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6 Ways to Make Money on the Side
Apr 6th
Everyone wants to jump in on a “get rich quick” scheme that will earn them thousands with little to no effort — who wants to slave tirelessly for years before reaping the benefits? Jacuzzis and jet skis are a lot less exciting when you’re a senior citizen with heart problems. And let’s be realistic about the “quickness” of those tantalizing scams: becoming an overnight millionaire is probably never going to happen. But the next best thing may be utilizing some “get at least some money for little to no effort” options. Here are six ways to make money on the side without sacrificing your free time.
Your Car as a Billboard
Everyone’s seen those ridiculous cars with advertisements plastered all over them. Now you can be “that guy,” too! With the help of websites like Sign Rider, Adz in Motion, or Free Car, you can get paid just for driving your own car around. Some companies (namely Free Car) are even giving away vehicles for free. The only catch is that the vehicle must remain covered in these advertisements for the duration of your contract — whether it be a fake can of giant Red Bull on the top or logos running down the side. The only downside to this is that the advertisements will make the car owner’s vehicle incredibly noticeable — which can be bad if you’re trying to escape from the police, avoid becoming an easy target for vandalism, or slip away from a crappy date unnoticed.
Reviews
If you already use services like Yelp and Google Reviews, why not make some extra cash talking about your most and least favorite businesses? There are multiple online services which will pay you to review just about anything. Review Me is one of the most popular cash-for-reviews site, but these kinds of offers can occasionally be found on Craigslist as well.
While the reviews don’t pay phenomenally well (between $1-$20 per review depending on the site and review), doing this during your lunch break at work can at least make your meal free — and that adds up by the end of the week.
Offer Your “Services”
It’s not what you think. Fiverr is a service that allows people to offer a service — whether it be painting, providing a second language lesson via Skype, or posting someone’s ad on your blog — for $5 each. Some of the offers are a little weird (and by weird I mean ‘undesireable’), such as paying $5 to receive a handwritten letter or a link to a video of a staring contest, but others are quite appealing. The more useful offers range from advertising (taking 5 HD pictures of your logo/message, making a viral video of the subject speaking your message in a funny accent and outfit) to gifts (speed painting, getting your face turned into a sticker).
Offer whatever you want! Almost any skill can be exploited with the use of this website and is perfect for those who already enjoy painting, playing guitar, making crafts, or just maintaining a website where ads can be posted. You can also make a request, or search requests to meet the needs of others.
Subletting Your Living Space
The idea of letting a stranger stay in your home might be a little scary and uncomfortable at first, but it’s easier to warm up to once you realize that not everyone is a maniacal killer who’s out to get you. As supported by the success of Airbnb, subletting can be a safe (and even fun) way to earn extra cash. The website works somewhat like the Craigslist housing section, only with less frightening unknowns. Airbnb makes subletting (or renting out an extra room in your house for a week, a month, or just a few days) safer by:
- Requiring user profiles for each renter, allowing you to learn about your guest before approving them.
- Requiring payment through the Airbnb website itself, ensuring timely payments
- Displaying reviews
They’ll also send a professional photographer to your place — for free. This option is great for those who want to make some of their vacation cash splurge back (whilst vacationing, thank you very much), or just don’t mind entertaining a temporary roommate for a few months.
Become a Mystery Shopper
This is mostly for those who already enjoy shopping and/or dining out. While this is still an option for everyone else, it can take some free time away from those who don’t care for either of those activities.
That being said, getting paid to shop (and later complain about the grimy cashier who gave you .98 in change because you didn’t have an extra 2 cents) is truly awesome. The pay isn’t phenomenal (typically between $12-25 per assignment), mystery shoppers are compensated for purchases made during their assigned shopping trip.
After signing up for a site like the Mystery Shopping Providers Association or Secret Shopper, the new MS can apply for various assignments online. Once approved, you’re basically getting paid to have free meals or acquire free retail items at the store in question. As always, be wary of scams — they’re supposed to be paying you, not the other way around. Don’t sign up for anything that requires you to pay a fee.
Selling Eggs or Sperm
If you smoke weed or take medication, this is either not for you or can be very time consuming since all drugs must be out of your system for you to participate in a sperm or egg donor program.
For men, this process is easy. Enter the clinic up to once a week, milk some potential babies into a cup, and leave with anywhere between $50-$100. For women, it is slightly time consuming — but the giant paycheck can make the work and wait worth it.
Females must undergo medicinal injections everyday, but those can be administered from home and take only moments out of the donor’s time. There are a few steps to the medication process, but occasional visits to the doctor are all it takes to advance to the next stage, which is admittedly the hardest. At the final stage, the doctor administers anesthesia to the patient before removing the eggs. This may seem difficult and time consuming, but in reality only lasts a few months and can leave the donor with up to $15,000 for her time and troubles. Besides, you’ll be helping a couple conceive.
