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The conventional office set up may soon become a thing of the past as virtual assistant services begin to make more and more sense for organisations of all sizes. Simply from an efficiency perspective, it just doesn’t make much sense to dedicate your operations to “back office” employees, resources and equipment, along with all the additional expenses and overhead that a back office requires. Employing staff is generally the most significant expense for a business owner, and it invariably comes with an extra set of restrictions, liabilities, commitments and problems.

Over recent years, virtual assistant services have emerged to provide the business owner with by far the most efficient way of administering his or her operation. Now it is no longer necessary to hire a personal assistant or back office staff when you engage the services of a competent virtual assistant company.

Can you afford to not investigate at least a few virtual assistant services? Invest some time during a quiet moment and make a list of all the administrative functions that your business typically calls for and you will be surprised at how long the list is. Pencil in the job description and calculate how much time is involved with each task. Highlight the specific skills required and make notes on how you currently handle all these elements. Most businesses have to rely on a fairly extensive list of administrative tasks simply to operate. Also, in our present economy, internet-based activities are essential if you’re looking to effectively communicate with your clients or customers, engage in social media promotions or market your business to the world.

When you make a note of your total administrative and back office costs, make sure that you include all the “hidden” costs, including all those employee benefits you are responsible for, the true cost of your office space rental, insurances and the depreciation costs and maintenance schedules of all that equipment.

Virtual assistant services can take care of all your administration and Internet needs, very cost effectively. You can engage these services on a piecemeal basis or as a comprehensive approach to your overall commitments. Most virtual assistant services, even those that may be somewhat geographically remote from your location, will ensure that they are readily available according to your typical office hours. Due to the speed of Internet connections and a variety of communication methods available through the Web, the virtual assistant can be as close as that personal assistant in your next-door office.

When selecting virtual assistant services, it pays to do your due diligence and to look for testimonials and reviews. You are not necessarily limited to using a VA in your area, of course. To make sure that the match is right for you, you could ask the VA to consider a trial, including only specific elements of their service at the beginning, so that you can see if it all works out to your expectations.

Some may consider website development services to be somewhat revolutionary, but they are sure to become an essential part of the business environment in the years ahead!

A lot of successful websites depend on returning visitors to account for a major part of their traffic. Returning visitors are easier to convert into paying customers because the more often they return to a site, the more trust they have in that site. If you have a good base of loyal customers then you do not need to prove yourself so much. You can add tools onto your website that will help you with keeping customers and a web designer can add these for you. You can find some brilliantly creative designers in web design Leeds based companies.

1) Use A Chat room
Setting up a chat room or forum as part of your website can let your customers interact with each other and with your brand. As conversations build up, a sense of community will also follow and your visitors will come back to your site almost religiously every day.

2) Put A Blog On The Site
Keep an online journal, or more commonly known as a blog, on your site and keep it updated with latest news about yourself. People like to keep up to date with stories from their favourite brands and so will keep returning for more information. You will also build up your credibility as you are proving to them that there is also a real life person behind the website.

4) Hold Quizzes and Games
Just imagine how many office workers procrastinate at work every day, and you will be able to gauge how many people will keep visiting your site if you provide a very interesting or addicting way of entertainment. You can also hold competitions to award the high score winner to keep people trying continuously to earn the prize.

5) Keep Content Fresh
Update your site frequently with fresh content so that every time your visitors come back, they will have something to read on your site. This is the most widely known and most effective method of attracting returning visitors, but this is also the least carried out one because of the laziness of webmasters. No one will want to browse a site that looks the same over ten years, so keep your site updated with fresh bites.

Bookkeeping is a constant struggle and an ongoing battle for most smaller businesses these days. Sure, the business receives money from clients and pays for equipment, but as far as the bookkeeping goes, it may be a drawer in the office with literally stacks of uncategorised paper receipts. The virtual assistant bookkeeper sorts through these papers to sort out the books.

It comes down to the simple fact that someone has to do the record keeping. In a small online business, that person is generally the owner. If they don’t have time during the day, then after they have dealt with other issues, it’s time to record some numbers. This makes for a very long day, often.

Everyone knows that more than one business has ended up completely bankrupt because of bad bookkeeping. It often happens that one day, the owner looks up and sees that they have sucked their resources dry. If you don’t keep accurate records, you can also run into a serious situation with the tax collector and nobody wants to face this!

