Showing posts with label Credit card. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Credit card. Show all posts

June 19, 2014

Objectives and Risks of Owning a Small Business Website

website ideas
website ideas (Photo credit: Sean MacEntee)
  Having a website is one thing, but marketing it is something completely different. There is no magic button, or special hidden secret to marketing your website. There are however a few things that must be done in order to market your website appropriately. There is no use in having a website if no one ever sees it!
According to Sutevski the most important objectives for a business website are:
  • Reaching the target market.
  • Attract visitors to your Website.
  • Encourage them to buy your products and services – to take action.
  • Make them to want to come back to your Website for free or paid content, products or services.
Creating a website that will appeal to your target market is important. Otherwise you will have a high bounce rate, which means that your potential customers are not staying on your site very long. People don't stay on websites very long because they are not finding what they are looking for. It's important to make it appealing to the eye as well as interesting to your niche.

Attracting visitors by submitting your URL to search engines and using meta tags is not enough. If you want traffic you have to use network marketing. That means Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Tumblr and so many more. Pick a few that you like and are comfortable with. Make sure when posting to your network that you are not bombarding your potential customers with ad after ad. Post original and premium content. Be creative and watch your followers grow.

No one is buying your products? Is your website set up for payments? How are your item descriptions? Do you have quality photos of your products or the work that you have done?

If you want your customers to come back you need to remind them. The easiest way to do this is with a mailing list. Set up a sign up box on your website with a short form your customers can fill out their personal information. Send out emails with promotions and special events.

As far as risks go, security is the top priority. According to The Startups Team "Credit card criminals are increasingly turning their attention to smaller e-commerce sites, using stolen credit cards to buy goods online, so you have to have the right level of security in place." If you are keeping this information in house on your own servers you need to make sure that it is protected. If you have contracted a separate entity to manage this information for you steps need to be taken to ensure the security of your customer's information.

The Startups Team. (2001, October 12) Running a website: The security risks. Retrieved from http://startups.co.uk/running-a-website-the-security-risks/
Sutevski, D. (2009, September 19). Online objectives for marketing your business. Retrieved from http://www.entrepreneurshipinabox.com/559/online-objectives-marketing-business/

April 28, 2013

Making Extra Cash Online

Google

English: Cashcrate Logo
I know what you are thinking. You've never made money offline and it seems like some impossible scam. I am here to tell you that it is NOT! 

I've been a member of CashCrate since 2006. Since that time I have made a significant amount of extra money just spending an hour or so a week online completing surveys and special offers. It's not going to make you rich but if you want to earn some extra money every month with little work it's worth it!

Here is my tip! Create a free email address with Yahoo or Gmail just for CashCrate. After all you will be filing out offers to companies that will send you a lot of spam and you don't want those emails going to your personal email address. Guaranteed spammers will email you, but that shouldn't stop you from making money online.

The sign up is simple enough. It only takes about 30 seconds and once you complete that, they take you to the below screen. Here you select which offers you would like to complete. You click the offer on the left and once you complete the offer, then you click the submit button. Cash Crate then verifies that you completed it and then adds the funds to your account.

The offers don't take more than a minute or so to fill out. They are straightforward and simple. There are also short surveys you can take and games that you can play through facebook!

I know it sounds too easy! But a lot of companies run their businesses completely off of email lists. So, you are getting paid $1.00 to get added to their email list. It may or may not be worth it to you. But I can almost promise you that you are going to start getting a lot of spam in your inbox. That is the trick to it. They want your email address, but it's an email address you will never check or take seriously! In the meanwhile you'll be making money from it.

Again, this site isn’t going to make you rich, but this can be another tool to add to your collection of online income sources.  You can sign up to CashCrate here.
If you have a blog that has anything to do with making money, saving money, or personal finance, it might be worth introducing this site to your readers as a way to pick up some referrals.
What do you think?  Have you used CashCrate before, and if so, do you like it?