How To Select A Superb Host For Your Website Development

May 31, 2010

When you set up your online business, your primary concern is getting everything up and running fast. You may be tempted to ask your friends to help you out, if they host their own sites. But, keep in mind that choosing the right website host can help with your SEO marketing strategies.

What To Look For In A Host.

There are tons of website hosts out there. Some will be free and some are not. When you are looking for real estate for your business, you don’t want to go with the free options. Leave the free options for websites involving family or friends or mini sites, but not for a full fledged business. Free sites have too many limitations.

What kind of server do they have? The server is where all of the information is stored. A server hosts websites for the hosting company. So, when somebody wants to look at a page in your website, the server makes this happen. More powerful servers are faster at their job and pages appear in seconds for your visitors.

Apache is one of the best services. Apache is open source which means that it is free for web hosts. Also it supports a number of applications including content management systems and blogging platforms. If you use Joomla or WordPress, you are using an Apache-based server.

Free hosting servers often have a bandwidth issue. Users may not be able to upload audio’s, videos and other tools as easily, compromising their site’s functionality. This can limit what you do. You do not want to be changing hosts after your site is established and running.

Why Is This So Important?

Search engine optimisation is quite complex. You will be optimising content for your site and uploading it to many different web pages. You don’t want to be limited when you try and expand. Each page represents a unique URL and a different keyword that you are focusing on.

You may be the one designing your website development or a website designer may be doing it for you. You don’t want to be limited by your platform as to what you can do. You may want to change templates at different times, to keep up with the way that you choose to conduct your business. The wrong web host can make it difficult to tweak templates to be more SEO friendly.

Also, with free hosting you probably won’t have full administrative control of your website development. You can add files to prevent spamming on your blog and also to capture website stats or place a web counter on your site’s pages. Just having enough access to edit content on your site is not enough.

When planning your online business, take time to really think about hosting and its impact on your future SEO. This can make all the difference when you start out.

Michelle Dale is The Managing Director of Virtual Miss Friday, an accomplished Executive Virtual Assistant Service which helps companies of all sizes reach their commercial targets. Want to get more information about online business building success strategies that really work? Contact VMF today!

Posted by Virtual Miss Friday | Filed Under **eBusiness** | Comments

How To Utilise Article Marketing To Establish Your Website Development

May 30, 2010

Once you have decided that articles are actually essential for your websites, blogs and books, you will soon understand that article marketing opens up a number of additional and exciting options. When it comes to seo services, the excellent content that you create can now be used to spread the word globally about your operation, through the creation and distribution of special article variants to directories, authorities and relevant blogs. If you remember how important engines such as Google and Bing are, you should note that the majority of people are searching this way and have a constant desire for great information. By distributing your articles in a concerted fashion, searchers will be able to find them within the article directories, leading to additional traffic back to your sites.

The articles themselves, when they are distributed, will contain what is known as a “resource box,” which contains a little bit about you and your organisation together with an anchor link text, designed with optimisation in mind, but which links back to your related website or blog.

Article marketing is a long-term prospect. This method of promotion has been around for a long time and is well proven to be one of the greatest ways to generate traffic and to create a long list of solid back links to your website development. The top search engines look at many of the senior article directories in a good light and a link from one of these sites through one of your articles, back to you, is good. Your search engine positioning may well benefit if you build up, on a consistent basis, great back links from authority sites.

You can establish your author name, your site and your product as true experts in the field by using the powerful benefits of article marketing. The more good information that you have circulating around the net, related and pointing to your sites, the better. This is a very competitive world and you must, first and foremost, aim to build credibility through online business services.

Here, we are showing you a number of different ways to help you improve your online presence and to really get the best out of Internet marketing. There are a couple of underlying trends throughout. The first of these is the need to establish a certain level of expertise. In other words, you must be the people to turn to for help within your niche. Also importantly, you must be very subtle about the way you build your presence, certainly within social media worlds. You need to make people aware of who you are and what you do and through careful interaction, once again establish your reputation.