View full post on Business Pundit
5 Easy Ways to Get Started On 5 Different Social Networks
Mar 29th
Let’s face it, there are a lot of social networks out there and more are popping up every day. For a small business owner, that can get a little intimidating. If only there was an easy way to start getting involved in each. One little thing or activity that could help spur a future of more engaged results and interaction.
Why not start right here?
Below are five ways to ease your way into five different social networks.
1. Twitter
Twitter is a great platform for small business owners who need to get their message out there, but don’t necessarily have the resources to do it through more traditional channels. Twitter can get you that network by investing time, not dollars. Each time you send a tweet it’s blasted out to the people in your network, who then have the ability to share your content with their unique network and so on. The stronger the network that you build, the greater potential reach for your content.
So where do you start? By building a local audience. How?
Start listening to the keyword-related conversations happening 15-, 25-, maybe even 50-miles you’re your brick and mortar location. By using’s Twitter’s Advanced Search to search [keywords + zip code] you can easily find these conversations as they’re happening. If you’re a local car mechanic, use this search to find the people within driving range who are experiencing car trouble. Follow them and reach out.
Use Twitter Directories like WeFollow, Twellow and Tweepz to identify other local Twitter users. Once you’re able to create a list of people in your area who would benefit from your service, Twitter becomes a much more relevant place to spend your time.
2. Flickr
Flickr isn’t as hyped as some of the other social platforms but it’s still one you should be paying attention to. As a SMB, using images gives you the opportunity to represent your business in a more personal way and connects you to people uber-passionate about the topics they talk about.
So where do you start? By using Flickr Communities to build awareness and authority. How? By joining the discussions happening inside targeted Flickr groups.
For example, say you’re a florist. Do a search for [floral arrangements] and then look through the Groups listed on the right-hand side.
Click into any of those groups to see a list of discussions taking place. This will help you connect with people who are obsessed with flowers or who are talking about different arrangements. By becoming involved in these discussions and the group chats you become the Go To Expert on this subject. And you can bet that the next time one of these community members has an engagement they need a flower arrangement for, you’re going to be on the short list of companies they seek out. It’s all about building those relationships before you need them.
3. Facebook
I’ve always viewed Facebook as a slightly more personal platform than Twitter or LinkedIn, and I don’t think I’m alone. As such, small business owners do best when they use Facebook as a place to let customers peek behind the scenes and bring them into their business. Make Facebook your personal portal where you get to share what you’re working on, what you’re thinking about, and what’s coming for your business.
Where do you start? By inviting customers into your day-to-day. How? By using the Facebook Questions feature.
Use the Questions feature on Facebook to poll your audience on things you have going on. Maybe it’s to ask them their favorite way to use your product or what product they’d like to see, or what color they’d like to see it in – just get them talking and engaging. Because Facebook likes this type of interactive content, you’ll notice that anything posted through the Questions feature will naturally get more visibility than a simple Facebook status. More visibility begets more engagement which will increase your EdgeRank score and help lift up the rest of your content.
4. LinkedIn
LinkedIn is another social network that doesn’t get as much attention as it deserves. The power of LinkedIn for a small business owner is its ability to connect you with the right people to help you build your business. This includes potential new employees, vendors, partners, and other people you simply want to meet.
Where do you start? Again, by building that local network before you need it. How do you do it? By leveraging common connections.
Start off by creating a list of people (or types of people) that you want to meet/get introductions to. Then, use LinkedIn’s Advanced Search to search for the types of people you want to meet.
For example:
- [vendor + keyword + zip code]
- [employee skill + zip code]
- [company name + zip code + 2nd connections]
Doing these types of search will allow you to find that accounting vendor you’re looking for or a representative from Company X who you share a mutual connection with. By reaching out to your common friend, it can help you score the introduction and a new possible relationship. Using LinkedIn’s searching capabilities is a great way to strategically meet people and grow your business.
5. Google+
The strongest marketing component from Google+, IMO, comes in the ability to segment content via user-defined Circles. As a marketer and a business owner in the tech space, I love that I have one portal I can use to talk to ALL of my business contacts and do it in a way that is targeted to their needs.
How do you start? By creating and optimizing your Circles. How? By bucketing your connections.
