The Importance Of Patience In A Business

      Patience is a virtue that has long been preached in many circles. It is important in many aspects of life. This is especially true when it comes to success in a small business. Owning a small business is not for the impatient person. Success in a small business requires a commitment to be in it for the long run. This article will discuss two key reasons why patience is important in a small business and why it would do a business owner good to learn to wait things out.

#1: Small Business Results Are Often Seen Over The Long Term

     It's always important to be realistic in your expectations as far as results are concerned. Remember that your business will always have competitors and often times these competitors have an edge over you in terms of experience and maybe a superior product. This does not mean that you cannot see results, but it does mean you will to work harder to achieve results.
However, your patience will always pay off in the long term. It's always important to step back and think about where you started and how you have made progress since then. For example, if you run an online business, your website may not get a lot of views or backlinks when you first launch it. You need to network and write articles in order for your website to see views. As you network and write articles each month, you will start to notice that your website is getting more views each month and that more people who are viewing your articles are actually clicking to see your website. But what you must understand is that this is a process that takes months or even years, not days or weeks.

#2: Patience Is Important In Other Aspects Of Business

      Patience is important not only in achieving results, but also in dealing with other matters in business such as adverse situations. Often times, the best way to handle an adverse situation is to step back and evaluate your various options and decide which is the best course of action as opposed to panicking. For example, if a customer complains, instead of getting upset or making a snap decision, it's best to have a detailed discussion with the customer about the problem and assess what solutions are available to the customer as well as how to properly compensate the customer for their troubles.


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How To Get Readers To Engage In Your Content

“All lasting business is built on friendship”

-Alfred A. Montapert, American Author

Content is very important as it helps getting your website exposure. But as good as your content is, it is just as important to write it a way that your potential clients can understand and engage in it. After all, your clients have a lot to take in and he/she needs to be able to understand everything. There are two important methods to ensure your content will engage the reader.

Method #1: Short Sentences With Power

You have a lot to write about when writing your content. It is easy to write a sentence and have it go on for several words if you use commas. While you may have expressed what you wanted to, the reader might have gotten lost reading your statement. The key is to write short sentences with power.

This means that you must use as few words as possible to convey your message. When you look over your sentence, revise it to see if you can use fewer words to convey the same message. Your clients will be able to read the content and better understand each sentence. After all, not every reader has a willingness to read a long sentence. Why not write sentences that use as few words as possible but convey the same meaning?

Method #2: Know When to Underline And Bold

You have written a lot of material for your content and you expect your potential clients to read through it. But there are always certain points that you feel should stand out above others. This situation calls for you to use the underline and bold function, but you have to know which is appropriate to use at what time.

Although both can be interchangeable in use, underlining and bolding words and statements should be used at different times. Underlining is used for when you want readers to pay attention to a certain sentence or phrase. Bolding is used for when you want readers to pay attention to a certain word. Underlining and bolding a phrase or sentence means you want the reader to pay special attention to that statement as you feel it is of great importance. Only use the underlining and bolding for statements that you feel the customer absolutely must see.

It is up to you to decide what statements and/or words you think are important for readers to pay attention to. It is never a good idea to do too much underlining or bolding as it tells the reader that you do not know what points are the most important.

How to improve your online profile (part 4 of 4)

How to Improve Your Online Profile (Part 4 of 4)

By

Sohaib Azam

“Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion.”

-Jack Welch, Businessman

Social Media

          This article will focus on two key social media sites that can help you make massive gains in website exposure. It takes time and patience before these sites can help yield the results that you are looking for. Don’t expect results immediately after you tell your social network about your site and make sure to update them on how your site is doing from time to time.

Facebook

             

           Facebook is important because your friends and family may be able to help expand your business by spreading the word about your business. It is key for any business owner to utilize their social network in order for your website to gain exposure. As long as you have at least one person spreading the word about your site, you can start a chain of other people learning about your site.

          This chain is possible because that one person will tell a few people about your site. Those few people may go on to tell a few more people about your site and the process goes on. This creates the possibility of an exponential growth all because you told one person about your site. Imagine how much greater this growth would be if each individual in your social network told a few people of their own about your site. You could end up with hundreds of thousands and even millions visiting your site over time. Again, you have to be patient in terms of waiting for this growth and you must continuously update people on your business. Nothing happens quickly over the short term.

LinkedIn

          LinkedIn is excellent for showcasing your skill set as well as giving others a sense of your academic and work background. As the owner of a new business, it will always be your responsibility to establish your credibility as an owner. This means that you must prove that you are educated enough and have the right skill set to run a business successfully. You can place all your work experience and skills so that prospective customers can see your professional background.  

