Ideas for Business

We’ve recently been looking into Cloud Based Accounting for our business, and I thought I would share some of what I’ve learned so far as I’ve started to research which among the many choices out there we should consider.

This is a very brief overview of cloud accounting, also known as online accounting, or in some circumstances SaaS (software as a service) accounting software.

What is cloud software?

Cloud accounting software at its most basic level is on demand accounting software, so (as long as you have the right internet browser) and an internet connection you can access the software and your company’s financial data from anywhere in the world through a number of devices. Your data is held either on several servers hosted by the software provider in house, or on a third party’s server – for example, Amazon. This is a very basic description, but the main things you should be concerned with are the security of the servers and what happens if something goes wrong (how quickly will things be back up and running?).

Benefits

Access it anywhere:
So the above idea of not being tied to one computer is one of the clear benefits of using cloud accounting software over desktop based accounting software. Not being tied to one location or PC means that you and your work colleagues can access your financial data anywhere in the world (internet connection required!). In the case of a small sized business, if it has an accountant that completes the end of year financial returns then they no longer have to come and visit the company on site; saving the business money in accountant’s fees.

Subscription based:
Another small or medium sized business benefit here, the fact that cloud accounting tends to be subscription based means that it can scale with your company. A small company with few transactions may even find a free package, then (hopefully) as the company grows this can be upgraded through a few clicks of a button. The fact that there is no installing of software or on site data storage also means that you don’t have a horrendous up front bill to pay. Very nice.

Upgrades on the go:
Speaking with accountants you find that one of the really annoying things about old school (desktop) accounting software is the fact that if a client did not have the same software as you then you would have to explain how they can export the software and then send it to you. This time consuming process has been banished as cloud accounting software (depending on the provider) can be upgraded on the fly. The twofold benefit of constant upgrades being that new features will constantly keep coming available and you the customer have the ability to help shape the software’s development. There should be no additional cost for this process. The competitive nature of the cloud accounting market means that software providers need to keep on their toes, if a competitor has a feature you want (like a PayPal import) then leave and go to them.

There are other benefits and drawbacks to cloud accounting software, but this gives you an idea of a general place to start!

Providers:

When choosing cloud accounting software, always make sure the provider allows you at least a 30 day trial. During this period you can then try out several software systems and find which is the most intuitive for you to use or has the features that you need.

The market place is growing rapidly with new providers springing up every day. Below are some of them that are worth a try:

• Xero New Zealand based $18 – $37
• Quickbooks Online $10 – $35
• Clear Books UK Based between $7 – $23

Army Golden Knights: SFC Dave Herwig (@gkdave), SGM Steve Young (@gksteve), LTC Joe Martin (gkjoe)

My presentation on how to leverage Social Media SEO to improve the reach and effectiveness of blog content for marketing at OpenCa.mp DFW this weekend ended up being a lot of information in a very short period of time. The use of a video interview I did with Brian Clark as the segue into my presentation ate into some of the 30 minutes I had to present plus I simply had too many slides.

(Thanks to Lt Colonel Joe Martin for the photo taken right after the presentation. His team were literally sponges for information at the event.)

The good news is that there’s Slideshare, so I’ve embeded a copy of that presentation below. Chris Pirillo and Brian Clark gave witty, informative and entertaining presentations on blogging and copywriting for blogs before me, so the stage was set to talk about marketing that blog content.

Marketers familiar with “Push and Pull” can relate to Social Media being the push, where (along with listening & engagement) you syndicate, update and share your content via social channels. The pull is SEO, where you optimize that content with customer centric keywords they can use on search engines to easily find your content ahead of the competition.

My presentation shared a model that I call the Cycle of Social & SEO that starts with creating, optimizing and promoting content along with listening to and growing social networks. As the relevant content gets shared socially and others link to it, the exposure and traffic builds momentum to a point where search traffic and the social community you’ve fostered provides priceless data via social media and web analytics on what content to create and share on a go forward.

Guessing what keywords and what social channels your customers are connected to is the reason why so many companies don’t see an impact from their efforts. Being smart from the start and planning on developing a cycle that continues to provide value and refine effectiveness at meeting customer search and social media needs is a win for all.

Companies in the marketing space like Marketo, PRWeb and our own agency at TopRank Marketing have made strong commitments to content as well as SEO and Social Media with the payoffs coming in the form of competitive search visibility and growing social communities.

