Small Business Can

Here's 2(ish) very practical questions on doing business in the US from Michael at Datagrid: First question: When we invoice our Irish and UK clients they pay by Direct Debit. Is there an equivalent process in the US to allow us and the client to automate the process as much as possible and make the payment process as smooth as possible?

Stories of local, cross-border and international business success will be shared with small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and aspiring entrepreneurs from the Mid-Ulster and South Tyrone areas in March as part of a major free event being organised by Ulster Bank in association with Small Business Can.

"Just Why Is Content King?" I get asked this question all the time and I suppose the answer hasn’t changed for some time. The way in which the search engines are tracking content however has. When a search engine is asked to search for a service provider, for example to replace a “Flat tyre”, the person looking for the service wants to find a solution, not just information. The way websites rank in the search results depends on the strength of your keywords and how frequently you have used them in the areas of your site that are crawled by search engines. They are now running algorithms that will seek out the frequency of your keywords and add that to the number of times that your site has been visited and again further to check how often people have linked to your site through recommendations or Backlinks.

Personalised e-shots or newsletters are other keys in succeeding in internet marketing. The most important idea to remember when talking about e-newsletters is the way on how it can build a relationship between you and your prospects that will increase your potential of making money.

I’ve been working on websites for a while now, but up until recently most of the work I have done has been design and functionality based. As a web designer I have always had a decent understanding of search engine optimization, but many of the simple areas of SEO can be easily neglected, particularly if you’re a web startup. It can often be difficult to find the time to pay attention to every little element of your website that could get you that extra visitor. I’ve read numerous books, articles and resources, as well as talked to some SEO experts and most of the time, the same key techniques arise again and again. Here is my list of SEO techniques, aimed towards but not exclusive to startups. If I’ve left anything out that you think is important, let me know.

520 food buyers from 28 countries across four continents, attended Marketplace International 2012, a major one-day business development event organised by Bord Bia. Some 177 Irish food and drink companies, ranging in size and profile from small enterprises to multinationals, met with targeted buyers during 4,500 pre-scheduled ‘speed-dating’ style meetings. The buyers have a collective buying power in excess of €18 billion.

I love TweetDeck. During the day I have two columns following two subjects. In my role as entreprenerd I follow “small business”, as a business book geek I follow “business books” (duh!).

Lots of good stuff, lots of dross too. What you are constantly bombarded with, are the “Top 10 books on this”, “The 13 tips for that”. The one that triggered this blog is the “10 books that blow your mind”.

The new jobs initiative has been described as rearranging chairs on the Titanic and dressing mutton up as lamb. The cynical go even further and say that it's the old tired ideas being put forward by the usual grey suspects with an expensive bit of PR spin to make it look fresh. All we can say is that it's a great list with a lot to be hopeful for. And at least SMEs are getting a day in the sun where there's an acknowledgement that more needs to be done to support this hugely important and productive facet of the economy in the ROI.

One of the easiest things to do, especially in the design and development stages of your website, is add focus to links. This is the first, of what I hope to be many, tutorials. I'll talk you through why adding focus to links is so important from a usability and accessibility perspective, and how to do it. Anyone with a little website experience, should be able to follow this, as it uses basic HTML and CSS mark up only.

The P35 deadline is creeping up on us fast, the date for returning your annual P35 return on time for the year ended 31st December 2011 is the 15th February 2012. However for those of you who wish to file their return online using Revenue Online Service (ROS), the deadline is extended to 23rd February.