4 Traits of a Good ISP for Small Businesses
Whether you’re working from home or providing internet to your small business’s office, there’s more to consider when choosing an internet service provider (ISP) for business than for personal use. Even with an office of only 8 people, internet failure for one hour means an entire business day’s worth of productivity went out the window. While no internet service can be perfect all the time, some providers are more reliable than others. If you’re looking into a new internet service for your small business, be sure to keep an eye out for these criteria:
24/7 Customer Support
Technology is not always our friend, which is why you need the best friends you can find at your ISP. A quality tech support service will be available any time of day (if you work from a home office, you know 1am is not an unreasonable time to need service). The speed with which an issue is given attention and even the courteousness of the staff can make all the difference in the world when you are experiencing problems. Investigate whether your provider has local support that can visit your location if an issue cannot be resolved over the phone. Perhaps the best way to gauge the tech support is to ask friends who have used the service; if you don’t know anyone personally, check reviews on reputable consumer watch websites like consumer search.
IP Address Options
Your IP address, or the identifying number assigned to your computer as it connects to the internet, can take one of two forms: static or dynamic. Dynamic IP addresses draw from a pool of addresses that gets shared among other dynamic users. It usually changes each time the user logs in, and several users will often be assigned the same number at the same time. This is often the cheaper option of the two and is acceptable for less internet-dependent businesses. Static IP addresses stay constant and are recommended for VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) or for using your computer as a server. It’s more expensive than dynamic hosting and is allegedly less secure because it is easier to track an unchanging address — but it is indispensable when you have more rigorous internet needs. Make sure your ISP provides the IP Address options you need, and allow for changes if your needs change in the future.
High Bandwidth
Of course, no discussion about ISPs would be complete without touching on bandwidth. This number, measured in megabytes per second (MBPS), the big selling point ISPs use in their advertising, but you should be aware of the fine print. Bandwidth comes in two forms: upstream and downstream. Downstream bandwidth is the speed that users can download data from the internet – the bulk of most internet usage. Upstream bandwidth—the speed with which you can upload items—is typically a fraction of the downstream speed, but should be considered if your business requires large files to be uploaded on a frequent basis. Be cautious when comparing advertised bandwidths; usually, the number you see is the maximum speed under the most optimal conditions. The actual speed may be lower, so you should investigate the minimum guaranteed speed.
Included Security
A good ISP will include a security package for you. Security is important for any user, but it’s crucial for a business owner. Features should include firewall protection, which is software or hardware that protects your computers against outside attackers. Both hardware and software firewalls offer specific advantages, but the best protection includes both. Other security features an ISP may offer include virus protection and identity protection software, data backup, and network monitoring. Evaluate the security features offered by various ISPs to determine who offers the most; if you are sold on an ISP that offers less free protection than the competition, they may offer more if you tell them you are considering another company that offers more.
About the Author: Chris Turberville-Tully is a marketing strategist for NewNet, a UK-based internet, hosting and networking solutions company. NewNet services include data centres, dedicated servers, web hosting, business ISP and more. Follow NewNet: http://twitter.com/#!/NewNetISP
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5 Important Features and Services to Look for in a Web Host
Hosting a website to showcase the company is more important than ever. It has become less common for companies to use certain marketing techniques such as brochures and yellow page advertisements; instead there is a high reliance on websites.
The method to communicate a company’s message through the website is a fraction of the cost of other, more traditional, marketing methods. In these tough economic times business owners can’t afford to miss the opportunities the web offers. At the same time, choosing the right hosting company can be one of the biggest decisions in making the web work for your business.
So when choosing a Web host, you should focus on getting what you need at a price point you can afford. Shopping around to find a host and a solution that fulfills your needs for a website ensures that your new site will be an asset to the success of your business.
Chris Conley of C Solutions Inc, a software development company, and a 1&1 customer, found that 1&1 Internet offered him the features he needed to build up his growing business. “I used a professional design firm to build my website from a template many years ago. But by looking into 1&1 Internet, I realized that the affordable price for such great features and rock solid reliability could not be passed and I began to work closely with them [1&1 Internet],” said Conley.