If the business owner does not have a certain expertise, they should hire somebody to do this for them. For small businesses, hiring a bookkeeper is not just about interviewing a multitude of individuals and then choosing one from the masses. If an employer has to pay for health insurance as is often the case these days, as well as other employee related costs, then a lot of additional money can be spent, which the company may not have.

Another solution – a better one, is hiring a virtual assistant. When a virtual assistant is hired, the business doesn’t have to worry about space, sick time or insurance. All they need to do is pay for services rendered and don’t worry about anything else. In today’s economy, this is most definitely a very smart business move.

Without putting too fine a point on it, a virtual assistant bookkeeper is a very hot commodity in today’s economy. They provide a much needed service for small and large businesses. If they have the right amount of knowledge and experience they can easily keep on top of business account maintenance for someone else.

These are some of the services such a VA could offer:

• Payroll
• The reconciliation of accounts
• Recordkeeping on a daily basis
• The recording of transactions in their ledgers
• Month-end statements
• Software and bookkeeping management

Just imagine all of the time and energy they can save each business owner. After such a VA has recorded all the receipts that the client gives them, they could let the client know how much cash is available ongoing. Bookkeepers can also invoice account holders for work to be done and finished jobs.

This sort of business can be conducted in a number of different ways, some even through website development. As an example, with local clients, they can mail their receipts in regularly for help, or they can scan them using office equipment and forward them via the Internet. A VA can then work on all this information using bookkeeping software and send it back to the client as an e-mail attachment. With online clients, a VA can reconcile the information that the client provides with the account records.

Such an individual can feel good, as a virtual assistant bookkeeper, about the service that is provided for business owners. Staying ahead in financial matters is at the crux of business success. As a good manager, a VA’s work can give business owners additional peace of mind.

By now, you have heard of search engine optimisation and seo services. It’s the process of using keywords to draw targeted traffic to your online business. But what about keyword phrases? They can bring in even more lucrative traffic.

Keywords are used in content, web page headlines and the like to gain interest from the major search engines. Once you register your website development with them, their little soldiers (bots/spiders) go to work checking out what you have to offer. If you select very specific words that your customers will likely specify when they look for your site, then your content will probably appear within the all-important primary page of results. This means that you will be the first link anyone sees for those words.

Remember that website content should not just be readable. It is also a way to attract the “right” visitors in the first place. It is very important that you use the right keywords across your site, so that you gain the acceptance of the search engines and become visible.

Doing your Homework.

You didn’t leave your homework behind when you finished school. If you are in business then you will always be learning, so long as you want to go as far as you possibly can. To that end, it is time to do a little homework for your content – keyword research.

Now, you don’t have to be stellar at research in order to get this done and get it done right. Keyword research is finding the words that will rank your content and your website head and shoulders above the rest. Are you ready? Let’s start.

Engaging in Keyword Research.

There are a few things that you can do:

1. Create a list of words. You must put yourself in the shoes of your customer. If you were them, what word would you use to help find your site? Write down as many as you can. Better yet, record them in an electronic spreadsheet for easier editing later. Choose single words and multiple word phrases.

2. Ask your customers. You have existing customers. Survey them to find out how they found you. If it was through an Internet search ask what words they used. Many business owners will look past this solution as it seems too easy, or they don’t ask the correct questions.

3. Use keyword software tools. These tools can be very helpful once you have your list of possible keywords. By entering the keywords, the software will tell you if they are likely to be good enough to reach your prospects.

4. Analyse the data. From your list, whittle down to just the keywords that are likely to get you what you want. Now rank these keywords, first to last.

5. Try them out. Use them one at a time and always keep records of what you used and when. Using website management tools you can find out how much traffic and conversion (how many people used your keyword content as a means to do something – click, sign up, or buy) rates changed.

So, are you ready? You obviously already use content, but maybe it isn’t working well enough. Make your content work by using keywords well.

Michelle Dale is The Managing Director of Virtual Miss Friday, an accomplished Executive Virtual Assistant Service which helps companies of all sizes reach their commercial targets. Want to get more information about online business building success strategies that really work? Contact VMF today!

If you’re convinced that conducting business online is the way forward, then you need to go about setting up your presence through website development as effectively as possible. There are many website creation fundamentals in common, when you set up an eCommerce website. So for the moment, let’s get back to basics.

Before you even think about doing anything else, a decision has to be made about what type of website you’d like to create. Will you have a virtual storefront? Will this be a strictly informational content website? Are you considering the idea of combining the two? What about a marketplace kind of overall structure?

