These websites compare the rates of various companies and may also have tools to help you classify the best insurance selection for you. You will most likely have to use one of their online tools and enter data about your age,vehicle, sex type and etc. They then produce a listing of companies and insurance deals that you may be acceptable for. This can be an excellent way to get started on the search. The magnificent thing about looking for business insurance at all, is that very often just getting your car insurance online will gain you a discount. Because these websites are not having to pay for you to listen to hold music before you get to a surly telephone consultant, they can save you a little more on your insurance. And it's very good deal for you. Or not? Using free information and comparing data is the way to ensure that you get low cost car insurance. So spending a little time and troubles before you choose a company can save you plenty of money over time.

 What do you know about business insurance? What you should know about business insurance are two things that are important when you are out to get business insurance for yourself. There are many factors that you will need to take into consideration.

 
But the most important of them are:

 
Price: You need to know you are getting the best quote available. The only ways to ensure that is by getting quotes from at least five different insurance companies and compare them. When you do that, check all the pros and cons so you get the complete picture. Hence you do that, check all the pros and cons so you get the complete picture. Some insurance agencies charge a very small fee upfront but has a lot of other fees such as processing fees, inspection fees, documentation fees, etc which will take the price through the roof.

 
Another smart way is to get a quote from insurance brokers like http://www.oneshopinsurance.com. They can surely help you decide which insurance company is best for your insurance needs.

Forum: Advice From The Pros : Business Insurance ]]> http://webworks101.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=1657160 Thu, 25 Jan 2007 08:01:27 GMT http://webworks101.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=1440097 Essentials for Creating a Successful Business Plan

By Atlas Business Solutions

What is a business plan?

A business plan is a written description of what you plan on doing and how you plan on doing it. Depending upon who’s going to read your business plan, and what you are going to use it for, your business plan will vary in form and length.

Whenever entrepreneurs hear the term “business plan,” they envision a one-inch thick document crammed with every possible piece of business-related information. This is not always the case. A business plan has many uses, which dictates what information, and how much of it, you should include in your business plan.

For example, a business plan could be used internally to identify goals and strategies to key employees. Since people inside your business may already be familiar with your business and how it operates, such a business plan may be much shorter and less formal.

However, most entrepreneurs write business plans to obtain funding. Since many investors want to know the “ins” and “outs” of your business, your business plan needs to explain your products and services, markets, competition, industry, operations, and opportunities in greater detail. This could result in a pretty hefty document, especially when your business plan includes a detailed financial forecast.

Before writing your business plan, you will need to identify who is going to read your business plan and your reasons for writing it.

Who needs a business plan?

Every business should have a business plan of some sort. Without a plan, a business may lose focus of its goals, which could result in lost market share, customers, key employees, and money. If you don’t know where you want your business to go, how will you know if your business is moving in the right direction?

A well-thought-out business plan can be the most important factor in the success of your business, so the task of creating a business plan should not be taken lightly. Most entrepreneurs write business plans to obtain funding. But more than just a tool for raising money, a business plan can help you determine if your business will be a financial success, identify and define your business goals, and decide the best methods for achieving those goals.

A business plan can also help you attract key employees, find new business prospects, and manage your business more efficiently. Just as a carpenter needs a blueprint, an entrepreneur needs a business plan, or “road map,” for building, growing, and sustaining a successful business. Here are just a few things a business plan can do for you:

• Identify if there is a market for your product or service.• Determine your competition and identify advantages.• Estimate start-up costs, revenues, expenses, and profitability.• Show you if your business idea is worth pursuing.

What should a business plan include?

A business plan should include all the important matters that will contribute to making your business idea a success. These generally include the following:

• Your basic business concept.• Your products and services and their competitive advantages.• The markets you’ll pursue.• Your strategy and the specific actions you plan for implementing it.• The background of your management and key employees.• Your financing needs.

Since business plans vary greatly in length and detail, the amount and type of information contained in a business plan also varies. Always keep in mind your audience’s time is extremely valuable. Don’t waste a reader’s time by including unnecessary information just to fill pages. Your business plan should contain just enough information to accomplish its goal. No more. No less. Business plans are often 15 to 20 pages in length, but your plan may be shorter or longer.

Most business plans are presented to a reader in an outline form, divided into major sections (or chapters) and subsections. This layout makes a business plan easy to read and easy to navigate. Below is a list of the sections often included in a comprehensive business plan:

Executive Summary         • Business Opportunity         • Product/Service Description         • Current Business Position         • Financial Potential         • The Request

Company Background         • Business Description         • Company History         • Current Position/Business Objectives         • Ownership

Products         • Product Overview         • Competitive Analysis         • Suppliers and Inventory         • Research and Development

Services         • Service Descriptions         • Competitive Comparison         • Service Delivery         • Research and Development

The Industry, Competition and Market         • Industry Definition         • Primary Competitors         • Market Size

Marketing Plan         • Competitive Advantage         • Pricing         • Distribution Channels         • Promotional Plan

Operating Plan         • Location         • Facility         • Operating Equipment         • Suppliers and Vendors         • Personnel Plan         • General Operations

Management, Organization and Ownership         • Management/Principals         • Organizational Structure         • Professional Consultants         • Ownership and Boards

Goals and Strategies         • Business Goals         • Keys to Success         • Future Plans

Financials         • Beginning Balance Sheet         • Profit & Loss (Years 1-3)         • Cash Plan (Years 1-3)         • Balance Sheet (Years 1-3)         • Ratio Analysis (Years 1-3)         • Assumptions

Most entrepreneurs experience little difficulty when it comes to writing the text portion of their business plan, as long as they know what is to be said in each section. But when it comes to the financial portion of a business plan (a.k.a. “the financials”), many business plan authors get stuck.

Since financials are such a sticky subject, below is an entire section dedicated to explaining what financials are, and what financials you should include in your business plan.

What are financials?

Business plan financials estimate how well your business will perform under certain assumptions. For example, what happens to your business if it sells 10,000 widgets, or 20,000? What happens if your business acquires 50,000 customers, or only 15,000? Typically, a business plan includes three sets of financial projections: (1) most likely; (2) best case; and (3) worst case. These scenarios let readers know what will happen to your business if everything goes as planned, or if business is much better or worse than expected.

The financials most commonly included in a business plan are a beginning balance sheet and three years’ worth of balance sheets, profit and loss projections, cash plans, and ratio analysis reports. Financial projections are not only essential for potential investors who need to see how you are going to repay them, they help you determine if starting a new business or expanding an existing business makes financial sense. Below are summary explanations of the financials commonly included in a business plan, along with a link to a sample. Each sample is followed by a line-by-line explanation of the information contained in the report.

Beginning Balance Sheet

A beginning balance sheet is a financial snapshot of your business at the beginning of your forecast. It lists your business’s assets, liabilities, and owners’ or stockholders’ equity. Assets are anything your business owns that has monetary value, liabilities are the claims of creditors against the assets of the your business, and equity is calculated by subtracting your liabilities from your assets. Basically, it shows how much you have, how much you owe, and the difference is your equity level.

Please click on the link below for an example of a beginning balance sheet, along with a detailed description and explanation of the items commonly found on a beginning balance sheet.

Beginning Balance Sheet Sample

Balance Sheet

Typically, at the end of every month of operation, a balance sheet is built showing how the operation of the business affected the assets, liabilities, and equity of the business.

Please click on the link below for an example of a balance sheet, along with a detailed description and explanation of the items commonly found on a balance sheet.

Balance Sheet Sample

Profit & Loss

A profit and loss projection (P&L) shows you how much revenue your business will generate from the sale of products and services and lists your operating expenses. Revenues minus expenses is how much income your business produces. Remember, income does not equal cash. To see how much cash your business will produce, you need to take a look at your cash plan or cash flow projection.

Please click on the link below for an example of a profit and loss projection, along with a detailed description and explanation of the items commonly found on a profit and loss projection.

Profit & Loss Sample

Cash Plan

A cash plan shows you how much cash is coming into your business and how much cash is going out. It also shows how much cash will be left over or how much additional cash you will need to pay your expenses.

Please click on the link below for an example of a cash plan, along with a detailed description and explanation of the items commonly found on a cash plan.

Cash Plan Sample

Ratio Analysis

Financial ratios let you compare the projected financial performance of your business to the actual businesses in the same industry. Companies that compile financial information for ratio analysis include Dunn & Bradstreet Corporation, Moody’s Investors Service, Inc., Standard & Poor’s, and Robert Morris Associates.

Please click on the link below for an example of a ratio analysis, along with a detailed description and explanation of the ratios commonly found on a ratio analysis.

Ratio Analysis Sample

See how easy it is to create your own business plan with Ultimate Business Planner® from Atlas Business Solu­tions. Explore the FREE trial included in the New Business Starter Kit. It’s the fast and easy way to write a winning business plan. To learn more about ABS products, visit http://www.abs-usa.com or call 1-800-874-8801. Copyright © 1998-2004 Atlas Business Solutions, Inc.

At QuickBooks, we’ve spent more than 10 years working with small businesses to develop tools that will help them succeed—tools so intuitive and useful, our customers can’t imagine running their businesses without them. Today, our products and services support over 2.6 million small businesses.

Forum: Advice From The Pros : Business Basics ]]> http://webworks101.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=1440097 Wed, 11 Oct 2006 23:13:23 GMT http://webworks101.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=1440088 Hiring Your First Employee: Ten Things You Must Do

By Bethany K. Laurence

When you hire your first employee, you become subject to an array of registration and filing requirements. Here they are.

1                      Obtain a federal employer identification number by filing IRS Form SS-4. This form is available from the IRS website at http://www.irs.gov.

