Even some of the biggest brands out there were bootstrapped while their founders took up side gigs. Apple’s Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak both had jobs at Atari and Hewlett Packard, respectively, while they were building their first Apple I in the garage during the early 1970s. The rest is history, and this example is just one of many that prove hard work pays off. 

Here’s a list of jobs you should consider for making some extra dough while growing your business. 

1. Make Networking Your Side Hustle

As an entrepreneur, you definitely need to know a thing or two about networking and establishing connections with other businesspeople and prospects. That’s why it makes sense to capitalize on this skill until your own business takes off. Besides, while you’re already at it, you’ll additionally hone your expertise and maybe strike a couple of valuable relationships for your own venture. 

According to surveys, 85% of jobs are filled through networking – a stat that clearly illustrates the power of this practice. 

You can offer your services to other businesses and help them get in touch with potential business partners or prospects. This will, of course, require you to understand the industry very well, but matching two parties that need each other can be a great way to earn some money. 

Another option is to organize meetups and similar events that will help entrepreneurs interact and connect among themselves. 

2. Teach Online Courses 

One of the best and easiest ways to earn some extra income is by teaching online courses. 

No matter what your area of expertise is, you can offer it to other people and get paid for sharing your knowledge. 

What’s great about this is that you can find people interested in your teaching services easily on different platforms offering these kinds of services. For example, if you’re a native English speaker, you can offer some conversational classes to people from other countries who’d like to improve their spoken language. 

As an entrepreneur, leadership is something that you have to pick up in the process, and this is another skill that you can teach others. Many people can benefit from such a course, as it’s not something that traditional schools and colleges teach – especially if it’s backed up by the lecturer’s own experience in the field. 

3. Become a Freelance Writer 

As an aspiring business owner, you probably know how important blogging is for attracting and educating your target audience and keeping them on your website. 

Again, your knowledge and expertise in a particular field prove to be an asset that keeps on giving – you can make a few bucks by becoming a freelance writer. Pick your niche, write a couple of good articles for your own website, and then start offering this service to others willing to pay for it. 

It won’t take up too much of your time if you’re familiar with the topic, which should be the case if you opt for industry-related topics. 

4. Try Your Hand at Options Trading  

Options trading is a serious business that people do for a living, but you can start small and see how it goes. It’s a good idea because you can do it from home, dedicate only a couple of hours a day, and still make some money. 

Options are defined as contractual agreements between two parties – buyers and sellers. These agreements can be over-the-counter, meaning that they can take place outside an exchange, or standardized, meaning that they’re listed for trade on exchanges.  

Of course, in order to learn the ropes and make this work for you, you’ll first need to do plenty of research on becoming an options trader. Fortunately, the risk is limited, meaning that you won’t jeopardize your capital if things go south. 

5. Start a Dropshipping Business

This is one of the best and most popular ways of making an extra income because you don’t need a big budget and risks are pretty low. On the other hand, there will be 2.05 billion digital buyers globally in 2020, and you can have a share of this huge potential. 

Since you’ll basically be selling items directly to customers without having to physically store them in your inventory, you’ll be acting as an e-commerce middleman. Your main job will be to properly market the products you’re selling and find a way to attract customers. 

So, you don’t need a warehouse because you forward orders to the manufacturer who carries and ships goods that you’re promoting. As you can see, everything is pretty clean and elegant – all you have to do is build a visually appealing website and landing pages, invest in some ads, and reach out to prospects. 

6. Become a Virtual Assistant 

Virtual assistants can help companies significantly reduce operating costs, which means that there are a lot of available positions in this field. The benefits of this job include working from home, the ability to make a decent income, and an option to choose your working hours. 

This is a job suitable for extremely organized people who are capable of multitasking successfully. Your tasks will revolve around administrative work, such as scheduling meetings, taking care of email correspondence, entering data, as well as social media activities. 

