Online Advertising Tricks All Business Owners Can Use

Online Advertising Tricks All Business Owners Can Use

Running a business in the modern age means knowing how to take your advertising efforts to digital fronts. If you’re not taking advantage of what online advertising has to offer, you’re missing out on a huge area of possibility for your business. Thankfully, it is never too late to get started. If you’re looking to put together a marketing strategy that incorporates a variety of modern ad techniques, you can easily accomplish this with a few moves. Take a moment to consider these ideas and get your own wheels turning for what you can do.

Start Small

Jumping into the fray without any preliminary work is an easy way to waste your budget and make some decisions in haste. The best way to get yourself going is by starting small. Instead of planning a huge launch for a new marketing campaign online, play around with a few safe ideas. If your website is in need of some major updates, put in the work to have it designed to meet current trends. By focusing on what is possible to achieve right away, it makes it easier for you to get a feel for all your future options.

Control Your Budget

There are many ways to sell your services on the internet. For some, online advertising is all about location. Putting an ad on the right site can attract a ton of potential customers to your landing pages. Since you don’t always know which sites will yield the best results, PPC advertising can be a lifesaver. With pay-per-click ads, you pay only when a visitor clicks your ad. This means you don’t need to worry about renting space on a site where you never see any results. Save money and see bigger returns on your investment.

Use Social Options

Social media channels can also prove useful when you’re putting together a strategy for marketing on the internet. These days, sites like Facebook and Instagram are shifting to offer businesses more options for interacting with consumers. In fact, you can now sell your goods and services through these social sites in a way that was unheard of just a few years back. While it shouldn’t be your primary mode of selling, incorporating the right ads into your social experience can definitely start to get people curious about your brand.

When it comes to online advertising, there are a ton of options to consider. Give yourself a chance to learn more about all of the different ways to promote your brand and find what fits your goals.

Contract Financing Explained

Even when you have the skills necessary to complete a project, not having the money to do so can ruin your chances of winning the contract. In most cases, you’ll be paid after all work is completed or at preset milestones throughout the project. Therefore, you’ll need to front some of your own money to get started. If you don’t have the money, you might want to consider looking into contract financing.

How Does it Work?

While a portion of the process starts before you start the project, such as proving to the customer that you will be able to complete the project, the funding doesn’t occur until after the contract is awarded. Of course, the lender will need to see financial statements, reference letters, a company profile, and bank statements in order to determine if you have the credibility to handle the contract.

How is Contract Financing Dispensed?

Once your company has the contract, it’s time to receive the funds and get started. In order to determine how much to provide, the lender will need to analyze the contract. The way the funds are dispensed depend upon your company profile and will be one of the following three ways:

Purchase order financing
Your company controls the money
You watch over the money

Terms of Contract Financing

Once the structure is determined, you’ll need to think about the fees that will be charged by the lender. There are four terms of contract lending you should know:

Advance amount is the total amount
Factor fee similar to interest rate
Advance percentage is the amount requested from the customer to pay the invoice
Advance term is the amount of time payment is withheld after invoice received

Where to Get Contract Financing

Typically, banks do not get involved with contract financing because it’s not really a loan. The funding is often provided by private companies that deal with factoring and can be found online. You’ll just need to complete your application and wait for them to call you. If you do receive contract financing, you’ll want to carefully review the terms to know what you’re getting yourself into. Call Bold Growth Solutions today to help you with your contract financing needs.

Commercial Space: Should Your Business Lease or Buy?

Commercial Space: Should Your Business Lease or Buy?

When you are building a successful company, you’ll have many difficult choices to make. One of the first things you’ll need to decide is where to locate your business. Choosing the right location can make a huge impact on the future growth of your company.

But along with choosing the location itself, you’ll also need to decide whether to buy or lease your commercial space. Here are some things to consider before you make your decision.

Leasing a Property for Your Business

There are pros and cons of leasing your commercial space.

One of the most important benefits of leasing a property for your business is that it is simply easier to qualify for a lease than it is to buy a property.

