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Top Cloud Apps That Really Make a Difference in Your Small Business

Google Drive

Google Drive is a cloud storage and sharing system. It can be used as the center of cloud-based office work. Users can work on their own documents, spreadsheets and presentations, as well as work collaboratively with others. Users need a recent version of the Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, or Safari Web browsers in order to use Drive. It has a web-based app and a downloaded version. Once installed, uploading and downloading files is insanely fast. Additional office and creative programs are already available specifically for use with Google Drive such as LucidChart, a diagramming program; WeVideo, a video-editing program; Docusign, an e-signature program; and HelloFax, to send Google Drive files as faxes and receive faxes as Google Drive documents.

QuickBase

QuickBase is a larger, more secure alternative to Google Docs. It helps collect, manage and share data. Quickbase can be customized for a specific business. It has a lot of pre-existing applications and also has a store of customer created applications. It has an easy to understand application builder. Users have to buy a month subscription and a 30 day free trial is available.

Microsoft Office 365

Microsoft Office 365 is designed for cloud-based storage and sharing. A subscription allows users to download Office 2013 (or Office 2011 for Mac) on up to 5 devices. An annual subscription costs $100. Microsoft also offers an $80 subscription to students for all four years. If you don’t want to install the full Office, you can run Office On Demand. Office On Demand temporarily installs a full copy of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, or Publisher on any Windows 7 or 8 machine. It lets you open or create documents and then deletes the app from the system after you close. Improvements have been made to the commenting capabilities in Word as well as to Word in general to make it much cleaner.

Handility

A powerful, yet easy to use cloud based phone system and access to local and global numbers.

The system allows you to free yourself from the limitations of traditional telephony and become seamless and globally connected.

There is no equipment to purchase, maintain or upgrade, and our unlimited inbound and outbound calling plans eliminate long distance charges and billing from third party phone companies.

You can chose to maintain a pay-as-you-go plan at incredible low rates, starting from 3 cents per minute.

Adobe Connect

Adobe Connect is a comprehensive web conferencing cloud application. It costs $55/a month (or $45/month if sign up for a year) and becomes available to 100 users. Adobe Connect allows users to video conference, share and annotate files, videos, and one another’s desktops, and rearrange the look and feel of the space to suit user’s needs. It accommodates all browsers and internet connections. Meeting Rooms can be cumbersome to set up, but once set up are always available.

Expensify

Expensify is a web-based application that helps users track and categorize expenses. It has a mobile application that can be used to take note of expenses. Pictures can be taken of receipts for upload, and users can forward email receipts to the Expensify account. Best, it’s free.

FormMobi

FormMobi is a web based application that helps simplify the process of creating forms. Users create an account on FormMobi and begin building forms. They can then be accessed by the field team if they have the Android or iOS device. Once the form is saved on the device once it can be accessed without a data connection, and finished forms can be synced with FormMobi. It costs $10 for a single user and up to $100 a month for ten users.

Starting Your Own Small Business – First Steps to a Successful Business

Starting your own small business can be a good start, especially if you do have a hobby and a passion that can be made into a profitable venture. Knowing some basics and some tips from those who are into a successful business, you can indeed put up and start your own small business and work on making it successful.

Whether you want to put up a cake decorating business, a hobby store, or a wedding organizing business, here are the first few steps that can help you in establishing a successful moneymaking venture.

– Decide what type of business you want to put up. If you have a hobby and you are good at it, you may want to consider putting up a business about it. Indeed, it is an advantage putting up a business on something that you love doing. Aside from having the interest, enthusiasm and motivation to do it, it is also an advantage that you are knowledgeable about it.

– Make your business plan. After you have decided on what type of business you want to engage in, start making your business plan. Your business plan will guide you on what you will need, what are your goals and how you can attain those goals. In starting your own small business, whatever business it may be, you will always need a business plan to plan out everything – from the investment that you will need, to making your strategy on how to make money out of your venture.

– Find a catchy business name. Finding a good name matters a lot in starting your own small business – and in any business of any size. Your business name alone can catch your client’s attention so take advantage of that. You may be thinking about very specific names for your business describing a single service, but you have to think about future expansion of your products and services as well.

– Prepare your start-up capital. Of course, money is one important requirement in putting up a business, how small may it be. If you already have saved an amount intended for your business, then that would be good, but if you need more sources of funds, you can avail of small business grants or loans though.

– Make your marketing plan. Determine who will you sell your products to and how you can reach out to them. These days, you don’t have to stick to the conventional ways of advertising or promoting your product. Take advantage of the internet. People find information and answers online so you can take advantage of that too. Moreover, advertising and promoting your business online is cheaper than the conventional way and of course, you can reach out to a wider audience online than off-line.

