If you are an astute small business owner, you have begun writing regular content via blogs. (If you’re still unsure how to do this, please see our post on blogging)
Are you sharing these via Social Media? Facebook, Google +, Twitter, and LinkedIn all provide avenues for sharing valuable quality information.
Now there is a way to connect all the dots! Google Authorship is Google’s way of identifying an author of web content and evaluating the quality of the content. If you create online content, Google wants to know who you are by way of your Google+ photo posted along with the content.

This is great from many perspectives. The days of anonymous content written by unknown authors or ‘spammy’ messages are numbered. Google’s Author Ranking has the potential to be the strongest algorithmic signal for SEO since the Hyperlink. Developed in 2011, it will be fully implemented by the end of 2013, giving search engines the filters necessary to determine authenticity. This algorithm will highly influence the search engines indexing, or order.

How it works:

• Author Rank does not replace Page Rank. It is a separate system which instructs Google Page Rank to sort out content more appropriately in conjunction with your Google+ profile. If you don’t have a Google+ profile set up, you’ll need to do so.

• Quality and consistency remain the most important factors in building a strong reputation with Author Rank, and will position you as a trusted expert in your business or industry.

• Websites that contain established authorship will enjoy higher click-through rates than those who haven’t. Your profile photo will now display next to the content you post. Having the photo of the author is a clear identifier that you are, in fact, a real human. It catches the eye and creates a relationship with your readers.

• Your visitor will be able to read other articles you’ve posted by clicking on ‘More By’ which will appear.

What you need to do:

1. Create a Gmail account, or if you already have one, login.

2. Visit http://plus.Google.com and set up your profile. Be sure to fill in all fields, including a professional photo. This photo will be the one that is viewed every time search results show your content.

3. It’s very important that you fill in the ‘Contributor To’ section. List all websites you post content to here.

4. Do one of these tasks:

a) Link your content to your Google+ profile using a verified e-mail address, or;

b) Set up authorship by linking your content to your Google+ profile using these instructions: http://support.google.com/webmasters/

5. If you use WordPress (highly recommended by the Creative Muse) there is a Plugin available for Google Authorship.

With just a little effort, your website will have much better SEO ranking and your content will be viewed as authoritative and trusted.

How do you do that? The Wild Women’s Word Wizard, Freddy Zylstra wrote “Why Psychographics Matter to Small Business” which will help you begin to identify your audience.

If you don’t know your target audience you won’t be able to design a website that speaks directly to them. After you have gathered information about your audience, ask yourself “what is the purpose of my website?”  Are you trying to sell them a product or service? What do you want to say about that product of service?

Most small businesses (and some large) make the mistake of writing about how ‘great’ their product is, and how wonderfully qualified they are to tell the audience what they should buy.  What your audience really wants to know is, ”What can you do for me?”

When you understand who your audience is – what they like, their interests, where they shop and what they purchase – what they want from you becomes clear.  All you need to do is let them know how you can provide that for them.

When designing your website, think of it as a billboard that will be seen as people drive past it at 65mph. Catch their attention and make it easy to remember, and easy to answer their question ‘What’s in it for me?”.  Good design goes way beyond making things just look ‘pretty’.

There are many websites that will catch your eye for the worst reasons!  Outdated, too noisy or a website heaped with Flash will only increase your bounce rate (the rate at which visitors run away from your site as fast as possible). The goal is to achieve a balance between an appealing website that catches the attention of your target audience and one that provides them with useful information. Design your website using the basic design fundamentals:

• Visual Hierarchy – Placing information on your page with importance based on the biggest to the smallest will direct your audience as to what they will look at first. They will know at a glance exactly what you have to offer.

• Good Proximity  – Consider the importance of placement.  Where you place your information within your layout is important keep it clean, legible and concise.

• Contrast – Contrast is used to direct the reader’s attention to remember something in particular. The viewer’s brain will interpret contrast and automatically categorize the elements of design into those which are most dominant and those which recede into the background.  Knowing how this works will enable you to use it to your advantage in web design.

• Typography – Fonts or typefaces have personality also. Break away from the overused Helvetica, Times and Veranda typefaces. Serif typefaces are the ones with little feet; their style is classic and traditional. Sans-serif typefaces have no feet; they are streamlined, contemporary and modern in style. In the past, using custom fonts was a poor choice, but with the advent of Google Font API you can find the perfect custom font for your website – and it’s free.

Keep your text readable. White text on a black background can be very hard to read. It is best if your background is a light color with a dark font color. Keep the size of your text between 11 to 13 pts depending on your audience. Older audiences will appreciate a large size font.

• Color – Use no more than two or three colors that you pull from the brand/logo on the website and/or those that blend well with the personality of your business. Remember the overuse of color can be distracting. In your research, did you find that your audience related to more earthy colors?  Or, is your ‘ideal client’ attracted by primary colors?  Look at the places they go to shop – what colors are found there?

• Images or graphics– A picture is worth a thousand words! Images will make your content come alive, create an interest that will stop them in their tracks and make them want to read your content before they move on to something else.

• Simplicity – Keeping your website design simple and focused with adequate white space will allow your audience to focus on the message you are trying to convey.  One of the most common mistakes amateur web designers or DIY’ers make is creating a website that is crowded and too busy.

Your website is one of the most important pieces of marketing in which your company can invest. A poorly planned and designed website can do more harm to your business than not having one at all.

Do your homework first!  Spend time deciding what ‘personality’ your website will have to attract your ideal audience.  Learn about the psychographics of that audience.  Create your powerful ‘brand’ before you begin your website design.