Take advantage of the Circles functionality by putting some thought into how you bucket your contacts. For example, you may want to classify people by:
- Customers
- Colleagues
- Frequent Blog Commenters/Social Engagers
- Vendors
- Local Community Folks
- Client Wishlist
Once you have your Circles intact, you can start creating content that is customized for these groups. You can turn your Blog Commenters Circle into a makeshift idea forum where you “test out” potential blog post ideas to see if they spark a conversation. You can use your Vendor circle as a way to create a company newsletter to let them know what you’re working in and get input about how their product can help you. Once you have your Circles down you can become a whole lot more strategic with your content, while still housing it all on one platform.
While the sheer number of social networks may be intimidating, the trick is to identify a solid purpose for each and to then hop in and make that platform useful. Hopefully the list above will give you some ideas about common launch points.
5 Easy Ways to Get Started On 5 Different Social Networks
View full post on Small Business News, Tips, Advice – Small Business Trends
5 Ways for Small Business to Jump on the Big Data Train
Mar 19th
5 Ways for Small Business to Jump on the Big Data Train
This content from: Duct Tape Marketing
The idea of something that’s being called “Big Data” has definitely reached the trend tipping point. Tech firms like are all about it. PR firms are forming teams to promote it and consulting firms have their business technology teams all over it.
So, what is it and what does it mean for small business.
tsuda via Flickr CC
The “what is it” part is pretty easy to explain in textbook terms, but the hype that’s currently surrounding the idea makes it much harder to bring down to practical application.
Initially the idea of Big Data applied to organizations that had such large data sets they could no longer work with them internally to analyze things like customer buying patterns.
The broader sense of this term and the one that is gaining steam of late is the ability to mine and analyze public data as a business opportunity. Google for example has been able to analyze the rise in the number of searches for flu related phrases to help the CDC pinpoint where to supply flu vaccine in near real time.
Companies are creating new tools such as Affectiva to help measure customer emotion and identify trends and opportunities based on social signals.
In many ways we’ve become a society of data producers – every email, tweet, blog post, status update, link, purchase, listen, download and review is generating data about what we think, how we act and maybe even what we want for breakfast.
The rush to make sense and profit from this information is driving a lot of the buzz surrounding Big Data.
But, here’s what I think this means for small business. While a great deal of the talk is centered on enterprise solutions there’s a great opportunity for small business to benefit from the coming set of tools and appliances aimed at helping us tap into the minds and data of the market.
1) More cloud integration – The adoption of cloud based tools for things like CRM, project management, file storage, backup, email, customer service and accounting means that integration of all of these various data set, even for the smallest of businesses, will become much easier.
The idea that everyone in the organization can have access to files that may live on a coworkers laptop or see customer history from inside an inbox is stuff that used to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in hardware, software and consulting time. Now this kind of access is becoming a cloud based solution that people tackling big data will make available to small organizations for very little investment.
2) Culture of measurement – Before access to more data will serve any purpose there needs to be a culture of measurement and analysis. Most small businesses don’t measure or lead based on objectives, goals and metrics.
Until a business of any size gets serious about listening to their customers, talking to their customers, and measuring every possible data and touch point, the promise of more data will only serve to distract.
Unless you get hooked on small data – things like routinely asking your customers what they think – big data is just more noise. In fact, what I call small data, actually talking to your customers, is a real advantage that small business have. I think some of the appeal of Big Data for large organization is that it shields them from actually having to interact with their customers.
The real value for the small business that builds a culture based on data will come when services like those from ClearStory that aim to help organizations integrate their own data with existing large public databases, become commonplace.
3) Know what you need answers to – Actually, we’ve always had access to reams of data, the real trick, and this will prove so for enterprise as well, is knowing what to make of the data. Proper analysis is more important than more data.
The trick for the small business is knowing what it is your trying to find out or knowing what answers you’re trying to find. One of the best ways to analyze data for a small business is to go into it looking for something.
Spend time up front asking your customers and your sales team about things they don’t have, things that don’t make sense, things that always bug the customer, and things that they are seeing and hearing more and more. This is how you make sense of trends that might come from research in public data sets like Google Insights and Google Public Data.
4) Walk before run – The first place you need to start is internally. Until you get a handle on your own data, you shouldn’t concern yourself with the cool new tools that might help you make sense of more data.
So, for most small businesses this is going to mean creating a dashboard of key metrics and installing tools that give you real time access to the data that would allow you to measure simple things like, leads generation, ad conversion, and cost to acquire a new customer.
Starting with some of the more robust web site analytics tools such SpringMetrics (a client) and KissMetrics is how you gain insight into this craft. Learning how to test and measure your ads, headlines and offers is an essential data collection starting point.
Like so many things about business, until you build a strong foundation based on real customer interaction, you can’t build on top of it with the latest and greatest.
5) Hire a numbers nerd – data mining and analysis is essentially math and, well, some people excel at math and some at art.
