S3 Blog

Today the amount of business that is solely conducted via the internet is staggering, for some consumers it is the first place that they will look if they want to buy certain goods or obtain certain services. Due to this it is essential that if you own a business you have an online presence as this will not only boost your profits but it will also make more people aware of your business and brand. If you are unsure how to do this here are the top 10 things that you should do to maximise your online presence:-
 
1. Create a website for your business – this is one of the most obvious ways to get an online presence, yet some businesses do not have their own website, so make sure that you have one for your business.

2. Create a blog for your business – once again this is another way of raising your online presence and is also an excellent way of communicating information with potential customers.

3. Create a profile on a social networking site for your business – many businesses now do this and they have their customers listed as their friends, once again this is a fantastic way of communicating with customers.

4. Generate an email marketing campaign – this will help to raise awareness of your online profile and can reach thousands of people for very little effort and even less cost.

5. Submit articles relating to your site to directories and submission sites – these are another way of promoting your business and should have links that go directly to your website.

6. Create good SEO for your website – SEO is the term given for Search Engine Optimisation which is the process of tailoring your website content so that certain keywords that relate to your business are included in certain percentages. Doing this will help to get you on the first page of search engine results pages.

7. Submit your website to as many search engines as you can – this might take some time but can pay off large dividends in the long run. Aim for the largest search engines first and work your way down to lesser engines.

8. Invest in pay per click advertisements – if you feel that your business can afford such a form of advertising use PPC as this is a great way of driving traffic to your website and maximising profits.

9. Have a customer referral program – these are very useful if you want more people to know about you, offer your existing customers an incentive via a referral program for every new customer they refer to you.

10. Take advantage of forums – join as many forums that are related to your business as possible and comment on them, placing links back to your website. For example if you pet products join a site for pet lovers and watch your online presence grow.
 
Remember the more your business is mentioned on various websites the greater your online presence will be, so get out there and do so promotion!

So you have developed your new website and want to get Google to index it so that you can start getting plenty of traffic, but do you know where to start? It is not as easy as just creating a site and waiting for visitors to find you through a search engine – that search engine needs to know your site exists in the first place. Here are the top 10 ways to make sure Google knows your site exists:-

1. Make sure you have a robot.txt file – this is the file that web spiders use to crawl your site. You need this to allow Google access to your site so that it can index it correctly, you are also able to set access to certain areas of the site so that any administration carried out on a particular page will not mess up your indexing. Keep your robots.txt file clean and it will work for you.

2. Look at your PageRank – this is where your site is when someone performs a search on one of your keywords. To make sure Google notices your site format tags correctly and make sure that your keyword density is just right.

3. Have a sitemap file – this is a formatted file that contains a XML extension which contains all of the URLs for the various pages on your site. If you are unsure of how to do this there are plenty of online tools that can help you to do this.

4. Upload your sitemap to your site’s root directory – this will help Google’s spiders to crawl your website with ease.

5. Add your site to Google’s sitemap page – this is a straightforward task and when you begin the process you will have to follow instructions so that you do not miss anything.

6. Do the above every time you make a change to your site – otherwise Google will not recognise the new pages.

7. Link your site to other sites – this will further help Google to index your site.

8. Make sure that you have a Google account, sitemap generator and sitemap file – make yourself a checklist and check them off once you have them, that way you will not miss out a single step.

9. Do not have broken links – broken links are a no-no in the world of the internet and Google will identify these and your PageRank will suffer, so check links periodically to make sure that they are all working.

10. Have unique content – having fresh and unique content will make your site much more attractive to Google so do not be tempted to plagiarise any material from other sites. Google does not look upon this favourable and if you continue to put duplicate content on your site your PageRank will suffer. If it carries on you might find that you are no longer on Google’s index so pay close attention to what you put on your site and make sure that it is original and not copied from elsewhere.

The internal infrastructure of a business is basically how that business is structured internally – who does what, the various processes used to ensure the day to day running of the business, software applications used etc. All businesses should have an internal infrastructure regardless of size and here are the top 10 things a small business should do with their internal infrastructure:-

1. Organise your internal infrastructure from the ground up – start with the basics of the business and work upwards, this will ensure that all procedures and processes work for the benefit of the business and nothing gets overlooked.

2. Have internal email – this is useful for any business as it is great for internal communication and it provides a secure way to send and receive information.

3. Think about creating an intranet for your staff– this is an internal internet on which things relating to the business are posted such as job vacancies and news.

4. Have a professional from outside the business come in and evaluate how you work – this can often seem as though it is someone ‘poking their nose in’ but sometimes an outsider can see areas within the infrastructure that can be altered and improved upon.

5. Use a dedicated software solution – such as S3 CRM. Using a dedicated software solution is one of the easiest and most productive ways of streamlining the internal infrastructure of a small business. Having all employees working through one application upon which everything, from holidays and contacts to ongoing projects and invoices can be recorded and worked on means greater efficiency and increased profits.