It can be a bit tough until you learn the ropes, but in time, it can turn out to be a great way of making some money on the side while still having enough time to develop your own business. 

7. Create Transcripts 

Transcription jobs are decently paid, and you can do only a couple of hours a day and still earn enough. 

What’s even better is that you don’t need any particular skills other than those that you already possess. No particular experience in the field is necessary either, but it’s crucial to be focused and capable of typing very fast. You should know, however, that medical transcriptionists need a degree because they fall under the category of health workers, and their job is to transcribe recordings of medical reports. 

Your task will be to listen to audiotapes and create transcripts. The only problem is that sometimes these recordings can be bad, the sound somewhat muffled, and some speakers can use different accents.  

If you want to make your dream come true, you need to invest in it. Making an extra income will help you bootstrap your business without having to rely on expensive loans and other risky options.

The post 7 Ways to Earn Extra Income While Bootstrapping Your Business appeared first on SiteProNews.

According to research, as much as 82% of businesses that went belly up have cited cash flow problems as the reason for their failure. 

The most troubling part about this stat is that some of these businesses were, in fact, profitable. Their mistake lies in failing to take into account that cash flow doesn’t just depend on the amount of money going in and out of the company, but also stuff like their invoicing system. 

To avoid these kinds of issues, let’s take a look at the six most common cash flow mistakes that could break your business, as well as what you can do to remedy the situation.

1. Paying Your Debts before Collecting on Invoices

Let’s get one thing straight first. We’re not saying that one is more important than the other, or that you should avoid paying your debts on time. But, you should avoid finding yourself in a cycle where your debts are due before you have collected invoices from your clients. Even if your company is doing pretty well financially, that sort of thing can easily create a cash flow problem. 

Here’s what you can do to fix this: 

• First of all, collect your receivables immediately, if possible. 
• Second, you can stimulate your customers to pay you quicker by offering discounts on quick payments, or penalize those who are behind on their payments. 
• Third, if you are in a position where you have enough clients, you can simply stop working with clients who are responsible for this cash flow problem. 
• Ultimately, if you can’t make any of this work, you can look into different business finance types, such as loans or peer to peer lending.

2. Not Taking Seasonality into Account

Some businesses, especially those in the retail industry, make the majority of their profits during the holiday seasons. This means that, while you will be hitting it out of the park during Christmas time, you will get by or even struggle for the remainder of the year. But, even if your business’ profit is relatively stable, you can also encounter seasonal fluctuations you haven’t foreseen. 

The solution would be to take all those seasonal fluctuations and include them into your cash flow forecast, so that you have enough money to operate for the rest of the year. 

But, you can also be more radical in your actions and diversify your business, which will help you maintain a more consistent cash flow. For example, if you are selling Christmas trees and decorations, you’ll want to think about expanding your offer to include other holidays, as well as to sell decorations and household items that can be used all year round. 

3. Not Being Profitable

Lack of profits is one of the main reasons why businesses fail, but even if your business is profitable, that doesn’t mean it’s completely sheltered from cash flow issues. How so? 

Well, you are only truly profitable if there is still some revenue left in your bank account after you have paid off your debts, as well as invested in your business according to your business plan. If you are constantly using your profits to cover your expenses or investing them back into your company, then you’re not profitable in the true sense of the word. 

One of the ways to increase your profit without having to make additional investments is to use your existing resources in order to:

• offer additional products
• offer consulting services
• look for new business opportunities
• expand your skillset and scope of your business

4. Spending on Non-Essential Stuff

One of the most common mistakes businesses make is to invest in non-essentials as soon as they have some cash lying around. 

For instance, while having a brand new office space or top-of-the-line equipment is always a good thing, think about whether those investments are really necessary at this point or not. Sure, if you have hired a bunch of new people, you will need a bigger office – but if your business is operating well at the moment, then it’s probably best to hold off on buying fancy investments.