         LinkedIn is different from Facebook in that it requires you to demonstrate your commitment to professionalism as opposed to your casual behavior. When you build your profile, you must make sure that you use a professional photo as opposed to a casual photo of you. That means you must be in business attire, properly groomed with a normal hairstyle (no Mohawks, wildly colored hair, or hair that was not properly combed or cut), and in a professional setting when you take this picture. You must also make sure to be completely honest when writing your academic background as well as skill set. 

Also of note is that both sites are great sources of learning about various networking groups that are available in your area. You can search on Facebook as well as LinkedIn for networking groups that suit your business needs best. It is very important to utilize both sites because they have the potential to bring you hundreds or thousands of customers if you are patience and perseverant about your approach.   

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How to Improve Your Online Profile (Part 3 of 4)

How To Improve Your Online Profile (Part 3 of 4)

By

Sohaib Azam

“Winners take time to relish their work, knowing that scaling the mountain is what makes the view from the top so exhilarating.”

Denis Waitley, Motivational Speaker

Article Submission

            This article will not focus on the grammar and editorial aspects of article submission as that is common sense that every writer should know before submitting any article. This article will focus on some of the other dos and don’ts involved in article submission when it comes to submitting articles in order to get traffic for your website.

Article Do’s

            One of the first do’s when it comes to writing an article is to write one that is informative and has relevant, unique content. What this means is the article should offer information about something that is not already common sense and will offer readers new information about that particular topic. When a reader looks at your article, he or she should learn something new and be able to obtain a different perspective on that topic that they might not have had before.

It is just as important that the article contain relevant unique content that you did not simply copy off someone’s website. The perspective that you write on your article should be from your own experience and knowledge and not simply a rehash of someone else’s point of view. You need to write like you are an expert on your own topic.

            Another important thing is to try to solve a problem or answer a question in your article. In this case of this article, I am writing to help people improve their online profile so that they can attract more people to their website. I could have written about the history of the internet or written several articles detailing some of the many statistics about internet use. Those are certainly good topics to write about, but they may not appeal to the readers as much as writing an article that discusses how to utilize the internet to their advantage. Readers will feel more engaged in the article if they are reading on that addresses a problem or issue that they may have. It is always important to write like you are reaching out to the reader.

Article Don’ts

            One of the most important no-no’s of article writing is writing an advertisement for your article. Your article is not meant to be a sole means of promoting your business. Writing an advertisement for your article damages your credibility because it tells the reader that you are writing so that you can obtain their money and not to solve their problems. The only place that your website’s URL should go is in your author biography or in the resource box.

        Another no-no is relying on other sources or copying their content onto your website. Relying on other sources tells the readers you are not an expert on your topic and that you do not understand your topic well enough to form your own points of view and ideas. The originality of your ideas and viewpoints in your article is what the readers will be looking for and they will use those in judging the credibility of your article. 

How to Improve your Online Profile (Part 2 of 4)

How To Improve Your Online Profile (Part 2 of 4)

By

Sohaib Azam

“The golden rule for every business [person] is this: Put yourself in your customer’s place.”

-Orison Swett Marden, inspirational author

Building Links

            The idea behind building links is that you should be able to have other websites post your URL on their site so that it will direct traffic to your site. This is called an inbound link. This way, if prospective customers visit the other websites, they may see the link, click on it, and visit your site. It will also help raise your ranking in search engine searches. But building links is a complex process in which the builder must account for certain factors. These factors will be the discussion of this article.

Factor #1: Finding a Relevant Site

            When you want an inbound link, you must make sure the website is one that is relevant to your business. For example, if you run a birthday party booking business, it would not make sense to have your link posted on a law firm website for two key reasons. First of all, law firms and birthday parties are two separate concepts that do not interlock. Second, you fail to hit your target audience as birthday party booking would mostly target younger children whereas law firms would target adults. It is very important to have your link posted on a site that relates to the business you are running as well as a site hits your target audience. Thus, some good examples of website types for having your booking business’s link on would be a daycare business, kids camp, or party supplies store.

Factor #2: Finding a Site Ranked On The Top Pages Of a Search

            As important as relevance is, it is just as important to find a site that is ranked among the top of a search engine search. Common sense would dictate that an inbound link from higher ranking sites like Amazon or eBay would give your site a higher ranking in a search. But, it is difficult and unrealistic to expect such big businesses to grant you an inbound link to your site. A more realistic approach would be to look at the top few pages of a search and look for small to medium sized businesses related to yours and try for an inbound link there.

Factor #3: Building a Relationship With The Owner Of The Business

            So you’ve found your site and want to get an inbound link. There’s still a matter of talking to the owner of that business . The owner probably receives several e-mails pertaining to a request for an inbound link with most of these requests getting either rejected or ignored. It will be your task to try and stand out in terms of your request and also build a relationship with the owner of that business. This requires perseverance and patience. Be ready to have many of your requests turned down and be ready to spend a good amount of time building a solid relationship with the owners of the businesses before you get your inbound links.