We’ve recently been engaged by another well known company in the online marketing space that sees the value in both our strategic marketing & implementation expertise, but more importantly, is making a commitment to content and it’s role in customer acquisition and customer retention through Social Media & Search Optimization.

Check out the presentation below and let me know what you think.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. | Social Media SEO Success with Blogging | http://www.toprankblog.com

If you’ve made the decision that you need to hire someone to write content for your business’ blog, then you need to understand two things: how to find a qualified person to write your business blog and how much you need to pay that person.  You can follow the preceding link to learn how to find bloggers to write your business blog and keep reading this post to learn about how much money it’s going to cost you.

There are many factors that affect how much a professional blogger will charge you to write blog content for you.  A dozen of the most common factors are as follows:

1. The blogger’s experience with blogging
2. The blogger’s experience on the social Web
3. The blogger’s experience in your industry
4. The blogger’s online reach and reputation
5. Whether the blogger will be ghost blogging or get a byline with links to his/her own site or blog
6. How long posts need to be on your blog
7. If you’ll provide post topics or the blogger will have to find topics to write about
8. If images are required in posts
9. If the blogger will have to categorize, tag, and manage add-ons or plugins that add time to publishing a post
10. If the blogger will have to moderate and respond to comments
11. If the blogger will have to promote the blog to drive traffic to it
12. How often blog posts need to be published

Each of the factors listed above affects the amount of time it takes for the blogger to write and publish a post on your blog and will therefore, affect how much a blogger charges you to produce that content.  Furthermore, the old adage, “you get what you pay for,” certainly holds true in blogging.  Experienced bloggers might charge $50 per 300-500 word post while an extremely popular blogger might charges hundreds of dollars per post.  On the other end of the spectrum, an inexperienced blogger might charge just $3-$5 to write a blog post for you.

The goal for your business is to hire a blogger who can write well, autonomously, and consistently in a voice and style that matches your business.  The blogger should also have experience in your business or the ability (and willingness) to learn about your business in order to write effectively for your audience.  Finally, the blogger you hire should be reliable and write well.  It won’t help you to hire a blogger whose posts need to be completely edited for grammar, spelling, and formatting.

Just remember, publishing content that is substandard, inaccurately reflects your brand, and is not helpful or shareworthy isn’t going to help your business grow significantly.  It’s worth it to pay for quality content from a blogger who knows what he or she is doing.  It’s your business’ reputation and future on the line after all.

Image: stock.xchng

I’ve got to hand it to Bill Slawski. He writes about search engine patents and the gems he uncovers are fabulous. This morning he wrote about a Google patent that establishes an algorithm for helping searchers find blogs about a particular topic.

Note that this is different than Google’s ordinary search algorithm, which helps users find individual blog posts about a particular topic.

If you are a searcher, for instance, looking for blogs specifically about small business marketing then you might go to Google’s blog search – not the home page search – and type in “small business marketing”. Then you’ll hit the button labeled “Search Blogs”. You’ll get a list of blogs that regularly write about small business marketing as opposed to random blogs that sometimes write posts about small business marketing. You’ll find the blogs, not individual blog posts.

This has huge potential for marketers. If you want to develop an audience for your particular niche then it helps to know how the search engines rank blogs that target niches. By learning the criteria search engines look for to determine blog rankings you stand a better chance of having your blog rank highly in the search engine’s blog search feature.

Thanks, Bill. That was a really useful post.

OpenCamp’s Sunday schedule included presentations on blogging that included Chris Pirillo, Brian Clark and myself. I caught up with Brian before he gave his presentation to give us a little preview. John P. ended up using the video as the segue between Brian and I as we changed microphones.

Watch as Brian talks about the importance of planning content and understanding its purpose in order to be effective with blog copywriting. He also mentioned that traditional media is still doing some things right and we new media types would do well to identify what those things are and use that insight for our own publishing and content marketing efforts.

I think Brian’s presentation on content planning and editorial was a perfect setup to the marketing of content presentation that I gave afterwards, but of course I’m biased.  Of course you can find a cornucopia of copy writing and content marketing advice at Copyblogger.

My next and last post from OpenCa.mp will include a summary of my presentation along with the actual PPT deck embedded within the post.

Gain a competitive advantage by subscribing to the
TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter.

© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. | Brian Clark Interview: Copyblogger on Content Marketing with Blogs | http://www.toprankblog.com