A critical report into the protection of three murder victims, including a celebrated Dutch journalist gunned down in central Amsterdam, said Wednesday that security services in a “fragmented” protection system didn’t always act on tips about possible threats.
The conclusions highlighted flaws in a network involving police and prosecutors that is intended to offer protection to people facing threats ranging from stalkers to possible attacks by criminals and terrorists.
The report came following an 18-month government-commissioned investigation by the Dutch Safety Board into the slayings of crime reporter Peter R. de Vries, lawyer Derk Wiersum and the brother of a key witness in the trial of an alleged Dutch crime gang.
De Vries, who was shot on an Amsterdam street on July 21, 2021, and died nine days later acted as a confidential advisor to the witness. Wiersum, the witness’ lawyer, was gunned down on Sept. 18, 2019, outside his home in Amsterdam. The witness’ brother, identified only Reduan, was shot and killed March 29, 2018.
The witness played a key role in the prosecution of Ridouan Taghi, who is accused by prosecutors of multiple murders in the violent Dutch criminal underworld. Judges are expected to deliver verdicts later this year in the trial of Taghi and several alleged accomplices.
The report said that “command of the surveillance and protection of the persons under threat was fragmented across national and regional organisations” and the protection service “did not receive all the information about the threat that was available to the investigation.”
It added that “signals” of possible threats from the victims “were not regarded as concrete threat information and therefore did not fit into the usual system.”
Both Wiersum and De Vries had police surveillance at their homes. De Vries “was not willing to share his schedule to make it possible to organize surveillance for his arrivals and departures. He also made no use of the option to personally notify any high-risk moments,” the report said.
The brother of the witness “insisted on protection for members of his family. When the attack on his life took place, no specific security measures had yet been taken for him,” it added.
Justice Minister Dilan Yeşilgöz-Zegerius said in a reaction to the report that the government has made investments to beef up the security apparatus in recent years.
“The increased threat, specifically from organized crime, means that the number of people and objects that are intensively monitored and secured for a long period of time — sometimes even many years — has increased considerably,” she said in a statement.
Yeşilgöz-Zegerius said that “the person to be protected is now more central, and tailor-made security measures are being developed.”
Are you frustrated by the ever-changing landscape of social media? Are the algorithm changes making you feel lost? As changes arise, consistency is key.
If you’re looking to improve your reach on Instagram, you need to start thinking about Instagram SEO. Just like with Google or any other search engine, there are specific tactics you can use to help improve your rankings and visibility.
In this article, I’ll show you how to optimize your profile and content for better search engine visibility. Follow these tips, and you’ll be well on your way to reaching a larger audience on Instagram.
What Is Instagram SEO?
Instagram SEO is the process of optimizing your profile and content to increase your visibility in search engines. This can be done by using specific keywords, hashtags, and other strategies that we will cover in this article. By optimizing your account for SEO, you will be able to reach a larger audience and grow your following on Instagram.
There are two types of SEO that you need to be aware of when it comes to Instagram: on-page and off-page.
On-page SEO refers to the optimizations that you can do on your own account, such as using keywords in your bio or captioning your photos with relevant hashtags. Off-page SEO, on the other hand, refers to the things that you can do outside of your account to improve your SEO, such as building links from other websites.
Both on-page and off-page SEO are important for growing your Instagram following. In this article, we will focus on on-page SEO tactics that you can use to optimize your account and content.
Instagram SEO vs. Search Engine SEO
Before we dive into the specific tactics that you can use to improve your Instagram SEO, it’s important to understand the difference between search engine SEO and Instagram SEO.
Search engine optimization, or SEO, is the process of optimizing your website to rank higher in search engines. This can include using specific keywords on your website and in your content, as well as building links from other websites.
Here’s something to remember, though. Search engines like Google search all websites, including social media platforms. That means that when people are searching for the kinds of things you are posting about, Google may crawl your social media pages, too and pull results from there.
Instagram SEO is the process of optimizing your profile and content to rank higher in the Instagram search engine. This can be done by using specific keywords in your bio and captioning your photos with relevant hashtags. Just like with regular SEO, Instagram SEO is all about using the right keywords to help improve your visibility.
Instagram allows users to search for words, phrases, profiles, and hashtags. Being able to search by interest broadens your opportunities as a consumer of Instagram, allowing you to dive in and explore topics of interest without the limitations of specific hashtags. Users can search for topics or by interest, just as you would on Google.
To start, find the magnifying glass icon on your desktop interface or mobile app. That’s where you’ll type in your topic of interest. Let’s look at how it works.
Now the fun begins. You can start clicking around to find more ideas.
You can click on more ideas and dive down that rabbit hole, where Instagram and Instagram content creators hope you’ll stay for a while.
As we mentioned above, Google crawls Instagram and other social media sites like any other website. This is especially true for profiles or usernames. When people search for your brand on Google, your social media pages are likely to come up. So make sure that your username mirrors your brand name closely.
Here’s an example, using Google to search for fiddle leaf figs on Instagram. Of course, to get Instagram in the top results, we had to use the word “Instagram” in the search, but it shows you the power of having your top keyword in your username and bio.
When you are creating content to be optimized to Instagram’s search features, you may also want to think about how Google is analyzing that content, to get better traffic, whether customers are using the internal search on Instagram or Google.
Why Is Instagram SEO Important?
Instagram SEO is important because it can help you reach a larger audience and grow your following. By optimizing your account and content for search engines, you will be able to improve your visibility and attract more followers. As you go through the time and effort to create your Instagram posts, you want to make sure that you’re getting the most engagement and ROI on each of them.
There are two main benefits of improving your Instagram SEO:
Reach a larger audience: By ranking higher in the search engines, you will be able to reach a larger audience. This is because more people will see your content when they search for specific keywords or hashtags.
Grow your following: When you reach a larger audience, you will also be more likely to grow your following. As more people see your content, some of them will decide to follow you. Over time, this can lead to significant growth in your following.
While there are other benefits of Instagram SEO, these are two of the most important ones. If you’re looking to reach a larger audience and grow your following, then you need to focus on optimizing your account and content for the search engines.
Why Should You Care About Instagram SEO?
Now that you know a little bit about Instagram SEO, you might be wondering why you should bother with it. After all, isn’t it enough to just post great content and hope that people see it?
The answer is no. Just because you’re posting great content doesn’t mean that people will see it. In fact, most of your content is probably not being seen by anyone except for your most loyal followers.
If you want people to see your content, then you need to make sure that it’s optimized for the search engines. This is where Instagram SEO comes in. By optimizing your account and content for the search engines, you will be able to improve your visibility and reach a larger audience.
Instagram is a competitive platform, and if you want to be successful, you need to do everything you can to stand out from the crowd. Optimizing your account for the search engines is one of the best ways to do this.
Best Practices for Improving Your Instagram SEO
Let’s take a look at some best practices for improving your reach. Here are nine tips for improving your Instagram SEO.
*Note: You will notice that some of these tactics are similar to regular SEO tactics. That’s because they are! The same principles that apply to SEO also apply to Instagram SEO.
1.Optimize for Search By Interest
The first step to take is understanding what your target market is interested in. What are they searching for on Instagram? It’s important to optimize your profile with relevant keywords in your bio. Your bio is one of the first things that people see when they visit your profile, so it’s important to make a good impression.
The images below show how a user can search by interest in two ways. The first image shows the top accounts based on the keyword. The second image shows the top posts for that keyword.
When writing your bio, be sure to include relevant keywords that describe what you do and who you are. For example, if you’re a photographer, you might use keywords such as “photographer” or “photo tips.”
Including relevant keywords in your bio will help you rank higher in the search engines and attract more followers.
You should also use the correct Instagram hashtags to target a larger audience that is interested in your product or service. When you use relevant hashtags in your posts, you’re more likely to show up in the search results when people search for those hashtags.
For example, if you use the hashtag #photography, you’ll be more likely to show up in the search results when someone searches for that term. Including relevant hashtags in your posts is a great way to improve your visibility and attract more followers.
You can also use those same keywords in your caption. Just like your bio, your captions are another great place to include relevant keywords. When you use keywords in your captions, you’re more likely to show up in the search results when people search for those keywords.
For example, if you’re a photographer, you might use keywords such as “photo tips” or “how to take better photos.”
Including relevant keywords in your captions is a great way to improve your visibility and reach a larger audience.
2. Be Consistent
When it comes to Instagram SEO, one of the most important things you can do is be consistent. It’s important to post regularly and maintain a consistent posting schedule.
If you’re inconsistent with your posting, you’re more likely to lose followers. People will unfollow you if they see that you’re not posting regularly.
It’s also important to maintain a consistent theme with your posts. Your posts should all be related to a certain topic or niche. For example, if you’re a photographer, all of your posts should be about photography. The image below showcases a beautifully curated profile that is both on brand and consistent with photography.
If you post about a variety of topics, it will be more difficult for people to understand what your account is about. It’s important to focus on one niche and maintain a consistent theme with your posts.
Being consistent with your posting schedule and maintaining a consistent theme will help you attract more followers and improve your visibility.
3. Be On Brand
When you’re creating content for your Instagram account, it’s important to be on brand. All of your posts should reflect your brand’s values and message. Note that this applies across platforms. Whether someone sees your website, Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook, there should be a uniform look and feel.
Your posts should be visually consistent with your brand. Here are some examples:
If you have a very colorful brand, all of your posts should be colorful.
If you have a more minimalistic brand, your posts should be minimal.
You should have a set of brand colors to insert consistently across all images.
If you enjoy using a filter, use that filter on every image for a consistent look.
Your posts should also reflect your brand’s voice. Here are some examples:
If your brand is very formal, your posts should be formal.
If your brand is more casual, your posts can be more casual.
Your captions should sound consistent across every post.
Use the same hashtags throughout your account for consistency.
It’s important to make sure that all of your content is on brand. When you’re on brand, you’re more likely to attract followers who are interested in your brand.Users are attracted to brands that encompass the look and feel of whatever it is they’re selling. If you’re a makeup artist but don’t have any pictures of your clients, how would anyone know what your service looks like? Representing what you sell and who you are as a business is key to getting people to trust you.
Being on brand will also help you rank higher in the search results. When you’re consistent with your branding, it’s easier for people to find you when they’re searching for keywords related to your brand.
If you’re not sure how to be on brand, take a look at your competitors. See how they’re creating content and try to emulate their style. Being on brand is a great way to improve your visibility and attract more followers.
4. Be Thorough in Your Captions
Your social media captions are another great place to include relevant keywords. When you use keywords in your captions, you’re more likely to show up in the search results when people search for those keywords.
It’s important to be thorough in your captions and include as many relevant keywords as possible. However, you don’t want to stuff your captions with keywords.
If you stuff your captions with keywords, it will be difficult to read, and people will be less likely to engage with your content. You want to strike a balance between including relevant keywords and making your caption readable and natural.
5. Be a Real Person
All the tips and tricks aside, search engines are constantly working to be more human. And the more human you can be, the better. Some of the best tips for social media SEO include just being authentic, natural, and just showing up a lot. Keep the “social” in social media and be kind. The quickest way to get hidden or pushed down the algorithm is to just have poor etiquette on these types of platforms.
