business info & tools

Refer to older posts…

Remember the flood levy…

Published 1 June, 2011 | By TashWord

For the coming financial year (and only that year we are told), a flood levy will apply to many Australians. The levy is to help rebuild the infrastructure for the communities hurt in the floods, fires and Yassi earlier this year.

Everyone with a taxable income over $50,000 will pay the levy – unless you are exempt because you are receiving a Government Disaster Recovery Payment for a 2010-11 natural disaster. You can find out how much the levy will be for you on the Treasury’s flood rebuilding site.

If you are self-employed, you probably pay tax via the PAYG system rather than regular deductions from your pay. Your annual letter outlining your PAYG instalments for the year will include the levy in those calculations. If you are an employee then your employer will deduct the levy along with your normal tax. You need to inform your employer or the ATO if you are exempt but earning over the threshold.

If you also employ people, you will need to add the levy to your usual deduction schedule. That is, for employees earning over $50,000, you will need to deduct an extra 0.5% or 1.0% with their tax – starting with the first pay after 1 July 2011. Businesses do not pay the levy, it is only for individuals.

So are you prepared for this levy? CE2DTMFHHKHT

Posted in bit off track, business info & tools | Tagged disaster, flood levy, PAYG, tax | Leave a comment

What uses up bandwidth?

Published 27 May, 2011 | By TashWord

If you’ve tried reaching my blog or website in the last day or so you may have experienced some trouble unfortunately. I know I wasn’t happy to see a ‘exceeded bandwidth’ message when I tried to log in to post yesterday and again today.

Knowing I was well under my host limits a few hours earlier, I was surprised by the message and have contacted my host. Especially as the second time showed about 12,000MB of bandwidth used in less than 24 hours!

Figuring out the bandwidth issue

A laptop covered in chains and a padlock

Securing computers is important but not always easy…

No one has accessed the back end of my site or ftp (but I have changed passwords anyway!) but my host found that someone (and let me add that it is very restrained of me to just write ‘someone’!) in Washington has been using my bandwidth. I should say ‘had been’ as that ip is now blocked.

My host has been great at trying to help me and extending my bandwidth to keep the site live while the issue was researched, so thanks Lucie at Multimediart.

My question however, is how is someone using up so much bandwidth on my site? No unexpected files have appeared on the site and apparently no one unauthorised has logged in so I’m confused. Do you have any idea what this person was doing?

Does anyone have any suggestions to share so we can all avoid this sort of distraction and time-wasting in the future? I’d really appreciate any help I can get!

* Image courtesy of 123rf

Posted in About Word Constructions, bit off track, business info & tools | Tagged bandwidth, exceeded, host, site | 2 Comments

Recycling is good for business

Published 25 May, 2011 | By TashWord

What does your business do with the waste materials it produces? Have you even thought about it?

There are a surprising number of recycling options available – and many are listed by the business recycling website. This includes means of using those wastes to produce new products (the obvious recycling aspect) and ideas such as giving unused food to charity groups for direct reuse.

Personally, I believe in recycling as I hate seeing waste and hate perfectly good things filling up our tips. On top of that, there is the environmental aspect and a feel-good factor. However, for those who need a commercial justification for recycling business waste, here are a couple of points to consider:

if your local council restricts your bin size, you have to pay to remove your waste materials so recycling may save you money directly
more and more people care about the environment and ‘green’ practices so start recycling and tell people (potential customers) about it – it won’t generate sales in itself but may be the deciding factor between you and a competitor one day
your team will appreciate being able to ‘do their bit’ for the environment so they’ll be happier and have one less reason to leave
you may find recycling materials in-house gives you new product leads or saves you money, too. For example, making notepads for staff from old letterheads saves paper and the expense of buying notepads
it can give you a conversation starter or topics for blogging about – and sometimes new ideas are hard to come by!

Can you think of things to recycle? I’d love to hear of your ideas and successes – I may even copy some if applicable!

Posted in About Word Constructions, bit off track, business info & tools | Tagged environment, recycling, waste | 10 Comments

Repeat what works

Published 24 May, 2011 | By TashWord

“if it aint broke, don’t fix it” is an expression that really makes sense to me. I see no reason to spend time on something that is working when other things need my attention.

Yes, everything in business should get reviewed periodically to check for possible improvements. But reinventing the wheel each time you do something is just a waste of time in my mind.

