October 22nd, 2009 by Bruce

From just about any point of view, online business is clearly a cut-throat enterprise. You’ve got to invest time into your SEO every single day, pushing your know-how to the limits while using every tool you can get your hands on to make your website a cut above the competition. More and more websites are striving to improve their search engine rankings, and if you drop your guard – even for a few days, you could quickly find yourself at the back of the pack.

SEO or Search Engine Optimisation is a commonly used term by almost everyone involved with online business. For the past few years, and definitely for the next decade or so, search engines will continue to be the most commonly used interfaces for finding information online.

It’s a well known fact that most people who use search engines only actually look at the top ten search results on the front page. If a company has their website on the front page of the search results, it’s a clear barometer of their success with SEO techniques. The higher up your website is ranked, the greater the possibility of it being clicked on by a partially qualified lead. In simple terms, the more traffic you’ve got coming in, the more business you’ll take in.

With strategic SEO, you can realise the awesome benefits of generating high volumes of traffic. For instance, let’s say that an average of 3 percent of your incoming visitors make a purchase. If you usually get around a thousand hits or more every day, you currently have an excellent online business, but if you generally only get fifty or sixty hits in a day, your business is desperately in need of some intensive SEO strategies.

So one more time, what is SEO – really? It’s the process of utilising tools and strategies to make your website rank higher up in the search engines results. Getting your website on the front page – or better yet the upper half of this page, will guarantee that your website will generate public awareness, and generate a steady stream of additional traffic, traffic which could easily lead to new business down the line.

Surf the Web for some useful tips. There are a variety of sources for fantastic information on tips, methods and general guidelines for pursuing SEO strategies for your website development. Check out an article directory and read an assortment of articles which can help you optimise your website’s SEO. The more information you get your hands on the better. You’ll soon find that this endeavour may take a great deal of time and effort, but if you really persevere, the benefits can be truly astounding.

If you’re online business is already profitable, and you’re able to invest some money, there a few exceptional virtual assistants who can help you – far more than you may realise, in getting to the front page of Google. Make your move today, and experience the impressive benefits which can come from truly effective search engine optimisation.

Michelle Dale is The Managing Director of Virtual Miss Friday, an Executive Virtual Assistant who assists businesses and individuals with achieving their professional goals. Want to find out more about online business building success strategies? Contact VMF Now!

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October 15th, 2009 by Bruce

Developing an online business takes a variety of different things – or more to the point, it takes capital. In this situation, just like any other, it takes money to make money, but it’s still essential to remember that with the incredible versatility of the internet, there are a range of free options for optimising the long term potential of your website development to create an ever increasing influx of traffic.

While there are certainly a variety of ways to boost the incoming traffic to your website, most people just don’t have the extra money to pay for this kind of traffic generation. Well, there’s no need to spend anything at all; all you truly need is the right kind of mindset and a lot of time and energy. Of course, it’s also necessary to have the motivation and drive to do this hard work on your own, to create all the free traffic you can for your website.

There are quite a few websites which have articles which offer hot tips and guidelines for generating traffic using only free methods. It’s definitely possible – but to be quite honest, it may take a rather long time. You’ll have far more success getting traffic through paid advertisements, but with this information – at the very least, you’ll have a good chance with most of the available free methods out there.

Don’t forget to take advantage of as many online communities and forums as you can. The fantastic thing about online communities and forums is that you can specifically target particular groups that fit the requirements you’re looking for. With daily discussions revolving around your area of expertise, you will have the opportunity to be seen as an unrivalled expert in your field. Make an effort to do everything in your ability to show your audience your skills, stun them with your brilliance and create a truly memorable reputation.

It’s an excellent idea to regularly utilise high quality newsletters. Send the people on your list a beautiful digital catalogue – maybe something with free Yudu software, of your products or services along with a few really interesting articles. If you go for the gold and make your brochure a cut above what’s generally available, a lot more people will decide to sign up for your newsletter – and tell their friends about it too. The more people who opt-in to your newsletter, the more traffic you’ll have coming to your website.

Another valuable idea is trading links with other websites (those with a page rank of higher than 0 – or you could be penalised). There’s no money involved. All you need to do is come to an agreement with the webmaster in question. By exchanging links, both websites stand to gain. Traffic from either website has the potential to click on the link and visit the other website. This can work really well, particularly when both websites work in the same field.

Start writing articles (at least a few a week) which could pique the interest of people who have an interest in your niche. Write about tips, guides, and even how to topics. Writing articles that provide top quality content to other people will provide you with a strong foundation to build traffic and increase your search engine rankings. Fortunately, there are a variety of websites available which offer free postings and submissions of articles. If someone reads your article, and they particularly like it, they’ve a strong chance of clicking on your info in the resource box to see where the article came from.

