Small business secrets...

With Christmas just a few weeks away and bank balances still fresh from payday, the first weekend in December is one of the busiest shopping periods of the year. This year, small businesses could see an even bigger rise in sales as the UK celebrates its first Small Business Saturday.

Starting your own business from home is now easier than ever as more business processes are able to be done online. So if you have a hobby or skill you’d like to turn into a business, you can do it easily and effectively with just a few tools.

The earnings of freelancers and micro businesses is on the rise, according to a new study by Crunch Accounting.

With budgets being tight, people are always looking for different ways to make their monthly wages go further, especially now Christmas is around the corner. In the past few years, payday lenders have become popular due to their aggressive marketing tactics, but now people are beginning to realise their pitfalls.

Good search engine optimisation (SEO) can be a bit of a mystery, especially for small businesses. There are many reasons why your site may not be ranking highly. Check out these common mistakes and try our quick fixes to boost your search engine ranking:

When you first set up your business’ social media accounts, it can be disheartening to see the Facebook likes and Twitter followers in the single figures and growing slowly. To overcome this, many small business owners are looking to sites such as Fiverr to buy followers in order to boost numbers. This may be an affordable option, but there are many ways this tactic can be damaging to your business.

Creating a website for your small business can be daunting as there are so many options available. However, once you know what’s on offer it’s easy to decide what best suits your business needs. Your requirements for a website will be different depending on the type of business you run.

Social networks have grown in popularity as a way for friends to stay in contact and share information about their daily lives. Businesses often attempt to benefit from social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Google+ too, but to really get the most out of it, it’s important to use it in the right way. The secret to success is in the name - social networking.

We often talk about how it is vital for every small business to have their own website, but it’s also important to spread your brand across the web so it can be seen more easily. In our recent study, 60.1% of respondents said they would not trust a small business if they couldn’t find any information about them on the web.

At bOnline we write a lot of content in order to provide our customers and other small business owners with insights and advice. As part of this, we regularly profile our customers for case studies. This has emerged as one of our most valuable forms of content, as not only does it help to promote our services, it also helps us to gain an understanding of the customer’s experience.