2                      Register with your state’s labor department for payment of unemployment compensation taxes. These payments go to your state’s unemployment compensation fund, which provides short-term relief to workers who lose their job. To find a list of state unemployment insurance agencies, go to http://workforcesecurity. doleta.gov/map.asp.

3                     Set up a payroll system for withholding taxes. You’ll need to withhold a portion of each employee’s income and deposit it with the IRS, and also make Social Security and Medicare tax payments to the IRS. For more information, obtain IRS Publication 15, Circular E, Employer’s Tax Guide from the IRS website at http://www.irs.gov. (You may also have to withhold taxes for your state. For more information, check with your state’s tax agency; you can find links to each state’s tax agency at the website of the Federation of Tax Administrators at http://www. taxadmin.org.)

4                      Get worker’s compensation insurance. You must have this insurance coverage to protect workers who suffer on-the-job injuries. For more information on workers’ compensation laws, see Everyday Employment Law: The Basics, by Lisa Guerin and Amy DelPo (Nolo) at http://www.nolo.com.

5                      Prepare an Injury and Illness Prevention Plan. This is one of the requirements of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). For information on compliance with this and other OSHA rules, go to the OSHA website at http://www.osha.gov.

6                      Post required notices in your workplace.  Several government agencies require employers to post notices providing information on worker rights for their employees. For information on required federal posters, go to the Department of Labor website at http://www.dol.gov. Use their online “Poster Advisor” to determine which posters you must display in your workplace. In addition, you must comply with your state department of labor’s poster requirements. A list of state departments of labor is included on the federal Department of Labor’s website.

7                      Create an employment application for each type of position you will fill. You can find a safe and legal employment application in Quicken Legal Business Pro software (Nolo) available at http://www.nolo.com.

8                      Create an employee handbook. Although not required, it is an excellent idea to have a handbook describing your business’s employee policies and making it clear that employment is at will unless an employee has

Hiring Your First Employee: Ten Things You Must Do

signed a written employment contract.

1                     Create a sign-up procedure for employee benefits. If your business has established employee benefit programs such as health insurance or a 401(k) plan, you’ll need a sign-up procedure so employees can enroll, name their dependents, and select options.

2                      File IRS Form 940-EZ to report your federal unemployment tax each year. You must file this form for any year in which you paid wages of $1,500 or more in any quarter or for any year in which an employee worked for you in any 20 or more different weeks of the year. (You must use IRS Form 940 instead of Form 940-EZ if you paid unemployment contributions to more than one state or if you did not pay all of your unemployment contributions by January 31.) You can find both forms at http://www.irs.gov.

Required for Each New Employee Hired

Report the employee to your state’s new hire reporting agency. The new hire reporting program requires employers to report information on employees for the purpose of locating parents who owe child support. For more information, go to the Administration for Children & Families website at http://www.acf.dhhs.gov, which also provides the name and address of your state’s new hire reporting agency.

Fill out Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS, formerly known as the INS) requires employers to use this form to verify that every employee they hire is eligible to work in the United States. (You don’t have to file this form with the USCIS, but you must keep it in your files for three years and make it available for inspection by officials of the USCIS.) You can obtain the form online at http://www.uscis.gov.

Have the employee fill out IRS Form W-4, Withholding Allowance Certificate. On this form, employees tell you how many allowances they are claiming for tax purposes, so that you can withhold the correct amount of tax from their paychecks. (You don’t have to file the form with the IRS.) You can find this form at http://www.irs.gov.

Addresses for Government Websites:
Internal Revenue Service	http://www.irs.gov
Occupational Safety and Health Administration	http://www.osha.gov
Department of Labor	http://www.dol.gov
Administration for Children & Families	http://www.acf.dhhs.gov
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services	http://www.uscis.gov
State Government Agencies	http://www.statelocalgov.net
State Tax Agencies	http://www.taxadmin.org

For more information and resources to help you understand the laws and regulations for small businesses, visit http://www.nolo.com. For over 30 years Nolo has been providing the most reliable self-help legal tools available.  Copyright 2004

At QuickBooks, we’ve spent more than 10 years working with small businesses to develop tools that will help them succeed—tools so intuitive and useful, our customers can’t imagine running their businesses without them. Today, our products and services support over 2.6 million small businesses

Forum: Advice From The Pros : Business Basics ]]> http://webworks101.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=1440088 Wed, 11 Oct 2006 23:09:17 GMT http://webworks101.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=1440084 Tips for Creating Contracts

By Shannon Miehe

Follow these guidelines to make an enforceable, plain-English business agreement or contract.

1. Get it in writing.

Although oral agreements are legal and binding in many situations, they’re often difficult to enforce in court (and in some situations, they aren’t enforceable at all). In the business world, most agreements should be in writing even if the law doesn’t require it. A written agreement is less risky than an oral agreement, because you have a document that clearly spells out each party’s rights and obligations in case of confusion or disagreement.

2. Keep it simple.

Contrary to what most lawyers think, you don’t need a lot of “heretofores” and “party of the first part” legalese to make a contract enforceable. Instead, create short, clear sentences with simple, numbered paragraph headings that alert the reader to what’s in the paragraph.

3. Deal with the right person.

Don’t waste time negotiating a business agreement with a junior person who has to okay everything with the boss. If you sense that this is happening, politely but firmly request to be put in touch with the person in charge. Make sure the person you negotiate with has the authority to bind the business and has a vested interest in making sure the business performs its obligations under the agreement. If you’re not sure who that is, ask. In a smaller business, it might be one of the owners; in a larger organization it might be a chief executive officer or chief operating officer.

4. Identify each party correctly.

You’d be surprised how often businesspeople get this wrong and how important it is. You need to include the correct legal names of the parties to the contract so it’s clear who is responsible for performing the obligations under the agreement (and who you have legal rights against if things go wrong). For instance, if a business is organized as an LLC or a corporation, identify it by its correct legal name --including the Inc. or LLC suffix -- not by the names of the people who are signing the agreement for the business.

5. Spell out all of the details.

The body of the agreement should spell out the rights and obligations of each party in detail. Don’t leave anything out; if you discuss something verbally and shake on it but it’s not in the contract, it will be next to impossible to enforce. In the world of contract law, judges (with a few exceptions) may only interpret a contract from its “four corners,” not from what the parties said to each other. If you forget to include something, you can always create a short written amendment. Or, if you haven’t signed the agreement, you can handwrite the change into the contract. If parties initial the change, it becomes part of the contract.

6. Specify payment obligations.

Specify who pays whom, when the payments must be made, and the conditions for making payments. As you might guess, money is often a contentious issue, so this part should be very detailed. If you’re going to pay in installments or only when work is completed to your satisfaction, say so and list dates, times, and requirements. Consider including the method of payment as well. While some people might be okay with a business check or business charge card, others might want a cashier’s check or even cash.

7. Agree on circumstances that terminate the contract.

It makes sense to set out the circumstances under which the parties can terminate the contract. For instance, if one party misses too many important deadlines, the other party should have the right to terminate the contract without being on the hook legally for breaching (violating) the agreement.

8. Agree on a way to resolve disputes.

Write into your agreement what you and the other party will do if something goes wrong. You can decide that you will handle your dispute through arbitration or mediation instead of going to court, which takes up a lot of time and money.

9. Pick a state law to govern the contract.

If you and the other party are located in different states, you should choose only one of your state’s laws to apply to the contract to avoid sticky legal wrangling later. In addition, you may want to specify where you will mediate, arbitrate, or bring legal actions under the contract. This will simplify your life if a dispute does crop up.

10. Keep it confidential.

Often, when one business hires another to perform a service, the other business will become privy to sensitive business information. Your agreement should contain mutual promises that each party will keep strictly confidential any business information it learns of while performing the contract.

Create a Contract Yourself

There are lots of resources that can help you put together a solid business contract without recreating the wheel. Nolo offers Legal Forms for Starting & Running a Small Business, by Fred Steingold, and Quicken® Legal Business Pro software, which includes 140 business contracts. For more specialized contracts, you can head to your local law library and consult form books that contain sample clauses for almost every type of business situation (your local law librarian is a helpful resource who can point you in the right direction).

Don’t be afraid to ask a lawyer to review an agreement you’ve drafted yourself. If there’s a tricky issue you don’t feel comfortable handling yourself or an idea you’re not sure about, a good small business lawyer can give you drafting advice and get your agreement back on track.

For more information and resources to help you understand the laws and regulations for small businesses,

visit http://www.nolo.com.  For over 30 years Nolo has been providing the most reliable self-help legal tools available.  Copyright 2004

At QuickBooks, we’ve spent more than 10 years working with small businesses to develop tools that will help them succeed—tools so intuitive and useful, our customers can’t imagine running their businesses without them. Today, our products and services support over 2.6 million small businesses.

Forum: Advice From The Pros : Business Basics ]]> http://webworks101.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=1440084 Wed, 11 Oct 2006 23:06:50 GMT http://webworks101.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=1440077 Starting a Business

By TurboTax

Employer Identification Numbers (EIN)

Do you need a Tax ID Number?

You must have an employer identification number (EIN) if your business matches any of these situations:

                        You are a corporation, partnership or limited liability company (LLC)

                        You pay wages to one or more employees

                        You file pension and excise tax returns

How to Get a Tax ID Number

Apply Online

The Internet EIN (I-EIN) application opens another avenue for customers to apply for and obtain an EIN. Once you have completed all necessary fields on the online form, preliminary validation is performed and will alert you to information the IRS needs that you may not have included. An EIN will be issued after the successful submission of the completed Form SS-4 online.

