Karen Skidmore's Kick-Ass Blog | CanDoCanBe

Recommended website solutions for home businesses

“I'm just about to sort out websites/email etc and wondered if you have a particular online company you recommend? I don't need e-commerce and have looked at some artist photographer template sites but if you have one you have tried and tested I would rather go on recommendation?”

Answered this question for someone today and thought some of you may like the answer too

Personally I would go with a blog rather than a website – definitely the way to go.

Either use typepad as a hosted blogging platform or use wordpress.com and host it yourself.  Hosting it yourself is more powerful for SEO (search engine optimisation) but if you don’t want to faff around with uploading files to your web host, then typepad is brilliant. 

I run my blog here on typepad and my new email newsletter site on wordpress www.HowtodoEmailNewsletters.com.

If you do just want a basic template website then you can’t really go wrong with www.mrsite.co.uk.

Webhosting – I would recommend www.1and1.co.uk

I’ve also got a great audio download on low cost websites if you are interested – www.kick-assteleforums.com/lowcostwebsites.php

The market research that's bad for business

When you are starting up your own business from home and deciding on a particular niche or speciality to focus on (always a good thing to do, BTW!), one of the traps that many people fall in to is searching on the internet for people who do what you want to do already.

Now, of course it’s important to check out your competition.  It can be a useful yard-stick to help you understand price ranges, services to offer and products that sell well.

BUT when that internet searching becomes endless hours of finding more and more websites, all seemingly to be offering a bigger and better service/product that you could even dream about – then STOP!

Worrying about your competition at such an early stage can be damaging to your confidence levels.  In today’s market place it is highly unlikely to “discover” a niche.  You should be more worried that no one is doing what you want to be doing because it generally means there is no demand – but that’s a lesson for another blog posting!

Checked your events page recently?

The biggest faux pas any one with a website can do is to ignore their events or latest news page.  And oops, I too made that mistake this week.

I was putting together my July Kick-Ass Teleforum (cool topic BTW – “Automating Your Marketing for Your Home Business” as requested by someone who answered my quick question last week) and as I was updating my Events and Forums page on my main website – AARRGH! – it still had my business forum dates from 2 months ago.  Duh!

For first time visitors, it can be the quickest exit off a website once they realise that someone’s latest news was from May– 2007!.  So if you haven’t done so recently, go check your events pages.  Because if you haven’t, your web visitors will surely be doing so.

Got a question for you? Can you answer it?

If you have 2 seconds, I have a question for you to answer. 

“What business or marketing topic do you want to know more about?”

If you click here and submit your answer, I will send you £10 to spend on any of my products as as big thank you.  How cool is that?!

Link Building Courses Up for Grabs

Do you have an Internet based business? Struggling to find it on Google and the other search engines? Well stop looking and start finding.  There are two main activities you need to carry out to make sure your site is listed and ranking well for your search terms.  Getting links and writing great content.

For link building, there are a huge number of different techniques and it can be overwhelming. Now link building expert, Jason Hulott has put together a 6 week modular programme to show you what to do and when to do it.  He will provide you with a full blueprint of what is needed.

And he is looking for some feedback to make the course even more usable and profitable for your business.  He is kindly giving away 10 complete copies of the course to subscribers to gain some valuable feedback.  What do you need to do to get one of these 10 copies...

Simply contact Jason at jason@speediepr.co.uk and tell him I sent you.  He will want to know your website address as he is looking for those who will implement this and he will be able to give you feedback too.

Mental Space is Critical for Success

When you are self-employed and run your own business from home, it is very easy to find yourself busy – ALL of the time.

When you aren’t answering the phone or replying to emails, you are speaking to clients, going to meetings and doing the work that you are being paid to do.  All that rushing around and no time to think!

But being a home business owner, it is critical to make the time for mental space.  And I am not just talking about spending valuable time on planning.

I am talking about time spent gazing out of the window watching the sun shine through the trees.  I am talking about the time spent walking around your neighbour without listening to the latest podcast or business audio download.

It’s amazing how much clearer your business becomes and what the next stage of your action plan needs to be when you spend time leaning back in your chair – just gazing!

How do you create mental for your business?  Leave your thoughts as a comment below.

Are you desired or needed?

Taking the time out to really understand who it is you are marketing to is an essential first step for any home business.  But go ahead and create a product or service that your customers may need but don't want is business suicide.

There is a very fine line between fulfilling your customers' needs and satisfying their wants and desires.  And most self-employed professionals and home business owners unfortunately only go out to fulfil needs.

Now needs are important, don't get me wrong.  If you were unique in what you offered with no-one able to copy cat your idea, then you would laughing.  But getting yourself noticed in a crowded market place (which to be honest is most of you, isn't it?) and marketing yourself above the noise of other brands is tough.  If you have been to a busy networking event where no-one knows you, you will know how challenging it can be to really stand out and be counted.

So what is the real difference between fulfilling a need and satisfying a want?

Planning to run any workshops this Autumn?

I know, I know.  We get some nice hot weather today here in the UK and it’s summer time.  Why on earth would you want to be thinking about the Autumn already?

Well, if you are planning to run any workshops in September through to November, then you really need to be deciding on your dates, booking the venue and planning your marketing.

Don’t leave this until September because it will just be too late!  You need a minimum of 6 weeks to market a live workshop and have all your places booked – and if you don’t have an existing database to market to then you will need even longer.  I recommend at least 2 months, preferably 3.

So come on – get your diary out and sort out a date!

Need funding for an overseas project?

Janet Dowling, a professional story teller, kindly forwarded me this information and I thought it was worth sharing here on my blog.  Janet was awarded £7,000 in 2005 to travel to the US and Canada for 8 weeks looking at “Storytelling in the Care of the Dying and the Bereaved”.

If you are looking for funds to take you on a research project or business initiative, then check out the following:

“The Winston Churchill Memorial Trust offers you the Opportunity to increase your knowledge  and experience through overseas travel in order to benefit others within your  community.

If awarded a Fellowship, you will receive a grant that will cover all your relevant expenses. In 2008 the average grant was £5300, covering a stay of between 4-8 weeks (minimum of 4 weeks) but can be longer. The grant includes return travel, daily living, internal travel and appropriate insurance within the countries visited. Applications close 14 October 2008”

For more information go to http://www.wcmt.org.uk/

Home Businesses: Take a lesson from QVC Shopping Channel

I was listening to Steve Wright on Radio 2 earlier this week and heard a very interesting interview with 2 presenters from the QVC shopping channel.  Apparently, sales have been going through the roof over the past few years, even with our current “credit crunch” situation.

When asked why they have such a high sales success, the TV shopping presenters said it because they were able to “place the product in to people’s lives”.

How can you use this technique in your home business?

Quite simple, really.  Stop telling everyone about the features and start telling a story about your product, focusing on the benefits that someone will receive.  Case studies and third party stories are a fabulous way of “placing your product in to people’s lives”.

Try it next time you speak to a potential customer or client.