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Can You Do SEO on Your Website Without an SEO Audit?

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StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |SEO Audit|Can You Do SEO on Your Website Without an SEO Audit?What Is an SEO Audit?

It does not matter if you want to SEO your own website, or if you want to use the services of an SEO agency. In both cases, you will need a thorough SEO audit. But what is that? Well, it is a method used to get as much SEO information about a website as possible. The more information you get from the SEO audit report, the higher the quality of results you will get in the future from the SEO methods. There are several types of information that you should expect to get from this method.

  • Technical audit. On the internet, you will find agencies that provide different types of audits. But most of them are incomplete, and they provide you with information about only one part of your website’s SEO. The technical audit checks the technical parameters of your website. The main parts that need to be checked are the links on your website, its loading speed, and the device compatibility with other websites.
  • On-site audit. The on-site part of the SEO audit must offer you information about the content used on the website. Several factors must be verified. The first one is the originality of the content. Every piece of duplicate or plagiarized content will be penalized by search engines. The second factor is the relevancy of the content. It must be relevant to your industry. And the last factor that must be verified is the engagement level. The more engaging the content is, the better the results that it will produce.
  • Off-site audit. The last part of SEO is for off-site. A reliable audit must check the authority of your website in the industry as well as the renown that it has. To have high authority, you need to have backlinks placed on other websites in the industry. If your articles and links can be found on high-authority websites, then your authority will rise as well. As for your website’s renown is based on the number of backlinks and websites where they can be found.
  • Business assessment. The last part that needs to be found in the SEO audit report is the business assessment part. Nowadays, SEO strategies must be personalized. So, the agency must learn as much information about your business as possible. And it must also research your competition and the best keywords that you should use. All the information obtained from the audit can be used to create an SEO plan that will take care of every SEO related task for your website.

What Benefits Can You Expect from an SEO Audit?

Now that you have a general idea about what an SEO audit is, you need to know the benefits that you can expect from it. It provides a large number of benefits. But only a few of them are notable and easily seen.

  • Solve the problems. The first benefit that you can expect from an SEO audit report are solutions for every problem that was detected. Without it, even if you use a top SEO strategy, the results will be mediocre. Why? Because all the problems will drag your website down, and it will not be able to rise even with the best strategy.
  • Optimized strategy. The second benefit is an optimized and personalized strategy for your website. As mentioned above, every business is unique. And a reliable SEO agency must be able to detect al the unique parts that can be used in the strategy to increase the results that it produces.
  • Increased traffic. The third benefit will come after the problems are solved, and the strategy is being implemented. Your website ranks in search engine page results will start to rise, and you will get more and more traffic for your website. And the more people are visiting, the higher your chances of getting new clients are.
  • Increased conversion rate. And lastly, a good SEO strategy combined with high-quality content will also increase the conversion rate of your website. This means that a higher percentage of your visitors will become leads or customers. This is the final goal of SEO. And only an audit can be used to ensure that all the content on your website is optimized. And it produces these types of results.

StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |SEO Audit|Can You Do SEO on Your Website Without an SEO Audit? How to Choose a Reliable Agency Based on the SEO Audit!

Probably the most important use of an SEO audit is to find a reliable SEO agency. Keep in mind that SEO is a long-term process. So, you must find a reliable partner that can take care of it for you. So, you can use the audit of an agency and deduce its skill levels from the SEO audit report. But before you do that, you should follow 3 steps to narrow down the options that you have.

  • Find all the options. The first thing that you must do is to find all the options that you have. So, you can use a search engine like Google to look for all the SEO agencies that you can find on the market. The more options you have, the higher your chance to find a reliable partner at a reasonable price.
  • Check the results. Next, you need to verify the results produced by the agencies. Most of the time, you can find them on the agency’s website. And you can use the search engine to check the credibility of the results. Also, you should only verify the newer ones. If they are older than 6 months, then they are not relevant anymore. And you can keep in mind only the agencies that produced the best results.
  • Get some first-hand reviews. The last step is to find the contact information of the agency’s clients. You need to communicate with them and get some first-hand reviews about the agency. This is the best method that you can use to find out how the collaboration with the agency will end. If the clients of an agency are happy, then you will most likely be the same.

