Online businesses are now a common feature of the 21st century world of commerce and socialisation. For some a virtual online presence is far more advantageous than a physical shop front or office. For instance, it can be cheaper and more accessible than a physical shop front. For many the use of the internet to aid the running of a business has been a financial advantage because there are smaller capital costs for the business to incur. There are a number of examples of businesses which only trade online and have become very successful global businesses.

Here are some tips to consider if you are thinking about trading online:-

1. Have a budget – some money will still be required to promote the business. Some people seem to think that you can be successful online without investing any money. Cheaper does mean that you will not need any money at all. There are a number of ways through which a business can be promoted, some free and some will incur a cost. Given this it is very important to allocate a budget towards promoting your business.

2. Work hard to develop your online business – an online business will need just as much effort as a physical business. You will still need to create an infrastructure for your business. What happens behinds the scene once customers access your website they will still need to be managed! There is no doubt that your online business will require lots of effort. The chances are that success will not happen by itself or happen overnight – you will have to work on it.

3. Treat your online business like a business - although your online business may not have a physical presence it is important that you treat your business professionally. This means that being disciplined enough to work on your business as much as you can. Ideally you should be disciplined enough to start work by at least 9.30 a.m. everyday – you never know who will be calling you! The ideal is to do something every day that will help to grow your business.

4. Be dynamic - the internet is a fluid and dynamic organism. The nature of the internet environment is as such that very little remains the same for a long periods of time. Hence it is essential to be aware of how different forms or uses of technology can benefit your business. An online business will need to be functional and user friendly.

5. Less is more – You may well be tempted to have your finger in more than one pie. If you want to be successful you will need to stay focused. This is very important if you want to produce outstanding results. Scattered efforts could will result in a mediocre business. Seeing one opportunity from start to the end is far better than having a pipeline of unfinished efforts.

Finally, what may look easy may require a lot of work!

From time to time there are products that you come across that really do offer some benefit to smaller business, Serif PagePlus is one such reasonably priced product. Here is our review for you:

Serif PagePlus X5 is an amazingly functional piece of software. There is no need to be an IT expert in order to use this software. It has a vast range of user friendly tools that are easy to use and understand. It has a good range of features ranging from cards, business logos, compliment slips, CVs and web publishing templates. If you are an exceedingly busy user that does not have the time to learn how to us the programme in depth then the ‘Use a Design Template’ feature is ideal as a great starter tool. This tool will take you through the step by step fundamentals of the document that you would like to produce. The design template feature is easy to follow even for people that have IT phobia. A pleasing sample document can be produced in a very short period of time.

An additional benefit is that these designs are even easier to adapt to a personal preference once you get to grips with it. It is definitely worth the investing time in learning to use this piece of software properly. Essentially the more time you spend becoming familiar with the tools and how they can be combined the better the result will be. The only restriction may be imagination or creativity.

The programme is a one stop shop that is capable of producing and enhancing business related documents. Combing text, graphics and charts has never been easier. There is no end to how documents can be combined. One of the many benefits of Serif PagePlus X5 is the wealth of different downloads that are available to the user. The downloads are all free hence they give the user more value for money than first meets the eye. With all the templates available, and from the new template store there are now additional templates available, there is no doubt that even the harder to please customers will be able to find something that they like.

Tutorials are available for users that are keen to improve their skill level or wants to learn how to complete a particular task, The tutorials are easy to understand and follow. Each tutorial is easily printable to create a handy reference file.

Overall Serif PagePlus X5 is a good investment for the small or medium sized business user that does not want to spend a fortune on hiring a graphic designer to produce business related documents. The look of documents is professional and pleasing to the eye. Take Serif PagePlus X5, good quality paper and a decent printer and the results will definitely be professional and impressive.

PagePlus X5 is a powerful desktop publisher to help business professionals easily create high quality marketing materials, compelling advertising, stationery and other printed documents, plus eye-catching e-brochures. For more information, visit www.serif.com/pageplus

The Microsoft giant in November 2007 jumped into the UK bookkeeping software market. 16 November 2009 they will jump out.