In starting your own small business, plan your business growth as well. In a competitive world, you also have to make sure there is growth in your business. Improve skills as well as your products and services. This way you will beat competition and really excel in your moneymaking venture.

How to Advertise Your Business Online Cost Effectively: Advertising Ideas for Your Small Business

Learning how to advertise your business online without losing your shirt can be mind-boggling with all the internet hype you see online these days.

Quite obviously, if you’re a small business owner, you can’t afford to dish out thousands of dollars to purchase your own website, and Google pay-per-click will gobble up your money in no time!

Pay-per-click is especially dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing.

Everyone who has been successful with paid advertising has admitted that you just have to be willing to “waste” a lot of money in the beginning until you figure out how to track your success and tweak your ad…

… The idea behind pay-per-click is that you need a strong capture page to attract attention… but that’s not enough!

Once you attract attention, the visitor clicks your link (and you pay) – but then you need a strong sales page to finish the deal – or you’re out some big bucks!

So what do I suggest for how to advertise your business online without paying thousands of dollars on pay-per-click?

Blogging is the new way of how to advertise for free, since the average buyer is looking more to be entertained than to be sold. And there’s no better entertainment and your own personal story-telling or video!

Naturally, for the purpose of making the blog about how to advertise your business online, you’ll want to include links that go to good capture pages and sales funnels.

Even if you learn how to advertise for free using a blogging system, you’ll need to setup a capture page, sales funnel and shopping cart. But your reader is drawn to your product initially by being attracted to your blog.

How to advertise your business online using a blog… (learn what attracts people to your blog)

The fastest action comes from social media, and the long-staying action comes from ranking your blog on Google. Contrary to popular belief, some of the top sites you’ll see on Google are blog sites…

… but it depends on what you’re searching for.

For example, my own personal blog is currently ranking top of Google for “Easy Money Making Blog”.

What makes your blog rank highest?

1. An authority domain

What is that? Anyone can buy a domain (that’s the name of your blog.. most people just use their own name dot com. However, as businesses come and go, so do domains. The ones that Google will pay particular attention to are the ones that have been in operation longest – so domain age is a big factor.

2. Social “likes” & comments

The easiest way to explain this is that you need to build popularity on your blog for it to rank. Social commenting and tweeting will help a lot, so it’s best to syndicate your blog through Facebook, Twitter and other social sites each time you create a post. This will start the ball rolling.

3. Backlinks

When you have a good site, other sites linking to it (“track-back”) will help the popularity of your site. The more popular the site linking to your site, the more popular your site will become.

But when you’re learning how to advertise your business online using a blog, you need to begin with keyword research…

Google’s keyword external tool is actually not as easy to use as it used to be, so I prefer to use keyword research software. This will tell you not only how many people are searching for a particular phrase, but how much completion there is for you to get ranked.

For example, the keyword phrase in this post, “how to advertise your business online” gets over 200 searches monthly, and the keyword phase “free advertising ideas” gets over 1000 searches monthly.

If you’re trying to rank on Google for free, it’s mandatory that you frame your blog post around a keyword phrase that gets very little competition…

Then, simply put that phrase into the “tag” section on your blog. The “long tail” phrase (several words) is notoriously easier to rank.

For how to market a product, the more specific your phrase, the easier it is to rank.

And, your blog visitor will also be more likely to be very interested in your offer. For example, if I’m looking to but a hairspray that works well for curling fine hair, I would be much more interested in reading a post about “hairspray for curling fine hair” or even “best hairspray for fine hair” as opposed to “best hairspray”.

If you’re looking for how to advertise for free, blogging isn’t completely free, as you do have to pay a monthly fee for hosting.

However, if you use the system often enough by blogging daily, you’ll find that blogging is the most cost effective way of how to advertise your business online available today.

Choose the Best Web Hosting Service For Your Small Business

Are you thinking of taking your business to the next level by creating a website? If you are looking for a good and affordable hosting company to maintain your small business website, then here we have brought together a few tips to help before you start out!

In recent times a business; whether small or big without an online platform is very rare to find as the customers always look for their needs on the internet. Potential customers always search for the best products and their providers on the internet. Hence, if your small business doesn’t show up, then that won’t be a good sign for them. So websites always play a vital role.

Web hosting companies provide a server to store your website and maintain them. They always help the customers to view the website and get access to all the pages easily. Choosing the best web hosting company is the important part. Especially for small businesses, a website helps them to attract and engage with customers.

