But even before that happened, an increasing number of entrepreneurs decided to start their companies in the virtual workspace. 

The reasons for this are multifold, from reducing expenses, expanding a talent pool, to boosting productivity. 

In other words, by starting a virtual company, you won’t have to rent the office space, buy equipment, or pay utility bills. Besides, you will be able to take advantage of geoarbitrage, that is, hire employees from places where living costs are lower, meaning that they charge less.    

Here are some tips for starting an online business. 

1. Choose the Right Business Structure  

Choosing how to structure your business from a legal perspective is the first and most important step, as it will have a significant impact on the future of your business. 

The two most common options that you can choose from are:

• A sole proprietorship
• A limited liability company (LLC).

Registering your business and operating as a sole trader is the simplest and most affordable way to set up your online company. If you plan on running this business on your own, then this structure could be a good solution. It doesn’t require too much paperwork, and tax reporting is simplified. 

However, in case something goes wrong, you’ll be personally liable for the debts of your company. 

On the other hand, an LLC comes with more red tape and requires a higher initial investment, but your personal assets will be protected from any debts your company incurs. 

Thanks to its favorable tax policies, Ireland is a great choice for online entrepreneurs from all around the world who are thinking about starting and operating a virtual business. 

2. Create a Business Plan

Every business needs a business plan. 

As a matter of fact, having this document increases your chances of success by 16%. 

Even though your company will be operating online, you still need to have your business idea in writing because it will help you focus on what’s important and allow you to think and plan long-term. It will serve as a road map that will help you stay on the right course. 

Preparing a business plan requires detailed industry research and competitor analysis, meaning that you’ll be able to improve your business knowledge and skills as well as identify potential problems along the way and get ready for them.  

Besides that, a business plan should contain a list of all the expected expenses and give you an insight into how much money you will need in order for your virtual company to run smoothly. 

Finally, such a document is essential in case you decide to apply for funding – banks and investors want to see whether your business and sales strategy are effective before they make a decision to back you up. 

3. Organize Your Business Finances 

First of all, it’s crucial to have separate business and personal bank accounts so that you can monitor your income and expenses accurately. Besides, this will save you a lot of time when it comes to declaring income taxes and expenses. 

Similarly, if you use the same account, it will be virtually impossible to distinguish between your personal and business expenses and claim all the deductions you’re entitled to. 

As most businesses need some time to take off, determining how long you’ll be able to pour money into your virtual company until it becomes profitable is crucial. Given that poor cash flow management is the reason why 82% of small businesses fail, making sure that the money is rolling in regularly should be your top priority. 

4. Hire an Employee 

While doing everything on your own or with the help of your friends and family might seem like a good way to save some money, the truth is that it’s best to hire a regular employee. 

First of all, if you spend your time completing some low-value repetitive tasks, you won’t be able to focus on growing your business. Besides, savvy entrepreneurs know their strengths and weaknesses, and they delegate certain tasks to someone who is capable of doing the job better and more efficiently than them. 

The trick is in accepting your limitations and building a team of people that will contribute to the growth of your business. 

At first, you can hire a part-time employee who will work on an as-need basis in order to cut your expenses. 

5. Opt for a Reliable Hosting Provider

When you’re running an online business, having a reliable and secure hosting provider is a must, so don’t cut corners when it comes to this. 

Since your website is your virtual place of work, it has to run smoothly and without any glitches. A good web host will make sure that your website loads quickly, which is an important factor for the success of your business. 

Namely, your potential customers expect your website to load in 3 seconds or less. Otherwise, your conversions will suffer.

There’s another important thing to look for when opting for a hosting provider – an uptime guarantee. Reliable hosts offer a 99.9% uptime guarantee, which means that your website will be up and running (almost) all the time. 

6. Promote Your Business

Relying on the quality of your products or services to bring you potential customers won’t cut it. 

You need to spread the word and improve the visibility of your online business through different promotional efforts. 

Leveraging social media, paid ads, email marketing, and search engine optimization will help your target audience learn about your business and bring you some much-needed traffic. 

It’s a good idea to address your potential customers’ pain points in a helpful manner through relevant website content. Create step-by-step guides, how-tos, educational videos, and other types of content that offer a solution to these pain points, as that will attract high-quality traffic to your website. 