Keep in mind that your domain name represents who you are online, and it says something about your business too. If you have a brand that you have established in the “real” world, you should try and make sure that the domain name matches this brand name. However, if you conduct all your business online, you can choose anything that you want. You just need to avoid anything that is already in existence and you can start off by doing a “search” online to see what is available.

After a name is determined, now you need to worry about how people will come across you. Registering your website with search engines gives your content and web pages a chance to be ranked in search engine results. To start off with, use tailored keywords that are a bit less common in search parameters, but highly specific to your products or services, such a long tail keywords, within your content and throughout the website. Always keep in mind that a top-notch online business consulting firm will be able to help you, if you need assistance with any of these details.

Who will host your website? Choose a web host that offers other services like website maintenance, easy-to-use templates and other perks. For the price, get as much space as you can for creating pages and information storage.

If you are selling products on your eCommerce site, this is already well covered and you will find ready-made processes. A virtual storefront is one of your first tasks. Put all your products here, so that customers can look through and decide what they want. You will need to ensure that people get to trust your operation and that they have enough information, so that they are converted from potential buyers into actual ones.

Often, a description is not sufficient to convert the customer to action. Use your own images of products on the website instead of stock photos. For rapid viewing, you will need to compress the photos – so anyone, even someone using a dial-up connection can see them fast.

Remember that you need to give customers a way to set aside their items as they continue shopping through your storefront. That’s where shopping baskets and carts come into play.

And, just like in a regular store, payment types have to be specified as well as verified. A huge variety of software solutions and online help is available to help you set this all up and get ready to conduct eCommerce trade.

Any online business consulting firm will tell you that creating the website is just the tip of the iceberg. Once you get started, a large variety of great features can be initiated, as you develop your website to such a degree that people cannot wait to do business with you here!

When you think of website development and selling products online, most people envision getting a big box delivered by the postman to their front door. Physical products are not the only ones sold by online businesses. These days, digital products are a hot commodity in the eCommerce market.

You have to do a lot to get your website ready if you plan on selling physical items, and apply real online business management skills. You will need to create graphics to show what they look like, set up appropriate landing pages, engage in comprehensive marketing and establish a working shopping cart, so that the customer’s demands are met. When it comes to selling digital products, however, a different approach is taken.

Digital products can be delivered in two different ways, via the mail or as an instant download to the buyer’s desktop. The download solution is often preferred by online organisations, as delivery is rather easy and no real inventory needs to be stored, other than the initial files.

However, how can you ensure that the customer receives the products in a secure fashion, and that you don’t get “scammed” in the process?

These are some of the things you need to think about:

Methods of Payment

The issue of e-payments is still an issue with digital products. After all, the consumer pays when he or she buys the item, just like any other transaction. If you want to accept credit card payments, you will need:

• An Internet Merchant Account
• A Merchant Bank Account
• A Payment Gateway Account

A payment receipt still needs to be generated for your records and also for the customer, in case something should go wrong with the download process. Don’t forget that charge backs can be initiated by credit card companies, when digital products are purchased using their cards.

A “person-to-person” payment solution, also known as third party P2P is common for digital situations. Look at PayPal as an example. To create an account, a customer or business owner just needs an email address to associate with the account and a bank account for verification. On your website, payments are transacted by entering an email address. The customer is directed to their PayPal account where they securely sign-in. At this point they will be asked if they want to make the transaction, or not. When this is complete, they are sent back to the product website for confirmation.

You can opt to store your digital products in a special directory online which is protected by a password system. This is to keep unauthorised individuals from accessing it. In simple terms, you would just give the customer the login and password details after they have paid, together with the appropriate link to the product they’re interested in. Make sure that you tell your customers not to give the link to anybody else! There are additional security measures however and if you’re willing to put in more time and effort, or get an expert online business management firm to do this for you, attaching a timer of some kind to the download link will help you out.

If you don’t want to organise it this way, you can use digital download systems that offer you everything you need to conduct your digital product business for a monthly fee. Head to ClickBank at www.clickbank.com or PayLoadz at www.payloadz.com, for more information.

Digital products are hot right now. Setting up a digital product eCommerce business means low overhead and more profit. Use a system that allows you to “quickly and easily” get your products to customers and their payments to you.

Around the world, the Internet has certainly created new life in business commerce, through website development. It has also opened up a new way for criminals to steal your information and your life. Customers are being very careful about the websites that they go to and how they disseminate their information.