Note that not all business entity types may use this method.

Apply by Mail or Telephone (Tele-TIN)

Use Form SS-4 to apply for an EIN either by mail or by telephone. You can get an EIN within minutes by calling the Tele-TIN phone number for your state, or you can send the completed Form SS-4 to your local IRS service center to get your EIN by mail. Check the IRS Web site for a listing of phone numbers to call for specific states.

You need a completed Form SS-4 to apply for an EIN by either method.

Apply Through Your State Office

A number of states participate in the Fedstate Federal Employer Identification Number (EIN) project that facilitates applying for an EIN state tax authority offices. You will find a list of the states that participate in this project on the IRS Web site.

Hiring Independent Contractors vs. Employees

It is important to distinguish between employees and independent contractors since the IRS differentiates between the two and requires that businesses properly classify workers. One test you can use to distinguish between an independent contractor and an employee is to determine how much control and independence the worker has over determining their work schedule and completing their job. In general, employees are provided with more direction and equipment to do their job than independent contractors.

You do not incur payroll taxes nor do you have to file payroll tax returns for independent contractors. At the end of the year you file Forms 1099-MISC and 1096 with the IRS to report payments to independent contractors. Similarly, you file Forms W-2 and W-3 with the IRS at year end to report payroll payments to employees. Other payroll tax returns are required to be filed quarterly, and payroll deposits made, at different intervals during the course of the year.

For more information, review IRS Publication 15-A, Employer’s Supplemental Tax Guide.

Tax Planning

A new business may experience a loss in its first year. Such a loss can be carried forward to the following year to reduce the businesses income tax liability.

Start-up costs and asset purchases may help to create a loss in the businesses first year. Be aware that you must elect to amortize start-up costs over sixty months instead of expensing them in the year paid.

Estimated Quarterly Tax Payments

In the first year of business, there is an alternative to paying quarterly estimated tax payments:

                        Base your tax estimates on your net income as you earn it. For example, if you have a loss in the first half of the year, you can delay your estimates until you start showing a profit.

                        This method requires that you keep track of your monthly net income (or loss).

                        File Form 2220 (for corporations) with your tax return next year to report how your quarterly income (or loss) was earned during the tax year. This is called using the annualization method for computing your tax estimates.

Self-Employment Taxes

Remember to compute self-employment tax on your new business income if you are a sole proprietor using form 1040, Schedule SE. If you are an employee of another company as well, remember to count any withheld social security tax when you figure your self-employment tax.

For more information on self-employment taxes, see IRS Publication 533, Self-Employment Tax.

Accounting Methods for Your Business

Accrual Basis

When you use the accrual basis method of accounting you regard income or expenses as occurring at the time you ship a product, render a service: and receive a purchase or service. Under this method, the time when you enter a transaction and the time when you actually pay or receive cash may be two separate events.

Under the accrual method, you record income when you earn it (even though you may not receive payment until later), and you record expenses when you incur them (even though you may not pay them until later).

Note: if your annual sales are greater than $1 million and you carry inventory in your business, you must:

                        Use the accrual method of accounting.

                        Deduct your inventory expenses only when you sell those items, rather than when you buy them.

Cash Basis

When you use the cash method of accounting, on the other hand, you regard income or expenses as occurring at the time you actually receive a payment or pay a bill. A cash-basis report shows income only if you have received it, and expenses only if you have paid them. For example, if you have not yet received a payment for an invoice, a cash-basis report on your sales will not include the amount of the invoice.

Under the cash method of accounting, income is recorded when you actually receive it, and expenses are recorded when you actually pay them.

Buying Assets

In lieu of depreciation, business taxpayers may elect to immediately expense, rather than depreciate, a certain dollar amount of the total price of equipment or furniture purchased each year. For tax year 2004, business taxpayers may expense $100,000 of such purchases. Some important points to keep in mind are:

                        If your business is showing a loss, you may run into some limitations when expensing your equipment purchases.

                        For tax year 2004, the $100,000 amount is reduced if you purchase more than $400,000 worth of equipment during the year.

Recordkeeping

Keep business and personal transactions separate. To easily achieve this, set up a separate business bank account for all business transactions.

If you use a credit card for both business and personal expenses, indicate on the credit card statement which items are related to your business.

Deductions That Require Special Recordkeeping

Business Meals & Entertainment

You must identify the business purpose of any meal or entertainment expense for it to be deductible. Don’t forget that 50% of the total expense is deductible. Keep these in mind, too:

                        A deductible meal is usually with a business contact.

                        An entertainment event usually follows a business meeting.

                        Write on your receipts with whom you met, as well as the business purpose of the meeting. Save these receipts with the rest of your tax records.

Auto Expenses

Keep a written record of all of the miles accumulated for business purposes, including:

                        starting and ending mileage

                          dates of travel

                        the business purpose of each trip

Employees and sole-proprietors have the option to use either 1) the standard mileage method (the automobile deduction is computed at a flat rate per business mile), or 2) the actual auto expenses (for actual gas, repairs, insurance, lease, etc. expenses) multiplied times the business use percentage. You should select whichever is the most tax-advantageous deduction. Employees and sole-proprietors may switch from the standard mileage method to the actual expenses method as long as the auto is depreciated using straight line depreciation over the auto’s remaining life. Employees and sole-proprietors who lease may use the standard mileage method, but they must do so for the entire lease period.

Note: Corporate and partnership employers, may not use the standard mileage method to compute the auto expense for company owned cars. However, they may use the standard mileage rate to reimburse employees for business use of the employees’ vehicles.

Retirement Planning for Sole Proprietors

Self-employment offers you additional retirement savings options, including these advantages:

                        You can deduct contributions you make for yourself.

                        •               Earnings are tax-free until they are distributed.

                        Before selecting a self-employed retirement plan, consider:

                        •               That the deadlines for setting up the plan are either:

                        December 31st, or

                        your tax return due date

                        •               Contributions deadlines are usually either:

                        December 31st, or

                        your tax return due date

                        Whether employees must be covered under the plan

                        Whether contributions are mandatory or elective

                        The minimum or maximum contributions that are allowed

                        The amount of the contributions you are allowed to deduct

                        Administrative costs

For more information, see IRS Publication 560, Retirement Plans for Small Business.

Home Offices for Sole Proprietors

Benefits of a home office include:

                        Additional tax savings

                        Some expenses which are usually considered personal may be considered deductible business expenses

                        Most home expenses become, at least in part, deductible.

                        • Home expenses are deducted based on the percentage of the total size of the home that the office occupies.

                        To qualify for this deduction, a home office must be used exclusively and regularly for business. Also, the business part of your home must be either:

                        Your principal place of business, or

                        A place where you meet or deal with customers

For more information, see IRS Publication 587, Business Use of Your Home.

Year-end Documents

Forms 1099 You Receive

For service businesses, customers who pay you at least $600 should mail you Forms 1099-MISC. If you don’t receive one, the income should be reported anyway.

Forms 1099 You Issue

Prepare Form 1099-MISC for each of those to whom you pay $600 or more for services (excluding corporations). Remember to get social security numbers from your contract workers, along with their addresses; you will need that information when you complete their Form 1099-MISC.

For more information, see IRS Publication 334 - Tax Guide for Small Businesses.

At QuickBooks, we’ve spent more than 10 years working with small businesses to develop tools that will help them succeed—tools so intuitive and useful, our customers can’t imagine running their businesses without them. Today, our products and services support over 2.6 million small businesses.

Forum: Advice From The Pros : Business Basics ]]> http://webworks101.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=1440077 Wed, 11 Oct 2006 23:02:06 GMT http://webworks101.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=1440072 FAQ on Self-Employment Taxes

FAQ on Self-Employment Taxes

By TurboTax

FAQ on Self-Employment Taxes

If you were self-employed this year, you have a few special forms to fill out, and a few more records to keep than a regular wage earner would. Here are the answers to some common questions about filing income taxes as a self-employed person.

What Forms Do I Need?

If you’re self-employed, you must file Schedules C and SE in addition to Form 1040.

Schedule C 

This form is part of the 1040 package that the IRS mails every year. You use this form to report your gross revenue and to detail your expenses. The result is your net profit or loss.

Schedule SE 

Use this form to calculate how much self-employment tax you owe and to apply the annual earnings limits. You report the total tax calculated on Schedule SE in the Other Taxes section of Form 1040. This differentiates the self-employment tax from the income tax. If you have additional questions about the self-employment tax, see The Self-Employment Tax at http://www.turbotax.com.

What Information Do I Need to Do My Return?  

Gathering and organizing your tax information is perhaps the most critical step to filing your income tax return. If you have a record keeping system for your business (and yes, some people really do use the “shoebox system”), then separate your income from your expenses, and categorize the expenses.

Determine:

 •  Which expenses you can deduct immediately

 •  Which expenses are inventory purchases (which may still be unsold)

 •  Which expenses are asset purchases that must be depreciated

For more information about which expenses are immediately deductible and which expenses must be capitalized, see Taking Business Deductions. If you do have a shoebox system, be sure to save the contents in an envelope with a copy of the income tax return you filed.

If you use accounting software such as the Quicken® or QuickBooks® programs, be sure to enter all of your business transactions for the year, then print financial statements to save with your income tax return files. If you want more information about using software to organize your income and expenses, see http://www.quickbooks.com.

How Do I Prepare My Return?  

When you’re ready to prepare your return, you must decide if you want to prepare it yourself or use the services of a professional tax preparer.

If you have good records of your business transactions and understand the details of the different types of expenses, you can probably save yourself some time and money by preparing your own return. Preparing your own tax return doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to get out your pencil and start filling out forms. You can also use tax preparation software such as the TurboTax® programs.