Every business needs a numbers person – the one that can look at what seems like a pile of unintelligible digits, charts and graphs and sees music. Look for a proliferation of data marketplaces like Infochimps to crop up and offer access to data integration in a candy store kind of way for your numbers person.
From a practical sense this person probably needs to also know how to install and write a little code, read a P/L and create processes that allow you to build, track and measure a sales pipeline, but find the right one and your business will change forever.
Hint: If you’re college right now think about data analysis as a major!
View full post on Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing
5 Easy Ways to Increase YOU on Your Web site
Mar 14th
Your customers are obsessed with social media. They’ve discovered that it’s through social media that they can get to know more about your brand. They’re able to peek behind the curtain and see what you believe in, what your team looks like, and if you’re passionate about the same types of things they are. And believe it or not, it matters. We want to do business with companies we believe in, who believe like we do. But no one knows what you believe in until you take the time to show them.
How can you increase the “you” on your Web site to bring people in? Below are six easy wins.
1. Talk About How You Do Business
Sure, you need to talk about what you do and how customers can benefit from it. But spend more time talking about how you do business and why you do it that way. That’s what’s going to set you apart from your competition. Because oftentimes you’re not competing on price. You’re competing on your level of service, on your trustworthiness, on your values, on your culture, on what you believe in, and the story you’re telling. This is what you need to show off to help you put more “you” in your business. This is the information people want to hear.
2. Focus On Your About Page
I know. I’ve written about your About Page a couple of times here at SmallBizTrends. Your About Page has the distinct honor of being both one of the most important pages on your Web site and one of the most ignored. Instead of using this area as a place to tell the story of our brand, we use it as our personal Wikipedia page. Unfortunately, not too many customers are interested in the unabridged version of your life.
Instead, use your About Page for more interesting purposes:
- Tell a story about your company that draws people in and gets them excited.
- Post pictures of you and your team through various times in the business’ history. [Bonus points for embarrassing haircuts.]
- Include videos of yourself and your employees talking about what you’re passionate about.
- Show pictures of what your business looks like on the inside. Let Google help you.
- Include links to the company’s social media profiles and the profiles of key personnel.
Use the page to show your personality, your company culture, and what you believe in. That’s what a user is looking for when they visit your page. Not your biography.
3. Show Off Your Assets
See this woman?
She doesn’t work for your company. She doesn’t work for anyone’s company. So stop using generic images to show off your staff, your building, and your customers. Instead, show off real people and places. The benefit of this is two-fold.
First, you give yourself more interesting images to work with. Your customers are bound to be more colorful than the faces of people you can buy on the Internet – let them shine. Maybe even leave a cheap camera lying around and encourage customers to take their own photos. Get images for your site and create a photo wall in your store. Two birds with one stone and you get to make customers feel more invested and more part of your business.
The second thing this is going to do is attract prospective customers. When we’re looking for information, we don’t want to see stock images. We want to see what your business really looks like. This helps us find it when we’re lost, but it also gives us a sense of what it’s going to feel like when we walk through your doors. Having this information up front puts any customer at ease.
4. Adopt Video
Create a video that shows off your business, your employees and what company culture is like. Once you have it, put it on your Web site and encourage your customers to share. Facebook it. Tweet it. Stumble it. Include it in company newsletters. Do your best to get it out there and to let people see what everything looks like behind the scenes. Video creates a more intimate experience between you and your customer. They’re able to see you and to hear you and make note of your mannerisms. Break down that wall with them.
5. Show Social Conversations
Working hard to build your Twitter following and engage with customers? Awesome! So don’t hide it! Put your feed directly on your home page and let people see and hear these conversations in real time.
Use Facebook plugins to show off the size and depth of your community. Embed company YouTube videos on your Web site. Link off to your favorite Pinterest boards even if they’re not related to what you do every day on your Web site.
Show your social conversations and add your voice to your Web site in new and dynamic ways. Your home page copy can only do so much. Giving a user the opportunity to see you having a conversation with real customers does a heck of a lot more.
If social media has led us on to anything it’s that our customers want more of us on your Web site. They want to see you and hear from you. By adopting some of the tactics above you’ll highlight the “you” in your brand.
5 Easy Ways to Increase YOU on Your Web site
View full post on Small Business News, Tips, Advice – Small Business Trends
5 Final Ways to Qualify Marketing Help
Mar 13th
In this final part of my three part series on qualifying marketing help I offer a few more ways to do it. Why so many? Because the difference between hiring marketing help and hiring the right marketing help can make, or break, your business. It’s one of the most important, and toughest, decisions any business owner will ever make. And, like a marriage, it’s better to do some extra qualifying upfront to avoid being stuck later because you didn’t.
