How to Structure a Customer Survey for the Best Results

May 10th, 2012

Surveying your customers is a good way to get constructive feedback about your products, and also gauge the state of the market, and the likelihood of any new product or service you launch being a success.

However, the value of a survey depends on the way that it is written, and the number of people that answer it.  Many companies focus on the technical side of things when they’re implementing business surveys, worrying more about web development issues than they do the kinds of questions that they’ll ask inside the survey.  If you ask the wrong questions, or confuse your users, then the data you gather will be next to useless.

When you’re building business surveys, consider the following:

  • Keep your survey short, so that people answer all of the questions
  • Decide what you want to learn through the survey.  Focus on one or two topics per survey.
  • Keep the language in your surveys simple and conversational.
  • Start with general questions, and narrow them down to more specific ones.
  • Rephrase important questions and repeat them during the survey to ensure that the respondent is answering consistently.
  • Avoid leading questions.  Instead of asking “How much do you like our coffee”, say “Do you think our coffee is…” and offer the respondent a sliding scale from “Poor” to “Very good”.
  • Be consistent with your scales.  Don’t change from a one to five scale to a one through ten later in the survey.
  • Free text fields for people to explain their answers can be useful, but don’t rely on them.  It’s hard to make bar charts out of lots of freeform text!
  • Test the survey on a small group of people (even if they’re friends and employees) before you run it for real.  If anyone expresses confusion about some of the questions, re-phrase them.

Once you’ve put together your survey, you will need to find people to answer it.  This is the part that your web development team can help with.

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Do You Need An Accountant?

May 10th, 2012

It used to be that in small organisation, an excellent accounting would be one of the main requirements when looking to start a company. Their expertise in everything involved with the start up of an organisation was seen as vitally important if the small company is going to be a success. However, their roles have been brought into question in a small company as the internet has grown. Their high price advice about forming a company, VAT and company structure is now usually available for a small charge, or even free online. Also, there has been a rise in accounting systems available online which as made it even easier to keep their business books up to date. This article looks to explore why more organisations are looking into online financial systems and how this has effected what is seen as the role of the traditional accountant.

Why are companies looking to online financial systems

Price – When bookkeeping and accounting was not accessible to small business owners, it was seen as an ongoing running cost of the organisation. Their cost structure differed from per hour to fixed fee and a number would even charge per minute for a telephone call.

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SEO Techniques

May 10th, 2012

It’s amazing to see many affiliates struggling to make commissions because they don’t know or they just neglect the importance of search engine optimization for affiliate marketing. An affiliate website well optimized that provides useful information can perform very well if you manage to get it on the first page of Google, Yahoo and MSN in a profitable niche.
For an affiliate website to attain excellent rankings, you need to take care of these search engine optimization basics…
Let’s start by on-page optimization:

1)Optimize your title tags.
Your title tag is very important in the eyes of the search engines, so do not forget to put your keywords.
2)Use the header tag.
It’s amazing to see how many affiliates and web masters in general forget to add the most important header tag to their site: H1

3) Use the right keywords on your web pages.
Before writing your articles, be sure to carry out a keyword research and use these keyword along with related keywords in your article.
4) Your web pages must be focused on one or two keywords.
Target one or two keywords only per web page.
While on-page optimization is important for your website, what will really make the difference is off-page optimization.

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Effective Link Cloaking: How To Avoid Affiliate Income Loss

May 10th, 2012

There is a lot of controversy an affiliate commissions and link cloaking. Should you cloak your affiliate links and how do you if you are losing money or not?
The first question that people ask on various affiliate forums is why should I cloak my affiliate links? Is link cloaking an obligation?

Let’s answer to the first one…

You cloak your affiliate links to prevent one of these three situations:

1- Prevent Link hijacking

In this case, a smart affiliate will steal your link since he is able to see your referral link and replace it by his own.

He can see your affiliate links in:

1- The address bar of your browser

2- The status bar

3- On your web page (He just need to view the source code from his browser)

Even if you try to disable the right click on your page, a savvy hijacker will still be able to view the source of your page.

