Online Business | BizSieve.com

Why Your Internet Business Needs a Human Voice On the Line

The Internet has brought about many changes to the way a company can conduct business. One of the most significant changes is the change from brick and mortar to laptop offices. A business no longer needs to have a physical presence to conduct business. They can purchase from suppliers, contact remote employees, interact with their customers and ship their products all from their virtual location.

“This seems like the ultimate way to conduct a business!”

In most ways, this statement is true. You have reduced operating expenses, you can work from anywhere and you can produce a product or service with little effort.

However, consumers are starting to grow tired of computer generated customer service. They want to “connect” with a real person when they have a question or an issue. They want to know that the company they are dealing with is “real.” They are becoming disenchanted with live chat options and want to talk to a human being.

Is This The End For Internet Based Businesses?

Of course not, internet businesses are here to stay, they only need to adapt to their consumers. Any business that wishes to meet the needs of their clients will prosper, and Internet based companies can meet this need by investing in a virtual office.

An online solution like a virtual office from ring central(dot)com provides that personal touch that laptop businesses often lack. They have “real” receptionists to take your calls and interact with your clients. The receptionist will be assigned to your company and you can interact with them as you would an answering service.

This one feature alone can set you apart from other online businesses that only provide online contact. It will also give your company live support for any time of the day, meeting the needs of your clients in different time zones.

Can You Still Keep Operating Expenses Low?

The additional benefits of using a virtual office are that you do not have to rent office space, pay for electricity, or pay employee related expenses. You will not be obligated to pay payroll tax, carry workers compensation insurance, or worry about someone calling off from work. Your virtual office will always be there and operating, increasing your business and profit margin.

The Internet has become a large part of everyday life. More people turn to the Internet now for information, advice, and shopping than ever before. It has become a tool that helps people find what they want, regardless of distance, and make connections with people all over the world.

As much as this technology has helped advance the world, the desire to communicate with a real human still remains. People want to place a voice behind their transaction to make sure that it is real. They want to hear sympathy when they are upset with a product or service, and they want to hear a calm voice when they are angry. By providing a point-of-contact for your clients by using a virtual office, you are providing them with that voice they desire to hear. This will increase your business while still giving you the freedom to operate your Internet based business on your own terms.

A small business operator, Ann Bailey presents these tips for new ways to save and succeed in the office. Having a virtual office from ringcentral.com is an easy way to provide all of the old fashioned charm of a typical store front office while only paying for the sleek, new streamlined business model of internet enterprises.

Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mwichary/2398196800/

The Top 4 Most Effective Ways To Improve Your Facebook Advertising Results

Looking to improve your Facebook page and become more popular? If you are, this article will get you going. Read on!

There’s one simple reason why Facebook is one of the best online mediums for advertising: its wide spectrum of active users (just over 960 million as of March 2013). From all corners of the earth, people long on to Facebook daily to socialize and for various other reasons, and more and more marketers realize how powerful the world’s largest social network can become when used to its fullest.

If you want to take your Facebook presence to the next level, here are 4 tips you can use to improve your advertising results:
• Improve your SEO. Facebook is very SEO-friendly, giving you all the features needed to turn your page into a traffic driving machine and reap the benefits directly. Use these 3 SEO ‘secrets’ for Facebook to beef up your efforts:
1. Choose the best name for your Facebook Page and stick with it. Changing the name will cost you SEO points, especially if you give in to the temptation to stuff the title with keywords. Avoid doing this!
2. Choose the best URL. Facebook offers the ability to select a custom URL for your page, which is an important SEO opportunity for Facebook you can explore. Make the URL simple and relevant to your business.
3. Place your keywords in the “About” text-box. It’s always a good idea SEO-wise to place keyword-dense content as close to the top as possible, and Facebook allows you to do this in the “About” section.

• Get professional designed graphics. This is optional, but remember: Facebook is a place where potential clients come to interact with your business — just like every other place on the Internet where your brand is attached. If you want your Facebook page to look professional, have it designed by a professional.

• Create interaction. Facebook users seldom find a page with no activity to report on. Facebook also uses an algorithm to determine what’s newsworthy based on interaction (i.e. the number of likes an updates that a page receives). Be likable, ask questions to start up conversations and you will be more and more visible each day.

• Buy Facebook likes. Here’s why buying Facebook likes is important: it makes the hard job of getting likes easy. Have you ever wondered why many Facebook marketers give up? In most cases, it’s because growing a Facebook page naturally is time consuming and hard work. Do it right and there’s no downside to buying traffic. If you’re not sure how to buy Facebook fans, there’s no absolute guide to follow, but it’s important to buy them from a company that gives you real users.