If you are a new business then you may have limited capital, cash flow and creditworthiness, making it difficult to qualify for a mortgage. Most new small businesses lease their property for the first few years or more. 

Another benefit of leasing is that you are not locked into that property long term. If the location ends up being a problem, you’re only locked in for the term of your lease and can move to a better spot later.

Drawbacks of leasing are that the owner can raise rent every time you go to renew your lease. They can also choose not to renew your lease, leaving your business without a home base.

Buying a Property for your Business

As with leasing, there are also pros and cons of buying a commercial space for your business.

The major benefit of owning is that you have complete freedom over that property. If you want to knock out a wall and expand, do it. If you want to repaint inside and out, do it. If you only need half the property now and want to rent out the other half, do it.

You can also borrow against your equity in the property to improve cash flow or expand your business, if needed.

And if you outgrow the property completely, you can sell – hopefully at a profit – and have plenty of cash to invest back into a new property or into another aspect of your company.

Disadvantages of buying are that it ties up a lot of your capital in equity, and you also are locked into a long-term mortgage. You’ll need strong cash flow and stability to make this option work to your advantage.

Also, if you purchase in an economically depressed area, selling can be difficult. You could even have to take a loss, just to unlock your equity for other purposes.

If you’re looking for a location for your business – either as a startup or as an expanding company – contact Bold Growth Solutions today and explore financing options to help you secure the best location for your business.

An Introduction To Multifamily Apartment Financing

An Introduction To Multifamily Apartment Financing

Loans are an inevitable and very important part of real estate investing; the costs associated with property acquisition are considerable, and few people have the hard cash necessary to build a real estate portfolio. Here, we will give you the basics of financing multifamily apartments even if you are a beginner to this particular type of real estate investing.

The Available Loan Types

One of the most important aspects of a loan of any kind is how much you are paying to secure it. As an example, the short term loan is a viable option for financing multifamily apartments; however, you should be aware of the higher interest rates associated with it. Usually, the loan matures in 3 months, a year or up to 3 years. As is always the case, the true value of the interest is dependent on your creditworthiness (FICO score, mainly).

The more common loan type is longer, spanning from 15 to 30 years of repayment. The interest is commensurately lower as a result of this significantly longer repayment period. The final conventional type of available financing for multifamily apartments comes from your very own federal government – the period of repayment is longer overall at 5 to 35+ years. These loans are given under the auspices of the FHA (Federal Housing Administration).

The Process of Securing a Loan

This will be specific to multifamily apartments – but very similar steps are required for securing a real estate loan in general. First, you will need to specify the total number of units on the property, as well as the occupancy rate to date. Next, your credit score and debt to service ratio must be submitted to the prospective lender (whether federal government or private or public). Your experience in managing multifamily properties is also required, as is how much cash you possess on hand that can be applied to the principal and interest payments.

You can obtain a list of multifamily apartment lenders apart from the options that the federal loan route provides. They include Capital One Bank, Wells Fargo, Greystone and others.

A Complete Guide to Managing Your Small Business Cash Flow

A Complete Guide to Managing Your Small Business Cash Flow

Countless business decisions are made around the reality of cash flow; if you’re in the negative, then loans and restructuring become a stark reality, whereas if you’re in the positive, business expansion often becomes a reality. Because of its importance, here we provide five tips to help you shore up your cash flow.

1 Financing Options

Basically, there are two general options when it comes to financing: short-term and long-term. The former is often used to make up the difference between payables and receivables, and the latter is employed for big acquisitions so as to help preserve your working capital (cash flow). To bolster the short-term financing option, you can also offer discounts or use factoring to expedite the maturation of your receivables.

2 Asset Liquidation

If your business has assets that are more or less languishing, then one way to significantly improve cash flow is to liquidate these. In particular, machinery and equipment are the most common assets that companies liquidate for this purpose. Although tax-deductible donations are possible, you’re in need of cash so the latter is preferable. With Murphy’s Law, computer equipment doubles in ability every couple of years so it behooves you to liquidate as soon as possible.