Tips for Managing Small Business Finances

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Finances Article |Small Business Finances|Tips for Managing Small Business FinancesManaging small business finances can be a challenge, especially when you have lots of other things to deal with. However, the way you manage your finances will have a big impact on your overall business success and profits. Luckily, you can easily learn the basic skills needed to effectively run business accounts. Here are some tips to help you manage your small business finances.

Create a cash flow budget

One of the most crucial steps for managing small business finances is to create a cash flow budget. A cash flow budget will give you an overview of your company’s finances and help you make well-informed spending decisions. It will also enable you to make accurate financial forecasts. According to Liquid Capital Corp, you should use a budgeting tool or software to create your cash flow budget. Your budget must include all of your cash inflows i.e. money from sales and your cash outflows i.e. fixed and variable expenses. This will allow you to calculate your monthly cash balance i.e. profit. Make sure that you aren’t in a cash flow deficit at the end of the month. If your outflows are higher than your inflows then you should try to lower overhead expenses by cutting unnecessary costs. For instance, switch to a cheaper energy provider to save money on your energy bills.

Invest in growth

When you run a small business, it can be tempting to take all of the profit out of your company. However, this approach is unlikely to benefit your business in the long-run. Investing money back into your company will help your business grow and achieve its strategic goals and objectives. That said, you must make smart investment decisions that will give you a good return. For example, you may invest in improving a product or service to boost sales and increase cash flow. Many small business owners also invest in a larger commercial property so they can expand their operations.

Additionally, you have the possibility to apply for a loan to cover business expenses and support growth. According to experts at diversefunding.com.au: “A property loan can be used to buy inventory, expand your business, or simply need extra cash flow.” Research different funding options and choose the best one for your business.

Plan for the future

Another essential part of good financial management is to plan for the future. You should start building up an emergency fund that can be used to cover unexpected costs. You may have to pay for repairs to business equipment or cover staff absence. Planning for these situations and having an emergency fund will eliminate the risk of your business running into financial difficulties in the future.

Final words

Managing finances can be difficult for any small business owner, particularly if you don’t have a lot of experience managing business finances. Adopting bad financial habits can harm your business and cause serious issues later down the line. With that in mind, you must make finances a priority and learn to manage your accounts efficiently. Use the above tips to help you manage your small business finances and maximize profits.

Have You Strategised How Productive Your Business Is? Time To Focus

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StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article |Productive Business|Have You Strategised How Productive Your Business Is? Time To FocusWhen you start a business, no one can really prepare you for the steps that you may need to take. It can consume you in those early days, and you may put all of your efforts into it. But as your business progresses you find that you spin too many plates and are not able to focus on the priorities. This is when you need to strategize to ensure that your business is more productive. So here are some of the things to consider.

Placing a value on your time

One of the first things to think about would be placing a value on your time more effectively. The issue that so many business owners and entrepreneurs have is that they tend to want to do everything themselves, but as their business progresses and thrives, there simply isn’t enough hours in the day. This is when outsourcing certain aspects of your business can help you get more out of it. You might also want to think about things such as Information management services to help with IT things and such. Placing a value on your time enables you to focus on the areas of the business where you can make the most difference.

Is your business productive when it comes to marketing?

The next thing to think about would be whether or not you think that your business is productive when it comes to marketing opportunities. Often it is more to do with analyzing things like social media platforms and working out the times in which to post and also what platform gets the most engagement and reach for you. The mainstream platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter would be beneficial if you came up with a strategy to remain consistent to beat the algorithm.

Happy employees means productive staff

As businesses progresses, you get to the point where you need to have staff and employees. The issue is that you then become responsibility for their productivity. This is when happy employees make productive staff. Think about the working environment and the atmosphere, make sure that you look at how you communicate with your staff members and keep things professional while ensuring that you do all you can to get the best out of the people that work for you.