6. Implement any ideas that you have that could bring about improvements – too many business owners worry about rocking the boat by implementing changes, but this is the wrong attitude to have. By not changing certain procedures and processes just because it is what has always happened shows a lack of progress. Anything that can be altered and will create positive changes should be done, regardless of how long this has been part of the internal infrastructure of a small business.

7. Find ways to increase efficiency – any small business owner that wants to develop their business should routinely look at the internal infrastructure to see if there any ways to increase efficiency.

8. Lower costs – this is one way in which the internal infrastructure of a business can have dramatic impacts on the revenue of a business. See if there are any areas in which costs can be lowered – one way of doing this is to use one software application to run the business through, such as S3 CRM.

9. Expand areas if needed – if an area of the business is doing well and continues to look into expanding it, but make sure you plan the expansion so that other areas of the business are not neglected by this.

10. Make a business plan – this can highlight areas of the internal infrastructure which could be developed further or reduced and therefore improve the running of the business from within.

Any online website that involves having a membership to it, regardless of whether you have to pay for that membership or not usually requires you to set up your membership when you first enter it. This involves you having to fill out an electronic form on which you give data about yourself – this can then be used when sending out emails and newsletters etc. You are also asked to provide a username, which is the name that will be at the top of the screen whilst you are logged into that site and a password, which is used during the login process.

Your password should not be shared by anyone as this the key to allowing you access to sites. Obviously some of the sites that you enter are ‘just for fun’ type sites which do not contain any important or overly personal information, but some sites, such S3 CRM are used for working purposes and must only be accessed by yourself as they can contain sensitive information. Due to this it is essential that when you are creating a password for an online site you make sure that it is strong. When a password is classed as strong it means that it is difficult for anyone to guess it and therefore be able to gain access to the online site you are using.

Many people often wonder how to choose a good strong password for online sites as it can sometimes be difficult to think of something that is not personal to you. For example many people like to use their children’s or pets names – but such passwords can be easily worked out – especially if the person trying to gain access to your online site has some knowledge of you. If you really want to choose a good strong password you need to think of something that no one would guess, this can be a word, but it should also have some numerical characters in it too and even punctuation, to make it even more difficult to guess.

However, you must ensure that whatever you choose you are able to remember it. Some good examples of strong passwords are –
Zigzag845!£% - although this could be quite hard to remember!

ExPlOrEr279 – using upper and lower case letters alternatively within the word explorer and an easy to remember three digit number at the

blueBOTTLE£££ - this is also a good strong password

As you can see you can use words that are easy to remember but mix up the upper and lower cases of the letters, and add a mixture of symbols at the end of the password. You can also put symbols at the start if you like – it’s your password so it is up to you how you mix it up. Some websites also have a strength indicator to show how strong your password is as you type it and this can be a good indicator as to how strong your password is. So remember when you are choosing a password for online sites make sure that if you are using a word it is something unconnected to you and throw in some numbers, symbols and a mixture of upper and lower case letters.

Email is one of the most well used and recognisable forms of communication today, it is fast, efficient and when using many online email accounts – free. Add to this the fact that using an online email account means that you can access your own personal email account from anywhere in the world that has an internet connection and it is easy to see why so many people have them.

Many small businesses find that using online email accounts is a better option for them as it saves a great deal of money rather than having to pay for a dedicated in-house email solution. As with any type of service there are advantages and disadvantages to using online email accounts:-

Advantages
Accessibility – as you are able to access your own personal email account from anywhere in the world you are able to stay in touch with the office and friends where ever you are. This means that you do not have to take your own laptop with you on business trips so you can log into the network just to read your emails.

Cheap – many of the online email accounts are free, or very cheap to use.
Features – many of the online email accounts today offer advanced features such as unlimited storage (something which many users of email accounts such as Outlook will tell you is a massive bonus), virus protection, spam protection, unique graphics and fonts.

Extra capabilities – many online email account providers are also offering free instant messaging or software alongside their main product to encourage users to sign up.

Disadvantages

Privacy – as you are not contributing to the running costs of your online email account the owner must make up revenue somehow. This can be through ads on the site or through selling information – primarily yours. Read the small print of the terms of use to make sure that your provider will not sell things such as your name, email address, contents of your address book and so on.

Security – sending passwords and usernames in plain text means that they pose a security risk. Check to see that your provider has SSL encryption as this will protect your sensitive login information.

Reliability – if you rely heavily on your email account you need to make sure that it is always up and running. If you use an online email account you could find that unplanned maintenance disrupts our routine. Or do you know what would happen if the provider closed down their email facility – how would you retrieve your messages?

Online email accounts are very useful and can provide you with a reliable and secure method of accessing your emails from any PC anywhere in the world (with an internet connection). However if you need to have access to your emails and do not want to run the risk of the provider’s maintenance plans or security throwing a spanner in the works you could be better off paying for your email account.

