5 Essential Tips for Online Startups

Some entrepreneurs are motivated by the desire to implement an idea. Others want more money or more time. There are business launched by people who want to quit being employed or look at it as a solution in case you get fired. There are countless of reasons why people are determined to start a business, but no matter the reasons, the most important question you need to ask yourself is how to make a new business be successful in a difficult economic environment, in a market where there are numerous offers, but not so many buyers? Here are some useful tips to get you on the right track.

Interactive and updated website

This is not even something we should be mentioning. Everyone should know that a website should be visually appealing, but unfortunately there is an increasing number of very simple websites, poorly designed without color, without spirit, without quality content. It’s like these people had a list on where it said “make a website” and they just wanted to check that box. Other websites published their last article a few years ago. Awebsite is your business card and it should be inviting: choose beautiful and elegant images, gentle colors, drawings and intensive graphics, updated information, clear and coherent. Do not provide too little information but do not overload, it will become tiresome.

SEO

Having a website is not enough. If you are selling books and I Google the word “books”, will your website appear in the first page of results? If not, I am not going to bother with the second or the third page in the search results and neither will most people. This is what SEO does: it ensures that your website appears in the top results on search engines, thus triggering more traffic, more visitors and more potential customers. In this respect, we recommend you read these SEO tools bloggers should use listed on Tenmania.

Social media

Facebook is pure madness! If you’re not on Facebook, you don’t exist. We must admit that it is a good way of promoting a new company. The more likes you have, the more comments you get, the more notoriety you achieve. But don’t just imagine that you create a page and let Facebook do the rest. We are talking about interactive and useful content, special offers for fans, fun content, Facebook ads. To sum up: you need a social media strategy. Fortunately, there are a lot of online resources from where you can get useful information in order to create a social media strategy. Remember that Facebook is not the only network out there. According to your business profile, you should also consider Twitter, Pinterest or YouTube.

E-mail campaigns

Do you find it annoying when you receive messages different companies that have some huge, important offer? Not always, right? Exactly! You like to know more about the products/services you are interested in. For example, I like to receive newsletter from my favorite online shops where I can see the latest arrivals and special discounts. So, if you know very your niche, you don’t have any reason not to send e-mail messages. Just be careful how often you send them and make sure they have an attractive content.

So, when are you launching your new business?

5 Essential Tips for Online Startups

Are You Hurting Your Brand Without Knowing It?

The internet has changed the way businesses run. More specifically, it has changed how marketing and promotion occur. Your online presence is a necessity for success, however it can also hurt your reputation unbeknownst to you. How can you be sure that your online presence is not damaging your business? What can you do to maximize the power of your internet profiles? Let’s look a little bit deeper.

Man covering his head with laptop – Shutterstock

Take control

The internet gets everyone talking. It seems like going viral is the biggest buzz word today. Having content go viral exposes it to millions in an incredibly short period of time. This can also hurt you if the wrong material starts spreading like wildfire. Business owners need to take charge of their online reputation. You can start by finding out what others are saying about you. Search your business name on Google and search out any negative comments. Dealing with them on a personal level can prevent them from spreading and creating a negative reputation.

Dealing with posers

If your company begins to gain momentum, you may find some posers online using things like a nickname or part of your branding to steal your thunder. Registering any domain names that could be mistaken for yours is a way to prevent this. You never want a customer to mistakenly show up on a website that looks just like yours, but actually originates from a state or country far away.

Get out there to be seen

Not having proper exposure online can also limit your business without even realizing it. Today, most forward thinking companies are utilizing every social media platform to reach their target audience and build their brand. Fill out your profiles on Twitter and Facebook entirely. Link both of them to your company’s homepage.

Keep your profiles unique, yet relevant

Try and differentiate what each profile is posting about. You can use Twitter to update followers on something happening on your Facebook page, or a new relevant blog post etc. Why should you do this? Keeping things different enough will make sure people follow you on multiple platforms, rather than just one. Imagine being a user getting the same notification on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn every day. It would get annoying. The message across your profiles should be consistent to your company’s values and ideas, just keep the content varied enough to entertain your followers.

Find more followers/subscribers

If you neglect promoting your social platforms, their entire existence is more or less futile. Leaving links to your Twitter page in your email signature, or a link to your Facebook profile on your business card is a good start. The more people that you get sharing your links and content the better chance you have of reaching higher ranks on major search engines. Social media is an essential part of every company’s online marketing strategy.

Are your webpages causing you to lose clients?

Are your social media profiles and web pages all designed to be user friendly? Is your text easy to read? Do pages load quickly? All of these play a role in negatively impacting your brand if they are not up to par. Think about user experience and test all of your webpages for functionality on multiple browsers. If part of your online representation is rubbing potential customers the wrong way, they will not spend time on your pages and are likely to make sure their friends don’t bother either.

Every action you take either helps or hurts your brand. A lot of these happens on the internet right under your nose. Your homepage and social profiles should be representations of your company. Keep everything honest, relevant and fun. If you don’t want to hurt your branding, make sure that your entire online repertoire is attractive enough to capture clients.

Are You Hurting Your Brand Without Knowing It?

