Home for Business

4 Tips On Choosing Broadband For Your Web Business

Anthony Pearce — Fri, 17 May 2013 09:00:15 +0000

One of the main advantages of setting up a web business from home it is possible to start a business with little money, masses of enthusiasm and drive. However one area where start-ups shouldn’t consider cutting costs is when it comes to choosing their broadband supplier. There is an increasing trend for small businesses to opt for a less expensive broadband package that is marketed for use in the residential sector. There are a number of reasons why this is not advisable if you want to start an online business from home.

1. Dynamic v Static IP Addresses

Home broadband packages generally come with a dynamic IP, which means that your IP address will constantly change. While this is OK for residential users, a static IP address is the better option for businesses and start-ups. Unless you are a techie you are unlikely to know what an IP address is. You can find out what your IP address is at http://whatismyipaddress.com and they also give a good explanation of what an IP address is: 'An IP address consists of four numbers, each of which contains one to three digits, with a single dot (.) separating each number or set of digits. Each of the four numbers can range from 0 to 255. Here's an example of what an IP address might look like: 78.125.0.209. This innocuous-looking group of four numbers is the key that empowers you and me to send and retrieve data over our Internet connections, ensuring that our messages, as well as our requests for data and the data we've requested, will reach their correct Internet destinations. Without this numeric protocol, sending and receiving data over the World Wide Web would be impossible.' A static IP address will allows you to:

Connect with your computer when you are not in the office
Run your own email server
Run your own website and FTP server
Run off-site sever duplication
Set up your very own secure Virtual Private Network
Run CCTV off your network

So if you require staff members to be able to log on to their computer when there are working from home or out of the office, then a static IP address is the way to go. A static IP also makes it easier for other computers to find yours on the World Wide Web, and it just looks more professional to potential clients scoping out your website.

2. Advanced Security

Whilst Static IP addresses are considered somewhat less secure than dynamic IP addresses, since they are easier to track for data mining purposes, the security level offered by business broadband services is generally higher than home services and included within the package. Advanced security features includes features such as antivirus, anti-spyware, firewall, abuse control and spam control. If you have a home broadband service already check the security features you have.

3. Online Backup

Business broadband providers also usually offer online backup on remote servers as standard, which will give you peace of mind as your data files will never be completely wiped out in the event of a fatal system failure or office fire.

4. Comparing Business Broadband

There are a number of different websites out there that make comparing business broadband prices and services a pretty straight forward process. You can see a handful of these websites below: http://www.broadbanddeals.co.uk/ http://www.broadbandchoices.co.uk/ http://www.uswitch.com/broadband It's worth shopping around to get the best deal. Each of these websites has a specific business broadband section where you can enter your postcode to find the latest business deals available for your office location. What broadband service do you currently use and what experience have you had? Is the speed of your brandband an issue for your business? Comment below.

Why Quitting Your Marketing May Be The Best Way To Grow Your Business

Elizabeth Conley — Tue, 14 May 2013 18:31:51 +0000

Are you feeling overwhelmed with the time it takes to market your online business yourself? If so you're not alone. I recently read an article by Greg Digneo called 'Why Quitting May Be the Most Profitable Thing You Do This Year' which resonated with me. Now Greg wasn’t talking about quitting his business but quitting his marketing! Ridiculous as this might seem, I think this is the great advice for a start-up business as it is so easy to take a scattergun approach to marketing, having a go at every marketing activity. If you try and follow all the business and marketing advice you’ll quickly feel as if you’re sinking into quicksand and get overwhelmed with no chance of success. As Greg said, ‘there are too many strategies, tactics and options to spend a finite amount of time and energy’.

Too Many Marketing Choices

Today online marketing offers us too many choices:

web content strategies, content management strategies, content syndication strategies, blog strategies
a constant changing number of social media strategies, platforms and tactics
new Apps and tools for every area of marketing and business
traffic strategies, SEO, PPC, banner advertising, guest blogging and forums
list building strategies, email campaigns and platforms.

It’s very easy to get seduced by the new marketing strategies and forget the implementation time. If you're doing social media you'll know that just updating your Twitter, Facebook & Linkedin page can take a few hours a day leaving you little time to serve clients or manage your products. There isn’t enough time in the week to do everything and if you’re a Mum trying to set up a business from home whilst juggling a family then you’ve even less time to waste.

