Quicken Home Business | Home Business Ideas

Must Have WordPress Plugins

Quick Home Business - Feb 16, 2018 Comments Off

Any web developer will tell you that no WordPress website is complete without a full suite of different plugins. WordPress plugins are basically tools which help you monitor your website, perform menial tasks, and which can provide helpful insight into your content and visitor trends.

With that in mind, we have compiled a list of the top five WordPress plugins:

Yoast SEO

Modern search algorithms are becoming more and more complex. With increasing competition every day, it is becoming harder and harder for websites to get themselves into the top search engine results. Yoast SEO (Search engine optimisation) is a great WordPress tool which can provide SEO insights and suggestions with regards to your sites content. It can help you craft content which will perform well in search engine ratings. Any website on the first page of Google for a popular keyword is bound to do well – use Yoast to help yourself get there!

Slack

If you are building some sort of website which aims for community involvement, then you may want to consider using a plugin like Slack. Slack allows you to communicate with people from around the world, and can be integrated directly into your website. It is extremely convenient, and can be used in conjunction with a suite of other tools.

Web Design

Essential Criteria For Choosing A Web Design Company

Quick Home Business - Dec 28, 2017 Comments Off

Assuming you are following the established and sensible advice that you should not design and build your website yourself, you should now be considering which skills, talents and services a web design company should be able to offer you.

Before you choose any of them here are some of the core factors you should take into consideration.

#1 Programming and Functionality

No matter how stunning the graphics might be across your site, they are worthless if the website doesn’t function properly. Nothing will have visitors to your site leaving quicker than pages, links and other functions that do not work. It is not only frustrating for visitors but the impression it gives them of you and your business is entirely negative. Ensure any web designer you are considering can show you evidence that their programming skills are at a sufficient level for the needs of your website’s operation.

#2 Copywriting

If your web design company has copywriters that can work on the copy within your site it can be a huge bonus. So many businesses lose out because they fail to see the benefits of well-written copy on all their site’s pages. Good copy will keep visitors on your site for longer, and will certainly be more effective in getting them to take action such as subscribing to your email list or making a purchase.

Digital Marketing

5 Ways To Segment Your Email Subscriber Lists

Quick Home Business - Dec 3, 2017 Comments Off

Email marketing is a powerful and effective way to communicate with your subscribers and promote your products. There are many marketers who simply add subscribers to their lists week in week out and send out generic emails to each and every one of them. The problem with this is that sending the same message or promotion to everyone means that it will not resonate with many of them and so the email is effectively wasted.

The solution to this is to segment your subscriber list into sub-lists so that you can tailor specific messages to each group for maximum effectiveness. There are several ways you can segment your list, but here are 5 which tend to get the best results.

#1 Buyers of Specific Product Lines

Some marketers segment merely between buyers and prospects and whilst it is step in the right direction you should go even further. If you have several product lines, you should segment buyers by which ones they purchased so that you promote other products to them instead of the ones they have already bought.

#2 Open Rates

Your email autoresponder service should have the capacity to give you data which will include the frequency with which each subscriber opens your emails. Knowing this will allow you to send differently crafted emails to the segments which do open regularly compared to those that don’t. The objective is to improve your open rates amongst the latter group.

Digital Marketing

Five Of The Best Tools For SEO Research

Quick Home Business - Nov 2, 2017 Comments Off

Being able to carry out SEO research is vital if you are trying to rank your own website higher, or are an SEO expert working on behalf of clients. Having as much relevant information as possible will allow you to make more accurate assessments of the actions you need to take, especially in relation to keywords, backlinks and the competition. Here are five of the most popular SEO tools in use today.

#1 SEMrush: SEMrush is one of the most popular tools in the search engine optimisation arena, and most SEO experts have it as part of their research toolbox. It provides in-depth information and data on several parameters which include keywords research, organic rankings, video advertising, backlinks and paid advertising such as PPC and PPV.

SEMrush’s research results can be presented in many ways, including data tables, reports and graphs which are particularly useful when you need to present your findings to colleagues or clients.

