Building Your Own Web site vs. Low Cost SEO Services in Ottawa

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Building Your Own Web siteYou are small business owner contemplating designing and Building Your Own Web site. If you have some basic technology and IT knowledge there’s no question that you can figure out how to build your own website. The question is this the best use of your time?

As a small business owner you have many challenges every day to keep your business running, to drive sales, to produce and deliver the services that your company provides and solve many customer issues that you have. Every day is a busy day and everything must be prioritized to ensure that you focus on the most important things to your business. Cash flow is king.

As with all of your business activities, some of the things that need to be done will be contracted out to contractors, or you may even hire employees to focus on specific aspects of your business.

Building Your Own Web site

Building and designing your own website falls into exactly the same category. Why would you not hire a contractor, or an IT company to build and design your website for you following the guidelines that you provide?

Assume that you have made this decision to hire an IT company to build the website for you. The next question is what kind of website should you build and how much did you want to pay? If you’re new to this we suggest you start with the basic website that documents and tells your visitors a little bit about your company, the services or products that you provide and how best to get in touch with you.

You may even want to allow visitors to leave comments on your website for later follow-up by yourself or one of your employees. There is a commitment implied that spans several areas. One is the cost to develop and implement the web site. Another is to maintain it and keep the information current on the side. Finally there is the need to support your customers on your site in terms of providing them with current information. This can be a lot of work depending on the business.

A Viable Alternative to Building Your Own Web site

We can provide you with the basic website. It will contain five or six pages with both text and images that you choose. You have an option of being able to update these pages on your own once they are created. Customers can also add new pages based on topics that you would like to provide. We can also add pages for you based on input and requirements that you specify.

This is a great way to get started with your own company’s website at very little cost. You can later add to on your own or have one of your employees do it for you. Or have us add the pages describing your services and products. There is lots of flexibility which allows you to meet your own business goals.  Give us a call or send us an email at your convenience for more information.

How much income will you need in retirement?

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How much income will you need in retirementMany consumers want to know the answer to the question, “how much income will you need in retirement”? The common guideline for the amount of money or income that you will need during retirement has been an average of 70%. Most advisers will aim for that number. This is based on the fact that most people will not need as much money to live on during retirement. After all they do not have the expenses of going to work. Their mortgage should be paid off. All of their debt including car loans should also be reduced to zero. They also have less expenses for getting to and from work, less clothes etc.

How much income will you need in retirement – Spending More ?

They may have objectives of going on a vacation, visiting grandchildren, perhaps a once in a time life vacation. For many consumers this number of 70% is probably quite realistic. However it may not work for everyone. It is important to understand what your situation is and how much money you will need once you retire.

For example the couple that is spending to the level of their paycheck each month just before retirement may have difficulty surviving on 30% less than they currently make. Unless they reduce their expenses they will quickly go into the hole. They may run up debt that they probably will not be able to pay for. They may be required to take another job, sell their home to cover expenses etc. This is not something that you want to find yourself needing to do.

Plan for Retirement

If you are nearing retirement now is the time to complete an assessment of how much income you will actually have during your retirement taking into account employment pensions, government pensions and income from savings. At the same time evaluate all of your expenses to understand which ones will continue during retirement and those that will be reduced.

Once you have these two numbers you will be able to quickly understand weather 70% of your income is realistic or not. Don’t forget to include one of a time expenses such as vacation, supporting children, and health issues that may increase the 70% requirement of your income. There is also an age factor to take into account as well. When you initially retire and have your health, there are more opportunities to spend your money on the fun things you like to do. As you age, you may have to gove some things up and switch to others that actually cost less. The big unknown is what will your health care cost and how much will you need to pay for the level of care that you need?

For more information about retirement income and how much you will need in retirement, click here.

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Basic small business website strategy

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small business website strategyAll websites, regardless of whether they are for large companies or small businesses should always have a set of objectives. They should have a strategy for achieving those objectives. The objective should be geared towards whatever it is that they’re trying to achieve with the website. It should support your objectives to increase sales or to drive business to the company.