Some important features and services to look for in a Web host include:
Technical Support
A Web host offering 24/7 customer support is putting an emphasis on supporting their customers. Customers can get answers when they encounter issues or if a simple question arises about their hosted solutions. Constant accessibility to a support team is especially important to businesses that rely on their Web host to provide dependable service.
Space
The amount of space required for a website will depend on the growth expectancy of the site and what its primary use will be. For example, a website that will incorporate music and videos will need more space than one that only includes text. If you are unsure about how much storage is needed, look for an option that provides flexibility to increase or decrease Web space as your company needs’ change.
Reliability
“If a prospective client receives a poor impression of your company due to weak or spotty services, it will reflect negatively on your business,” said Conley. He advises business owners to look for a dependable Web host that offers over 99% reliability, like 1&1 Internet. “With such a dependable company, you can rest assured your company’s website will be shown properly and reliably.”
Statistics
Website statistics are a great marketing tool. Business owners can use the data to learn how many visitors the website has, which pages are most popular, how the visitors are arriving to the website, and if the site is experiencing errors. These facts can be a guide to determine how to optimize each section or feature of the site. Owners can also work to resolve any issues that arise and try to prevent them from occurring again, thus keeping potential customers satisfied.
Price
Price is an important factor when discussing IT for your business. When choosing a Web host, be careful that you don’t judge providers by their pricing. The most expensive provider may not give you the most features at the best price. Conley chose 1&1 Internet because of the value he was getting for the very competitive price. All features he needed were accompanied with great reliability and support.
“As my hosting company, 1&1 has proven to be a great partner in getting my company’s message out to clients and prospects everywhere. I am now excited to say that I have clients all over the world with the help of my Web host,” said Conley. Businesses are encouraged to make a list of every feature that is needed for their website to include. Use it to compare similar Web products, and then pick the one that provides you with what you need without hurting the budget.
About the Author: This article was contributed by Kelly Meeneghan, Public Relations Assistant at 1&1 Internet Inc
Photo Credit: WWW?
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30 Minutes a Day Online Marketing Tips
Don’t think you have enough time in the day to effectively market your business? Think again! This is a guest post by Stacey Cavanagh of Tecmark: SEO Liverpool and Manchester, shows that with as little as 30 minutes a day you can be on your way to attracting more customers.
30 Minutes a Day Online Marketing Tips
For the small business operating in a particularly tricky financial period, the bulk of your marketing budget may come in the form of time.
While it’s true to say that online marketing, SEO, social media marketing etc is a worthwhile investment, we’re not just talking in terms of money.
Putting some time into online marketing can pay dividends for a small business and you can even make a difference in just half an hour a day by implementing some of the following:
It takes just a few minutes to make a contribution to Twitter and making this a part of your daily business routine is a steady way to build up a network of followers interested in your area of industry. Share a link to an interesting news story relating to your industry or details of a special offer on your own website. Just make it a post that offers the reader something (information or a great deal) and your followers will gradually build up. Start to search for people in a similar area and follow them. Begin networking within your niche to meet contacts.
Blog
The same sort of concept applies with blogging as with Twitter, except the posts are much longer! This needn’t be an everyday thing but posting to a blog a couple of times a week is a way to keep in touch with your customers and to convey more about your business and the market in which you operate to your potential clients. This is an excellent means of marketing. It takes a while for a blog to take off, so have patience. 20 minutes or so twice a week can really get this going for your business.
Blog commenting
Contribute to the conversations on blogs by bloggers in the same niche in which you operate. This, again, is a form of networking and it also keeps you abreast of everything else happening in your industry. You also get back links when commenting, which potentially has SEO benefits for your website. A few minutes a day to read and comment on blogs in a similar niche will make a big difference in the long term.
Forum Discussions
Find and sign up to forums on a related topic to your business. Actively take part and get to know your fellow posters. Yes, more virtual networking but once again, the importance of this cannot be overlooked. It contributes to building an online presence for your brand and can begin to establish you, the business owner, as something of an authority in the specific area in which you operate. This can eventually lead to people getting in touch with you about the products and services you supply, as well as encouraging more links from the sites of others back to yours (more SEO benefit)!