People are more likely to follow an account that feels personal and relatable. If you can show that there’s a real person behind your account, you’re more likely to attract followers.
6. Use Tools to Improve Your Instagram SEO
There are a few tools that you can use to help improve your Instagram SEO. Using these tools will help you find the right keywords to use, track your progress, and measure your success.
To really up your Instagram SEO game, you may want to explore the number of Instagram analytics tools and other programs that can help you learn how your Instagram strategy is working. Here are just a few to get you started.
Iconosquare: A powerful scheduling tool that provides real-time analytics on how your content is promoted, as well as competitor and industry data to help you post well.
Hashtags for Likes: A tool to research and uncover the best hashtags for your content.
Plann: Integrating design tools like Canva, this tool lets you create, post, and monitor all in one place so you can keep an eye on how your Instagram strategy is working.
Using tools to track your progress is a great way to ensure that you’re making the most of Instagram for your business.
7. Take Advantage of User Interaction
User interaction is a great way to build relationships with your followers and get people talking about your brand. If you can take advantage of user interaction, you’re more likely to attract followers and grow your business.
One way to take advantage of user interaction is to run giveaways. Giveaways are a great way to engage with your followers and get people talking about your brand.
Another way to take advantage of user interaction is to create polls. Polls are a great way to get feedback from your followers and learn more about your audience.
By taking advantage of user interaction, you can build relationships with your followers, get feedback from them, and learn more about your audience.
8. Have A Measurement Strategy In Place
When you’re trying to improve your Instagram SEO, it’s important to have a social media measurement strategy in place. You need to be able to track your progress and measure your success. Different metrics may be more important based on the goals of your Instagram page.
One way to measure your success is by tracking your engagement. Engagement includes likes, comments, and shares.
You can also track your reach. Reach is the number of people who see your content.
Another way to measure your success is by tracking your traffic. Traffic is the number of people who visit your website from Instagram.
You can also track conversions. Conversions are the number of people who take a desired action, such as signing up for a newsletter or making a purchase.
By tracking your progress, you can see what’s working and what’s not. This will help you adjust your strategy and continue to grow your business.
Here are some helpful tools to better understand your Instagram analytics:
Even though Instagram is a visual platform, don’t forget the basics of internet presence.
Be sure that your copy is spelling and typo-free. Errors look messy and unprofessional.
Instagram is a visual platform. So it’s important for your images to be relevant and high-quality. A user should have a good understanding of what your business does simply by looking at your profile gallery.
Be sure you are keeping all of the links in your profile up to date. The last thing you want is for someone to click on your profile link and find an error message.
As much as SEO is important, if the people who are on your profile leave because of errors, low quality images, and broken links, you’ll lose credibility and your efforts could go to waste.
Conclusion
SEO is a key part of your entire content strategy. They are interrelated and critical in our ever-growing digital world, and that doesn’t stop with your website and your blog. Instagram SEO and all other social media platforms you are using consistently should also be part of this equation.
How are you planning to create captions that are more searchable for your customer base?
If your answer is yes, then you need a detailed guide on how to start a startup.
For those of you who haven’t launched a business before, it can sound like an intimidating task.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying that getting your startup off the ground is an easy mission.
It takes hard work, dedication, money, some sleepless nights, and, yes, some failures before you succeed.
Nearly 20 percent of businesses fail in the first year, and just because you make it beyond 12 months doesn’t mean your startup is going to continue to thrive.
According to government stats, 30.6 percent of businesses fail after their second year, 49.7 percent fail after five years, and 65.6 percent fail after their tenth year.
Once you get your company off the ground, it doesn’t get any easier: you need to work just as hard to keep it going each year.
With that said, it’s useful to have a guide and a set of instructions to follow to learn how to launch a startup.
When I write about launching a startup, I’m talking from personal experience. I’ve created several startup companies like Crazy Egg, Hello Bar, and NP Digital.
I’m happy to share my knowledge and experience to help make things a little easier and less stressful for you as you go through this process.
Realistically, it takes hundreds of stages to launch your company, but I’ve narrowed down the top 7 steps into a blueprint for you to follow if you want to learn how to start a startup and learn how to create and develop your own business.
In the following article, I outline and discuss each step in detail so you have a better understanding of what I’m talking about.
Let’s begin with the basics.
1. Create a Business Plan
Have you heard the saying ‘if you fail to plan, you plan to fail?’ That was the thinking of Founding Father Benjamin Franklin.
Well, research appears to back that up. Study after study shows that businesses with a plan are more likely to succeed. In addition, you can find many articles spelling out the importance of a business plan.
“A business plan is a very important and strategic tool for entrepreneurs. A good business plan not only helps entrepreneurs focus on the specific steps necessary for them to make business ideas succeed, but it also helps them to achieve short-term and long-term objectives.”
It’s pretty straightforward, really. Having an idea is one thing, but having a legitimate business plan is another story.
A proper business plan gives you a significant advantage, but what should you include in a business plan? It helps if you think of it as a written description of your company’s future. Basically, you outline what you want to do and how you plan to do it.
Typically, these plans outline the first three to five years of your business strategy and detail your business’s purpose and aims. Ideally, your document should outline your business goals, strategies, and your plans for achieving them.
Here are the key steps to writing a successful business plan:
Outline your business goals
Describe your target market
Explain your product or service
Detail your marketing and sales strategies
Write down your financial projections and detail the funding
Summarize your overall strategy
If you need some help with your plan, the Small Business Administration has an easy-to-follow guide, along with some templates.
2. Secure Appropriate Funding
Without adequate funding, your business won’t launch or stay afloat long-term. According to Statista, in 2021, there were nearly 840,000 businesses that had been in operation for less than a year. Many of these startups won’t survive because they underestimate the cost of doing business.
Perhaps you’re wondering what level of financing you need? When it comes to raising cash, there’s no magic number that applies to all businesses. The startup costs vary from industry to industry, so your company may require more or less funding depending on the situation.
Costs also vary depending on whether you’re a brick-and-mortar store, e-commerce enterprise, or service business. If you’re unsure how much you might need, try the SBA’S startup cost templates to get a better idea.
Online startup loans, which you can apply for online and pay back over time, with interest.
SBA microloans, providing up to $50,000 in loans for start-up businesses. The main advantage is the lower interest rates.
Lines of credit, which is a type of loan available in both secured and unsecured formats.
Invoice factoring/financing, a process in which a business sells its invoices to a third party, at a discount.
Friends/family/personal loans, which are unsecured loans.
Business loans, which you pay back over an agreed period.
Angel investors, who have considerable wealth and give seed funding to start-up businesses.
Crowdfunding, where you raise money from a group of investors online.
Let’s circle back to our business plan for a minute.
All business plans contain a financial plan. This usually includes a:
Balance sheet, which displays your business’s assets, liabilities, and owner’s equity of the company.
Sales forecast, which predicts future sales.
Profit and loss statement, which details your earning and spending patterns. This figure helps calculate your net income.
Cash-flow statement, or financial statement detailing how much your business has spent and generated.
You use these financial statements to determine how much funding you need to launch successfully. Additionally, you may discover that the number is significantly higher than you originally anticipated.
For example, I’m sure you’ve heard someone say, “That would make a great app,” or “I should make an app for this.”
Do you know how much it costs to make an app? Depending on the complexity, you’re looking at anything between $40,000 – $300,000, and that’s just to make it.
This is the point I’m making: to secure the appropriate funding, you need to find out how much money you need.
To find this number, you must research and predict realistic financials in your business plan.
Let’s say you discover that your startup needs $100,000 to get off the ground.
What if you don’t have $100,000?
You’ve got some options, like bank loans and commercial lenders, and that’s the way many small businesses go. With this said, banks are less likely to give large amounts of money to new companies with no income or assets to default on, which may make it hard for your typical startup to get the funding they need.
Don’t worry, your dream isn’t dead yet. You can find investors. They could be:
However, whichever method you use, proceed carefully because you don’t want to start giving away significant equity in your company before you launch.
Then, if you get lucky and find a potential investor, you need to know how to pitch your idea quickly and effectively. Here are some tips to help you do that:
Memorize your financial numbers; ensure you know them inside out.
Refer to your business plan and ensure your financial figures cover the costs.
Make sure your business plan is presentable so you can give potential investors a copy.
Practice and perfect your pitch.
One more thing: It’s imperative that your business plan has a proper executive summary to entice busy investors.
Once you secure the appropriate funding, you can proceed to the next step of how to start a startup business: finding the right people.
3. Surround Yourself With the Right People
No one makes it on their own. William Proctor might not have been a high-profile, successful businessman if he hadn’t met James Gamble.
Where would we go for advice if Larry Page hadn’t met Sergey Brin? Not Google, that’s for sure.
Then what if Ben Cohen never met Jerry Greenfield? We would’ve been denied one of the world’s most famous ice cream brands.
Even if you’ve already got a co-founder in place, you need some core staff.
CEO and COO. Between them, they develop a vision and put it into action.
Product Manager, who is responsible for taking a product from its development stages and onto the market.
Chief Technology Officer, who works with executive members to oversee the technical side of a business.
Chief Marketing Officer, whose job involves creating a marketing strategy and executing it.
Sales Manager, for managing customer relationships, selling products/service, and motivating the team.
Chief Finance Officer, who manages the financial planning and decisions for a company.
Business Development Officer. This is a varied role that involves drawing up a business plan, establishing funding, and building customer/relationship funding.
Customer Service Officer, who assists customers with their questions, any complaints, and providing product information.
However, your business structure depends on the industry, so look at the above as definitive.
When you’re just starting up, hiring an entire team often isn’t realistic, and you find yourself wearing several business hats. That’s OK, to an extent. Just remember to play to your strengths and outsource if you can’t afford to recruit.
That said, there are some experts you should consider essential, including a:
Lawyer
Accountant
Financial advisor
Unless you’re an expert in law, finances, and accounting, these three people can help save your business some money in the long run.
They can explain the legal requirements and tax obligations based on how you structure your business. For example, it could be a:
Sole proprietorship
Partnership
Corporation
Limited liability company
While your lawyer, accountant, and financial advisors are not necessarily employees on your payroll, they are still important people to surround yourself with.
Finally, for this section, don’t forget the fundamentals for starting any company:
Get a federal ID number from the IRS. The IRS lets you submit your business information online to get your employer identification number (EIN).
Get insured: Shop around and find an insurance agent who can get you plenty of coverage at an affordable rate.
Now that you’ve got staff, you need to start work on a website and find a place to base your business.
4. Find a Location and Build a Website
Now you’re ready for the next stage of your how-to start a startup plan: finding a physical location and setting up a website.
Whether it’s offices, retail space, or a manufacturing location, you need to buy or lease a property to operate your business.
Unless you’re working from a home office, your two main options are leasing or ownership. Leasing usually works as out more expensive long term; however, don’t just base your decision on costs. Leasing and ownership both have their pros and cons. Look at the whole picture before making a decision.