There are three types of hostings; shared, dedicated and cloud. Shared hosting shares the server with more than one website. These types offer less disk space and bandwidth. The dedicated hosting type provides a single server for the website which offers more disk space and bandwidth when compared to a shared type.

The third type is cloud hosting which is a combination of shared and dedicated hosting. They provide a network of servers for a single website rather than a single server. It usually gives the website the same disk space and bandwidth as the dedicated hosting. For a small business or recently started website it is advisable to opt for a shared hosting type. They are cheaper compared to the other two types and saves you from overpayments.

Cloud hosting is also a good option as they use the internet and there won’t be any need for additional software. They are affordable as the charging is based on the usage of the site. This type is more reliable than other networks, less expensive, more productive and more beneficial.

Selecting the best hosting company and type, according to your business and its growth is the main factor. Small businesses initially don’t expect to have a customer traffic. So it is good to think of a company offering affordable hosting methods. Choosing the wrong web hosting company can lead to losing potential customers, profit loss, security malware, etc. So customer support is another factor while deciding on the company you choose.

If your website offers the best e-commerce tools with a well-designed interface, then it can impress the customers and make them stick to your website for their needs. There are free and paid services as well. Paid companies always offer the best services, while free ones often impose ads for their monetary gains.

The Benefits Of A Custom Web Design For Small Business

It is imperative that every small business in this day and age has a website. It is not only a web address for your business, if cleverly designed and properly managed, it is your 24/7 marketing department and sales department put together under one umbrella. Lets not go jumping straight into it however, lets go over a few points about small business web design and the benefits of choosing a custom website over a template based website design.

Custom website design is one of the favorite options for website designing. The reason why custom web site design is so popular these days with small businesses is; well there are several actually. One significant reason is that custom web site design allows you to choose not only the aesthetics aspects of the template but also the functionality of the website. Template of the website lets you determine the layout, color schemes and other visual aspects, whereas the functionality of the site deals with the user interface that determines how easy or difficult it is going to be for letting the customers to reach call to action. A website that is part of a larger corporate identity will require everything to be in sync with the greater picture and one which appears distinctly to be a part of the larger scheme of things.

There are several open source content management software that makes website building a breeze, however they are not 100% unique and the same template and layout is used by hundreds and depending upon the popularity of the theme, thousands of other websites. Web design companies that specialize which specialize in custom website design rather than template based web design allow you the choice and the freedom to design your own website and reduce the risk of your website looking much the same as someone else. This type of small business website design company will allow you to input designing suggestions which will be incorporate into the design. Usually, there are several amendments that are allowed until the perfect design is achieved.

Another benefit of a custom website for small business owners is the ability to select a flow of the website which is unique to your business needs. Ready made CMS based websites often does not allow the luxury to create a flow that is ideally suitable for your business needs. You will need design services such as that only a custom web designer can do to create that flow for you.

A custom website design for your small business enables you to set your standards separate from the competition and allows you to stand apart from the clutter. An industry where the websites are all designed in a clichéd manner would love a fresh perspective to content presentation. Small businesses now put a lot of effort on SEO tactics and a custom website allows the opportunity to tweak the SEO tactics which a ready made CMS system does not allow or need considerable effort to have.

Be sure to take a look around before you decide on a web design company and make sure that the web design company that you do choose provides high quality, custom web design and is able to meet all of the needs and requirements of your small business.

7 Vital Aspects of Developing Website Content for a Charismatic Small Business Website

Content is the indispensable ingredient of any site. It is the content that makes the website look attractive and appealing to the prospective buyers. The revenue generated by any website depends directly on the effectiveness of the content. Any small business if aiming at optimizing efficiency of the website needs to resort to website content development. A successful website results in featuring top in the search engine lists, converts visitors into buyers and assures constant revenue generation.

Which are the 7 vital aspects of website content development that can optimize website efficiency?

Unique Selling Proposition (USP): The USP should be clear at conveying the message and targeting the specific market segment. The content should be such that the visitor comes to know quickly, what the website is about.

Customized Content: The copy-paste command does not work for the making of effective small business website content. The content will not be impressive and he visitor will sooner or later come to know about it being copied and this could be detrimental for the website.

Physical Identity: A visitor on visiting the website should feel that there is person responsible to fulfill the commitments made by the website and its products / services. It is usually better to mention the physical address of the business identity to reinforce the trust and convince about customer service and after sales service. Sometimes the visitor, on not finding any physical identity to count on, can put off the sale in the last stage.

