Category: Run a Home Business

    Four SEO Tools and How to Use Them to Build Your Business

     
    Search engines matter. They send traffic to your website. Use them well and they send very targeted traffic to your website. Targeted traffic turns into customers and repeat visitors. This means it’s not only where you’re placed on the search engine rankings, but the keywords you use as well. You want to make sure you’re attracting targeted traffic to your site.

    The world of search engine optimization and keyword development can feel overwhelming. It seems there’s a lot of information to learn, know and use. However, when you drill down, it’s actually quite simple. You want to optimize your website for a few primary keywords. These keywords ideally will have an acceptable amount of demand and supply. They’ll also be keywords that your audience is likely to use to find your information.

    Then you optimize your pages for those keywords. You also choose some secondary keywords to support the primary ones. These may be keywords with less demand and less supply. However, they’re still keywords your audience is using to find your information.

    How do you use these keywords? Content, content, content. Content gives the search engine spiders something to index. It also provides material that others may link to. This is an important part of SEO.

    To help you manage and master your SEO efforts, there are literally thousands of various tools and gadgets. Some of these tools help you check the keyword density on your web page. They make sure your keywords are represented enough to help but not so much that your content reads poorly. There are also link checkers, keyword research tools, and so on. Here are four SEO tools you might find useful.

    #1 Keyword suggestion tools – This is where it all begins. Keyword suggestion tools help you learn and research your primary and secondary keywords. The most common of these tools is the Google AdWords tool. It’s free and quite useful. There are also keyword tools that you can pay for. They offer a bit more information than the Google tool.

    #2 Ranking checkers – Ranking checkers help you determine where you rank for various keywords and search engines. It’s a great tool for setting goals and tracking your progress. For example, you might set a goal to move up two pages in the rankings using article marketing. You can use a ranking checker to test and track your success. (You can also check to see how your competition is doing.)

    #3 Link checking tools – Link checking tools help you determine the effectiveness of your back links. You can learn who is linking to you and how popular their links are. Again, you can also check to see who is linking to your competition. There are some basic, free tools that provide basic information. Or you can hire a service to analyze your back links for you.

    #4 Keyword density tools – These tools can analyze a page or your URL for keyword density. There are a number of keyword density tools. Again some are free and some are paid tools. If you’re going to pay for this service, make sure it analyzes keyword phrases and not just one or two word keywords.

    New SEO tools are being developed every day. Take advantage of these resources to strategically position your business. The easier it is for your prospects to find you, the faster you’ll achieve your business goals.

    Categories: Run a Home Business Tags: Tags:

    Effective Strategies to Guarantee Targeted Website Traffic

    Website traffic is a sure way to boost your income. The more targeted your website traffic, the better your potential for profit. The good news is there are many ways to drive targeted traffic to your website. Here are just a few to help you get the ball rolling.

    * Article marketing – Article marketing is a tremendously successful way to drive targeted traffic to your website. When you write and publish quality content, you attract readers. These readers will click through and visit your website for more information. And when you write and publish quality content, other website owners will republish your content. This exposes you to more targeted traffic.

    * Blog and guest blog – Blogging and guest blogging is another great way to drive targeted traffic to your website. Again, when you publish quality content, people tend to click through to your website to find more great information. Include a website link in your blog posts. Include an author’s resource box in your guest blog posts.

    * Comment on blogs – Registering and commenting on blogs is also a great way to generate traffic to your website. Make sure you’re doing two things. Provide a link to your website when you register. Provide a thoughtful comment. Intelligent conversation will generate interest for you and your website.

    * Social networking – Social networking can send tons of traffic to your website. However, in order to ensure it is targeted traffic, make sure you’re publishing relevant information and links to your site.

    * Post answers – Websites like MerchantCircle and Yahoo!Answers provide you with an opportunity to provide valuable information. Answer questions related to your niche and link to your website.

    * Podcast – Publish podcasts on sites like iTunes and create a following. Make sure to include a link to your website or your URL in your podcast name and information.