Digital Marketing

How To Make A Connection With Your Email Subscribers

Quick Home Business - Sep 30, 2017 Comments Off

Talk to any seasoned exponent of email marketing about the best way to make it effective and they’ll tell you that you need to create a relationship with your subscribers. The question is, how can you do that?

If you are just starting an online business, unless you have an extremely large amount of financial backing or investment, it is likely you are starting the business yourself or possibly with a partner. This is a perfect opportunity for you to connect with your subscribers right away.

This can be done in several ways but one of the most effective is to add a personal touch to your emails instead of making them all business talk from start to finish. In other words, let your email subscriber know that there is a real person behind these emails.

If you feel comfortable doing so, you might want to add in a little bit of your personal life, by mentioning you partner, kids, family, friends or even your pets. Don’t go overboard with this but remember your subscribers are like the rest us, and so they love hearing other people’s news, especially if it’s interesting.

Digital Marketing

Two Primary Ways Social Media Helps Expand Your Business

Quick Home Business - Apr 2, 2017 Comments Off

If you have a new or existing business and have not yet started to formulate your social media marketing strategy, then the first question you must answer is ‘Why not?’.

It may be that you have not yet realised all the ways that social media can help expand your business and therefore do not see the need to use it. This leaves you at a huge disadvantage, especially when it is more than likely that competitors in your niche are using social media to gain customers that might otherwise have been yours.

To give you an insight into benefits of social media, here are two of the ways it can help you build and expand your business.

The first benefit is that it is very cost effective in comparison to traditional marketing methods. For many businesses advertising is one of their highest costs, so it is understandable that there may be some reluctance to start paying for social media marketing. The crucial point here is that initially, social media marketing need not cost you much at all. Creating your profiles, and building your following can be done with a very small budget and the return on this small investment can be huge.

Digital Marketing

How Branding Can Be Heard As Well As Seen

Quick Home Business - Oct 2, 2016 Comments Off

Ask any person to describe branding to you, and they’ll most likely talk about logos, graphics, colours and web design, and they are not wrong. But what they, and more importantly what many business people overlook is that branding can be about more than just what people can see.

What you must realise is whilst visual branding such as logos is important for a company or business it is also possible to use audio as well to build brand awareness.

Just think of the number of companies who you can instantly recognise, simply by hearing a short piece of music, a voice, a tone or some other sound. A couple of prime examples are the four notes that you hear at the end of an Intel ad, and how about ‘I’m loving it’, being sung after McDonald’s have told you about their latest meal deal.

If you go to the movies you are bound to know that when you hear the snare drums and trumpets start playing it’s going to be a 20th Century Fox movie on the screen, and another movie company proves you don’t even need music to have an instantly recognisable audio. We are of course, referring to Leo the lion roaring twice, before the intro of every MGM movie.

Web Design

The Simplest eCommerce Platforms for Beginners

Quick Home Business - Feb 13, 2016 Comments Off

As the internet continues to expand and grow its capabilities, more and more people are starting remote or online businesses. Starting an online store is now easier than ever with a range of eCommerce platforms and dropship providers, and all you need is a few dollars and some marketing smarts.

One of the most important things when opening a new online store is getting the right eCommerce platform. Some platforms are made for large businesses or experienced designers, while others are much simpler, designed to be used by normal people who have a bit of an entrepreneurial streak.

With this in mind, here are the best eCommerce platforms for people starting their first online store:

Shopify:

I think that Shopify would top anyone’s list of the simplest eCommerce platforms out there. It is designed to help you create your online store with the least amount of fuss possible, even if you aren’t really very technologically minded. Shopify is adaptable to any business of any size. It boasts over 1000 apps which you can use to increase the success of your store. Best of all, it’s simple!

Web Design

Single Page vs Multi Page Web Design – The Pros and Cons

Quick Home Business - Mar 16, 2015 Comments Off

In the past, multi-page web designs dominated the internet. Some websites even opted to split single articles or topics into multiple pages to keep the amount of content presented at any one time to a minimum. However, one-page website designs have begun to grow in popularity in recent times, with most quality designers offering both options.