Starting a business online has never been easier. Still, there are various hurdles that you’ll have to overcome on your entrepreneurial journey, and these tips can point you in the right direction.

The post How to Start a Company in the Virtual Workplace appeared first on SiteProNews.

Read on to find out exactly how to do that and how to make 2020 your best year yet in digital marketing. 

Micro-influencers on the rise

The influencer marketing niche has been experiencing somewhat of a downturn, for a number of reasons. 

For one, a growing number of businesses started reporting less-than-stellar ROI on their investments in this type of marketing. This also coincided with the growing costs of influencer marketing, with bigger influencers charging more and more for the exposure. We must also not forget the whole controversy with fake and/or exaggerated influencers whose reach was nowhere near as dramatic as advertised.

In 2020, we will definitely see more and more of micro and even nano-influencers whose follower numbers (usually under 30,000) may not be as spectacular as those flaunted by the more “traditional” influencers, but who boast some other characteristics attractive to marketers.

A 2017 study by HelloSociety reported in AdWeek, for example, found out that micro-influencers engagement rates are 60% higher than those of traditional influencers and that they are almost 7 times more effective per engagement. In short, you may not reach as many people, but you will get more engagement for your buck.  

These micro-influencers are also more “specialized”, meaning that you can find people that will hold the most sway in exactly the industry/niche you are looking for. For instance, as a small business that sells patio furniture, instead of a home decor influencer, you can go for a patio design influencer who will know more about the industry and whose followers are more likely to buy from you. 

Finally, it should be pointed out that micro-influencers still have some of that ‘they’re the same as us’ feel about them which traditional influencers simply do not anymore, becoming celebrities in their own right.

Mistakes to avoid

When we are talking about mistakes to avoid with micro-influencer campaigns, they are pretty much the same as with traditional influencers. You need to make sure the influencers and their followers are real, that they have the numbers to back their engagement claims and that their followers are actually your target market. 

AI in email marketing

Email marketing has been a staple of every half-concrete digital marketing campaign and department since the earliest days. Even today, it is seen as an integral channel which is often the very last piece of the puzzle which leads to the buyers’ action. 

In 2020, we will continue to experience the evolution of email marketing which was brought about by the introduction of machine learning and AI algorithms that make email campaigns smarter and more effective. 

Most marketers have been aware of the fact that smarter, personalized emails are at least three times more likely to be opened and acted upon for a while now. That is exactly what AI enables you to do – it enables you to sift through copious amounts of data and come up with more personalized email marketing. 

Among other things, AI can help you tailor your email campaigns according to where in the sales funnel the recipient is, when they are most likely to open emails, what exactly they are interested in on your website and their interests in general. 

Another way for AI to boost your email marketing campaigns is by helping you craft product recommendation email campaigns (perfect for B2C, eCommerce businesses). If Amazon gets 75% of its revenue from AI-power recommendations, why wouldn’t you tap this source of sales?

There is no shortage of AI email tools on the market, with new ones coming out all the time. Analyze your email marketing pain points and find a tool that can help you with that. 

Mistakes to avoid

It is easy to get caught up in the numbers, algorithms and A/B testing for the sake of it, forgetting the most important part of email marketing and marketing, in general – creativity. The most spectacularly optimized email campaigns will be in vain if your copy and visuals are lame and if they are missing the point. Email marketing can be fantastically imaginative and you should never forget this. 

So much new SEO to do

Every year, at least a handful of “experts” will tell you that SEO is all but dead and that it is a waste of time and money. What those experts fail to understand is that SEO changes with the times and that it is often all about trying out new things that will help companies place their product/service in front of the people who are looking for them.

Video SEO

Go to Google and type in a search that starts with ‘how to…’. What’s the first result? Is it a video? If it’s not the first result, you will get a video carousel in the second or third place. And it’s not just how-to stuff. 

Google is serving video results more and more commonly and for a good reason – people like video content, especially if they are on mobile devices where it can get cumbersome reading 2,000-word blog posts. Also, it’s a natural move for a company who is the owner of YouTube, the biggest video search engine.