For best effect, it is advisable to link all your strategies toward the common goal. Always link your Facebook and Twitter accounts to your blog updates, promote good comment interaction, syndicate your material, and always make sure that it’s bookmarked. You have to create top quality content on a regular basis, and you should ensure that it’s marketed and distributed to further enhance your reach.

Here we are in 2010 – take concerted action and make your move. Understand that you might have the best looking website around, but nothing will happen unless you’re interactive.

Michelle Dale is Chief Executive of Virtual Miss Friday, an adept and highly-proficient Virtual Assistant Service which works closely with enterprising people who really want to succeed in their chosen field. If you’d like to learn more about online business building success strategies that are tailored to your needs, contact VMF today!

Posted by Virtual Miss Friday | Filed Under **eBusiness** | Comments

How To Submit Articles

May 24, 2010

Search engines provide the operational model on which directories are designed to function. Web developers submit articles to such web sites in order to increase the exposure of their business by reaching a larger number of viewers. There is a huge amount of work involved here that proves overwhelming when you don’t know how to submit the articles.

The issue of how to submit articles to hundreds of web directories has been solved with the creation of automatic software tools that handle the submission process within hours. Credibility follows from exposure with a good article directory, but only after passing through the selection and testing process. However, the quality of service and the requirements differ from case to case. It would be a pity to invest in the wrong type of automatic submitter.

Small businesses and blogs still rely on the conventional submission pattern. How to submit articles? Have between one and five URLs submitted per day, and make sure that you provide original content. Web surfers look for fresh new content, and the modalities to reach them are incredibly vast and numerous. What’s the main objective of this submit-articles craze? We could best resume all the efforts in a triple objective: search engine ranking, sales and traffic increase.

There are e-guides, e-book sand training courses that will show you how to submit articles for for maximum of results. Yet, you must be aware of the fact that with every directory you have to fill in forms. Such tasks take effort and time, and you should be prepared for it. Softwares often provide assistance when you need to manage over 500 directories.

It is not wise to try and keep up with all the directories that appear overnight, and submit articles with each and every one of them. A massive growth is expected for this domain of activity in the coming years, therefore, article directories will become even more numerous. Now, it is no longer a problem of how to submit articles but where to submit them. And this is one serious issue to take into consideration when elaborating work strategies for business promotion.

Posted by Guest Post | Filed Under **eBusiness** | Comments

Several Great Pointers On Website Development And Internet Research

May 10, 2010

The Internet never ceases to amaze us and it is an amazing tool, but it is considered very difficult to comprehend or decipher. A virtual assistant with the skills to dig out relevant information from the rest of the jumble can specialise in research. Any number of clients across all spheres of business are looking for Internet researchers.

In school they teach students to pick out the theme of a paragraph or story. After reading it, it’s the job of the student to figure out what’s the most important part of what they have read. If you are a researcher, this is exactly what you would be doing for those who don’t have the skill or the time to devote to this themselves. The act of compiling information that is of use to others is a core ingredient of your business.

The Internet provides access to a massive amount of information, staggering by any comparison. Experts in different fields post their knowledge in articles and blog posts. There are a large number of databases online, where agencies, professional organisations and governments alike digitise their information and present within directories for anyone who has the desire to access the material.

As there is truly so much information available, the average person or the harried business owner can really get lost very quickly. Who uses this kind of information? For example, a business might turn to the Internet to compile statistical information and to spy on competition. Writers, book authors, journalists, television professionals and literally just about anyone else you can think of, use information from the Internet for their work. With their busy jobs, they don’t have time to do the research.

It can be a lengthy process conducting research. Within the Internet, you need to know how search engines work in order for you to use them to your advantage and find out what you’re looking for. Primary search engines are Google, MSN and Yahoo!, but there are a number of other engines that most people don’t hear of. An Internet researcher is familiar with all of them and uses the one that will yield the greatest harvest of useful information for their particular task at hand.

Virtual assistants working within Internet research would provide several services to clients:

• Compiling current statistical data.
• Current knowledge of search engines and relevant databases.
• Uses proven methods for information gathering (relevant use of keywords).
• Spreadsheet and Word document expertise for presenting information in useful manner.
• Specific knowledge about the client’s subject matter.

