180 packed pages! the complete guide to setting up and trading online Discover how to: create a company • sell products online • market on social media
FREE
Digital edition of this book! See page 178 for more information iPad & iPhone only
TGG16
2017
PRINTED IN THE UK
£12.99
Contents Key knowledge
Money matters
Online impact
The stuff you need to know
Because cash is king
Make your internet fortune
10 Business basics Everything you need to know to transform an idea into a business ● Writing a business plan ● Sourcing an office ● Supply and demand ● Protecting ideas ● Work/life balance ● Getting advice ● Raising money ● Debt management ● Company types ● Business growth
38 Quick cash Raise a little seed money fast with nothing but your PC
Quick and easy storefront 82 Got a product to shift? Start selling online fast and for free
48 The art of crowdfunding Connect with your customers and build your brand new business
86 Straighforward storefront SEO Push your product up the search rankings and get it seen
66 Manage your cash Look after your money and it will look after your business
88 Keep it legal Don’t get caught – make sure your products are yours to sell online
30 Business Blunders Every business makes mistakes. Learn from a pair that have made plenty...
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90 Get to the top of Google Advanced SEO techniques to ensure your business has pride of place 98 Keep people on your site Page impressions mean nothing if your audience doesn’t stick around
Contents
Go social
Happy business
Secrets of success
Let the public work for you
Take the chore out of work
They did it, and so can you
102 Why social media matters Your guide to the evergrowing online social world
124 The right environment Keep your employees happy and you’ll keep them around
108 How to make a viral hit There’s a formula to every viral success
126 Finding staff online If you’re running a digital business you’ll want a digitalsavvy team
146 The make it big checklist Think you’re ready to make it in business? Let’s do some revision
112 Twitter marketing Use Twitter’s tools to make a splash in the fastest-moving social pool 116 Facebook marketing The biggest audience, with a sharing culture that makes it essential 120 BLOG marketing Bring your audience closer to your business by revealing all
128 Build the perfect team Assemble the people who are going to help you make your fortune
150 Profile: Richard Branson How did the Virgin mastermind rise to the top of so many businesses? 154 Profile: Haraldur Thorleifssone One man, one beard, one dream, and some serious success 160 Profile: Meagan Fisher The Owltastic designer on making it in the freelance world 166 Profile: Bearded A small team that does big business the right way 172 Profile: Drew Wilson A lesson in looking after yourself as a one-man-band entrepreneur
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Key knowledge | Business basics
Business basics
You’ve got a great idea. But you need more than that to build a business. Read on to discover how to transform your concept into a solid enterprise
Starting a business has become something anybody can do. In today’s changeable economy, being a small business owner is no longer the preserve of the risk-taker. All you need to start your own enterprise is a great idea and the nous to see it through. And maybe some cash. And good contacts. And a business plan. Oh, and a marketing strategy…
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Key knowledge | Business basics
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Money matters | Quick capital
Quick capital
Stuck for ideas or cash? Help get your business off the ground and make quick money from home with your PC
Let’s be positive. Forget the credit crunch and the age of austerity – we’re going to help you make some money. Don’t worry if you’re no Alan Sugar; thanks to the internet and your PC, all you need is a good idea. If you don’t even have one of those, you can transform your spare time into cash – legally. This isn’t a guide to selling old vinyl on eBay or flogging knackered paperbacks on Amazon. We’ve done our homework, trawled the web and put together a list of new, exciting and innovative ways in which technology can help you make money. We’ll explore topics such as human intelligence tasks – jobs that computers and software can’t do, but are
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essential to the functioning of an electronic business. All you need do is sign up for a service, set aside a few hours and do the jobs you’re assigned. It might not be glamorous work, but if you have a PC and some time to spare, it’s a great way of earning a few quid. If you’re feeling brave, we’ll also explore how to start your own electronic business in a thoroughly modern way. Back in the pre-wired age, the banks held all the cards. If you wanted to start a business, you had to convince your bank manager that your great idea was profitable. Today you can forget the big four. If you have an ambition to launch an amazing venture, all you need to do is convince a community
of lenders. If they’re happy with your plan, the cash will turn up. The equation works the other way, too. If you have some savings and fancy being a venture capitalist, read on. Before we get stuck into making our fortunes, a word of warning: keep your wits about you. The web is groaning with scams and scammers. We’ll look at a few classic examples, but it pays to be aware of potential cons and fraud. The internet is a great place to make cash – just remember the old adage: if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. You’re putting your livelihood on the line starting a new business. Either hit these schemes prepared to lose, or take a small risk.