This is why it is a good idea to do some video SEO and make sure your videos are easy to find, that they respond to searchers’ intent and that it is a part of an overarching SEO strategy.

Voice SEO and featured snippets

The numbers speak for themselves on the subject of voice search. With voice assistants becoming more and more ubiquitous with each month that passes, ignoring voice search as part of your SEO strategy is tantamount to inviting trouble. This is especially true for local businesses and B2C companies, but it’s not like B2B companies can ignore voice search either.

There are a few things to understand about voice search. For one, when people use it, they are served only one result – the one that Google deems the best answer to their question. As a result, this will reduce the traffic of everyone but that first result. In other words – you need to become that one result, the featured snippet. 

There is a whole science to making this happen, but at the core of it is predicting the search intent and serving what people want to learn. In other news:

• Keep the content conversational (no keyword stuffing or elaborate, ornate sentences (avoid words like ornate))
• Keep the content short (around 30 words)
• Consider the importance of the location (mention where your business is, make sure to register with local directories, etc.)

Even if you are not looking to attract voice search traffic (e.g. if you run a B2B business with complex products/services), you should still do your best to get the featured snippets. In most cases, they will take up the entire above-the-fold real estate, meaning that for all intents and purposes, they are the ONLY result that Google will serve. 

Like with voice-oriented featured snippets, analyze what is behind people’s search for a specific subject and try to serve the best answer to this.

Mistakes to avoid

While video and voice SEO is rapidly gaining in popularity, you must not forget the tried and true SEO basics which will still play the most essential role in getting organic traffic to your website such as optimizing for loading speed, producing high-quality content and doing a bit of quality link building. 

Social commerce

Social media marketing has been around as long as social media. However, in most cases, it depended on sending customers to other channels and serving almost exclusively as primary steps in the sales funnel. 

All of this changes with social commerce. 

In essence, social commerce entails purchasing straight from social media posts (Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest posts). 

This ensures a few things:

• You are selling to your customers where they’re at
• You are selling to customers at the very peak of their purchasing intent
• You are not sending them to other channels and complicating the sale

Mistakes to avoid

The most common mistake to avoid with social commerce is trying to sell premium, expensive products this way. People still prefer to do research and comparison before spending large amounts of money. Social commerce is more suitable for cheaper, impulse purchases. Use social commerce to make small purchases that will get you customer emails and then use email marketing to nurture the relationship for that major sale. 

Closing word

Before you leave, please keep in mind that these new digital marketing trends should not be seen as silver bullets for your marketing efforts. They will work best in combination with good old-fashioned marketing strategy and tested tactics.

The post Digital Marketing in 2020 and the Mistakes that can Ruin Campaigns appeared first on SiteProNews.

As harsh as it sounds, with all the options and advice out there, it may not be as easy to find relevant information and be sure it actually works in real life. Luckily for you, we have come up with an easy-to-digest list of steps you can take to improve your finances this year.

1. Plan Your Budget

This one is obviously a no-brainer, but many people forget that unless you have a budget and stick to your plans firmly, things can get out of hand very easily. Starting from the smallest things such as office supplies and refreshments all the way to the payroll, taxes, and investments, you need to jot down everything and take control of the money flow.

This, however, doesn’t mean you have to become a business miser overnight. It actually refers to realising where your money goes and assessing whether it is a good cause or not. If you see it is being overspent on things you don’t actually need, just bid it farewell and write it off your budget.

2. Save Wisely

Now that you have your budget all worked out, it is important to see how much money you actually earn. This does not refer to your personal pay, but to the profit your company makes. The first thing financial advisers will tell you to do is to save wisely, meaning that you don’t always have to pay for the most expensive equipment, marketing plans, costly office space, and so on. Instead, go for alternative and/or cheaper options, which will pay off in the long run. After all, making smart spending decisions and putting some money aside is the way to go.

3. Invest

Now that you have managed to save a little, put those numbers on a piece of paper and put on your thinking cap once more. Almost every financial adviser will tell you to take 7-10% of your savings and invest it. Since we are not such experts in this field, it would be better to talk to one and see what your options are if you are up for it.