So again we see a case of the larger software company trying something and failing. That’s all well and good, but what about those using this product?

Well, the news in my opinion, is not all bad, personally I liked some of the features, a lot, what I didn’t like was the power hungry way it used my office computers.

I have one question for Microsoft, why did you not make this hosted software?

Let’s be honest, if you are a client of Holden Associates then you are probably already using our hosted bookkeeping software which is powered by winweb and all this is totally irrelevant to you.

If you are not a client of Holden Associates, and you have been told to use, or even worse, buy this product by your accountant, oh dear.

Although, all is not lost, we are still offering all our clients Online Office 5 for £FREE, that’s right, no charges, no catches, and for *most small business no cost for training either, that’s right become a client of Holden Associates and we will show you how to use the software for *£FREE.

The demise of the Microsoft attempt to gain market share is a shame for those who have bought the product, as from 16 November it looks like what you have is all you will ever get! Don’t panic, for some what it does will be enough for you for years to come, but for others it maybe worth considering at your year end dropping Microsoft’s product and looking to another.

* Restricted to a maximum of 3 hours at our offices or over the telephone

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There would appear to be some confusion that winweb.com (our chosen online solution partner) and winwebsecurity.com (please do not visit this website) are the same, they are not.

This is taken from the blog of Stefan Töpfer the CEO of winweb, our online solutions partner.

As I mentioned in an earlier post about WinWeb and winweb security, we have been contacted by hundreds if not thousands of people with problems relating a service that calls itself ‘Winweb Security’. We have been trying to help people, even so they are not customers of ours, to rid themselves of this menace.

Some of these conversations have been very unpleasant to say the least. Winweb security has nothing what so ever to do with us, WinWeb. We provide software and business services online to start and run a small business. All our software is ‘online’, we do not upload programs onto your computer, nor do we scan your computer for viruses.

WinWeb SecureTec is a description of the security and business continuity benefits of OnlineOffice, our product. It is not to be confused with virus protection in the sense that we scan your computers. We only make sure that our clients data on our servers is a secure and virus free as possible. We do not extent this service outside our network. If you are looking for that I have mentioned programs in my previous post.

winwebsecurity.com is the website – unbelievably still online – which claims to scan your computer for viruses, it apparently is a counterfeit program and more and more information is becoming available. Please do not click on any links on this website, as you can not be sure if you are not infecting your computer.

We regard this activity as a breach of our trademark and have instructed our US lawyers accordingly. We will try and have this website shut down ASAP, but realize it could take some time. This will not stop the the circulation of the malware but it may help a little to shorten the life cycle.

Our 24/7 support staff is trying to help everyone that is contacting us, and they are doing a marvelous job. Please do not threaten or harass our support team, please understand they are trying to help you, while at the same time we have no obligation to do so. Obviously we have an interest to help, but I have to provide a secure and harassment free environment for my staff to work in. Believe me when I say, we understand you are upset.

You can look up the registration details for winwebsecurity.com and see clearly who has registered this domain. Do the same on winweb.com and you will see it is not the same.

Believe me when I say nobody is more upset than WinWeb right now, this is causing real and undeserved damage to our reputation. — ST.

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In 2009 WinWeb will celebrate it’s 15th anniversary by hosting a Business’09 Competition to win £10,000 or an equivalent currency value for small business owners or budding start up business entrepreneurs.

All that is required is that you let WinWeb know what you would do with the money for your business. Would you start your dream business? Start a business from home? Invest it in your current business and finish a long planned project?

The competition started during Global Entrepreneurship Week 2008, the winner will be announced during Global Entrepreneurship Week 2009.

With questions like, ‘How much money do you need to make your business idea work?’, you may come to the conclusion that you only need time to start your business. In which case you could start your business and if you win do some marketing or save the money for a rainy day – it’s all up to you.