There are many advantages of preparing your return using tax preparation software such as TurboTax® programs, including:

  •  Increased Accuracy: Computer-prepared income tax returns virtually eliminate common clerical mistakes and mathematical errors.

  •  Increased Efficiency: Because basic information transfers from your previous year’s return if you used the program the year before, you save a lot of time by not having to reenter your personal and business information.

  •  It’s Comprehensive: Most consumer-based Web and desktop tax preparation programs utilize an interview-like feature that asks you questions as you go along. This helps to ensure that you are considering all pertinent matters involved with your income tax return.

  •  It’s Electronic: You can file your return electronically. If you’re expecting a refund, you will get it much more quickly if you file electronically (e-filing). Refunds from tax returns filed on paper typically take anywhere from two to six weeks to be delivered, depending on the time of year you filed the tax return. Last tax season, the average wait for taxpayers that used a TurboTax program to eFile their returns and chose to have their refunds deposited directly into their bank accounts was nine to sixteen days.

If you want a professional to prepare your return, consult a local accountant (Certified Public Accountant (CPA)) or enrolled agent ((EA)). These professionals can also prepare financial statements, and many offer e-Filing.

You can also take advantage of free tax services. See the IRS Small Business website.

What Records Do I Have to Keep & How Long?

You don’t have to keep your tax records forever.

The general rule is to keep all records that are required to support your federal income tax return for three years. This holding period is known as the statute of limitations for taxes.

Caution: If by some mistake or oversight you didn’t report income that you should have, and if that income is greater than 25% of the gross income shown on your return, the period becomes six years. If you file a fraudulent income tax return or don’t file a tax return at all, then the statute of limitations never starts and the IRS has an unlimited period of time to examine your income tax return.

If you have employees, you must keep the records related to employment taxes for four years.

If you sell a business asset, keep the records related to that property for three years after you receive the last payment related to the sale.

For more information on self-employment, take a look at the IRS Publication 583:Starting a Business and Keeping Records.

What if I Owe More Than I Can Pay?

If you owe a large amount of tax that you can’t pay when your income tax return is due, consider borrowing from family, taking a cash advance from a credit card, or taking a bank loan or home equity loan. If none of these alternatives work for you, consider establishing an installment agreement with the IRS. While the IRS is generally required to accept tax payments in installments, they do charge you interest based on the unpaid amount of tax you owe.

To request an installment agreement from the IRS, complete Form 9465. You should receive a response within 30 days. The IRS should accept your installment agreement request as long as:

 1.  Your total taxes (not counting interest, penalties, additions to the tax, or additional amounts) do not exceed $10,000.

 2.  In the last five years, you (and your spouse if the liability relates to a joint return) have not:

  • Failed to file any required income tax return,

  • Failed to pay any tax shown on any such return, or

  • Entered into an installment agreement to pay income tax

 3.  You prove that you cannot pay your income tax in full when it is due.

 4.  The tax will be paid in full in three years or less.

 5.  You agree to comply with the tax laws while your agreement is in effect.

Tips  

Be sure to file your return. If you don’t have enough time to prepare a return, hire a professional, or get an extension using Form 4868: Application for Extension of Time to File.

The time you spend now will offset the vast amounts of time and money that you would have to spend later if the IRS audits your return.

Tax laws change frequently, so be sure to check http://www.turbotax.com for the most up-to-date information and tips. TurboTax also has a range of solutions to help you do your taxes quickly, easily, and accurately. To learn more visit: http://www.turbotaxdirect.com/qbntw05

At QuickBooks, we’ve spent more than 10 years working with small businesses to develop tools that will help them succeed—tools so intuitive and useful, our customers can’t imagine running their businesses without them. Today, our products and services support over 2.6 million small businesses.

Forum: Advice From The Pros : Business Basics ]]> http://webworks101.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=1440072 Wed, 11 Oct 2006 23:00:37 GMT http://webworks101.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=1440061 Finding and Using Legal Resources

By Peri Pakroo

Most business owners, especially sole proprietors and partners in general partnerships, won’t need to rely on professional help for the vast majority of their day-to-day business affairs. The legal tasks required to start a business, as well as many of those relating to its ongoing operation, involve nothing more than complying with simple bureaucratic requirements, filling out standard forms and paying fees.

But life’s not always so simple, of course. From time to time, you may find yourself feeling like you’re in over your head. Maybe you’re struggling to decide whether it’s a good time, financially speaking, to expand your business. Or perhaps there’s a dispute brewing between you and a business partner. These are just a couple of examples of the types of situations where an expert can come in handy.

Even when things are running smoothly, virtually every business should at least occasionally consult an accountant or other tax expert for help in preparing tax returns. A tax professional can also help you manage your business’s finances in order to minimize your taxes. Making contact with a lawyer and a tax person early in your business life is often a sensible step. As your business grows, you’ll be able to consult these pros for help with ongoing questions.

Once you decide you want to hire a professional, your next question very likely will be, “How do I find someone I can trust?” This article will offer strategies that will help you find and hire a lawyer who’s competent and aboveboard. We’ll also talk about an increasingly popular type of service called “legal coaching,” which is becoming increasingly popular.

A. Working With Lawyers

Despite the fact that the attorney section of the Yellow Pages is often the biggest section of the phone book, a good lawyer can be hard to find. This section explains how to find a lawyer who meets your needs and how to make sure you’re getting the most for your hard-earned money.

What to Look For in a Lawyer

Here are some of the qualities to look for in a lawyer. First, you want to make sure to find an attorney who has some experience with small business issues, preferably for your type of small business. Plus, you want someone who’s intelligent and competent—two qualities that don’t necessarily go hand in hand with having a law degree. And, of course, you want a lawyer whom you can trust.

In today’s world of ever-increasing specialization, lawyers often focus their areas of expertise rather narrowly. For example, an expert negotiator may not be an effective courtroom lawyer, and vice versa. Make sure that your lawyer can handle the particular type of problem you’re facing, in terms of both its subject matter and the type of work involved.

In addition to finding a lawyer with the skills and experience relevant to your situation, it’s important that you and the lawyer get along on a personal level. If an otherwise perfect lawyer— smart, experienced and trustworthy—is condescending or rude, you should keep looking for someone with better personal skills. This general rule is especially true for small business owners, who will ideally develop a long-term relationship with a lawyer. The better an attorney knows you and your business, the better able the attorney will be to provide the best advice and assistance for your specific situation.

Finally, you may want to make a special effort to find a lawyer who is willing to work with you collaboratively on certain matters that you can handle at least partially on your own. Handling some routine legal issues, such as amending your partnership agreement or executing a contract for services, may be well within your abilities, though you may be more comfortable having a lawyer review your work or give you limited advice. A trend has recently emerged where lawyers act as coaches for their clients, giving only as much service as the client wants. If you’d like to be more involved with your business’s legal matters and minimize the attorney’s fees you’ll owe, be sure to ask the lawyer directly whether he or she is willing to have this kind of working relationship with you. Legal coaching is discussed in more detail in Section 3, below. For more information on hiring and working with a lawyer, see The Lawsuit Survival Guide, by attorney Joseph Matthews (Nolo).

How to Find a Lawyer

Unfortunately, the easiest and quickest ways to find a lawyer are usually the least effective. Sure, you’ll find hundreds of lawyers’ names in the Yellow Pages, but how will you choose among them? You’ll have the same problem if you look in legal newspapers for attorney ads. Remember, flashy, aggressive advertising is definitely not a good indicator of quality legal services. Also, watch out for commercial referral services that collect fees from lawyers who are in their referral database. To filter out the lawyers who are wrong for you, you’ll need to do more research.

The best way to find a good lawyer is to get a personal referral, preferably from someone who runs a small business. Even better is a referral from an owner of a business that’s similar to yours. Book publishers, for instance, face different types of legal issues than do auto repair shops, and would be best served by a lawyer familiar with legal areas such as copyright and the freedom of speech. Ask other business people for lawyer recommendations.

If you just can’t find anyone who can give you a personal referral, try investigating lawyers who work in your industry. One good way to do this is to keep your eyes and ears open for names of attorneys who have worked on cases in your field. For example, a trade magazine might have an article about a current lawsuit involving a business similar to yours that mentions the names of the attorneys working on it. You can also contact organizations and visit websites that focus on your type of business. They can often direct you to lawyers who have worked in your industry. Once you get some names, try calling these lawyers and asking if they’re available. If not, there’s a good chance they will know someone else who might be able to help you.

When you call a prospective lawyer, speak with the lawyer personally, not just the receptionist. You can probably get a good idea of how the attorney operates by paying close attention to the way your call is handled. Is the lawyer available right away, and, if not, is your call promptly returned? Is the lawyer willing to spend at least a few minutes talking to you to determine if he or she really is the best person for the job? Do you get a good personal feeling from your conversation? The way you’re treated during your initial call can be a good indicator of how the lawyer treats clients in general.

Using a Lawyer as a Coach

In a traditional attorney/client relationship, a client hires an attorney to take care of a legal problem and then hands over all responsibility for—and control over—the matter to the lawyer. While some clients like it this way, many would rather be more involved in their cases, both to maintain some control and to save money on legal fees. But, until recently, limited legal help from a lawyer wasn’t much of an option. Most lawyers wouldn’t take cases unless they could handle them fully on their own.

But a new model of legal services is finally emerging. In this approach, sometimes called “legal coaching” or “unbundled legal services,” a lawyer provides only the services that a client wants, and nothing more. For example, a client who wants legal help in drafting a contract can arrange a short consultation with a lawyer to get answers to general questions, go home and draft the contract herself, then fax it to the lawyer, who will review it and suggest changes. Or, a client who wants to represent himself in small claims court can use a lawyer to help him draft motions and prepare for hearings but otherwise pursue the case on his own.