Any business who trades will usually have some form of advertising to make people aware of their existence and hopefully convert them into customers. Advertising is an excellent way to get a brand name or product in the public domain and over the years this advertising has evolved a long way from the paper, television or radio based advertising that everyone is familiar with. If a business trades online they will no doubt want to exploit as many different online advertising methods as possible as these can bring about an increase in profits in quite a short space of time, if successful.

Advertising campaign services is the broad name that is given to the various methods of online advertising that can be utilised and there are many different advertising services who will organise and run these campaigns for you and your behalf. Here are some of the forms of advertising campaign and how they can be of use to you.

Pay per click (PPC) advertising – where the advertiser places a click through advert on a different website – then when a visitor clicks through the owner of the site gets paid. This form of advertising can be very useful, but it can also be very expensive if there is a high click through rate but low conversion, so use this method with care. These are best used if you have a product or service that tends to have a high conversion rate as this will bring the best return.

Email advertising campaigns – these are email campaigns that are sent out as a form of advertising in the hope that recipients will follow a link in the email to the advertisers site. This form of advertising is relatively cheap and can even be done by the advertiser if they have a software application that will allow the creation of advertising campaigns. This however, then does away with need for using advertising campaign services as this can be done in-house.

Affiliate advertising – this is a method of advertising where the advertiser places their advert on someone’s blog or website and each time that advertisement creates a sale the owner of the website gets paid. This is different to PPC advertising as it is only when there is a sale that the website owner will get paid, so this is a more affordable method of advertising. However it can be quite time consuming finding suitable websites to place adverts on, however this can pay off as affiliates can and do often put work into driving traffic towards their sites in the hope of an affiliate sale.

Banner ads can also be placed on websites and these are the type of ads that anyone viewing a website will see. Often banner ads use Flash, Java, Shockwave or Silverlight to create an image that moves or changes to attract the attention of a viewer. Advertising campaign services can generate a lot of traffic for a website and when used correctly and for the right type of advertising they can be highly profitable.

Hi all,

This week we have rolled out new features for S3 CRM;

1. You can now upload a photo in the user profile section of the application

2. The application now displays the user photo in profile pages and listing section

3. Quick status change from adhoc task list.

4. When you are adding a new company user through “My Account” section it now sends an email to the new user.

5. We have also redesigned the task add page

Let us know what you think to these new additions - there will be more new features next week

Thanks

Sarah

Is the snow preventing you getting out to see your customers?

Is the snow preventing your employees getting into the office?

Is your productivity down?

S3 CRM can help you resolve all of these issues and ensure your business stays ahead of the competition during the current disruption the UK is facing.

S3 CRM can help you remain in contact with your customer through its email marketing tool. All communication with your customers can be recorded centrally against their account.

Your employees can carryout their work at home or anywhere there is an Internet enable device - they don’t have to be in the office. They can all access documents centrally and track each others progress using the project management functionality

By working at home and also remaining in contact with your customers your productivity as a business will not be affecting ensuring you stay ahead of your competion

Just a couple of ideas of where S3 CRM can help during this snowy period.

Enjoy the snow

Sarah

Today the vast majority of businesses use the internet to drive more customers towards them and to implement certain marketing initiatives. This can be done in a variety of ways from PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising on websites and search engines, email campaigns, websites from which customers can place orders and more. Since having an online presence can make a great deal of difference to the success of a business it is no wonder that online growth is a massive concern. So how do you finance your business for growth online?

There are various ways in which this can be done such as:-

1. Put together a business plan which is focused on online growth for your business. This needs to be concise and clearly define which methods your business will be using to enable it to successfully grow. Then make sure that you present this plan to the right people so that you secure as much financial backing as possible for your business.

2. Take out a business loan – if your business is doing well there is no reason why you should not apply for a business loan. Once again make it clear what you will be using the loan for so that your lender sees your loan as a viable option.

3. Pull in any outstanding debts – this may seem like a strange approach but you would be surprised about the amount of outstanding third party debt that many businesses have. Spend some time finding out how much is owed to you and make inroads into getting it back. You might find that you have enough money to finance your businesses online growth sitting in unpaid invoices to finance your growth online.

4. Consider shares – would people be interested in buying shares in your business? If so why not float some shares and see if you can raise the finance this way, you must be able to convince people that becoming a shareholder in your business would benefit them so make sure you put forward a good case to invest.

5. Equity – do you have equity in your business that you could use? If so use it to finance online growth and see what a difference it could make.

6. Partnerships – could you go into partnership with another business that could help you with your financing? Many business find that this option is the perfect way to gain both an online presence and a solid partnership.

Using such methods can help your business to finance its online growth which could in turn create the kind of profits that previously were out of reach. Online sales and marketing are a huge section of the market and if you are not branching out into these areas you are selling your business short and missing out on an increase in revenue in the process. So look into the various methods of financing your business for online growth and you might find that it is easier than you anticipated.