I appreciate that it may not be realistic for all entrepreneurs to tie up the majority of their capital in real estate.
Strategize for this in your business plan and try to secure enough funding so that you can afford to buy property. It’s worth the investment and can save you money in the long run.
Let’s move on to setting up a website.
Today, your company can’t survive without an online presence. Don’t wait until the day your business officially launches to get your website off the ground, either, and remember, it’s never too early to start promoting your business.
If customers are searching online for a service in your industry, you want them to know that you exist, even if you’re not quite open for business yet.
The beauty of an online presence is you can even start generating some income through your website before you find premises. If it’s applicable, start taking some pre-orders and scheduling appointments.
Here are some tips about how to launch and promote a successful website:
When designing a website, it is important to keep the user in mind. The layout of the website should be easy to navigate and use. The colors and fonts should be easy on the eyes.
Make your website visually appealing. Use eye-catching images and dynamic designs to make the website stand out from the competition.
Keep the content of the website fresh and up-to-date to keep users coming back to visit your site. Your website is an ideal place to keep your audience up-to-date with a glimpse inside your company, product launches, and, of course, the details of your business premises.
Another important thing to keep in mind is usability. Your site should be easy to use on all devices, from desktop computers to smartphones and tablets.
I’ve got a video tutorial that explains how to speed up your website.
All of these items combined may sound tough, but it’s really not that difficult. Just focus on one task at a time, and you’ll get there.
Once your website is up and running, you need to expand your digital presence. To do this, use social media platforms like:
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Linkedin
Snapchat
Your prospective customers are using these platforms, so you need to be on them, too. However, when choosing a platform, ensure you go where your core audience is. For instance, if you’re targeting a younger market, TikTok may be ideal.
5. Become a Marketing Expert
If you’re not a marketing expert, you need to become one.
You might have the best product or service in the world, but if nobody knows about it, then your startup can’t succeed.
To start spreading the word, you must learn how to use digital marketing techniques like:
Content marketing
Affiliate marketing
Email marketing
Search engine optimization (SEO)
Social media marketing (SMM)
Search engine marketing (SEM)
Pay-per-click advertising (PPC)
However, if you’re starting a small business in a local community, some of the traditional methods can still work well. Think:
For those of you who aren’t efficient marketers, there is no shame in hiring a marketing director or even a marketing team, depending on the size of your company.
Your marketing efforts will be one of the most important, if not the most important, components of launching your startup business. To improve your chances of success:
Allocate a marketing budget.
Determine how you’re going to distribute this money across different channels.
Have a plan and try to maximize your return on investment for each campaign.
Take these numbers into consideration before you spend your entire budget on something like banner ads.
If you’re following this plan in order, the good news is that you’re already on the right track to building a customer base.
Starting a website, growing your digital presence, and becoming an effective marketer are all steps in the right direction. However, now it’s time to put these efforts to the test. That means:
Opening your doors (or website) for business.
Getting a customer to make a purchase is the first step.
Retaining customers.
There are three keys to customer retention:
Customer service
Customer service
Customer service
It’s no secret. The customer needs to be your main priority. They are the lifelines of your business, and they need to be treated accordingly.
Once you establish a steady customer base, you can use it to your advantage.
As illustrated above, you face peaks and valleys while your company operates.
Mistakes and setbacks happen.
Some of these things will be out of your control, like a natural disaster or a crisis with the nation’s economy.
Employees will come and go.
You’ll face tough decisions and crossroads.
Sometimes, you’ll even make the wrong decision.
That’s OK.
Part of being an entrepreneur is learning from your mistakes.
It’s important to recognize when you’ve done something wrong, move forward, and try your best to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
Pay your bills.
Pay your taxes.
Operate within the confines of the law.
As long as you’re doing these things, you’ll be able to fight through any obstacle your startup company faces in the future.
FAQs
How Do I Start a Startup?
Check if your idea is viable. Do some research and ask around. Are people looking for a business/service like yours? Then ask yourself: How are other businesses in your sector performing? Have you spotted a genuine gap in the market? Then you’re ready to start drawing up a business plan.
Where Can I Acquire Startup Funding?
There are several sources, including personal financing, banks, crowdfunding, friends, family, angel investors, and venture capitalists.
Do I Need a Website to Launch My Startup?
In the vast majority of cases, yes. You also need a social media presence that is applicable to your audience. After all, social media is a free, efficient way to reach a huge volume of people that you couldn’t otherwise target.
How Can I Use Marketing to Launch My Startup?
It depends on your budget. Begin with strategies like social media, free press release distribution, and content marketing. As your business grows, you can allocate a budget for affiliates, email marketing, SEO, online ads, and influencer campaigns.
The percentage of entrepreneurs in the United States is growing strong, and each one of them is going to face challenges along the way.
With that said, having a proper blueprint to follow helps simplify the process. You can get learn the basics of how to start a startup by following the seven steps, and adapting them to suit your individual needs.
With that said, most successful businesses start with validating an idea, creating a comprehensive business plan, and raising adequate funding. Without proper financial planning, your startup doesn’t stand a chance.
Then, surround yourself with the right people and play to your strengths.
For instance, if you’re great at organizing and motivating, focus on that; If marketing just isn’t you, outsource it to a professional who excels in that area.
Don’t forget about lawyers, insurance agents, and accountants to keep your business in order, and make sure you have essentials like an online presence.
Launching your startup is an imperfect journey, and you must prepare for unforeseen circumstances. However, proper planning and execution help limit these hurdles and get your business off to a flying start.
How will you raise funding to get your startup company off the ground?
If your answer is yes, then you need a detailed guide on how to start a startup.
For those of you who haven’t launched a business before, it can sound like an intimidating task.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying that getting your startup off the ground is an easy mission.
It takes hard work, dedication, money, some sleepless nights, and, yes, some failures before you succeed.
Nearly 20 percent of businesses fail in the first year, and just because you make it beyond 12 months doesn’t mean your startup is going to continue to thrive.
According to government stats, 30.6 percent of businesses fail after their second year, 49.7 percent fail after five years, and 65.6 percent fail after their tenth year.
Once you get your company off the ground, it doesn’t get any easier: you need to work just as hard to keep it going each year.
With that said, it’s useful to have a guide and a set of instructions to follow to learn how to launch a startup.
When I write about launching a startup, I’m talking from personal experience. I’ve created several startup companies like Crazy Egg, Hello Bar, and NP Digital.
I’m happy to share my knowledge and experience to help make things a little easier and less stressful for you as you go through this process.
Realistically, it takes hundreds of stages to launch your company, but I’ve narrowed down the top 7 steps into a blueprint for you to follow if you want to learn how to start a startup and learn how to create and develop your own business.
In the following article, I outline and discuss each step in detail so you have a better understanding of what I’m talking about.
Let’s begin with the basics.
1. Create a Business Plan
Have you heard the saying ‘if you fail to plan, you plan to fail?’ That was the thinking of Founding Father Benjamin Franklin.
Well, research appears to back that up. Study after study shows that businesses with a plan are more likely to succeed. In addition, you can find many articles spelling out the importance of a business plan.
“A business plan is a very important and strategic tool for entrepreneurs. A good business plan not only helps entrepreneurs focus on the specific steps necessary for them to make business ideas succeed, but it also helps them to achieve short-term and long-term objectives.”
It’s pretty straightforward, really. Having an idea is one thing, but having a legitimate business plan is another story.
A proper business plan gives you a significant advantage, but what should you include in a business plan? It helps if you think of it as a written description of your company’s future. Basically, you outline what you want to do and how you plan to do it.
Typically, these plans outline the first three to five years of your business strategy and detail your business’s purpose and aims. Ideally, your document should outline your business goals, strategies, and your plans for achieving them.
Here are the key steps to writing a successful business plan:
Outline your business goals
Describe your target market
Explain your product or service
Detail your marketing and sales strategies
Write down your financial projections and detail the funding
Summarize your overall strategy
If you need some help with your plan, the Small Business Administration has an easy-to-follow guide, along with some templates.
2. Secure Appropriate Funding
Without adequate funding, your business won’t launch or stay afloat long-term. According to Statista, in 2021, there were nearly 840,000 businesses that had been in operation for less than a year. Many of these startups won’t survive because they underestimate the cost of doing business.
Perhaps you’re wondering what level of financing you need? When it comes to raising cash, there’s no magic number that applies to all businesses. The startup costs vary from industry to industry, so your company may require more or less funding depending on the situation.
Costs also vary depending on whether you’re a brick-and-mortar store, e-commerce enterprise, or service business. If you’re unsure how much you might need, try the SBA’S startup cost templates to get a better idea.
Online startup loans, which you can apply for online and pay back over time, with interest.
SBA microloans, providing up to $50,000 in loans for start-up businesses. The main advantage is the lower interest rates.
Lines of credit, which is a type of loan available in both secured and unsecured formats.
Invoice factoring/financing, a process in which a business sells its invoices to a third party, at a discount.
Friends/family/personal loans, which are unsecured loans.
Business loans, which you pay back over an agreed period.
Angel investors, who have considerable wealth and give seed funding to start-up businesses.
Crowdfunding, where you raise money from a group of investors online.
Let’s circle back to our business plan for a minute.
All business plans contain a financial plan. This usually includes a:
Balance sheet, which displays your business’s assets, liabilities, and owner’s equity of the company.
Sales forecast, which predicts future sales.
Profit and loss statement, which details your earning and spending patterns. This figure helps calculate your net income.
Cash-flow statement, or financial statement detailing how much your business has spent and generated.
You use these financial statements to determine how much funding you need to launch successfully. Additionally, you may discover that the number is significantly higher than you originally anticipated.
For example, I’m sure you’ve heard someone say, “That would make a great app,” or “I should make an app for this.”
Do you know how much it costs to make an app? Depending on the complexity, you’re looking at anything between $40,000 – $300,000, and that’s just to make it.
This is the point I’m making: to secure the appropriate funding, you need to find out how much money you need.
To find this number, you must research and predict realistic financials in your business plan.
Let’s say you discover that your startup needs $100,000 to get off the ground.
What if you don’t have $100,000?
You’ve got some options, like bank loans and commercial lenders, and that’s the way many small businesses go. With this said, banks are less likely to give large amounts of money to new companies with no income or assets to default on, which may make it hard for your typical startup to get the funding they need.
Don’t worry, your dream isn’t dead yet. You can find investors. They could be:
However, whichever method you use, proceed carefully because you don’t want to start giving away significant equity in your company before you launch.
Then, if you get lucky and find a potential investor, you need to know how to pitch your idea quickly and effectively. Here are some tips to help you do that:
Memorize your financial numbers; ensure you know them inside out.
Refer to your business plan and ensure your financial figures cover the costs.
Make sure your business plan is presentable so you can give potential investors a copy.
Practice and perfect your pitch.
One more thing: It’s imperative that your business plan has a proper executive summary to entice busy investors.
Once you secure the appropriate funding, you can proceed to the next step of how to start a startup business: finding the right people.
3. Surround Yourself With the Right People
No one makes it on their own. William Proctor might not have been a high-profile, successful businessman if he hadn’t met James Gamble.