The best thing you can do here is to come up with a forecasting model that takes into account all the necessary expenses that are coming your way, which may or may not be new office space, equipment, or staff. If they can help you turn a larger profit – which is often the case with highly skilled staff – then go ahead and do it. But renting a nicer office just because it would be cool is an unnecessary expense, at least until you have more cash to burn.

5. Not Expecting the Unexpected

Regardless of how well your business is operating at the moment, you never know when you’re going to run into some unexpected costs. They can be the result of large-scale issues, such as the global economic crisis or an unstable political situation in your region. Just the same, you may be faced with unexpected costs due to small-scale problems, such as your equipment malfunctioning, one of your most valuable employees leaving, encountering poor customer reviews, or a pipe bursting at your office. All of this can diminish your profits or slow down production.

While you can’t really plan for some of this stuff, you can create a plan for the next six or twelve months, and start setting aside cash in case you ever need to tackle one of the issues mentioned above. Also, in case there is a natural disaster or a flood in your office, you should also think about having insurance beforehand. It’s an additional cost, yes, but it can cover some of the unforeseen expenses should they arise.

6. Poor Funds Management

Managing company funds is something that should not be taken lightly, for at least a couple of reasons. 

First, as an entrepreneur, you may not possess sufficient knowledge of finance in order to make the most out of your funds. 

Second, managing your business’ finances represents yet another thing that you need to juggle, and being an entrepreneur, as we know, involves keeping an eye on just about every aspect of your business.

Now, you can use accounting software to make cash management more streamlined, but it would be really good if you could hire an accountant to take care of finances for you. If this is not an option due to a lack of resources, you can either use software or delegate this to a trusted employee who doesn’t have their plate full.  

Final Word

As you can see, maintaining a healthy cash flow is imperative for the success and smooth operation of your business. But, keep in mind that cash flow can be affected by lots of different factors, not just your profit. We hope that the tips shared in this article will help you steer clear of the common cash flow mistakes and guide your business in the right direction. Good luck!

The post 6 Cash Flow Mistakes That Could Break Your Business (and What to Do Instead) appeared first on SiteProNews.

You may also believe that English is the universal language of the World Wide Web, and you would be correct. It still holds the supreme spot for over a billion internet users and a significant percentage of websites across the globe.

However, depending on where you do business and whom you do business with, you could potentially hugely benefit from translating your website into another language.

Let’s explore further.

What kinds of businesses should translate their websites?

Website translation and localization is a time- and resource-consuming process, so you want to make sure it’s a good fit for your business and an effective tool for your needs. If your business falls into one of the following categories, the ROI of the effort should be worth your while:

Ecommerce businesses operating internationally

If you operate in international markets, translating your website to all of the languages you do business in is highly advisable. Most business people consider their core English website is enough to market their products, yet a study shows that over 55% of consumers value being able to access an offer in their own language over the cost of the same offer.

Even if you ‘only’ offer worldwide shipping, you might want to look into translating the website into the languages most of your customers come from. As most businesses are not going to make an effort, you will instantly gain an edge over your competition.

Businesses operating in countries where more than one language is spoken

If you operate in a country with more than one official language (like Canada or Belgium), or even in a country where more than one language is spoken by a large number of people (like the US), translating your website could, again, give you a huge edge.

While it’s true that customers from these countries most often speak two or more languages, catering to them like others don’t is a valuable and tactical move.

Travel, tourism, hospitality, and entertainment businesses

As the world keeps getting smaller with the developments we’re making in transportation and tech, more and more people travel not only for leisure, but for business as well.

And while having an English website in the travel and hospitality industry will certainly be enough, imagine what kinds of visitors you could attract if you also had a version in their mother tongue.

Most websites in the industry are bilingual to begin with – they have a website version in the local language, and another one in English. But adding another (or several other) versions as well could attract another market segment altogether.

