10 SEO Tips for Small Online Businesses

Small online businesses are everywhere these days, and they are not limited to just gadgets, clothing, novelty items and knickknacks. If your business is new or have been around for a couple of years but still not getting that stable monthly or yearly sales you are aiming for, then you are probably not SEOing right or have not done it for your website.

SEO is short for Search Engine Optimization. It is the process of optimizing your website to get a better spot or ranking in search engine results pages (SERP). It’s a very tedious and repetitive task that’s why many clients are outsourcing them these days. Don’t worry about any expenses because SEO is free, all the free parts of online marketing!

Try these simple SEO tips to help your small online business get a better visibility on the web.

On-Site Optimization

This refers to your website. If all you have is a Facebook page or an Instagram account for your business, I suggest registering your own domain, it is much better if you have a real website that people can visit, view your products and get to know your brand better.

1. Use the H1 tag for page titles. It helps your visitors to know what page they are in and helps search engine robots to know what that page is all about.
2. Research for keywords. Using the keyword “novelties” is too broad, why not use “novelty gifts” or “novelty items” instead for your online novelty gift shop? It gives you a better ranking in SERP.
3. Page descriptions are not just for visitors. Keywords are also laid in page descriptions, this helps search engine robots rate your website or a specific page on your site for the relevancy of keywords you are using for its contents. The more relevant your keywords are, the better ranking you will get.
4. Register to Google Webmaster Tools. It’s a free SEO tool for analyzing your website, reports on your visibility on the web and diagnostics for a healthy, Google-friendly website.
5. Register to Google Analytics. Another great free SEO tool for monitoring traffic on your website. With this tool, you can see the number of visitors you have per day/month/year, other sites that are linking to yours and what keywords are driving more visitors in.

Domain Tip: If you do not have the budget for a domain name and hosting, go to WordPress.com or Blogger.com for a free domain.

Off-Site Optimization

Off-site optimization, also called link building, is a SEO method for helping your website rank in SERP, increase your brand’s visibility on the web and improve its reputation using other sites. Your small online business will benefit greatly with link building.

6. Get social more often. If you already have a Facebook page for your business, why not add another social media account like Twitter, Instagram or Youtube? The more visibility you have on the web the greater is your chance of getting more customers.
7. Free online directories are everywhere! Make it a habit to register your business online on your spare time.
8. Not all ads are paid. There are free ad sites where you can post your products, try Craigslist.org now!
9. Create your own blog. WordPress.com, Blogger.com and Tumblr.com are great for creative blogs, don’t worry they’re free!
10. Socialize with other blog owners. Join a blogger network and socialize with other bloggers in the same niche as yours. You can even trade links with them by offering an article for their blog with a link pointing to your blog or website.

Link Building Tip: Always add a link to your website when posting your ads, registering to online directories and on your social media profiles. This way, people will know that your business has a real website they can visit and search engine robots can rate you better.

Your small online business will work its way up slowly but surely by using various SEO techniques, and SEO doesn’t need to be expensive. You can do it on your own or by asking a friend or relative to help you.

The time will come that your small online business won’t be so small anymore. The growth of your business will lay more and heavier responsibilities on your hands perhaps that will be the time where you will be able to think of allotting a budget for hiring a SEO specialist. You can start by outsourcing a freelancer in your area or if you’re bold enough, try offshore outsourcing for other types of SEO services.

5 Ways Customer Feedback Can Help Grow Your Business

Customer satisfaction is one of the most important parts of any business, but when customer feedback piles more negative responses, the business can be at risk of running down.

Businesses these days are taking different courses in handling their customer service; some build their own in-house team of customer care agents while others seek the help of outsourcing firms. Whatever the route a business takes, customer service will not improve if the owner themselves fail to understand their customers.

Here are five (5) simple ways customer feedback can help grow your business, especially for start-up businesses and newbie entrepreneurs.

1. Finding Your Strengths and Improving Your Weaknesses

Satisfied customers will leave positive feedbacks, with this you can learn about your products’ strengths and how you can make it even better. But when customers become unhappy because of your product or your sales personnel, negative customer feedbacks will continue to pile up until you resolve the issue. You can easily pinpoint the cause of decline in customer satisfaction by simply paying more attention to their feedbacks.