Focus On Your Business Objective

I decided to follow Greg Digneo’s advice. Over the last two weeks I’ve slowed down, paused and analysed whether my marketing activity is meeting my business objectives. (Sorry if it has been a little quiet!) For this I reviewed my market niche, business objectives, user goals and website priorities. Let me share the result with you.

My Niche

I set up HomeforBusiness to be a site which would empower anyone to set up an online business from home. On reflection, I decided to make this market more focused and target specifically women with families who want to create a lifestyle online business from home. Having run businesses from home around the family I can truly identify with the challenges these women face.

My Business Objective

To sell a membership area with specific step by step training for beginnings on how to set up a lifestyle business from home and offer coaching services. Whilst reviewing my time, other business and family commitments I decided to focus on selling specific training modules and coaching.

My User Goals

find someone they can trust who understands their unique situation
practical information on setting up an online business which assumes no knowledge
offer a step by step approach to setting up and marketing an online business
helps motivate users to succeed to create the work life balance they want.

My Website Priorities

Project the market niche, build trust, and build an email list. Consequently, I am not using the website to sell the training modules or coaching services directly. I believe that most online business success comes down to doing three things very well.

Drive traffic to your website
Build trust & authority
Convert that trust into sales or opt-ins.

Use Time Wisely & Be Master of One Or Two Tactics

Even if you have a broader range of marketing skills if you’re running a business whilst juggling your family commitments you’ll only have time to apply a one or two tactics to achieve the traffic, trust and sales you want. Focus on following one or two tactics well. As a result, I decided to master using webinars to grow HomeforBusiness. I believe that this will drive targeted traffic and be better than blogging at building trust and offer greater value to my visitors. As my niche market is women with children I am going to redirect my time from Twitter to Facebook as Facebook is a more popular social media platform with women. You'll start to see changes on the website in the weeks ahead as I amend the website to meet the revised business objectives and in three months or so I will share the results of the new marketing focus. So if you’re getting stuck in quicksand. Pause, let go of your marketing activity and refocus. Do you work all the time and are not seeing the results you want? Are you trying to have a go at every marketing activity, worried in case you miss out? Have you found a solution? Comment below and share your experiences.

How To Write A Better Website Brief

Elizabeth Conley — Fri, 03 May 2013 11:47:31 +0000

I often hear stories from web designers, developers and copywriters who have trouble getting a good website brief because their clients are confused about the direction they want to go in and have no clear objectives. This can be time-consuming and stressful for everyone involved. It doesn't matter if you're planning to create your own website or to use an external web designer, you'll still need to write a brief. This is probably even more important if you're building the website yourself as you won't have the help of a web developer to advise and steer you. Whilst even complex website can be produced quite cheaply using Wordpress you'll find that the costs mount up quickly if you're frequently changing your mind about the purpose and brand of the site. Writing a website brief will help to organise your ideas, inform your decisions about what your website requires, and transform your vision into a reality. Read on to find out which questions you need to consider.

1. What Is The Point Of Your Website?

Why do you need a new website? Are you replacing an existing, outdated website? If so, what was wrong with it? Maybe it's simply out of date and not accessible to users on mobiles and different platforms. If you're not convinced that this is important check out some key facts on mobile marketing. If this is your first website, ask yourself what you hope to achieve. You website could be:

A personal blog promoting your skills and knowledge
A place to market your products and services
A place for customers to get help or get in touch
A sales channel, using a checkout system

2. Who Is Your Target Audience?

Knowing what type of visitors you want to visit your website is important and will have a large impact on the choice of design and branding. Clearly what work for a corporate market is not going to be suitable for selling to teenagers. If you like the design theme on the left it is a Wordpress theme from Elegant Themes and it's designed for all platforms. I love it but can't think of a reason to use it at the moment!

