Managing your business finances is a lot easier today than it was prior to the proliferation of online, cloud-based software solutions that can do everything from automatically posting transactions to figuring your quarterly taxes. There is a lot to choose from when it comes to online tools, with more appearing every day. Here are a few stand-outs. GoDaddy Bookkeeping – If you’re not sure about double entry bookkeeping and you have a very small business without any employees and hire only contractors, GoDaddy Bookkeeping may be the answer. You can sync it with your PayPal account, bank account, and/or FreshBooks account to help accomplish a lot of data entry tasks,…

While it is important to evaluate your own business from time to time, it is equally important to evaluate your competition. Here are ten things you want to know about your competition. 1. Identify your competitors – The first and most important aspect of checking out your competitors is to identify who they are. Start by doing an internet search of similar products or services. Search the local magazines and newspapers to get a feel for how many business of this type there are in your area. 2. Know their strengths – Knowing your competitors’ strengths is important, as it can highlight your own weaknesses. If you know your competition’s…

One of the biggest questions many small business owners have is whether they should upgrade their software regularly. The answer isn’t as simple as you might think. When it comes to certain types of software you should upgrade it as soon as possible, and other types can wait. Knowing which can wait and which can’t is very important. Websites and Online Software Many cloud-based software solutions offer free upgrades, and when it comes to these you should upgrade as soon as possible. For instance, WordPress lets you know inside the Dashboard when an upgrade is available and in some cases automatically updates it for you if you set it up…

Paying attention to trends within your niche is an important way to increase your profit. If you’re not aware of parallel trends within your niche, then it’s time to look into them. An example would be if your niche is DIY (doing it yourself) repurposing furniture, there might be a trend within the niche of redoing castoff items found on the street into usable furniture and decor. This would be a parallel trend. If you’ve kept ahead of your industry, you’ll be one of the first to jump on this new trend within your niche. How to Keep Ahead of Your Industry Create a Google Alert – Using keywords, industry…

No matter what kind of business you have, a bricks and mortar business or a strictly online business, these days it’s important to market online. A lot of people get really tied up in search engine optimization (SEO) tricks and think that is all there is to online marketing. But, nothing could be further from the truth. SEO is certainly part of online marketing, but it’s only a small part. There are popular blogs and websites that exist today which get loads of traffic but technically have horrible SEO. When you look at a popular website that became highly read and shared without using SEO, you have to ask, “What…

If you’re a creative person looking for a career, you might have considered working from home as a graphic designer. A graphic designer can set up shop in several niches like web designer, eBook cover designer, infographic designer, and so forth. Many graphic designers also do work for offline print too. Each of these requires different skills so you can choose your niche based on your skills. Skills Required for Starting a Graphic Design Business Project management and organizational skills Understanding of typography design Website design fundamentals Print and layout design WordPress design skills Basic understanding of photography Technical and Photoshop skills Video editing skills Understanding of color Deadline oriented…

Does your website or sales page turn off potential buyers? If you’re practicing any of these five conversion killers then you need to fix them pronto so that you can see the sales numbers you want to see. Not much is more important than your sales page copy when it comes to converting sales. Some might even argue that the product almost doesn’t matter. You can convert sales if you can get the sales page right, no matter what the product is. Now of course, you also have a great product, so don’t miss out on sales due to these five conversion killers. Clunky Sentences Don’t try to be clever…

One of the best ways to create buzz about your business is to get your customers to do it for you. There are many ways in which you can encourage this behavior from your loyal customers. First, provide excellent service and products to your current customers so that when you do encourage them to promote your business they will be proud to do so. Have a Contest – Get your customers to make a video testimonial of why they love your business. Tell them that the person who gets the most votes on their video promotion will get something free from you that is designed only for your audience and…

Studying your competition is necessary for many reasons; one of those is to enable your products and/or services to be different from theirs. If you don’t know for sure what they are offering then you won’t be able to be very different. Product differentiation is an essential component in being competitive today. Identify Gaps in Products or Services – Line up your products with theirs to make gaps in either their offerings or yours apparent. Fill the gaps, improve the similarities, and you’ll differentiate your products in a clear way. Deliver More and Better Quality – Try out your competition’s products and services; see what you think about them. Figure…