2. Happy Customers Creates Sales Opportunities

Customer surveys are not just for finding weak spots on your products or business, it can also be a great material to study and research for other sales opportunities. Whether it’s a positive or negative customer feedback, your sales team can always use fresh ideas or new approaches to grow your business.

3. Win Back Lost Clients and Keep Existing Ones

A customer survey doesn’t need to be too broad or too personal, just keep it simple and easy to understand and answer so you can get more customers to take it. The result of your survey provides you with ideas on how to keep your existing customers, and plan on how to win back lost clients, so have it regularly administered.

4. Getting Social Helps to Improve Overall Reputation

Asking your satisfied customers to leave public reviews on social media sites is a great way to improve your reputation, as well as asking them for testimonials that you can brag on your website or on social networking profiles of your company. The more positive customer feedback you get, the better will be your overall reputation, thus increase sales.

Tip: Have a dedicated staff monitor and manage your social networking profiles, this way you are always updated on what your customers like and dislike about your brand. Some entrepreneurs prefer outsourcing this job to save on overhead costs.

5. Create Brand Advocates Among Your Customers

Customer satisfaction often ignites comments online, the more you make your customers happy the more likely they will post positive comments and share their experience online promoting your brand for you for free! So the next time you pass on a customer feedback, whether it’s a good one or not, think about the growth of your company. If it’s important to grow your business, you will pay more attention to your customers’ feedbacks.

Tip: Social media sites are not just for connecting with customers; sites like Facebook offers paid advertising where you can use your online marketing materials to attract more customers. Some entrepreneurs seek the help of outsourcing firms that specializes in online marketing to strategize and initiate online marketing campaigns for them.

The Evolution of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) in the Philippines

What began as call support centers in the 1900’s to cater to foreign costumers, the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry in the Philippines has grown quite remarkable, serving IT services, offshore staff leasing for admin functions and many more today.

In the 2000’s, the Philippines shown excellence in the call center industry, and had made a stable growth of 46% annually since 2006. And by 2011, the country has earned the most number of call center employees, with about 400,000 heads compared to other outsourcing destinations in Asia. By 2012, the Philippine economy grew 6.4% through BPO; it is the country’s fastest growth since 2010.

Call Centers in the Philippines

Call centers popped all over the country’s capital, Manila, and extended as far as Visayas and Mindanao. More and more foreign investors are capitalizing in the Philippines rather than its Asian neighbors due to the fact that Filipinos are more polite and westernized in term of accent, even though BPO services in India and China are much cheaper.

IT Outsourcing

Information technology also plays a big role in the country’s BPO industry growth. Surprisingly, clients from different parts of the world are looking for Filipino programmers, designers and animators, it is evident that the IT professionals are also becoming popular, not just call center agents. Software development and animation is now part of that growth.

Offshore Staff Leasing

When one door of success opens, a lot of opportunities peek in. When outsourcing in the Philippines became popular, so did offshore staff leasing. Professionals for data entry, virtual assistance, online marketing, writing and many more also became in demand, which lead to the boom of outsourcing companies in the country that specializes in offshore staff leasing.

Outsourcing Functions of a Business

Today, the Philippines BPO industry is catering to businesses that are bold enough to outsource some functions of their business like the admin and support, finance and accounting and HR.

What Is the Future of Philippines BPO?

Business process outsourcing has provided clients with new ways and opportunities to grow their business, and for as long as there is the need to grow, there will always be a space for innovation and the Philippines’ BPO industry will always be ready to deliver.

Outsourcing Tip: How to Make Your Data Entry More Efficient

In business, outsourcing is a merely a method entrepreneurs use to grow their bottom line. What makes a huge difference for others are the techniques and approaches they use to get to their goal.

Outsourcing your data entry does not guarantee a huge victory for your company, but it does give you a lot of rewards if you’ve done it right. Here are a few tips on how you can make your outsourced data entry more efficient.

Provide a Good Work Environment

Outsourcing firms have their own offices to house your outsourced data entry specialists. Even though it will be the responsibility of the service provider to provide all the equipment, software and other office supplies to your outsourced staff, it is still your responsibility to ensure that their work environment and physical conditions are perfect.