Where would we go for advice if Larry Page hadn’t met Sergey Brin? Not Google, that’s for sure.
Then what if Ben Cohen never met Jerry Greenfield? We would’ve been denied one of the world’s most famous ice cream brands.
Even if you’ve already got a co-founder in place, you need some core staff.
CEO and COO. Between them, they develop a vision and put it into action.
Product Manager, who is responsible for taking a product from its development stages and onto the market.
Chief Technology Officer, who works with executive members to oversee the technical side of a business.
Chief Marketing Officer, whose job involves creating a marketing strategy and executing it.
Sales Manager, for managing customer relationships, selling products/service, and motivating the team.
Chief Finance Officer, who manages the financial planning and decisions for a company.
Business Development Officer. This is a varied role that involves drawing up a business plan, establishing funding, and building customer/relationship funding.
Customer Service Officer, who assists customers with their questions, any complaints, and providing product information.
However, your business structure depends on the industry, so look at the above as definitive.
When you’re just starting up, hiring an entire team often isn’t realistic, and you find yourself wearing several business hats. That’s OK, to an extent. Just remember to play to your strengths and outsource if you can’t afford to recruit.
That said, there are some experts you should consider essential, including a:
Lawyer
Accountant
Financial advisor
Unless you’re an expert in law, finances, and accounting, these three people can help save your business some money in the long run.
They can explain the legal requirements and tax obligations based on how you structure your business. For example, it could be a:
Sole proprietorship
Partnership
Corporation
Limited liability company
While your lawyer, accountant, and financial advisors are not necessarily employees on your payroll, they are still important people to surround yourself with.
Finally, for this section, don’t forget the fundamentals for starting any company:
Get a federal ID number from the IRS. The IRS lets you submit your business information online to get your employer identification number (EIN).
Get insured: Shop around and find an insurance agent who can get you plenty of coverage at an affordable rate.
Now that you’ve got staff, you need to start work on a website and find a place to base your business.
4. Find a Location and Build a Website
Now you’re ready for the next stage of your how-to start a startup plan: finding a physical location and setting up a website.
Whether it’s offices, retail space, or a manufacturing location, you need to buy or lease a property to operate your business.
Unless you’re working from a home office, your two main options are leasing or ownership. Leasing usually works as out more expensive long term; however, don’t just base your decision on costs. Leasing and ownership both have their pros and cons. Look at the whole picture before making a decision.
I appreciate that it may not be realistic for all entrepreneurs to tie up the majority of their capital in real estate.
Strategize for this in your business plan and try to secure enough funding so that you can afford to buy property. It’s worth the investment and can save you money in the long run.
Let’s move on to setting up a website.
Today, your company can’t survive without an online presence. Don’t wait until the day your business officially launches to get your website off the ground, either, and remember, it’s never too early to start promoting your business.
If customers are searching online for a service in your industry, you want them to know that you exist, even if you’re not quite open for business yet.
The beauty of an online presence is you can even start generating some income through your website before you find premises. If it’s applicable, start taking some pre-orders and scheduling appointments.
Here are some tips about how to launch and promote a successful website:
When designing a website, it is important to keep the user in mind. The layout of the website should be easy to navigate and use. The colors and fonts should be easy on the eyes.
Make your website visually appealing. Use eye-catching images and dynamic designs to make the website stand out from the competition.
Keep the content of the website fresh and up-to-date to keep users coming back to visit your site. Your website is an ideal place to keep your audience up-to-date with a glimpse inside your company, product launches, and, of course, the details of your business premises.
Another important thing to keep in mind is usability. Your site should be easy to use on all devices, from desktop computers to smartphones and tablets.
I’ve got a video tutorial that explains how to speed up your website.
All of these items combined may sound tough, but it’s really not that difficult. Just focus on one task at a time, and you’ll get there.
Once your website is up and running, you need to expand your digital presence. To do this, use social media platforms like:
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Linkedin
Snapchat
Your prospective customers are using these platforms, so you need to be on them, too. However, when choosing a platform, ensure you go where your core audience is. For instance, if you’re targeting a younger market, TikTok may be ideal.
5. Become a Marketing Expert
If you’re not a marketing expert, you need to become one.
You might have the best product or service in the world, but if nobody knows about it, then your startup can’t succeed.
To start spreading the word, you must learn how to use digital marketing techniques like:
Content marketing
Affiliate marketing
Email marketing
Search engine optimization (SEO)
Social media marketing (SMM)
Search engine marketing (SEM)
Pay-per-click advertising (PPC)
However, if you’re starting a small business in a local community, some of the traditional methods can still work well. Think:
For those of you who aren’t efficient marketers, there is no shame in hiring a marketing director or even a marketing team, depending on the size of your company.
Your marketing efforts will be one of the most important, if not the most important, components of launching your startup business. To improve your chances of success:
Allocate a marketing budget.
Determine how you’re going to distribute this money across different channels.
Have a plan and try to maximize your return on investment for each campaign.
Take these numbers into consideration before you spend your entire budget on something like banner ads.
If you’re following this plan in order, the good news is that you’re already on the right track to building a customer base.
Starting a website, growing your digital presence, and becoming an effective marketer are all steps in the right direction. However, now it’s time to put these efforts to the test. That means:
Opening your doors (or website) for business.
Getting a customer to make a purchase is the first step.
Retaining customers.
There are three keys to customer retention:
Customer service
Customer service
Customer service
It’s no secret. The customer needs to be your main priority. They are the lifelines of your business, and they need to be treated accordingly.
Once you establish a steady customer base, you can use it to your advantage.
As illustrated above, you face peaks and valleys while your company operates.
Mistakes and setbacks happen.
Some of these things will be out of your control, like a natural disaster or a crisis with the nation’s economy.
Employees will come and go.
You’ll face tough decisions and crossroads.
Sometimes, you’ll even make the wrong decision.
That’s OK.
Part of being an entrepreneur is learning from your mistakes.
It’s important to recognize when you’ve done something wrong, move forward, and try your best to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
Pay your bills.
Pay your taxes.
Operate within the confines of the law.
As long as you’re doing these things, you’ll be able to fight through any obstacle your startup company faces in the future.
FAQs
How Do I Start a Startup?
Check if your idea is viable. Do some research and ask around. Are people looking for a business/service like yours? Then ask yourself: How are other businesses in your sector performing? Have you spotted a genuine gap in the market? Then you’re ready to start drawing up a business plan.
Where Can I Acquire Startup Funding?
There are several sources, including personal financing, banks, crowdfunding, friends, family, angel investors, and venture capitalists.
Do I Need a Website to Launch My Startup?
In the vast majority of cases, yes. You also need a social media presence that is applicable to your audience. After all, social media is a free, efficient way to reach a huge volume of people that you couldn’t otherwise target.
How Can I Use Marketing to Launch My Startup?
It depends on your budget. Begin with strategies like social media, free press release distribution, and content marketing. As your business grows, you can allocate a budget for affiliates, email marketing, SEO, online ads, and influencer campaigns.
The percentage of entrepreneurs in the United States is growing strong, and each one of them is going to face challenges along the way.
With that said, having a proper blueprint to follow helps simplify the process. You can get learn the basics of how to start a startup by following the seven steps, and adapting them to suit your individual needs.
With that said, most successful businesses start with validating an idea, creating a comprehensive business plan, and raising adequate funding. Without proper financial planning, your startup doesn’t stand a chance.
Then, surround yourself with the right people and play to your strengths.
For instance, if you’re great at organizing and motivating, focus on that; If marketing just isn’t you, outsource it to a professional who excels in that area.
Don’t forget about lawyers, insurance agents, and accountants to keep your business in order, and make sure you have essentials like an online presence.
Launching your startup is an imperfect journey, and you must prepare for unforeseen circumstances. However, proper planning and execution help limit these hurdles and get your business off to a flying start.
How will you raise funding to get your startup company off the ground?
So you’re thinking about getting into house flipping.
That’s understandable, especially since the nationwide median net margin on flips is around$32,371.
How many of these paychecks do you need per year to replace your current income?
That’s one of the benefits of house flipping over most other real estate investment strategies. Instead of providing gradual income like rent, flipping houses quickly generates large chunks of capital.
But don’t go and grab a sledgehammer and put in an offer on a dilapidated house just yet. There are several skills needed to flip houses – much more than being able to pick out color combinations or lay flooring.
While these are excellent skills to have, you also need to consider these questions:
Will you hire an agent to sell your flip or sell it yourself?
We’ve covered all of these questions as well as house flipping terms in this article so that you can learn what sets successful flippers apart from beginners.
Let’s get into it!
A House Flipping Definition
First off, what is house flipping exactly, and what does it entail? In its most traditional sense, flipping involves purchasing a house that needs repairs or updates, making renovations, and then selling it for a profit.
Each of these three stages of the flipping process must be approached thoughtfully in order to maximize profits. A mistake on one of them could eat into your return, or worse, jeopardize your profit completely.
Do You Need A License To Flip Houses?
Absolutely not. In fact, most real estate investors don’t have a real estate license.
Think about the three major steps of flipping houses.
While you will not have direct access to the MLS (Multiple Listing Service) without a real estate license, you can easily team up with an agent in your market to keep you up to date on the newest listings. Also, in a seller’s market, your best bet for finding profitable house flipping deals will be to look outside of the MLS (more on this later).
You definitely don’t need a real estate license to renovate a house. The only license relevant at this step is a general contractor’s license. Many counties require a contractor topull permits before making significant modifications to a house. To determine what is needed, contact your local building and permit office. Even if they require a contractor’s license to obtain the necessary permits, it is almost always best to hire a contractor and allow them to handle all of the paperwork.
Once you’ve renovated a house and are ready to sell it, you are most likely to get top-dollar by listing it on the MLS. While doing this requires a real estate license, it is not necessary for you to be the one that lists it. Even though you can save thousands of dollars in agent commissions by handling this yourself, you must evaluate what you want to spend your time on. Most house flippers focus on the buying and renovating side and then pair up with a skilled real estate agent to sell their houses once they are remodeled.
What You Need to Do to Buy a Foreclosed House
There is a common saying in real estate investing, “You make your money when you buy.”
And there is a lot of truth to this saying. It is tough to come back from paying too much for a flip house. Conversely, buying a home with plenty of margin for renovation and profit will make the entire process go much smoother.
But how do you find houses with enough margin to flip?
One of the best ways is foreclosures.
Aforeclosure occurs when a homeowner falls behind on their mortgage payments. Once the payments stack up to a certain amount, their lender decides to foreclose and sell the house to recover their money.
Because these sales often involve someone that is motivated to sell the house, whether it be the lender or the homeowner, they can often be purchased at a significant discount.
But to be successful, you must know where to buy a foreclosed home. Here are the three main methods.