3. Who Are You?

This is probably the most obvious question, but one that people often forget to answer. The first thing that a website brief should include is an outline of who you are and what your business does. It can be useful to include information on:

The age of your business
The industries that you are involved in
The products/services you sell
What makes your products/services unique

But, as with meeting a new person in real life, this only tells half of the story. With this information, your brief contains a physical description of your company, but no personality! A great technique is to choose 4-10 individual words to describe your business. James Buckhouse writes about the need for a 4 word story. Here is his take on a few well-known companies: Pinterest: Organize everything you love. Facebook: Hear from your friends. Google: Easily find useful information. You can then think about the 'tone of voice' which will also inform the visual look and brand of your web presence. To give you an idea, is your business:

Friendly and light-hearted?
Professional?
Precise?

4. What Content & Features Do You Need?

Finally, it is time to stop thinking about the generalities of creating a website for your business and get specific. You need a big, exhaustive list of what your website needs to include. This could be everything from pages about your company history and services to a blog or discussion area. There are literally hundreds of possibilities, with benefits to every type of content. When you are planning your content you need to consider:

keyword research. What keywords and phrases are used by your potential customers when searching for your products and services. To get an introduction to Search Engine Optimization watch this SEO video.
how frequently you plan to update your content. Frequent postings are important for social media and ranking well in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS).

For further information on building a website check out these resources:

It can be helpful to look at websites you like and dislike. Analyse them to help understand why. Don't just look at your competitors either as a lot can be gained by taking a broader view. What approach have you taking to building a website before and what experience did you have? I would love to hear your views. Comment below.

Start A Business With No Money: 6 Ingenious Tips For Start-ups

Mark James — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 09:04:39 +0000

Frugality is key in today’s tumultuous economy. No sooner are we out of a recession than we’re falling back into one and no sooner are we falling back into one we’re crawling our way back out of one! A symptom of this cycle is that cash is an even more precious commodity. Many people are trying to start a business with little or no money and cutting back has become increasingly integral to small business survival. With the multitude of outgoings a business can face on a day to day basis this is easier said than done! However, using a little ingenuity there’s ways to cut your start-up costs to the minimum until you are start seeing some sales. Here’s a run through of some of them:

1. Firstly, Buy Second-Hand

Getting together everything required for your start-up can prove costly; furniture, computers, copiers, all of these things can eat up funds. Especially if they’re brand new. With this in mind, see if you can get away with using second-hand items. Initially at least, as you might you spare yourself significant outlays. There’s been an explosion of second-hand sites and stores post credit-crunch, so take advantage of these.

2. Call in favours like Don Corleone

Like the movie Mafioso man, draw upon your network of friends and acquaintances and see how they can help your predicaments. Seeking the help of experts can prove pricey, so instead speak to your friends and contemporaries and see if their skills could be used to benefit your burgeoning company. Explain you’re a little tight on funds and offer to help them in return. Just don’t take the 'micky'!

3. Get Techy

Technological advances have cut costs on a range of fronts, the growth of cloud technology and the explosion of the app market easing some of the financial strain involved in running a business. Skype can save you cash on the phone call front, whilst Google Drive offers a free alternative to Microsoft Office and their software fees. What's more with cloud technology as its foundation, you’re not tied to a desktop and can work anytime, anywhere, provided you have a Wi-Fi connection. Weebly offers a cheap platform with hosting so that you can quickly get up a professional looking website, side-tracking the need for an expensive web developer. For a long-term solution look at producing a wordpress website yourself. Wordpress offers greater scope and flexibility allowing your website to grow with your business.

4. First Insource Rather Than Outsource

Whilst it is very tempting to call on expert to help you for everything it can become very expensive. There is a lot of free help available and what you need to do is assess your strengths and consider embarking on a little DIY. If you're confident handling numbers Cloud accounting means you can curtail the cost of an accountant, doing much of the rigmarole yourself. Whilst if you are better at writing then you could start your own blog to engage with your customers. It’s easy to take basic PR into your own hands, should you be willing to do a little legwork. If you're comfortable with technology then as well as producing your own website you could learn some basic SEO skills to help drive traffic to your website. Google Analytics is a great free tool to check your online progress.

5. Opt For Freelancers Over Staff

If you are going to grow your business you will need to buy in some help. It is not possible in the long-term to do everything yourself. Bringing in employees is expensive. There is the cost of recruitment, salary, National Insurance, Employers Liability and the cost of sickness and holidays. Instead consider taking on freelancers. Peopleperhour is a good places to look for freelancers in the UK. You’ll avoid the myriad of costs that in-house staff can bring and you might find that the greater flexibility freelancers offer suits your business.

