Small business
Updating your Products or Services
Advantages of using an Email Marketing Program for your Newsletter
Staying Accountable to Yourself and your Business
Do you own your Business Blog Traffic or does someone else
During a recent call with a new client, we were discussing her online foundations, web presence and the setup of all parts. When we got to the blog part – she said, “Yes I do have a Blog.”
Well… yes she did, but not one that was working for her. Her ‘Blog’ was in fact a blog hosted on blogspot not directly on her website and once there, it had no way of directing a visitor back to her own website.
This is one of the biggest misunderstandings about blogging. “Who owns your Blog?”
- When you have a blog hosted directly on your website visitors get to it by clicking a link similar to this: www.mysite. com/ blog or www.blog.mywebsite. com .
- When using one of the free blogging platforms, your blog link will be something similar to this: www.myblogname.blogspot. com or www.myblogname.wordpress. com
In example 1, your website has the blog as a part (and pages) of your domain name and the url link – your online real estate. You own it.
In example 2, guess who owns these web links? Exactly – Blogspot or WordPress because the link contains their domain name.
In many cases, the blog on the free hosting platform also is not set up in a way that people can even find or get back to your website, as my client’s case. A big mistake if you are looking to use your blog to bring in more traffic. You are investing time (ultimately money) into creating the blog, you want to make it have a positive effect on your online marketing and work for you not against. People should be able to click and see your about page, contact page, services, products – everything you have on your website.
This is not to say that using the free platforms cannot be helpful, for many businesses starting out this is how we started blogging (I did!). However, when you are ready to go bigger and also to move to the social media world and use those channels to bring traffic and visitors to your website – don’t have people clicking on links to a free site that essentially you do not own. That’s not your online real estate, it belongs to wordpress or blogspot. Get your blog installed right on your website and have these links bringing people to YOUR website with all the different pages about your business, including your blog.
Most hosting platforms allow for a simple install of wordpress onto your site – but it may mean changes in the backend that require help of someone who understand how to do this properly. Some hosting sites are not yet ready for these blogging platforms so you will need to do some homework or get some help before jumping into a change to your site. Time on Task does offer this service and if you would like to book a free consult, please get in touch with me.
The main takeaway here is to look at your blog setup and see if you have one that is working for you or against you! If it’s against, what kind of effort are you investing in something that is not helping you? If you aren’t sure, then post a note on my Facebook Page with a link to your blog and I will let you know.
A Bookkeeping Schedule is Necessary for Small Business
Whether you do your own bookkeeping or someone else does it for you – you need to be on a schedule in order to keep on top of it all. You are either entering the entries yourself or getting the information to your bookkeeper to do the same. Keeping to a schedule will keep you up to date. As a small business owner, knowing where you stand financially is important for planning. Plus it lets you review what you have done to know if you need to change things to improve in the future.
I have recently gotten my books caught up and now have a set schedule for them. I plan to never get behind again! It is never fun being behind the 8 Ball when it comes to books. Especially here in Canada, where we have to submit our GST (A type of sales tax) reports to the government every quarter. That really keeps me on my toes and up to date!
What did I schedule or plan in order to stay on top of my books?
- File Items Immediately. Keeping a file folder right on my desk and immediately filing any entries that occur during the week. These could be bills paid, purchases made, online purchases or payments received. I print the email notification and file it immediately in this folder or place the physical receipt in here. I call this the “Books to Enter” file.
- Send / Enter Receipts. Once a week I have set aside one hour to enter in all the receipts that have been gathered. By ‘enter’ this may mean send to my bookkeeper, for some of you, it may mean enter them in the bookkeeping programs directly.
- Reminders. As these receipts are entered, we set reminders for anything that will need to be taken care of in the future (ie domain name renewals due, tax or bill payments due, recurring payments). This practice will keep you from missing things that are important to cash flow and planning.
- Filing. Slowly as I move to going paperless, I am scanning physical slips and printing to them to a pdf file as well as doing the same for email slips, then I save them in a folder on my PC. This file system / folder was setup to be my entire bookkeeping filing system and both my bookkeeper and I have access and as much as we can are trying to save items paperless. It really mirrors what I used to save in paper file folders.
- Review. I check my reports to know where I stand financially. This is an important step as you should always have a good idea of your revenue and expenses at least monthly.
If you have a bookkeeper you can follow this same procedure but work out a method to send him/her the gathered slips. The main point is to stay on top of it and not let it get backed up. As a business owner knowing your updated financial situation is vital to running your business effectively as well as making future plans.
Create your own schedule or steps to staying on top of your books – the biggest benefit after know where things stand, is that you will be less stressed!!
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