Local Business Web Design

If you're like many local business owners, you may think that there's no reason to take your bricks and mortar store online. After all, you do business locally...you don't sell on the internet. Well, you may want to rethink your strategy. More and more customers are expecting businesses, even local ones, to have an online presence. And more and more local businesses are using the internet to stay in touch with their customers, and alert them to special events and deals. Luckily, it's easier than ever to create a website, and local business web design doesn't have to be flashy to be effective. Read on for some basic tips.

1. Keep it small. Unless you are actually selling online, your website should only be a few pages long. A Home page, an About Us page, a Services page and a Contact page is usually enough for most local businesses.

2. Keep it concise. Your content should cover the basics: your business name, who you are, where you are, what you do, who you do it for, and why you are different and/or better than your competition. Summarize your business on the Home page, and use the other pages to expand further.

3. Keep it simple. For a local business, web design should be consistent with the look of your bricks and mortar store. Use the same colours and fonts as your business card or signage. A plain background colour, basic fonts and some pictures of your shop, your staff and (if applicable) your products or examples of your services will suffice.

4. Keep it friendly. Too often, local businesses go online and suddenly start sounding like a large corporation. You don't have to use formal terminology (unless it applies to your business)...create a relationship with your customers and visitors by keeping the tone conversational and light.

5. Keep it easy. Make sure it is easy for visitors to contact you by including detailed contact information on every page, either in the top header or the bottom footer. Include an email form on your Contact page, so people can fill it in and send it off to you without having to open up their email program.

If you're hesitant to create your own website for your local business, web design services can be had for a nominal fee. Check around with local colleges, or call local designers to see what they would charge for a simple, small site. But, doing it yourself is easier than you think! There are many easy-to-use web design tools suitable for local businesses, and you don't need to know any programming or HTML to use them.

For your local business, web design is easier than you think! Follow these basic tips, and you will be online in no time.

Home Business Tips 2011

Well, we're almost at the end of the year. As of this article, there are only 13 days to go. Regardless of what level you might be at with your business, you probably have plans to expand it in 2011. Maybe you do but maybe you're not exactly sure how to do that. Hopefully, after reading this article for inspiration, you'll get a clue as to where you want to go.

First let me start off by saying that I have finally reached that point in my business where I have no desire to expand. The last thing I want is more work or more responsibility. Don't worry...you'll know when you've reached that point as well. But for now, where to go? How do you go about expanding?

You might want to think about moving away from a model where you're constantly creating products to one where you have one continuity membership program. This way, you're creating one thing and simply advertising for more members. With most continuity programs, it's no more work to cater to 10,000 members as it is to 10 members. Simply set up a support desk, hire some people to run it, and you're done.

But okay, maybe continuity programs are not your style and you prefer to just branch out into multiple products. The question becomes, how do you go...wide or deep? Well, there are advantages and disadvantages to both models. Let's take wide first.

By going wide, you're creating products in a number of different niches. The advantage of doing this is that you can create a number of low end products that are affordable enough so that you probably give yourself a decent chance of converting well, not that you can't sell higher priced products. They just require a little more effort on the creation and promotion ends. The biggest disadvantage of selling low end products in multiple niches is that you're constantly looking for new customers to sell to.

What about going deep? This is where you have a product line in one niche. The biggest advantage of doing this is that once you've made that first sale, you've got a customer for life if they're happy with the product. Selling a more expensive product to that customer won't be nearly as hard as converting a new customer. On the downside, once you start selling more expensive products, it does become a little harder to get people to open up their wallets...no matter how dedicated a customer they are. Conversion percentage WILL go down the more expensive a product gets. However, you don't have to sell as many to make the same profit.

These are a couple of ways to think about expanding your business for 2011. There are plenty more, but I'll let you chew on these ideas for a while.

Is Our Company Office Party Going to Be Deductible

Happy Holidays everyone, now it's time for your yearly office party, and yes, it is deductible. No, not everything can be deducted 100% as many have reported in the media. There are specific rules for both corporations and small businesses filing schedule C. Why not look this up or talk to your accountant about exactly what you can and cannot deduct.

In fact, there was a great article on this the other day in Hot Rod and Restoration News Magazine, a cool trade journal for those of us involved in the automotive industry. The article was on this very topic and titled; "How to Write Off the Expenses for Your Company's Holiday Party," posted on December 8, 2010 and written by the all famous Devlin Smith!

Indeed, there was another great article which was also referenced in that article by Roni Lynn Deuth which appeared in Women Entrepreneur Magazine titled; "Party On for a Tax Break - Show Appreciation for Clients, Customers, and employees - and Get a Tax Deduction, Too!" which appeared on December 2, 2010.

If you are a small business and file a Schedule C - then under the IRS Codes under "meals and entertainment category" is 50% for allowable expenses. Some people try to bury it and categorize it in an Office Meeting or Office Expense, but technically that is not really appropriate. Many companies will buy things like candy, coffee, etc, while at the office supply store where they sell it, and since that receipt is from an office supply store then it's customary to deduct it as office expense, which mean it is 100% deductible.

Big Corporations have different rules, and event planners and such work to keep the party items less than extravagant so they don't get into problems, like Tyco's Dennis Kozlowski's party for his second wife Karen's 40 TH B-party, which cost $2 million and he tried to have Tyco pay half or $1 million. That was obviously over-the-top and definitely not deductible, not even half of it.

So, for your little company please stay within the rules, and have a great office party this holiday season, and only deduct what is appropriate as per the tax law. Make sure your business accountant does it correctly, and check with them in advance so you don't mess this up, as it can be a "red flag" trigger at the IRS is those expenses appear to be out of line. Please consider all this.