In most cases, internet users use search engines to find specific information, therefore, search engines use keyword searching to aid them in producing relevant search results. With good keywords, you could easily rank high up in the search engine results without the costs associated with other forms of advertising.

Each of these methods will direct more traffic to your website – for free. All it takes from you is a sustained effort. Find out as much as you can about the methods listed above, and you’ll soon have an online business with an ever increasing flow of traffic – without the expense that usually comes with it.

Michelle Dale is The Managing Director of Virtual Miss Friday, an Executive Virtual Assistant who assists businesses and individuals with achieving their professional goals. Want to find out more about online business building success strategies? Contact VMF Now!

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October 13th, 2009 by Bruce

If you’re developing an online business, your website should retain a lot of your attention as you design what is effectively your window to the world. If you don’t actually have a physical address for your place of business, or any kind of “concrete and glass” operation, the overall appearance of your website will tell your potential customers or clients just about everything they need to know about your company.

In an idea situation, you should place your whole website on your very own private server, or at the very least a VPS (virtual private server), so you don’t have to deal with operating hours, tight limits, restrictions or other regulations. If you don’t know anything at all about coding, go for one of the easy to use platforms, which will provide you with the ability to work on your website directly, without this taking up too much of your valuable time. If you know that any alterations to your site represent a formidable challenge, you’re much less likely to keep up with its development. Affordable online business providers like iCapitalise can quickly supply you with an extremely user-friendly option, using a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) system.

You have to find out how the World Wide Web actually works, and what it really takes to to truly make your website visible to the masses. You will want your website to appear within search results when your prospects search for something that you could provide. This is fairly complicated and quite time consuming, as the search engines utilise an array of guidelines to determine what’s relevant and what’s not. The process of “search engine optimisation” helps you to specify certain appropriate elements of code as well as the overall structure of your site. There are quite a few experts in the widely renowned arena of website development, and to stay ahead of the game, you may want to look into hiring an expert virtual assistant to help you stay on the winning team. At the very minimum, you need to have an understanding of the basics, including what your favoured “keywords” are and how the content on your page should be written.

Think back to how you used to write essays when you were in college, where you would structure and lay out your content to retain a natural progression of ideas, then apply this same system to your website development. You’ll have a variety of different pages, with an array of separate topics covering products or services, each of which could easily result in additional pages of associated content. Inside the home page you need to have a crystal clear description of your business, with prominent links providing a logical path of progression for visitors to move through as they look over your business information.

Visitors rarely take the time to read all the information on your page, and this is where the term “surfing” originated. A large percentage of people tend to look for “frequently asked questions” and other areas where they can quickly scan through to get a good idea of what you’re providing. Therefore, always remember to set up a FAQ database and link to it very prominently.

A blog is a very important part of an online strategy initiative, and you would do well to include one within your website. Social media is becoming very important as we go on, and your blog represents an opportunity for you to update daily news and information for prospects and interested parties. You should make sure that you keep current with blog posting and establish a close bond between yourself and any visitors. If you’re clever about the type of content you include, you could end up creating your own social “buzz.”

Even though you may only have an online presence, visitors will be looking for reassurance before they do business with you, and because of this, you should include your contact details in a visible position for when this trust is established. Take a photograph or two of the owner and key staff, as this helps to add a human touch to your site. The customer service contact number is essential and a physical address is highly recommended.

Once your website is up-and-running, make sure that it’s maintained on a very regular basis. You should learn as much as you can about search engine optimisation, and get to know software packages that allow you to analyse your visitors. The analytics program accessed via the Google website is a great and free tool, enabling you to set up goals and events that can help you to see whether certain promotions are working for you.

Michelle Dale is The Managing Director of Virtual Miss Friday, a state-of-the-art Executive Virtual Assistant Service which assists businesses and individuals with every aspect of their enterprising requirements. Do you want to explore these inspiring online business building success strategies? Contact VMF Now!

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October 12th, 2009 by Bruce

Affiliate marketing can easily become one of the most attractive parts of your online business. After all, you don’t have to worry about employing additional staff, ramping up your media spend or engaging in complicated marketing programs. If you can find some highly motivated outside individuals or organisations which are willing to promote and sell your products and services, all you need to do is to set aside a portion of the profits to pay them for their sales.

It’s absolutely essential to spend advertising money prudently, especially during an economic downturn. In most situations, it’s tough to analyse the actual effects of a marketing investment and it’s difficult to justify too, therefore when it comes to marketing, you should only invest after careful consideration.