You may be approached by a writer who is looking for knowledge and research on specific subjects, for example 18th-century London or snake venom, for the next book. A business client may want statistics on auto maker revenue in the last ten years. Each is a different subject, but methods of researching are similar.

The virtual assistant Internet researcher may compose a specific niche for his or her business. In your case, this might be gathering and analysis of statistical information, or possibly website development. You could establish a client base around that service for large and small corporate businesses alike. Experienced clients realise it is not easy to perform research and come up with the best results, yet they want the best; consequently they would be willing to pay premium prices for top quality results.

Posted by Virtual Miss Friday | Filed Under **Business**, **General**, **VMF**, **eBusiness**, Development | Comments

Crucial Guidelines On Benchmarks When Buying A Business For Sale

May 7, 2010

Don’t have any confusion about it, buying a business for sale is a multi-step process with each step being essential. Many times you may not proceed to the next position until you complete the preceding step and you should never be tempted to short-cut the process at all. You can view any time spent in preparation and in the revelation of facts and figures about the business to be well spent and as such you will be ensuring that no horror stories come back to haunt you when you take over.

Before you even start to talk to a prospective seller, a great deal of information can be revealed. One of the most important questions you must ask yourself before you go forward is what kind of enthusiasm you possess for the type of business you have your eye on. Is the industry that you are looking at of particular interest to you and do you really want to get actively involved in everything that it represents? Be advised, that unless you want to be a completely “absentee” owner and are considering the many additional steps that you need to take if this is the case, you should be enthusiastic about the business that you are getting involved in.

A process of due diligence requires you to inspect all kinds of documentation:

* Financials: these documents will include balance sheets, payroll records, tax reports, reconciliation documents and profit and loss statements. If the seller claims a considerable amount of “cash sales” but cannot point to these within tax declarations, then they cannot be counted and you must ignore them.

* Employee records: including information on individual behavior, attendance, length of service and pay scales.

* Licenses: including federal, state, city, county as appropriate, plus any certification licenses you must possess to operate the business. Be prepared to consult records independently to see if there have been any discrepancies or problems in the past.

* Equipment records: including age, depreciation, maintenance, replacement cost, and any required inspections.

* Inventory records: re-saleability, turnover and overall condition.

* Supplier contracts: are they transferable, do you have alternatives and is there goodwill?

* Property records: including rental agreements and portability – the latter element is of considerable importance.

If you find that all records, licenses, contracts and agreements are in order and are workable for you going forward, you may be wondering how to arrive at a good value when you buy business assets. A number of different ways to look at this exist. Here are some of the methods commonly used to calculate:

* Asset-based multipliers, where assets are totalled and value is determined.

* Rule of thumb, where industry benchmarks are used to establish the value (not recommended).

* Revenue-based multipliers – a percentage is applied to monthly or annual revenues (not recommended).

* Cash flow multiplier – where the business owner’s profit is added to the salary and realized perks, with a number of expenses deducted. This method is most commonly used to determine the value of a business.

While there are many documents and figures that can be proven to backup an owner’s claim, or not as the case may be, you need to take into account significant facts. You need to look at the reputation and age of the business, what level of competition you may expect, the existing legal structure, quality and physical location of the premises and last but by no means least, the difficulty in obtaining a new lease. When looking at a business for sale, take everything into account as you determine whether you should buy a business like this.

Richard Parker is the President and founder of the prestigious Diomo Corporation – The Business Buyer Resource Center. His celebrated materials, seminars and consulting have encouraged thousands of aspiring business buyers from around the World to pursue their dream to buy a business.

Posted by Guest Post | Filed Under **Business**, **eBusiness**, Development | Comments

Amazing Suggestions On Truly Effective Website Development Strategies

May 6, 2010

Many virtual assistants these days are looking for a great deal and a good future as a website development specialist or web designer. We have seen that more and more bricks and mortar operations are turning to the Internet to market their products. Very often these individuals don’t know how to create an online presence creatively and they need help to make it all work.