    * Reviews – Visit review sites and publish reviews for products or services in your niche. Share your expertise and experience with others.

    *  Hub pages – Create mini sites that provide a wealth of information. Use these informative sites/pages to drive traffic to your primary site.

    * Local search and Google Places – If you have local customers, be sure to take advantage of local search directories and sites like Google Places.

    * Social bookmarking – Don’t forget to pay attention to social bookmarking sites like Digg and StumbleUpon. Use these sites to drive traffic to one or two key web pages.

    * PPC ads – Finally, while the other traffic tactics discussed are free, you can also pay for targeted traffic. PPC ads are great for driving targeted traffic to specific web pages. Use this tactic to drive traffic to a squeeze page, opt-in offer, or sales page.

    The more targeted your traffic, the easier it’ll be to convert visitors into customers. Use these targeted traffic tactics to build your business today.

    Categories: Website Tags: Tags:

    Make It Easy for Your Visitors to Complete Your Website Goals

     
    What are your website goals? Do you have any? Presumably you want to make money, but how? Does each page on your site have a goal? If so, does the goal of the page also support your ultimate website goal?

    Your website goals might include:

    * To sell a product
    * To sell a service
    * To motivate an opt-in
    * To inspire a visitor to click on an affiliate advertisement
    * To provide information and receive ad exposure and PPC income

    Any single website page may also have these same goals. They may also be designed to help you achieve other independent goals. For example, one web page may be designed to promote your opt-in offer. In addition to your call to action, there are other things you can do.

    Taking a look at your website goals and independent page goals, consider these three points.

    #1 Who are your visitors? What content and tools will you need to help or convince them to accomplish your goals? For example, you want them to sign up for your opt-in form. What content and tools are you using to motivate that action? Are you providing them with a sample of the offer? Do you make it easy to opt-in or do they have to jump through hoops?

    #2 How does your visitor travel on your site? When someone visits your landing page, where do they go next? Is it where you want them to go? Does it support your goal? Use your website goals to help you create content and determine the path your visitor takes. Each piece of content on your site should influence an action that ultimately leads to your goal. Again, imagine you want to motivate an opt-in.

    Each piece of content, form and promotion on your site should lead to that goal. Take a look at your flow of information and the path your visitors take when they’re at your site. Does their path support your goal? When adding or removing something on your site conflicts with your goals, don’t do it.

    #3 Include a call to action with each website page. Articles, videos, forms – everything needs to have a goal that supports your end goal. They need to have a call to action that supports your goal and purpose. Don’t expect your users to know what they’re supposed to do next. Tell them.

    Finally, make sure to respect your user’s time. Dragging them through an endless process to achieve your goal isn’t going to win you any friends. If you want them to sign up for your opt-in list, make it as easy as possible. If you want them to buy a product, make it as easy.

    Analyze each web page, new and old, and determine if it supports your goals or detracts from them. Help your visitors. Make it easy for them to achieve your website goals.

    Categories: Website Tags: Tags: ,

    State of Entrepreneurial Spirit!

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    WATCH THE VIDEO! INSPIRING!

    Today, I learned about this program (that I wished I had when I was young) called Startupskool at early entrepreneurs. It is a foundation whose mission is to create a revolution of social innovators.

    As mentioned on their website,

    We gave a handful of elementary classrooms each a $100 micro-loan as startup capital, and asked them to raise funds for charity. Rather than running typical fundraisers such as asking for pledges, these classes used the money to start their own small businesses such as building bird houses to sell at a local market, selling green smoothies on Fridays, and creating family friendly events. These students were using their own creativity and imagination to turn our initial $100 loan into thousands of dollars for charity. Building on the success of our original experiment, we partnered with amazing educators and entrepreneurs to launch a full curriculum behind our program. Through media-based lessons and an interactive platform we’ve been able to transform over 120 classrooms across Canada into social innovators. Their efforts have since generated over $80,000 in support of local and global charities.

