To answer the question “Does my business need a blog?” then you need to look at how it can benefit you before deciding on whether you need one or not.

These days many businesses are adding a blog to their website, as they firstly acknowledge that it is a good traffic generation tool and it helps to tell your audience that you know what you are talking about…let me explain…

Every time you post a page on the internet you give yourself another opportunity of getting that page found on the internet by potential customers. It is worth researching key search terms for your business and your business products and services. Once you have researched this by using SEO tools like Wordtracker FREE keyword suggestion tool you can use these key words to create posts that will be searched for on the Internet and then find your site.

Once you have your “Key Phrases” which include your “Key Words” you can then start to build web pages based around these words. Using a blog for this purpose you can write articles based upon your key words, which will not only be found if they have been optimised correctly, but will also tell your customers more about that particular service.

In your article on the blog the title should include your “Key Phrase” and “Key Words” and then you should go on to include the same phrases within the article, some of which should be boldened and at least one of them linking off to your main website. This will help the search engines to index your page and thereby find you for the terms you desire.

If you do decide to have a blog associated with your business website then I suggest you use good blogging software like WordPress, which is what has been used to run this blog – and what is great is the software is FREE!

Once you decide to have a blog you must make sure that you keep the content up-to-date and you must make sure that you write articles on a regular basis – I would suggest at a very minimum of one per month, which would mean 12-articles per year, but even better one per week. You can get your employees to help with article ideas and topics and get them to help with writing them, so that you spread the load.

A fall on the world stock markets across the board happened this week and one that stands out above the rest is the French CAC40 which dropped by 14% this week – this could lead to a number of take-over bids from overseas, subject to the usual French preventative rules.

The crude oil price fell this week by a futher 9% have lost 5.5% last week to close at under $60 per barrel again. Gold has also continued to fall this week closing at a new low of $913.
End of the week saw:

If you are considering setting up in business and you are not sure what to do then how about a list of businesses you could begin – so here is a list of small business ideas:

- An online business selling products using a drop-shipping company – like umbrellas or women’s shoes or perhaps perfumes.
- Become a plumber – even during a slow-down plumbers seem to be in demand and can earn significant sums.
- Set up take away business selling pizzas or burgers – in a slow down these types of business always prosper, as people tend not to go to restaurants as much, but will still get a take away with a bottle of wine. You do have the option of setting up a franchise with this line of business, but you have to consider the fact that a per cent of your turnover will be taken by the franchisor.
- Set up a gym, which is where Duncan Bannatyne made a large percentage of his fortunes – remember a good tip of his, which is to make sure your location has a 360 degree population around the site. In other words if you were to choose a location on the coast you have just limited your customers numbers in direct driving distance from your gym, as there will only be houses in a 180 degree arc on one side of your site.
- A cake making business is something you could start up from your kitchen and begin by supplying to weddings and local shops.
- A cleaning business cleaning homes and/or businesses – if done correctly and once you begin employing people you can make a lot of money doing this.
- A gardening and landscape gardening business is a business which is always in demand.
- A handyman come maintenance type of business.
- Building and maintenance business.
- Computer maintenance and hire company and in particular computer network support, as this is always in demand.
- Wedding services business, including photographer and a wedding planner – most women are very good a planning weddings and most will have done so in their life, so why not do this for others.
- An ironing service.

Think about what you are good at or what you have trained to do as there will be business opportunities in whatever field you are in. When you are thinking about your business idea it is always worth considering the “expandability” of your idea.

So if you choose a cleaning business, then there is nothing wrong in starting out doing the initial work yourself, but ads things expand you can then begin to employ others to do the cleaning work so that you can begin to sit back and manage the business – this way your business will become an asset to sell in the future – the less you are involved in the day-to-day running of the business and so long as it is profitable, then the more it will be worth to others to buy.

This week we saw the Nationwide bank launch a 125% mortgage which will hopefully be the beginning of the end of a time of limited borrowing during times of credit crunch lending!

The Nationwide’s new loan facility is to help existing customers who want to move, but can’t because they are in negative equity. The way this new lending works is that the customer will be able to borrow up to 95% of the value of their new home, so they will need to have a 5% deposit.

Subject to fulfilling certain conditions, customers will then be able to add the negative equity from the house they are selling to the new mortgage, so long as this amount of extra lending does not exceed 25% of the new homes value.

For example:

A customer has an existing house worth £175,000 with a mortgage of £250,000, which means they are in negative equity by £75,000.

They want to buy a new house that is worth £275,000, on which the Nationwide would potentially lend £261,250 (which represents 95% of the value) – they will need a deposit of £13,750. This extra lending is subject to a few conditions and their new “stress test”. This new stress test will ensure that customers are still able to afford the mortgage repayments if interest rates have risen to 9% or 10% once the fixed-rate element of the loan has expired.

