How To Construct Your Own Website

Small Business Marketing, Web Design

When it comes to creating and building websites online a lot of people opt in with hiring a specialist to help them with their website. There is no harm in hiring a professional web designer and developer but if you cannot afford it, it can be a big burden on your shoulders. These days there are plenty of tools and information available online to help you with making your own site. The tools make the whole process easy and you can even build a website fast these days because of those tools. So, you could learn some of these web development told to make your life easier and burden free.

If you want to learn some of these important and most common tools, here you will learn how to make a website easy steps without having to hire a professional to help you. Following these steps would be a wise option. You may find it tough initialy but this tutorial will help you a lot and will make things easier and understand able for you.

1. First Find A Hosting Provider

Before doing anything you will need to find a hosting provider online. There are lots of hosting sites to pick from these days and often times it requires research to know what hosting company is the best for you. Some hosting providers offer free hosting but you might be limited in what all you can do. Others offer hosting at reasonable prices but whatever hosting program you decide to get always make sure that you go with one that has excellent service. By an excellent service, we mean that a host which is up most of the time because only this way your site will be available to visitors.

2. Pick Out A Great Domain Name

Find a domain name that helps to personalize your website. Make it something that individuals can remember easily and can say. Don’t rush when you are trying to pick out a domain name. Instead just take your time and make sure that you are happy with whatever one you decide to get. One factor which you need to realize while selecting a domain name is that you have to pay fee on yearly basis so be very selective for domain names.

3. Create Goals and Have A Plan

Once you have purchased your hosting and domain name then you are now ready to start creating your website. Before you start to create your website you need to first have a plan. What type of products will you be selling? What type of content is needed on the site? What type of functions and design should the website have? What is the goal for the website that I am doing?

4. Start Designing and Building The Pages

When it gets to this point you might find yourself having to hire professional help. Building web pages can be tricky but just remember, if you do this by yourself there are tools out there that can help with the process. First start off with creating the home page because that is the introduction to your website. Always create a clean and professional look for your site. The writing on the site should be top notch. You can always hire a web page writer so that way you can make sure the content quality is excellent.

5. Ask What People Think About Your Website

Have a mixture of people review to your website. What I mean when I say a mixture of people is have both people that are professionals with creating websites and ones that might not be professional but just your average visitor. Ask them what they think of the content, functions and the design of the site. Find out if there are any flaws on the site. Be ready to hear what they say and don’t get offended if they say it looks bad. Sometimes it might take a few times to make before getting things just right. You may share your website on the

6. Study and Watch Tutorials

Whenever you find yourself struggling just do some research on the web. You will be amazed as to how many tutorials you will find on how to build a website. You will also find tutorials and books on how to construct the website that you are building. Always have a open mind when you are creating a website and know that you still might have to make changes sometimes even when you think that everything is perfect.

Keeping all above mentioned points under consideration while creating a website would be really helpful. Such tutorials are always helpful if you follow them strictly and keep them in mind while creating your website. Once you have completed creating your website then go out and have some fun because you deserve it.

 

5 New Year’s Resolutions For The Small Business

Business Management, Business Tech, Small Business Marketing, Social Media Marketing,

Another year has come to a close and it is at this time that we usually take a moment to make a few goals for the coming twelve months. And whilst most of us will do this privately in order to set a few personal targets for 2014, the business owners amongst us may wish to make a few for their companies too.

The business world never stands still and that is why it is important to always try to push things forward by setting relevant goals for the year ahead. Here are a few that any small business owner may look to make.

Finally Get To Grips With Social Media 

Social media is no longer a new phenomenon, yet so many people who are in the position to use it to their advantage are still to unlock its full potential. It may be because they don’t think of themselves as technically minded people or it may be that they don’t see what all the fuss is about, but either way it’s time to take the plunge.

Social media, when used right, can help in all different areas of business and is nowhere near as daunting to use as you may think. There are plenty of resources online to help you out and you really won’t know what you are missing until you give it a try.

Start Networking 

Networking in your local area is a great way to build relationships with other business owners and also spread the word about your company. The power that is has to bring relevant and important sales leads right to your front door is fantastic and it can be very fulfilling, too. By giving up a couple of hours every week you can put yourself in a relevant environment which could really help push your business forward. Networking is definitely something that should be tried before you discount it.

Getting Your Payroll In Order 

There’s no hiding the fact that payroll is one of the least enjoyable areas of any business and one of the more complex things that you have to do from time to time. However, if you have been struggling with getting things done on time and keeping up with new legislation, then perhaps you should make 2014 the year you decide to outsource this area to a professional payroll provide, such as this. Not only will this take a huge weight off your mind, your employees will also benefit from always getting paid in full and on time.

Becoming A Better Boss 

Business resolutions are not just about making the company more successful. They can also be about focussing on how good a boss you are and attempting to get more out of your staff. It’s no secret that people will be willing to work harder for someone that really values them and so this could be the perfect place to start. Work on your management style and try to find the correct balance between professionalism and personality. This could involve becoming a better delegator, giving your employees more one to one interaction or just simply praising them more.

Take Some Time For You 

The chances are that 2013 was a rather busy year and so why not make it a goal to spend more time away from the office in 2014. We all need time to ourselves sometimes and when you are the owner of a business this can seldom present itself. Remember that just because you spend more time on something, it doesn’t mean it will be better and sometimes there’s a need to step back in order to see the bigger picture.