What’s a web designer? A web designer is someone who works to set up websites for other businesses. You may be knowledgeable in this area and have quite a lot of talent as well and can set up your virtual assistant business in this field.

The Internet is the next great frontier. Millions upon millions of people use the Internet every day to look for information, conduct business and buy merchandise or services. You need to build up an online presence to be able to access this world. It’s the way that people learn about you and your business.

There is a great deal to learn about web designing, unfortunately. If you talk to somebody about CSS for HTML, they really won’t know what you are talking about. As such, if you want to build a website for your business, either an existing one or an Internet operation, it can be difficult to do so without making mistakes.

Mistakes can easily cost you business. If your pages won’t load quickly or you have graphics that don’t look good, visitors can be turned away before they even get to know what your site has to offer. Many business owners, starting off, would rather avoid these traps if they could.

The field of web design is rapidly expanding and booming and is a perfect choice for a virtual assistant with the relevant experience. Those website designers who can convert a business owner’s ideas from a dream into reality have always been in great demand and will continue to be so.

Virtual assistant website designers perform tasks like:

• Website setup
• Setting up a blog
• Monitoring discussions on a forum
• Setting up a page
• Conducting search engine optimisation
• Uploading audio, podcasts, videos and files
• Troubleshooting coding
• Website maintenance

Visitors are looking for different things when they visit a website. Advertisements placed at the top of the page look appealing. Dedicating each webpage to a different product allows more information about the product to be readily available. Well-informed visitors are more likely to buy the product that way.

These examples are just a few off the tasks that you could be called on to provide. Believe it or not, just taking care of the website duties is a weight off of the mind of business owners both small and large who want to concentrate on the business side of things and not pulling their hair out trying to manage complicated graphics or blog posts.

The good news is that any one of these areas can further be defined as a sub-niche. Within web design you can concentrate on website maintenance or simply the initial setup process. Both aspects are much needed services, and certainly high in demand. Any virtual assistant, who likes the technical side of the Internet, will see their passion fulfilled as a website designer.

Posted by Virtual Miss Friday | Filed Under **Business**, **VMF**, **eBusiness**, Development | Comments

Incredible Tips On SBA Loans For Your Small Business

May 5, 2010

In 1953, the United States Government created the Small Business Administration (SBA) to help American entrepreneurs establish their businesses. The SBA underwrites qualifying loans made by other institutions and as such, this concept is attractive for those seeking money for business ventures. A normal SBA loan can be used to cover up to 90% of qualifying small business loans. The most popular application is known as the 7(a) SBA loan and is used for a variety of different solutions.

The Office of Advocacy has been set up by the Administration to look at all the banks around the country and determine which of them are “more business friendly.” In the majority of cases the lender will talk to the SBA if it feels that it is not willing to assume all the risk of a transaction by itself. Then, the Administration will look at all the risks involved and the SBA loan would be made thereafter.

It is estimated that tens of thousands of small businesses benefit from SBA loans in any given year, and that over the years this form of financing has been very beneficial in helping to swell the ranks of the self-employed, nationwide.

The SBA is not overly onerous in setting requirements for eligibility. In general, the Administration will look at the applicant’s personal credit history and the content of the business plan to see how they are handled within cash flow projections. The SBA will also look to see if the applicant has experience with the particular line of business concerned, how management control is exercised and how much of the applicant’s collateral is already established within the business. In addition, if the applicant owns more than 20% of the business, the SBA loan must be guaranteed by the applicant personally.

SBA loans typically range up to 15 years, but this is dependent on the requirement. For example, if you require the loan for working capital purposes, it can only be amortized over a period of seven years. If you are acquiring a business, on the other hand, the loan can be scheduled over a maximum of 10 years. Re-financing of property can attract an SBA loan amortized over 20 years, while outright real estate purchase can extend all the way out to 25 years.

You should have a business which turns over no more than $6 million per year and has less than 500 employees to qualify for an SBA loan. The SBA is particularly sympathetic to minority groups, including those run by veterans, women, Native Americans, although across the board, certain businesses are not considered, including those involved in speculative investments and non-profits.

