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

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

Little known benefits of managed servers

For companies with a small IT budget and limited IT staff, using a managed server may be the best option for your website and other network platforms. That was the experience of Peter Yagecic, director of technology for Situation Interactive, a digital marketing agency.

“For years we had a hybrid approach where we used a managed server provider for our production servers but kept our development environment in house,” he said of his experience. After further considering his staff’s needs, he moved to a managed provider for everything. Then it happened. “A few weeks ago one of the drives in our RAID went bad in the middle of the night. By the time I read the support ticket log at 7 a.m. the next morning, the issue was resolved with no downtime.”

Using a managed server provides many benefits for a business looking to stay current with technology, while reducing the overall total cost of ownership for technology investments, according to John Luludis, president of Superior Technology Solutions.

Turning the managing server has quite a few other benefits that you may not realize. At the top of that list is security. As The Atlantic.Net Blog stated, “The company in charge of hosting your server will continuously maintain the equipment and debug the applications as necessary in order to keep your website protected against viruses and unauthorized attacks.”

The managed server also makes the backup routine easier. In the case of a server issue, a backup of data and pertinent software configurations is necessary to be able to quickly (if not instantly) replace the physical hardware or corrupt software of the machine as required, Dan Abbate, CEO with Robotation, which helps SMBs implement technology, pointed out. With higher end managed server implantations, the network itself can also be backed up by instantly routing traffic to a mirror server (located on another network in the same data center or on another network in another data center) somewhere else in the world. Either way with proper backup systems in place when there is an issue, it has minimal effect on uptime.

Another benefit of the managed server is flexibility. Most managed server vendors will have utilities that make it easier for businesses to spin up new server/application instances than if they host it themselves, said Vann Abernethy, senior product manager for NSFOCUS, an Internet security company. “The ability to scale quickly and within a pre-determined cost range is significant,” he said. “This gives the business the ability to know exactly what the cost will be for growth and helps management plan more effectively.”

The managed server can be a budget saver, Abernethy added. “Managed server vendors utilize economies of scale to offer their services, which is generally less expensive than a business operating the server internally as it saves them from having to purchase the server, hire and train staff, and find the space for it.”

Overall, the most important – and perhaps most hidden – benefit of using a managed server is the peace of mind you’ll have knowing that your data is secure, there is a regular backup routine in place, and it isn’t a budget buster. Instead, you can let someone else manage the technical side of things while you can concentrate on managing your business.

Sue Poremba is a freelance writer focusing primarily on security and technology issues and occasionally blogs for cloud service provider Rackspace Hosting.

Little known benefits of managed servers

Database Efficiencies Within the Cloud

A primary motivator for a business is beating its competitors to market in every way: with innovation, products and customer service. As cloud computing has developed, it’s been a means for businesses to outsource responsibilities to a cloud vendor so that they can better focus on running their companies and making themselves more competitive. When it comes to storage, cloud databases, which involve storing data online instead of on physical servers, are simplifying database management and giving businesses that sought-after competitive edge.

Businesses are also embracing cloud database management because of its efficiencies in performance and cost. A cloud database allows businesses to take advantage of its architecture as a shared online resource, while benefitting from pay-as-you-go pricing. They can also utilize these services without having to constantly train and hire IT staff with the right skills, or invest in new on-site hardware. Cloud databases are becoming so prevalent throughout the IT field that 2013 was predicted as being the year of the cloud database.

The cloud strategy for databases

Traditionally, businesses have had to maintain multiple databases covering different aspects of their activities. For example, a business may handle a high volume of merchant accounts, a highly geographically dispersed sales force and a complex payments program. The weight of this database management could very well impede a company’s competitiveness.

A cloud database, however, can organize company data together on a single, uniform and scalable platform. It can help employees and management work cooperatively, reducing delays and miscommunications. Colleagues can better share information, with the end result being improved operational efficiencies.

Businesses can even choose between different types of storage, which offer distinct kinds of performance and price. Standard volumes of cloud storage target everyday storage needs, which are typically large volumes without speed requirements but with great performance demands. A strategy that uses solid state drives, or SSD, is better suited to applications with quick access as their top priority. Additionally, cloud database applications are scalable to accommodate new products and services.

Cloud databases gain strong backers

Although businesses may already be sold on the benefits of cloud database applications, they may be more willing to join in as industry giants affirm the technology with new commitments. Tech leaders Oracle and Microsoft recently gave cloud databases a strong vote of confidence by banding together to ensure Oracle’s software runs on Microsoft’s platform, Azure. Before that, Oracle put aside its rivalries with cloud provider Salesforce.com and they’ve fused the Oracle platform’s applications with Salesforce’s finance and human resource cloud-based applications.

Benefits outweigh risks

Despite all the advantages of shared Internet computing, enterprises place a premium on their data. The risk of having this data breached keeps some businesses from taking the cloud database plunge. However, certain methods can be used to secure this cloud database, and cloud hosting providers are implementing the best available security practices. To reduce the threat of risks, enterprises can use a combination of private and public clouds, using each for different storage needs.

As businesses discover the efficiencies of cloud databases, the technology will not only help them get to market faster, but create new business opportunities. Cloud-based databases mean more innovative applications that allow businesses to improve their competitiveness, and pay-as-you-go models allow businesses to start small and progress as their needs dictate. The point is to get started.

Database Efficiencies Within the Cloud

5 Preliminary Steps Every New Business Should Take Before Launching

Nine out of ten businesses fail within the first five years. This is partially because they don’t take the preliminary steps to set them up for success. If you’re thinking about starting a new business, take a look at these five things you should do before launching to increase your chances of growing and being successful.

Create a Business Plan

Image via Flickr by plantoo47

Having a great idea doesn’t ensure your success. You need to have a plan to get there. Create a physical plan for your business before you launch and then put it somewhere so you can refer to it often. Your business plan should include goals for your business, a timetable for when things should happen, and anything else that will put you on the path to success. There are templates available online to help you get started.

Analyze Your Competition

If you’re trying to compete against products and services that already exist, you should analyze your competition so you can make your products and services better. These days, customers are very savvy about comparing products and prices, so you have to have the best products at the best prices to come out on top. You should also make your products and services as unique as possible so that your business stands out to potential customers.

Get Your Finances in Order

Finances are the biggest reason why businesses fail. You can’t just start spending money as soon as you launch your business — you need to take things slow and carefully manage everything. Start by creating a budget that includes everything, from employee wages, rent, and utilities to advertising and emergency money. Then stick to it! Don’t hire more employees than you can afford, and don’t spend too much money on improving the appearance of your store until you build a loyal customer base. Also, you should use a tool like CreditSignal by Dun and Bradstreet to monitor your credit score.

Register your Business and Get the Proper Licenses and Permits

If you neglect to get the proper licenses and permits in your area, you could face fees later, and you could possibly even experience a lawsuit. That’s why you should be sure to get the proper business license and find out all the various permits you need. For instance, it’s illegal to be a street vendor without a permit or if you don’t have permission from the land owner where you’re stationed. At the most basic level, of course, you should register your business, but be aware that many more permits and licenses could apply to you particular type of business.

Create a Plan for Advertising and Promotions

If you want your business to be successful, you need to be able to attract new customers. So, you should have an advertising plan before you launch your business. The more detailed the better, but you should at least research how much it costs to advertise in your local newspaper and online and build money into your budget for it.

These are just a few of the preliminary steps you should take before launching a business. The more research and planning you do, the better chance your business has for success. You’re more likely to succeed if you start out on track.

5 Preliminary Steps Every New Business Should Take Before Launching