Your data entry specialists will be encoding data all day long, and a tired data encoder makes the most mistakes so it would be nice if you make sure their:

  • Office chair is comfortable enough;
  • Keyboards, mouse and computer monitor are working well;
  • Breaks are well scheduled; and
  • Workload is properly managed.

Check for Updates and Upgrades

Assuming that the outsourcing partner you’ve chosen specializes in data entry, software upgrades will never be a problem for you. All you have to do is review and approved such upgrades.

In case your service provider is not a data entry firm, it does not mean that they’re not tech inclined with data entry software and upgrades, keep in touch with them about the latest technologies available in the market and software upgrades that can benefit your outsourced staff. If necessary, take time to discuss it with them.

Set a Realistic Time Table

Some people think that outsourcing data entry, especially offshore outsourcing, gives you employees that work faster than anyone else. Well, quantity is way different than quality. If you want both, you need to set a realistic time table. Managing the workload of your outsourced data entry specialists is also important, because there’s a limited amount of workload one person can do in eight hours straight. So it’s important that you do not overload them.

Consider Using Optical Character Recognition (OCR)

Although it’s not a 100% guarantee to be accurate data, it lessens the time of encoding and provides more time for your data entry specialists to review and proofread their work. It would also help if you provide them with the original PDF files or scanned document so they can use it to double check the accuracy of their work.

In reality, data entry is a very important function of any business. Whether it’s a small, start-up business or a well established one, everyone in the office relies on data. So to make sure that outsourcing data entry will be efficient for your company, establish metrics on your service provider not just the outsourced staff. If you feel that you need a better outsourcing partner, look for another one. There’s also a thing called trial-and-error with outsourcing, no perfect combination or formula.

Is IT Outsourcing a Necessity?

Some argue that IT outsourcing is more of a need, while others contradict and says that it’s a luxury rather than a necessity. In any way you look at it, to outsource is simply a method that many businesses use for various purposes such as cost cutting and time saving, while others benefit from the hassle-free recruitment of new employees, upgrading of technology, and the opportunity to expand their brand wider and farther.

If your business is already outsourcing or it’s still planning to outsource IT services, what is your main purpose? Does it line with your company’s goal? Whatever the reasons are or how many answers you can think of, it all comes down to one ultimate goal, which is to GROW your business by utilizing all business methods and avenues available within reach.

So if you think about it again, is IT outsourcing a necessity? If growing your business is more of a necessity than a need, then it is more certainly not a luxury.

What Does IT Outsourcing Really Offer?

IT outsourcing also has an impact on consumers, not just entrepreneurs. For example, many IT companies today are outsourcing some parts of their devices and then build everything in-house, rather than make all the parts themselves. If they do create everything in-house, the materials will more expensive, more machines will be needed and more employees will be required. The end product will then be too expensive for an average earning person to purchase.

Aside from cost cutting and time saving, to outsource IT services brings new opportunities and build new ways for all types of business, big and small, to grow and expand to uncharted territories.

  • Business innovation is possible through outsourcing. It provides new methods, ideas and revision of the entrepreneur’s original goal, both for the client and the service provider, for the betterment of the company.
  • Even with just a small budget, start up businesses can enjoy some of the benefits of a business tycoon.
  • You will never be outdated with technologies.
  • Office expansion and manpower costs less, even lesser for tasks that do not really require physical presence of employees.
  • With outsourcing, finding skilled professionals is no longer limited to just your local area. You can find a handful of IT experts from different outsourcing destinations.
  • An outsourced employee can demonstrate more skills and knowledge to handle two or more tasks that you usually assign to two or three local employees.

To outsource IT services does not mean that your business is earning very well that you’ve decided to outsource just for the fun of it, or your bottom line is too damaged that you need to cut costs on most of your company’s functions. It is a necessity for many, but not all, businesses.

Data Entry Tips & Tricks to Improve Your Accuracy

Being a data entry specialist is not easy, though many people think so. Encoding massive amounts of data in mostly short periods of time is not an easy task. Accuracy needs to be at 99.9% from start to finish.

Businesses today run on data, mountains of it, and will continue to run on more data as it grows. That’s where data entry is necessary and crucial because it involves a business’ bottom line.

There are many ways accuracy in encoding data can be improved, here some tips and tricks that can help you become a better data entry specialist.

Practice Makes Perfect!