    They now have a website where teachers can register and find out how to run their own program in their class to instill the entrepreneurial training into their children from kindergarten to High School (in Canada).  The internet program can be adapted (and it has been adapted) to other countries.  The children are given $100 for their team and they have to create $500 with a business and the team learns about marketing, costing, pricing and  product creation all through working together in a class.

    It is a story like this which makes you realize that anyone at any age can learn how to have the entrepreneurial spirit.  It just takes some training and knowledge about business and guidance from mentors to help you start.

    This idea that i can pass on my knowledge about business to another so they can create a business themselves is a desire for this website.  Inside The Business of At Home Business membership there is the information and step-by-step to start a business.

    Categories: Run a Home Business Tags: Tags: ,

    Testimonials, do you do them?

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    Testimonials for companies that you work with and you are happy with the customer service and the information that you learned, do you do them?

    Do you ask for testimonials from your customers when the work or service you did for them is complete?

    No.

    Then you are missing out on the best form of lead generation for your business.

    I did this testimonial for www.hangoutmarketingu.com as I was asked and I was very happy with what I learned about Hangouts On Air in the program.  When I am asked how I learned to do Hangouts On Air, you can bet I will be referring them on to Hangoutmarketing because I was pleased with everything I learned for doing the lessons.

    Is there a  better way to get free leads back to your business with happy customers telling everyone they know about your service?  No!

    In the  structural engineering business with my husband, we do absolutely no advertising other than a listing in the Yellow Pages.  Remember the Yellow Pages!  We get all our customers from referrals. Whether it is from customers who we did work for before and their neighbour wants some advice on a good engineer or it is a local contractor who wants to make his new customer happy with good service, we get ALL our leads from referrals.

    Customer referral marketing is one of the marketing strategies that is rarely talked about, especially online.

    Does your customer give you any feedback after they receive your service or product about how happy or what was missing that made them unhappy? Do you ask?

    Does your customer get a request from you for a testimonial if they were pleased with your service?   Do you follow-up and see if there is a quick way you can get them to submit something?  It could be a quick interview on video; it could be a survey to quickly fill in or a written testimonial.

    I always use Consumer Reports when I am buying an expensive item for the house like a T.V. or car.  Why wouldn’t people want to know what other people got out of your service or product before they purchase!

    Customer service is key to a successful business whether offline or online and this is what we talk about, as well as other topics, in the Business of At Home Business membership!  Check it out here.

     

    Categories: Run a Home Business Tags: Tags: , ,

    Sales Pages Proof

    Are These Kinds Of Proof On Your Sales Page?

    We all know what goes into selling a new product online – an awesome product, lots of traffic, an excellent sales page, and good conversion rates. Having the awesome product is probably the easiest part, while getting good conversion rates may be the hardest. So what will help you convert visitors into buyers?

    Proof

    People want to see proof that your product is and does what you promise it will be and do. They want to know other people have used it successfully without complications. They’d also like to see, touch, and try, if possible. If they’re convinced it will solve their problem(s), they’ll head right over to the buy button and purchase the product.

    Here, then, are some types of proof that will help prove your product is the one for them:

    Testimonials

    While the US government has now put some restrictions on what testimonials can say, and need to include a disclaimer noting atypical results, they are still an effective form of proof. Testimonials can be in writing with a photo, video, or audio. What types of testimonials do you like to see? I like the ones that say how the customer put the product to work for them and increased their income by xx dollars, lost xx amount of weight, or cleared up acne in xx days. These are customers who have used the product and found success so it’s likely, or at least possible, other buyers will get good results too.

    Case studies

    These are a form of a testimonial, but more involved. A case study shows where the person was at before the purchase, how he used the product, how long the results took, and what the results were. People like the specifics, so it might also include a negative or two.

    Video tour

    Not only tell them about your product, take them inside. A video look around with maybe a demonstration of how to use the product will show potential customers exactly what they will be getting. If your product is an ebook, show them the table of contents and a page here and there; similar to what Amazon does with their Look Inside! feature. Show off and talk about any bonuses as well.