By acquiring an array of affiliates, you can leverage a great deal of power. Performance-based marketing of this type is highly attractive, as you only pay when a sale is made. The affiliate takes on all of the responsibility for paying for advertising and marketing to get the customers, and because of this the “cost per action” method is becoming increasingly advantageous in this day and age.

As a general rule, organisations which have some kind of intangible products or services to offer should actively look for affiliate networks. These networks have already attracted interested affiliates who are looking for product or service providers to partner up with. The affiliate network company will likely need some persuading that your organisation is a good fit, and this may require some negotiation, but it is worth the setup process as you will effectively have an army of external sales consultants, ready to be paid based entirely on their performance.

Inside this market there are an incredible number of top notch affiliate networks. A small percentage only deal with specific kinds of business, and you’ll need to find out what you can about them before you initiate contact. It’s in the network’s interest to make sure that everyone wins, as their income is based on a cut of the commissions paid.

Remember that the affiliate assumes the risk of marketing to the consumer through their chosen channels, and you should make sure that you adequately incentivise them. Have realistic commissions in mind, be aware of who is signing up for your program and ensure that they always follow the rules and parameters you have established at the beginning. Just be aware that the affiliates represent your organisation in many respects, so be sure that they do not act or promote in a counter-productive fashion.

Try and attract affiliates with a good reach, through comprehensive e-mail lists, well-recognised blogs or highly trafficked websites. Create a good relationship with these key sellers and your business could grow in leaps and bounds.

If you find some affiliates to be particularly productive, set aside something additional to use to further incentivise them. Your goal must always be to fertilise any relationships that you start to build with key affiliates, to build an even more fruitful arrangement.

During your website development, don’t forget to include graphics advertising your affiliate program and links to the sign-up page hosted by your affiliate network. Remember that you have to keep an eye on your affiliate program once it’s up and running, and if you want to be spending your time relaxing on a tropical island somewhere, this would be an ideal task for your virtual assistant.

Michelle Dale is The Managing Director of Virtual Miss Friday, an accomplished Executive Virtual Assistant Service which helps companies of all sizes reach their commercial targets. Want to get more information about online business building success strategies that really work? Contact VMF today!

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October 11th, 2009 by Bruce

Whether you’re establishing an online business or an off-line presence, certain things remain the same, and you can always expect to go through growing pains as you progress. Most of us can easily remember, or clearly see from our own point of view, the steps that a child takes through adolescence and into adulthood, and from this we can derive an incredibly valuable and useful analogy with the business world. Several fundamentals need to be addressed and attention given to each phase of growth before progress to the next step can be attained.

If you have a super idea for your new business, don’t be tempted to rush into anything before you have a clear plan of attack. For example, if you were constructing a house, you wouldn’t begin without a strong foundation, and the same idea holds true in business as well.

No amount of experience in the world of business will allow you to take shortcuts with any new project. You should always lean on your marketing and customer relations experience if possible, but remember to take a fresh approach to each new enterprise, and you’ll be pleased you did.

The process of creating your unique angle, also known as a USP, requires you to determine the makeup of your typical client and what sets your service or product offering apart. At this stage, preparation is crucial, and you should be thinking about pursuing website development strategies. If you don’t take the time to carefully analyse your business and break it down thoroughly, you’re more than likely to run into an assortment of problems down the line.

A well thought out business enterprise is an excellent base from which to launch from, and it should assist you with making sure that your delivery is consistent and goes far beyond what most customers would reasonably expect. This will enable you to gather great testimonials and referral work right from the start. It’s good to know that your “baby” is up-and-running, but be sure to continue to provide outstanding high levels of customer service even as you focus on growth.

As you start to gain momentum, keep focused and become the best at what you do in your key areas before you start to investigate different directions. Don’t cut yourself too thinly and be tempted to take on too much, as your core business will likely suffer.

Some business owners attempt to micro-manage every element of their operation, and are afraid to delegate. As your business grows, there will come a time when you have to delegate, and as such, there are certain parts of your operation you’ll need to entrust to the care of an expert virtual assistant, and in this instance – just like any other, your selection of appropriate teammates is vitally important.

You’ll know that you have a business based on solid ground if you have loyal customers, a good reputation, a productive referral and marketing system, and built-in safety nets. When your strengths generally overcome your weaknesses and you see more opportunities than threats in the market, then your successful business is destined for stardom!

Michelle Dale is The Managing Director of Virtual Miss Friday, an Experienced Executive Virtual Assistant who collaborates with businesses and individuals with the sole aim of accomplishing their professional goals. Want to learn more about these comprehensive online business building success strategies? Contact VMF Today!

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