WinWeb and it’s Sponsors & Supporters have set themselves a Business’09 -Unleash It! Campaign to be instrumental and inspire at least 1000 new business start-ups in the next twelve months. Are you one of them?

To register your interest in the £10,000 (about $14,000)and the Business’09 campaign go to the website , or for more information go to one of the official Business’09 campaign blogs, the WinWeb Blog or The Small Business Blog. Whatever you do, don’t miss the chance to win in this competition, we know from an inside source that anyone who registers wins a small prize just for registering. The competition is open to anyone world-wide, currently running a business or thinking about starting a business.

Why not sign up to win £10,000, and be inspired to start your business!

PS.: If you are a blogger, please copy this post message, post on your blog and give me a hat-tip (link-back).

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Well it happened on Monday 6th October 2008, Winweb launched Version 5 of their powerful online office.

Online Office Version 5 is by far the most powerful version to date of the Online Office, there are over 100 new features, yes over 100!!

I am very excited about this launch, it is through collaboration that winweb are maturing, they ask their users what they want to see and then develop it and Version 5 is the latest development along this road.

Version 5 see’s winweb’s commitment to the smaller business with the launch of the new Academy section, described as an ideas and educational framework for entrepreneurs.

It all adds up to a very impressive offering, winweb is one of the early entrants into the Software as a Service ‘SaaS’ market, but unlike the competition, Stefan the founder of winweb is always keen to point out winweb is not about accounting software, winweb is about giving the small business a greater chance of survival by being a complete small business infrastructure.

If you have never looked at winweb or heard of winweb before and you run a small business don’t you think it is time you visited their website?

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This is great, Nomads for the modern age, Location Independent Professionals ‘LIP’.

Another advantage the internet is giving the micro-business and certainly the life style business is the freedom to work, earn and even run a business from anywhere in the world.

One such example of this is Lea. Lea is a true LIP and with her husband Jonathan is enjoying the kind of lifestyle most only dream off, the chance to travel the world while staying connected and earning.

For those who are thinking there must be a better way, which isn’t hard as the dark night take hold, go have a look at what some LIP are up to, and for those who fancy this ‘life style’ choice business model you are not alone, Lea has made a posting about other LIP’s out there.

This will not suit everyone, but as far as a life style business goes it ain’t half bad!

PS All future clients will have to attend meetings with me at my new office on the beach in the tropics! (If only)

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Microsoft have now entered into the accounting software market here in the UK with Office Accounting Professional 2008.

Will we use it, probably not, because it sits on your desktop and as previously mentioned yesterday, amongst other reasons, I really do like the benefit of someone else taking care of the data back up and recovery, as well as security.

So why have I mentioned it, well as far as marketing goes, another thing I have an interest in, I like the introduction, I know most people skip this, but don’t, it is fun!

This is something that much of the marketing lacks these days, it is either dull or tries too hard, but Microsoft have given us numbers, numbers that talk with that great 1970 elevator music, I love it.

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According to recent figures 88.4% of us now connect to the internet by broadband.

This is great news for small business, the internet brings with it the chance for many smaller businesses to ‘punch above their weight’ in the market place.

With Christmas around the corner it is still not to late to dust off your internet website, even use Google pay per click scheme and drive online sales to your ‘virtual’ door.

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The Chartered Institute of Taxation ‘CIoT’ has updated its website, which is good news as the last one was looking very old and tired.

But why is he telling me this I hear you asking, I’m in business if I want tax advice I will either call you, or if a Holden Associates client go and find it!

My reason, the  CIoT has ventured into the virtual world of second life, this is great, second life is such big business now, and I dare say, it will become even more common in the future or at least a variation thereon, at least someone is looking into this new area and any tax implications.

Again, second life is a product of the internet and how its moving at such a fast pace, so just imagine what the internet could do for your business, I am not only talking second life here, as the internet goes beyond borders, second life is a virtual world whose inhabitants are from the world over, there is no reason your business if online could not trade the world over.

Think global, think about how the internet can take you there!

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