If you have a relatively simple, startup enterprise in mind, you could consider the Micro-Loan program. Here, you could receive $35,000 and spread the repayment over up to six years. There are even simpler formats available for certain SBA loans, requiring very little documentation, also known as Low Doc, or those dealing with alternative financing, such as revolving credit and known as Express loans.

In summary, SBA loans are great ways for entrepreneurs to get outside funding, to push forward their business dreams and find access to the money that might otherwise be rather difficult to acquire.

Posted by Guest Post | Filed Under **Business** | Comments

Phenomenal Ideas On Hiring A Virtual Assistant For Database Management

May 4, 2010

Business activity is all about satisfying the client and providing a product. As such, there are files for products and files for clients. With so much paperwork, it can be quite hard to keep everything organised. Many businesses, particularly if they are smaller, need a virtual assistant database manager.

Wouldn’t it be nice if, as a business owner, you could simply talk about and sell your products or services without worrying about anything else. As we know, there’s a lot more to think about than this. Nowadays, businesses live and die on statistical analysis and other reports. To generate complex reports accurately, accurate data is required to start off with. Without well-organised data, a company can quickly flounder. A business might like to know, for instance, how they are doing in a certain part of their territory. What about customer feedback?

Data capture is important for a business to enable it to grow. If they are not sufficiently organised, they will never know which areas they are strong in and vice versa and which campaigns they have developed are worthy of repeating. Without a doubt, information is king in the business world.

To that end, it’s important to manage data in a well organised fashion. Customer names and information need to be logged, reports need to be generated about product demographic, customer surveys and profits to name just a few important areas.

Database management is a complex area that small-business owners don’t have time to look into. It takes time to organise this information and that takes away from the business of promoting and creating new products. This thorny subject offers an opportunity for a well trained, expert virtual assistant.

You may have experience in setting up databases in a variety of different formats. You can assist online and offline businesses with this skill. Each business keeps records of customer names, demographic data, product inventory, monthly revenue and other vital information.

Virtual assistants, who specialise in website development, along with database setup and management, provide such services as:

• Database design and maintenance
• Data entry for customer information and names
• The creation of data spreadsheets from records
• The processing of new data
• Creating reports for clients
• The creation of visuals and graphs
• Tech support for clients using new databases

Your client’s employees will be able to retrieve information from databases as they perform their jobs. You will be able to train them and everyone will be able to interact with the databases that you created, successfully. The business of information gathering is streamlined for greater efficiency.

You are in charge of the basic infrastructure of the company’s records. A small business can go from a desk full of loose papers with information to a well-organised database that can be updated in a few keystrokes, all thanks to you. Any information that the client needs right away, you can access immediately, and with ease.

Businesses thrive on information and a virtual assistant database manager; is a major part of this winning equation. If you are good at organisation and working with data, this niche could be a great link for you to specialise. It’s all about finding something you really love doing!

Posted by Virtual Miss Friday | Filed Under **Business**, **VMF**, **eBusiness** | Comments

Inspiring Pointers On Internet Marketing And Expert Virtual Assistants

May 3, 2010

An expert virtual assistant knows how important it is to have an online presence. Making yourself visible in as many places as possible is important for anyone in business. If you have the skills, you can be an Internet marketer and help others to achieve this same success.

If you have never been on the Internet, you’re living in the Stone Age. The online world has an unbelievable number of businesses with virtual storefronts, interactive forums, advertising activities and real-time work. Businesses want to know what those people are talking about so they can tailor their advertising to bring in sales. This is where a virtual assistant can come in as much needed help for an Internet marketer.

Any business online needs a first-class marketing plan. Such a plan would be designed to showcase the services and products to millions of people who are online and surfing around the web each and every day. If people do not know about the product and how it would benefit them, then they will buy something else. Implementing an online marketing plan takes time and effort that many business owners just don’t have with all of the other jobs on their plate.

There are no easy shortcuts to Internet marketing success. Business owners tend to favour a trial and error approach to see where it gets them. If they could only get the help of an expert Internet marketer, they would get to the end of the road rather more easily. A virtual assistant Internet marketer can make the difference between creating a powerful, highly successful new brand through website development, and complete obscurity.