SEO Tips for Magento Users

Magento was developed as the “next big thing” in ecommerce and shopping cart solutions. Unlike the shopping cart services that came before it, Magento has nearly limitless customization. This is very important for developing websites that will succeed in today’s crowded marketplace. With this level of customization comes the ability to utilize search engine optimization (SEO) within your shopping portal. SEO can help attract not only more traffic, but also the right kind of traffic — consumers most likely to make a purchase from your website. When you start setting up your cloud-hosted Magento marketplace, keep the following tips in mind to build the traffic you obtain from organic searches.

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  Enable SEO within the Admin panel: This is essential – you will not be able to complete the other steps until you take care of this simple change.


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  Titles: It is important that these are created to work within your SEO plan. Make sure you give each page a unique title as these are held in as being very important by the algorithm of most of the major search engines.


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  Descriptions: Avoid anything that is automatically generated. Write content that is targeted to the users, not the search engines. Use the targeted keyword once in each description. More than that and not only will your wording look clunky, it could set off red flags within the search engines.


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  URLS: These are important, too. Use short URLs, but make certain you take advantage of keywords when at all possible.


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  Headings: Properly using the H1, H2, etc. headings within your content can make it easier for your customers to read, plus it is an important part of your SEO plan. Keep them at an appropriate size and don’t use more than one H1 header per page.


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  Speed: While it may not directly impact your SEO plan, it is still important that you create webpages that load quickly. Optimize your images and provide alternate text that fits in with your SEO plan — this is a great way to sneak in a few extra keyword phrases.


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  Generate a Sitemap: With the Magento program, you can generate a sitemap and upload it directly to the search engines. This can help the search engines crawl your page more quickly and get everything properly referenced.


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  Internal and External Linking: Links are one of the most important and often overlooked aspects of SEO. Create useful in-page links as well as building those ever-important offsite backlinks.

As you can see, it is possible to use SEO within a Magento-powered ecommerce site. A Blue Acorn article explains that while Magento may not be completely SEO-friendly, it is more than possible to utilize the benefits of optimized pages within the Magento system. Like all types of SEO, it really is about trial and error. Therefore, do not be afraid to try something new, see how it works and make adjustments. Ideally, you wind up with a page that is user-friendly, looks great AND drives more traffic to your ecommerce portal.

Image credit: Stuart Miles on Freedigitalphotos.net

 

SEO Tips for Magento Users

The Strengths of Local SEO

You have a great location, an awesome product or service and a friendly staff – yet customers aren’t running through your doors. You won’t be in business long if prospective customers can’t find you – espeically if, like most Americans, they are only looking online. If your business is like most others, your target customers live in the same city where your business is located . That’s what makes local search engine optimization so important – it ensures that your customers find you. If you’re not using local SEO, you can bet that one of your competitors is and they’re scooping up your potential profits.

Building a local brand

Building a local brand can be difficult. The first step is to truly understand your brand. It’s the identity of your company. Asking yourself some key questions can help you figure out exactly what your brand is or should be. What kind of customers are you trying to reach? What are your competitors doing? How do you want your customers to know and remember you?

Once you figure out your brand, the next step is to show it off. Your brand will be recognized by its logo. The logo can be words, pictures, letters, numbers or symbols. When designing a logo, be sure it differentiates your business from those of your competitors. You can register your logo with the United States Patent and Trademark Office to prevent others from using it.

Once you have those basics out of the way, building a local brand is easy … in theory. Sign up for social media accounts – including Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest. Also, look into social media accounts that could be relevant to your business. For example, if you offer B2B services, develop a strong presence on LinkedIn. Make sure you regularly interact with your customers and targeted audience. If a user asks you a question about store hours on your Facebook page – answer it as soon as possible, even if that information is available elsewhere. Your current and prospective customers will appreciate the personal touch.

Since your customers may be accessing your website with their cell phones, make sure your site is mobile-friendly. According to the Pew Research Center, as of February 2012, 74% of smartphone owners use their devices to get directions and other location-related information. A professional web designer or web hosting service can help you create a website that will look stunning on any platform so your customers can find you on-the-go.

Besides having an engaging brand and an exciting website, it is important to implement local SEO strategies. Otherwise, those customers searching for restaurants close to them won’t see yours.

How do I use local SEO?

There are two simple ways to implement local SEO. The first way is to use local SEO search terms. For example, use keywords that fit both your city and services and/or products. For example, a bakery in Austin would use “Austin bakery” in its site instead of simply “bakery.” Besides allowing search engines to find you in local searches, it also will cause you to rank higher when “Austin bakery” is queried because there is less competition for that phrase than the keyword “bakery.”

You can further distinguish your site by listing the specific neighborhood in which your business is located. You can also make sure to use local landmarks and locations within your site. This will also help search engines figure out where you are within your city to enhance your local SEO efforts. If your business is located within a large city like Chicago, if someone searches for “restaurants near Willis Tower,” the search engine is more likely to find you if you mention that you’re close to Willis Tower on your site.

There are many other local SEO strategies that you may find useful. Consider hiring a professional local SEO expert to help you reach maximum optimization on your site. Investing in local SEO can help you build a popular brand name within your community, city and industry, if your business ranks well within the topic. And your business will gain the traction it needs for success with strategic local SEO tactics.

The Strengths of Local SEO