Both single and multi-page website designs have their pros and cons, and both styles have particular function which make them attractive to certain people. When designing your website, it is important to consider both styles to decide which will have the greatest impact on your target audience. We have outlined the major pros and cons of both styles below. Hopefully they will help you get started on your web design journey:

Multi-page design:

Almost everyone is familiar with multi-page website designs. The standard layout involves a number of pages, each covering a particular topic or part of a topic, and each accessible via a home page and/or menu bar. Multi-page web design is generally used when people have a lot of content to present, but can detract from the main focus of a website (if there is one).

Digital Marketing

Content Marketing – the How, What, and Why

Quick Home Business - Feb 22, 2014 Comments Off

The modern world of marketing revolves around digital marketing and its many advertising opportunities. Although things like social media marketing and pay per click advertising work extremely well and can drive visitors directly to your website, content marketing is also something that you should seriously consider using.

What is content marketing?

Basically, content marketing involves creation and distribution of high quality content on the internet. The idea is to create valuable content which people will read and share on social media. This helps your name get out there, and is especially valuable if you own a website or online store which is based on a high traffic volume.

It is important to note that content used for content marketing must be things which people want to look at or read. This differs from most advertising methods in that people are engaging with your content voluntarily, rather than having ads forced on them. Think about what you are including in your content, how you are creating it, and how you are going to disperse it.

Digital Marketing

What The Search Engines Look For In A Website

Quick Home Business - Jun 24, 2013 Comments Off

Ask anyone if they know what the search engines are looking for when they analyse a website, and 90% of the answers you’ll get will be a shrug of the shoulders. Those with a knowledge of SEO will give you better answers but they can vary between the oversimplified to the downright confusing, and everything in between.

Other than the search engines themselves, nobody can be 100% sure of every single element that the search engines look at, how it assesses them, and the importance it places upon them. To be fair to the search engines they do publish information that gives webmasters and businesses some of the core answers they need to ensure any website they are using is as SEO friendly as it can be.

There is also a lot of research that takes place, mainly by SEO agencies who create hundreds of websites, in order to analyse what happens to their ranking following specific changes which are made to that site. The information given out by the search engines plus the published research has established there are four basic elements which contribute to the ranking of any website.

Website Hosting

5 Tips for Choosing a Hosting Provider

Quick Home Business - Sep 30, 2012 Comments Off

There are many, many web hosting providers out there. Some of these offer great services at affordable rates, while others are really pretty average. Choosing the right provider can be difficult if you don’t know what to look for, and poor-quality web hosting companies have been the downfall of many fine entrepreneurs in the past.

Our top five tips for choosing the best hosting provider for your needs include:

Look closely at their reputation:

The reputation of a web hosting provider is probably the most important thing to look for when it comes to choosing the right one for your needs. Do your research and be aware of other people’s experienced with them. Ideally, you will choose a provider with a great reputation build over years of professional service.

Digital Marketing

Hiring a Digital Agency To Create Your Email Copy

Quick Home Business - Mar 2, 2012 Comments Off

Creating the copy for email marketing campaigns is a highly valued skill as it can mean the difference between a successful campaign and a failure. For this reason, many businesses employ a digital agency who can advise on, and in most cases, create the email copy that will be the most effective for any given marketing goal.

The first benefit of using an agency is their considerable experience of running email marketing campaigns for other companies. This means they will have the data relating to open rates and sales and they will have analysed it thoroughly. In effect, this means you are benefitting from the investment that previous companies have made in their email campaigns, as their results can help the agency make your campaign the best it can be.

Digital agencies will also have a vast archive of emails relating to all sorts of niches and all kinds of calls to action. Using this archive and other templates, they will be able to create as many emails for your campaigns as you wish. Even better they will be able to use the templates from previous successful campaigns and tailor them to suit your niche and your company.