3 Take an Accounting of Business Risks

This allows you to factor the risks into your long-term plans. Can you handle a large order if it is placed suddenly? Do you have the funds necessary to keep the business going in case a client defaults? Take the time to make a spreadsheet in Google Workspace (or other) and factor in possibilities to see what the financial outcome would be.

4 Optimize Your Cash Flow System

Sometimes, you may be losing money simply through inefficiency. Streamline your invoice acceptance/delivery process manually or with accounting software.

5 Implement a Bank Account Exclusively for Business

Do not mix your personal account with your business account; this can give you an incomplete picture of the actual cash you have on hand.

To learn more about cash flow solutions for your business, contact the team at Bold Growth Solutions.

How Web Design Affects Your SEO Efforts

How Web Design Affects Your SEO Efforts

Search Engine Optimization is a set of tools and techniques designed to raise your website in the results list for relevant keyword searches. The SEO toolbox includes relevant and quality content designed to attract the attention of search engine algorithms as well as quality graphics and web design. The quality of your website design has more to do with your SEO efforts than you might initially think with factors such as poor navigation, multiple pop ups and images heavy with text taking away from your efforts elsewhere.

Website Navigation

When confusing or complicated navigation, or malfunctioning menu and search tools, cause users to back out of your website it can affect your marketing conversion rates as well as send a negative message about your site to search engine algorithms. This will negatively impact your ratings for relevant search results and send even less traffic to your shop. You can counteract this by working with a web designer to streamline navigation and checking that the tools are working on a regular basis.

Pop Ups

While the field of web design has been steadily moving away from the use of pop up advertisements and notices, they are still useful when used effectively. Sites with too many pop ups can interfere with user experience or slow loading times for your site, both things which cause users to leave the site quickly and negatively impact your search engine rankings. When your design includes the use of pop up windows, it is important to use them strategically and to limit the number per session to avoid affecting user experience.

Text in Images

The web crawlers used by search engines to gather information about your site cannot read the text included in images, making it useless in SEO. Including alt texts, however, can boost your rankings by giving the crawlers access to relevant information they can read. Alt text or alt tags can also help screen readers tell visually impaired people your messaging, making your website more accessible to your customers.

Web design is one of the many tools and techniques included in Search Engine Optimization because the better your site’s user experience is, the higher your rankings can climb. Easy navigation and few interruptions from pop ups make users more likely to stay on your pages and having effective alt text for images, rather than text included in them, can give web crawlers and screen readers better access to everything your site has to offer.

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Search Engine Optimization is a set of tools and techniques designed to raise your website in the results list for relevant keyword searches. The SEO toolbox includes relevant and quality content designed to attract the attention of search engine algorithms as well as quality graphics and web design. The quality of your website design has more to do with your SEO efforts than you might initially think with factors such as poor navigation, multiple pop ups and images heavy with text taking away from your efforts elsewhere.

Website Navigation

When confusing or complicated navigation, or malfunctioning menu and search tools, cause users to back out of your website it can affect your marketing conversion rates as well as send a negative message about your site to search engine algorithms. This will negatively impact your ratings for relevant search results and send even less traffic to your shop. You can counteract this by working with a web designer to streamline navigation and checking that the tools are working on a regular basis.

Pop Ups

While the field of web design has been steadily moving away from the use of pop up advertisements and notices, they are still useful when used effectively. Sites with too many pop ups can interfere with user experience or slow loading times for your site, both things which cause users to leave the site quickly and negatively impact your search engine rankings. When your design includes the use of pop up windows, it is important to use them strategically and to limit the number per session to avoid affecting user experience.

Text in Images

The web crawlers used by search engines to gather information about your site cannot read the text included in images, making it useless in SEO. Including alt texts, however, can boost your rankings by giving the crawlers access to relevant information they can read. Alt text or alt tags can also help screen readers tell visually impaired people your messaging, making your website more accessible to your customers.

Web design is one of the many tools and techniques included in Search Engine Optimization because the better your site’s user experience is, the higher your rankings can climb. Easy navigation and few interruptions from pop ups make users more likely to stay on your pages and having effective alt text for images, rather than text included in them, can give web crawlers and screen readers better access to everything your site has to offer.