Although nobody in this world is perfect, practicing gets us closer to perfection and that’s what important in data entry. There are free typing tests available online where you can test your speed and accuracy, you can practice there all day if you want. But if that bores you, there are also speed typing games you can download on your smart phone or tablet.

Avoiding Transcription & Transposition Errors

Data entry specialists type fast and faster when they’re in the mood, and when speed reaches its critical point they hit the wrong keys. Some encoders notice their typing mistake while others do not, this leads to transcription or transposition error.

Transcription errors happens you input wrong data. It can be due to tiredness or dizziness that’s why it’s very important that you take breaks after typing for too long. Some transcription errors also come from optical character recognition (OCR) programs. It’s when a PDF file or any paper document is scanned and converted into an editable DOC format. It will be wise to have a copy of the actual PDF file or scanned paper document to double check your work for errors.

On the other hand, transposition errors occur when you mistakenly switch characters’ places. For instance, you are typing ‘children’ but mistakenly switched two characters and ended up with ‘chlidren’. Transposition errors commonly occur when you’re typing numbers, ‘54312’ can easily end up as ‘54321’ if you’re not paying enough attention.

Although it may be easy to check for spelling errors and duplicate words, it’s incredibly hard when double checking for numbers. To avoid making transcription and transposition errors, do not rush. You may be required to type fast, but not rushed. Find a comfortable speed and continue working on it.

Advanced Software Features

Have you tried the automated error reports? It’s a data entry feature that checks for errors in numbers you’ve typed. For example, on your five digit fields, one has an extra number on it, the automated error reports sees this and will alert you. There are other useful advanced features on your data entry software, make the most out of it!

Manage Your Workload

Taking a break from typing is a good way to relax your muscles for a while, but taking too much of it will eat time. You will then rush to finish your workload as scheduled, which could lead to multiple errors. Data entry specialists must also have good time management skills in order to be efficient.

There will also be times that you think you’ve work too fast that you’ve finished all your workload and then ask for more from your boss. This can be a great way to make an impression in the office or sink your ship to the deepest darkest abyss. Adding more to your workload can make you too tired to type, thus leading to errors. Make sure you have enough energy before asking for more.

Review Your Own Work

Take time to review and proofread your own work, this is one of the key aspects of accuracy in data entry. Schedule a review every hour or two, or whenever is most comfortable with you, just don’t forget to do it. A coworker might be able to see some errors you didn’t notice, so don’t be shy to ask for their help.

Always remember, in data entry a keen attention to details is very important not just the speed. A single key stroke can lead to multiple errors and loss of profit for the company.

5 Simple Ways You Can Help Improve Your Help Desk

Not very often, but certainly one of the reasons some end users look out for before purchasing a product is the help desk support. And if it is not taken care of properly, it can also be one of the reasons for the decline of brand patrons and fans. When that happens, more expenses are made in order to recover loss trust and the process of strengthening that trust.

As an entrepreneur, there are simple ways you can do to help improve your tech support help desk without having to burn your profit to the ground.

Live Support

It does not always need to be a 24/7 live support, although it can be a good impression for the end users. Your live tech support help desk agents can be assigned to be active only during peak times, the times when more calls are expected to come in. When peak time is over, you can revert back to your basic tech support system or automated ticketing system if you have the software. It is also important that end users are well informed about your live support schedules to avoid misunderstanding and irate calls about it in the future. This technique is good for start up businesses and companies that struggle populating their bottom line.

Determining Priorities & Allocating

End user issues ranges from simple tech misuse to more advance IT problems that requires more attention of your most skilled help desk agent. When using a customer support software system, your agents should be knowledgeable enough to determine which are top priorities, depending on the severity of the issue, so it can be handled properly. Likewise when determining which should be prioritized; online tickets, phone calls or walk-ins.

Allocating tickets with severe tech issues is also important. Why let a junior help desk agent take an hour or two to resolve an advance tech problem when a senior agent can tackle it in only a few minutes?

Eliminate Minor Software Setting Issues

Make sure you double check your software settings to eliminate minor issues with automated email replies, setting and distribution of tickets and organization of reports. You wouldn’t want your help desk agent spend hours untangling software issues when he could have spend helping customers.