Any seo consulting firm will tell you to build a client base, before you really begin serious internet marketing, as you will want to build a list of some sort. List building is a marketing strategy to connect with more potential customers. You have the option of setting up direct marketing or e-mail campaigns. Creating your own list will yield a far more focused group of potential customers than simply buying one.

Business owners like you generally use opt-ins to help generate this list. Ask visitors to provide email addresses and other information to receive newsletters, coupons or other freebies. At the bottom of your opt-in pages, be sure to use a disclaimer statement. Essentially, you are assuring these people that you will not share their information with other parties. If it will be shared, it’s essential that you clearly specify which information and for exactly what purpose. If you think you could use some advice, consider professional seo consulting services, to help with website security, and ranking advancement.

There are different types of security measures that you can take to protect your virtual storefront. This is so important, as the customer’s information has to be shielded from everybody else, must not be open to alteration or tampering, whilst going through the process of authentication and receipt. Make sure that you digitally reproduce information that will tell your clients about the type of security used. It’s like hanging a certificate behind the counter in a physical store.

A digital signature helps you to ensure that both the sender and the receiver are authentic. When making a transaction you can ask for a password as a digital signature. Sometimes you come across boxes that will ask you to reproduce a jumbled mix of numbers or letters into an appropriate box. That can be used to verify who you are.

You put a digital signature on your storefront, didn’t you? Customers can verify that you are who you claim to be using that certificate. This prevents you from being “had” by bogus merchants wanting your money.

The acronym SSL means “secure socket layer.” Look for an icon of a padlock, or even those exact initials on any given webpage. You can click on the lock to view certificates and find out if the website is actually encrypted. Behind the scenes, information is encrypted using a public key and a private key. Technically speaking, the public element is used to encrypt and a private one used to decrypt. From the customer to the server, to your server to the payment gateway, and the credit card issuer, several layers of security come into play.

If you want to keep any potential hackers out, firewalls are your best defence. You may have one on your personal computer. Make sure that you have a firewall on your website, so that others cannot access any customer data that may be stored on your server.

From both the point of view of the customer and your own business interests, pay particular attention to security. You have the technology at your disposal to keep your customer data safe from the ever-growing number of online criminals.

Do you have an active interest in eCommerce and website development? It is very prevalent today and will remain so for the future. Technology allows businesses to conduct their transactions online, as another way of doing business.

You might be wondering what you can achieve through eCommerce online? There is much more to it than just simply sales. In the section that follows we will detail how your website can be used for a number of different purposes, depending on how you have your organisation set up.

When you come across company websites online, these are classified as “virtual storefronts.” With a transactional site like this, you can do everything in one place. It gives new meaning to the term “one-stop shopping.” Shoppers can shop at a virtual store much like they would at a physical one.

In the online example, menus are available, allowing you to search and locate what you require within the various categories of products. Once items have been selected, they can be placed in a virtual basket or shopping cart. When you are done, you can pay for your item using the website’s eCommerce interface and get a receipt for your transaction.

Virtual storefronts are used to sell any number of items. There are virtually no restrictions, as you are only limited to what you can realistically deliver to your customers and still make money.

If you come across a website that is set up as one of the information sites, the primary goal is to convince you to make a purchase elsewhere. Companies with physical stores can use this type of website to advertise for their products. The biggest organisations can use this type of online presence to develop general interest in their business. And don’t forget, an expert online business consulting firm can “shed some light” on what you need to do to really succeed!

One of the main reasons that people surf the Internet is to find good information. Let’s say that you wanted to buy a car but didn’t want to spend the entire day – and half a tank of gas, driving to dealerships. Instead, visiting quality informational websites for cars can assist you greatly in your potential car purchasing decisions.

These sites provide content on the products, like cars, that they sell. Visitors can see pictures and/or videos of the products as well as descriptions, pricing and location information.

You will have heard about eBay, an example of marketplaces online. Very few people have not heard of the power of eBay. In a marketplace eCommerce setting, a smart middleman brings sellers and buyers together to transact business. In such instances, items for sale can be purchased directly or through a bidding process, just as with eBay.

In this arena, there are several businesses working in one area at the same time. Because it’s the virtual world, there is always plenty of room for expansion into bigger spaces as your business grows. These sites are so valuable as almost everything you need to engage in eCommerce is graphically presented in front of you.