For a small business owner, using a lawyer as a coach can be especially useful. More often than not, the legal issues that arise in the course of business are relatively simple, and—with a bit of good legal advice—can be handled by most business people. Many times, a business owner needs nothing more than some guidance through the bureaucratic maze that small businesses need to navigate. For instance, a business person facing a zoning conflict may be perfectly served by a five-minute explanation from a legal coach on the process of appealing a planning commission’s decision. Rather than hiring an attorney for upwards of $1,000 to deal with the problem, using a coach might cost $50 or $100 and enable the business owner to proceed on his or her own.

Getting limited legal help from a lawyer has become an increasingly popular approach to legal problems in recent years, though it still can take some effort to find a lawyer who is willing to be just a coach. To find a legal coach, use the same strategies discussed above (personal referrals, for example), but take the extra step of asking the lawyer directly whether he or she is willing to help you in your efforts to solve your own legal problems. If you don’t find one right away, be persistent. In today’s increasingly competitive legal marketplace, it’s becoming easier to find lawyers who are willing to be flexible in the services they offer.

Dealing With Bills and Payments

No matter what their field or practice, most lawyers share one area of expertise: billing for their service. Before you hire any lawyer, be sure you fully understand how your fees will be calculated. All too often, clients are unpleasantly surprised by their bills, because they didn’t pay enough attention to the billing terms when they hired the lawyer. For instance, make sure you understand who’s responsible for items like court fees, copy fees, transcription costs and phone bills. These costs aren’t trivial, and can quickly send your otherwise affordable bill into the keep-youawake-at-night range. Lawyers generally use one of the following methods of calculating fees for their services:

• Hourly fees. This arrangement works just like it sounds: You pay the attorney’s hourly rate for the number of hours the attorney spends on your case. Simple as this system is, there are some details to consider. First, find out what hourly increments the lawyer uses for billing. For instance, if an attorney bills in half-hour increments, you’ll be charged for a full half-hour even if you talk for just five minutes. That can easily total $100 or more for a five-minute phone call—a rate that would make even AT&T blush. You’d be better off if your lawyer uses ten- or 15-minute periods, though not all attorneys break down their time into such small increments. Another issue to ask about is whether all time spent on the case—even if the attorney isn’t doing the work—is billed at the attorney’s regular rate. For example, it’s reasonable to  expect a discounted rate for time spent by the attorney’s administrative staff on making copies or organizing paperwork. Make sure that the hourly fee for the attorney applies only to the work of the actual attorney.

Hourly fees for attorneys range from roughly $100 to over $400 per hour.  High rates may reflect a lawyer’s extensive experience–or they might simply reflect a need to pay for a swank office. Don’t pay the highest rates unless you feel the lawyer’s expertise–not that Armani suit–is worth it.

                         Flat fees. For some types of cases, attorneys will charge a flat fee for a specific task, such as negotiating a contract or filing Articles of Incorporation. As long as the job goes as expected, you’ll pay only the agreed price, regardless of how many hours the lawyer spent on the job. If the lawyer hits a snag, however, or if the case becomes convoluted for some reason, the price may go up. Be sure you and the lawyer are on the same page regarding the situations that may result in a higher fee. Also, find out if any expenses, such as court costs or copy fees, are charged in addition to the flat fee.

                         Contingency fees. In a contingency fee arrangement, you pay an attorney’s fee only if the lawyer wins money for you through a court judgment or a negotiated settlement. In that case, the fee you’d pay would be a percentage of the monetary award, usually one-third to one-half. In contingency fee arrangements, you need to be especially careful of costs such as travel expenses, transcription fees and phone bills. If you lose your case, you won’t owe attorneys’ fees (because your lawyer didn’t recover any money), but you will often be responsible for the lawyer’s out-of-pocket expenses while he or she was working on your case. Small business matters don’t typically require contingency fee arrangements. This payment method is usually used in personal injury cases and others in which a plaintiff sues someone in hopes of winning a large money award. 

                         Retainers. Sometimes you can hire a lawyer to be more or less “on call” by paying a regular fee (usually monthly) called a retainer. This type of arrangement is useful when you have regular, ongoing legal needs such as contract review or negotiation, or a big lawsuit looming in your future. Based on your expected needs, you and the lawyer settle on a mutually acceptable monthly fee. Then you simply have the lawyer take care of any routine legal matters that arise. If you run into a sudden, complex legal dispute, or if your problems escalate greatly, you’ll likely have to make additional payments. For this type of arrangement to work, it’s important that you and the lawyer have a clear understanding of the routine services that you expect. Unless your legal needs are regular and predictable, a retainer arrangement is probably not your best option.

State laws may require a fee agreement to be in writing in some cases, such as if your lawyer estimates the total cost of legal services to be more than $1,000, or if you have a contingency fee arrangement. Even if it’s not legally required, it’s always a good idea to get your fee agreement in writing. A written agreement will help prevent disputes over billing, and is the best way to avoid getting gouged.

Internet Legal Research

Some of the legal questions you may run into won’t warrant an expensive consultation with an attorney, but may be beyond the scope of a self-help book. For instance, you may need to look up specific consumer protection regulations on warranties and advertising, or find out what your state’s rules are on hiring and firing practices. If you don’t want to call your lawyer every time you have a question, you might consider doing a little legal research yourself. Finding basic small business legal information is usually not difficult—much of the information you’ll need can be found on the Internet. Start by visiting Nolo’s Small Business Law Center at http://www.nolo.com to see if your question has already been answered, or to get some background information in the area of the law you’re interested in. If you still need to go to the horse’s mouth for the answer, you can try looking up the text of the actual law by going to Nolo’s legal research center at http://www.nolo.com/statute. From there you can access the statutes of all 50 states, where you’ll be able to find corporation and LLC statutes, laws on contracts and products liability, regulations on health and safety and much more. You can also easily research federal law at Nolo’s legal research center, including laws on copyrights, environmental regulations, bankruptcy and IRS rules, to mention a few areas that might be of interest to small business owners. Here are some other websites that offer helpful information on small business and tax law:

                        National Federation of Independent Business at http://www.nfib.com. Here you can find small business news and practical information.

                         Internal Revenue Service at http://www.irs.gov. You can download forms and instructions as well as a wide range of publications that do a fairly good job of explaining the tax laws.

                         U.S. Small Business Administration at http://www.sba.gov. This site has a lot of good information on starting and financing your own business. The SBA also offers links to state websites related to business issues.

                         SCORE (Service Corps of Retired Executives) at http://www.score.org. SCORE’s association of retired executives and business owners offers email counseling and mentoring and an excellent directory of small business resources on the Web.

                         The Thomas Legislative Information site at thomas.loc.gov. Here you can read small business bills pending in Congress, as well as laws that have recently been adopted.

If, during your legal meandering, you come across strange phrases like “blue sky,” “naked option” or “commercial frustration,” you can find out what they mean by looking them up in Nolo’s online Legal Glossary at  http://www.nolo. com /glossary.cfm. In addition to Nolo.com and other business-oriented sites, you should familiarize yourself with the official website of your state. These sites often offer valuable information for small businesses such as startup registration requirements, state tax rules, laws on corporations and LLCs and much more. Keep in mind that there’s a lot of variation from state to state in how much info you’ll find at their site, but, in general, the states have been rapidly improving their online information systems and making their sites more useful and accessible for citizens.

Recommended reading on legal research

We’ve given you a few helpful hints on getting answers to your small business questions, but there may be times when you’ll need more guidance. One resource that teaches you how to find answers to your legal questions is Nolo’s book Legal Research: How to Find & Understand the Law, by attorneys Stephen Elias & Susan Levinkind. Learning how to use legal resources online or at the law library will teach you to take care of a wide range of simple, everyday matters yourself rather than paying someone else to handle them.       

The information here was excerpted from “The Small Business Start-Up Kit 3rd edition” by Peri H. Pakroo, published by Nolo, Copyright 2004.  If you would like to purchase this book, please visit: http://www.nolo.com.

At QuickBooks, we’ve spent more than 10 years working with small businesses to develop tools that will help them succeed—tools so intuitive and useful, our customers can’t imagine running their businesses without them. Today, our products and services support over 2.6 million small businesses.

Forum: Advice From The Pros : Business Basics ]]> http://webworks101.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=1440061 Wed, 11 Oct 2006 22:54:37 GMT http://webworks101.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=1440059

Financial Management Overview

Introduction

You didn’t go into business to manage finances, but – whether you’re a contractor or consultant, own a bike shop or a bakery – one thing is certain: to stay in business and thrive, it’s critical to do some basic financial management.

Every day, your business completes various types of transactions. Money changes hands, purchases are made, goods are sold, and services are rendered. It’s a good sign when there’s money in the bank and cash in the register, but it isn’t the whole picture. Many new businesses get into financial trouble because they don’t have a solid understanding of basic financial management.

So, how do you know if your business is making money, or if your business is growing? And how do you find out?

Organizing your finances can seem overwhelming, but this overview is here to help you learn how easy it is to manage business finances as part of your daily routine. It’s going to show you the basics of accounting, how these concepts relate to your day-to-day activities, and how financial software can make the whole process easier.

