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Kategori: finance

  • Small Business Blog Marketing: What Does It Entail?

    Blog marketing can be quite complicated for anyone that has never even blogged before. If you are considering getting into small business blog marketing, you will want to first have a blog and see what that is like before you get into something more. 

    Blogging requires dedication and patience. You have to update your blog on a regular basis in order to keep your readers happy. 

    Doing so will keep them coming back for more and to see what you have new to say.
    Small business blog marketing consists of blogging about your business. 

    It definitely is a great tool that you should use to get your business out there and known by others. 

    However, you will need to be patient because it is a long process that will require much of your attention. Just because you have a blog does not mean that someone is going to find it and read it. You are going to have to make it known. 

    If you have a website for your business, you can link your blog to it and that will let the ones that know about your business and business website know about your blog as well.
    Small business blog marketing is something that anyone can do. Having a blog and keeping it up to date with the latest information is not hard. 

    All you need to have is a plan and you will be set to market any type of business from your blog. Whether you are selling a product or a service, it does not matter. 

    A blog that is marketed the right way will be beneficial to any business whatever it might be.
    So you are probably wondering how you are going to accomplish this small business blog marketing. When you are marketing a blog, you pretty much do it the same way that you would market a website. It is going to need keywords, and content. 

    You can write the content yourself, or pay someone else to write it for you. That part is totally up to you. 

    However you will want to be sure that the content is decent and something that your readers will want to read. 

    This will keep them coming back. Make sure that the content is written from special keywords that you choose. You will also want to become familiar with SEO which is Search Engine Optimization. SEO will help you to optimize your blog to get a better ranking with the search engines.
    Once you have chosen the keywords, and gotten some content published on your blog, you will be ready to get it out there some more. Link exchanges are wonderful for marketing your small business blog. 

    You want to try and exchange links with sites that are relevant to yours, but not in direct competition. If you try to exchange links with sites in competition with yours, you are going to find that many of them will turn you down in fear of losing business to you.
    Paid directories are a big part of small business blog marketing as well. 

    You can pay some directories to list your blog URL in their directory under the specific category that it falls under. 

    However, some of these even have specific qualifications that you must have to get in. Follow all of the application steps, and you should be ok. Just do not try to submit your blog to a directory that it does not qualify for, or fit in.
    Another important thing to remember when you are into small business blog marketing is that if anyone leaves you a comment  on your blog, you should acknowledge it and respond. 

    You can also comment on other blogs that are relevant to yours, and leave a link to your blog as well. This will help bring in visitors to your blog, and you will begin to see more and more traffic.
    Small business blog marketing is not rocket science, however someone that has never marketed a single thing before in their life may have problems. Just be persistent, and don’t give up.

  • Real Estate Investment Trust: Enabling you to be a part of the party

    Real estate is a big business and everyone seems to want to invest in real estate. You keep hearing a lot of stories about how people made a quick buck by investing in real estate.

    There are stories about people who made $50000 in a fortnight by making the right kind of investment in real estate.

    Every now and then, newspapers keep coming up with statistics about the appreciation in the real estate prices.

    There seems a mad rush for investing in real estate (and this gets even bigger when the mortgage interest rates are falling).

    However, not everyone has the time, money and expertise to be able to profitably invest in real estate. So what does one do? Is there any other option?

    Yes, there is another way of investing in real estate and that is through Real Estate Investment Trust.

    Real Estate Investment Trust is an organisation that invests in real estate as a full fledged business.

    By investing in a Real Estate Investment Trust, you can become part of the real estate investment party and enjoy profits (of course, the assumption here is that the Real Estate Investment Trust is good and professionally managed).

    Investing in Real Estate Investment Trust is very easy too. You can just buy Real Estate Investment Trust shares which trade on all major exchanges.

    There are certain laws governing the Real Estate Investment Trusts that help them avoiding the tax at corporate levels e.g. it is mandated that Real Estate Investment Trust’s portfolio has 75 percent of investment in real estate.

    Moreover, 75% of the income of Real Estate Investment Trust must be from rents or mortgage interest. There are various types of Real Estate Investment Trusts.

    Some Real Estate Investment Trusts own properties themselves and hence feed on the rental income from those properties.

    Some others indulge in providing only mortgage loans or go for mortgage backed securities. Then there are Real Estate Investment Trusts which do both i.e. rental focussed investments and mortgage based investments.

    There are a number of Real Estate Investment Trusts operating in the market and a lot of these Real Estate Investment Trusts are doing good business.

    By investing in Real Estate Investment Trust you are basically investing in real estate without actually buying a property yourself.

    This is one easy way of investing in real estate (and much safer too). You must surely evaluate this option for your real estate investments.

  • What is a ‘good credit card deal?’

    You must have heard people say – ‘I got a good credit card deal’. So if you happen to be looking for a credit card at that moment, do you just go with what your friend has told you as a good credit card deal?