One area the web developer should pay particular attention to is the quality of the content, the freshness of the content, and the ability for the search engines to index their content.

We have all encountered websites where the content is almost next to useless. These have been written just to obtain search engine results. But they do not offer anything to the consumer or anyone searching on the Internet for a particular topic.

The search engines are trying to de-index these websites and this is the main reason why a website should have excellent content and why the content should be kept fresh.

Old content can quickly become out of date and as far as the search engines are concerned will be given a lower index rating as a result. In addition, if this content is about your products or services, business owners will want to ensure that the content is kept up-to-date and currently reflects the services and products that you offer.

We have developed the following strategy for keeping our content up-to-date on our own websites. Our websites are principally aimed at providing information to the consumer and therefore we recognize the value of that content is kept up-to-date and accurately reflecting current issues as well as information that consumers are looking for. Here’s our strategy.

Small Business Website Strategy – New Content

Depending on the subject of the website and reader interest, new content will be added at least twice a month and in some cases once a week to provide readers with new information about the subjects they are interested in. This also tells the search engines that new content is available to be indexed for consumers conducting searches on these particular topics on a regular basis.

Update Content

Older content should be reviewed and updated on regular basis to keep it current and fresh. There are several ways to do this. Our decision has been to focus on older content that is short duration. We also focus on older content that has not been touched for some time.

Posts are sorted based on size from smallest to largest. The smallest post is updated by adding more content. We increase it in size compared to the next smallest post. On average our posts will become larger overtime. At the same time, all punctuation and grammatical errors are corrected.

Tweak Content

Some of our posts already pretty good and just need to be updated. We want to show that they are still current to the search engine crawlers that crawl websites every second of every minute of every day. All posts are sorted based on the last time that they were updated. We then update the oldest post. We may add a few comments or improve the content of the post in some manner.

All of this work is aimed at keeping our website current. We are following these steps typically once a week or once every two weeks depending on the website.

Starting a New Business

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Starting a New BusinessMany consumers across North America are thinking about starting a new business. These consumers may have either been laid off prematurely. Or have retired but need something to do in their daily lives. As a result starting a new business is one solution. It meets this need to be busy and involved in their lives.

Many consumers find themselves in a position where they are able to start a new business. Technology is providing many new solutions and opportunities for business people. Whether it is a technology solution that is being offered. Or technology that is being used to enable a small business, many consumers are taking advantage of this huge opportunity. As a result, millions of Canadians and Americans this year will develop and start their own small business.

Starting a New Business – Seniors

Seniors and people over 50 are part of the fastest-growing group of people starting new businesses. The majority prefer to be self-employed and prefer to be their own bosses. Even though they may have left an employee position, they have much more freedom when they run their own business. The self-employed are more likely to be educated with over a third of new business owners having a university degree. Women tend to be more successful than men at starting and maintaining a new business.

Educational services and healthcare services are the fastest-growing new business opportunities.

Starting a New Business is a Challenge

Starting a small business is not for the faint of heart. Government regulations, incorporation, banking, and technology services need to be resolved. They are needed to operate the business. For example, a strategic plan and a business plan are required. Along with product development, service development, and marketing plans. They are all required to develop a long-term successful business opportunity. A lot of hard work and long hours is often needed to get the business started. Subsequently, you must keep it profitable in the short-term.

Increased connectivity – Technology is increasingly leading to a higher level of cooperation between small business, self-employed and larger firms. As a result, larger firms are calling upon the specific expertise of smaller enterprises to complete projects. This kind of cluster of competencies and strategic alliances will be temporary. As a result at the end of a particular project, they will dissolve. They will reform into other groups that are focusing on a particular solution, project or customer.

Outsourcing

Growth in outsourcing – Canadian small businesses are in a co-evolutionary relationship with corporate business in the economic landscape.  Also, small businesses are needed by large corporations to create the necessary reach and depth into local markets. They act as distributors and agents for products and services. Small-business owners also provide temporary manpower in terms of contract services to larger businesses and government.