2- Prevent link bypassing

Many people don’t like the idea that they are giving someone an affiliate commission on their purchase, and they will just remove your affiliate link before buying.

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Blogs Can Greatly Promote Your Home Business

May 10th, 2012

There are a small number of retailers who truly understand that when you create a blog to promote your home business, it can be an extremely effective way to increase traffic to your business. Proven time and for more help visit to: www.bloggers-guide-to-profit.com.again is the fact that traffic to your site results in more sales for your business.
As a website owner who has their own home business, you will discover that when you create a blog as one of your marketing tools, it is a great way to increase traffic to your website. You can also use blogging to make money as another form of revenue for your business, through adding affiliate links and displaying Adsense ads on your blog.

Have you ever noticed the affiliate links and Adsense ads that are displaying on Blogs? This is a great way to gain another revenue stream for your business, not to mention the increase traffic you get back to your site which is another bonus.

Through creating a blog, it gives you the opportunity that will improve the level of customer service you give, by allowing your customers an access to useful information.

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Using Marketing Automation for Follow-Up Success

May 10th, 2012

It’s a commonly held – and incorrect – belief that if a prospective customer chooses not to buy on their first visit, then that customer is lost forever. This couldn’t be further from the truth; in fact, research by Gartner shows that more than two-thirds (67%) of potential new customers that say “no” to purchasing today will be ready to make that purchase within the next year. Let’s take a quick look at how a business can rely on marketing automation software to handle the follow-up process with these prospects to ensure they are converted when they are ready to buy.

Mistakes and Excuses for Not Following Up

In truth, most businesses do an incredibly poor job at following up with prospective buyers. Salespeople forget, or end up focusing on “warm” leads as a priority, or fall into the belief that prospects will call back and that they shouldn’t be pushy. The challenge is that research indicates that more than 80% of prospects require five or more “touches” or follow-ups before they make a purchase; following up with prospects is obviously critical, and those businesses that leverage marketing automation software platforms to manage their follow-up typically show better results than those that don’t.

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5 Tips for Starting Up Your Business

May 10th, 2012


cc licensed flickr photo shared by laverrue

Starting a new business can be the beginning of a rewarding journey, however, starting a new business requires proper preparation and planning. To get a business off to a smooth start, follow these five tips from the U.S. Small Business Administration.

Determine Legal Structure

Decide on the appropriate ownership form for the business. Legal organizational structure will be determined by how many owners the business has and what the company’s focus is. As choosing the correct legal structure, and it associated tax implications and consequences, is one of the most crucial aspects of starting a business, an attorney should be consulted. Typical types of business entities include:

• Sole proprietorship • Partnership • Limited Liability Company • C Corporation • S Corporation • Nonprofit

Register the Business Name

To protect the business and its name, the “Doing Business As,” also known as the “DBA,” name must be legally registered with the state where the business is organized. Additionally, registering the business name with the U.S. Patent and Trademark office in Washington, D.C. will protect the business name against infringement.

Also referred to as a trade name, registering the business name protects the name from unauthorized uses by another person or company.

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Why Your Local Business Needs a Website

May 10th, 2012

In the era of the Internet, it seems like everybody and their brother has a website for their business. It’s true that consumers expect to find their favorite big retail outlet online for shopping and service needs, but what about a smaller, local business?

Rather than hitting the yellow pages or pounding the pavement for perhaps a local plumber in Harrisburg, PA, the modern consumer is more inclined to type the phrase, “plumbing Harrisburg PA” into their browser and see what comes up. If your company doesn’t have an Internet presence, you could be missing out on the online traffic to put your business in the black.

Advantages of a Website for Local Businesses

It may seem for an established local business that the need for a website is limited, but in reality the benefits are numerous. By having a home on the Internet in the form of a website, you’re immediately opening yourself up to new clients and opportunities.

The first thing most people do when they need a local service provider is to search what they are looking for online. Just like if your physical location for your store didn’t have a front door, if you don’t have a website you are essentially turning away potential business.

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Blogging as a Part of Your Online Marketing Efforts.