Making use of technology and shortcuts

The next thing you might want to think about would be the use of technology and shortcuts that are available to you. Customer relationship management systems to stay in touch with clients and customers, scheduling tools so that you can always be present online.

Gap in the market and jumping on the opportunities

Finally it is always going to be worth keeping an eye on the business trends and ensuring that you spot the gaps in the market. Jumping at these opportunities makes you productive as a business owner, as you seek out the next step to take to make your business the success you dreamed it would become.

Let’s hope these tips help you when it comes to being productive in your business.

Six Ways A Small Business Can Use Outsourcing

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article | <img class=As your business grows, you will find yourself tackling problems that are possibly further away from your core skillset, this is completely normal, and often when the business starts to utilize outsourcing more.

These tasks are the tasks that take you away from your core skills and require you to spend more time than you need on learning new skills that are only linked to a limited amount of functions. For example bookkeeping or payroll. These are functions that are a necessity, however, unless you have experience in these areas you may spend valuable time away from aiding your business to grow.

It’s essential for you to outsource tasks such as these to people such as Digital Goliath Marketing who are able to manage your work efficiently, leaving you with less stress and hassle to have to do it yourself. There are many occasions where it is more sensible and worthwhile to outsource. In fact, it’s not realistic to handle everything in-house for a modern business.

Bear in mind that whilst outsourcing is efficient and necessary, you should always keep your core business functions in-house. That means that you don’t need to outsource anything that your skillset covers already/

Let’s have a look below at some of the areas you may want to think about outsourcing:

Legal Requirements

Every business will have legal requirements, and this is usually the first area that gets outsourced. Hiring an in-house lawyer can be extremely expensive, and there is often no need to have one employed all the time. Most businesses can’t afford to have their own legal department, so you need to outsource. There are many ways you can source legal services such as:

  • Find one lawyer to deal with all your legal requirements.
  • Use a freelance lawyer or solicitor.
  • Use different lawyers or solicitors for each aspect of your legal needs.

Administrative Duties

Did you know that your employees could be spending around 40% of their working ay just on administrative tasks? This means that a huge portion of their day is spent completing repetitive and time-consuming tasks that are easy to outsource and train people on. It is a sensible choice to outsource these tasks to someone who would possibly charge less for their time than yours or your employee’s costs. Especially if they are highly-skilled staff members.

Remember you shouldn’t be outsourcing your core business functions, however, you can outsource parts of your core functions like the admin. Build processes and systems to ensure that the outsourcer can support you well.

  • Some of the outsource administration you could consider are:
  • Surveying, polling, and focus group tests.
  • Data collection and research
  • Travel arrangements
  • Compiling reports
  • Virtual assistant
  • Document management and organization
  • Calendar management and organization
  • Customer service emails
  • Social media posting/management
  • Preparing and taking notes
  • Transcribing audio or video
  • Personal errands (so you can spend more time working)
  • Editing/proofreading

Financial Management and Bookkeeping

It’s far wiser to keep your account organized as you go rather than leaving them until the end of the year. If you don’t keep an eye on your finances, then you could be making an expensive mistake. You could use cloud-based accounting software to track it yourself, however, working with a bookkeeper is probably easier. All you need to do is send your bookkeeper all your data and they will organize it for you. They also send you back whatever types of reports you like.

It can also be handy to have a contact for any questions you may have about the business finances, based on your circumstances. It certainly never hurts to have a financial expert that you can contact and work with. When it comes to completing your taxes at the end of the year, a bookkeeper will eliminate that stress. All you need to do is give your account access to your accounting firm and they will deal with the rest. If they require any information from you they will just ask for it.

Lead Generation and Marketing

Marketing can be challenging for small businesses. It can be easy to market yourself when you are slow, however, if your business picks up, marketing can get left behind. This can’t happen, your business will only slow down again if you neglect the marketing of your business and brand. Marketing is how you are going to grow your business, therefore, you need to ensure you have the time to make a commitment to it. Even if you outsource your marketing, though, you still need to ensure you have heavy involvement in it. You could choose to use a complete marketing service that deals with the management and social media or you could choose to outsource to several different freelancers, it’s really down to what works best for your business.