Buying Houses in Pre-Foreclosure
The period between when the lender files a Notice of Default on a homeowner behind on payments and when the house is sold at a foreclosure auction is known as pre-foreclosure. This is often the best time for real estate investors to the house because discussions are typically solely between the buyer and seller. The only communication needed with the lender is to request a payoff statement. This will tell you how much it will take to satisfy the loan entirely, and in these cases, it often includes the principal balance, accrued interest from missed payments, and attorney fees from beginning the foreclosure process. Another perk to buying a house in pre-foreclosure is that this is the only time you can buy it without competing with other investors. When it goes to auction, anyone that wants it can come and bid on it.
Buying A House At A Foreclosure Auction
If the homeowner in foreclosure does not resolve the issue before the auction date, the house will be auctioned off to recoup the money owed to the lender. These auctions typically take place at the county courthouse. Sometimes they are held in a conference room, but they are often held on the courthouse steps. The bidding typically starts around the payoff amount. This is why it is better to buy the house before this point, because it can only be bid up from there. And that almost always happens.
There are three reasons why buying a house at a foreclosure auction is not recommended for a beginner investor.
It is often difficult to see the house before the auction, so you will usually be buying it sight unseen.
Prices often get bid to high prices, and rookie investors often get caught up in the hype and end up paying too much.
The attorney handling the auction will often require you to provide the funds for the purchase very quickly – usually the next day at the latest. This requires you to have cash available or access to another source of liquid capital.
Buying Bank-Owned Houses (REO)
Sometimes a house goes to a foreclosure auction, but no one is willing to pay what the bank is asking for it. In these cases, the house goes back to the bank, and it becomes what is known as an REO (Real Estate Owned). Banks do not want these properties on their books, so they will often turn around and list them with an agent shortly after the auction. If you are interested in trying to purchase an REO for your flip project, it is best to work with an agent that has experience with these transactions since negotiating with the bank can often be tricky.
House Flipping Tips and Strategies
There are several skills you must master to become a successful house flipper. Beyond that, there is a tremendous amount of knowledge that is only gained through experience and hard work. Here are the top house flipping tips and tricks that will significantly increase your success rate.
Market Research
Understanding your market is vital when running a house-flipping business. Are home prices increasing, or are they projected to fall soon? Is it more of a buyer’s or seller’s market? Only data can give you these answers. Here is the most critical information to gather when researching your market:
Number of houses on the market
Average number of homes sold per month
Average Days On Market (DOM)
Median Sales Price
Marketing For Deals
If your market is like most markets across the nation right now, it is a hot seller’s market, and finding a good deal is extremely difficult. But that doesn’t mean you should give up on your goal of flipping houses. It just means that you need to develop creative ways to locate profitable deals. This usually means finding houses to buy outside the traditional route of going through a buyer’s agent. Here are some ways to find off-market houses to buy:
Connect with wholesalers in your market
Direct mail – sending postcards to homeowners
Cold calling
Driving for dollars – Driving neighborhoods in search of distressed houses
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) – Building a website that ranks on Google for search terms like “We Buy Houses [Your City]”
Negotiating With Sellers
Many people hear the word “negotiation,” and their heart begins racing. But you’ll be relieved to know that most real estate deals do not involve quite the level of bare-knuckle bargaining that you’re thinking.
Here is the number one secret to negotiating a profitable real estate deal: Help the seller with their problem.
Any successful real estate investor will tell you that in order to strike up a profitable deal, there must be some underlying motivation causing them to need to sell. This could be the condition of the house itself, financial stress, or any other number of life issues.
If you can solve these issues for someone by purchasing their house, it is much more likely that you will be able to get it for a reasonable price, and they will be happy that you were able to help them!
Evaluating Properties
Determining the right price to pay for a flip house has two components: Calculating what it will be worth after renovations and properly estimating the rehab expenses.
After Repair Value (ARV)
The After Repair Value, or ARV, is the estimated price the home will sell for after it is fixed up. It is calculated by figuring out the average price per square foot of nearby, similar homes that have recently sold and multiplying that value by the square footage of the house in consideration.
Estimating Rehab Expenses
The ARV and the repair expenses will be the two most significant factors in determining the appropriate purchase price to make your flipping project successful. To correctly estimate the costs to renovate a flip house, you must take special care when viewing it. This takes a very attentive eye. Even though issues aren’t glaringly obvious on your walkthrough, they will begin to show themselves once you start the project. Having a realistic rehab budget upfront will allow you to set the right purchase price and make the entire process go much more smoothly.
Two professionals who can help you estimate repair costs when starting out are a contractor and a home inspector. A contractor will be able to pick out things that need to be fixed and give you an estimate on how much it will all cost. A home inspector will perform a detailed inspection and find issues that are not detectable on a cursory walkthrough. Having these two professionals on your team is vital.
Finding Reliable Contractors
If you plan to complete one or two flip houses per year, you can probably get by doing the bulk of the renovations yourself. However, if you want to do much more than that, you will need to build a solid team of contractors. Even when doing a flip yourself, there will often be times that you must call in a contractor because the project is too complicated or it requires a permit. Here is a list of the most common contractors that you will need:
Roofer
HVAC Contractor
Plumber
Electrician
Painter
Drywall Contractor
Framer
Handyman
Where To Buy Inexpensive Materials
Although you will undoubtedly make many purchases at the big box stores during your flipping project, you should not solely depend on them for materials. There are likely other stores in your area that offer materials at much lower prices. Some ideas to look for are salvage warehouses and local building supplies. The most critical time to find these discounts is when you make large purchases, such as flooring for a large section of the house or kitchen cabinets. One discount you can often get from the big box stores is on appliances. They often mark down returned appliances significantly. Just be sure that there is nothing major wrong with them before buying them for your flip house.
Working With A Listing Agent
Although you could try to list the house yourself and save the money typically spent on agent commissions, it is generally not advised. Like with the rehab projects on a flip house, you must determine what is worth your time and what is better to delegate. The time you spend marketing your home and showing it to prospective buyers could be spent generating more deals.
Not only that, but juggling all of the queries and offers from potential buyers can be complicated. Mishandling this process could result in you leaving a significant amount of money on the table – much more than you would have paid an agent to sell your house. Finding an agent that knows your market well and is experienced in selling homes will result in a much smoother sales process and more money in your pocket.
What are the Most Helpful Skills Needed to Flip Houses?
To be a successful house flipper, you will need to develop quite a few skills. And don’t worry, they don’t all have to be perfected upfront. It will be more of a process where they improve as you complete more projects. But here are the skills you should be working on.
People Skills
Most people thinking about getting into house flipping immediately think they need to start watching HGTV shows to get design ideas and find the latest trends, but success in real estate investing is largely due to how you interact with people. If you can’t effectively communicate with a homeowner to diagnose the problems they are facing and present a solution that involves you buying their house, you will be hard-pressed to get started on your house-flipping journey. But if you can refine this skill and learn the right questions to ask, your possibilities as a house flipper are endless.
Must Be Organized
Once you purchase a house to begin renovating, keeping everything organized is vital. The first step is to lay out a detailed scope of work upfront. This will give you a clear path forward instead of your project evolving as you go. Having a scope of work will also allow you to determine theproper order of your renovations.
Secondly, you must maintain constant communication with your contractors to ensure they are on schedule. Many home improvement projects happen in series, meaning one task can’t begin until another is completed. For example, if your drywall guy is behind and takes an extra week to get to your project, your painter won’t be able to start on time and will have to fit you into the next opening in his schedule.
Lastly, you must keep a watchful eye on materials to ensure you and your contractors have everything needed for the project. Many items may need to be ordered, so it is unwise to wait until something is needed to go to the store and buy it.
Home Renovation Knowledge
Eventually, a house-flipping project comes down to making design decisions based on what is practical, affordable, and will improve the house’s value. It would be difficult to make these decisions and have intelligent conversations with contractors without basic knowledge of how houses are constructed. If you don’t have much experience with home renovation tasks, your best options will be to begin on smaller projects that only require cosmetic updates or partner with someone with more experience with construction.
Handyman Skills
Even if you decide to hire contractors for the bulk of the renovation tasks on your house, there will likely be some times when it makes the most sense for you to do something yourself. Here are the some of the most common handyman tasks when flipping a house:
Caulking and touch-up painting
Patching drywall
Changing light switches and outlets
Changing light fixtures
Laying flooring
Installing trim
Changing doors and door hardware
Installing a new toilet
Are You Ready To Get Started Flipping Houses?
House flipping can be a fantastic way to supplement your income or start a new career. However, as you’ve seen in this article, there is more to it than most people think. And these house flipping tips and tricks are just the tip of the iceberg. For more information on how to get started, check out thiscomplete guide to flipping houses written by a professional house flipper. In addition to the topics we’ve covered here, his guide covers more info on funding deals, marketing, running numbers, and selecting appropriate upgrades for your project.
What are your favorite tips and tricks for successfully flipping a house? Let us know in the comments!
Jordan Fulmer is the owner ofMomentum Property Solutions, a house buying company in Huntsville, AL. They specialize inbuying houses in tough situations and renovating them to either sell or rent. Jordan also runs the SEO side of their business and regularly writes content about real estate investing, home improvement, SEO, and general real estate topics.
That’s why keyword research should be the basis of any online marketing campaign.
The goal of keyword research is to find out what your target audience is searching for online and determine what it will take to actually rank in search engines for those keywords.
Without knowing what keywords you should be targeting, how will you effectively optimize your website, target phrases for link building, or know what content to develop for your audience?
In this first section, we’ll go through setting up a spreadsheet for your keyword research and discover the best keywords for both your main website’s search engine optimization and topics for content development.
In the next section, we’ll discuss what data will help you choose the best keywords to target.
The final section will be a compilation of the top posts on keyword research.
What Is Keyword Research?
Keyword research refers to the process of discovering what search terms your target audience is entering in search engines to find businesses and websites like yours and optimizing your content so you appear in the search engine results.
For example, my target audience for this blog is primarily marketers and small businesses looking for help with their SEO and digital marketing strategies. This means I want pages from my website to appear in the SERPs when my audience searches for terms related to SEO and digital marketing.
Let’s say someone in my target audience is searching for “what is SEO?” I want to make sure I have content on my website that comes up early in the results for that search term. Luckily, I do! Here are some of the top results for the phrase:
Why Is Keyword Research Important?
If you want your audience to find your website–whether’s it to your blog, e-commerce website, or for local services like lawn care–you must develop a strategy to help them find you. That’s where keyword research comes in.
The top result in the Google search results for a given search query (aka “keyword”) gets the most traffic 49 percent of the time. The second results get the most traffic 22 percent of the time. By the time you get to the second page of Google, users click on each result less than one percent of the time.
In order to drive your audience to the website, you must identify the keywords they are searching for, and create content that matches their search intent.
How to Do Keyword Research
There are many methods and tools you can use for keyword research. We’ll outline some of those methods and tools below, so you can pick and choose what works best for you.
Prework: Spreadsheet Set Up
The first thing you will want to do is set up a spreadsheet to record your data.
I’ve set up a basic spreadsheet that you can access. This document has columns for data using all tools mentioned in the first two parts of this blog post.
You can add or delete columns as you wish in order to match your keyword research needs. The columns included are as follows.