The maximum extra they could borrow in this case would be 25 per cent of £275,000, which is £68,750. So in this example they would not be able to borrow the whole of the equity short-fall of £75,000 and would therefore need to put a further £6,250 into the deal.

Nationwide customers will be offered a three-year fixed rate mortgage at 6.73 per cent or a five-year one at 7.48 per cent on the 95 per cent portion of the mortgage. Interest charged on the negative equity element of the borrowing rises to 7.23 per cent for three-year fixed and 7.98 per cent for five-year fixed.

These rates are quite high in the present market so customers will obviously be quite desperate to move up if they are willing to pay these high fixed rate mortgages!

Turn-on your television or pick up a newspaper and all that is reported right now, apart from the present swine flu problem, is the “credit crunch” – falling house prices, rising unemployment, businesses going bust, repossessions, bankruptcies and more…

So what should small businesses do?

Well this depends on whether you see this as an opportunity or a threat. There are no doubt certain businesses that will find these times more difficult than others, for example, only today there are reports about how the number of unemployed lorry drivers has gone up almost 5-fold since this time last year.

Where businesses are selling less and therefore resulting in a less of a need for transport, then transport companies will see a dip in demand and as a consequence might need to make redundancies. So I accept that times are tough and even more so for some – take solicitors and estate agents – with the dramatic fall in house sales their business income relating directly to house-sales will have fallen off a cliff over the last 12-18 months. However, take an estate agency – if they don’t already do so, the estate agent should consider moving into property rentals, as people are resorting to renting their property instead of selling.

By looking at the present economic situation as an opportunity and to start looking at ways to make efficiencies within any business you should be able to survive and along the way make more small business profits – doing nothing is not an option and will result in a business failure. You can ask your staff to take a pay cut so that they help in the survival of the business and you can then start to look at other ways in which the company can make profits from existing customers, by looking at other product lines that compliment your existing ones.

I suggest that you look at putting together a meeting with all your staff with the main or sole purpose of getting ideas from them on how to move the business forward. Before the meeting make it clear to all staff what the purpose of the meeting is and that it is to be a constructive review of the business and its activities.

The benefit of doing this with staff is that they all know the business and when you get a group of people together you end up with an “Idea Snowball Effect” in other words – one person might suggest one thing, which in itself might be a good idea, but if not it might lead someone else on to an even better idea – and so on…

You might even want to offer incentives to staff for the best ideas and for those that start producing results or alternatively, place a marker in the sand of where profits are now and then offer a group bonus based upon any profit increase whereby things improve.

Another way to move things forward is to ask your customers for ideas and feed-back. You can organise a “Client Forum” whereby you invite a number of clients in (I recommend 10-12 customers) and sit them in a room and ask them for feed-back on your products and/or services. It is amazing what can come out of this type of meeting, which can ultimately lead to providing a better service to your clients and they might even give you ideas for other products of service – thereby increasing your business profits!

Whilst improving profits – don’t forget to keep an eye on cash flows – it is all very well increasing your business profits, if you don’t get the money from your customers and keep cash in the bank.

The FTSE 100 Index, also known as the “footsie” is the UK’s share index of the 100 most highly capitalised UK companies listed on the London Stock Exchange.

The FTSE 100 index commenced in 1984 with a starting level of 1000 and is the most published index on the london share market exchange and is seen as a barometer of how UK shares are fairing and of a measure of business prosperity.

A full list of FTSE 100 Companies

10 ways to save money in your business and make your business a lean mean fighting machine!

In an economic slow-down it is time to cut costs!

When things are going well and saving money is not at the top of the agenda we can all let things slip and not pay close attention to cut costs. With the credit crunch still biting the majority of businesses still I though it would be good to help focus on where money can be saved.

1. Bank charges

If you have been with your bank for a number of years and many people tend to be very loyal to their banks, for some reason. Always remember this, if times get tough, the bank will be the first one to kick you out on the street, as their decision is based purely on a commercial basis without emotion. So it is always good to have a look at the competition and see what deals you can do with other banks and the bank charges you pay or save.

2. Bank loans

You might well have banking finance in the company be it a general loan or overdraft or it might be in the form of a mortgage on a business property. It is always worth while checking to see if you can get a better rate, especially right now with bank base rates being so low. The rate your are already on might not take account of the full rates reduction, so by moving lender you might get a better deal or even a very good fixed-rate deal.

3. Company credit cards

If your business uses credit cards then these will have an associated cost, be it an annual fee or the fee they charged if you use it abroad on business. Check with other banks how much they charge for a similar service, as you might be able to save some money where the cards are used in a significant way.

4. Pay-down your mortgage

Where interest rates have dropped so much your mortgage payments will have dropped by a large percentage. However, if you can afford it, why not keep your mortgage payments at the level they were before so that the capital element of the mortgage gets paid down faster.

In the long-run this will significantly shorten the length of your mortgage and reduce the amount of interest you pay over its term. Also, at a point when rates start to rise again, the amount you owe will be that much lower so the repayments at that point will be lower.

