much competition is there in the nearby area? There will most likely be a few businesses like your own in the local area, and there is nothing wrong with some healthy competition. But, competition can be a little too fierce if the area is full of the same businesses.
For example, if you are advertising a consulting firm, check to see how many similar firms are in the same area. If there are hundreds of firms actively advertising in the area, then you may want to avoid the location. There is probably a huge need for your business, but if there are already established businesses serving all the customers, then you may have a hard time making money.
However, you can counter this by doing something different. If you specialize in something with consulting, or if you can offer a better deal than anyone else in town, then you might be able to steal away some of the market. Make sure you have something that no one else can do, and you may be able to beat the competition.
Assess Risks
Before advertising in an area, you should consider the risks to your business. For example, if you are a software company, you should consider the chance that your software may become obsolete before your advertising is put up. If this happens, then you will waste money on the advertising.
Not only that, but you should assess any other risk factors associated with your business. While there is always the chance that unexpected risks will occur, you should do your best to ensure that your advertising works in the intended area.
Conclusion
Finding the best area for your advertising can be difficult. There are many factors to research, and you can end up wasting a lot of money without getting any revenue in return. However, if you look up these different factors, then you should be able to find the best area for your advertising. Never blindly advertise in an area because you like it, as this often leads to wasted money. Check these factors, and you should succeed.
About the Author: Tom Demers is an avid Tech blogger; writing about topics including windows domain controller.
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