Keyword
GAKT – Competition (Google Ads Keyword Planner)
GAKT – Global Monthly Searches (Google Ads Keyword Planner)
GAKT – Local Monthly Searches (Google Ads Keyword Planner)
SEOmoz KA – Competitor 1 DA (Moz Keyword Explorer)
SEOmoz KA – Competitor 1 RDLRD (Moz Keyword Explorer)
SEOmoz KA – Competitor 2 (Moz Keyword Explorer)
SEOmoz KA – Competitor 2 DA (Moz Keyword Explorer)
SEOmoz KA – Competitor 2 RDLRD (Moz Keyword Explorer)
SEOmoz KA – Competitor 3 (Moz Keyword Explorer)
SEOmoz KA – Competitor 3 DA (Moz Keyword Explorer)
SEOmoz KA – Competitor 3 RDLRD (Moz Keyword Explorer)
In this section, we’ll cover filling up the columns with keyword and Google Ads Keyword Tool data.
In the following section, we’ll look at how to narrow down those keywords using the Moz Keyword Analysis tool (or some alternative methods if you are not a Pro member).
Saving the Google Docs Version
If you are signed into your Google account, simply use the File > Save option to save the spreadsheet to your documents and start filling it in with your information.
Downloading Excel and Open Office Versions
If you don’t have Google Docs, or would prefer to save it on your local machine, go to the Google Docs version and use the File > Download As to save it as your desired file type. I’d suggest Excel for best possible functionality.
Step 1: Keyword Discovery
The first phase of keyword research involves coming up with new keyword ideas.
Sometimes this is the most difficult part of the process as many people unfamiliar with keyword competition will select very broad target words such as pizza, hotel, or Los Angeles.
Others will pick obscure phrases that no one will likely search such as SEO/Link Building/Social Media (yes, I’ve seen people trying to similarly over-punctuated phrases).
So the first thing you will need to do is find suitable, related phrases for their business.
You can always start with some simple brainstorming. Look at the main topics on your website and jot down keywords associated with those topics.
I would suggest doing so in Microsoft Excel or another spreadsheet application.
Then, whenever you’re ready to expand on those ideas, continue to some great keyword tools.
Keyword Discovery Tools
The following are a great collection of free and premium tools that will help you discover new keywords related to your website or business.
Ubersuggest
Ubersuggest is great for helping you discover new keywords.
To get started, simply enter the keyword or phrase in the tool.
Let’s say we’re researching Social Media Marketing.
Input the phrase and click Search.
You’ll get a breakdown that looks like this:
Search volume – number of searches the keyword has during a month
SEO difficulty – estimated competition in organic search
Paid difficulty – estimated competition in paid search
Cost per click – average cost per click for a Google Ad
You’re also provided an overview of what it takes, on average, in terms of backlinks and domain score, to reach the first page of Google for the keyword. This is located above a chart displaying the keyword search volume, both for desktop and mobile, over the past 12 months.
You’ll also be able to scroll down and see different variations of your keyword phrase.
This gives you a wider view of what you can strive to rank for.
For low budgets, you may want to optimize a low competition, low cost per click option that still gets good results. For example, “jobs with social media marketing” fits the mold.
Or, you can pick multiple and A/B test them for the best results.
However you use it, this is a great tool to start with.
Ubersuggest Search Suggestions
Once you have some basic ideas, you can expand upon them by using the five keyword idea variables in Ubersuggest:
Suggestions
Related
Questions
Prepositions
Comparisons
In the screenshot above, “suggestions” is highlighted by default. But if you’re searching for the largest list of keywords that contain your phrase, click “Related.”
Every keyword on the list now includes your seed keyword, “social media marketing.”
From there, you can experiment with the other search types. Here are some examples of the keyword phrases you’ll uncover for each one:
Questions
is social media marketing dead?
is social media marketing worth it?
is social media marketing effective?
Prepositions
guide to social media marketing
help with social media marketing
problems with social media marketing
Comparisons
social media marketing vs digital marketing
social media marketing vs traditional marketing
social media marketing and SEO
Alternative Search Suggestions
Looking for alternative suggested search boxes?
The following search engines have similar suggested search options that appear below the search box when you start typing in keywords.
Depending on your keyword, each search engine will offer different suggestions.
Most people stick with Google as it is the most-visited web platform in the world, but it still doesn’t hurt to get additional keyword ideas from elsewhere.
If you have a Google account and, better yet, an Ads account, I would suggest signing in to those once you arrive on the Google Ads Keyword Tool to get better results.
To give you an idea, I searched for social media when I was not logged into my account and received 100 keyword ideas.
I searched for it again when logged in and received more than 600.
My suggestion is if you are looking for keywords just for your static website and not interested in the cost per click pricing (CPC), go with the results without logging into Google Ads.
If you are interested in the CPC pricing and also getting keyword ideas to help with content development, go with the results while logged into Google Ads.
Here is what each of the columns displayed in the Google Ads Keyword Tool will tell you about each of the keyword ideas displayed.
Competition – “The Competition column gives you a sense of how many advertisers are bidding for a particular keyword. This data can help you determine how competitive the ad placement is.”
Global Monthly Searches – “The approximate 12-month average of user queries for the keyword on Google search.”
Local Monthly Searches – “If you specified a country or language for your search, this is the approximate 12-month average number of user queries for the keyword for those countries and languages.”
Approximate CPC – “This is the approximate cost-per-click you might pay if you were to bid on the keyword. The CPC is averaged over all the ad positions.”
You can learn more about the search traffic statistics shown in this tool in Google Ads Help.
If you want a simple method to see a broader or narrower range of keywords, you can select this option in the filters on the left side of your screen.
You can also select specific Match Types by clicking the “Modify search” tab and scrolling down to the “Plan your budget and get forecasts” option.
Inputting your search term with the added punctuation will change the traffic volume for Global and Local Monthly Searches based on the approximation of traffic that a keyword gets on Google.
Broad – The sum of the search volumes for the keyword idea, related grammatical forms, synonyms, and related words. If you were doing PPC and targeted the broad match for social media, ads would show with any searches including social or media. Organic results would include the same.
[Exact] The search volume for that keyword idea. If you were doing PPC and targeted the exact match for social media, ads would only show if someone typed in social media but not any other variation of that phrase.
“Phrase” – The sum of the search volumes for all terms that include that whole phrase. If you were doing PPC and targeted the phrase match for pizza dough, ads would show for anyone who typed in social media, with or without additional keywords such as social media marketing or about social media. Organic results would include only results including the exact phrase social media.
You can learn more about match types (and some additional ones not on this list) in Ads Help.
You can also see the difference in data based on the three match types using the phrase social media in order of broad, “phrase,” and [exact].
And if you were to use these match types in a search, you would get 419 million results for a broad match search for social media and only 304 million results for a phrase match search for “social media.”
Going back to the generic term social media, you might want to remove certain words from the keyword ideas.
For example, you may not want to target anything about social media jobs, so you could add the word job under the Negative Keywords tab on the left side of the screen.
Now, you’ll need to export your data.
To do so, simply use the Download button under the Review Plan tab and export to your preferred format.
You can then copy the data from the exported spreadsheet to your keyword research spreadsheet.
You can also get this data for the keyword ideas you generated using SEMrush and suggested search by copying and pasting those keywords into the Word or phrase box and checking the box to only show ideas closely related to my search terms.
Then export the data for those keywords and phrases by checking the boxes next to them under the Search Terms section.
At this point, you probably have a lot of great keyword ideas.
In the next section, I will cover how to use the Moz Keyword Analysis Tool (or an alternative method to get the same information if you are not a Pro member) to get additional data and then narrow down your keywords to the ones that you should most likely focus upon for your online marketing strategy.
Step 2 – Analyzing and Choosing the Best Keywords
Now that you have a base spreadsheet to use for keyword data entry, let’s look at what’s next.
I want to show you some ways to get even more data about each keyword and further narrow down your results.
Please note that this data will take a bit of time to compile, so you might want to run through the keyword list and remove any obvious ones that you don’t want.
I usually go with no more than 100 keywords for this part of the process.
Keyword Analysis with Ubersuggest
Ubersuggest is a great tool for analyzing which keywords to use and what websites to examine for ideas.
For example, when we search for social media marketing in Ubersuggest, you can see a list of “content ideas”:
As you can see, a list of pages that rank for the keyword “social media marketing” appears. You can also see how many visits the page gets from the keyword, how many backlinks the page has, and how many shares it has on Facebook, Pinterest, and Reddit.
You can poke around the most successful websites and use that as a jumping-off point for what to include on your own page to rank for the keyword.
Keyword Analysis with Moz
You can get other important data to help you narrow down your target keywords with Moz.
If you have a Pro membership with Moz (you can always get a 30-day free trial if you have just one keyword research project to do), then you have access to a very nice little tool called Keyword Difficulty & SERP Analysis.
This tool will show you the percentage of difficulty for each keyword, giving you an idea of how hard it will be to rank highly for it.
You will also see the top ten sites ranked for each keyword, each listed with its domain authority and the number of root domains linking to it.
The latter is really the information that will help you decide which keywords to target.
You can put in five words at a time, and you can now pick between keyword, root domain, subdomain, or page.
Using our keyword phrase “social media management,” you can see the results of the difficulty assessment, search volume, organic click-through rates, and the balance of ranking ease and end results (Priority).
While this information is helpful, it’s not really anything we don’t already know. We’ve already decided we like this keyword phrase.
If anything, this is just a double-check that confirms the basics you found in the Ads Keyword Tool.
Below this information, you’ll find more keyword suggestions and a SERP analysis of the keyword.
The suggestions are fine for more brainstorming, but we’ll come back to the SERP analysis. That’s the real goldmine.
You can also find a short list of mentions for your keyword at the bottom of the page.
This is useful in letting you know who is using the keyword and how recently they created content with it.
While this information is nice, the real competitor information can be seen when you click on the SERP full analysis for each keyword, such as these results for a social media company.
I like to open them in new tabs for convenience.
This is the part where you can learn a few things.
First off, you can see who you will be trying to beat.
If your website comes up in this list of the top ten, then congratulations – you’re on the first page for a keyword phrase with a highly competitive keyword difficulty of 61%.
If you’re not in these results, you can compare your own website’s domain authority and linking root domains to the stats of the sites ranking in the top ten.
Domain authority is a score from 1 to 100. The higher a website’s domain authority, the more likely it is to rank for the keywords it is optimized for.
The linking root domains is the number of unique domains linking to a website.
You can see that the site with the highest authority and linking root domains doesn’t necessarily win the top spot.
But if you want to make #1, your site may need a domain authority of 28 or higher and hundreds of linking root domains to beat the competition.
Another thing you can learn from this is whether a keyword is drawing commercial or informational results.
This means that you will learn whether your keyword is being searched for commercial purposes (meaning that someone wants to find a product or service) or whether it is being searched for informational purposes (meaning that people are looking for information, not a product or service).
For social media company, the results include seven actual social media consulting companies and agencies.
Comparatively, if I do a full analysis of the keyword phrase “what is social media” you will see that the first page of results is purely informational. All of the results are from highly authoritative domains.
So if you are a social media company, you will probably want to target the phrase social media companies for your main business homepage.