Make sure you don’t choose your languages randomly. Just because a language is spoken by a large number of people doesn’t mean these are the people who will come visit you. Do some research on the countries of origin of the majority of visitors your establishment could cater to, and base your translation on actual facts.

Companies that offer digital products

If what you are selling is digital, marketing it in another language can give you instant access to an entirely new market. True, this will mean you will need to put in extra effort to create a multilingual product, but that’s a small cost compared to the revenues entering a new market could afford you.

When you think about it, no matter where you live in the world, most of the tools and software you use are in English, and you simply have to learn enough of the language to use them. What if you could have a version in your mother tongue that worked just as well, but was easier to get around? Think of the possibilities.

Website translation: important notes

When you do decide to translate your website, you need to make sure that it is being done right.

Make it sound native

If your website sounds too rigid or doesn’t use the correct terms and colloquialisms, you won’t be coming off as very professional.

You know how you think that people who can’t get their definite articles straight in English sound odd? The same goes for all other languages. If you’re doing a Spanish website, make sure you get your transition words right. In French, make sure your gender agreements are correct.  The same goes for German.

Don’t let a non-native speaker do all the work

Translators are taught never to accept work if it’s not a translation into their native language. The premise is that no matter how well you speak a foreign language, you’re never going to be as good at it as a native speaker.

When translating your website, make sure that a native speaker of the language, preferably from the country you’re going to be targeting, reads the translation as well. 

You can easily find someone ready to take on the work online, and thus ensure your new website version is spot on.

Don’t forget about optimization

Google treats multilingual websites differently than mere English websites, so make sure you clearly denote which website version targets which language and country.

Also, don’t create a separate website for each version: have them all on the same domain, but on different subdomains. This will give your rankings a boost as well.

And don’t forget about promotion

Once you have everything ready, don’t forget that you are the only one who knows about the new language version. You need to promote it among your target audience so that they are aware of you and your brand. Don’t just expect someone from Spain to stumble across your Spanish website version if you have done nothing to promote it.

In other words, after you’ve optimized all the on-page elements, make sure you do some off-page promotion as well, and do it in your new target language. It might be a challenge, but it will be well worth it.

Now that you know all of the benefits of website translation, hopefully you will be making a name for yourself in new markets across the globe.

The post Content Translation: Could Your Business Benefit From It? appeared first on SiteProNews.

From competitive link analysis to third-party outreach, there are many factors to continuously tweak and improve in your link building strategy. Most importantly, generating highly valuable backlinks relies on producing high-quality, valuable content. But that’s not going to be enough because your success depends heavily on strategically promoting that content. 

And what’s the first platform you think of when you hear “strategically promoting content”? That’s right, social media. 

That’s why aligning your content and social media strategies with your link building efforts is a vital approach to a smart SEO strategy. In this article, we’ll give you some useful tactics, tips, and insights to help you integrate all your efforts strategically and harness the power of social media for more successful link building. 

Creating the right type of content

Content and link building efforts need to be aligned from the very beginning. 

In other words, before you actually start producing content, you’ll structure your content strategy in regards to your SEO campaign. That’s how you’ll be able to create content around strategic topics and keyword lists, making it highly relevant to your target audience and able to satisfy searcher intent.

This type of approach sets you up for success because you will be producing content that your key targets will value and want to share with others. This includes your wider audience as well as bloggers, industry influencers, and any third-party website worthy of guest posting. 

That’s why you want to do plenty of research and keep your finger on the industry pulse to come up with link-worthy topic ideas and write content that truly provides value. 

Some worthy tactics include sharing:

• useful tools and resources. Determine which topics your audience needs help with and then share with them useful tactics, guides, tools they can use, and other resources. The more actionable your piece, the more compelled audiences are to share it with others.

• research. Creating research-based content is a great addition to your link-building efforts because people can reference it in the future in their posts. Stats are particularly link-worthy, just make sure you’re focusing on a relevant topic to align it perfectly with your SEO efforts. 