6. Go Green

Being kinder to the environment should not only do the Ozone layer good, it should help your bills, too. If you’re based in an office, turn off things like computers, monitors and air conditioning during the night and use low-voltage light bulbs during the day. Embrace cloud technology instead of printing things out and share documents online, saving printing costs. Not only might you save a few trees, you might cut bills, too. Taking these steps, you should save cash and help your start- up stay in the black. It’s a tough economy but it’s possible to succeed with a little frugality! How do you manage to keep costs low? Share you ideas by commenting below.

Working From Home: Male and Female Perspectives

Stephen Marsh — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 14:06:57 +0000

Without the structure of employment, most people find their own unique ways of working from home. We create our own rules and daily routines, using our own systems to get things done. What’s more, we come away with different levels of satisfaction and different levels of success. But is there an overall trend to be found in the way that different sexes experience running a home business? Do men and women do things differently and, if so, why? Or is even attempting to find a distinction between the two a waste of time, built around inaccurate stereotypes? I think the latter. Read on to find out why.

Male and Female Motivations for Working from Home

An essential question to ask is why people begin working from home at all. Going to employment is largely more consistent, more dependable, and less complex to manage. For women, the leading motivation for running a business from home is children, or at least that’s what the internet would have you believe. According to an article from Parenting.com, 90% of mums interviewed said they started working from home to achieve some family flexibility. But isn’t that a fairly obvious statistic? If you only ask mums that work from home, most of them are bound to count being a parent in their motivations. This ignores the fact that there are also a large number of women who work from home who do not have children at all. Thinking about men working from home, few people would leap to the conclusion that children must be involved. Nobody would be that presumptuous. Instead, a quick search around the internet sees the term “entrepreneur” and “business owner” being used to describe men, rarely “work from home dad”.

The Work/Life Balance

One of the hardest things about working from home is finding a balance between work and the rest of your life. Most people envy the freedom that being freelance gives you, but few self-employed people feel liberated! It’s a hard balancing act to get right. One academic, Dan Wheatley, is quoted as saying that “women suffer greater pressure balancing work and household activities”, while men contribute “significantly less when it comes to housework.” I’d be wary of thinking that things could possibly be as simple as this. Working from home and running a business is unpredictable at best. You could be very busy one week, and bored stiff the next. One week you have time to clean and cook, the next you barely have time to eat. Maybe that’s missing the point. There could well be an argument that women feel more pressure around those issues than men. In fact, one article from CNN says that women feel 40% more distress than men if family time is interrupted by work-related messages coming in.

Finding Success and Satisfaction

It’s interesting to consider the differences between men and women working from home, but most of the areas to think about are theoretical. Take housework. Regardless of who does and does not feel an obligation to get it done, irrelevant of pressure, if something needs to be done I think a man or a woman would just do it. But perhaps the most fascinating part of the discussion is the question of satisfaction. If we accept that men and women work in similar ways at home, who finds this type of work more fulfilling? In one article at News.com.au, a self-proclaimed “work at home dad” clearly separates himself from being a “stay at home dad”. He insists that it’s the work part that matters most, not being around for the kids, and describes the way that his ego drives him to be a breadwinner. Of course, this feeds in to ancient divisions between the roles of men and women. The world tells this “work at home dad” that he is the provider for his family, and he naturally translates that into financial terms. But I’m a work at home dad. I’m also a stay at home dad. I’m also a very good one, some days, and a bad one on others, depending on how busy I am.

Ignoring the Stereotypes of Men and Women Working from Home

I’m a full time copywriter, and I also happen to be man. Sometimes people ask me how I got started, and I invariably tell them that I wanted to create a job where I was in control. That’s a fairly masculine trait, but it’s not entirely true. In fact, there were dozens, possibly hundreds of small things that came together to get me started. I was a relatively new father, and didn’t want to miss out on my daughter. According to the above, that’s more feminine. I was also reluctant to pay more childcare than was absolutely necessary. Finally, I had a part-time job that was going nowhere. The desire to make more money is neither male nor female, it’s the universal motivator that never fails to get you started. So the truth about men and women who work from home is that we are all in this together. We all go through the same things, and trying to divide so-called “mumpreneurs” from men who work at home is fruitless. We may have our strengths and weaknesses, our own priorities, but they’re based on who we are as people, not the sex we were born with.