Financial management can help you:

§            Know where your money is coming from and where it is going

§            See which customers or products are most profitable

§            Save time by organizing your critical information in one place

§            Prepare for tax time with accurate and complete records

§            Make more informed decisions with financial reports

§            Obtain bank financing or other sources of funding

Money Coming In and Going Out

The core financial activity of any business is money coming in and money going out. The cycle of money is called cash flow. Of course the goal of the bakery – or for any business – is to bring in more money than it’s paying out. Let’s follow the cash flow of the Avenue Bread and Deli.

Who owes her money? Wendy can run a report detailing all of the invoices owed to her and when they are due.

Reports and financial statements provide a complete financial view of Wendy’s business with increased visibility into her profitability and cash flow. Wendy can feel more confident about the decisions she makes because they are based upon solid financial management.

Conclusion

We hope this brief overview has helped unlock the mystery of good financial management and given you the confidence to get started. If you would like to learn more about how financial management applies to your business, consider these next steps:

Find a Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor near you: http://www.usequickbooks.com/locateadvisor/ Visit your local Small Business Development Center: http://www.sba.gov/sbdc/sbdcnear.html Learn about financial software options available from QuickBooks: http://www.quickbooks.com/

Accounting Terms

Profit & Loss Statement

A profit and loss statement, also called an income statement, shows income, expenses, and net profit or loss (equal to income minus expenses).

Balance Sheet

A balance sheet is a financial snapshot of your business on one date. It shows what you have (assets), what people owe you (accounts receivable), what your business owes to others (liabilities and accounts payable), and the net worth of your business (equity).

Assets

Assets include both what you have and what other people owe you. The money people owe you is called accounts receivable, or A/R. The rest of your company’s assets may include checking accounts, savings accounts, petty cash, fixed assets (such as equipment or trucks), inventory, and undeposited funds (money you’ve received from customers but haven’t deposited yet).

Liabilities

Liabilities are what your company owes to other people. The money you owe for unpaid bills is called accounts payable, or A/P. A liability can be a formal loan, an unpaid bill, or sales and payroll taxes you owe to the government.

Equity

Equity is the difference between what you have (assets) and what you owe (liabilities). Equity = Assets – Liabilities

If you sold all your assets today, and you paid off your liabilities using the money you received from the sale of your assets, the leftover money would be your equity. Your equity reflects the health of your business, since it’s the amount of money left after you satisfy all your debts. Equity comes from three sources: money invested in the company by the owners; net profit from operating the business during the current accounting period; and retained earnings, or net profits from earlier periods that haven’t been distributed

The Chart of Accounts

When you keep books for a company, you want to track where your income comes from, where you put it, what your expenses are for, and what you use to pay them. You track this flow of money through a list of accounts called the chart of accounts.

Forum: Advice From The Pros : Business Basics ]]> http://webworks101.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=1440059 Wed, 11 Oct 2006 22:53:34 GMT http://webworks101.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=1414738

Getting Your Business Online

You can bet that the state where you’re starting your business will have bureaucratic hoops for you to jump through. These may range from filing organizational papers and getting a license for your occupation to tax registration and environmental compliance.

Site Pages

Depending on your goals, consider including the following pages in your site:

An ‘Index’ page containing information such as:

                        A brief overview of what your business does

                        Links to pages where people can find more in depth information

                        A quick loading photo that is reflective of your business and your company logo

A ‘Products’ or ‘Services’ page or pages containing information such as:

                        A description of products or services that you offer

                        Photos of your work, office, or products

                        Buy buttons enabling customers to make purchases on your site

An ‘About Us’ page containing information such as:

                        A description of when and why your business was founded

                        Employee biographies

                        Links to press you’ve received

                        A description of your involvement in the community

                        Contact Information

A ‘Contact Us’ page containing information such as:

                        Your address

                        Your phone number

                        A link to your email address

                        An online form so that visitors can easily send you the information that you need

An ‘FAQ’ page containing information such as:

                        The answers to questions commonly asked by prospective customers

                        The answers to questions commonly asked by current customers

A ‘Pricing’ page containing information such as:

•    A description of your package and pricing options

A ‘Portfolio’ or ‘Clients’ page containing information such as:

                        Photos or samples of your work

                        Customer testimonials

Site Layout

When you are laying out text and images on your pages, keep the following tips in mind.

If you would like to direct people to a particular place on your site, make that place easy to find. For example, if you hope that people will view your products page, guide them to that page by making it a prominent and easily visible link on all of your pages.

In setting up your pages, place the most important information where it will be easy to find. For example, if you hope that people will email you, your email address should appear in a prominent place on every page within your site.

What to Avoid and What to Include on Your Site

When it comes to building a Website, what works well on one site may be completely inappropriate for another. Still, there are a number of features that work well on most sites, and other features that don’t work well on almost any site. Here are some suggestions on features that you should consider avoiding (and including) on your Website.

Avoid Annoying Features

Graphics can make a Website very appealing, but they can also clutter up and slow down a page rather than improving it. Use the following features on your pages only with great caution.

                        Animations on a page can be tiring and unprofessional.

                        Scrolling or moving text can be very annoying and frustrating for customers. Avoid it when possible.

                        Blinking text should never be used.

                        Very bright, garish, or clashing colors make the viewers experience unpleasant and reflect poorly on your business. Choose your colors wisely.

                        Hit counters are generally inappropriate for business Websites.

‘Under Construction’ signs are clichéd and unprofessional.

Things Every Website Needs

You should consider including the following useful features in your company Website.

                        An ‘About the Company’ section that explains your company goals, philosophies, and accomplishments.

                        An FAQ page to provide quick answers to common customer questions.

                        Contact information such as a company email address, phone number, and address in case site visitors have

questions or requests after viewing your site.

                        Customer testimonials to display the praises of your current customers.

                        An easy-to-remember address. Having your own domain name allows customers to find your site on the web using a short URL. Often times the domain will be your company name, or closely related. Having your own domain, also allows you to send and receive email at that address (for example, info@yourcompanyname.com).

Guidelines for Images

Striking the Proper Balance

When used well, images make a Website attractive and visually appealing, calling the eye to important information. But as anyone who has surfed the Web knows, images can also make a Web page excruciatingly slow to load, overly busy, and unprofessional. Most likely, when you’ve encountered a Website that contained so many blinking and moving slow-loading graphics and animations, you quickly pressed the back button on your browser.

How, then, does one strike the balance between having a visually boring Website and having a busy and slow-loading page that drives visitors away?

Using Images for Appropriate Purposes

One rule of thumb is that you should only use images that serve a good purpose on your Website. What types of purposes can images serve?

Images can help visitors navigate around your site.

To aid site navigation, most Websites have some sort of graphical menu bar that appears on the top or left hand side of each page in the site. Graphical buttons can also be used to exhort visitors to ‘click here’ to find out more about pricing options or other important information.

Images can convey important information about your business.

If you are an architect or run a custom framing business, visitors at your site will likely be interested in viewing your work, and will be more willing to wait for images to download. When deciding what images to use on your site, think about what information your audience is coming to your site to find.

Images can build your brand.

On most professional Websites, a company logo is prominently displayed throughout the site.

Wisely placed animations have the potential to be eye-catching however, poorly placed and overused animations can be irksome for site visitors and look unprofessional. Use animations sparingly to call attention to critical sections of key pages within your site; one per page at most is a good rule.

Weigh the value of every image that you place on your Website. Ask, “Does this image clearly enhance my Website from an aesthetic, navigational, or informational viewpoint?” If you’re unsure, leave it off. Web pages look cleaner and more professional when they contain significant portions of empty space (known as white space).

How to Advertise Your Website

Incorporate Your Site in Your Current Advertising Efforts

Directing people to your Website is a great way to help them find out more about your business and can save you time by enabling people to find answers to questions without contacting you directly.

Incorporate your Web address into all of the advertising that you do. You should include your address in your Yellow Pages ad, your brochures, your mailings, your fliers and any other advertising you do. Also, include your Web address as a part of your signature in all email messages that you send, and in your company letterhead.

Unlike a brochure or other printed materials, one great advantage of a Website is that it can easily be updated to advertise your latest sale, projects, or packages, so by publicizing your Web address, you can be confident that you’re giving out information that will not go out of date.

Optimizing Your Site for Search Engine Promotion

If you are interested in advertising your site to a national and international audience, it’s a good idea to use online advertising methods such as submitting your site to search engines and Web directories. Before you submit your site to be listed, you should take steps to help ensure sure that your site is optimized to be accepted.

1. Edit your page display title.

Your page display title is an important tool that you can use to communicate with the Internet users who see your site in their search results. The display title is what typically shows up in the top line of search results, so it should instantly and concisely communicate what is on your page. For example, Smith’s Insurance: Auto, Home, Life.

2. Choose your Meta tags carefully.

Meta tags are words and descriptions embedded in the HTML code on each page of your Website. The two most common types of Meta tags are the ‘keywords’ and the ‘page description’. Both types of Meta tags are used by search engines and Web directories to determine what your site is about. In addition, ‘page description’ Meta tags are sometimes displayed to help site visitors decide whether or not they wish to view your site.

You can edit your ‘keywords’ Meta tag to include the words and phrases visitors would type into a search box to look for your site. For example, auto insurance, home insurance, life insurance.

You can edit your ‘page description’ Meta tag to include a brief description of your page. For example, Selling personal auto insurance, home insurance, and life insurance to California residents.

3. Submit your site only when it is ready for display.

Some search engines and Web directories will only accept sites that meet specific quality and content criteria, so you should submit your site only when it is ready for display with working links and ample content.

Keep in mind, some search engines and web directories only look at the upper portion of a page to determine whether it is relevant or not. Therefore, try to place the most interesting and relevant information as close to the top of your page as possible.