Just remember that you need to work out what style of website is most appropriate for you, before you start. As any decent online business consulting firm will tell you, online businesses can use one or more of these types of websites to flesh out their business, and achieve a high level of visibility to the maximum amount of potential consumers.

In this day and age, business is doing a pretty good job of catching up to the technology which has been created for it. eCommerce within website development is a particular case in point. You should definitely pay attention here and we will tell you why.

eCommerce is simply the term for conducting business online. There are many ways to transact such business. Take a moment and think of how you generally conduct business in the physical world. You go to the bank to make withdrawals and deposits; you visit the grocery store or retail shops to make purchases; you go to the gas station to fill up your car’s tank. Each of these activities represents a specific commercial transaction.

Businesses also conduct transactions between one another. They engage in various services and often purchase or rent gear. Companies usually send invoices to be paid at a later date instead of asking for upfront payment.

In the virtual world of online business development, commerce is conducted in much the same way with the use of a variety of technologies to meld it all together. There are a number of reasons why eCommerce is so wildly popular these days, for example:

• Convenience
• Speed of transactions
• Large numbers of businesses and consumers are using eCommerce methods

For a company to be successful, it must attract as many clients as it can. We know that people go online to do more than just surf around and businesses have recognised this opportunity, to help them push their sales forward. But, just like anything else that’s new, they have to gain their customers’ trust. This is at the core of establishing a business online.

Online businesses which have no physical location and exist solely on the Internet, rely entirely on eCommerce for their livelihood. Physical businesses have discovered that eCommerce can expand their markets throughout a global market (depending on their product line of course). There is quite simply a world of opportunities available, with endless possibilities open according to your niche — and an untapped, potentially worldwide client base.

While this can seem to be very daunting and it’s important not to get too far ahead of yourself and start dreaming about a massive windfall of cash, remember that selling on the Internet may seem fairly straightforward, but can have a lot of twists and turns. It is very important to know what you are doing when you are trying to create a successful business, so that you avoid putting a lot of effort into something that does not make a lot of money.

There are an array decisions to be made before even considering the act of embarking on the eCommerce ship. Planning and strategy are absolutely essential at this point, but, to your advantage, there are many resources which are widely available to get you going in the right direction.

Take the time to really use the resources at your disposal. If you invest your time wisely, they can help you to do everything from online marketing to setting up the type of website development that you need to conduct your online business development professionally, to choosing the right product line to successfully market online.

Does it bother you when you’re looking for a product to buy and you get routed through several web pages before you even see a picture of the product? Nobody wants to have to do this. If you want visitors to turn into customers, creating an eCommerce website development that is easy to navigate is of paramount importance.

Think of the navigation that’s on an airplane or on a ship. The navigational system lets you know that you are heading where you want to go. It must, of course, alert you when you’re going in the wrong direction, too.

Site maps are very important navigational tools for your web presence. A site map lists the breakdown of where you can find useful information on the site. There will be a variety of headings and hyperlinks pointing to those locations. Visiting a site map can take the customer to the general area or the specific place that they want to go.

With online business marketing, there is a rule that many of the “clued-in” website owners follow: Take fewer than three clicks to reach any destination. It is said that the customer who is made to work too much in this way, will quickly look for a site that is more user-friendly. Poorly navigated sites lose plenty of business before their product is even seen.

From the homepage to the product page needs to be a very short trip. Set up your site so that it has drop down menus, is easy to read, has well labelled buttons and other features that ensure that your site is truly user-friendly. When the cursor moves around the page and comes across a clickable link, it should change colour or turn into an icon of a hand. Testing your links and pages before going live avoids any faulty links that lead to products.

When you advertise on other websites, you include links to your website. If you are showcasing your products, you will want to link not to the homepage but to a landing page. The landing page is used so that the potential client goes directly to where the product is. If you draw an analogy with a supermarket, the landing page could take the client to the general location in your virtual storefront if you have a category of different products available. The customer can then click and read a detailed description or simply click and buy if they wish.

Your landing page can be an informational page. Content can be contained therein, which describes the product, attached to a clickable button that links to the virtual store. For eCommerce businesses that want to use customer interest to create email lists, the landing page can include a form for capturing that information before proceeding to the actual product.

You will certainly have a much greater chance of selling something if it is easy to find. When you are creating your website, set up and design your pages with the goal of making it easier to link them all together, and don’t forget, that if you ever need any assistance with design or online business marketing strategies, a professional virtual assistant is just a quick Google search away!