Pacific Business Tips

Archive for the ‘Small Business’ Category

Many couples are pursuing joint careers and also trying to raise a family. Unfortunately the demands of family life get in the way of these careers and suffer as a result. Many moms and dads have made the choice to make their families the priority and as a result have had to give up their careers. There are other choices that also have flexibility built in which allow both to coexist. We will review this concept in more detail throughout this article.

You are in a staff meeting with your boss and suddenly the phone rings. One of your children needs help at school or day care. Of course there is no hesitation, since your family comes first, you leave the meeting to deal with the situation at hand. As you are leaving, you glance at your boss who is wondering why you have rudely left his or her meeting. You wonder, will this be held against me? Will my next raise or promotion be delayed? Will that plum assignment go to the next person?

Many people have experienced this situation and realize that families come first and they just have to take their lumps as they come, negotiating the best deal they can relative to employment, raises and promotion.

A small business on the other hand offers much more flexibility, especially one that you operate out of your home. There is flexibility regarding when you do your work as long as you meet your customers deadlines. Now you can take the kids to school, dentist and doctor appointments without a seconds thought. Catching up can be done anytime, even after the kids have gone to bed. This flexibility provides many people with much more peace of mind and an overall improved quality of life, which is almost unknown for the corporate employee.

There is a down side, which must be managed of course. With your office in the next room, there can be a tendency to work longer hours even if they are early morning or late at night. Many small business owners, while enjoying the flexibility they have to work when they want actually find that they are working more hours than the average employee would. Finding the right balance between your personal life and work life is always a challenge even for those folks who enjoy the flexibility of running a small business out of their homes.

The best part of course is that you are the boss and when one of your children calls, there is no hesitation to help out and certainly no concern about what the boss is going to be thinking!

If you have a website of your own for your small business first of all congratulations. Many of you competitors do not have one yet. You have a leg up on them. For those that do have their own website they may not have it optimized for the maximum results from the search engines.

Here are a few ways you can get a leg up on them with proper search engine optimization for your small business website.

1. Duplicate Content: As a general rule keep all of the content on your website fresh and original. Don’t use someone else’s content unless you have paid for it and it is 100% yours to copyright.

2. Links: Outgoing links are bad. Incoming links are good. Internal linking to other pages within your site are good. Use hyperlinked keyword phrases to tell the search engines and your visitors what the page is about.

3. Keyword Density: Keep you keyword density at 2%-5% per page. This means that if you have an article of 400 words on the page don’t use your primary or secondary keyword phrases more than 20 times. Personally I think that is to much and would shoot for 8-10 times. More than that and it sounds like spamming and it probably is.

4. Title Tag: Keep you words to a minimum and include your primary kewyord and secondary keyword one time.

5. Description Tag. Keep your words to a minimum and include your primary and secondary keywords to describe what your web page is about

6. Keyword Tag. These do not serve much of a benefit from a search engine optimization standpoint, but it is o.k. to include 2 or 3 as they relate to your page.

7. Alt Text. Search engines can not read pictures, only words. So tell them again what your site is about by including your primary and secondary keywords followed by the word graphic or image.

8. Headline Tags. h1, h2, h3 followed by the keywords in order of importance. Then use those again one time in the body of the text following the headline tag.

9. Bold, underline and italicize your primary keyword one time in the first paragraph only. Use keyword variation throughout the page without any bolding, underlining or italicizing. Bold your primary keyword one more time in the last paragraph and finally again as the last word in the bottom of the page.

Search engine optimization for your small business website is really all about making it easy for a search engine to understand what your page is about. The easier you make it for them the better they will rank you for that keyword search.

If you are a small business owner, you either have an accountant or you are an accountant. Either way, choosing the right accounting software is an important business decision. Some of the most important brands include Quickbooks and Peachtree.

Here are some of the important features to look for:

Adaptability: Small businesses in particular tend to change over time, and you need to make sure that the software you are buying today will be just as useful tomorrow. Are upgrades offered? How much trouble and expense is required to upgrade? How often are upgrades offered? Today’s software is likely to be obsolete in 5 years.

Support: How much support is offered? How effective is it? Is local service available or will you be restricted to dealing with a call center in India?

Price: Software packages vary greatly in price, not only among brands but also among merchants. Choose an appropriate package and then shop around for the best deal.

User Friendliness: How easy is it to use? If you are a sole proprietor, try using it yourself. Otherwise, have your accountant try using it and get his/her opinion.

Features: Don’t pay for features you don’t need, but look ahead 5 or 10 years when deciding which features you’re likely to need. If you don’t need them now, you can always check and see if your package can be easily upgraded to add features you may need in the future.

QuickBooks is by far the most popular accounting software, but then again there are many versions of Quickbooks available on the market. QuickBooks comes in Basic, Online, Pro, and Premier editions. The Pro Edition features tools such as the Cash Flow Projector and the Vehicle Mileage Tracker. Peachtree offers a premium small business accounting software package with over 125 functions including as in-depth inventory, time and billing and job costing features. Other popular accounting software packages include MYOB Plus Accounting Software and Microsoft Office Small Business Accounting.

Good luck!