Checking your content
Make it a goal to read one page of your website through each day to check the content. You’re looking for grammatical and spelling errors, typos etc. But you should also be keeping an eye on how frequently your keyword is mentioned. By keyword, we mean the word relating to what the page is about. It’s surprising when reading back over content how infrequently your keyword might be mentioned. When you think about it, the only way in which Google can recognise the topic of your page is by the words on it. So ensuring you mention the keyword in the content is critical. However, this should not come at the detriment of the meaning of your content and if you struggle to write keyword rich content that reads naturally, you should consider investing in a professional copywriter through an online marketing company. But it’s certainly worth investing a few minutes a day to read through your own existing content.
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These are quick tips that will, over time, increase your web presence which will, in turn generate more traffic and thus more leads to your small business website.
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Photo Credit: mao_lini
How to Increase Customer Confidence with the Right Privacy Policy
The following article was submitted by Heather Wills from TRUSTe, who reminds us that customer confidence can lead to more sales…and gaining customer confidence starts with ensuring their privacy.
Privacy – It’s Your Best Policy
As a small business, you may dismiss the idea of having a privacy policy. However, with identity theft on the rise, affecting almost 10 million victims in 2008 (Javelin Strategy & Research: www.javelinstrategy.com), privacy has become highly relevant to both consumers and businesses.
A privacy policy is a legal document that discloses how a party retains, processes, discloses, and purges a customer’s data. Such examples could be the instance of a website providing information about the use of personal information – particularly personal information collected via the website – by the website owner. (Source: Wikipedia)
Gain Confidence to Gain Customers
According to a Yankee Research study, 55 percent of consumers surveyed said they had experienced online incidents, which caused them to consider a possible security issue when visiting a Website.
With more people online now than ever before, the number of cyber-criminals trying to exploit consumer information has also grown to record numbers. This makes third party trustmarks an essential tool for both consumers and businesses, irrespective of their size.
Ensure that your Privacy Policy addresses the following issues:
- The information that will be collected: email addresses, date of birth, etc
- What will be done with information collected?
- Whether a third party will use this information?
- Measures undertaken by the company in order to protect the information
- How the privacy policy is in compliance with the law
- Contact information
A privacy policy needs to be simple and friendly. It should disclose all points pertaining to the information collected from customers and how it is going to be used.
About TRUSTe
TRUSTe provides companies with simple, iconic, and easy-to-read privacy statements that reflect and protect the businesses they serve. You can opt for professional help from TRUSTe, which provides industry-leading complaint-handling services for small and medium businesses. These services can help you simplify privacy issues and protect your reputation. This also means that you will not have to approach a lawyer for a simple privacy policy.
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A Simple Three Step Method to Dominate Online
I’m happy to have David Gurevich back with another guest post today. David wrote the wildly popular article 9 Powerful SEO Tips for your Small Business Website, for us a couple months ago, and today is back to thoroughly expand on his thoughts regarding SEO and what it takes to dominate online.
Be sure to check out David’s free 44 page special report detailing his core rules for business, available for download at the end of this article. Enjoy!
The Gurevich MCA Model
MCA is a simple, three step method to come up with products and content that will help you dominate online. It is the most basic concept of business distilled into three words, so it doesn’t necessarily seem useful – until you try applying it.
It’s based on competencies. The theory of competencies is basically that firms and people aren’t competitive because of what they produce. Rather it’s their unique combination of skills, knowledge and capability that lead to outperforming the competition. Ask yourself, what are my competencies? Taking the time to answer that question will help you think on a strategic level, not a tactical one.
Instead of thinking, how can I make my widget cost less, you’ll start to think, am I using my skills to compete in the right arena?
The MCA approach encourages you to take a step back, see what the market already wants, then use your competencies to respond appropriately. It’s proactive. When you come up with an idea, you have to find a market for it, which is a pain. When, instead, you listen first to the market then create your idea, success is that much easier.
MCA: Market, Content, Advertising
Market: Before there can be any product, there needs to be a need.
What do people want?
For most of history, figuring out what people wanted was extremely hard and one of the biggest limitations to starting a business. Most small business owners had to rely either on their gut instinct, limited market research, or what info they could get from larger sources, like magazines.
The internet, however, makes figuring out potential markets so easy. Here’s how.