You will also want to create some content based around the phrase what is social media and place it on highly authoritative domains such as YouTube and SlideShare to see if you can get it into the rankings for a phrase searched potentially by a million people monthly.
Alternative to the Moz Tool
If you’re not interested in a premium tool, then you can simply look up each keyword and look at websites ranking on the first page of the results.
If you’re interested in the domain authority stats, you can get some using another Moz tool called Open Site Explorer. You’ll get a limited amount of stats for free accounts though.
Or, you can use the free version of the SEOmoz toolbar – just use that and compare it to your own website’s domain authority.
At least with this information, you can still determine the commercial vs. informational usage of a keyword plus some basic stats to compare against your own website.
Step 3: Putting It Together in the Spreadsheet
The final part of the process is taking the spreadsheet and interpreting the data.
I like to use the Conditional Formatting in Excel to highlight cells a certain color based on the numerical value in the cell.
You simply highlight the cell range you want to compare, then go to Conditional Formatting > New Rule.
Select the 3-Color Scale Format Style, and change the Lowest Value / Highest Value color when applicable.
Certain fields in your spreadsheet will need to display the fact that a higher number is good whereas a lower number is bad.
For those fields (global & local monthly searches), you will want to leave the color settings as default, as shown below.
Other fields in your spreadsheet will need to display the fact that a higher number is bad whereas a lower number is good.
For those fields (GAKT – Competition, GAKT – Approximate CPC, SEOmoz KA – Difficulty, SEOmoz KA – Competitor DA, SEOmoz KA – Competitor RDLRD), you will want to change the lowest value color setting to green and the highest value color setting to red, as shown below.
Once you’re finished, you can highlight the top row and add a filter by applying the Sort & Filter > Filter option.
I like to start with selecting the filter for the SEOmoz KA – Difficulty column and sorting it from smallest to largest.
This way you get the following (click on the image below to see a larger view):
As you can imagine, having the highlighting and sorting options would be very valuable when looking at a spreadsheet with up to 100 keywords.
You could quickly see which keywords have the most searches and least competition or the least competition but most searches.
You could then move over and look at the actual competition for each keyword if you were shooting for #1 rankings.
Step 4: Making the Final Keyword Choices
My suggestion when making the final choice of keywords is as follows:
If your website is commercial (offering products or services), go with keywords that seem to have the most commercial intent based on the current ranking websites. If your website is informational (blogs come to mind), go with keywords that have the most informational intent.
Look for a “sweet spot” of high search volume in conjunction with low-difficulty/competition.
Look at keywords with high search volume with top competitors that have lower domain authority and backlinks.
If your website is already ranking on the first page, but not in the top 5 spots (or beneath other search result areas such as images, local results, etc.) and the keyword has good search volume, focus on getting those keywords and phrases to move up.
Sometimes, it’s not the actual decision that is the most difficult – it is actually compiling the data that takes the most time! Also, don’t forget to take the keywords that are more informational and use them for content topic ideas!
This concludes our method of discovering keyword ideas, analyzing them, and then choosing the best for your website.
We have noticed that there are many various ways to perform keyword research, and you have to try out different analysis methods to see which ones speak to you the best when deciding on keywords.
SEO Unlocked: Keyword Research Part 2: This is the continuation of my keyword research walk-through videos. Be sure to check out the keyword research PDF for a more detailed walk-through than this post!
Keyword Research Frequently Asked Questions
How do I know what keywords to target for my website?
Think about the topics related to your industry or business that your audience is likely to search on the Internet. Use a tool like Ubersuggest to find and select the best keywords for those topics.
Are there free keyword research tools?
Tools like Ubersuggest and Moz have free versions of keyword tools you can use, though you will unlock additional data and features when you select a paid version.
Should you do keyword research for paid campaigns?
You should do keyword research for your organic and your paid marketing.
How does keyword research relate to SEO?
SEO is the process of optimizing your website to rank in the search results for specific terms related to your business.
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There are many keyword research methods to try in addition to those I outlined in this post. As you get more experienced with keyword research, you may want to try out some additional methods.
There are also a plethora of keyword research tools at your disposal. My favorite (biased though I may be) is Ubersuggest. Our team is continually rolling out new features to provide you with better data that other tools don’t provide.
As a small business, ranking for keyword terms can be difficult. With larger, more resourced businesses targeting those same terms, it can seem impossible to nudge your way to the top of the search engine results pages (SERPs).
How are small businesses expected to rank highly on SERPs? Fortunately, with the use of local SEO, there’s more than a good chance.
If there’s one thing that’s certain, it’s that local SEO has never been more important for small businesses than it is now. Just consider that “where to buy” + “near me” mobile queries have grown by over 200 percent from 2017 to 2019.
This guide will introduce local SEO for small businesses. We’ll then cover 12 local SEO tips and the tools you need to begin your journey.
What Is Local SEO for Small Business?
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving your website to increase the chances of it being seen when people search terms related to your business. Local SEO is a similar venture but with a particular focus on local keyword terms.
With more people relying on online information to make offline purchases, local SEO for small businesses has never been more important. In fact, one study found 78 percent of local searches on mobile result in an offline purchase. You can’t argue with those results!
Other reasons to optimize your website for local SEO include the opportunity to build your website up as an authority and educate your target audience on your products and services.
Your local SEO efforts don’t have to center around increasing sales. You can also use local SEO strategies to drive traffic to your website for the purpose of informing or educating.
12 Local SEO Tips for Small Businesses
Many local SEO tips can be implemented within minutes, while others take considerably more time. However, each of the tips below can greatly benefit your local business, both online and offline.
1. Optimize for Google My Business
Google My Business is a business directory owned and operated by Google. The goal of the platform is to provide the most accurate business information for local businesses to searchers.
With this in mind, most businesses will have a Google My Business listing within a year or so of starting their business. This is done automatically as Google learns of your business through its website crawl bots.
The problem with an automated listing, though, is that information may not be complete or accurate. Only when you claim your listing can you ensure you’re getting the most from the platform.
If you need even more reason to claim or create your own listing, then consider that businesses with 4 or more stars on Google My Business outrank those with less than 4 stars by about 11 percent. As a small business, you can’t afford to lose out on that edge.
Add photos and videos of your business and offerings to your profile.
Respond to ratings and reviews in a professional and timely manner.
It’s important that your business information is accurate and updated. You should ensure updates are made at least monthly, though weekly monitoring of your listing is important to success.
2. Claim All Business Directories
Speaking of business directories, you must be sure to stake your claim in all business directories. The most popular include Google My Business mentioned above and Yelp.
You may think that a Google Business Profile is sufficient to bring in traffic, both online and in-store. However, consider that a Yelp page is present in the top 5 results for 92 percent of search queries that contain a city and business category.
What difference does it make for your listing to be in the top 5 results on Google? The top 5 results on the SERPs account for 80 percent of click-throughs on the first page of Google.The first organic result alone accounts for almost 40 percent.
All of this to say, you can’t afford to not claim your business on all directories wherever possible.
While Google and Yelp are the big dogs, other business directories to consider are Facebook, Bing, Yahoo, and Yellow Pages.
3. Perform a Local SEO Audit
Now that you’re established on business directories, it’s time to understand the landscape. This enables you to see what your competitors are doing so you, too, can make the same improvements (and better) on your website.
Results on the first page of SERPs provide the most insight and inspiration. After all, the first three positions alone account for 66.5 percent of the click-throughs on the SERPs!
As you begin your audit, first consider free tools and analyzers like the SEO Analyzer. These tools give you a detailed overview of your website’s current status and what you can do to optimize.
Next, use your target keywords (which you’ll work out in the next section), and compare your website to the top five of each SERP. Consider types of content, website structure, page elements, and keyword density.
I would recommend keeping a spreadsheet of your findings to easily track and implement your changes.
4. Target Local Keywords
As a small business, keyword targeting can be daunting. You know you’ll be lost in the sea when you target high-volume keywords, but lower-volume keywords tend to yield little return.
As a local business, you actually have an edge when it comes to keyword targeting. “Near me” search term variations increased as little as 150 percent (e.g. “near me now”) to as much as 900 percent (e.g. “near me today/tonight”) in just a few years. This means that targeting a combination of high volume and local keywords can work in your favor.
What do I mean in practice?
Let’s say you own a local flower shop. Your website naturally contains many high-volume keywords, such as “florist,” “flower shop,” and “flowers for sale.” The fact is you’re unlikely to beat out national flower providers, like 1-800-Flowers and Sam’s Club, with those keywords.
The goal should be to optimize your website with local keywords.
For example, search your website for every instance of “flowers for sale.” You’ll want to be wary of keyword stuffing, but take care to change most of these instances to more specific, local terms, such as:
“flowers for sale in [city or zip code]”
“[city or zip code] flowers for sale”
“flowers for sale [city or zip code]”
You don’t have to target only your specific town and zip code, though. Consider areas within 10 or 15 miles of your business and target those local keywords, too. This is especially good practice if you live in a smaller town outside of a larger city or metro area.
5. Encourage (and Reward) Customer Reviews
When was the last time you visited a restaurant or purchased an item withoutresearching ratings and reviews? If you’re like 82 percent of consumers performing an online local search, then the answer is never.
Customer reviews are the lifeblood of your business. This is particularly true for new and small businesses.
How can you obtain online customer reviews?
First, ensure there is a place for customers to leave reviews. If you’ve claimed your Google My Business profile and Yelp business listing, then you’re off to a great start.
Second, offer an incentive to customers who leave reviews. Whether by word of mouth or marked on in-store receipts, let customers know they will receive a discount or a complimentary item for their rating and review.
The work doesn’t stop there, though. You must respond to all reviews, negative and positive. This gives you an opportunity to engage with your customers, and it can also instill faith in your brand by those who have yet to purchase.
6. Create Local Content
Above we talked about targeting local keywords while avoiding keyword stuffing. The best way to do this is to create local content for your website or website’s blog.
Local content can be a blog post, a news release, or a static web page. You can use these various content types to highlight local events (past and upcoming), local offerings, local business roundups (e.g., local businesses that complement but don’t compete with yours), or even to educate the public on your product or service.
The more natural content you have on your website, the more easily you can target local keywords. It can also help to establish you as an expert in the field, which is crucial for small business owners competing against larger businesses.
Continuing with the example of a flower shop, here are a few content ideas that will naturally target both the audience and the keywords:
Blog post: #X [your state] Flowers for Year-Round Decorating
Static web page: Our Local [your state] Flower Offerings
Static web page: [your state] Garden Flower Offerings
Blog post: [your state] Flower Events for [season/year]
7. Implement a Local Backlink Strategy
A backlink is a link to your website from another site. Depending on the quality of the third-party websites and the number of links to your website, this can have a considerable impact on your website’s authority.
Authority is a critical piece in determining how high your website ranks on the SERPs. How do we know this? Consider that the #1 result in Google has an average of 3.8x more backlinks than positions #2 to #10.