Increased demand for personalized products – An aging population means growing sophistication and a rapid change in consumer tastes. This is positive for self-employment. Small scale operations are flexible and can support increased demand for personalized services. They have the ability to focus on niche markets. Small-business owners can focus on providing services to a growing senior population. They are unable or unwilling to do much of their own work around their homes and yards.

For more thoughts about changing lifestyles, click here.

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How to Retire Early

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How to Retire EarlyHow to Retire Early and have enough money to last well into your golden years is the big question that many people are facing. They turn to experts and to investment advisers, however there are some things that you need to do that the experts do not really talk about too much. They are often too interested in selling investment products to you. Retiring early is all about managing our expenses. If for example you can downsize and move to an area of the country that has lower taxes, lower cost for heating, lower property values and lower taxes then you can probably sell your existing home payoff your debt and live quite comfortably on much less money. This is what one couple who moved from Chicago to Tennessee did.

How to Retire Early – Save Aggressively

Another person made a very good salary, in fact they were making approximately $110,000 per year but lived like they were only making $50,000 per year so they were able to set aside $60,000 over a ten-year period and combined with interest income able to save $800,000 towards a retirement in less than 10 years.

Downsize and Mid Course Corrections

While downsizing might be the right answer for many people, retirees should always be prepared to make mid course corrections. If for example you have downsized and still found that your expenses are too high for the lifestyle that you lead or for your budget, be prepared to make another downsizing decision which will decrease your expenses even more so. For example one couple was paying $1000 a month for the upkeep of the grounds around their home. They found that they could move to another place and still only pay $93 per month for that same upkeep. They also were prepared to do more of their own landscaping etc. This is an example of making mid course corrections during your retirement years.

Started a business

Another approach to retiring early, is to start your own hobby type business. If you can augment your income by $10,000 a year, this may be sufficient to provide you with sufficient income to bridge the gap. And you get to do your hobby as well.

The writer for example has retired when he was 48, but has been building websites and blogging for the last 15 years. He has been able to augment his income sufficiently to live very comfortably.

Become a landlord

Another approach to generating income and allowing yourself to retire early is to buy property. Rent it out and use the rental income to pay for the property mortgage and taxes. Once the property is paid for you have the choice of either selling it. Or using the capital to live on. Or continuing to rent it and using the rental income as part of your own personal income to live on after payment of all expenses associated with property.

Live on one income

If you are lucky enough to have two incomes, can afford to live on only one income? The best approach is to save the second person’s income toward your retirement. This will provide a great deal more savings opportunity and quality of life for you when you plan to retire. It is all about saving sufficient money to invest in to live on when you retire.

For many more posts about retirement planning, click here.

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Web for Small Business

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Web for Small BusinessA small business website must have several basic elements to be successful in terms of meeting customer needs. Also, the objective for Small businesses is to be found by search engines. We will discuss these two aspects in this post. We also describe why business owners who are focused on developing, building, and running their business need to care about a website for their company.

To begin with, a company website should describe the company. The services or products offered by the company and how to contact the company should be covered. It is a way to communicate with readers who they are and what they do. This basic information tells the reader who you are and what you care about. It should be easy to navigate, and customers should have no problem understanding what you are offering.

Once you have described your company, the next part is even more critical. It is one of the reasons we are writing pages such as this one. We want the search engines to find us and index us in a manner that allows customers to find us. The same is true for your company’s website. Business owners need to invest in primary Search Engine Optimized material. This will tell the search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing that you are available and what your company does.

Web for Small Business – SEO Indexing

They will index your site and present the results to consumers who search for your products and services. If you end up on page 50 or page 1000 of the results, customers will never find you, and you will not receive traffic to your website and have no opportunity to convert them to paying customers. You need a page for each possible search term that might be used to find products or services your company provides. That is one of the reasons we are issuing new pages every week or so that talk about websites for small businesses.