For example, you may prefer to have someone in-house dealing with the articles and information that is allowed on your website, but you are happy to outsource content creation to a content marketing agency. If you would prefer to manage your own marketing strategy you could choose to use consultants or freelancers to complete bulk work but oversee it yourself.

IT Services and Technology

Regardless of whether you are tech-savvy or not, it is usually simpler to let someone else deal with your technology needs.

Many technology duties come tagged with a steep learning curve. Therefore it may not be worth your time to learn how to web develop, code an app, migrate your information to the cloud, optimize your website, or implement two-factor authorization for your data. The cost it would take with regards to your time to handle your own IT needs is probably more expensive than if you hired an outsourcer to do this for you.

For example, you could choose to manage your own website, but do you know how to safely move your files around your host? Backup your site? No jow to migrate to a new host? Or, Set up cybersecurity? They are most certainly all doable, however, they could cost you a huge amount of time. If your skill doesn’t lye in this area, then you may be better off outsourcing your IT needs. Yes, you will pay more than just hosting space, but your time is valuable and it could save you money in the long run.

Before you opt to outsource certain IT tasks though, you should also have a look to see if there are any tools that could do it for you rather than paying an outsourcer or in0house team.

Human Resources

Human Resources suits can definitely take up a lot of time, especially as your business and team grow. Each time you recruit a new person, the obligations in the human resources department only grow. On top of this, if you mishandle any human resources such as payroll, firing, ot hiring a poor employee, it can cost you money, create an array of issues, and even see you facing a lawsuit.

Depending on your businesses needed, you may choose to outsource your human resources to one provider or several smaller ones. For example, you may use recruitment agencies for any talent searching, a payroll company to ensure your staff is paid correctly and on time, and a PEO to manage any benefits. As well as this you may also want to make sure you have access to legal advice relating to anything involved with human resources.

These are six areas that you may want to consider outsourcing as a small business. Is there anything that you already outsource? Please share some of them in the comments section.

How to Reduce the Risk of Importing and Exporting

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StrategyDriven Risk Management Article | How to Reduce the Risk of Importing and ExportingWhen you run a company, importing and exporting becomes an important part of its day to day operation. Whether you need to get materials, or you’re selling products to your customers, you’ll need to either import or export them quickly.

The trouble is, importing and exporting come with a range of challenges. This is especially true when disruption hits the sector, like it has with the coronavirus pandemic. So, how can businesses reduce the risks of importing and exporting? Below, you’ll discover some great tips you can follow.

Do your research

It’s really important to do your research when you’re importing and exporting. Different countries have different rules you’ll need to be aware of. For example, some goods may be illegal in certain countries. You need to know these things to avoid falling on the wrong side of the law.

Speaking of the law, always familiarise yourself with the legalities of importing and exporting. Make sure you understand any risk and compliance law you need to adhere to. If you don’t, the consequences to your business could be dire.

Ensure you have an organised record keeping process

One of the legal requirements when you import and export goods, is to keep accurate records. You’ll need to keep these records for five years. While brokers often have records, these are typically used for their own purposes. So, having your own copies is important.

It isn’t as much work as you might think and keeping records helps you to avoid any potential legal issues that might occur. You can research more about the types of records you’ll need to keep.

Understanding the different risks

So, what risks do you need to be aware of? The truth is, there are a lot of risks associated with imports and exports. These include goods being damaged in transit, your buyer becoming insolvent, political risks and economic risks.

Having a good understanding of the different risks can help you to avoid them. While you can’t always plan for things that go wrong, you can at least familiarise yourself with the most common risks you’ll face.

Overall, importing an exporting are crucial for businesses. However, there are a lot of risks involved. The above are just some of the ways to reduce the risks importing and exporting present. Remember, the more research and planning you do, the more you’ll be able to protect yourself against these risks.