Keyword length: It is better to have a small number of visitors who buy the products/services than have a large number of visitors who do not buy anything. The purpose of lengthy keywords is targeting specific types of visitors who are clear about what they want. Keyword phrases with 3-4 keywords are usually known as long tail keywords. These long tail keywords have a targeted audience and this helps the website to list higher (on website engines) for those set of keywords.

Multipurpose Multimedia: The visuals are more effective than text. It is better to have the videos and podcast recordings embedded in the website. If you do not want to add weight to the website and want its downloading speed to be affected the least, it is better to store those multimedia files on a site that allows the content to be easily shared and accessed.

E-mail: An auto responder in the website can help to remind the visitor about his/her visiting the website. This is one of the best ways to keep in touch with the visitor. This help to keep the communication lines open and increase the business generated through the website.

Feedback connected to search engines: Latest technical advancements are such that the feedback provided by the visitors can be considered by the search engines as part of the content and consider it for listing on the search engine list. This is how the visitors and satisfied buyers can be made to make the small business website develop a effective content.

This is the way to an effective website content development.

Small Business Internet Marketing and SEO

In today’s competitive environment, Internet marketing and SEO for small business is one of the fastest growing marketing/advertising techniques, used to meet the goals of your online business. Fine-tuning your small business site helps your site rank high in search engine results. Thus promoting your business website through Internet marketing improves the effectiveness of your website and makes your site more visible.

Internet marketing has two parts – social marketing and search marketing. SEO is an integral part of search marketing as it makes your business site more visible on search engines. A high search engine ranking enables your small business reach the ultimate goal by accessing new customers and markets.

Professional Internet marketing and search engine optimization companies offer result oriented website optimization and Internet marketing solutions to small businesses of all types. To do ethical search engine optimization service, Internet marketing companies make use of the best Internet marketing and SEO tools including keyword research tool, keyword ranking tool, website page rank checker, website evaluation tool, back links builder and dead links checker. With a strategic Internet marketing plan, Internet marketers design and develop a website that is search engine friendly.

The small business Internet marketing and SEO services aim at making your businesses more competitive on the web by optimizing your website for most popular and relevant keyphrases/keywords that target your business, be it new or established. The services involve various procedures such as website evaluation, keyword discovery and research, keyword density, website content development and management, website optimization, sitemap creation, creation of themed link pages/directory, development of Meta tag, Alt tag, title tag, keyword tag and description tag, choosing effective web page title, anchor text linking, link analysis, HTML modifications, image and hyperlink optimization, submission to search engines and directories, code streamlining and social bookmarking – all aimed at increasing the business for a website. While optimizing your business sites, it is ideal to use quality links from topic specific sites, authority sites and content related pages.

High search engine ranking draws many new and existing visitors and converts them into leads and sales. The main aim of small business Internet marketing and SEO service is to achieve marketing goals such as:

o Maximize your web presence

o Expand your small business

o Revitalize your brand

o Long term positioning

When you need Internet marketing and search engine optimization solution, run a search on the Internet to choose a high quality provider that suits your budget and time.

Common Small Business Web Design Mistakes to Avoid

As a small business owner, you probably already know that your website is a very important tool for marketing your brand and reaching your target audience. Ensuring your website design is attractive and functional to your audience is also necessary for success. Unfortunately, there are quite a few small business web design mistakes that are all too common. Sometimes this occurs when small business owners hire a cheap designer and believe they’re getting a value, although sometimes it’s mistakes the website operator makes by excluding certain important information.

To make sure you maximise the potential of your business website, keep these pitfalls in mind and avoid them.

Mistake 1: Not Building Trust

Building trust with your audience is arguably the most important thing any small business web design should do. There are actually some really easy and quick ways to build trust, as well as improve your conversion rate. Start my making sure your full address, company name and phone number is included on every page, preferably the footer. If you have an e-commerce storefront, make sure you are displaying badges like your SSL certificates and sitelock. After all, most people are not going to want to place an order if they doubt the professionalism and security of your website.

If you are a very small business or a freelancer, it also helps to add a picture of yourself to your “About Us” page along with a personal quote. Be prepared to be very transparent about your services and offer as much detail as possible, including any return policy or guarantees you provide. You should also have a privacy policy on your website, which tells your visitors what you will and will not do with their personal information that’s collected.

Finally, consider adding the rel=”publisher” link to your homepage, which points to your business’s Google+ page. This way, the image used on your Google+ profile will be displayed alongside your website on Google search results.

Mistake 2: Website is Too Flashy

It’s not uncommon for business owners to get a little carried away with the content and design of their website, requesting flashy graphics and bold colours that detract, not add value. To effectively market your brand and improve visibility, you want a clean and minimalist interface that impresses customers but makes it easy for them to find what they are looking for.