For example, if your current marketing plans keep you a steady stream of clients that meets your work and profit requirements, then stick to it! Keep an eye on new avenues but don’t drop the past efforts to grab the latest trends like twitter and Facebook – those new things may not work with your audience for one thing, and it will take time for you to learn the most effective ways to use new ideas in your business.

I came across a sales page recently which talked about repeating simple procedures – I thought it made good sense and reminded me of the above quotation. The writer made the point that a surgeon follows the same steps every time a certain operation is performed, a javelin thrower throws the same way every time and a bank uses the same forms and processes for every loan they approve.

Having a simple procedure makes it easier to complete a task, but more importantly, it ensures you get the best results in the most efficient way every time – even if different people carry out that same process.

For things that are working well in your business, do you have a simple procedure to follow? And that someone else could follow for you? Once you write out such procedures you can save time to work on the things that are broken – and prepare procedures in those areas to find an effective way to do those tasks.

It’s not quite the same as leave good things alone, but having a written procedure for things that work allows for almost-mindless repetition so things keep running along smoothly.

Posted in Business Communications, business info & tools | Tagged complete tasks, procedures, repeat, review, time | 3 Comments

Refining your Google searches

Published 17 May, 2011 | By TashWord

If you’re like me, you use Google and similar search engines frequently and know a few tricks to make your searches as useful as possible.

Here are a few tips you may or may not use – and if you have some others, please add them to the comments so I can learn them, too!

restrict a search to one site by using site:wordconstructions.com.au
search for something specific on only one site by using the word and the site only command report writing site:wordconstructions.com.au
find the definition of a word with define:gerund
exclude a term from your search using a minus sign, so writer -fiction will bring results for writers without mention of fiction writing
include all similar uses of a word or term by adding the tilde sign; for example, ~ article
maintain certain spelling of a word or term with a plus sign so + Sidney will not bring up all the Sydney sites in a Sidney search
use * to replace any word, such as in professional * writer
find related sites usingrelated:wordconstructions.com.au
find a specific file type in a search – if you want to find only word docs about spelling, for example, you enter spelling filetype:doc
find all sits linking to a site or page usinglink:www.wordconstructions.com.au
do a general search without risk of finding inappropriate (ie adult) content using safesearch:breast cancer
find out about a specific page usinginfo:www.wordconstructions.com.au/ebook.php
use quotation marks to refine the search to your exact term; that is, “business writer” will give results about business writers only rather than results for all references to writer and/or business

Hope they help!

Posted in bit off track, business info & tools | Tagged find, search, tips | Leave a comment

Blogging when you’re not around

Published 15 May, 2011 | By TashWord

Even small business owners are allowed to take a holiday or some sick leave 🙂 Obviously that can leave a lot of tasks to be prepared for or done in your absence, but I’m just looking at your blog – what happens to your blog when you take some time off work?

Running a blog and developing a readership takes time and effort; ignoring your blog for a while can undo much of that effort. So how can you manage take away from your business without letting your blogging efforts weaken or even waste away?

The following list gives some suggestions – the best approach will depend on your blog of course, and on how long you are taking off, and the best approach may be quite different next time you take a break.