Another form of investment may be to invest in people. We all hear good workers run away from bad bosses, so make sure to advance your own knowledge (by enrolling in an MBA, for example), as well as get into employee training. The best thing about this kind of investment is that their smarter decisions and more efficient work will positively affect the business you run.

4. Hire an Accountant

Another good thing about working with professionals is that they have probably seen everything and you can rely on their experience to be a valid source of information. Another expert you should definitely work with is a professional accountant. Think of hiring a very good accountant as another investment in your personal and your business’s future.

Paying taxes, doing your finances, reading all the relevant legislation, and knowing the right people to talk to in different economic situations are just some of the magic tricks (or skills, if you prefer) accountants have up their sleeve. And this is just the beginning; we will not go into details such as statements, revenue enhancement, profit improvement, maintaining financial records, etc. If all these things make you feel dizzy, that’s a sure sign that you should hire an accountant to worry about them instead of you.

5. Listen to Someone Wiser

Call them as you like: planners, educators, partners, financial advisers, unicorns, magicians. They sure go by different names. But one thing connects them: the skill to govern your money. These professionals will use their experience to your advantage and know exactly when you need to make the next move, whether that involves the stock market, investing in different funds, angel investments, etc. They can help you make financial plans work and actually help you understand the complex world of investment, insurance, and tax matters.

Last, but Not Least

And finally, don’t forget that when you are a business owner, you are responsible for a lot of people. Their lives and families depend on your decisions, so make them wisely. It is not just about you anymore, or your family and kids; you are doing it for a higher cause. So invest in people you work with, make them feel appreciated, and show them that what they do actually matters. Happy workers are the safest way to a stable future. Learn to feel their pulse and make tactics to stay true to your beliefs.

The post Take Steps Towards a More Financially Savvy Future appeared first on SiteProNews.

And although no idea can help you gather enough money to completely renovate, cure or nourish, at least you can make sure that you are doing your absolute best. And without using technology, you will never reach your full potential. 

The entire business world is digital, so there is no need for the charitable industry to be any different. If you are still hesitant, check out these tips on how to elevate the experience of your donors. 

Moving your organisation in the direction of rapid technology development will only enable you to help even more people. And that should always be the end goal. 

Go International and Spread Your Story Everywhere

Many could argue that technology, and its increased presence, can have a lot of downsides. And they wouldn’t be totally wrong. But, being digital and omnipresent is an integral part of our daily lives. So, why shouldn’t we use it in order to further advance our agendas, charitable or not? The Internet and all of its wonders can help you spread your story anywhere and everywhere. 

No matter how small or big your organisation is, the impact and the change created in society should be seen by all. Connections with people outside of your immediate stakeholders can help you reach out to donors you’ve never even thought of. They can help you upgrade your operation to a whole new level and penetrate new markets. You might be a non-profit, but you still need your donors to keep the business up and running. 

Streamline Your Donation Process and Expand Your Options 

Once you have reached out to people all across the world, they need to be able to donate. Nowadays, setting up an online international payment method is easier than it sounds. For many people, the speed of the modern world demands that every service is fast and smooth. 

And giving out donations shouldn’t be more complex than paying a bill. Make sure your future donors don’t have to spend too much time invested in a ridiculously complicated process, and your income stream will surely increase. 

Create an App That Connects You with Your Donors

Although many people spend their time surfing the World Wide Web, most people prefer to do it using an app. Customers use it to buy food, order cabs, play games, increase their speed in solving math problems… So, why shouldn’t they use it get to know their favourite charitable organisation? If your story is international, and your donors come from all over the world, you should be able to elevate their experience. Creating a simple app can make sure you achieve just that. 

Not only can they donate using that app, but they can also hear all the news about your organisation, all the planned projects and most importantly, where their money is going. If you keep your donors informed, the likelihood of them repeating a donation significantly increases.

And not only that, but you can also use this app to interact with your donors. You can open up a line of communication and engage them using chatbots, forums, and posts. You can use this app to create a community, gathered around the same, charitable goal. If your donors get a sense of ownership and importance, you will be able to bring your organisation to a whole new level. Make sure to enlist proper help for creating this app – as it takes a lot more knowledge than you are likely to have off the bat. 