Content should be straight-forward and relevant, not a long rambling monologue or an excuse to stuff in keywords unnaturally. Users should come away with a good experience and feel like they found exactly what they were looking for.

Mistake 3: No Call to Action Buttons

Call to action buttons are important because they funnel your visitors further into your site. By keeping website users on your website for a longer amount of time, you’ll lower your bounce rate and increase the chance of a conversion. It also improves user experience by directing users exactly where they want to go, assuming it isn’t overdone. If you sell insurance, for example, you would have a call to action button encouraging users to request a quote. If you sell products online, you would have a call to action button for users to “Buy Now” or “Add to Cart.”

Mistake 4: Not Using the Rel=”Nofollow” Tag on Outbound Links

Finally, a really common small business web design mistake is not using the rel=”nofollow” tag on outbound links away from the website. While it may not seem like a big issue, it actually allows you to control the “link juice” of your website, which gets leeched out to all of your “dofollow” outbound links. Only links going to your internal pages should be “dofollow,” which means they pass along this link juice.

It’s also important to avoid linking to a lot of low authority or low quality websites, especially if you do not have a great deal of inbound links to your website.

Unfortunately, these mistakes are all too common, but very easy to fix, for the most part. As they say, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, so the best option is avoiding these mistakes in the first place by working with an experienced individual who can create a custom web design for your business.

How to Choose a Web Design Company for Your Small Business?

Choosing the right web design company is crucial for your small business. You need to do enough research before you choose a web design company, because a well structured website that has a good design and layout attracts, engages and retains visitors; whereas a poorly designed website can drive away your prospective customers. Therefore, you need to be sensible while choosing a web designing company for your business.

In this article, we discuss some of the things you need to consider before you hire a web design company for your small business website.

Technical and marketing skills:

A good company will have skilled professionals in web design and development, SEO and content. These are very important apply while designing your website. While these are the minimum set of criteria, creativity is an important thing to consider when choosing a company. Check for the company’s portfolio (list of websites designed already).

Designing SEO friendly websites:

Creating an attractive website and being online is not enough. It needs to be such that search engines find your website and rank it. For this, the website should have solid content and good images, limited use of Java, easy and simple navigation buttons, etc. These features are essential to create optimal user experience. Unless the company has some knowledge on SEO and how it works, it cannot design SEO friendly websites.

Designing according to your specifications:

Every small business has its own needs and specifications. Unless the company is professional enough to consider your specifications, you cannot get what you expect. The web design company should be able to tailor the service for you. Also, note their way of communication – how promptly, effectively and appropriately they are communicating.

Budget constraints:

Budget is always a constraint for small businesses to expand their marketing. So, while choosing a web designing company, make sure that they are offering services within your budgets. Some companies offer special packages to small businesses, you may get better services at lower prices from them.

Repute and experience:

There are thousands of service providers. Identifying a good one is often a tricky task. Research online thoroughly. It is important to consider repute and experience of the company.

Trust between the designer and business is important. Mutual trust is important as one party collaborates with the other.

Delivering results on time:

Getting your website completed on time is very important. For this, the service provider needs to provide service optimally. On-time delivery of results is indicative of professionalism on the part of the service provider.

Hope these things help you choose a good web designer company. You can also recruit an in-house designer, provided you have some knowledge on web designing to guide him in a right way.

Web Design For Small Business

Small business firms can capture global markets effectively with the aid of well designed websites. With a number of web design firms now offering affordable web design services, achieving targets is much easier for small business firms. With millions of users worldwide using the internet to search for products and services, having a website designed to market your products and services can help your business run better.

Most firms that provide webpage designs for small business firms are offering their services in a highly customized manner, suiting the needs of individual clients. After a careful analysis of the market, they can design websites to match the business goals of clients. For business firms that are new to the field of online marketing and online business promotion services, these web design firms provide consultation services to highlight the benefits of online business.

To provide highly effective websites, most web design firms use the latest web development software and tools. Cutting edge web technologies such as Flash, Ajax and java are being used by these firms for enabling highly interactive web pages and ecommerce services.

To help small business firms further, web designers also provide related web services such as search engine optimization (SEO). These optimization processes are essential to have higher rankings in the search results of major search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN. Higher search engine rankings ensure more natural traffic coming to these websites, thereby bringing in more business.

For small business firms, other value added services are also being provided by most web design companies. These include logo designs, website redesigns and web marketing services such as paid advertising, Pay per Click (PPC) services and article marketing, all of which can boost the user traffic coming to websites. Thus with these effective web design services, small business firms can have higher business growth within minimum time.