So, to recap, what you need to do to improve your Facebook advertising results is: (1) work on your SEO, (2) look professional (use a high quality design), (3) create interaction and engagement on your page, and (4) scale up your business with quality traffic. Add these tips to your arsenal if you don’t want to miss out. If done right, your advertising efforts will help you tap into a powerful source of traffic and an opportunity with serious potential for business.

About the Author: Roman Sahakov is the co-founder of Followershop, a company which provides Twitter followers and other social media metrics to musicians, entrepreneurs, businessmen and others for the growth of their campaign. Followershop agency is notorious for its duly delivery and professionalism in fulfilling the orders. The company also provides the opportunity to buy twitter followers.

Your Business Website: Will Clients Like What They Find?

The purpose of a business website is to promote a company in some fashion. Whether a company is selling products or providing services, the site needs to incorporate all of the technical aspects that make it both web-visitor and search-engine friendly. The ability to do this is no small feat. That’s why serious businesses utilize professional web builder and SEO services to ensure that they can receive the best possible results.

Everyone has heard, time and again, that the customer is always right. The way that this is applied to web design is that when people arrive at the site, they need to feel welcomed. If not, just like in a brick and mortar store, they will leave. Added to the challenge is that web visitors are impatient – they simply are not going to stick around if there is nothing worth looking at on the site. Because there is so little time to engage them, every second counts when visitors arrive at a website.

What are Customers Expecting?

First, what are they not expecting? There is nothing more annoying to a web visitor than a poorly designed website. An ugly or outdated site is not fun and it wastes time. Therefore, your website simply must be designed properly – and that is best done by an expert web builder. Secondly, the site must be user friendly. The layout should be clean and simple, with links that make sense and work properly.

Who’s Looking Anyway?

There are generally three types of people who could arrive at a website for any given reason:

1) Random strangers – People who know nothing about the business have landed on the page due to a related search. Theoretically, they could still be converted to customers or refer the site to others they believe would find it useful. Therefore, the site should contain something of value to the average person, if possible, such as current and relevant articles that solve a problem.

2) Friends of Yours – They like your cause or business. These are people who probably know your URL and may visit on a regular basis. To keep these people engaged, there should always be fresh content to lure them in. One great way to accomplish this is by encouraging people to visit the site through a newsletter or membership.

3) Fans – These are more avid web visitors who regularly come to the site for — you guessed it – the same thing that friends come there for and more. These are often consumers who make regular purchases, so it is very important to ensure that they stay loyal.

Do You Have Fresh Content?

The one thing that all three of these types of web visitors have in common is that they want great, fresh content to be inspired for repeat visits. One added bonus about fresh content is that it also makes the website more search engine friendly. So it’s a win-win for everyone! Customers get something of value, the site stays at the top of the search engines and you have far more potential to:
-Keep customers engaged
-Engage new prospects
-Attract new customers
-Make more sales

Because websites are on the Internet and available for most everyone to see, it is important for serious business owners to ensure that their sites present the most accurate and relevant picture of their offerings possible. When a site is is visually appealing and constructed well by a professional SEO company, such as www.eversparkinteractive.com, it is more likely to attract, and keep, all kinds of visitors.

Since there is only one chance to make a first impression – a site really must make those clicks count! Professional web design is the only way that businesses can ensure that their sites will include both technical and marketing best practice techniques. This is absolutely critical in order to consistently gain and keep a loyal following and attract target markets.

As a writer in the arts and business fields, Ann Bailey sees the beneficial effects of good web design daily. The professional web and SEO builders at www.eversparkinteractive.com put every client’s web design on the cutting edge of internet business presence.

Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/chasingdaisy/5843303770/

Expanding Your Business Online

The invention and eventual widespread use of the Internet has forced businesses to recognize the necessity of having a little corner of their own on the World Wide Web. Keeping these websites active requires a website hosting service, and there are many types to choose from. More and more individuals, however, are realizing that dedicated servers are the way to go. Different servers will benefit separate companies, but after fully understanding hosting services and specific dedicated servers, many business owners opt for the dedicated server route.

Expand-Online — Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/seoplanter/7460436606/

Important Aspects of a Website

There are several factors that can make or break a website hosting service. Some of the most important considerations when choosing a type of hosting service are uptime, security, speed and reliability. Free hosting companies are cheap, but all of the aforementioned important factors are seriously lacking in these free options. Shared servers are better than free servers, but since the server in question is being used by multiple companies, the speed and reliability can often be compromised.

Some business owners also opt to host their own servers, but this leaves them susceptible to huge drawbacks if their server crashes. The sad fact of the matter is that a business owner will have to be a full-on computer and networking expert to run their own server. Luckily, dedicated servers avoid many of the issues related to self-hosting and the gamut of other server types.