To recap the list from part one (of this three part series) titled “3 Ways to Qualify Marketing Help:”
- Google them.
- LinkedIn Profile.
- Website Bio.
- Find out how well they know Social Media.
- Results.
- The Work.
Now, for my final few:
7.) Awards and Press: This one can be a bit controversial because while awards can be a great litmus test for some, for others, not so much. The argument is that few award shows factor in “results” as a winning criteria. I can appreciate that argument. Also, if an agency is doing lots of boasting about their awards, it’s often a way of overcompensating for weaknesses in other areas. On the other hand, if someone has no awards, that’s not good either. So, seek a happy medium.
Press-worthy work is another good litmus test because great press can be a great, free, added benefit for you. So, find out if they’ve gotten any. If they have, are we talking the local Penny Saver, or The New York Times?
8.) Are they a respected industry thought leader? The more respected they are in their industry, the better the chance they’re truly good at what they do. How can you know? Do they get invited to speak? Do they get interviewed? Have the agency principals been published in the trades? Are they on Wikipedia?
9.) Do they make it easy to work together? This is one you might not have considered. The fact is that investing in marketing help is a scary proposition for most business owners, especially first-timers. A smart marketing resource will be aware of that and have an easy way to start the process and test the waters.
10.) Are they driven and truly passionate about their business? It’s one of the most important, yet most overlooked items on the list. If you’re passionate about your business you’ll want to work with someone equally passionate about theirs. Sometimes you can simply hear it in their voice or see it in their eyes. You can also tell by how they present themselves online. Does it feel inspired, or rudimentary?
11.) How well do they market themselves? This one almost seems dumb because you’d assume that any marketing firm looking to help you would be awesome at their own marketing. Not true and I’ve heard all the excuses: “Well, I guess I’m like the shoemaker with no shoes.”…. “Hey, I’m just way too busy with my clients.”… yada, yada, yada.
Don’t buy it. The last thing you want to do is to hire a marketing firm that sucks at marketing themselves.
To conclude I’ll repeat a last key point that I mentioned in my first post regarding referrals. Referrals are an obvious, logical way to find help and they often work out fine. I don’t list “getting referrals” as a qualifier because everyone already knows that. What they may not know — and what this series addresses — is that a referral is just a starting point.
I could probably add a couple more to this list, but if you follow these 11 guidelines you’ll be well on your way to finding the right, qualified, marketing help. This is the final installment of this three part series. Check out part two, “3 More Ways to Qualify Marketing Help.”
Good luck, and “Happy Qualifying.”
Handshake Photo via Shutterstock
5 Final Ways to Qualify Marketing Help
View full post on Small Business News, Tips, Advice – Small Business Trends
3 More Ways to Qualify Marketing Help
Mar 6th
After getting a whole bunch of Shares, Tweets and great comments on my previous post: “3 Ways to Qualify Marketing Help,” I think it’s fair to say that this topic is an important one. Clearly, it’s an issue on people’s minds. So, with that in mind, I’m continuing the topic.
I’d also like to say that while this topic is intended for small business owners seeking marketing help, I was pleased to see so many positive comments from other marketers. So, if that’s you, keep reading and maybe you’ll pick up a tip or two on ways to fine tune your current presentation.
My first three ways to qualify a marketing resource were:
1.) Google them and see what you can find.
2.) Check to see if they have a LinkedIn profile.
3.) Read their website bio.
My next three ways to qualify a marketing resource are:
4.) Find out how well they know Social Media: Sure, everyone’s talking about Social Media. What you’ll want to find out is how involved they are with it and how effectively they’re putting it to use. But even better than asking them, do some simple online investigating. Some specific questions to answer are:
- Do they have a great blog? If so, when was their last post? Was it interesting, current and relevant?
- How’s their Facebook Brand Page?
- How’s their YouTube Channel?
- Do they Tweet and if so, what about? Are they tweeting about the bar they’re drinking at or something that reflects true marketing intelligence? You’ll find all this out pretty quickly just by logging in.
5.) Results: Ultimately, it comes down to this, right? And, yet, how many marketing firms truly have a lot to say about it? Well, they’d better if they want to be seriously considered. So, on their website do they display great testimonials and case studies? Just a couple or a bunch? The more they show, the more you might be convinced that maybe you’ll be the next one.
6.) The Work. This may be the most important litmus test of all because you can’t possibly consider anyone if you don’t seriously like – or better yet, love — their work. So, when you visit their site make sure you give yourself more than enough time to review and fully digest their work. It’ll be well worth the time you invest.
