Why Should You Have an App for Your Business?

Most Small, Micro and Home Based Businesses cannot see any real value in spending their ‘hard to come by’ cash on developing an App to market their business. Many businesses do not have a marketing budget and simply do not treat marketing as a number two priority for their business (number one is producing the product or service). Some business operators think that it would not be possible to build an App to suit their type of business. But, as an App is a marketing tool, every business can use an App to promote and market themselves. Over 1.2 billion people use Apps and by 2017 it is expected that the users will number 4.4 billion. As 75% of Apps are free, one has to wonder why you would spend money producing something for free. However, a well-designed business App […]

How to Find Potential Clients and Convert Them to Sales

I am often asked “Just what makes a good business”? No doubt it is the quality of what is offered and the ability to market it successfully. But what makes the business extraordinary, is the way in which the business owner (and staff) treat their customers. So, how can you best focus on your customers? The main way is to stop thinking about your business and rather think about what your customer wants. You need to find out what they are looking for and what can you do for them. Basically, you need to focus on their problems. To generate leads and make sales, look at the negative side (the problems). This approach will get you better results. Your business success will ultimately depend on your ability to solve problems. Once you know what the problem is, you must ensure […]

How to Build Your Business Via the Internet in 2015

You don’t have to have a business which sells product or services online to still have the Internet help your business to grow. These days most people use the internet daily to assist them with their research and help them find product or services they are looking for. Actually, the internet search engines are probably more commonly used than the telephone Yellow Pages. If your potential and existing clients are using the internet to help them in business, then it is important that they can find you and your business on the internet. This means that you require one of more of the following: a website, a blog or social media accounts (preferably all three). Whatever you decide to do, you must also be prepared to continue learning. You do need skills to make all these different procedures work well […]

Building a New Website?

It can be very exciting when making the decision to build a website, whether you are going to do it yourself or whether you will pay someone to do it for you. However, so many people are then disappointed when the website is finished because they realise that they have forgotten many important aspects. Before beginning, have a plan. In this plan you should be very clear about just what it is you want your website to do for you. Most businesses want their website to be a marketing tool and therefore it is very important to know just ‘what’ and ‘how’ you want to market your business. Before you begin any marketing program you need to know just who you are targeting; who will be looking for and at your website. Imagine you are one of these people you […]

How to Use Your Blog to Effectively Promote Your Business

It is important that your blog contains unique and informative information. It has to be on a topic of interest and must capture the attention of readers. You do not want to promote your business openly, but rather slot in links to your website or other articles of interest in your blog. You want readers to be proactive and share what you have written. Once they are prepared to ‘click’ and make a ‘comment’, you know that your content is of interest. The more interaction you can encourage from readers, the better ranking you will receive with search engines and the more interest your business will create to potential and existing clients. You will have to work out how to create interesting content and how to get this information out to the masses, Of course, social media plays a huge […]

Responsive Design to Bring Your Website Into The Modern Era

I have had a number of folk ask me just what ‘responsive design’ of a website is. It is simple really; it just means that your website can be clearly viewed by mobile devices such as mobile smart phone, tablets etc. The responsive design allows the pages of your website to be re-formatted slightly to fit the size of the mobile devices and to be viewed sideways if required. My ‘IT Solutions and Marketing’ site has been responsive designed. It was not difficult to do, as I chose software to build my site on that will do this designing automatically. And what is even better, it was free! If your website is not responsive designed, it may still be opened by mobile devices, but you may only be able to see a zoomed up version of your actual website pages. […]

Is Pay Per Click an Effective Way to do Business Online?

Many people use Pay Per Click (PPC) very successfully; others lose a lot of money using PPC. There are many ways to Market your products and services online, but Binh An Nguyen’s personal favourite is PPC because of its speed and flexibility. PPC is used via search engines, advertising networks, and content sites. Advertisers pay their host only when their ad is clicked on. The biggest traffic broker in PPC is Google Adwords. When you search for a particular term on Google, there are two sets of results returned; organic search listings, and the ‘Sponsored Links’. One of the main reasons why the PPC model is used over other Internet Marketing models e.g. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), is because you can literally set up a campaign in PPC and start seeing traffic and results in a matter of minutes. The […]

Commendations and Testimonial from Satisfied Clients Can Lead to Referrals

An important part of marketing your business, is to seek commendations from clients. This is especially important when working via the internet (your website) as many viewers will not know you and will have to depend on your photo and testimonials to build their confidence in you and your business. Positive feedback from satisfied clients (when in the form of written words) can be used as a commendation (if suitable). You certainly have an opportunity to ask for a testimonial. Even a spoken commendation is good if you write down what is said and ask permission to use it on your website. It would be the correct thing to do, in this circumstance, to email a copy of what you have written and ask the client if he/she agrees that your interpretation is correct. Just keep in mind that because […]

Why Build Your Own Website

These days you can find a number of software packages that enable you to build your own website and blog. Perhaps the best and cheapest (it is free) is WordPress. If you decide to use this software, you should use a theme that is responsive and can be opened by mobile iPhones, iPads and iPods. There are even more theme choices available that you can purchase through WordPress. WordPress has a wide range of automated plugins that can do most of what you need. It can be set up as a blog (allowing comments from viewers) or as separate pages (more like a traditional website). My website, IT Solutions and Marketing was set up with individual pages in WordPress. It is a good idea to research other websites (before deciding on your own design) to see which ones you would […]

You Can Have a Successful Online Business

You will have a business that either sells a product or provides a service and you may be wondering if you can successfully run your business online. More and more businesses are being successfully run online and if you decide it would not work for your business, then it is probably your own mindset that is stopping you. Your concerns will include not having the skills to enable you to do this, or perhaps you simply believe that it is not feasible for your type of business to sell online. Obviously you would have to be prepared to learn new skills, so that you can take advantage of the many new opportunities that present themselves. The skills are not that difficult to learn but you must be prepared to spend time (as you do for other parts of your business) […]