Benefits of Dedicated Servers

As already mentioned, dedicated servers solve many of the issues that other server types leave wide open. Dedicated servers, for instance, have only one website on them. This means that lax security on another website that shares the same server will never affect the website on a dedicated server.

In addition, dedicated hosting services ensure that all space on a server is dedicated to that one site. This means that large amounts of traffic visiting another website on the server won’t cause any downtime issues for the website. Also, shared servers have an inherent constraint on space. Dedicated servers, on the other hand, have plenty of space for the website that it’s hosting. This means that if a business owner decides to expand their website, it’s extremely simple.

Managed vs. Unmanaged Dedicated Servers

Many business owners are left with the tough decision of choosing between managed and unmanaged dedicated servers. They both have their own advantages, but for companies that are still growing, unmanaged hosting services are likely their best option. Managed dedicated servers come prepackaged with certain attributes. Security capabilities, for instance, are chosen by the company hosting a managed server. Unfortunately, these can sometimes provide too much or too little security for a website, but this problem doesn’t exist for unmanaged servers.

Unmanaged servers still have the basic infrastructure support that managed hosting services provide, but business owners with unmanaged servers can pick and choose exactly what they need and only pay for those features. They can expand these features at any time, but while waiting for this need to arise, they can definitely save money. Businesses can even choose their own easy to manage control panel and companies like www.roboshift.com sell full cPanel licenses at a cheaper price than they can get when buying direct from the manufacturer.

In addition, business owners can use the exact programs and procedures that they want on unmanaged servers. This means that they can upload their own control panels or the exact right amount of security. The options are almost limitless, and the unmanaged tag keeps the price reasonable.

Selecting the right type of server is absolutely essential for any business owner who hopes to run a successful online campaign. In fact, the lack of a great Internet presence can sometimes be detrimental enough to cause a company to fail. Luckily, dedicated servers allow individuals to get reliable service for their website, and unmanaged servers give them incredible leeway over how their website operates and how much it costs. Understanding all of these things is essential for every company, group or organization out there.

About the Author: Researcher Shelby Warden writes articles to help businesses compete in a digital world. www.RoboShift.com is an authorized cPanel partner that sells the full range of external cPanel licenses at low prices and backs them up with their friendly customer service and support. cPanel/WebHostManager is the leading web hosting control panel used by Web Hosting companies and Internet Service Providers.

Hosting Your New Business: How to Buy More for Less

When it comes to starting a business, your online presence is a key factor in determining your success. While there are a variety of options available to business owners to have presences on the web, one of the most important is having a dedicated website. Unfortunately, many business owners who are starting out don’t understand what it takes to create and keep a website in cyberspace. Many think that they can simply build a site and then it will magically appear on the Internet. The truth is, however, that after a site is built, it must be hosted.

What is Hosting?

Hosting is the process of placing and keeping a website online. A hosting company is one that offers storage space on a server, and the business owner’s website is then hosted from that space. Anytime a visitor accesses the business’ website, a connection is made to the server, and the visitor pulls data from it. These central companies are generally the route that most business owners take when getting their websites online, and most hosting companies offer a variety of options regarding different types of service.

Shared Hosting vs. Dedicated Hosting

When choosing an online service, business owners must also decide whether to go with shared or dedicated options. Shared service allows a business owner’s website to be on a server along with other people’s websites. This type of plan is generally less expensive than other options, but it also has its drawbacks. Because someone using shared hosting is sharing a server with other websites, loading speeds may be affected, especially if another site on the server is bringing in a lot of traffic. Dedicated hosting, on the other hand, allows a website to be stored on its own server. This type of function is generally more expensive than shared, but it also allows websites to have faster loading times, quicker download speeds and less down time.

Costs to Control

No matter what hosting option you choose to use, it’s important to consider the costs involved. Some plans may start out a few dollars per month, while others may cost hundreds of dollars per month or more. Generally, the cost will be determined by the amount of space your site needs, the amount of visitors your site attracts and the amount of bandwidth your site uses. If you’re concerned about Internet costs for your new business site, you might want to do some research about coupons.

Discounts are available through a variety of avenues like www.hostingcoupons.com, and they can ensure savings on all kinds of web services. In fact, many business owners who are just starting out on the web use coupons to try out various hosting solutions until they find the one that’s right for their business.

When looking for a server solution, it’s also important to find one that will be able to grow with your business. As your business expands, the hope is that you will have more consumers visiting your website over time, and this may mean that you will need to change your web plan in the middle of a contract period. As a precaution, always look for a web provider that is willing to allow you to add on services with time and growth.

Ann Bailey has a small business website and shares these tips to help new site owners make decisions about hosting plans. Coupons available at www.hostingcoupons.com can assist smaller web-based businesses with start-up costs, adding to bottom line savings and business survival rates.

Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bgarry/6132174016/