Hiring a professional web designer and a content writer will give you a huge advantage over your competition.  They should work together to create the perfect image for your business and get your message to your ideal client in a language they understand.

Of course, we are all aware that accounting problems only worsen when ignored. Some small business owners hire a bookkeeper, or ask their receptionist to take over the accounting tasks. After all, there aren’t enough hours in the day for you to wear every hat.

You have the right idea – sort of. Delegating is necessary in order to run your business. However, much as you wouldn’t entrust your job to anyone with little or no experience, you should not give the accounting job to the person on your staff who makes the fewest screams of protest when the subject of numbers comes up.

Many small business owners have gotten a very painful wake-up call that all is not well with their accounting when they receive ominous notices from taxing agencies, bounced checks, past due notices and penalty assessments. They lose trust in the person responsible for the books, and they panic.

What else might be hitting the fan? This may be just the tip of the iceberg for your business. Unfortunately, this occurs far more than you would guess. Small business owners don’t like to talk about it.

How can you prevent this from happening to you? Hire a CPA (Certified Public Accountant) to assist you in filling the position of bookkeeper for your business. A CPA is licensed by the State and strict regulations govern how she conducts her business.

There are some terrific bookkeepers. In just a few hours, your CPA can set up your accounting system in a way that is custom-designed specifically for your business. She can train your bookkeeper. She can also show you what reports are crucial for you to regularly review, and how to do projections.

Besides setting up your accounting system, your CPA should periodically review your books. This is best done at least quarterly, before taxes are due. It is far more work and expense to correct a mistake made on tax reporting than to do it correctly the first time. At minimum, you should hire your CPA at year end to ensure the information you send to your tax preparer is correct and you have accurate information to manage your business.

Is a CPA more expensive than your bookkeeper? Certainly. She has had far more training. However, most CPA’s will work on an hourly basis. When paired with a great bookkeeper, the yearly cost to your business for a CPA will be minimal compared to the repercussions of the ‘head in the sand’ approach.

Guest post by Judy Nichols, CPA
The Wild Women for Business

Should you use a template? What colors do you want? What kind of design will look good? Many articles tout the ’25 best’ websites. But what is best for you?

You are starting in the wrong place. Take off those stilts and sit down. Get comfortable. We’re going to talk about YOU.

Your personality is the one factor that will make your website unique among all other sites. Think about the following:

• What do I want to say with my website?
• Things I stand for
• My values and vision for my business
• Who is my audience?

When we design a new website or re-design an existing one, the first thing we look for is your personality, what is important to you and to whom you intend to speak. Then, and only then, can the journey of creating a website truly begin. You will start to communicate clearly, truthfully and in a human-to-human manner.

You’ll achieve this not by adding fancy tools and the latest technology to your site. When it comes to technology, we are all a bit like crows. The shinier the object, the better. While technology is great, and we all appreciate a well-designed website, it is not the thing that connects people to you.

Your personality shining through in your design and content reaches your audience in a way that is tangible. It gives your audience a voice they hear when they read. Using this personality to engage your visitors on an emotional level is very much akin to meeting someone for the first time. It helps us determine if this experience will be good or bad, if we can trust the message and the messenger.

Emotional connection also affects our long-term memory. When you connect with someone or something on an emotional level, you are 90% more likely to buy. Why is that? Your amygdala (region of your brain) uses sensory experiences to perceive outcomes, and makes split-second calculations about the emotional significance of events. It takes note of these events and catalogs them for future use. Think of this like your brain using lots of Post-it notes.

So, how do you start? You can begin by answering these questions:

• If your website were a person, who would it be? What attributes would he/she have?
• What is your brand identity or personality? i.e. playful, fun, authoritative, likeable.
• Is there a visual image that illustrates your brand, such as a person or mascot?
• Name at least five traits that describe your brand.
• How would your brand speak? What would its tone sound like?
• Colors and typography are also part of your personality ‘package’. Which ones help communicate your personality?

Taking the time to explore these questions will give you or your website designer and content writer powerful tools to create personality, or ‘voice’ of your website. Don’t forget to speak directly to your audience with design elements and content. Next month, I will share with you some tips for doing just that.

In the meantime, go captivate your audience!

This post was originally written for Wild Women for Business.

Did you take ‘Accounting 101’ in school?  Do you still want to run when accountants talk about debits and credits?

It’s not surprising.  The classification system was first used by Venetian merchants during 15^th century Italy.  For the past 500 years, non-accountants have been attempting to comprehend this not-so-logical system of tracking finances.

For most small business owners, understanding the accounting ‘structure’, which consists of account classifications and how they function, is fairly straightforward.  But ask anyone to explain how those accounts actually work, which one they should use when they make entries, and how to interpret the results, and you likely will encounter confusion.

It is critical to the success of your business that you have a basic understanding of accounting systems – what information needs to be entered and what you can learn from that information.  The good news is that you don’t need to understand debits and credits anymore because there are excellent systems such as QuickBooks available to do the work for you.

Ask your accountant to help you set up logical accounts for your business.  Then, get some training for yourself or your staff on the proper way to enter money spent and money received.  It’s not as scary as you think – and you don’t have to go back to ‘Accounting 101’ to learn it.  No confusing language.  No 500 year old Latin terms.

Your bottom line?  The learning curve for accounting needed by the small business owner has been drastically simplified.  Don’t focus on the confusion you felt in school; rather, use the modern-day tools and technology (and the help of a great accountant) to get you started on your way to business success by understanding your numbers.