do nothing 🙂 Just let your last blog post sit on the front page until you return.
Very quick and easy solution but not so good for your search engine rankings and keeping any regular readers happy (unless your break is shorter than the gap between normal posts anyway)
announce your intentions and leave your blog to sit for the duration
Again, very quick and easy to do, but letting people know offers some customer service and keeps people informed. You may still loose some readers and search engines points, depending on how long you leave the blog. Letting your blog sit could give everyone a break or it could mean a lot of catching up posts when you return (especially if you rely non news and events as topics)
Schedule posts so the blog keeps having new content without you physically being present.
This requires preparation time in writing multiple posts in advance but is great for maintaining a blog presence, search engine rankings and regular followers. You may have a lot of comments to moderate when you return. Of course, this is less effective if your blog is based on breaking stories and current events as they are harder to write in advance and will need some catching up on when you get back.
My tip if you like this method is to have some spare blog posts written throughout the year – these can then be scheduled during your break without having to write heaps of posts just before you go.
Invite a guest blogger or two to post on your blog.
Obviously this keeps your blog full and current while you’re away with less preparation time than scheduling many posts. The greatest time saving for you is if they have access to post directly to your blog but you get more control if they provide the posts for you to schedule before you leave. Giving a guest blogger access also means they could moderate and respond to comments, too.
Guest blogging may add some new ideas to your blog which readers may like but it is a different voice which some readers may not like – if you know your readers and choose an appropriate guest blogger you can better gauge the likely response.
While multiple guest bloggers adds variety to your blog and avoids issues around readers disliking one guest, it does involve more work on your part – finding and choosing guest bloggers, then discussing topics and setting up access/scheduling posts
Maintain your blog from a distance – that is, write posts while you are away.
The beauty of a blog is that you can access it from anywhere that has internet access so you can write posts away form the office.
Writing posts while away solves all the issues of keeping your blog momentum going and comments moderated, with little preparation needed. However, it is not going to do much towards you relaxing on a holiday, building relationships with family while on holidays or allow you to recover if you are on sick leave. Taking a break is generally about giving yourself a change in routine to refresh your mind and body which isn’t going to happen if you keep working on your break.
On the other hand, if you are away from your blog because you are travelling for work or doing something not about relaxing, this is a viable option to consider – and something to do in a hotel room each night is not always a bad thing either!
Request readers to give their idea on a certain topic while you are away. For example, write a post asking a question and let it sit as your recent post for a few days. As readers answer, your blog is getting content and readers may get inspired in new ways.
Very quick and easy to set up and it could be effective for a short break if you have readers who comment willingly. However, this will look out of place if left for very long and runs the risk of unmoderated comments – to work, you will have to allow all comments to be approved automatically which means all sorts of things may be posted…
Use a RSS feed to fill your blog with external content.
Once it is set up, this will take care of itself so it is a low effort option and could work if you choose the feed source carefully. However, you will still have comments to moderate when you return but you need to trust the feed source – of course, you could just use a news site and provide commentary later. The disadvantage is that your content will not be unique– in fact, duplicate copy can be a negative for search engines.

Posted in blogging, business info & tools | Tagged blog, content, guest, maintain, moderate, regular | 2 Comments

When writing is important for business

Published 13 May, 2011 | By TashWord

Maybe you don’t think writing is a key skill in business presentation, or that putting any old word on paper is good enough to make your point. Obviously I think good writing and clear communications are important but I just read an article listing some examples of when writing is more important than speaking for a business.

Even if you use someone else to write ad copy, website content, articles, blog posts and other obvious writing tasks, the following list shows that business writing is a necessary skill for any business owner or manager:

making a visual impact – spoken words alone aren’t always enough, even in a training session when visual aids and handouts are valuable. Seeing things in print makes them more believable and easier to remember, so writing can have a bigger impact
setting rules and guidelines, such as policies and procedures. Imagine having verbal policies in a large company – it would be easy for people to forget or misunderstand what they’re told, and some people would simply choose to do things their own way. Writing out procedures ensures consistency and forms a record of your expectations
making complaints have more power in writing – they are taken more seriously, are more likely to be followed up on and form a record for any future interactions. Further, it ensures your actual complaint is received as the person you complain to may not be the one who can act on it so a verbal message could be changed
responding to complaints is also good in writing – it shows you genuinely care about the customer’s experience with your business and gives you the opportunity to show what you have done to prevent the issue happening again
giving feedback and recognition has more impact if you take the time to write it down, and your written message may be kept for a long time. Whats more, if you make the written message public (including just on the business noticeboard or intranet), your compliments carry so much more weight and make people feel truly valued
complex ideas are not easy to grasp so a written explanation gives people the chance to reread it for understanding and have it as a reference later
written communications form a record of what was ‘said’ and needed. This has two advantages – it helps you remember details and complete a task correctly and it also helps protect from ‘he said she said’ situations
writing an agenda for meetings can save a lot of time and frustration as the agenda keeps everyone on track and they can prepare ahead of time. Likewise, minutes of meetings form a record and reminder of tasks to be done
involving new people becomes much easier if information is in writing – for example, if you change project managers part way through, the new manager will know what has been done and what to chase if they get written notes to follow

Again, some of these tasks can be handed to a business writer, but others you need to do yourself (in which case, hopefully my blog is one resource for helping you write effectively!)

Do you have other examples of when being able to write is critical in business?

Posted in business info & tools, writing | Tagged business, speaking, word, writing | 1 Comment

Proof read your work…

Published 10 May, 2011 | By TashWord

You have heard it before, but I’ll say it again – it is critical to proof read your work before sending it out to work for you. Even if it is boring and you are short on time, proof reading is important and a valuable use of your time.