May 9th, 2012

Blogging is the latest craze in Internet marketing and SEO circles. User generated content now rules. This article gives six good reasons that you should consider blogging as part of your online marketing efforts. The rise and rise of blogging as part of the web 2.0 phenomenon has taken the Internet by storm. Savvy web marketers are now using Blogs as an additional weapon to generate leads, add credibility and improve their search engine rankings.
Blogging is great fun! Yes, blogging can be great fun. Just open you posting window and go for it without the restrictions of corporate style guides and other impediments to creativity . Got something to say? Just say it. The other fun aspect of blogging is that people can post comments about your blog posts. You posts plus reader comments all become valuable food for the search engines.

Blogging is cheap. The most powerful blogging systems are free. Word press seems to be the blogging standard and now comes standard with many cheap web hosting packages. For less than $100 per year anyone can get their own domain with blogging included.

I wouldn’t use one of the free blogging services unless you are really desperate.

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Tax Time! IRS Small Business Deductions You Need To Be Aware Of!

May 9th, 2012

Tiare Rath is a freelance journalist and a former personal finance columnist for MarketWatch.com. In an article for about.com, She outlines some key deductions you need to be aware of for your 2008 return.

This article is in no way intended to replace good professional tax advice. There my be more deductions than this list provides. Visit our Small Business Resource Network web site or stop by our office at UNF to find a good accountant!

The Internal Revenue Service offers business owners a fair number of small business tax deductions — if you know where to find them. Here are 10 small business tax deductions to help you navigate through the maze of write-offs.

1. Start-up Cost Deductions-You can deduct up to $5,000 in start-up and $5,000 in organizational costs for the first year of business. Expenses that are not deducted can be amortized over a 180-month period, which begins when you open your business. You can write off or amortize market research, advertising, employee training, business-related travel, legal advising and other costs.
2. Education Deductions-The IRS has strict guidelines for deducting educational expenses, so be sure to read Publication 970, “Business Deductions for Work-Related Education,” thoroughly.

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Free Website Link Building Methods

May 8th, 2012

Here are some website link building methods that won’t cost you any money.

  • Directory submissions.
    These sites offer lists of niche directories to submit your link to:
    http://www.directoryarchives.com
    http://www.isedb.com
  • News feeds.
    PR Web and others offer free and paid services to give you a chance to secure links in news articles about your company. http://www.urlwire.com/
    http://www.prweb.com/
  • Become an authority site and get sites to link for you for free.
    Creating content people want to link to. Example, http://www.searchenginewatch.com
  • Leave testimonials.
    Example, see the footer area (very bottom of the page) of: http://searchenginelowdown.com/
  • By donating to charities and non profit organizations.
    Many sites allow you to donate to their cause and they will give you a link on their site.
  • Volunteer web development services.
    Many non-profit organizations need a web presence but cannot afford professional web design services. Offer them for free in exchange for a credit at the bottom of their pages.
  • Making tools and content that make people bookmark the site.
    Example, the link popularity check tool at:
    http://www.marketleap.com/publinkpop/default.htm
  • Giving things away for free.
  • Ask for links from suppliers and friends in your industry.
  • Write articles and submit them to similar websites.

You might also be interested in ways to monetize your website

Weekend Entrepreneurs

May 8th, 2012

There is a growing trend amongst young professionals to become a ‘weekend’ entrepreneur. They are working fulltime for a Microsoft, Unilever, etc and also have a start-up on the side. I don’t know if I should be happy about this trend or should I be worried. There are a lot of students who want to be entrepreneurs but end up taking a middle path. It is a way of checking out a biz opportunity and reducing the risk by not commiting fully. They have a wish to start their own enterprise but they do not want to take the plunge by giving up their secure jobs.

I have certain misgivings about such businesses:

1. Usually, it goes against your employment contract

2. Attention gets divided between job and venture and you end up doing a bad job with both.

3. Most new business manage to survive only because of the immense effort and drive of the entrepreneur. You don’t see such commitment in part-time entrepreneurs.

On the other hand, it is probably more encouraging that they started a business rather than investing their surplus in the stock market. After all, it is a start of some sort.

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