That covers Part 2 of “3 Ways to Qualify Marketing Help.” If you’re finding these tips helpful be sure to check back soon. I will have some final thoughts on this all important topic.
Handshake Photo via Shutterstock
3 More Ways to Qualify Marketing Help
View full post on Small Business News, Tips, Advice – Small Business Trends
4 Ways SMBs Can Get More From Their SEO
Feb 28th
The moment you decide that you need to hire someone to help you with your search engine optimization? Yeah, it can be a little scary. Small business owners are often more than wary about the idea of getting involved with a search engine optimization practitioner. They know that appearing in local search results is important, but they’ve also heard the horror stories about their peers being burned. Or they think it costs too much money. Or, maybe they’ve seen the Dilbert cartoons essentially calling the whole industry corrupt. I get that it can be scary. But as a small business owner, it’s important to remember that YOU are in control of your site’s SEO, even if you’re hiring some additional help. You just need to be better about asserting that control.
Below are a few things SMBs can do to help relieve the fear associated with SEO and help them get more bang from their SEO dollar.
Learn to speak the language
Just because you’ve hired someone to help you with your SEO efforts doesn’t mean that you’re exempt from having to know what they’re doing to your site. Remember, this is your business they’re touching. While you don’t have to become a full-on SEO expert, you should do your homework and try to understand the basics of what’s happening to your Web site. Having that shared knowledge and language will not only help you to ask better questions, but it will help relieve fear since you’ll now be able to communicate with your SEO and understand the process. Resources like The Beginner’s Guide to SEO from SEOmoz or Search Engine Land’s What Is SEO can help you learn to speak the SEO language.
Be part of the process
Again, this is your Web site and your business. Don’t be afraid to be active in the process and in helping your SEO to craft a strategy that works for you. The truth is your SEO needs you to be involved in the strategy. For the SEO to be successful, they may need to help make sense of the keyword research they’re doing for your site, you’ll have to write content for them to build links to, you’ll have to let them pick your brain about your customers and who they are, etc. The more involved you are the better results you’re going to see. It’s also going to do a lot to help you feel more in control since you’re part of what’s happening.
Agree to tackle the boring stuff first
When it comes to small business SEO there’s nothing more important than the little things. And it’s in completing those little things that will have the biggest return for your Web site. The trouble is, sometimes the little things are often the boring things that we don’t want to do.
Do yourself a favor and do them.
For most SMBs, that means:
- Claiming all of your online search listings.
- Making sure that your NAP (name, address, and phone number) is accurate everywhere on the Web.
- Creating hyper local content for your business
- Working on building a social media presence
Some of that isn’t particularly flashy, but it is important and it needs to be done. Make sure you get all your low-level ducks in a row before you start chasing bigger rainbows.
Don’t try to rush it
It may not always be fun to hear, but search engine optimization is an investment into your Web site. Like other investments, that means some of the results you’ll be able to see now, but you may have to wait for larger impact items. Understand that if you want to build your presence, your brand, and your business for the long-term, you’re going to have to keep reinvesting in SEO over and over again. Hopefully by being part of your SEO process and creating a strategy that works for you, you’ll be more comfortable waiting for links and content to mature.
Above are only a few ways that small business owners can get more from their SEO investment. Putting resources toward search engine optimization doesn’t have to be scary, but it does require that you get involved, know what’s happening, and learn to speak the language.
How have you taken a pro-active approach to your site’s SEO efforts?
4 Ways SMBs Can Get More From Their SEO
View full post on Small Business News, Tips, Advice – Small Business Trends
10 Ways Having a Baby Changes Your Finances
Feb 22nd
This series is brought to you by TurboTax Federal Free Edition.
Having a child brings about intense financial changes for at least the next 18 years of a parent’s life, but that’s a pretty vague statement. What are those implications? How can you be sure that your budget accounts for every new change in your finances? Here are at least 10 ways in which a child changes your finances, all of which you should work into your budget to ensure that the baby’s needs are met without putting you in (too much) debt.
Entirely New Budget
The first and most obvious change to your finances is that your entire budget has to be revamped to include your child and all his or her needs. The best idea here is to scrap your entire budget and start from scratch. Not only will you need to account for the child’s needs, but you’ll probably be whittling down on some of your own expenses while increasing others.
Utilities
If one parent is transitioning into a stay-at-home parent under the prospect of a new child, utilities are sure to increase. The lights will be on longer, the appliances will be used for more cooking, and things like electronic toys or baby monitors will increase the cost of electricity. A stay at home parent will also be using more water during the day both for cleaning and bathing purposes, and the heat will remain on when it otherwise would have been turned off by you or a timer before leaving for work.