Mobile Design Checklist: Is Your Website Mobile Ready?

Elizabeth Conley — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 08:47:32 +0000

Most of us were reluctant. We’d worked hard to create gorgeous websites that looked incredible on desktops and laptops. We didn’t want to do it all again. But, as the mobile market increases and people spend more time on their smartphones and tablets than ever before, your website needs to be mobile ready. Of course, mobile web design a comparatively recent advance. For many of us, it’s hard to know where to begin. To help, we’ve put together a simple checklist that draws on authoritative resources on mobile design. If you’re ready to start preparing your website for mobile devices (and you should be), here’s a framework for the entire process.

1: Check What Your Website Looks Like on Mobiles

Studies suggest that the majority of smartphone owners have their devices with them at all times. Do you? If so, take it out now and load up your website in your browser. The most important thing you can do before making any changes to your website is to check how it looks on a mobile device. Use every device you own, including smartphones and tablets, to check the site. You should be looking for:

Convenient navigation
A big font size that’s easy to read
Minimal scrolling from side to side
Images that are appropriately sized for the screen

If you do not have a multitude of devices to test on, Google have put together a fantastic testing tool. Simply log on to www.howtogomo.com to see how your website looks on a generic mobile screen which is similar in size to iPhone and Android devices.

2: Validate Your Website Code

You may be lucky enough to find that your website looks pretty great on a mobile device with no changes required. But what about the code that makes your website work behind the scenes? Whether you use a content management system like Wordpress, Joomla or Drupal, or have manually created your website by hand, its code may not be well-suited to the processing power of a phone. At the W3 Mobile Validator, you can type your website address and get an immediate breakdown of how your code fares.

3: Consider What People (Really) Need

Next, you should take a step back from your website as it is. It was designed for customers at home, with time to read lengthy content and great visibility for images. So forget about your website for moment and ask yourself a simple question – one which you will have asked yourself when your initial website was designed. What do your mobile website visitors really need? Do they really need a 2,000 history of your company? What about that giant map of where you are located? What do your time-short, on-the-go customers actually need to see? Sometimes, you need all of your content to be available. Sometimes, you need something a little more pared down. Fortunately, there is a solution for either instance.

4: Do You Need a Purpose-Built Mobile Site or Responsive Redesign?

Now comes the moment when you decide which course of action you will take to make your website more mobile-friendly.

A Mobile Website

First, you could create an entire website that is for the mobile user. Your layout is completely customised for small screens and font sizes, usually featuring less content and more focused around the bare essentials of your business. It is fairly easy to check whether your visitors are on mobile devices and display an alternate version of your website. For more information on doing this, check out this article from Web Hosting Hub: Redirecting Mobile Users to Your Mobile Site. If you use a content management system like Wordpress, Joomla or Drupal for your website, you will also be able to find a range of plugins that can detect mobile users for you.

A Responsive Website

Alternatively, you could create a new, responsive website. Responsive web design uses a range of advanced techniques to respond to the type of browser that is being used. For example, if a user logs on using their tablet in landscape mode, your layout may take on a horizontal look. Each section of text or box of content will be spread out for reasons of style, while your navigation may run the entire width of the screen. In contrast, if a user logs on using their smartphone, things may be arranged more vertically. Navigation items may fold into a drop-down menu, while content will be displayed going down the page, eliminating horizontal scrolling. Responsive web design is widely considered to be the preferred option, giving your customers consistency regardless of which platform they are viewing your site from. Of course, as a complete redesign of your entire website, this is not for everyone. For more information on responsive web design, check out this article from TreeHouse: Beginners’ Guide to Responsive Web Design.

5: Test, Test, Test

Finally, we go back on the checklist to the very first step – checking how your website looks on a wide range of devices. Whether you use an online tool, get your friends to try your website on their devices, or simply resize your browser window to get an approximation of different screen sizes, this is perhaps the most important step of all. And there you have it – a website that works on desktops, laptops, tablets and smartphones.