Imagine that your small business is dedicated to providing dog toys. You know how to get high quality dog toys, but you’re having real trouble figuring out what lines would be profitable, and how to develop an appropriate portfolio.
Head over to the Google keyword tool, and plug in “dog toys.” And voila, you discover an amazing variety of market opportunities: Christmas dog toys, indestructible dog toys, latex dog toys, and more.
With increased sophistication and research, you can soon develop a list of product ideas that there is an existing need for. When you pay for the most detailed keyword data, and it’s not that expensive, it’s almost like getting a report detailing exactly how many people are interested in just what. Market research becomes super easy.
Keyword tools also work for creating great content pages. They fundamentally tell you what people want, which is always useful.
Content: Talk to me about what I’m interested in – I’ll listen.
People want “indestructible dog toys.” Now you create content centered around that idea and phrase. Content doesn’t just mean a page dedicated to selling indestructible dog toys, however. It also means developing useful resources and material for readers. You’ve targeted a niche, now you want to dominate it by being the best there is on the web in that area.
If that sounds hard, well, yes, it isn’t easy. But you’ll find that niches are specific and small enough that being one of the best in that area is not particularly hard either.
The search engine optimization section of the free guide discusses more about this and why it’s so important, but building great content does three extremely important things.
First, it helps your reader learn more about the subject, about who you are, and what you think. This builds trust, a connection, and makes you stand out. Second, it builds presence in search engine results. This means more traffic, more customers, more money. And third, it is the only way to generate links to your website, which are essential for the long term health and growth of your site.
Advertising: How come I’ve never heard of you before?
You’ve successfully found out what people want, indestructible dog toys, and have created a product that meets their need. Not only that, you also wrote/obtained some great articles about what makes a dog toy safe and why it’s important to have indestructible dog toys. Success is imminent.
You open a deluxe bank account to hold all the moola you’re going to be getting.
Then you realize that no one cares. You’ve done everything you’re supposed to, but no one is coming to your website! And without appropriate advertising no one will.
Advertising your content means getting it to the people who care about it. Once you do that, and if the content is as high quality as it should be, you’ll generate links and traffic. The traffic will stop when you stop paying to get the word out, but the links stay. And that’s a huge win.
The fundamental goal of advertising online is to get people to link to your site. The links do not go away and will generate good search engine results, meaning free traffic.
Why the Internet Means Almost Infinite Markets
“The firm is constrained by the size of the market,” – Adam Smith
The great economist Adam Smith wrote this hundreds of years ago, and it’s still true today.
Look at small cities. In them, you tend to get fairly boring and basic products and services. But in larger cities, like New York, some pretty cool stuff happens. You can, for instance, find a store dedicated to ceramic dolls made in the Ukraine next to a Macy’s. What makes things so different?
It’s All About the Size of the Market
Let’s say 1 out of 1,000 people are interested in ceramic dolls, a number which I’m making up, and which I hope doesn’t offend any readers. With that rate of interest, in a city of 100,000 people you have about 100 ceramic fans. But in New York City with its 8,000,000+ people, you have 8,000 ceramic fans.
The more people there are, the cooler and more precise products can be. That is one of the main reasons people flock to big cities, despite high rent and congestion.
What would you get in a city that is more than a hundred times bigger than New York?
Pretty much anything. Take a product so bizarre that only 10,000 people a month in the entire world search for it online monthly. If you target it properly, it’s not too hard to dominate that market, and if you, say, just get 10% of that market, you have 1,000 new customers. (This type of analysis, despite its allure is highly flawed, but the general idea is true).
No matter what it is that you care about, no matter how strange your combination of skills and interests is, there’s a market for it. If that doesn’t inspire you, then it’s hard to imagine what will.
Get David’s Free Report Now: The King’s Rose: How to Compete Online & Win (.pdf – 44 pages – instant download)
About:
David Gurevich has gotten on the first page of Google for multiple brand name drugs. It’s easy if you follow the core rules of business online, which you can read for free in The King’s Rose: How to Compete Online & Win.
David also blogs at Health and Life, a Medical Blog. If you have any questions, he’d be glad to help – if he can – and you can email him here.
Photo Credit: visualpanic
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