4. Keep your Meta tags relevant.

Always keep your page title, keywords, and page descriptions related to your site. It is not good to use keywords that have nothing to do with the content of your page just to increase hits on your site. Search engines are often smart enough to figure this out and you stand a chance of having your site rejected immediately if you attempt to use such techniques.

Submit Your Site to Search Engines for Free

Interested in advertising your site to a national and international audience? Submitting your site to search engines is a good start to marketing your site. Search engines, such as Google, MSN, and AltaVista, use powerful computer programs to review and file Web pages that have been submitted. Visitors can then find and view your site when they search for keywords that match the information that the search engine has on file for your site.

It is difficult to gauge if any particular search engine will accept your site, how long it will take before your site is listed, or how high your placement in the listings will be. Thus, if you are interested in generating widespread exposure for your site, you might also consider paid advertising options such as those described below.

Purchase Advertising on Search Engines

Another way to promote your site is to buy search engine placement. In purchasing placement, you can ensure that when people type certain words during a Web search, your site will appear in paid search result listings.

Google AdWords and Yahoo! Search Marketing are examples of such cost-per-click advertising.  In this type of advertising, you pay when a customer actually clicks on a link to your site - and you get to decide how much you’re willing to pay for each click. Independent research shows that advertisers receive the highest ROI from pay-forplacement search when compared to other forms of advertising.

This can be an affordable and profitable use of your marketing budget.  Depending on the type of customers you would like to target, you can decide the search words and the amount you’re willing to pay for those words.  Then you can usually use tools provided to determine the words that have resulted in the best leads and highest profits.

Congratulations

Congratulations! After reading the information in this guide, you should be better informed about the overall process of getting your business online. You have learned how to plan your site, what pages to include, what to place on those pages, how to use images correctly, and how to promote your site.

The best advice may be to start slowly and grow your site to meet the needs of your business. You may only need to display samples of your work, or a means for customers to contact you. On the other hand, you may need (or want) to sell products and accept credit cards online. Find the solution that allows you to start quickly, build a site that truly reflects your business and meets your goals, and gives you the power to update your site whenever at your convenience.

Forum: Advice From The Pros : Web Design ]]> http://webworks101.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=1414738 Sat, 30 Sep 2006 16:44:36 GMT http://webworks101.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=1414737 Getting Your Business Online

A Guide to Planning, Building and Promoting Your Business Website

Welcome

Whether you already have a site, have just started planning, or are just beginning to think about a business Website, the information in this guide can help you move closer to your goal of getting your business online, or improving your existing online presence.

This guide will provide you with the following:

                        Web design advice to make your site appealing, interactive and professional

                        Timesaving tips to speed you along the way to creating your Website

                        Alerts to avoid common mistakes

We hope you will find the information and advice useful in making your business Website a success.

Planning Your Website

Step 1: Determining Your Website Goals

Define Your Goals

What would you like your site to accomplish?

Understand Your Customers

Who are your customers and what are their needs?

Determine What to Place on Your Site

What can you put on your site to meet these needs?

Example 1: Is the goal of your Website targeting new customers?

                        Use customer quotes and photos of your work to demonstrate that your business is trustworthy

                        Provide information about what makes your business unique.

                        Include a map on your site to help local visitors find your office or store.

                        Post extensive FAQs and information specifically for your current customers.

Example 2: Is the goal of your site to manage your customer relations more efficiently?

•    Create an online form so new clients can easily send you information.

Step 2: Structuring Your Site

Structure your site to help people find the information they need.

                        Want to provide your visitors with information about your business? Include an ‘About Us’ page.

                        Want to streamline communications with your customers? Include an FAQ page where customers find answers to common questions.

                        Want customers to email you? Add a link to your email address on every page in your site.

Step 3: Looking for Further Ideas and Advice

Here are some tips for finding additional ideas and features for your site.

                        Ask some of your customers or clients what information they would like to see on your site. Also, after your site is up, it is a good idea to have people look at it and offer advice on what is working well and what could be improved.

                        View other Websites to see what you like and what doesn’t work. Searching for related sites in the search engines such as Google or Yahoo! is a good way to start.

Step 4: Designing and Building Your Site

When you’re ready to design and build your site, choose an application that allows you to start quickly, learn easily, and work efficiently.

                        Start Quickly – You should be able to get results quickly without comprising your design by being forced to choose between a few cookie-cutter templates.

                        Learn Easily – You should be able to use the application initially with ease, gradually becoming an advanced user.

                        Work Efficiently – You should be able to accomplish your work (creating new pages, editing existing pages, etc) quickly and at your convenience.

Provide an Appealing and Useful Website

First impressions are key, so you should make sure that your home page (first page) sends the right message and conveys the purpose and personality of your business. Below are some guidelines to keep in mind.

Content

Your home page should be informative and concise. Keep in mind that it should serve the needs of both current and new customers.

For new customers, provide basic details such as a description of what your business does or sells. Then, for both current and new customers, you’ll generally want to provide links to other sections of your Website where they can find more detailed information. Be careful not to put too much information on your home page (or any page) of your site. People generally prefer to see small chunks of information on individual pages, with links to the information that is most useful to them.

It’s often a good idea to update your Website frequently to provide information on seasonal promotions, your soup of the day, or personal messages from the company owner. Frequent updates help keep customers coming back.

Graphics

Graphics are an important aspect of a company home page. You’ll probably want to display your company logo, and perhaps an image of your work, your products, your establishment, or yourself.

Graphics can be used to great effect on a home page, but they can easily be overused. Don’t clutter your page or fill it with slow loading images.

Another pitfall to avoid is the overuse of animations or scrolling text. While these features can be used to great effect, they can also make a page look tacky and unprofessional. As a general rule, you should never use more than one animation on a given page. Animations should never be used just as decoration, but should call attention to critical sections of key pages.

Use Complementary Colors

Poor use of colors can be a major Website pitfall, which can convey a lack of professionalism. For your background, the safest bet is to use neutral colors such as white, off-white or beige. Bright colors or busy patterns have a tendency to look garish or make text difficult to read.

Black can be a good color to use if you will be displaying pictures of products or work on your Website, as black sets off photographs well. However, black and other dark colors are a poor background color choice for text as they make pages hard to read and impossible to print. It is a good idea to use the same background color on all of your pages.

Organizing Your Website

It’s a good idea to divide your content into short, logical sections. The key in organizing an effective site is to think about what things your customers will want to know when they come to your site.

From your home page, provide links to the different sections of your site such as your FAQ, a portfolio of your work, a company information page, or a product information page.

Make Your Site Easy to Navigate

If your site is extensive, it is a good idea to provide submenus within the site to ease navigation.

For example, if you wished to display examples of your professional wedding photography skills on your site, it would not be a good idea to put the links to ten different weddings on your home page. Having too many links on a Website makes it cluttered and difficult to navigate. Instead, the Website could contain links to information about packages, your qualifications, your philosophies, contact information, and a single link to “Photography Examples”.

Then, the “Photography Examples” page itself would become a sub-Website within your site. On that page, you could provide links to different weddings that exemplified your photographic style.

Assume Viewers Will Not Proceed Linearly

In addition to organizing your site logically, you should work hard to make it easy to navigate. A list of links should appear in the same place (most commonly on the top or left-hand sides) of each of your pages. Be sure to include a link to your home page on all of the pages within your site.

A list of specific links is preferable to having ambiguous ‘Back’ or ‘Forward’ buttons on your pages. As a general rule, you should not assume that customers will travel from “start to finish” through your site. Plan your site so that it will be easy for them to jump from page to page and find exactly the information they need.

If your site is quite extensive, consider providing a site map that customers can access to more fully understand the way that your site is organized. A site map shows all of the pages within your site and how they can be accessed.

Strive for Consistency and Repetition

Your background color, your navigation bar, your company logo, and other features should remain consistent in size and location throughout your site. This will give your pages a standardized, professional feel.

Using Your Website to Market Your Business

Here are some suggestions of things that you might include on your site to market your business to local, national, or international visitors.

                        Prominently post your hours and address.

                        Include a map on your site to help local visitors find your office or store.

                        Provide content about the things that make your business and/or community unique.

                        Sell products or services from your site.

                        Post information explaining your shipping and returns policies.

                        Enable visitors to sign up for your mailing list and receive periodic updates about your business and specials.

Communicating with Prospective Customers

To communicate effectively with prospective customers or clients, it is important to sell your company’s strengths through your site. Here are suggestions on ways that you can convey those messages.

                        Prominently post client or customer testimonials.

                        Showcase quotes from any press coverage you have received.

                        Provide information about your business and philosophies on an ‘About Us’ page.

                        Display pictures or samples of your work.

                        Post documents such as your brochure, menu, or sales catalog on your site.

                        Place your company logo on every page in your site.

Communicating with Existing Customers

To use your site to keep current customers informed, including content and functionality such as the following would be helpful.

                        Post extensive FAQs and information for your current customers.

                        Create a private, password protected area of your site where customers can view information or photos that are specifically for them.

                        Make a custom online form on your site so that visitors can easily send you the information that you need to communicate efficiently via email.

                        Enable visitors to sign up for your mailing list and receive periodic updates about your business and specials.

                        Create a news or specials section of your site and update it frequently with information that will keep visitors coming back.

Forum: Advice From The Pros : Web Design ]]> http://webworks101.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=1414737 Sat, 30 Sep 2006 16:43:44 GMT http://webworks101.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=1358952 So, You Want To Build a Website

By

Jonathan Knight

So, you’ve decided it’s time to build your website.   You’ve got a great product.  You know your audience and you have a bunch of great ideas to make it the most awesome website on the internet.

So what comes next?

Well, the first thing you need is a name for it.  Or in the parlance of the internet, you need a domain name.  Think of a domain name as the address of your website.  It’s the name your guests will type to visit your site.   So obviously you want to choose a name people will remember.  At the same time, it should be a name that says something, or is at least symbolic of your site’s purpose.  While this may sound like a simple task on the surface, keep in mind that the internet is a worldwide medium with, as of this writing, 46.5 million registered domain names in the United States alone.  So don’t get discouraged if you have to try a few different names before you find one that’s available.  You’ll find that any good domain registrar has a domain name search tool on their site to help you along the way.  In the end, choosing that perfect domain name usually requires a healthy mixture of patience, ingenuity and creativity.

Once you’ve chosen a name, you’ll need to register it.   Back in the early days of the internet, there were only a handful of domain registrars, and in accordance with the adage of supply and demand, the cost to register a name was usually in the $40-$50 range.  Now there are thousands if not hundreds of thousands of registrars out there and the price to register a name has dropped accordingly.  On average, you should be able to register a .com domain name for about ten dollars today.   If your chosen registrar is charges more than that, it’s time to shop around.

A few other things to remember about domain names…

Stick with the dot coms.  As the internet has grown so have the number of domain name extensions.  These extensions are the letter combination to the right of the domain name, after the "dot".  Therefore, a domain name like google.com has a "dot com extension". You will also find .net, and .org extensions, along with a host of newly popularized extensions like .biz, .name, .tv, etc., as well as country level domains (.us for the US, .br for Brazil, .it for Italy, and so on.)  

Originally, .com extensions were intended for commercial ventures, while .net's were intended for use by Internet Service Providers and .org's by non-profit organizations or groups. Truth is, this original classification is no longer accurate, and anybody can register a domain name with those extensions.

By far, however, the dot com extension is still the most popular and the most broadly recognized.  When people think internet they think dot com.  Choosing another extension may be tempting at times.  Often times that perfect first choice name you can’t get as a dot com is available as a dot net or a dot org and generally costs less than the dot com counterpart.  Despite the temptation however, you’ll be doing yourself a disservice.  Invariably once your site is up and running and you’ve got that core constituency of precious customers you’ve worked so hard to earn, one of them is going to look for you using your domain name, substituting dot com for whatever domain extension you chose.  Instead of them finding you, they will find the dot com version of your domain, possibly the site of your competition, and either assumes they have the wrong name or that you are no longer on the web.  Either way, it’s a contact or sale you won’t get and your competition might.

Conversely however, sometimes it does pay to buy up the dot net, dot org and other extensions for a domain name if you register the dot com for yourself.  This practice can prevent others from buying them up after your site becomes a success and either cloning your site’s presentation for their own profit, or re-directing mistyped traffic intended for your site to other sites of their choosing.  Most domain registrars now offer bundle packages for this purpose at a cost of about twenty dollars.

Other things to keep in mind.  Make sure the registrar registers the domain in your name, not theirs.  Some of the less reputable ones will offer or insist on registering the domain with their information to protect your privacy.  While there are a handful of companies out there that actually offer legitimate private domain registrations, these generally offer it as an option and at a fee.  Any company that insists on registering a domain in their name or offers it for free is likely doing it to control your domain.   That way, a year later, when your site is a profitable success and its time to renew the name, they can charge you any price they choose to buy it back or worse, sell it to the highest bidder.  Likewise, make sure you have control to the domain name’s control panel.  You want to have full control over if or where your domain is forwarded to, where its email records are pointed, masking, and a host of other critical functions you as a webmaster will need.

Once you have a name registered its time to create your site.   Here you basically have two choices.  You can either hire a web design firm, provide them with the text and pictures you want on your site and pay them to design and code the site to your specifications. Or you can create the site yourself using an online web builder or one of the commercially available design tools like Macromedia’s Dreamweaver or Adobe’s GoLive.  There are advantages to each.  Leaving the technical work to a professional design firm leaves you free to work on your business.  Likewise if you don’t already have web design experience, it saves you the time of learning how to use the design tools and learning at least some degree of HTML.  It also assures you a technically correct site that is optimized for search engines to crawl and provides some degree of confidence that the site will operate properly and will be professionally supported by the design firm.  Cost wise, you can probably expect a bill anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars depending on the complexity of the site.

On the other hand, doing it yourself will cost you a lot less and you will be sure to end up with a site that is exactly what you want it to be.  You can tweak and change it to your hearts content and make it your own in every way.  Keep in mind though that what you save in money will cost you in time.   Depending on the web design skills you have going into the project that and the scope of the site, that time commitment can be anywhere from forty to a few hundred hours.   More likely than not, unless you’ve got considerable web skills,  you’re still going to need help setting up the site’s meta tags and content to optimize the site for the search engines, and of course, you’ll be responsible for your own technical debugging and site support.

Regardless of who builds the site, once it’s finished, you will have to have it hosted.   All websites on the internet need to reside on centrally located servers that have direct access to the internet backbone.   Like domain registrars, hosting companies have also multiplied as the internet has grown.  And likewise, there are things you need to look for when shopping for hosting.  You want a company that allows you full control to your hosting control panel.  One that offers at least a 99% uptime guarantee with secured servers, onsite power backup,  real time data archiving, full FTP access, at least 100 Gigabytes of storage and 100,000 Gigabytes of bandwidth.    You also want all that for a competitive price.   Hosting pricing has come way down as disk and server technology has evolved.   You should probably expect to pay somewhere between $10 and $15 a month for basic hosting.  Anything less is, more likely than not, a surefire recipe for problems.     Anything more and unless you have one incredibly value packed package, you are probably wasting your hard earned money. 

With a catchy, memorable domain name, a quality, content packed, well designed site and reliable hosting, your new website will be ready to professionally greet your guests and proudly represent your enterprise on the World Wide Web.

Jonathan Knight is the president of WebWorks101, a full service web design and internet support company based in New York.   He has been a professional computer consultant since 1980, and has specialized in web design and internet based services since 1998.  Jonathan created Webworks101 to offer all the options mentioned above at affordable prices.  Visit  http://www.webworks101.com for all the products and services you’ll need for your new web venture. Or contact him directly by email at jonathan@webworks101.com, by phone at (631) 240-9220 or schedule a FREE web consultation to discuss your needs.

Forum: Advice From The Pros : Web Design ]]> http://webworks101.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=1358952 Tue, 05 Sep 2006 18:30:54 GMT http://webworks101.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=1150751 How can you get more visitors to your website? What can you do to stimulate traffic? Here's a checklist of 31 items you need to consider. Many of these you're probably doing already; others you meant to do and forgot about; still others you've never heard of. Of course, a great deal has been written about this. You'll find links to thousands of articles on site promotion in Dr. Ralph F. Wilson's Web Marketing Info Center http://www.wilsonweb.com/cat/).

Share in the wisdom of Dr. Wilson in this and his other articles that he has so generously allowed us to repost here.

http://www.webworks101.com/Forum - WebMarketingChecklistReDirect.asp

Forum: Advice From The Pros : E-Commerce ]]> http://webworks101.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=1150751 Sun, 28 May 2006 06:23:21 GMT http://webworks101.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=1150745 There are twelve critical places in building a website where you must make the right decision, or you'll have to repeat this task again and again until you get it right.

In this insightful article by  Dr. Ralph F. Wilson, E-Commerce Consultant, he doesn't talk about how to write HTML; He wants to help you with the mindset, the basic approach. He wants to take you by the hand and lead you through the critical decisions. The better you grasp these essential points, the better your website will work and the happier camper you'll be...

I can't encourage you strongly enough to read this and the other articles he has so graciously allowed.   Thank you Dr. Wilson for your generousity.

http://www.webworks101.com/Forum - 12WebsiteDesignDecisionsReDirect.asp

Forum: Advice From The Pros : E-Commerce ]]> http://webworks101.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=1150745 Sun, 28 May 2006 06:16:26 GMT http://webworks101.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=1150743 How can you get more visitors to your website? What can you do to stimulate traffic? Here's a checklist of 31 items you need to consider. Many of these you're probably doing already; others you meant to do and forgot about; still others you've never heard of. Of course, a great deal has been written about this. You'll find links to thousands of articles on site promotion in Dr. Wilson's  Web Marketing Info Center (www.wilsonweb.com/cat/). While we're not breaking any new ground here, we've tried to summarize some of the most important techniques.

Special thanks to by Dr. Ralph F. Wilson, E-Commerce Consultant, for his generousity in allowing us to re-post his articles.

http://www.webworks101.com/Forum - WebMarketingChecklistReDirect.asp

Forum: Our Services : E-Commerce ]]> http://webworks101.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=1150743 Sun, 28 May 2006 06:13:43 GMT http://webworks101.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=1150740 What does a virus have to do with marketing? Viral marketing describes any strategy that encourages individuals to pass on a marketing message to others, creating the potential for exponential growth in the message's exposure and influence. Like viruses, such strategies take advantage of rapid multiplication to explode the message to thousands, to millions.

Off the Internet, viral marketing has been referred to as "word-of-mouth," "creating a buzz," "leveraging the media," "network marketing." But on the Internet, for better or worse, it's called "viral marketing." While others smarter than I have attempted to rename it, to somehow domesticate and tame it, I won't try. The term "viral marketing" has stuck.

In this article by by Dr. Ralph F. Wilson, E-Commerce Consultant, this concept is explored and explained in depth.  Special thanks to Dr. Wilson for generously allowing us to re-post his articles here.

http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmt5/viral-principles-clean.htm

Forum: Advice From The Pros : E-Commerce ]]> http://webworks101.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=1150740 Sun, 28 May 2006 06:12:00 GMT