Last updated on April 13th, 2015 at 01:42 pm
Ask any business owner about business planning and I would suggest that almost all of them will think of a document (a business plan that includes sales targets, costs, turnover, projected growth etc) that was requested when they approached someone for a loan or grant or they were told they needed when they started their business. It’s something that probably every accountant will tell you that you have to have so that you know if the business is doing as well as planned.
However, there is another form of business planning that you night not have thought of (and may not even be applicable if you don’t carry stock – but please bear with me as although it may not be immediately apparent it may trigger some thoughts about how this article applies to your business).
My partner runs a craft shop in Llanrwst our local town (called The Crafty Kitten but that’s immaterial to the article Continue reading
Last updated on April 13th, 2015 at 01:43 pm
I thought it was time that I told you about some of the bad SEO advice that is out there. This was prompted by two things that have happened recently, the first was an SEO seminar that I went to where the speaker said that every site needed an xml site map and that this file was a way to tell Google and the other search engines that you don’t want them to visit a page.
There are two things wrong with this statement – the first is that the only sites that really need a site map are those where the navigation is difficult for the engines to get around the site (or a section of the site). If you take a site that has maybe 10 pages and every page has navigation (either visible or at the very least in the code on the page) then there is absolutely no need for an xml site map.
The second problem with the statement is that an xml sitemap (whether it’s called sitemap.xml or anything else) is only a way to list pages on the site. There is no way to say in the file that you don’t want a page read – this is done in one of two ways normally Continue reading
Last updated on April 13th, 2015 at 01:43 pm
As a small business owner you have probably been told many times about how to use social media effectively and the advice that you are given about Twitter includes the number of times to tweet, what to tweet about, why shorter tweets are better and the importance real followers as opposed to just gathering numbers.
I want to add to this “wealth of knowledge” by telling you a true story that happened to me within the past couple of days, see if you can work out what the advice is before the end of the story 🙂
My partner and I have a friend who is disabled and also has a sick daughter, they are in the process of moving house and had been told that their scheduled completion (and therefore their moving date) was next Monday, the 19th May. However, I saw them on Tuesday this week, less than a week before they were due to move with the daughter in tears and the mum very upset. Continue reading