Groceries
Having a child means spending more money on groceries, whether it be baby food or organic products which suddenly seem more important than non-organic ones. When it comes to ourselves, we’re often willing to eat foods that are slightly lower in grade so that we can cut the price down. When a sensitive infant comes into play, many parents will no longer be willing to purchase inorganic foods just to save an extra dollar or two — but that extra dollar or two eventually adds up, especially when applied to multiple products in your shopping cart. Baby food, baby snacks, and formula will also fatten your bill. On the bright side, you may see a decrease in the amount of money spent on junk food, alcohol, and other frivolous purchases.
Medical Expenses
A new baby means new doctor’s bills. Your child’s health is important, and maintaining it means shelling out some serious cash for insurance and/or doctor visits. If your child is unfortunate enough to become sick, it’s nice to be able to reach into an emergency fund instead of cutting into your bank account or taking out a loan. Insurance is also very important, especially in the case that your child’s illness is more serious than just a simple cold or flu. You’ll also want to spend some money on trying to prevent illness, such as renovating rooms with poor insulation or questionable materials (lead, asbestos), buying air purifiers, or arranging a cleaner to come and deep-clean the residence.
Clothing and Furniture
The baby needs clothing and furniture. Clothing isn’t just limited to a few outfits; there are summer outfits, winter outfits, in-between outfits, and possibly even a small bathing suit to consider. Shoes and socks must also be factored in. The furniture encompasses a crib, blankets and pillows for the crib, any special kind of furniture needed elsewhere around the house. However, you may actually make some money in this area, since you may be overcome with the need to sell off some of your non-baby-friendly furniture. Folding beds or other furniture which may be hazardous to a crawling infant will most likely be on your front lawn during your next garage sale.
Misc. Baby Expenses
Toys. Baby-friendly soap and shampoo. Diapers. Diapers, diapers, and diapers. There are online calculators to help you figure out the cost of your new baby per year. There are some sites that estimate diapers to cost around $90 a month, which is over a thousand dollars yearly. The only way around this is to opt to use organic, reusable diapers. Most people don’t want to go that route because of the ‘gross’ factor, so it’s smart to prepare a budget beforehand — unless you want to be stuck using Mcdonald’s burger wrappers for the last half of December.
The Cost of Convenience
You should leave some flexibility in your budget to allow for the cost of convenience, which is basically what happens when your significant other needs new diapers immediately, leaving you with no choice but to buy pricey corner-store diapers instead of venturing out to a large outlet store for cheaper ones. There will be times when unexpected situations, such as running out of baby food or accidentally knocking over the rest of the night’s formula, will force parents to purchase more expensive items merely to save time.
Traveling
With a new baby, the way you travel is forever changed. Besides the obvious cost of strollers (which can reach into the thousands), you must consider the ways in which you get from one place to the next. Drive a car? You need a carseat — and a good one at that. Take the train? You might find yourself considering expensive taxis instead of participating in the hustle and bustle of the subway with a newborn in your arms. Ride a bike? Not anymore! Consider your normal means of transportation and then ask yourself how the baby fits into that, if at all. Then again, you may actually wind up saving money — your baby can’t ride your gas-guzzling chopper, but it can certainly be taken out for a stroll in a stroller or one of those weird baby backpacks you strap to your chest.
Leisure Activities
Finally, an area where you’re saving money because of the kid and not spending more than you ever thought was possible. Unfortunately, it’s a tradeoff, and the sacrifice here is your free time. While you may not be able to spend as many late nights at the bar with your work buddies, your liquor bill will certainly decrease a lot. Random vacations, costly outings to restaurants and events, and other leisure activities will probably be cut down because of your child. In the process, you’ll save some cash and hopefully learn how to creatively give yourself the relaxation you need by reaching out to friends in the community for cheap (albeit fun) activities together.
Savings
The biggest effect a child has on your finances is possibly the savings that you should be working on from before the child is even born. Not only are you saving for yourself anymore, but you’re now responsible for the future of an entirely new person. Hopefully, you want to help your kid pursue a great education without them becoming suicidal beneath a mountain of student debt. Since college is a whole 18 years ahead of them, saving has to start early — especially since the cost of higher education has skyrocketed into absolute ridiculousness. Besides having a college fund, you want to make sure to have backup money in case of any type of emergency. When your child reaches his or her teenage years, you want to be prepared to wire them money or pay their ransom if they should ever get into trouble.
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Overwhelmed By Job Applications: 4 Ways to Manage the Madness
Feb 22nd
I recently polled a bunch of managers and small business owners on how many resumes they receive for every opening they put out there. The result was staggering – 50 to 200. Whether or not you have a dedicated person managing these incoming resumes, it can be quite daunting and counter-productive not to have some process in place to weed through the pile.