Share Your Impactful Stories One Digital Post at a Time 

In the charitable business, getting your story across is the most important thing. Just like any other organisation, you too need to use marketing strategies to attract people connected to your cause and to ask something of them. If your potential donors have the means to donate, and you have also provided them with an easy method to do so, the only thing left is to connect them with your core mission. In order to do that you need to be able to share a lot of personal, impactful and important stories. 

And the best thing about that is that you can be viral. That means that for a small problem in a rural city on the outskirts of any country in the world, the entire world can provide a solution. Using your app, you can reach out to anyone and create a strong community of invested people that will slowly turn into donors you can rely on. 

Although this doesn’t mean that all the issues people are struggling with will be cured, it will surely make a significant difference. Your team, as well as all the people you are helping, will notice the change, and surely be thankful for it.

The post How to Best Use Technology to Raise Funds appeared first on SiteProNews.

Let’s take a look at the various benefits of chatbots for businesses and how best to implement them:

Chatbots Enable Fantastic Customer Support

Your business is off to a flying start and the money is rolling in alongside a lot of customer queries. Unfortunately, at this stage, you don’t have the resources for an around-the-clock support squad. A 24/7 multilingual team costs a lot of money, you say, and that’s absolutely true – if you’re talking about humans. Chatbots on the other hand need no sleep, completely do away with wait time, answer queries day and night, refer back to previous client interactions and never lose their cool with rude customers. 

What’s more, the newer generation of artificial intelligence-powered chatbots have done their fair share to bring about a digital transformation in customer service. They learn from customer queries and build on them to improve their answers over time. Don’t worry about them getting too big for their boots though – when a more complex query comes in, chatbots are able to direct the customer towards a happy and relaxed customer service representative, who is no longer spending all their time handling trivial requests. And while you may think that customers would prefer to pick up the phone and chat to a real live human, that’s not quite true – according to statistics recently released by Facebook, 53% of people are more likely to shop with businesses they can communicate with via messaging. Basically, chatbots keep everyone happy.

Chatbots Are the Secret to Amazing Customer Journeys

Nowadays, customers have high standards. Tech advances over the past few years mean that they now take seamless experiences, personalised recommendations, instant answers and great support for granted. Standing out from the competition is no easy task. 

Yet again, it’s chatbots to the rescue. They integrate easily with your customers’ favourite messaging platforms (such as WhatsApp, Viber or Facebook Messenger) and take into account a customer’s search history, previous interactions with your company, prior purchases and social media to find out exactly what they’re looking for. Chatbots will greet your customer as soon as they arrive on your homepage, point them in the right direction, ensure they find what they want and even follow up with them post-sale to check everything’s going swimmingly. Companies such as Starbucks, Sephora, Pizza Hut and Uniqlo are all upping their chatbot game, and for a good reason. But don’t panic, you don’t have to be a huge international chain with millions to invest. Chatbots have the advantage of being easy to set up from a tech point of view and relatively inexpensive.

Chatbots Can Streamline Lead Qualification

We’ve talked a lot about how chatbots can take the weight off the shoulders of marketing and customer service teams, which is already a big step forward when you’re scaling your business and looking to hook leads through your website. But did you know that live chat can also be a game-changer from a sales point of view? Young companies with smaller sales teams will be delighted to have an extra set of hands on board – one that handles all the more mundane exchanges no-one else want to deal with, such as scheduling meetings, redirecting pricing queries towards the most appropriate salesperson, and helping out leads that aren’t such a great fit but might become one at some point in the future. 

Chatbots help salespeople by saving them time, starting more conversations, and providing staff with the information that leads to a better experience all around. Your team will be able to stay focused on the conversations that matter most, for a fraction of the cost of employing more reps.

Getting Started with Chatbots

While chatbots are a great way to scale your business and a huge timesaver once they’re up and running, setting one up can be a challenging process… and a rewarding one. In order for your chatbot strategy to be effective, it’s important to carefully figure out what you’re actually going to be using it for. 

Is your goal to acquire new customers, engage with those that regularly interact with your brand via your website, social media or messaging apps, or provide your sales and marketing teams with a bit of extra support? Bring your relevant team members together and get brainstorming. The end result will be well worth it.