By Chris Mayhew

Chris MayhewChris Mayhew has always been interested in the comings and goings of the business world and has been looking at resolutions business owners could make this year. He would recommend Trace Payroll to anyone looking to get to grips with their payroll in 2014.

The Complete Beginner’s Guide To Social Media Marketing

Organic SEO, SEO, Small Business Marketing, Social Media Marketing, ,

twitter-mobileHave you avoided a move towards social media marketing? For the uninitiated, social media can seem like a waste of time. But marketing is about more than frittering away time on Facebook. It can be a genuine source of profitable income and could give your SME the traction it needs to grow.

So how do you get started? How can you avoid wasting time on social media? And what tools are there to give you a helping hand?

Planning Your Strategy

Social media marketing is a time-consuming process, so be aware of this from the second you start to plan your strategy. That means:

  • Don’t waste time on networks that aren’t relevant to your industry.
  • Don’t sign up for too many networks and attempt to run all of them at once.
  • Don’t write off a network because it looks ‘boring’.

Remember: social media marketing is about using resources wisely. Bad your brand name on every site, by all means (you can use this tool to help). But don’t actively use every single network on the web. Put some in reserve and concentrate on the key networks first.

The networks you use will vary depending on your industry; LinkedIn is surprisingly good for generating referrals for B2B customers, while Facebook excels in generating interest for B2C. If you work in a different niche, such as recruitment, LinkedIn is the obvious choice, but there are other networks you can use too; you’ll find a list in this handy PDF.

Using Automation to Keep Focus

Once you’ve chosen your key networks, you need towork out how to best use your limited time in order to post updates and interact. Many brands choose to oursource this to a social media management company or agency. If you’re going it alone, automated tools can help.

There are two main types of automated social media tools. There are some that distribute one update to different networks by placing them in a queue and posting to a schedule; Buffer is a good example of this. Then, there are others that link social networks together with triggers so that an action on one results in an action on another. For example, you might want a tweet to trigger a Facebook post. Look into Zapier if this sounds useful.

Automation should be used sparingly in social media. The clue’s in the name; you still need to personally interact with fans and followers to get results. But automation gets you part way there by making link posting easier and faster.

Final Thoughts

We’re fast heading towards a world where social media marketing isn’t optional; it’s basically a prerequisite of building a great brand. If you don’t get involved now, it’ll be more difficult to build a presence on social media later when your competitors are more established.

Like SEO, social media is an ongoing activity; a marathon rather than a race. But put the effort in, focus your resources correctly and adjust your approach to fit your niche, and soon you’ll reap the rewards.

By Sam Wright

Sam Wright is an SEO expert and writer. If you’re looking to advance your marketing career, Sam recommends taking a look at the Brand Republic job boards.

SEO Predictions For 2014

Google Plus, Hummingbird algorithm, SEO, Small Business Marketing, Social Media Marketing

SEO saw huge changes with the Penguin and Hummingbird updates of 2013 and we can expect to see loads more of the same in 2014. However, it’s a pretty big subject – so what do we think will be the main areas of change in the coming year?

Diverse SERP’s

We’ve seen all sorts of changes to the SERPs in 2014 – some which were trialed and some of which were permanent. Organic listings got pushed down the page in a number of areas and we saw the Knowledge Graph and shopping result info take up its space. Schema Mark-up is going to be increasingly important in the search engine results page (SERPs).

Schema

Schema and Data Mark-up are going to be incredibly large in 2014 and Google’s been pointing this out for a while now. In fact, last year they even introduced a new Structured Data Mark-up Tool to help us out. So, expect to see a significant amount of more Schema mark-up for sites in 2014 and Google really pushing content that’s been ordered and organised in this way.

Authorship

Another one of the big pushes in the world of SEO will be in the Authorship area. Expect to see Big G really begin to implement this in 2014. In fact, we wouldn’t be surprised to see digital agencies actually even take it into account when giving people jobs. So, get building those Google Circles and Twitter followings – they’re most certain to help in 2014.

Hummingbird

Hummingbird arrived at the end of the autumn and it’s going to have a large part to play in 2014. Semantic influenced content is set to be a big factor in 2014 and it’s going to come down to the production of long form articles that answers the long tail questions and queries users have. It’s going to be interesting to see how it’s going to affect the world of the SERPs and SEO.

Technical SEO

Expect to see an increased focus on the technical SEO area and more onuses on mobile optimisation and site speed. Mobile is such a large part of the search world now that sites that haven’t passed any attention to it before now will suffer in 2014. Crawl errors, broken links and technical issues are also going to cause big problems too in 2014 for sites.

Guest Blogging

Expect to see some changes to the world of guest blogging. Until now Google has allowed for some leeway here, however as Matt Cutts has stated already Google is seeing a lot of spun content and duplicate content, among other abuses in the area. At http://fusewave.co.uk/ we obviously don’t expect guest blogging to disappear, but do expect it to evolve and the cream of the crop to rise to the top and the poorer stuff to get a bit of a battering after an algorithm update in the first half of the year.

Fake Reviews

Expect fake reviews to begin to disappear and expect Google to really begin to heavily punish companies it expects are creating false reviews of their products.

Social Signals

Expect these to become increasingly important and though there is no proof they do so at the moment, many people expect to see it as an occurring development in the coming year and that we’ll see Google take them into account as a ranking factor in 2014.

These are just some of the SEO changes that we can expect to see in 2014 and though we may not be right about all of them, expect some to come to pass.

By Cormac Reynolds a social media writer with a passionate interest in the subject. When he’s not writing about it, he is learning about social media.