Here are four simple steps every small company can follow:
Get Backup for Your Inbox
Email is great. But you cannot open 100 attachments from your email and make notes in spreadsheets. How are you going to keep track and share important pointers within your team? Resumes are bound to get lost in the ever building pile. To start getting organized – sign up for an online recruitment software, which caters towards small businesses. There are web-based ones that have free trials, so you can see if they fit your requirements before setting up your process and paying for one. For an average need of a small business, a good one should cost you no more than $50 per month. Here is a list of a few on google apps.
Get Candidates to Apply on Your Careers Page
Instead of simply putting an email address on your careers page, it helps to have a company overview and a job description. This gives the prospective applicant a more complete picture of what you are looking for. Moreover, you can have an application form under the description that asks for all the things you need to screen the applicant. For instance, instead of simply asking for a resume attachment, you can request a cover letter, linkedin profile and add a questionnaire as well.
How are you going to add this on your site? If you don’t have the IT resource, your above chosen recruitment software should be able to help you with this. Most of them provide a widget which enables you to display all openings, along with the form, on your website. All the information that comes in from the form will be organized on your recruitment software to help you screen faster.
Share the Fun
You may be the person assigned to screen all the applications, but you need to get the relevant inputs from all the hiring managers and stakeholders. Thus, if you organize the screening process using an online tool as described above, you can add team members to this system after the initial screening. Let’s say you narrowed down the 100 resumes for the ‘financial analyst’ position down to 15 by filtering for ‘CPAs,’ you can then move these 15 to stages which the Finance Manager can work on – either by adding her feedback or scheduling an interview. Having everything in one place gives a clear view to the entire team.
Find the Right Ear
When you create an opening, you can share its link on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Quora in the relevant groups and lists. If you want to receive the most fitting applications, you have to make an effort on pushing them to specific places where your prospects hang out. On the other hand, large job boards bring a lot of clutter with the cream.
Good Luck!
Email Overload Photo via Shutterstock
Overwhelmed By Job Applications: 4 Ways to Manage the Madness
View full post on Small Business News, Tips, Advice – Small Business Trends
3 Ways to Qualify Marketing Help
Feb 21st
“Getting good marketing help is one of the biggest challenges facing small businesses today,” according to Anita Campbell, CEO of Small Business Trends. Anita acknowledges that, “marketing is more challenging today than ever” and “business success is all about finding the right outside service providers and using them wisely.”
A common theme with small business owners is that they can’t afford the expense of marketing help. I’ve learned that whenever someone says they “can’t afford” something it usually means they don’t see the value of it. Savvy owners and managers do see the value of good marketing help. The problem is: finding and qualifying it.
Referrals are certainly a logical way to do it. And, often times they work out fine. On the other hand, what’s right for one business may be wrong for yours. If you understand that a marketing service is only as good as the top person (or people) behind it, learning as much as you can about that person is one of the best ways to qualify a marketing service and see if they’d be a good fit for you.
Here are 3 ways to do that:
1) Google them: This is the broadest most objective way to get the scoop on anyone. It’s a great way to get a full picture. I call it “G-cred” for Google credibility. Just be sure you’ve got the right person since there are probably tons of others with the same name. You can get around that by adding a key word or two to refine the search – like adding the industry or profession. You might also add a geographic location. Since the person you’re searching for is supposed to be a savvy marketing pro it’d better not be real hard to find them, regardless of their name. So, if their “G-cred” sucks, consider that a reason to rule them out.
2) LinkedIn Profile: Since every professional has one, you can also search there. Again, there could be tons of others with the same name so be sure you’ve got the right one. LinkedIn will provide a good sense of where they come from and how professionally qualified they are to service your business.
3) Website Bio: If you’re checking out their website there should be a bio on it. Let me rephrase that. If you’re checking out their website, there’d better be a bio on it. That said, I’m amazed at the number of companies that don’t post any bio info about the company leadership. That’s pretty dumb because all it does is raise a flag. As mentioned earlier, a company is only as good as the top people behind it. If a site doesn’t include a great bio of the boss you’ve got to wonder why.
Rather than viewing marketing as an ‘expense’ Anita Campbell says that “marketing is an ‘investment’ to help you achieve your revenue goals faster.” She adds that
“Not finding the right outside resource will probably hobble your business.”
Do these things and it’ll increase your odds of getting the right marketing help that your business deserves.
Potential Employees Photo via Shutterstock
3 Ways to Qualify Marketing Help
View full post on Small Business News, Tips, Advice – Small Business Trends