5. Review your supply chain

You might have ordered your stationery from a certain supplier for some time now and it might be that there are other companies out there that offer a better deal. There will be companies eager to get your business and might be willing to give you good account discounts to get your business.

Equally, your existing supplier might well give you a better discount if you ask them and more likely if they know they might loose your account. This saving tip applies to all of your supplies and where you are a manufacturing type business and you purchase goods to sell, then if you can source cheaper suppliers for your business, you will improve your gross profit margins.

6. Cash takings

If you are a cash business you might already try to minimise the amount of the cash you bank and instead use it to pay suppliers, employees and so on. Banks charge you significantly to bank cash so if you can limit how much you pay in this will reduce these costs. You might also want to look at other ways of banking your cash, for example the UK’s Post Office has always been a cheaper solution for banking cash, so it might pay to look around for banks that charge lower “Cash-Banking” rates.

7. Save money on your fuel bills

Even during this economic slow-down the cost of energy has remained relatively high so it would pay you to search around for a better deal. You can normally search online for Energy Comparison Sites so that you can cut your fuel bill on gas and electric. Sometimes by combining the two into one bill and by paying by direct debit will save money – so take time to speak to different companies.

8. Cut your phone bills

For some businesses the phone bill is one of the high costs and by switching supplier can reduce this cost. Look at getting a deal whereby the landlines you use are linked in some way to your company mobile phones so that calls between the office and the mobiles can be free with certain deals on the market. Consider incentivising your employees to switch to your own service provider where call-charges are cheaper when made between the same supplier and the business makes a significant number of calls to employee mobiles.

9. Accountants fees

Accounting and professional fees can be a significant cost to the business and it is always worthwhile reviewing not only the cost of this service, but also whether the accountant you use is saving you money. If you have a good accountant and tax adviser, they should be able to come up with tax-saving tips for your business and if you change the new person might see something that your old accountant has missed.

Also, try looking for an accountant that this prepared to offer a fixed fee – you end up paying too much to accountants or solicitors that charge by the hour, as you are paying for their inefficiencies if you pay them by the hour!

10. Company car policy

Review your company car policy and how often you change your vehicles and for what level of car you buy as a replacement. Also, consider the fuel type your company vehicles use – there are obviously petrol versus diesel and now you have the new types including electric cars and a combination fuel type car.

These are just 10 ways to save money in your business, but if you start to think this way then I am sure that you might well come up with your own ideas to help reduce costs in these difficult times.

I have decided to include more of the world stock market indices this week, as my blog is starting to get read more and more across the world by people from the UK, Europe, America, Australasia and the Far East.

Notably this week is the fall in the value of the Yen against Sterling and the US Dollar, falling by over 4% against UK Sterling and by 2.5% against the Dollar. However, the US Dollar has suffered too this week and slid against Sterling by 1.6% ending close to $1.50 to the Pound for the first time in a while.

The reason for the weakening Dollar is due to the US economy contracting by more than expected at 6.1% in Q1 2009. Investors are focusing on a rise in private consumption for the first time since Q2 of 2008 combined with a sharp decline in private inventories.

In the short-run falling inventories hurt an economy and at a point where inventories have reached their optimal levels, companies will need to increase production to meet demand, as economies pick up again.

Due to the falling pace in contraction in the US economy The Federal Reserve is refraining from new stimulus announcements.

UK Sterling rose this week on comments by UK Chancellor Alistair Darling that he expects a UK economy to recover by the end of the year.
End of the week saw:
Stock exchanges:
FTSE 100: 4,243.22 GBX
FTSE 250: 7,571.33 GBP
UK All Share: 20,647.03 ZAX
US DOW: 8,212.41 USD
US S&P: 877.52 USD
US NASDAQ: 1,719.20 USD
Japan Nikkei: 8,977.37 JPY
China H Seng: 15,520.99
Australian ASX 200: 3,769.60 AUD
German DAX: 4,769.45 EUR
French CAC 40: 3159.85 EUR
Spanish Ibex 35: 9,038 EUR

Currencies
UK Sterling £ to US Dollar $ 1.49089
UK Sterling £ to Euro € 1.12313
UK Sterling £ to Japanese Yen 147.906
UK Sterling £ to Aus $ 2.03507
US Dollar $ to Euro € 0.753325
US Dollar $ to Japanese Yen 99.2063
US Dollar $ to Aus $ 1.36500

Commodities
Nymex Crude oil – $52.65
Gold – $887.90

Theo Paphitis – Entrepreneur

Another Dragons Den investor, Theo Paphitis made his big money when he took over Ryman after he bought the company from the receivers and turned the business around. Mr Paphitis went on to make his mark as a businessman that was able to turn failing companies into highly successful and profitable businesses.

Deborah Meaden – Entrepreneur made her fortunes in the leisure and retail sector and in the family amusement arcade business.

To read more about Deborah Meaden and her business success.