Who’s Top Dog This Week? 5 Top Digital Resources For Start-ups

Elizabeth Conley — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 15:20:29 +0000

I know many of you are starting up and trying to grow your businesses online. One of the first lessons I learnt when I started out was that you can have a great website but without traffic you're stuck! Of course at the start nobody wants to pay for traffic until you see money coming in. Here is my selection of resources to help you get more free traffic to your site.

Editor's Pick 11th April 2013

5 Ways to Get More Attention For Your Blog - each of the five suggestions are free to implement. Just doing one of the ideas will help. A great article. 101 Of the Best Wordpress Plugins For 2013- a useful list of plugins which will increase the functionality of your site. Just use the ones you need. Too many will slow down your site. Shortest Tutorial Ever On SEO - optimizing your website can boost website traffic in the long term. Check out the videos I made supporting it - SEO Basic Guide Part 1 & SEO Basic Guide Part 2 Blogging Tips From The Pros - 21 ways to maximise your website content. Point 20 claiming ownership of your blog has never been more important. For more information check out Google+ Profile For Business - Now's The Time Do you have other useful resources to share? Let me know and comment below.

Mobile Marketing: 5 Facts to Motivate You Into Mobile Marketing

Elizabeth Conley — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 07:00:07 +0000

Most of us already know that we should be taking mobile marketing seriously, and leveraging mobile devices not only as a marketing tool, but also as a new sales channel. But few of us really know why. Even if your competitors are launching big mobile campaigns, optimising their websites and engaging with customers on smartphones and tablets, it can be hard to get motivated enough to do the same. However, it can be quite straight-forward. For HomeforBusiness I just chose a responsive theme which as already optimised for mobiles. You might be surprised by the statistics and if these 5 facts don't motivate you to turn to mobile marketing nothing will! By the end, I’m sure you’ll understand why you need to take mobile marketing seriously and start putting plans into action.

1. 92% of Adults in the UK Own or Use a Mobile Phone

Let’s start with a simple one, how many people actually use a mobile device on a regular basis? According to Ofcom, it’s almost every UK adult. Almost all of these people will be able to receive SMS messages, which can be an effective tool for mobile marketing on a local or national level. Many will also be able to access the internet, exploring your website from wherever their travels take them.

2. 78% of Smartphone Owners Don’t Leave Home Without It

I know that I feel lost if I leave home without my phone! It’s all very well to know that most people have a mobile device of one kind or another, but what does this really mean for marketing? After all, there are many other objects that almost everybody owns but are not used for marketing. Crucially, mobile phone owners, and particularly those with smartphones take them everywhere. With a persistent tool for communication that goes everywhere your prospects do, reaching new leads and engaging them is easier than ever before.

3. 25% of UK People Have Made a Purchase Using a Mobile Device

I know what you’re thinking, 25% doesn’t sound like much. That said, if a quarter of mobile owners in the UK are willing to make purchases through their smartphones or tablets, it’s safe to say that a large number of people are willing to connect with businesses through SMS and mobile internet. But, for me, the most interesting thing in Econsultancy’s Multichannel Retail Survey is not that a quarter of people buy things on phones, it’s that this figure has almost doubled since 2011. The role of the mobile as a tool for marketing and sales continues to grow at an astonishing pace.

4. Just 50% of the Top 100 UK Retailers Have Mobile Optimised Websites

Unfortunately, the business world is not reacting quickly enough to the growth of mobile marketing and sales. According to a study by Skava, approximately half of the leading UK retailers have a website that is designed for desktop or laptop use not the limitations of a mobile device. You know the type of thing. It’s a website which you need to scroll back and forth just to read a headline, or where products are displayed in images so small that you would need a magnifying glass to see what you’re buying. In terms of marketing, it’s a website that does not look clean, neat and easy to read. It looks like what it is – a website packed full of content that would be better viewed from a proper computer.