    Let’s check what one can term as a good credit card deal. A credit card deal is good if it works for you. So, if the credit card fits into your lifestyle in a way that rakes in maximum benefits for you, that is a good credit card deal. The most important thing to realize here is the word ‘your’ as in ‘your lifestyle’.

    So logically speaking there is nothing like a good credit card deal. What it is – is good credit card deal for ‘you’ i.e. the individual who is going to use that credit card.

    This is because the lifestyle and the needs differ from person to person (and that is precisely the reason why every credit card supplier offers so many different kinds of credit cards).

    It might be true in some cases (where the lifestyle of two individuals/friends is similar) that the credit card deal which is good for one be good for the other too, however, this is just in a few cases.

    You can always check with your friend who has recently got a credit card deal, since that might cut down the time needed for researching/hunting-for a good credit card deal.

    However, it’s really a matter of evaluating your own needs. If you travel a lot and to far off places by air, a card that offers you good rewards/rebates/benefits on travel would comprise a good credit card deal.

    Sometimes the airlines themselves have their own credit card issuing/supplying company from where you can get a good credit card deal.

    For people shopping at a particular retail store or a shop, a good credit card deal would be a card that offers discounts, rebates and rewards on shopping. Again, the retail stores themselves might have credit cards on offer that could be beneficial to you.

    Then there are credit card deals that are linked to gasoline stores or big grocery chains.

    If you don’t have any specific needs, you might use a general purpose credit card that gives reward points on every purchase you make on your credit card.

    These points can then be redeemed for cash/rewards. Hence, this card could become a good credit card deal for you.

    Good, for credit card deals, is really a relative term and there is no credit card deal which is equally good for all.

  • The benefits from Credit card debt consolodation

    ‘Credit card debt consolodation’ seems to be the most talked-about term in the world of credit cards. It’s true that credit cards have been very useful and convenient for us and we, in fact, treat the credit cards as a necessity.

    However, with every good you have evil too. In the world of credit cards, ‘Credit card debt’ is that evil and ‘Credit card debt consolodation’ is often regarded as a medicine for treating credit card debt.

    Anyone who has read any newspaper articles on ‘Credit card debt’ would already know what credit card debt consolodation is.

    However, just for the benefit of others, credit card debt consolodation, in simple terms, is the process of consolidating debt which you hold on various high APR credit cards onto just one low APR credit card.

    Thus, the main benefit of credit card debt consolodation is realised in terms of APR reduction (and hence reduction in credit card debt growth rate).

    This is touted as the most important benefit (and sometimes the sole benefit) from credit card debt consolodation.

    However, credit card debt consolodation comes with few more benefits as well. Some of these credit card debt consolodation benefits are widely publicised by the credit card suppliers and some not so much:

    1. Initial APR: As mentioned above, lower APR is the biggest benefit from credit card debt consolodation.

    Since credit card debt consolodation is used by credit card suppliers as a tool to attract consumers, they generally offer a 0% APR for a initial period of 6-9 months of you joining their credit card debt consolodation programme i.e. first few months after you get the new credit card.

    2. Standard APR: Lower standard APR (i.e. the long term APR) is the other important benefit from credit card debt consolodation.

    Though not all credit card suppliers offer a lower standard APR with credit card debt consolodation some do design credit card debt consolodation programmes with good standard APR. These credit card debt consolodation programmes offer a trade-off between initial and standard APR rates.

    3. 0% on purchases: This is another common benefit from credit card debt consolodation.

    The 0% interest (or some lower percentage) on purchases is offered as an incentive for credit card debt consolodation. This credit card debt consolodation benefit is again applicable only for a short initial period.

    4. Easy management: This credit card debt consolodation benefit is not as discussed as others.

    However, one benefit of credit card debt consolodation (from multiple to single credit card) is the fact that you need to track and manage a lesser number of credit cards.

    5. Other benefits: The credit card debt consolodation exercise might bring you some more benefits in terms of rebates, discounts and reward points (especially if you move to a co-branded card as part of credit card debt consolodation)

  • Is business credit card helpful?

    ‘Yes’ –is the answer that’s comes out almost immediately. That is true at least for most businesses (especially small businesses). Before we delve deeper into how business credit cards are helpful, let’s try and understand what a business credit card is.

    Put simply, a business credit card is a credit card that is owned by a business and not an individual.

    To understand this better, you can simply draw an analogy between the business credit cards and business bank accounts, which are in the name of the business as well. Other than that, business credit cards work in pretty much the same fashion as the personal credit cards; with a few exceptions.

    These exceptions are in the form of flexibility in credit limit, low APRs and some other additional benefits that are available to business credit cards only.

    Even from just that, business credit cards seem a good proposition. However, business credit cards would be attractive even without those benefits because the main benefit lies elsewhere.  The big-big benefit from a business credit card is realised in terms of business expense accounting.

    For most small businesses, business expense accounting is a big overhead.

    With business credit cards, this is handled very easily – you just have to ensure that you make all your business expenses on your business credit card and let the personal expenses be on the personal credit card i.e. segregation of business and personal expenses is all you need to do.