I just came across a perfect example of someone not proof reading after using a spell checker (at least I am assuming they used a spell checker!) Too often people let a spell checker do the proof reading for them but it just isn’t a safe option.

I hate to use the word “disguised”, simply because you’re NOT hiding anything from your prospects, nor are you tricking them. But the bottom line is – “disgusted” *best describes* what your “free information pack” really is. It’s disgusted from THE FACT that it’s an ad, or that it WILL BE selling them something.

{That is an exact copy – capitals, punctuation and spelling are not mine!}

Easy enough to make a mistake while typing disguised and having a spell check suggest disgusted as the closest word. Very easy to ignore that and give a silly message, too, unless you proof read properly after using the spell check.

Of course, some of us may be amused at a marketing eBook referring to marketing techniques like information packs as disgusting, but I doubt that was their intent!

Proof reading is more than checking everything is spelt correctly – you also need to check the correct word is being used. And having a habit of proof reading everything you write, even the shortest emails and blog comments, will make it easier to project a professional and caring image for yourself and your business.

Having said that, what is your favourite story about a failure to proof read?

Posted in business info & tools, grammar & details, writing | Tagged habit, proof reading, spell checker | 6 Comments

What is a niche?

Published 7 May, 2011 | By TashWord

Have you ever actually thought about what a niche really is? Can you give me a simple definition of a niche?

I’m tempted to write no more until I have some answers, but I won’t prolong it 🙂

I recently read a blog post that includes a section on marketing to a demographic rather than a niche and I found it really interesting. A demographic is group of similar people whereas a niche is a group of people with a similar problem – parts of a demographic may be more likely to have a problem but not everyone in a demographic will.

Not convinced? Think about all parents who run a business (demographic) – do they all need to find childcare to enable them to work? Of course not as some have teen or adult children, some have a partner who cares for the children and some have a business that can cater for the children. Do they all have to do things on the cheap because they have no money? Definitely not as many self-employed parents run very successful and profitable businesses. Do they all need a professional writer to help them with their website copy or blogging? Afraid not as some are excellent writers themselves, some don’t have or want a website/blog and others get family or friends to help.

That simply, there are three niches within the demographic of parents with a business. Marketing a niche is easier and more effective so who are you targeting? Do they share a problem you are offering to solve?

Posted in business info & tools, marketing | Tagged demographic, niche, problem, similar | Leave a comment

encouraging links to your blog

Published 1 May, 2011 | By TashWord

On the assumption you want people to visit and read your blog, it is a good idea to get people to link to it.

Incoming links obviously lets more people see your blog exists and is also good for your SEO (search engine optimisation – in other words, getting search engines to list you high in their results).

I think the single step that is most effective in getting links is quality content – no one will link to your blog if you don’t provide useful or entertaining information. Regular additions to your blog will help bring people back, too, and repeat visitors are more likely to link to you.

Having said that, here are some more specific tips to increasing the number of links to your blog…

link to other blogs – only some will reciprocate but it is polite and shows you are part of the blogging community. People seeing your comments may lead to visitors to your blog or someone else linking to you
write something controversial or outrageous (but stay within your brand and identity or it’s all for nothing!) and ideally back it up with your reasons
summarise complex issues relating to your topic to help people understand what’s going on
disagree (nicely) with someone or a ‘well known fact’ in your industry
participate in something unusual and interesting – it could be a treasure hunt across the web, running a competition, blog action day or a local event
join in or run a blog carnival
offer something valuable to readers – an eBook, a theme, plugin, a sample, etc – that they will be willing to tell others about
write something very funny – people love sharing jokes!
report on something new – if it is based on research or observations only you have access to, even better
be the first to review/announce/do something
stay topical – for example, post information relevant to an upcoming event, discuss a news item in relation to your industry or give ideas for the current season
get involved in guest blogging – either posting elsewhere or inviting people to post in your blog
come up with your own terminology for something – sometimes phrases just stick but people like to read how it originated

It is also important to make your blog and posts appealing so remember the usual things like paragraphs, good spelling and grammar, using pictures as appropriate or for interest, use white space and avoid clutter.

The last tip is to actually ask for other blogs to link to you – but managing that is probably worth a post on its own!

Posted in blogging, business info & tools | Tagged blog, content, link, read, seo | 2 Comments

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