    Flash your credentials

    Are you a published author, been an expert in the field for over 10 years, been quoted in the newspaper, been interviewed by other experts in the field? Without being a show-off, weave in this kind of proof as to why you’re capable of talking and teaching on this subject.

    Free trial period

    This is more like advanced proof and goes a long way in comforting a potential buyer’s fear. Sometimes you can get the tire-kickers to buy if you get them behind the wheel for a test drive. Offer a 14 or 30 day trial and encourage them to try it out. Offer assistance during the trial period and remind them at the end of the trial to buy.
    To convert readers to buyers, you definitely need to have some proof on your sales page.

    Consider using:

    • video
    • audio,
    • written testimonials,
    • case studies,
    • a free trial period,
    • show your credentials
    • or doing a video tour of your product.

    Remember to test to see which type of proof converts the best with your audience.

    Categories: Sales

    Why IFTTT is the Perfect App for Improving Your Productivity





    No matter what kind of business you run, IFTTT is an incredible app that can likely help you to get a lot more done a lot more efficiently. While it has been around for a little while now, it’s still only just starting to gain popularity, so there’s a good chance you won’t have already heard of it and won’t yet be taking advantage of what it has to offer.


    Read on and we’ll look at how IFTTT works and why it’s such a boon to your productivity and to your business as a whole.


    What is IFTTT?


    IFTTT stands for ‘If This, Then That’ and essentially allows you to set up interactions between your various different online accounts. What this means is that you can make it so that an event occurring on one account becomes a ‘trigger’ for something else happening on another.


    The most basic example of this would be to set up a relationship (called ‘recipes’) that fired when you uploaded a post to Facebook and then just tweeted that same post on Twitter. Right away, this recipe could help you to save time on your social media marketing by meaning you have to update only the one account rather than two.
    But the power of IFTTT goes much further than that because it also lets you work with Google Drive, Todoist, Gmail and much more, creating almost limitless possibilities…


    The App


    IFTTT began life as a web app but is today available for the phone too. This increases its potential list of uses exponentially by letting you link in the various features of your phone as well. For instance, you could text a certain number in order to tweet, or you could set up your phone to bring up your to-do list when you get home. You could even have it bring up your work e-mail as soon as you arrive at work!
    Really though, the power of IFTTT is limited only by your imagination. Examples of the sorts of things you can do with it include: having e-mails added to your to-do list, saving various materials automatically to DropBox, or automatically populating Google Calendar.
    If you’re looking for a way to automate a lot of the administrative tasks that you do on a day to day basis and you want a way to organize yourself and your information better – sign up for an account now!

    Categories: Apps, Productivity Tags: Tags:

    Why and How to Create an App for Your Business

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    If you are looking to get more out  of your smartphone as a business owner or entrepreneur, then you might start looking for apps that can do particular jobs for you on the Android Google Play Store or on the iTunes App Store.

    But what if you don’t find what you’re looking for?


    One solution is to build your own app. And as it happens, this decision can benefit you in more ways than one and might just be easier than you expect…


    Top Reasons to Build Your Own App


    The first reason you might want to build your own app is     to extend the functionality of your phone. If your business has specific requirements, then by adding a custom built piece of software to your smartphone or the smartphones of your staff, you’ll that way be able to work wherever you are. This will increase your speed and flexibility several fold and it can even prevent errors if it means that your team can update information ‘in the field’ rather than waiting to log it on their return. Bear in mind that apps on a mobile device will also work on tablets, which allows for ‘upright computing’.


    At the same time, this kind of functionality is something that will always impress potential clients and customers. It makes your business look more cutting edge and that’s something that you shouldn’t underestimate.


    Meanwhile, you can also consider building apps for your partners, clients and customers. If you run a takeaway restaurant this might mean letting your customers order food through their device, or if you provide a service then the app could help to improve the quality of that experience. Again, this can impress your customers no end but it also helps them to use your company more quickly and easily thus encouraging increased sales.


