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4 Tips for Saving Time in the Back Office

Back offices are where a lot of the work that it takes for a business to operate happens. And, while consumers only see the front office, the back office is often where the overhead starts adding up and time is spent.

Solving the messy back office problems

Administrative tasks can be very time-consuming, and if you need to start saving time in the back office to help your business grow, these tips can help.

1. Automate Your Taxes

A lot of time is spent on taxes, and owners are doing their own business taxes, it can take up to five hours per week, or twenty hours a month, to keep taxes up-to-date.…

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How to Treat Driving for Uber Like a Business

Is driving for Uber a small business? It can be. You might not have employees, but you still have overhead, clients and a service to sell – your driving. The vast majority of drivers will operate as a sole proprietorship, but there are a few rideshare drivers that will incorporate or form an LLC.

Uber driver as a business owner

Even if you’re not one of those few drivers that choose to incorporate, you can still treat driving for Uber like a business.

These concepts can be used in many small businesses.

Run Your Operation Like a Business

A lot of one-person businesses operate as a sole proprietorship.…

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Small Business Websites Need Testimonials, But How Do They Get Them?

Function and usability are key when creating a small business website. It’s easy for a website to become cluttered and nearly impossible to navigate. Websites have elements that they need to succeed.

But which elements does every small business website need?

Thumb up

Testimonials and reviews are just the start, but they can do wonders to help conversion rates and trust.

Testimonials and Reviews

Small businesses don’t have the same brand identity and trust as a multinational business. Nike, for example, is known for their high-quality shoes. The shoe company has one of the world’s most recognizable logos.

But small businesses don’t have this same luck.…

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Creating Local Landing Pages That Actually Convert

Local landing pages often lack substance. Small business owners that are accustomed to doing everything themselves take on the task of web designer and content creator too often. The trend of small business owners doing everything, from marketing to sales and making service calls is common.

Local landing page design for better conversion

But when a landing page doesn’t convert properly, this leads to lost sales – not acceptable for a growing business.

Local searches lead to 18% of consumers making purchases compared to just 7% for non-local searches. So, how do you optimize your page to convert local searches?

Cover the Basics First

The basics matter a lot, and this means doing a few different things:

  • Optimizing pages based on visitor data
  • Focusing on page loading speed
  • Add in meta data

Landing pages must be optimized for mobile.…

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Typography and Your Website: 4 Tips That Make a Huge Difference in Presentation

Your website is a presentation. Communicating to visitors and readers occurs primarily through the text on your website. A website’s typography can help make the entire experience on your website fluid and enjoyable.

But incorporating typography into a website is strategic.

Typography of a business website

Information online comes in the form of text, pictures and videos. But, web design in and of itself is 95% typography. Websites that have good typography have better graphic balance, readability, usability and accessibility.

Focusing on user interface allows for a clean, easy-to-navigate website.

A few small changes can make your website go from an eyesore to an enjoyable site that offers perfect balance and functionality.…

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3 Website Essentials to Boost Service Business Sales

Service businesses are interesting. Small towns may only have one electrician that has a monopoly on the industry, but other cities may have dozens of electricians all vying for the same business.

It’s a difficult situation to be in, but there are ways to use your website to boost sales.

Browsing business website

People flock to the Internet to review companies, search for the best prices and find a service provider to meet their needs. It’s an industry with many possibilities, and since there are many service providers (in most cases), a website needs to stand out from the crowd.

But how?

That’s the question.…

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Efficiently Running a One-man Service Business

Running a service-based business has a lot of advantages. You can help customers in your community, offer residential or commercial services, and you can choose to specialize in a certain area of business.

Plumbers can choose to offer sewer repairs, electricians can choose to work just on new homes being built.

One-man plumbing service

Trades are in high-demand, and the growth in these fields continues to grow as the population continues to grow. The environment is perfect to start a service business, but running that business efficiently is difficult.

A major downfall in many businesses is efficiency.

How does a service business stay efficient in the early stages of business?…

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Why Every Service Business Should Offer an Unconditional Guarantee

Trust is the most important thing when trying to bring in new customers, especially in the services industry. Customers have already heard nightmare stories about fly-by-night contractors, plumbers who never show and HVAC technicians who make the problem worse.

How can you win over customers when they view you as untrustworthy before they even use your service?

Offer them a guarantee.

Guarantee

Many service providers never think to offer a guarantee. They assume that services cannot be guaranteed. After all, you can’t send back bad catering or a bad haircut for repair.

When we say “guarantee,” we’re not talking about the service itself, but rather, customer satisfaction.…

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7 Little-Known Tax Deductions for Small Businesses

Many small businesses dread filing their quarterly taxes, but deductions help owners lower their tax burden. In addition to the standard deductions that most businesses take, there are lesser-known write-offs that can reduce tax bills even further.

Small business tax deductions

1. Home Office

If you run your business out of a dedicated home office, you may be able to take the home office deduction. The catch with this deduction is that the space must be used exclusively for business purposes.

There are two ways to deduct a home office:

  • Deduct actual expenses. You’ll need to have records for the cost of painting, repairs, utilities, rent, insurance and other expenses you want to write-off.
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4 Ways to Optimize Your Business Landing Pages

Business landing pages need to pop. Consumers and clients are very picky, and who can blame them when there are so many options at their disposal? Statistics show that 81% of shoppers do research online before making a purchase, 22% of businesses are happy with their conversion rates, and 72% of consumers who did a local search visited a store that was within 5 miles of their location.

These are impressive statistics, and one that really sticks out is that 78% of businesses aren’t happy with conversion rates.

Landing page optimization

It’s time to break away from this trend and make small changes to your landing page that can have a major impact on your sales.…

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