It is a page of advertising about what your company will offer customers. We provide website hosting, construction, and maintenance for small business owners. You can find more details about our offer on our pages along the right-hand side. They cover services as well as prices. There is also an option where we host and build the website, then open it up for our customers to add their content. This is an opportunity for the small business to tightly manage editorial control while at the same time keeping costs under control.

For more information give us a call or email us for details.

When retirement is not by choice

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When retirement is not by choiceA recent poll suggests that 41% of consumers are reporting that they did not retire on a date of their choice. These people were either forced to retire or found that they had health issues that caused them to retire. Some found that it was the best decision for them at the time based on the company situation. The bottom line was that they retired on a date that they did not choose or plan. They had expected to work for a number of additional years. So what do you do When retirement is not by choice?

When retirement is not by choice – Short Time to Adjust

20% of those people who retired on a date that they did not choose also found that they had less than one month to adjust. There was no advance notice. They were shown the door on a date that they did not choose.

Even though there is such a high percentage of people who are retiring on a date they did not choose, fully 70% feel that they retired at the right time in hindsight. They wanted to enjoy an active retirement. They till have their health, they did not need more money. As well they were not happy at work, they wanted to join their spouse or partner in retirement. Some did have health concerns. Others wanted to volunteer or they needed to take care of someone else.

Need Strategies to Retire

Those people who were forced into retirement earlier than what they had planned needed retirement strategies. Many of the people who retired based on their own decision also needed strategies to help them. The strategies included downsizing or staying in their home but selling some assets. In some cases orrowing against their home equity or returning to some kind of paid work was an option. Still others considered renting a portion of their home. Taking a loan without borrowing against their home equity and finally asking a family member for financial help are considered.

Plan Now for Retirement

If you are still working or expect to be retiring in the near future, it is time to take stock of your financial situation and determine whether you are able to retire and live the quality of life that you would like during retirement. Planning now and taking steps to achieve financial freedom while you’re still working is one of the best things that you can do to ensure the quality of life for you and your spouse that you’re looking for.

Discussing your retirement needs with your spouse and creating a plan that you both buy into will take some time as you incorporate the needs of both parties. It can be stressful since many people do not discuss financial issues very well and may need some help. Use online programs or meet with a trusted financial adviser to help figure out what you need financially to do some of the things that you want to do.

Retire early: a second paycheck comes in handy

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second paycheckMany people dream of retiring early and enjoying the good life. The reality is though that there are a number of reasons why people cannot retire early. For example, they may not have sufficient savings. They may still have children going to university and college. Or they may not want to retire. In fact, many would prefer to continue working to maintain their social life or perhaps a second paycheck.

The second paycheck comes in really handy and augments the family income. This same income can be used to enhance your savings. The family can prepare for the quality of life that they would like to have during retirement. It also keeps your hand in the business and keep you current with what is going on in your career area. Many people will move from a regular career oriented job, into a new consultant type job for a number of years after they retire.

The question that many people ask themselves is what kind of job should they consider after they retire? There are several schools of thought about these jobs. For example, many would like to continue in the same career. There are many consulting type jobs that may be available within your industry.

Other people would prefer to try something brand-new. They only want to work for several days or maybe 20 to 30 hours a week. This will give them time to pursue some of the other things they like to do. They did not have the time before they were retired. Either way, they have income coming in.

What Second Paycheck or Job do You Want

While some of these jobs may not be as challenging and as interesting as the job they had during their career, it still gives them an opportunity to get out of the house and an opportunity to meet people as well. If you try something outside your career experience it is also a learning activity for you.

Many colleagues of ours have very specific requirements about getting a second job after they retire. Yes you want the money, but also there are some specific issues that they have concerns about.

For example, many people want to get away from office politics. They just want to do the job and leave when the job is finished. They don’t want to become an employee, preferring to work as a consultant with a specific start date to the contract and specific end date to the contract.

Many other people would prefer to work in retail where they have specific hours that they work every day and then are finished with no issues or politics to be concerned about at the job. When they leave the store their finish for the day and don’t think about it again until they come back the next day or whenever the next shift is scheduled.