5. 63% of People Will Turn To Your Competitors

Of course, if you have a website that is better viewed on a home computer, your leads, prospects and customers can simply see what you have to offer at another time. Unfortunately, few people do. A study by Tealeaf revealed that, after having a bad experience with a mobile website, more than half of us will immediately turn to a competitor. If you are not already using mobile marketing and mobile sales channels effectively, it’s easy to see why you should be. We are using mobile devices more than ever and, crucially, using them to buy. Be sure that you are using mobile devices effectively to sell.

DON'T MISS

Next week we're going to be covering what steps needs to be taken to make your website mobile friendly and selecting some of the best responsive wordpress themes around. Subscribe to our RSS feed or Newsletter to make sure you don't miss them.

NOW IT'S YOUR TURN

What devise are you viewing this article on? How could we improve and how mobile friendly is your website? Please share you views in the comment box below.

Use Rich Snippets Before Your Competitors Do

Elizabeth Conley — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 10:27:17 +0000

Conventionally, the only way to get a worthwhile amount of traffic from search engines was to achieve the number one spot. The vast majority of web users click the first result they see for a given phrase, with a significant drop-off in traffic over the next two items. After the third position, most search queries will only deliver a negligible amount of traffic. But if your competitors are dominating those most coveted search positions, there are other ways that you can get more clicks from search. If you show more detail on what your page contains, attract attention with an image, or even give users the information they need right in the search engine, you are sure to win more traffic. Using Rich Snippets, you can turn your search engine listing from a dull section of text to an exciting, enticing result.

What Are Rich Snippets?

Usually, a search engine results shows two things, the title of your page and a short description. These are usually generated by your META tags, although search engines may decide to show a different section of text from within the page. Rich Snippets are additional pieces of information that are shown in addition to your title and description. Rich Snippets can be shown for:

Events
Products
Video
Recipes
Businesses
People and Online Authors
Music
Restaurants

If you prepare your page and make it easy for search engine crawlers to find Rich Snippets, you can significantly increase your chances of winning clicks. Here is a great Visual Guide to Rich Snippets on SEOmoz created by BlueGlass Interactive.

How To Add Structured Data To Your Website

To have Rich Snippets show in Google, you need to add structured data to your web pages. Structured data helps search engines to understand the information on your website so that it can be displayed intelligently in results. Of course, you can manually add the necessary data to your web pages, although this can be a complex thing to get started with. One of the best beginners guides we have found is available at VerveSearch.com but probably the best source of information on Rich Snippets is Google themselves. You will need to get familiar with:

How to write microdata
What a ‘schema’ is, a pattern of tags used to identify an event, person, company, and so on

But if you offer information on events from your website, there is (thankfully) an easier way.

Marking Up Event Data with Google Data Highlighter

In Google’s webmaster tools, you can access a wide variety of features to help you tell Google about your pages and improve your indexation. The latest of these is the Data Highlighter, which allows you to add microdata for Rich Snippets, without manually typing code. Unfortunately, though, Data Highlighter only supports events.

Are Rich Snippets Worth the Effort?

Right now, there is no quick-fix way to put microdata into your website and start seeing Rich Snippets in search engine results. If you have lots of pages, products, or events on your website, updating data could take days, or even weeks. So why bother? Well if you don’t look into Rich Snippets, your competitors will. Before you know it, they won’t just dominate those first few positions on Google, their result listings will be more attractive than yours. They’ll get more clicks, from customers that could have been yours.

Now It's Your Turn

If you found this article helpful don't forget to tell us. Are you using rich snippets yet for your site?

Who’s Top Dog This Week? 5 Top Digital Resources For Start-ups

Elizabeth Conley — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 16:54:20 +0000

As well as HomeforBusiness (of course!) every week I come across some great practical articles which I think will be valuable to anyone who is setting up or running a business from home. Here is a list of my favourite for this week.

Editor’s Pick - 1st April 2013

1: What To Do After You’ve Published Your Article by Norma Doiran at Normadoiran

2. The Marketer’s Simple Guide To Creating Infographics in Powerpoint by Annum Hussain at Hub Spot

3. How To Set Up A Facebook Page For Business by Andrea Vahl at Social Media Examiner

4. 5 simple Web Design Tips To Improve Conversions by Search Engine People

5. Everything New You Need To Know About Pinterest by Stephanie Buck at Mashable

Now It’s Your Turn

Which are you favourite resources? Share them by commenting below.