Prepare Training Modules

Some help desk agents learn on their own by reading or by asking a senior for help. This is okay, but it would be better if all of your tech support agents are a hundred percent ready to solve problems rather than have them research it first and then go back to the customer. Preparing a training module would be perfect, even if it is just a one page call guide for basic to advance tech issues.

Utilize Social Media

End users love it when you make it easier for them to reach you. Customers would want to purchase from brands that actually has active tech support, live and online preferably because most people now a days are always online whether they’re on their computer, laptop or mobile phone.

Why Outsource to the Philippines?

A few years back, when you talk about outsourcing, Philippines was not the first destination that comes into mind. When foreign investors look for stable countries to build their call center, the Philippines was not the first choice either. But there were bold ones who tried outsourcing to the country and are now enjoying the success from the risk they have taken.

While India still remains as the top destination for IT outsourcing and business process outsourcing (BPO), Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand are also making big progress. But on top of all the popular Asian countries for outsourcing, the most headway has consistently been the Philippines.

Government Support

As the country continues to excel in BPO, the government of the Philippines has been helping foreign investors in order to attract more. Like what former Fidel V. Ramos did when he help improved the country’s power supply infrastructure and former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo who implemented a number of tax exemptions (CCAP, 2012).

The IT and Business Process Association of the Philippines (BIPAP) even created a 2011-2016 roadmap to promote the competitive advantages and the growth potential of the Philippines outsourcing industry and forecasted to generate a revenue of $25 billion in 2016 which is 10% of the global market share.

The Board of Investments (BOI) has developed incentive schemes which include an income tax holiday of 6 years for pioneer enterprises and 4 years for non-pioneers, and a deduction of 50% from taxable income of labour expenses.

While the Department of Education (DepEd) continuously develop new strategies to improve the education and training of students in order to produce qualified graduates for the labour market.

Technology and Culture Compatibility

Outsourcing in the Philippines also grants investors with employees who are culturally aware and updated with the latest technologies and trends. Filipinos are natural adopters of what’s new in the market and their environment not just for personal gain but also for career leverage.

Reduced Management Responsibilities

Because BPO companies in the country also compete with each other, more and more outsourcing firms in the Philippine are developing new and wider solutions for their clients like offering a free supervisor or manager to each of their clients. Plus, the administrative responsibilities fall under the care of the service provider allowing their clients to focus more on the core competencies of their business.

Language Barrier is Not an Issue

The Philippines has adapted English as its second language, including English as a subject as early as elementary. It even attracted other Asian counties like Korea, China and Japan to study English in the Philippines because of the quality of education. It even caught the attention of countries like Iran, Libya, Brazil and Russia because learning English in the Philippines is cheaper compared to the US, UK, Canada and Australia.

The Filipino’s fluent American accent may have been influenced by the US when they colonized the country, but it’s the country itself that dedicated its resources and attention to retain the English language after the Americans had left.

Highly Skilled and Readily Available Workforce

Outsourcing companies in the Philippines have developed specific training programs to help their countrymen qualify for job openings in the BPO industry and simultaneously supply manpower demands from their foreign clients. Colleges and Universities in the country also provide courses for jobs that are in demand today such as creative design, animation, multimedia arts and many more. It eliminates the time and money for training new employees.

Cost Savings

Due to conversion rates, dollar to peso, Philippines outsourcing has become more attractive to foreign investors. The internet infrastructure of the country may still need a lot of work but between salaries, benefits and operational overhead costs Filipino workers are still cheaper compared to their western counterparts. A business owner can easily build a team of call center agents or data entry specialists in the Philippines without having to invest a lot.

How to Get Rid of Negative and Unwanted Backlinks

First of all, you need to identify what are the negative backlinks pointing to your website. If you do not know how to handle this, you can seek out the help of a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) expert from an outsourcing or offshore staff leasing firm, or a part-time webmaster from freelance websites.

After checking for negative backlinks, you may also find links that are not really bad but you do not want them to be linking to your website because of their poor quality, it is okay to remove them too.

Removing negative and unwanted links can be very tricky but there is always a way.

Step 1. Remove Them Yourself

Some negative backlinks were done by bad SEOing, either by you or your SEO guy. For example, you have links coming from web directories which were good back then but now are link farms. If you still have your old usernames and passwords for those web directories, I suggest you login to them right now and remove your links from their website. It can be tedious but necessary to improve your website’s rank in Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).