If you’re looking for a second paycheck we urge you to think about and plan the kinds of jobs that you would like to pursue to make sure that your objectives are being met, whether it’s additional income, a social life, something interesting and challenging to do or something just to fill the time that you now have available.

For more ideas about retirement income, click here.

What should you spend on SEO services

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SEO servicesMany business owners might be wondering what SEO is, let alone asking what they should pay for it! SEO services is short for search engine optimized content for your website. This content is designed and developed so that search engines will properly index your website and rank so that your customers will see your website presented in the search engine results. The ranking is extremely important if potential customers are going to find your site.

Building a website with content that reviews your products, services and whatever else that you decide to provide about your company is a requirement however that alone will not cause the search engines to rank your website highly enough for people to find. It is equivalent to building a brick-and-mortar building, not placing the sign on the front of it, and not advertising in the newspaper or on TV or on radio. You must also advertise on the Internet and to do that you make sure that your website is optimized for the search engines.

What should you pay for SEO services

There are many models available in terms of payment structure, as well as the amount that you might consider paying. Regardless of the amount that you pay, you should set objectives. They should include  the development of content and optimization of content so that you can measure what you’re receiving for what you pay.

Payment methods include a monthly retainer, contract services, fix prices, project-based pricing, and hourly consulting. If there are promises or guarantees, instant results, the number one spot in Google, or shady link building services you may want to ask more questions and or avoid this type of service. There just cannot be any guarantees of results given the competition, and given the way the search engines change their outlook algorithms on a regular basis.

Some issues to consider

Search engine optimization takes time and results can take as long as six months to be achieved. Search engine rankings and search engine changes will take place overtime and your rankings will change as well. Not all SEO services are the same and you must compare cost versus services.

SEO is not an option, you must do it if you want your website to rank well. Hiring an agency with the expertise is the best way to go compared to trying to do it yourself.

Search engine optimization is another form of advertising expense. It can be compared to other marketing approaches such as direct mailing, broadcast advertising and online ads. You need to compare the results that this will provide. Invest for to get the best return on your investment. In our opinion search engine optimization for your website is not an option. It is something that you must invest in, to enable customer conversion into sales for your services and products.

Give us a call today for further information on this subject. We can discuss pricing for search engine optimization of your website. For more posts about making your web site more SEO friendly, click here.

Small Business Entrepreneur

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Small Business EntrepreneurThe small business entrepreneur has lots to think about while getting a new business started. From financing to design, production, shipping, and support there are so many to keep them all straight. As a result, you may not focus on a quality web site.

Their website, their content, and the communications messages are just one element among hundreds of issues. Even getting a website launched can be a challenge with all of the items that need to be addressed. There is simply not enough time to cover everything and many things must be prioritized and delegated.

Small Business Entrepreneur – Hosting and Content Management

A hosting site and a content management system that allows easy updates on the fly are really appreciated. Business entrepreneurs can update their own pages or arrange for professional website designers to build their websites for them. Content managers can add content that describes the company’s business, services, and products as needed.

Your communications team can focus on communications and not spend time on IT issues! IT website issues can be a drain on resources as well as time.  Using a flexible content management system with built-in hosting is one of the more important decisions to make.

Use WordPress Content Management Systems

We use WordPress as a content management system for this site. Although this one is a simple straightforward website, readers can certainly see how a site can be put together and updated easily on a regular basis. Once it is set up, just focus on what new content needs to be added along with videos or pictures. Now you are using your time efficiently!

We can set up a basic site for you and your start-up business, then turn the website over to you for ongoing maintenance and/or updates. You need to focus on adding new content or functionality.

We can assist with your content as well, making sure that it is optimized for your business and optimized for your customers as well. Search engine optimized content is also important if consumers are going to find you when they search for information about the services or products you provide. There is a lot of competition out there and online advertising is no different.

Let up help you become successful and meet your entrepreneurial goals! Contact us by phone or send us an email today for more information. Our prices are reasonable. Content management is set up so that your own team can perform updates. Or you can contract updates us as well.