By automating time-consuming processes, handling mundane queries and generally sorting the wheat from the chaff, chatbots are set to become an essential asset to your business in 2019. And given the ongoing advances in artificial intelligence, it’s most likely just the beginning. Watch this space!

The post How to Use Chatbots to Scale Your Business appeared first on SiteProNews.

Boost Your Website Traffic with a Blog 

Some of the best leads come from organic website traffic. Blogging is frequently one of the best ways to drive free traffic to your website. While it can raise your search engine rankings and generate leads, poorly written posts will drive traffic away instead. Not only should your posts provide valuable information, they should be incorporated into a larger strategy that generates leads. 

If your blog traffic isn’t converting into sales, or even leads, you’re not engaging your visitors enough. Some of the techniques that generate leads include email lists, free guides and links to sale pages on your website. You don’t want your articles to seem pushy, but it’s important to give readers a soft nudge to convert your traffic. 

After you decide on your blog topics, you’ll need to research the keywords you are going to use and carefully place them within the text. 

Don’t publish all your blogs in one week either. A steady stream of new blog posts will help you keep your website up-to-date and let Google know you are active and working on your website. To top it off, make sure to add social media share buttons, so readers can share your posts. This is an easy and effortless way to generate extra traffic. 

Branded Banners and Flags 

Many businesses are so focused on online marketing strategies that they forget all about the traditional methods that are still very effective. Branded banners and flags are a great way to establish a public presence and to get your business’ name out there. Banners, for example, can be used at trade shows, sporting venues, and special events. Since tons of companies offer printing services, creating a banner is a walk in the park. Another option is to create a branded flag. Like banners, you can place flags at special events or if you have a brick-n-mortar business, you can place the flag outside to attract customers. 

When it’s time to implement new marketing strategies, don’t overlook conventional techniques that will help bring in new customers. 

Improve Your SEO 

The trick to ranking high in search engines is to improve your website’s search engine optimization (SEO). Google uses an advanced algorithm to determine your website’s rank in the search results. While no one knows every factor behind the algorithm, you can still use several SEO techniques as a marketing strategy to increase your traffic. 

First and foremost, having high-quality and relevant content plays an important role in your search engine rankings. You should incorporate specific keywords into your content and repeat them a few times throughout the page. 

In addition to quality content, metadata is another way to improve your SEO. The metadata is what will appear in the title and description in the search engine results. 

You should also build backlinks to increase your site’s ranking. Backlinks are when another website links back to your site. The higher authority the website has, the more it will help your SEO. There are a variety of free and paid backlink services that will generate links to your website. Be cautious with this technique though, because low-quality backlinks can actually hurt your SEO. 

Use Social Media Influencers 

Since the average American spends 24 hours per week online, many companies are turning to social media influencers to promote their products. What’s a social media influencer, you may ask? An influencer is someone who has an established following and thus compels their fans to buy a product or service. Using a social media influencer is an effective way to gain exposure and leads. Most influencers charge a flat rate, depending on their popularity. 

If you’re an active Twitter or Instagram user, you’ve probably noticed the business emails in the biographies of popular users. To get started, you’ll need to email prospective influencers and propose your advertisement. Since sending emails left and right can be tedious, many business owners turn to influencer platforms where they can buy shout-outs in a matter of seconds. 

Launch an Online Advertising Campaign 

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is still one of the go-to marketing initiatives for small and mid-sized businesses alike. Unlike organic traffic from blogs, PPC is paid traffic that comes from sponsored ads. With careful bidding and keyword strategies, PPC can bring in a ton of conversions. 

Nowadays, PPC isn’t limited to big search engines like Google and Yahoo. If you have a Facebook page for your business, you can launch online advertising campaigns and target a certain demographic. Facebook, along with other advertising platforms, provides statistics that help determine the success of the campaign and the best keywords. While this form of traffic costs more, it’s a lot easier to generate than organic traffic stemming from blog posts. With an attention-grabbing call-to-action and a decent budget, you’ll see new visitors in no time.

The post 5 Marketing Strategies You Can Implement Right Now appeared first on SiteProNews.