You may find some SEO or IT outsourcing firms that offer this kind of service for a low cost, it can be cheaper from a freelancer in Odesk.com or from a staff leasing firm that offers short term project-based SEO services.

Step 2. Send a Friendly Email

When negative and unwanted backlinks gets a little harder to remove, try sending a request for removal by using their contact us form. In case they do not have a form, look for email addresses on their website, or try using GoDaddy WhoIs or DomainTools WhoIs and send them a friendly email.

Step 3. Use Google Disavow

The Google Disavow is a tool used by many webmasters to clean up hard to remove backlinks, but it is not always the first choice. The disavow tool can help you get rid of negative backlinks but it can also harm your website’s ranking if not used properly. If you are planning to hire a full-time SEO expert (or get one from your local outsourcing firm or an offshore staff leasing company) for this job, your guy should be knowledgeable in using this tool, else you will end up with more mess than getting those negative links off.

As the head of Google’s Webspam team, Matt Cutts, says in this video, “… you’ve done some bas SEO, you hired a bad SEO, they mess things up now you need to clean up. You’ve done as much work as you can to get those links off the web, but some people don’t respond or for whatever reason you can’t get every single link taken off the web. That’s the perfect use-case to do disavow…”

If no change happens after a few weeks of using the disavow tool, try sending a reconsideration request to Google but be warned, disavowing a backlink is not the first or best way to remove it from Google SERP, use it as a last resort only. But if your website is suffering from Negative SEO the disavow tool would be the best choice since the unnatural and negative backlinks will be ten folds and much harder to remove.

I still see the negative and unwanted backlinks pointing to my website. So what now?

Have patience, it will take time for search engines to have those links removed from their index. But if you still find yourself deep in the hole after doing everything that you can, maybe it is time for you to get help from the experts themselves. You may opt to hire your own full-time in-house SEO specialist or a part-timer from your local outsourcing firm, or hire the services of an offshore staff leasing company that specializes in SEO. If you do decide to outsource, consider a third party service provider that offers flexible solutions so it will fit in with your budget.

How to Identify Negative Backlinks

If we want to rank high in search engine results pages (SERPs), we optimize our website and build backlinks to raise popularity and authority. Some seek the assistance from staff leasing companies or hire freelancers while other website owners do it themselves.

Outsourcing the task of identifying negative backlinks can be a great help if you have the budget, but if you do not, get ready because you will need a lot of reading, testing and tons of patience.

How to Identify Negative Backlinks

If outsourcing a freelancer or hiring a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) expert from a staff leasing firm will be your method of doing this, I suggest you get someone who is knowledgeable in search engine rankings, not just someone who can submit your domain to free sites.

But if you do plan on handling this task by yourself, here are some great free online backlinks checker you can use.

  1. Moz Open Site Explorer – It has a 30-day free trial for its Keywords Rank Checker.
  2.  Majestic Site Explorer – it’s free version is limited but otherwise a good backlink checker.
  3.  Backlink Watch – it’s free, but you will have to tolerate the ads.

Other than the above online SEO tools, you can also manually check your backlinks in Google, Yahoo and Bing by simply typing “link:http://www.YourDomain.com” on their search bars. Try it!

To identify what are the negative backlinks, simply look into relevancy of the URLs linking to your domain. Sometimes you can spot the niche of the websites linking to yours just by looking at their domain names. Any link that may look suspicious to you, investigate it! Any link that can potential harm your website is a negative backlink.

Quality backlinks help your website and its inner pages rank higher in SERPs, and in SEO, the more relevant a backlink is to your website the better, of course the content of the linking website has to be good too. Ask any SEO outsourcing firm, whether local or offshore staff leasing, they will tell you that quality backlinks is the best combination for quality web content.

I Have Identified My Negative Backlinks. What to Do Now?

The next step to do after identifying all negative backlinks is to remove them. Google has an online tool you can use and there are also manual ways of getting rid of those links; talk to the webmaster of the site or remove them yourself if you believe you’re the one who placed it there on the first place, like in free directory sites, social bookmarking sites, free ads you posted, etc.

Read now >> How to Get Rid of Negative and Unwanted Backlinks.