Last updated on April 13th, 2015 at 02:29 pm
If you follow the SEO world at all you may have read that recently several large companies in the USA have recently been banned by Google for buying mainly low quality inbound links in efforts to increase their organic search engine rankings. Having been involved in SEO for over 11 years, I was surprised that this made the news as it’s not a new tactic and I have been aware of it for probably at least 7 or 8 years now.
This led me to think that if large companies could be unwittingly using tactics that can get them banned from search engines, I wondered how many small businesses and SEO advisers also suffer from ignorance in this area an actively buy links from any site that will sell them in an attempt to increase their “PageRank” and search engine positions.
This leads me on to the subject of this blog post – how can a small businesses get good quality links that will actually help them increase their organic search engine rankings without paying for them?
Here are a few tips for generating high quality incoming links to your website and are all based on techniques that I have used successfully myself :- Continue reading
Last updated on April 13th, 2015 at 02:29 pm
Often you will see that people in marketing advise you to include testimonials on your website or other marketing materials. This blog posting is aimed at exploring why testimonials are such a powerful tool.
First of all though I need to ask you a question (hopefully this is one that you have already asked yourself as a small business owner). Who is the easiest person in the world to sell to?
The answer very simple – the easiest person to sell to is one you’ve sold to before (as long as they have had a good experience – of course if it’s not been a good experience then it’s probably the hardest thing to do). It’s someone who already trusts you, someone who’s already had a great experience with your business. And, usually it’s someone who is willing to give you a testimonial. But, you may have to ask for it – not everyone will give you an unsolicited testimonial (even in these days of social media and emails).
A good way to get testimonials is something that I read about recently. When a customer tells you something great about your product or service, ask this simple but vital question, “Can I quote you on that?” Then, if they haven’t given you the information in writing, write up their quote, email it to them for their approval, and there you go, you’ve got a great testimonial. Continue reading
Last updated on April 13th, 2015 at 02:30 pm
Although the Forest Software blog is normally a business related blog I am using this post to let you know about a charitable appeal.
If you visit our site often you may have seen our posting about whether Second Life is an opportunity for your business – this was written in 2007/8 and talks about how you can help your business by having a presence in this virtual world.
Today I was passed information about Project FUR Japan, a Second Life venture that is aiming to raise money to help the rescue and vet treatment of the animals that are lost, homeless and suffering after the recent earthquake and tsunami. The video below tugged on my heart strings and actually brought tears to my eyes.
As a pet owner I immediately wanted to do something to help raise awareness of this appeal, hence this blog posting. Continue reading
Last updated on April 13th, 2015 at 02:30 pm
If you have read other pages on our website you may read our page about the difference between marketing and advertising. Hopefully that article made sense to you. After all, one of the greatest benefits of marketing is the ability to measure your efforts, for a business owner, this is a valuable ability and one that I am hoping that you are making use of, unlike so many business people that I’ve spoken too.
You see, when you measure your marketing efforts… and then take the time to make the appropriate changes to your marketing strategy, you are going to see the results in the increased number of sales.
So how can you measure your marketing efforts? Well, good tracking and measuring is going to take a combination of Internet know-how using tools such as Google Analytics and good old fashioned marketing systems. But, between the two, you can easily track and measure: Continue reading
Last updated on April 13th, 2015 at 02:30 pm
As a small or medium business you may find that letting people work remotely (at home or at clients sites) can improve their productivity and morale – as our work/life balance for small businesses article mentions, Introducing a flexible working policy can in many cases benefit everyone, staff / business owners and clients.
The problem that many businesses have though is how to manage or control these workers – after all we have all heard about people working at home and spending hours playing Facebook games, downloading videos or even staying in bed or going out when they should be working.
So, listed below are 7 simple steps to manage remote workers :- Continue reading
Last updated on April 13th, 2015 at 02:31 pm
I consider myself a typical small business owner and as such recognise that I have to have a passing knowledge of lots of subjects (while knowing that there are experts I can turn to if there is something I’m not sure about or have no knowledge of).
Recently I was talking to a friend and they mentioned the HMRC Code of Practice 9: Civil Investigation of Fraud (COP9). This was a new idea to me as I thought that if you were investigated for fraud by the HMRC that this was a criminal matter and not a civil one. Because it was something that I’d not heard of, and being the kind of business owner that doesn’t appreciate having surprises sprung on me I decided to investigate it a little more.
It seems that where there are substantial tax irregularities and that HMRC suspect serious fraud may have taken place (where the under-declared tax + interest + penalties are likely to generate more than £75,000) that the HMRC can decide to investigate using a civil fraud procedure where they will not seek a prosecution for the tax fraud that is covered by the investigation. However if during the course of the investigation false statements are made or false documentation is submitted HMRC reserve the right to prosecute that conduct. If you are facing a “code of practice 9” investigation you should have been given a copy of this statement and you need to contact your accountant as soon as possible. Continue reading