            On a final note, when you do get your inbound link, make sure that you ask the owner to use anchor text, or having the URL hidden in a set of key words or terms relevant to your business to be hyperlinked, like in the example above.

How to improve your online profile (part 1 of 4)

Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning.”

-Benjamin Franklin, American Icon

    For this topic, I will use four separate blogs to highlight what it takes to improve your online profile. For this article, I will discuss the importance of good content.

Content

      The idea behind good website content is that it should help drive customers to your website and help engage them in what they are reading so that they can ask questions if they have any and perhaps purchase one of your products. There are seven important points that will help you create effective website content(1):

1)    Keeping the content simple: Even though you are probably well educated in your field, it is important to understand that not every prospective customer will share your understanding of complex and advanced vocabulary, so it is important to write content that anyone can understand. No need to be complex at all in your descriptions.

2)    Incorporating keywords: There has to be a balance here. You should incorporate the keywords you want the search engines to pick up in your content, but you should not do it too much such that it may turn off the readers. A good rule of thumb to remember is that you should mention the keywords at least once within the page, but you are welcome to mention it more if it flows naturally with what you are writing. But try not to make keywords the main focus of each sentence you are writing. (2)

3)     Bold Type/Punctuation/Bullet Points: This is pretty self-explanatory as this will grab people’s attention towards certain points that you would like to make. Remember that bullet points are your best friends. They help guide the organization of your points.

4)    Negative Space/Paragraphs: I know it is tempting to write a lot of stuff, but sometimes, it’s important to look at what you aren’t writing. Make sure you give a good amount of space between your paragraphs and make sure your paragraphs have even margins. Remember, other people have to read this content and should be able to process each paragraph adequately and without a feeling of being lost between paragraphs.

5)    Headings: These serve two purposes. First of all, they are a way to introduce what you will be talking about in the upcoming paragraph which helps the reader anticipate what will be discussed. The other purpose is that it is a great chance to incorporate keywords as long as they adequately fit what you intend to talk about.

6)     A style that speaks to the customer: The most important takeaway from this point is to personalize your website so that you are speaking to your customer and not filling your entire page with facts and figures. Sure, those things are great, but you should be writing in a way that makes the customer feel like you are engaging to the customer. Remember, the success of your business depends on the customer, and you will not get the customer unless you speak to them. Make sure your writing style reflects that.

7)    Change it up: in order to get higher in the search engines, it’s always important to change some of the information on your site every now and then. You can do this by adding a video, change a paragraph, add a news article or blog, or whatever may be appropriate. The search engines will bump your page down the search list if you aren’t keeping your website content fresh.

References

(1)  http://www.wpromote.com/blog/blogging/7-secrets-for-writing-effective-website-content (note: the first six points are taken from this website, but the seventh point is from my own knowledge. Each point has my own input and interpretation as opposed to a regurgitation of what was on the site)

(2) http://www.seomark.co.uk/keywords-website/ (note: this only applied to point 4) 

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The increasing use of internet in the modern era

By

Sohaib Azam

            Two things concerning the internet are no secret in today’s world: 1) That the use of internet has been increasing since its introduction to the public in the early 90’s and  2) that it has become the standard for business and personal use in recent years. There are literally more than a hundred statistics out there and several different sites that post these statistics. Instead of boring my audience with a bunch of stats that might seem obvious or useless, I would like to use this blog to write on some very notable stats that are worth sharing (all taken from http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm):

1)      In 2000, the internet’s early years, there were only 360 million internet users across the world. That number has jumped up to over three billion out of seven billion people living on this earth, which is nearly half of the population.

2)      In Africa, 4.5 million people accessed the internet in 2000, but that number jumped significantly to over 300 million in 2014 which is almost a 7000 percent increase. One would not regard Africa as a place where internet use is rampant the way they would with Europe and North America so this increase is notable.

3)       The Middle East also saw a significant increase from 3 million in 2000 to 113 million in 2014. This is over a 1000 percent increase in a 15 year span.

4)      On the same site, you will also see that Asia and Latin America experienced significant increases in internet usage as well.

5)      North America has almost 90% of their population accessing the internet while Europe has more than half of their population using the internet.

        There are many statistics and websites out there that detail internet usage, but they all convey the same message: that internet usage has increased significantly since its early days and that is not likely to change in the years to come. While this is an obvious point to most people out there, what might have not been obvious was that regions such as Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America experienced major increases in internet use, even though these areas would arguably not be seen as technology hubs the way North America and Europe would be seen.

      

       There may very well come a day where internet use reaches near 100% in the world. With such increasing and widespread use of the internet in the modern era at such a fast pace, it is that much more important that businesses take advantage of this increase by utilizing the online world to their success. Building a website for their business if they do not already have one is a good start to taking advantage of this trend.

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