• influencer insights, which we’ll cover in more detail in a moment

It’s important to gain an understanding of your audience, what you can offer them that will meet their needs/expectations, and which type of content they’re most receptive to. With this understanding, you’ll be able to produce valuable content crafted for a specific audience, and that’s really what bloggers and third-party websites want from you. 

Sharing influencer insights

Craft content around the unique ideas promoted by influential people within your industry. These could be certain experts or key industry influencers – the point is that you will be referencing their authority and sharing their insights. 

An interview with an industry influencer is clearly a big boost to your content strategy, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be that. You can feature influencer insights in roundups or by referencing their ideas and quotes in your articles. Get creative – and don’t hesitate to use social media to ask your audience what type of content they would like next from you. 

How does this tactic work?

This type of content is highly valuable and interesting to readers, who are eager to learn from someone that’s well-established as a trusty person within the given industry. Basically, you’re borrowing their influence. Consequently, another thing you’re borrowing with influencer-centered content is their audience, and that’s where social media comes in. 

By reaching out to these people either for collaboration or just to let them know you’ve featured them in your content (which can be done directly or through social media mentions), you’ll encourage them to share your content with their audiences – which are highly targeted and valuable for you. So this is not only valuable and highly shareable content, but it also taps into social media power. 

How will you identify the most valuable industry experts?

Start with your link building targets. You can also use FollowerWonk, which will pick out for you the credible profiles that are relevant to the given topic. This handy tool will sort them by social authority and the number of followers to find great opportunities. 

Get visual

Statistics show that infographics are one of the most often shared types of content – which really comes as no surprise, given their rising popularity over the recent years. Visuals are more digestible than textual content, we learn faster with them, and thus they’re bound for more shares and links. 

Now, creating infographics would certainly be a phenomenal boost to your link building strategy, but don’t overlook the basics either. Make sure to include compelling as well as useful visuals in your content – everything from featured infographics to charts, graphs, screenshots, and inviting or even humorous (depending on the context) images that pique the reader’s interest. 

Lastly, get visual when promoting your content via social media, especially Twitter. Research has shown that tweets with images get 150% more retweets than those without.

Give before asking for shares in return

Social media marketing runs on this motto. 

Now, social shares may not be a ranking factor, but they are most definitely beneficial to your link building efforts. It’s simple – the more your content is shared, the more people will see it, visit your site, and hopefully stay on it for a while and convert into subscribers. 

But you can’t just churn out post after post about yourself and what you’re doing. Nobody will be listening. Social media is about establishing authority, participating in a community, and building relationships. No matter the size of your enterprise, you need to approach social media as a valuable community member. Be a part of the ecosystem by engaging your audience, sharing helpful content, staying active, facilitating conversations, sharing others’ posts (with credit, of course), etc. 

Then, when you actually do post something promotional, such as your latest guest post, and tell people “hey, check it out and give it a like or a share” – you’ll have a loyal and engaged audience to take you up on your offer. 

Connect with bloggers before pitching

The previous point sums up to one vital tip: build social relationships before building links. The people you especially want to focus on are the ones you hope to collaborate with. Get acquainted with them on social, follow and share their work, and make yourself known to them. Facilitate conversation by mentioning them in your posts and engage with them by replying to their tweets. 

This will open the doors to collaboration and make them more trusting of you so that when you send them a pitch email, you won’t be a complete unknown. If you’re cultivating a genuine and interactive social media presence, they’ll have seen how collaborating with you is beneficial to them even before you send out your pitch. 

Ultimately, by properly aligning your efforts across these fields, you’ll give momentum to your entire digital marketing strategy. And remember – it’s all a continuous effort. None of it is set-and-forget. Focus on building relationships with industry influencers and providing value to your audience, and the tactics you do employ will have a lot more gravity. 

The post Boosting Your Link Building Efforts: How to Align Social Media and Content Strategies appeared first on SiteProNews.