How can a small business website begin to build its backlink profile? A few things to consider are:
writing guest posts for relevant, high-quality websites in your industry
The hard work isn’t getting traffic to your site, but instead keeping it there once it arrives. If your site isn’t mobile-friendly, then local searchers will quickly leave your site and consider a competitor instead.
What is a mobile-friendly site? The four basic elements that every mobile-friendly site should contain include:
responsive page display
readable fonts
proper text formatting
optimized media display
Beyond a mobile-friendly website, you must also produce mobile-friendly content. The good news about mobile-friendly content is that it’s also viewable for desktop readers.
What does such content consist of?
short paragraphs
white space
subheadings
a summary
images
lists
styling (e.g., bold, italics)
If you’re not a web developer, the idea of creating a mobile-friendly website can be daunting. The good news is that most website platforms incorporate mobile-friendly elements into their themes and overlays. Keep an eye out for “responsive” as an indicator of such options.
9. Optimize Page Structure
Local SEO for business goes beyond business listings and content. An often-overlooked element is page structure.
Page structure includes title tags, headers, meta description, and URL. When used correctly, these can further enhance your content and improve your rankings on SERPs.
Perhaps you’re wondering just how much of an impact these elements can have on your rankings. Here’s the deal: To employ elements that your competitors may not be, you can get ahead.
Which page structure elements are most overlooked by small businesses? From greatest to least, here is what percentage of small business owners use the following key SEO features:
Title tag: 99 percent
Robots.txt: 88 percent
Sitemap.xml: 73 percent
Meta description: 72 percent
H1: 68 percent
Schema.org: 44 percent
You can address the title tag, meta description, and H1 most easily. However, robots.txt, sitemap.xml, and schema.org also have their place on a well-structured website.
10. Get Involved on Social Media
Social media isn’t just for big brands and influencers. A local business page can benefit from social media usage, too.
More specifically, a local business page can be a great place to keep customers up-to-date on the latest sales, events, and changes (e.g., hours of operation). That’s because even with a website, a social media profile is more like a “living” version of your business.
Perhaps Facebook users benefit most from local business pages. After all,⅔ of Facebook users across all countries surveyed say they visit the Page of a local business at least once a week. However, other social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok can also offer your business an edge.
Make it easy for customers to purchase your products and services online.
Depending on your business and target audience, social media may or may not make up a large percentage of your sales and traffic. However, either way, a strong social media presence is a must for small businesses.
11. Participate in Local Business Events
Would you be surprised to learn you can do a lot offline to improve your website’s local SEO? 48 percent of marketers invest at least 20 percent of their marketing budget in live events.
Participating in local business events, especially those with a strong social media presence, can help grow your business in a few ways. They’re an opportunity to market your business but also are an easy way to get to know your audience and the community you serve. There’s likely to be a return on such events, too.
As a small business, you have the versatility to host your own event or sponsor and join with larger community events. An event you host yourself would likely yield a larger return, but a community event may be ideal for smaller budgets.
12. Invest in Google Ads With Local Keywords
Small business usually means small budget. It’s important that you invest wisely in the growth of your business online. Where should you hedge your bets? For most businesses, Google Ads is a good place to start.
Google Ads is a paid advertising platform that enables you to appear in prominent places on the SERPs.
You may think that you could never compete against big businesses. One way around this is to highlight your local status by targeting local keywords and local audiences. For example, instead of targeting “flowers for sale,” target “flowers for sale in [your city or zip code].”
How can we know this will be successful? According to Think with Google, 72 percent of computer or tablet users and 67 percent of smartphone users want ads that are customized to their city or zip code. Users want to find the options most local to them, so give them what they want.
It’s true that starting with Google Ads can be daunting, but fortunately, you have the option to invest in an advertising agency to help you set up and manage your account and keywords. If you want to go it alone, though, follow these essential steps:
Conduct keyword research: This will include keywords you want to target but also keywords you want to exclude from your campaigns (negative keywords).
Decide how your ad groups will be structured: Ad groups are ad campaigns grouped by a common element, like target audience, target keyword, or even location. Decide how your groups will break down so you can begin to create your campaigns.
Create your first campaign: A campaign is a step above ad groups in that it encompasses a larger target audience. For example, you can have a “Wedding Flowers” campaign that includes ad groups like “Wedding Flowers in Queens” and “Wedding Flowers in Brooklyn.” This is where you will set campaign-level goals and settings.
Create your first ad: Google Ads has multiple ad types. A text ad is a good place to begin, though your ad groups can contain multiple ad types, and it’s important to experiment with what works for your audience.
Continuous monitoring and tweaking of your campaigns are necessary for success.
Local SEO Tips for Small Businesses Frequently Asked Questions
As a small business, should I get an agency to help with my local SEO?
As a small business, budget can be a constraint. While you can make many changes yourself, a consulting agency can offer invaluable advice and resources.
How does local SEO help small businesses grow?
With local search intent being what it is, local SEO can be a boon to small businesses. It can put you on the map (or SERPs, as it happens) for keywords you may not have ever ranked for on a larger scale.
How much should a small business pay for local SEO?
The amount you invest will vary depending on what you find to be meaningful and valuable to your business. If you must invest, I recommend you do so in two places: 1) in an SEO consulting agency, and 2) in paid advertising.
What kind of small businesses need local SEO?
Local SEO can benefit small businesses of all kinds. If you provide products or services in a specific area (or multiple areas), then you can benefit from its use.
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Conclusion: Local SEO for Small Business
As a small business owner, you know that hard work and dedication is needed to grow your sales. Much the same can be said for local SEO. While SEO can take time and patience, it can pay off in the long run.
With the 12 local SEO tips outlined above, even the smallest businesses can benefit. From keyword research to social media marketing to paid advertising, you can begin to make changes today to see benefits in the future.
Which of these local SEO tips for small businesses will you implement first?
You may think applying for a business loan is simply a matter of filling out the application. In truth, it’s more involved than that. In fact, there are many factors in the process that can affect your chances of approval. Some of these factors you cannot control, some you can. Knowing how to handle what you can control will help lead to easy business loan approval.
Easy Business Loan Approval: Questions to Ask Yourself Before You Apply
Before you apply, you need to ask yourself the following questions:
What kind of loan do you need?
How do you plan to use the funds?
What type of lender will you use?
Do you even qualify for a business loan?
Are there other funding options that will work better right now?
Can you afford a business loan?
Now, don’t just ask and answer these questions passively in your head. In contrast, be intentional. The answers will help you apply for the right loan for your business. Truly, this is a huge part of increasing the chances of easy business loan approval.
5 Tips for Easy Business Loan Approval
Once you know the answers to these questions, use these tips to ensure you have the best approval chances possible.
Tip #1: Make Sure Your Business is Set Up to Be Fundable
Really, everything from your business name and contact information to your business website plays a role. Surprisingly, even small details that seem inconsequential can cause a loan application to be delayed or denied altogether.
For example, your business needs its own phone number, and toll free is best. Then, list it in the 411 directory. Also, make sure your business address is a physical address where you can receive mail. Don’t use a P.O. Box or UPS box. Virtual addresses are okay, but some lenders will not accept them. If you run your business from home, you can use your home address.
You also need an EIN, and your business needs to be incorporated. A dedicated business bank account is a must as well. Furthermore, make sure you have all the necessary licenses to operate legally at all levels-federal, state, and local.
If you already have a business website, it needs to be professional. Even more important, make sure it is user friendly and well put together. If a lender sees a poorly put together website, it will not look good. Also, your business email address should have the same URL as your business website. Do not use free hosting services or free email services.
Tip# 2: Consider Collateral Options and Personal Guarantees
Of course, sufficient collateral is one of the best ways to get easy business loan approval. It reduces lender risk, which is one of a lender’s main objectives. Lack of collateral doesn’t necessarily mean denial, but having collateral definitely increases approval chances.
If you have good personal credit, a personal guarantee will for sure improve approval chances. Most traditional lenders will require it anyway. Still, you can sometimes reduce lender reliance on a personal guarantee if you have good business credit.
Tip 3# Evaluate and Improve Business Credit
If you have set up your business to be fundable, you already have a head start on this. To begin building business credit, you need accounts in your business name reporting to the business credit reporting agencies.
Before you can start, you need to get a D-U-N-S number from Dun & Bradstreet. Then, start working with starter vendors to get accounts reporting. This process takes time, so if you do not already have established business credit, and you need a loan now, you may have to rely on collateral and a personal guarantee to get you there.
Still, building business credit is wise, and it’s never too late to start.
Tip# 4: Research Lenders and Products
There are many types of loans and lenders. You need to know which ones will work best for you and your situation. The truth is, applying for the right product for your business, from the right lender, at the right time, will go a long way toward easy business loan approval.
Types of Business Loans: Traditional Term Loans
With a traditional lender term loan, you are almost always going to have to give a personal guarantee. If your personal credit score isn’t good, approval is unlikely. Of course, strong collateral can help with that.
So, what kind of personal credit score do you need to have in order to qualify for a traditional term loan? For most, a FICO of 750 is good. Sometimes, you can get approval with a score of 700+. Yet, the terms will not be as favorable.
If you have really great business credit, your lender might be more inclined to be a little more flexible. However, your personal credit score will still weigh heavily on the terms and interest rate.
Types of Business Loans: SBA Loans
These are traditional bank loans, but they have a guarantee from the federal government. The Small Business Administration, or SBA, works with lenders to offer small businesses funding solutions that borrowers may not be able to get based on their own credit history.
Because of the government guarantee, lenders can be more flexible with credit score requirements. It is possible to get an SBA microloan with a personal credit score between 620 and 640. The trade-off is that the SBA loan application process is lengthy.
Types of Business Loans: Lines of Credit
This is revolving credit, like a credit card. Rates are typically much better than a credit card however. For these, the application and approval process is similar to that of a traditional term loan.
Types of Business Loans: Non-Traditional Lenders
These are lenders other than traditional banks and credit unions that offer term loans and lines of credit. Generally, they offer more flexible approval requirements and a much faster application process. Typically, you can apply online and get approval in as little as 24 hours. Better yet, funds may be in your account within 24 to 48 hours after approval.
These can work well if your personal credit isn’t terrible and you need funding quickly. Additionally. they may be a good option if your NAICS code is high risk.
Knowing the different options, and what is required by each for approval, will help you choose the options that will work best for your needs and that you are most likely to be approved for.
Tip #5: Have a Workable, Professional Business Plan
For easy approval, you have to convince lenders that your business will be a good investment. It’s best to hire professional writers and researchers to help you write your business plan. If you can’t, there are plenty of free resources online to help with a business plan, including templates.
A well put together business plan should include the following:
An Executive Summary
Description
Strategies
Market Analysis
Analysis of audience
Competitive Analysis
Plan for Design and Development
Plan for Operation and Management
Financials
How to Get Easy Approval for a Business Loan
The simplest way to ensure you can easily get the funding you need for your business is to build strong business fundability. To do that, you need to set up your business with a fundable foundation and begin building business credit, among other things.
A business credit specialist can help you assess your current fundability, and guide you through the steps needed to improve it, if necessary. They can also help you find the best financing options for your business based on your current fundability. Get a free consultation today.
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