    How to Build an App


    So how do you go about building an app?


    Essentially there are two options which are to either outsource the process to a third party, or to do it yourself. Each has their strengths and weaknesses of course.
    If you are going to outsource app development then you should look for a company that specializes in this and that has experience. Ask to see previous samples of their work and do be willing to pay a little extra for quality (some cheap developers on sites like Elance will cut corners).


    If you build it yourself, continue adding a new department to your team, or see if there are easier methods you can use. For instance if you’re making an Android app then using ‘Basic4Android’ may well save you time.

    Categories: Apps Tags: Tags:

    What is the Best Smartphone for Business?

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    If you’re an avid businessman or woman and you need a new smartphone, or if you’re tasked with selecting a ‘company phone’ for your staff, then you might find yourself having something of an impossible task trying to choose which device will best suit your needs. These days there are hundreds of phone models on the market at any one time and all of them have impressive features that might make them seem like good candidates.


    Which phone then, if any, has the edge over the competition for a business setting?


    The Operating System


    While there are numerous different operating systems you can get for smartphones – including Linux – the only two you really need to consider are iOS and Android. There was a time when many people were interested in Blackberry phones for business but unfortunately there just isn’t the app support necessary on this platform and the hardware leaves a lot to be desired.
    iOS and Android run the most impressive range of business applications and they are found on the most top-end hardware. So which one has the edge? Well, if you are a design business using Macs and you don’t need any proprietary software then you could probably choose either – with iOS having slightly smoother function all round. For many businesses though, the greater amount of flexibility that Android offers means that it will have the edge. Android lets you drag and drop files over USB for instance and it lets you create your own applications more easily.


    The Specs


    In terms of specs, you don’t need quite the same workhorse that you do for your main PC. That said, you do want something that will be capable of some basic multitasking and that will be able to run the best apps.
    Here the most important consideration might be the RAM. 2GB is the highest for most phones (with only very few going up to 3GB) so this should cater to most of your needs.
    What’s most important though is the screen size. If you’re going to work well on a mobile device you need to make sure that you can see a lot of the screen so that you can fit lots on all at once. The iPhone 6 Plus is famous for its large screen, while the Galaxy Note 4 and Nexus have a smaller screen

    Categories: Smartphone Tags: Tags:

    Top Uses of a Smartphone for a Business User



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    If you are a business user and you have a smartphone, then there are lots of different things you can use your device for that will help you to get more work done, to improve your workflow and to generally enhance your productivity. Read on and we’ll look at some of the very best of them.


    Taking Notes


    Whether you’re on the move or you’re sitting at your computer, sometimes it’s useful to be able to take notes wherever you are. A great way to do this is with a smartphone, especially one with an app like Evernote that will keep your notes on the cloud for you to access online later. Alternatively, you can take voice notes, or even use the camera to capture things that are happening around you when you don’t have time to input information in any other way.


    Working on the Move


    Stuck on the train? Then you can actually get quite a lot of work done on your phone as long as you know how to find the right apps. An example of a great app for working on the move is Office365 for instance which is essentially the whole of Microsoft Office in a mobile format. If you run a website meanwhile, then the WordPress app is one of the most useful things you’ll be likely to find!


    Streaming Your PC


    Need to do something else on the move and can’t do it on your phone? Then consider using an app like ‘Splashtop Remote’. This lets you stream your desktop so that you can operate it remotely. The framerate is a little laggy but if you need to send yourself a file from the office or something then this is still incredibly helpful.


    Extending Your Screen


    Another interesting thing you can do with an Android or smartphone is to extend your screen so that you can do more at once. Either you can load up webpages and look at them next to your monitor for easier multitasking, or you can use apps that let you literally turn your phone into another computer display.


    Organization


    Perhaps the best way to utilize your smartphone in a business setting though is as a way to organize your information. Organizing contacts of course is very helpful but just as useful is having Google Calendar in your pocket so that you can get notifications wherever you are in the world!

    Categories: Smartphone Tags: Tags: