Recognising Value - Customer Perception Change

As a child my father said to me "You know the price of everything and the value of nothing" at the time I thought he was just being stingy and not getting me what I asked for Christmas. As I grew older and entered the tough market of having my own business I realised that in consumerism this is so true. People often value items on the price tag, they think because something is "reassuringly expensive" then of course it is worth that.

There are industries where this is more true than others, art being the perfect example where price is king and the higher the price the more desirable the artwork. But with something so personal as art it is a funny business, I would much rather adorn my walls with the work of Mondo who create retro and unusual movie poster art than a Van Gogh, but if I had a Van Gogh then I would be looking to turn it over for a profit. So it no longer becomes art it is simply a commodity. Take for example the recent exploits of the famous Banksy, who sold his original art on the streets of New York for as little as $30 for the buyer to discover in fact the work was an original and worth $20k. It was an experiment in art that he performed but you can be sure that the majority of those buyers will no doubt cash that cheque by selling it and turning a profit. The buyers of that art will assume value will increase until they can in turn make a profit. 

Comics would be another example of this where people buy them, do not remove them from the packaging instead reading it on an online download, because they know the price will increase. It's a different form of investment from share ownership but works on the same principles, perception of price (not value) is key.

Price Comparison Not an exact science

Back to the high street, I often find that consumers now value the price of items based on competition, but do not understand fully the service they are being provided with. If a consumer was to purchase a t-shirt with a slogan on from Primark it would cost them less than £4, should they purchase a t-shirt with a slogan from myself they would pay three times this. Why you may ask? Well simply because freedom of choice, they can have any slogan they like and complete and utter control over it, creative freedom to make a one off item specifically for them. But what if the customer wants exactly the same as an example I have produced, does that make the process any less laborious, the labour any less intensive? No. So the price remains the same. This subtle difference in understanding of a shop is lost on many and the proliferation of multi nationals into our conscience has resulted in a mass price war. Fear not this price war because there are weapons that the little guy has much better than the big guy!

Bartering the last Bastion of the Small Guy

The art of bartering has been lost, seen by many as cheeky or awkward, but this is a weapon that most small retailers retain which their larger counterparts cannot. An employee at Tesco will not give you a discount on a TV, or a yoghurt but the local retailer might. How would you go about advertising this unique selling point? First you must ask yourself if you want to, by advertising this fact are you not simply saying "My price tags are indicative only". The best way to achieve this is by closing the sale on an individual basis, reading customers is a fine art but there are obvious signs when someone is interested in a product. If you see them about to decide against it a quick price drop may sway them into your order book. The trick is always to engage customers, by doing it this way you can clearly dictate this a special offer for them, and not an open invitation to get discounts every time. You may find this one act of generosity actually makes you turn a would be browser into a long term customer.

Price doesn't matter to everyone

In Spite of this potential price competition you may find that the reverse is also the case. Whilst many people want you to be price competitive others will value the aspects that you can provide ahead of the big guys:

- Great customer service
- Personal interaction
- Expertise
- Your brand, shop local and other initatives actively encourage people to shop with the small guys


I often see a customer paying more than I will charge, because they value the item beyond the price I am charging and they are rewarding the work and effort I have executed. A situation I am sure doesn't happen in your faceless multi nationals. This often restores my faith that not all consumers know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

Small Business - Fear of Competition?

On high streets across the Uk we see a collection of shops and services for offer, often these services and shops are repeated a few paces further down leading many to believe that High street lacks the imagination of the Internet. With charity shops, cafes and hairdressers littering our high streets the downward spiral of a local thriving shopping area is plain for all to see.

These tough times can often lead many small business to fear competition, perhaps a similar shop has opened nearby and you are worried about vital custom being taken away. These fears are valid, however there are ways which you can actually turn this competition into a positive.

1 - More shops attract more customers

Many people avoid the high street because they think there will be nothing of value there, they would rather shop in large out of town super stores or the Internet. By having an increased number of shops you may actually find your footflow increases.People who cannot find what they want in your competition may approach you leading to direct sales from their customers. Don't be tempted to get into a price war, the damage that will do to your business cannot be reversed, by having low prices the reputational damage of reverting them back to original price will leave you suffering in the long term.

2 - Collaborative working

People are generally friendly and as a new business your competition may appreciate a friendly visit. Perhaps discuss new product ideas, agree boundaries and support each other through website growth and custome referrals. Unless the business is a franchise then they will be open to this kind of approach, and if not you have not lost anything in trying. 

3 - Areas of expertise

A lot of high streets across the Uk have become known for a particular specialism, perhaps your local high street has an abundance of sports shops due to local facilities, or a large amount of galleries and art supply shops. These high streets grow in reputation as more competition enters the market and to be known for a specialism will attract customers from further afield.

4 - If all else fails diversify

If you have exhausted all other opportunities and your customer footflow has dropped then perhaps its time to branch out. Try new products and change away from your existing business model. The cheapest way to do this is by having other local suppliers provide you stock on sale or return basis. Or acting as an agent for a larger business, this will mean litle to no capital outlay to bring in that new stuff and if it works then you can begin to purchase direct from suppliers and increase your profit.

Promotional Items - Give a gift, grow a brand!

Giving gifts may seem like an expensive way to promote your brand but if you are clever it can be the most effective advertising you have ever undertaken. People like to get free stuff, even if the items are only small the gesture of getting something for free is a great way to build advocacy with your potential customers.

Personalisation of gifts is huge, large businesses like Moonpig allow customers to give a gift tailored specifically to the individual recipient. The opportunity to grow your brand can be done via competitions or other prize giveaways but having larger volumes to give away can be much better way to reach a wider audience. Here are some tips to help you decide if this is a venture for you.

Consider your audience

 Firstly think who you want to give free gifts to. Of course if your business has a specific demographic of customer then this will limit your potential targets. You may think the easiest way is to have a give away in store, or on the local street, but this is unlikely to attract anyone who does not already know you exist. Some other potential ideas would be:

Local Office Block - A local large employer will have a captive audience and providing them with mouse mats or mugs for their staff may be a great way to pick up new customers. Not only will you get direct sales but those staff will be staring at your logo and details daily and will act as an advocate when others discuss requiring your services. Items; Mug, Mouse Mats, Pens or Stress balls

Social Clubs - Social clubs are used by the community in many different ways, this means you have the opportunity to have many different types of groups become aware of your services. The main risk with this is that many of the products are simply taken or forgotten about, ensure you agree the placement with the organisors or owners of the social club. Items; Hats, Bibs(for team activity), Glasses, mugs or aprons.

Pubs - Pubs may not be as busy as they were but a lot of potential customers still use them. The best type of establishment would be a Gastro Pub as these are more likely to have affluent and family patrons. Items; Mats, Mugs, Plates, Kids jigsaw or stickers.

Cafe - Coffee shops are the boom industry in the UK and USA, with no signs of decline. As more cultural awareness about excessive drinking becomes known people turn to cafe's for their social meeting places. High foot-flow and large cross section of customers will help reach a good section of your target audience. Items; Mugs, Mats or kids jigsaw.

Churches - Churches are registered charities and often require products to help run fundraising events, a coffee morning sponsored by your business would be a great way to show your care in the local community. This does not need to mean your business is religiously affiliated so it may be worth working across the denominations to ensure this is understood. Items ; Mugs, t-shirts, tabards or hoodies.

The model for this type of giveaway is that you provide a need for these establishments but with your own branding, or perhaps joint branding to help your business identity grow. In the current climate businesses are always looking for opportunities to help support and grow their brand, doing this type of joint venture is a great way to do this.

Promotional Branding and Giveaways

Businesses can use a wide array of advertising techniques to gain leverage in their chosen market, from TV, press, Internet and other techniques. Building an affinity with your brand is difficult depending on the niche industry you operate in, why would customers feel any loyalty to you after coming across your advert? 

Perhaps a good solution here is to not only advertise your business but offer something to your customers, during the 90's there was a surge in the number of personalised products offered to customers, remember the drawer full of branded goods you had, pens, notepads, glasses, t-shirts and much more?

Well the boom in personalised goods may have subsided as big corporates move towards a more internet savvy marketing strategy but the technique of producing personalised goods for free giveaways has not ceased. In fact it provides a great way to introduce many customers to your brand. A message that they may even promote by wearing or using your product. This cheap way of producing huge coverage in marketing may seem like an expensive way to market but when you consider the price comparison to other forms of advertising you may be surprised:

100 T-shirts giveaway - £650

Local radio Advert 1 Month - £350

Local Press Advert - £400

Local Tv Advert - £1000

Niche Internet Advertising Campaign - £500 pcm

Niche Social media Advertising Campaign - £500 pcm

When you consider the life-cycle of a t-shirt you can see that the advert will be working for longer than 1 month and the goodwill and buzz created from a giveaway may even attract you free local press and radio advertising, not to mention the potential for virility of social media advertising of the giveaway. In today's marketing you need to fire across many different areas, not concentrate solely on one aspect, this type of promotional giveaway can cover those different areas needed and people love free stuff.

Uniforms and Work-wear

Even small traders, tradesmen and crafters can now get good quality designed work-wear to ensure that they are walking adverts for their business. With a huge selection of different items, from T-Shirts and Hoodies to Vests and Tabards there is something to suit every type of industry.

Why not check out Dunbar T-shirt Shop a custom garment and gift company which can offer you both professional uniform printing and promotional items.

Marketing - Piggy Back a Success

Companies spend millions on Marketing, with the barrier to entry for smaller business so high many do not even attempt to enter the world of marketing, instead relying on good customer service and word of mouth to grow their customer base. As a company grows the expectation and demand becomes large that often the only way to better those corporate behemoths is to rely on better customer service. But often businesses will piggy back marketing onto the back of a specifically clever concept. 

Take for example the recent campaign by coca cola to promote bottles with names, crowds of school kids rumagging through display stands at local shops was surely an accident of planning that perhaps they had not considered but such is the public imagination that this clever but simple idea really took off.

Personalisation of goods has long been popular, with personalised gifts and garments booming as that extra little effort is clearly able to set the giver apart from the rest. Cleverely Irn Bru the viral advertising guru's piggy backed their campaign with a series of funny Scottish names on the bottles, names associated with perhaps the more chav-tastic elements of society.

The secret to the success of this campaign by Irn Bru on a limited budget in comparitive terms was that they used the annoyance that this advertising had caused. Capturing all the people who were sick of the constant tweeting of bottles of coke with peoples name, or facebook picture of their personalised bottle. This anti sentiiment that grows on the back of any large advertising campaign is often a great way of getting a clever and witty response to go viral with little effort. A large social media platform shared, and engaged with this advert boosting the sales of the Scottish firms orange nectar.

This just goes to show that an advertising response is often just as influential as the original advertising concept, and can give smaller companies a foothold in advertising they may not have otherwise had.

Collaboration - Why Today's Business need to work Together

Collaboration has been around since medieval businesses models first hit our villages. In today's world partnerships, collaborations, Networks, Friends or the myriad of other terms are used to describe when people help each other. These terms are often dressed up as fancy and elaborate schemes that promise to give you hundreds of pounds of business.

The idea is simple, I have a business selling something your customers may want, but you don't provide, therefore that customer is referred to use my services and in turn I would recommend your services to my customers who may be in need. Clear and easy to understand at it's base level. This collaborative approach to working, is immeasurably easier to do if you have a physical location, becoming a big fish in a small pond is easy to do, being a big fish in a national, international or global pond is far more challenging. The main difference is that to break into the scene, the higher up you go, becomes exponentially more difficult.

An illustration as to why this is both neccessary and frustrating; If Amazon was run by one person, and you called them on the phone and arranged a lunch to discuss your business. Agreeing at the end of the lunch they would help to promote your small seaside town gift shop and in turn you would recommend your customers use their online services two things would occur. Firstly you would not even register on their books in terms of referrals, it would be so miniscule to them in turns of sales that they wouldn't waste time in meeting you for lunch. Secondly your business would fall over within minutes, you would sell out of all your products and you would probably have a website downtime lasting weeks. This is because their power is far superior to your own, their influence and reach is millions every day, which shows why there is a Network for each different level.

Whilst this advice is based mainly towards a business with physical location you may still find some of the advice transferable to your online or non domiciled business.  This advice also assumes you are already utilising your own Network, which consists of friends, family and previous colleagues.

The five stage attack to Networks:

- Social Media groups - these are the bedrock of any supportive campaigns for marketing. To not be part of the local community, and be prepared there will be more than you originally thought, is business suicide. You must get involved, keep up to date and ensure that at every opportunity people are talking about your service or products.

- Local Traders Association - There will be a local association, set up mainly to represent the traders interests when discussing items with local authorities and to do some collaborative marketing. If there isn't one then set it up, this is a vital part of any town. You may be put off by meeting the competition but remember competition is not always bad for business, it can in fact improve your foot flow and subsequently your sales.

- National Traders Association - There are organisations like the BNI which run collaborative Networks across the UK to help business market collaboratively and generate direct sales for other members. With over £1billion worth of business handed off through these groups it is well worth considering.

- Professional Body Membership - To become a global player you must be recognised as the pinnacle of your area of expertise. There are officially sanctioned organisations for all niche markets, to become a member may involve many checks and you may not already qualify, but once in you can be assured that it will not only boost your business trust level, it will also improve your Networks.

- Working Partners - Once you are at a very good level you may find business approach you to do partnership schemes, to bundles packages together of products from different businesses, to cross brand promote and also to incorporate your services into an offering they retail. This would all be a good way to expand sales, but be wary of doing your homework, a good partner will boost business but a bad partner will tarnish your own brand.


The Benefits

- Increased sales - Direct sales handed off from other people in your Network.

- Increased sales - Indirect sales from increased brand awareness

- Improved reputation - A mark of trust to be in company of other traders who have loyal customers.

- Improved business process - Identification of any areas of improvement by having someone in your Network can be helpful. They may come across something that benefits you greatly, a new type of equipment or new way of operating, and they consider telling you because there is an open dialogue.

- Information - Local information is hugely important for planning, perhaps new construction activity is being conducted, a local celebration is to happen or a new shop is opening.

- Support - When times are tough it can feel very difficult to be the sole bearer of the stress, having a close Network can help to solutionise those problems and ease the burden.

- Identifying Opportunity - When someone is new to an idea they instantly have lots of greats thoughts about different ways of doing things, this freshness can really invigorate your own offering.

How to Assess the best Network

- Do your homework - Ensure the time spent building the Network will be sufficient to see a return. Dont force a Network that does not compliment your own.

- If its free then join - Free is the best price because there is no risk.

- If it costs money research - like anything if you are spending cash ensure you know what your getting, ask to see copies of accounts to see where the money goes when it is provided to a central organisor. A profitable  Network is not necessarily a bad one, however it does leave you open to scams, of which there are many.

- Look for proliferation of competition - If your competitors are doing something it's worth checking out, even if just to identify the idea is not right for you.

- Look for signs of Age - An older Network is better in the sense that they will have experience, but you may find there are barriers to engagement, for instance established members may not want you to come up with any new ideas, at least until you have served your time.

- Don't waste your time - Meetings need to have a purpose, it is all very nice to have meal and discuss business with new potential friends, however there must be a purpose or end goal.

In the end as business owners we all want the same thing, which is to have a profitable market share that provides you with a secure and stable lifestyle. You ambition is only hampered by your own lack of knowledge, there are literally thousands of people making ridiculous sums of money selling goods and services that are completely useless, much poorer quality than your product or service and this is because they know how to gain market share. The most powerful way of growing is to rely on the support of others, to build friendships that can provide you with support. Starting a business is a lonely process, growing it needn't be.

Articles submitted by Dunbar T-Shirt Shop; a Garment printing business that provides work-wear and printed gifts for all occasions.

Charitable Giving - Marketing with Ethics

Paying for advertising on TV allows companies to generate more dumbed down reality talent shows, Advertising in newspaper allow for more phone hacking and photo's of the latest celeb putting their garbage out, advertising on the radio funds multi million pound record companies to generate more profit by exploiting artists, see the trend here? Well basically all worthwhile marketing channels have been monopolised and account for multi billions pound companies to increase their shareholder wealth.

So if you wish to take a different approach to marketing why not try charitable giving?

There are ways in which you can garner both exposure and trust from potential customer, without having to hand over your cold hard cash to a private organisation. Here are the steps to consider when looking for ethical advertising.

Think about your cause
Choosing a good cause may sound easy, but you need to look beyond the natural big charity choices, local charities or causes may in fact be much better idea. You may even wish to choose more than one, say 12 and then give them a month each year for the charitable donations. If you link it to sales then you are linking the donation to your success. 

Contact them 
Having a dialogue is important, charities promote a lot in the media and they may be a way of improving your own coverage. Newsletters and press releases happen often for events, so why not agree to provide goods or services for a fundraiser to get the ball rolling.

Promote the fact
Don't be shy, you are doing something really worthwhile. Having the fact promoted will not only raise the awareness of the charity with your customers but it will also attract other interested parties. A poster in the window, a notice on the back of the reciepts are all valid ways to promote the policy of donating.

Support fundraisers
Always try to get involved with fundraisers, it may not get you direct sales but it can really help to promote your brand and attract new customers. Fundraisers often take form of market stalls, so this would even give you an opportunity of making sales.

The end goal of all advertising is to increase brand awareness and increase sales, charitable giving will put you at the forefront of peoples mind, attract business you haven't reached and also boost your standing in the local community.

What does Page Authority tell you about potential PageRank?

Two of the most common questions considered by any new website owner is:

Question 1 - What will my PageRank be?
Question 2 - When the hell are Google doing their next update?

The reason you should stop yourself before getting into either of these issues is simple, It doesn't matter and it really doesn't matter.

If you engage in a lot of writing and you have followed sound advice, to begin guest posting to build quality links to your website, you will have no doubt come across an ad for Guest Posting which goes something like this:

Technology article available entitled "Top 7 things you have read before no doubt" must be PageRank 3+

This annoys me for a lot of reasons. Here are 5 of my top pet hates about this kind of Guest Posting offer:

1. PageRank is like a snapshot in time, taken at the last Google update and bears no relevance to a websites value, in terms of traffic or link value. The reason for this is because you have no idea what has happened on that website between the last update and now. Websites change hands for good money and it may be a new owner, therefore will have a page rank in decline.
2. If you are going to pretend like you know SEO by stating a required PageRank you should probably already know that Page Authority is a much better indicator of strength. 
3. Why the hell would you exclude all those websites which will be ranked highly in the future but may be new, much better to check Domain Authority and see if the website is a good one, than relying on an update that happened 6 months ago.
4. Websites with huge volumes of traffic, don't need or want your free content with links. They make lots of revenue and can generate quality content by paying writers. There are a select few who will offer Guest Posts but you may have trouble finding these in the usual Google Groups, Forums or Email subscriptions.
5. My final thought on this is, if you are going to the effort of writing content, and your not just some fly-by-night spammer. Then why would you not invest the time to read the website you are posting on, its relatively easy to see if a website is good, read a few of the articles and if you like it, chances are others will, which means traffic will happen.

Answer 1

So to the question of what will my PageRank be at the next update? Firstly ask yourself the following questions:

• Do you have lot's of content?
• Is your content good?
• Do you use Social Media well?
• Do you get good traffic?

If you answer Yes to all the above points then you can expect a deserved PageRank. However that doesn't really answer your question does it? So here is some amazingly good stats which will confuse you further

Keyworddatabse did a huge study looking at websites with Page Authority and Page-rank to determine the correlation between the two. Below shows the most likely Page Authority against a PageRank as found by their extensive study.

PageRank 0  = Page Authority 20

PageRank 1  = Page Authority 29

PageRank 2  = Page Authority 46

PageRank 3  = Page Authority 46

PageRank 4  = Page Authority 46

PageRank 5  = Page Authority 46

PageRank 6  = Page Authority 73

PageRank 7  = Page Authority 84

PageRank 8  = Page Authority 89

PageRank 9  = Page Authority 94

PageRank 10  = Page Authority 97

As you can imagine the correlation gets stronger as you move to the higher end of websites, but also does not take into account age of the website. Stats can be useful and this is probably the most useful stat I have found on the subject, but remember nothing is an exact science, as Google say if it was then everyone would have a formula to manipulate their search engine.

You can find their interactive chart here

Answer 2

If you knew the exact date or even month of the next update, I would suggest you go to the bookies and get decent odds betting on your sure thing. In essence nobody knows, people already think it has been too long, and the old adage of being quarterly has been shot to shit. What you can expect is an update that will rock the Net and hammer bad practices just as hard as the last one did.

At the end of the day, your main concern will be whatever the purpose of your website is for. Blog owners are most worried about traffic, so use Google Analytics and figure out what works and what doesn't rather than panic about numbers and rankings. If your a business trying to reach customers then try to capture your audience, don't go for a numbers game you will find conversion rates can be really low. Social media and the like are the best for targeted traffic.

Good luck with it all.

Why you MUST pay your taxes!

As a business, of any format, it is key you keep up to date with your tax expenses. Death and taxes are the two certainties of life, ignoring them does not make them go away and just like your health being on top of taxes means surprise bills are less likely.

Reputation Damage

Much has been made since the global financial crisis about companies avoiding taxes, Starbucks, Google and Amazon are all mutli-national corporations which have suffered from reputation damage due to their inability to pay what is deemed fair taxes in their countries of business. Being global company means that profit redistribution is common place to pay lower taxes. The drive for paying lower taxes is to boost profits and provide shareholders with further growth. With countries across the world setting different tax regimes it is easy to be tempted into paying as little as possible by transferring profit to these low tax economies. Of course being caught doing so will cause you harm from the residents of the country you are avoiding paying taxes in.
There are many campaigns aimed at highlighting tax avoidance and bringing those people responsible to account, this can have a real impact on sales. War on Want is an example of how the rise in Internet usage can really fuel insights into companies tax avoidance schemes. You do not want to end up with campaigners at your place of work, especially if you're a retail business, Starbucks recently discovered this first hand with UK uncut protests.

Cash-flow problems
For smaller and medium sized business  the option of offshore tax havens is not there so they need to ensure that cash-flow issues do not arise. Paying tax annually may be a good way of using cash-flow to boost stock, but with that practice comes risk. Using tax cash to invest in business growth may work out well for some business but should your tax become due and cash-flow not present then the outcome can be catastrophic. Do not rely on new business to pay your tax bill, ensure that existing business has sufficient cash-flow to meet your tax requirement. Of course as a new business it is unlikely you will have made much profit, being able to offset any profit with the costs associated with setting up is possible if you keep good records of outgoing payments. Be sure to keep valid receipts of purchases, there is some leniency in the receipts needed with certain values being acceptable to have no receipt for.
HMRC provide comprehensive checklists and advice for Corporation tax receipts, payment due dates and proof required.

Employee Taxes

If you have paid employees then monthly payments of both tax and national insurance will be deemed necessary, called PAYE tax. This system is very straightforward, with reporting of hours and pay reported monthly and calculations provided as to tax liabilities. It is vital to keep up to date with employee taxes and national insurance, integrating this into your payroll system will reduce time spent on payments and calculations.
SAGE offer integrated systems to manage this real time and ability to keep up to date with your outgoing payroll and tax liabilities. SAGE offer systems to all sizes of business.

Sole trader and freelance taxes
If you are a small business it may be more appropriate for you to pay corporation tax on profits if you are the sole worker in the organisation. This is likely to be less than the tax payment needed for personal tax. Also you may wish to hire people on freelance terms, meaning they are responsible for their own tax, whilst freelance workers may be more difficult to manage and train it will reduce your tax responsibilities, important if you lack the structure and logistics needed to have a payroll department and do not wish to pay for accountant services.

As a freelances it is imperative that you keep some money aside to pay taxes, keep a log of all income earned, on a basic spreadsheet with receipts. Using a system like PayPal helps to keep all your records in one place or an income account which has record of all payments received. You may also have to provide invoices to companies for them to pay you, ensure you do so in a copy book so you retain a record of the invoices. National insurance is a key requirement to keep up to date with as this will ensure you receive a state pension in future. The tax process may feel cumbersome and difficult to submit, but if you keep clear records then it should not be difficult or time consuming. Some accountants will offer flat fee rate for this service, but the HMRC have a very comprehensive guide to this process which if you can familiarise yourself with negates the need to pay someone else to do the job for you.

Winding up Order
As a company, not paying your taxes can result in a winding up order from HMRC. Thinking they won't will not solve the issue as they have issued these on some very large companies. This means they will stop your company from trading, sell your assets and you may be banned from having your own company in the future.

Bankruptcy
As an individual not paying your tax liabilities could end up in court proceedings, and eventual bankruptcy. This would cause many future problems in sourcing credit, getting a job or starting your own business.

Write Content - Get Paid

Reading this article I will presume you are interested in how to make money from your writing. Well interestingly its a far more complex question than it was 5 years ago. In that time the internet has changed, demand for content has changed and more importantly search engine rankings have changed. It used to be the case you could sign up to a website get $10 per article and commision payments for their popularity, being a regular contributor and with good social media following you could expect not only your nominal up front fee but also earnings in perpetuity. Unfortunately Google updates destroyed the earning potential of many of these sites and overnight you saw the collapse of an entire industry. So what happened to all those people who wrote content for money?

Well some went on to find out how the new updates would play out and discovered in fact there were far better opportunities that existed, others returned to their day job and gave up. The purpose of all search engines are to find relevant content for the user, they care little about keeping the websites happy as they are not the ones who are using the search service. They also found that the internet was becoming a game that many black hat operators had found the rule book to so they needed to rewrite the rules.

The best chance to make money from writing online is to have a good website with plenty of interesting content. Placing ads on the site will drive you income directly associated with your number of page views. However if you are bored of this approach because you suffer from ADHD or you need to earn money now, or simply you would like to boost your income then perhaps there are some opportunities that exist.

Here are some examples for you:

ProBlogger Jobs board 
This job board is a heavily used board of paid article writing work that usually has some very easy to apply for positions. Unfortunately you will find its a bit like buying a lottery ticket, due to the number of other people applying you won't get all the jobs you want. A good writing portfolio is essential and the ability to communicate coherently with the employer. The jobs vary in price but you can find some well paid writing jobs if you know your stuff. Remember not to apply to everything, you can't possibly claim to be proficient in writing on any topic so stick to your niche.

Wish Magazine
If your niche is perhaps lifestyle or fashion and you can write to an audience of Canadian women then this is the place for you. Because not only does it give you great exposure but it also pays $1 per word. That is a huge sum in the online writing game but like anything you have to be amazingly good at what you do. Perfect English is standard for any of the jobs here, but you will also have to view the tone from their readerships point of view.

Academic Writers
This is the place to be if you are looking for longer term work. Obviously the trick to online writing jobs is having enough scheduled to pay your bills so a site like this may be a perfect match. The payments may be less than the one off commissioned work but of course that is a trade of with the constant stream of jobs you could be doing.

AsiaWriters
Much like Academic writers this is a site that offers more than simply one commissioned article. This website has an entrance exam, yes an exam. So get comfortable and make sure you can write perfect English before you even attempt the exam. It will give you examples of sentence structure and word replacement to assess your competency.

BlogginPro
Another simple to use job board that can provide you with immediate work to fill any scheduling gaps you may have in your work stack. This site again has a lot of competition so make sure your applications are impeccable.

So why would I be sharing this with you and not just keeping it to myself and getting all the best jobs? Well my personal view on content writing is that you have to be in a niche and there are lots of jobs on their I wouldn't even attempt. People are all too ready on the internet to stab each other in the back to get an hours pay but this defeats the purpose of the internet which is based on the fundamental principle of sharing. It's a huge society of people that all share ideas and opinions to enrich each others lives, if you get some paid work out of this then that's brilliant more power to you, just remember where you read it.

Build up your Portfolio

Of course your own writing CV needs to have some good content for it to be taken seriously so ensure you have done some very good Guest Postings to showcase your talent. OK I know its hard to get motivated to do research and site for 3 hours writing an article for a Page Rank 2 blog but it will be worth it to help showcase yourself.

I happily accept guest posts of good quality, feel free to contact me on Google+ for a list of my blogs or if you would like to commission some content from me. If you have enjoyed reading ensure you leave a comment and share to help others.

Google+ - Grow your profile

So Google+ is a growing social media platform that is mainly taken up by people who know a little bit about SEO or marketing. There is a much heavier usage of businesses on Google+ than on other social media platforms as it allows quick integration with listings on Google maps and other Google products.

Google+ Power to Your Content

But one aspect you may not know is that your Google profile can act as a great advert for your content. Google want to use the platform to find what the best content is on the net and a great indicator is those interactions with the content, and the people who are generating that great content.

If you set up your profile correctly you should have listed all the blogs you contribute too, this is part of the standard process of setting up authorship mark up so will help your search rankings aswell. The other thing is to include your links in your introduction to add weight to your blog or website. 

Did You Know?

Many people claim that Google will automatically index any content that is shared on their social media platform, which would make sense as they want the fastest and best content to be on their search engine for users. This means any content you post you should automatically get in the habit of posting on Google+ and communities are a great way of getting real organic traffic of engaged users in your niche.

A good tool to discover how you rank against other users is Circlecount


No Substitute for Quality

There is no quick fix to this. There is not black hat techniques to buy followers that will generate you any better results for your content you will only improve by adding quality and the communities and followers your connected with will make the final judgement as to whether you are worthy of a +1 share or comment. Google+ like twitter doesn't have a reciprocal add logic to it, so you won't find that even if thousands of people follow you that you need to follow them back, I mean after all your feed would look like a sushi bar on warp speed. What you need to do is engage with people you like who generate content you enjoy, don't be tempted to add people just for the sake of attempting to get a follow back it's a pointless endevaour.

Other Social Media

So while twitter and Facebook are currently trying desperately to monetise their systems with product advertisement at a cost (paid messaging to celebs, sponsored posts, ads, Sponsored tweets etc) Google+ can happily generate a social media platform which does what it says on the tin and makes it a platform for people to socialise and share ideas......for now.

If you wish to discuss anything or would like to commission any articles feel free to contact me on Google+

Online Privacy - EU Law

The internet has given risen to a wealth of opportunity and ability of users to find anything, buy anything and do anything they like. People can connect to other like minded individuals and they can express their own views easily to the world. This may seem like the ultimate freedom but with any freedom comes responsibility. To ensure everything you put onto the internet is the kind of information you want to be associated with your life is important, your views may change but if you have expressed opinions online it may still exist for people to see.

Job prospects

Recruiters are well aware of facebook and other social media, in fact most companies have a privacy agreement in their terms of employment (you know that document you signed when you took the job). To ensure they have recourse when an employee tarnishes their companies name. With the rapid increase in employee misbehaviour online it has been deemed more neccessary to establish background checks that incorporate an internet search to ensure the person is fit for purpose. This may throw up all kinds of antics from a persons past and reveal a lot about their personality. For instance an employee may come across as tempremental or opinionated which could be off putting from an employes perspective.

There have been some high profile cases of employees being sacked, as well as some rather comedic ones. Using a two year old picture as an excuse to claim you are snowed in, claiming to be ill then revealing on social media you are hungover and slating your boss are all ways in which people are caught out. So ensure that firstly you know who you are speaking to when posting on social media, your profile may not be as hidden as you think.

Nudity

There is a huge amount of nudity on the internet, from the porn sites to the car enthusiast forums there is naked pictures everywhere. People have really taken to 'Sexting' the practice of sending rude pictures to people using smartphones. Partly this is due to the ease of use of digital cameras now with most phones having a great resolution camera built in. It is also something attractive to younger people, often they regret this decision later in life as that person is no longer their partner or friend. Sending naked pictures is no neccessarily something you should be sacked for, in fact often managers will not ever see these pictures unless they themselves are using adult websites, which simply creates that awkward scenario of them knowing but unable to say without giving away their own sordid internet history.

But if you do partake in internet nudity, whether it be a picture on a RATE ME website or some other forum or a video you did at college for some beer money you should always know it is permanent and should never be done in a uniform. Companies do not want their brand tarnished by porn. Another example would be considering your chosen career, if you are working in the public arena, with children or other vulnerable people having a sordid past can be grounds for dismissal and will certainly be something that parents or interested parties will frown upon. It is easy to have images removed from most larger websites by simply putting in a copyright request which states the model has not given permission, this is something you should definitely consider doing.

Relationships

People who meet in bars or in social settings used to have this process called dating that took a few weeks to learn all about their personality, likes and dislikes. Now you can download the information to a handy summary using social media. This is the first port of call for most prospective daters so making sure you remove all the pictures of ex's from your profile can turn into a full time job, and all those ones you didn't put up but have to untag yourself from. The dating landscape may seem like great fun but it is decidely more complicated now than in previous generations.

Attracting the right people is about ensuring you portray your personality well, often difficult in short hand status updates or tweets. Angry ex's and spurned lovers may also see what your up to and attempt to sabotage so being honest is something you may need to consider.

Sudden Fame

The argument for not doing everything to hide your history is because lets face it who cares your just a normal person yea? Well that may be true at the moment but there is a myriad of ways the press may take an interest in your life. For instance winning the lottery is a sure fire way of someone finding out who you are and doing an internet search using any found images (usually the worst) to print your great news. Even if you do not go public the chances of keeping it secret are slim as a neighbour or friend is surely to reveal your identity. You may become embroiled in a political or social story, victim of crime, inventor or even just internet sensation. All these are ways in which someone out there may start to dig up your past and publish what they find. The sudden fame aspect is also unfortunately a sure fire way to have individuals from your past come out and either speak about you or blackmail you. Be careful who you trust and do not ever fall victim to blackmail, the law will protect you.

If your wondering who the bloke with all that gold is try a Google search on Michael Carroll, you will be astonished at the stories they have on this lotto winner.

EU Law

So the EU have come up with a nice law that allows you to ask a company to delete all your history relating to yourself from their servers. They oblige of course but what may be more of a worry is where that information went, other websites that have copied the text or images or even individuals who have kept a record. In the case of Paris Brown the Kent Youth PCC, who was in her £17,000 per year role for a total of a week before the media managed to create such a fuss about her past rants that she resigned, is now facing investigation for alleged racism and homophobia. This shows you that the world waits for no one, is a week long enough to get everything in order or should you start now?

In essence you can never keep all your opinions sensible but you must ensure that anything you share is not going to damage your reputation. It may also be good to check the privacy settings of any social media, picture content is something that should always be set to private. So spend some time searching for yourself and clean up any profiles or old commentary that you no longer want associated with yourself. It may also be a good idea to set up new email accounts and completely remove any reference to old ones.

Paying for Guest Posts

Google consistently looks to punish websites that exploit their search results for financial gain. Amazingly there are literally thousands of SEO 'experts' offering you the kind of advice that is likely to get your site punished in the next Google update, by then of course you will have noticed a surge in your impressions and therefore been happy to give them the money. Of course if the site that they have linking to your website is found to be in breach of any of Google's myriad of rules and regulations, which of course they would never spell out for fear of people getting round them with black hat techniques, then you will find any of the benefit from that link be removed. There will not necessarily be any action taken against your site but in essence the service you have paid for will be worthless.

The move away from links as a strategy to more content marketing it seems has now become awash with those wishing to get your hands on your cash for doing very little. Traditional Content Marketing was a marketplace for good quality writers to connect with companies and websites that wish to have some content written by an experienced writer. This was a great market and led to many top websites investing millions in content to ensure their brand was well known but also had content that was useful for the user.


Getting Content - Paid writing services

The practice of hiring writers to write content is traditional but very popular way for companies and websites to achieve better rankings by having quality content. Google values the content because they see themselves as being on the side of the user, they want the user of Google to have the best time and find the best information. This often means that webmasters get furious with Google about any downgrades or falls in impressions, but you must remember Google is not the provider of a service to a webmaster they are a service for the searcher. This kind of financial transaction is not frowned upon by Google and can be a great way to boost your blog, or product website by having professionally written content. 

Getting Guest Posts - Paid Guest posting

Instead of traditional content marketing Guest Posting paid services now offer you the content and also the placement of the article on a website that will link back to yours. Sounds like even better idea than content marketing right? not only are you getting the content but your getting exposure and a handy back link to boost your Google rank. This may be true in some cases but unfortunately a lot of these paid services are actually placing your content and links onto either useless websites, article farms, spinner websites or no where at all. The reason for this is that real guest posting is a long and laborious task, to find quality websites, write articles for them that they want to use and then having them published can be a process that takes a few weeks, not a couple of hours. So ask yourself why would someone want to do all that work for $20? Perhaps they have a well established network of contacts to have your work published on, or perhaps they have a number of well established blogs of their own that they would place it on. My advice would always be wary of this type of offer. Consider the time it takes and the value it generates, always check where they will publish the guest post prior to payment of any money and make sure that website is something you think is appropriate for your brand. As with the hiring of anyone ensure you have done a sufficient background check before engaging in a financial transaction with them. There is a massive difference in subcontracted work and work done directly by the person you are paying. Sub contracted Content Marketing is huge business, essentially someone sets up a website offering paid writing jobs, offering typically $2 per article and then have a team of people paid $2 per hour to post your articles on websites. So your $20 payment is in fact only 20% to those writers and placer but a massive 80% for the middle man who has a nice website. If you thought it was a lot of work for $20 then it certainly is a lot of work for $2 so you can imagine the output you get.

If you wish to discuss any points feel free to leave a comment, or if you are looking for reputable Content Marketing then leave your details and I'll get back to you.

Google Authorship - A Must for Guest Posting?

Google likes to display results with a nice little picture of the author, it has been proven to improve the amount of traffic generated on a Google search as it somehow invokes trust and intrigue. Another aspect to Google authorship is of course that the website you are writing on needs to have a Bio of the author and even perhaps an author page to reference to ensure the Authorship works. If you wish to improve traffic to your articles it makes sense to use Google Authorship, not to mention the chance that your authorship will generate cross article traffic if a person likes your work.

Difficulty of Google Authorship

A Lot of webmasters don't allow their guest posts to have Google Authorship which means that your work is not being accredited where it should be and it is not been given the exposure that perhaps it should be. This is down to the design of many websites making google authorship difficult to do without code. Most Webmasters offering guest posting want to be able to publish the work with the minimum amount of effort necessary. Another complexity is that if you own the publishing and you have access to your Google+ Profile then it means you can quickly check it is all working. If when publishing an article you need to check it is working then you will have to rely on the author adding this to their contributor list. This has led to a rise in the number of websites that prefer to have article series, weekly contribution or a long term relationship with authors, those which continue to run a one article guest post opportunity run the risk of being caught up in spam activity and penalised.

Benefits of Google Authorship - Video

Be Careful

Like anything on the internet you do not want to be affiliated with anything that is spammy or black hat so by giving authorship status to your guest posters you are in effect creating a link from your website to that individual. Whilst checking the links in a guest post are suitable is an obvious step when publishing you may also have cause to check out the author, ensure they are not going to be bad press for your website. Essentially Google wants to use Authorship ranking to eventually get web searches that are impacted by the trustworthy nature of the author. If for instance the author has three followers and only posted two bits of content this might be viewed as having less weight than someone who posts regularly and is well established on social media. This may sound unfair but what it will do is ensure that spammers are not given coverage and that is the ultimate aim in Google's plan. Identifying websites that are spam or black hat is a constant battle for Google and a tool in their arsenal is that most spammers do not have 'real' social media accounts, they have lots of links from bots or fake profiles (Something with social media is constantly looking to rid from their sites) and so authorship will play a vital role in not only ensuring good quality is recognised it will also be a valid tool for Google to get rid of more spam.

Click ads - Good or Bad for eCommerce Websites

For many businesses the world of Google ads is seen as something that is perhaps not the best idea. Why would you want an ad for a competitor on your website? Well there is many reasons to have ads placed on your website but make sure you do your homework.

Passive Income

The reason so many bloggers and article based websites use Google ads is because they provide an income in perpetuity and involve absolutely no effort. For blogs advertising is the only way to drive income so Google ads offers an easy to use income generator. Passive income streams are the golden goose for many home based writers allowing them time to pursue other interests with a background income.

Issue with eCommerce

The ads are driven by the content on the page picking up keywords to provide the reader with a valid  impression that may be tempting to click on. Of course if you have a page with your products listed featuring these ads it will likely feature competitors ads on your page. This may be off putting as customers may think you are also selling those products, but it can also be useful. Imagine the scenario where you have a really good quality item at a very competitive price, the ad would show a less favorable option and could drive up your sales, after all comparison prices are one of the biggest improvements that is driving customers online. If you have done your homework and know you are selling great items then you should not fear ads. If however you are a small operation or a very niche product you may find ads are either detrimental to your business or simply not appropriate.

Make Sure they Perform

The key to any ads is to check what they are showing on each page, ensure you can see that the ad is appropriate and if your not happy you may need to spend some time in your ad account setting this up. If you find you are getting more clicks but your sales have increased then you may want to keep them on your site, if however your sales fall and your clicks increase you have a competition problem and need to check it out. Maybe your price is too high, images not clear enough or your quality is not as high as others.

Of course the income from ad revenue is nice to have for small retailers but you need to do a full market research review before you embark on this. Keep an eye on your customers behaviour noting any changes in terms of conversion rate of sales or particular products that recieve higher click through

Content Marketing - The rise of racism online

The Internets big players all use the English language as default, it is the language of the internet and whilst many would argue there are others you cannot deny that if you don't write well in English then your work is doomed.

When you consider the global population it seems surprising that so much of the internet is dominated by English language sites and US and UK based content marketers can command the highest fees. Whilst there is an argument that exists around education standards being higher in western countries it is not always the case. Many webmasters and bloggers won't entertain any non UK or US based writers to do any paid work for them, whilst most countries these websites are hosted in have discrimination laws it amazes me how much casual racism goes on. Online job adverts are the last bastion of freedom to discriminate, allowing people to advertise for all different types of people, regardless of their ability to actually do the job somehow their country of residence or place of birth is a valid tool to exclude their application.

No one would argue that the distasteful way minorities were treated by both the US and UK until protected by law was a good way of operating. Signs in shop windows advertising jobs with the addendum of NO BLACKS ALLOWED were an all too common site. Having eradicated this problem it seems that deep entrenched racist view is quick to manifest itself when given the opportunity.

Pitching problems

If English is not your first language then you should always seek to improve your written ability. This can be done by engaging in social media discussions or perhaps just taking the time to ask for feedback from western bloggers.

If you are still struggling and finding a lot of your pitches are rejected why not use a western based editor to help with your work. This may mean your fee is reduced but after some experience you will find the need for an editor will reduce.

Having worked with a number of analysts and project managers from India in the financial sector the quality of work is never an issue, but there would always be some complaints about report writing or written communication being difficult to understand. This would often be considered a failing in their knowledge when in fact it was not the subject that caused them issue it was simply their ability to communicate that in a foreign language.

Payment Problems

Paypal is the mechanism of choice for most paid blogging sites, so living in a country with paypal restrictions render your opportunities useless. Due to the competitive nature of online writing why would any would be employer go to the effort of paying by other means when they have a queue behind you of people willing to accept paypal payments?

Exchange rates are another issue, often paypal offers some of the worst rates of exchange and this can mean over the course of a month that you are singificantly penalised compared to western bloggers. This exchange rate is yet another mechanism for the middle man to take a larger cut.

Accessing finance for any start up project you may have can prove difficult with credit card issuing and other bank lending not as accessible as the US and UK. These barriers to entry make starting up a new innovative tech company hugely complex.

There is no easy solution to this problem, as with many things online a few bad eggs have ruined the party for everyone. Scammers, spammers and criminals have given many countries a bad image that has resulted in restrictions of payment services offered to any would be paid blogger. Should these countries develop and grow more robust financial systems that protect against such fraud, prosecute and seek to eliminate these scams then they would surely be a boom in growth, unfortunately that is a long process so for today's generation you face a marketplace that is tougher than your western counterparts.

I am not advocating that webmasters should begin to accept poorer quality work just to appease those that would call racism, however I think that often there are judgements made not based on fact but on presumption. I am the first to reject an article that I deem to be poorly written and provide feedback as such, often the writer simply never responds but occasionally you will find someone who takes the time to correct their errors and I would like to think it helps to improve their writing going forward. All I am saying is that we should begin to be a more global and inclusive industry that seeks to help each other, move away from this secret society of black-hat tricks and discrimination.

I'd be interested to hear your views or stories from your own experience.