    So the bill for your business credit card will have all the business expenses on it and you wouldn’t need to collate all the various bills or sort out the items from your personal credit card bill. The key here is to make sure that you use your business credit card for all your business expenses (or as much as you can).

    Moreover, a lot of business credit card suppliers realise this need of small business and even organise the business credit card bills in a way that meets the accounting requirements of these businesses.

    So mostly, they will appropriately group the expenses on the business credit card bill so as to facilitate business expense accounting.

    In fact, some of the business credit card suppliers go to an extent of providing the bills in a format that can be downloaded and exported to an accounting system i.e. you don’t need to enter the data manually in your accounting system.

    In case the format is not suitable for your accounting system, you can hire a software professional to write a small quick program to convert it into a suitable format.

    Thus just one reason – ‘facilitation of business expense accounting’, is enough to support the case of small business credit cards.

  • So many credit card offers, what to do?

    Just browse through the daily newspaper and you will be overwhelmed by the number of credit card offers advertised.

    Move around the town and you will find credit card offers being advertised everywhere. Same is the case is with television which seems to host a number of credit card offers too. So, the credit card offers are there everywhere.

    Why are there so many credit card offers? Well, quite simply because credit card business is a highly profitable business for the credit card suppliers.

    In this situation, when there is no dearth of credit card offers, which is the best credit card offer?

    There is nothing like a best credit card offer, really. A better question to ask would be – ‘Which credit card offer is the best for me?’ The spending habits of one person are different from that of another person.

    Their living styles vary and hence their needs vary too.

    So for deciding on which credit card offer is best for you, you need to evaluate your needs vis-à-vis your lifestyle and your spending habits (and not go just by the recommendation of someone). For example, if you frequently travel by air, a co-branded airline credit card might be more suited to you than the general purpose one.

    These airline credit cards offer discounts, rebates and other kind of rewards when the credit card is used for making payments (the rewards are even higher when these credit cards are used for paying for the airline tickets or other airline products).

    Similarly, if you have a favourite retail store where you do a lot of your shopping, it would be beneficial to check if the retailer is a credit card supplier too and if there is a credit card offer that suits you.

    A lot of big retail chains do offer co-branded credit cards to their customers and these credit cards offer rebates/discounts etc when they are used for making payments at the retail store. As such, you get reward points for making payments at any place but the rewards are higher on the payments made at retail store. 

    On similar lines, we have credit cards for gas stations and grocery stores too, which you can opt for if you have a favourite gas station or a favourite grocery store where you shop a lot.

    So, if you look around, you will find a lot of lucrative credit card offers. However, this doesn’t mean that you enrol for all the credit card offers.

    You need to first evaluate your needs and rank them.

    Then you need to evaluate what all credit card offers suit your needs. And finally you can make your choice and go for a credit card offer that covers most of your needs and gives maximum benefits.

  • Is it ok to apply online for credit card?

    With the fast pace of our everyday lives, we don’t have time for anything really. This is where the combined power of commerce and technology comes in.

    The capability to apply online for a credit card is one such example.

    Yes, you can apply online for a credit card. The revolution behind providing you with the ability to ‘apply online for credit card’ is called ‘internet’. 

    You can not only apply online for credit card but also use your credit card to do online shopping (and get the goods delivered to your door at no extra cost compared to the local store).

    So, it is possible to apply online for a credit card.

    To apply online for credit card, you just have to fill-in an application form that is presented to you on the website of the credit card supplier (who provides the capability to apply online for credit card).

    This application form is very similar to the one you would have filled-in in person – the details asked are same and the processing of the application is same too.

    You will find that a lot credit card companies encourage you to apply online for credit card.

    This is because they save on the costs related to salary of representatives, paper, etc.

    Moreover, when you apply online for credit card, your details can smoothly flow into the database of the credit card supplier i.e.

    the manual intervention is minimal when you apply online for credit card. This will in turn lead to faster processing of your application.

    Though it is not necessarily true, if you apply online for credit card, your credit card might reach you much faster. Moreover, if you apply online for credit card, you save on all the time and hassle associated with approaching a credit card company etc etc.

    You can compare the credit cards (again online) before you apply online for credit card.

    Some people don’t like to apply online for credit card. The main reason is their discomfort in giving out the personal information online.

    One quick check, before you apply online for credit card, is to see if the website address of the page (where you are required to enter your details) starts with ‘https’.

    ‘Https’ indicates that it’s a secure website (you might also check if the security certificate is provided by a reputed organisation e.g. Verisign).

    If you don’t see an https, you should not apply online for credit card of that company. 

    Besides that, some people don’t apply online for credit card because they are not comfortable in filling up the form all by themselves.

    In such a case, you might either not apply online for credit card (and apply in person instead); or you might just go through the form, note down your questions/problems and seek the answers by calling the customer service centre of the credit card company.

    So, applying online for credit card is surely a good option.

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