A virtual assistant who is also an Internet marketing expert is in high demand these days. They can take the pressure off of companies both small and large that want to concentrate on their product or service. This specialist works on ways to get traffic to a site to view what’s on offer.

Some of the tasks that are performed by an Internet Marketing VA include, but are not limited to:

• Article marketing
• Pay per click advertising (PPC)
• Search engine optimisation (SEO)
• E-mail marketing campaigns
• Direct mailing campaign
• Keyword research
• Social networking
• Link building

Sometimes a client will have an idea of what they want to do, marketing wise, but sometimes they won’t. It takes a combination of marketing tools to increase the visibility of a business online and off. Most often, a business owner really doesn’t have the time to learn and try and put in place each option, so a virtual assistant Internet marketer, can use their experience and expertise and really get going from day one with a successful plan to get online exposure cranked up.

There are many different areas of Internet marketing and most VA’s don’t offer all of these services as part of their operation. As an example, some VA’s could focus on search engine optimisation or e-mail marketing. These areas can be further subdivided into specific domains enabling a VA to build really strong campaigns that will attract the attention of business owners.

Build your business by bringing business to others with a virtual assistant Internet marketer. As the industry grows, you will profit from being on the forefront of technology while being an expert in your field.

Posted by Virtual Miss Friday | Filed Under **Marketing**, **VMF**, **eBusiness**, Development | Comments

Inspiring Ideas On Using Social Networking To Promote Your Website

May 2, 2010

You’d be hard-pressed to find someone these days that isn’t a part of at least one social network. You should use this to your advantage. By joining, finding free ways to push your website development, you can get valuable incoming traffic.

With social networking, you can stay in touch with family and friends wherever they are. Sharing pictures, stories and sending messages are popular pastimes. This way of keeping in touch has extended into the business world and become useful as a marketing tool. Joining a social network is free so there’s no reason not to give it a try. These sites bridge the gap across the miles better than simple email.

Which sites can you use? The following sites have been found by business owners to be the most appropriate: Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, YouTube and MySpace. Each one is appropriate for different styles of business, so it is up to you to test and track to see which works in your situation. Once you sign up with a valid email address and password, you are ready to get started.

Use these sites to create a page telling everyone about your business. Search for family, friends and business contacts who have additional connections, so you can keep on top of what’s going on in their lives and businesses.

Let’s look at a site like Facebook. This is one of the most popular sites and can be beneficial for personal and business reasons. On the business side, you can post links to your website when new products are launched, new newsletters are published or sales are going on.

If you blog, post links to your newest blog posts (or to guest blog posts you’re doing elsewhere around the blogosphere). Draw attention to contests, invited guest bloggers or other events. Have an online radio show? You can invite friends to listen to live podcasts to learn more about your business.

On a site like YouTube, you can post videos and add the links to your Facebook profile, Twitter stream, etc. Invite all your friends to interact and leave you comments.

The beauty of these social sites is that business contacts and friends can distribute your links to other people who may be interested in what you do, as well. This is what they called viral marketing at its best.

As any professional virtual assistant will tell you, always remember when promoting your blog or website within social networking arenas that you must not do so blatantly. Take it easy and get to know the people you are interacting with. They say that social networking can be addictive. While it can be a double-edged sword if you’re not careful, setting boundaries will make it addictive in a good way by growing your business. If you’d really like to experience the incredible gains of social media, but you just don’t have the time, take on an expert virtual assistant to ‘get the ball rolling.’

Just like so many other online marketing tools, the name of the game is relationships. Work on building these ties with not only friends and families, but with target audience and business people on the best social networking sites MySpace, Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin, among others.

Try and comment on your friends’ posts and surf to their links. As an Internet marketing tool, social networking works both ways. Don’t think of it as a means to an end but one of the more fun marketing tools you get to use to grow your business. Above all else, remember that it is free!

Posted by Virtual Miss Friday | Filed Under **Marketing**, **VMF**, **eBusiness** | Comments