March 2nd, 2010
A recession is a great time to start a new career or even start a new business. So many businesses were birthed out of recession. As a matter of fact, Microsoft was one of them. There are many stories online and even on the news of people who have taking a turn in their life because they were fired and decided to pursue their dreams which have become quite a reality. Many of these dreams are very successful. In times like these even Snuggies made millions of dollars over the Christmas Holiday. Who would have thought a fleece with a hood that comes in a variety of colors would have proven to be sooo effective.
Well if you’re like many others who have lost your job and are looking to peruse your dreams go ahead and take the chance. Sit down and write your vision on paper. Create a business plan so that you can find out about your target market and find out about your competition. Evaluate any loop holes that may be existent in your market and capitalize on them. Try your local business development center, SBA offices, and Chamber of Commerce office near you. They can you with all the start up information you need. They provide all kinds of seminars and workshops to help you with business plan writing and with business start up. They also can help you with networking.
Once you get your foundation established on paper you have to do some marketing and this is where we can help. Invest in a website. If you have a small internet based company a recession is a great time to get started. If you have products and services that are worth you promoting then you need a website to help you capitalize on your target market.
Reasons why this is a great time to start a business during the time of recession
(1) As I mentioned earlier, Snuggies made millions of dollars during the holidays, well of course during a recession people are typically being very conservative as far as spending is concerned so if you have a product or service that is unique and economical at the same time, CAPITALIZE on that. Internet sells make it easy for prospects to purchase your good and/or services
(2) Right now many of the “Big” companies are going under. They aren’t making the sells they use to and they are force to downsize but that is a great things because now some of your biggest competitors are competing on a smaller scale or they aren’t competing with you at all. So take advantage of this tidbit. It can cause your startup business to SOAR!
(3) You can work from home. So let’s say you lost your job well you don’t have to leave your bedroom. If you have a website, then everything you do will be electronic and you don’t have to leave the comfort of your own home to make money. I’ve seen many companies in the news that started up in their home. The lady who made Airborne, she was a school teacher, and she started in her home. She would have boxes and boxes of Airborne that she was manufacturing in her home and sending out for distribution. See you can work from work. Literally.
(4) Because you deserve it! You deserve to peruse your dreams and make them a reality. There is nothing like taking a chance on the hope that your business idea will bring you into the financial freedom that you have always dreamed about. Remember dream Big because your return canbe big.
Posted in Recession Business Starters | No Comments »
February 8th, 2010
Small businesses have the daunting task of start up. Start up isn’t necessarily the easiest thing to do. There is so much ground to cover and often times it can become very overwhelming. You have a great idea and you feel like, “Ok! I’m going to try it. I’m going to put on my running shoes and shoot for the stars.” So you being to write up your business plan and evaluate your target market and competition. You attend business seminars with hopes of getting insight into the business world and then this BIG issue appears and its name is CAPITAL. If you’re lucky, when you start your business it will just soar but if you’re like many others who really don’t have a clue, then you have an idea on paper with a small clientele wondering how to expand your business.
So your next thought is ADVERTISE. Once you being to look into it you’ll see that it’s a costly venture and that a lot capital for any type of advertising is going to come out of your pocket. So you figure let me get a website so at least if I advertise online I extend my market to the entire world. You accomplish this goal only to find out that your website isn’t generating any feedback or any revenue. So now you think. “What a BIG waste.” You begin to wonder, “How can I make the search engines work for me.” If you don’t succeed at accomplishing this task then you, like most people, will give up on your business idea deeming it a failure and letting your site go.
Before you go that far, let’s make your site work for you as economically as we can. Let’s start with the basics. Make sure you’re submitted to the search engines. You can go to Google and type “add a site” into Google search tab or “suggest a site” into yahoo’s search tab. Next, make sure that your site has a title and metatags for keywords and for content (site description). This is how the search engines will “describe” your site. In the title of your site, target keywords. Don’t make your title generic like “cars”, “websites”, and “tables”. The competition for these generic terms are just too high and lowers your chances of ranking.
Try and come up with phrases that people would type in if they were searching for products, goods and services in the search engines. This process takes thought and research. One company that is good with keyword ranking is RankPay. I love this company. There is no upfront costs they do all the leg work to get you ranked and then you pay once you rank. Really cool company. Anyways, you can type in a keyword and based on the page rank on your site they will let you know how well you can rank for a particular keyword. This tool is really helpful. As well as Google’s Webmaster Tools, they can help you with keywords as well. Google won’t measure your ability to rank but you can always take the keywords they suggest and put them in RankPay’s tool and comes up with some great outcomes. Ok, back to putting the keywords on the site…put the same keyword you used in the title in the keywords tag, the description tag, on the images alt tag, if you’re using tables put the keyword in the table summary, and make sure the keyword is in your copy. This way when the spiders parse your site they can tell what the subject of your site is and the keywords you’re targeting.
Also another good thing to do is list your site in local directories on MSN, Google and Yahoo. Make sure that you put your address in the header and footer of the site so that the search engines can know where you’re located and they will include you in local searches.
Well that’s all for now. Stay tuned. I will have more tips very soon. My next blog will be on link building. This is Nikki Barnard, Owner of Personality Web Designs writing. If you need help with developing your website don’t hesitate to stop by we’re located at http://www.personalityweb.com/ or give us a call at (305)725-5581.
Posted in Miami Small Business Web Design | No Comments »