Image ŠThinkstock
Money matters | Quick capital
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Money matters | Manage your cash
Manage your cash
Money is at the heart of any business, so we’ll help make sure you’re clued up
The issue of money management fills many who start out on their own with dread. But there’s no escaping it – the business-savvy get ahead. In between the fun, excitement and occasional terror of running your own gig, you have to face up to the reality that it’s a business – and must be managed like one if it’s going to succeed.
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Cash flow is key. You need the right pricing structure and a few tricks of the trade to speed up the payment process. You’ll also need to know what’s coming in and going out at all times. So let’s get cracking – from balancing the books to planning ahead, this section brings you practical business tips for managing your bottom line.
Money matters | Manage your cash
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Online impact | Advanced SEO
Get to the top of Google SEO is crucial to getting your business website recognised in a crowded market. Read on to find out how to master it
Sure, you know about search engine optimisation increasing your site’s ranking in search engines. You might not be an expert, but you have a good understanding of the basics: title tags, clean URLs, text-based design and so on. Even if you’re more of an expert than most, it’s often what you don’t know about SEO that will hurt you. Many webmasters found this out the hard way in 2011, when Google’s Panda update
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was released. Many of these same webmasters were hit again little more than a year later, when the search giant’s Penguin update followed – targeting low-quality, spammy link-building tactics. Pigeon and Payday followed, again targeting spam, and in late 2015 a machine-learning AI system known as RankBrain was introduced to interpret searches and provide results that may not include the words searched for but are
Online impact | Advanced SEO
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Go social | Why social media matters
Why social media matters Thanks to social media, the way we do business has changed forever. If you’re not using social networks right now, you’re missing out
With Facebook boasting 1.79 billion active monthly users and Twitter steady at around 310 million active monthly users, social media is here to stay. It has forever changed the way products are marketed. A marketing strategy that doesn’t make use of social media is out of date. To take advantage of this huge pool of easily accessible and instantly available customers, you need to learn the secrets that can get your brand noticed online, which is why we’ve created this guide. Whether you have a product to sell, a brand to promote or a cause to champion, this guide will show you how to leverage the power of the big social networks, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr, to help get you noticed and
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spread the word. With our help you’ll be producing content that has global appeal.
Content marketing In a nutshell, social marketing is about using the various social networks to build up a buzz about your brand or product. Content marketing is an important part of the social marketing mix. Essentially, this means taking the content you probably already produce and using it in your social marketing. There’s no point shouting, no matter how loudly you do it, unless you’ve got something to shout about. For example, say you’re an illustrator and you’ve created a great series of illustrations for a client. You could share one of those illustrations on your social media accounts as a
Go social | Why social media matters
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Happy business | The perfect team
Build the perfect team A business is only as good as the people who work for it, but how do you find and keep the best employees?
Staffing is a dark and mysterious art. Anyone can recruit, but nurturing your team, inspiring them and managing them in order to get the best out of them is a rare skill set. Bringing staff into your business is about strong, compassionate leadership. It’s also about sympathetic and intelligent people-
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management, and knowing how to build and keep a happy, productive team. There comes a point when every company must decide whether or not to expand. In this feature, we explore exactly what the best ways of staffing, managing and keeping a crack team of professionals involve.
Happy business | The perfect team
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Secrets of success | Richard Branson
Richard Branson
Rebel billionaire turned space explorer. The entrepreneur’s entrepreneur
Anyone else who called themselves Dr Yes would find themselves the object of ridicule. But Sir Richard Branson is the oldest person to kitesurf across the English Channel and the first person to hot air balloon across the Atlantic and the Pacific. It’s hard to find fault with anyone so enthusiastic about life. The self-proclaimed ‘tieloathing adventurer’ is as known for his daredevil pursuits as he is his business success. But the Virgin brand is one of the most recognisable in the world and it exceeds its products. As its figurehead, Branson is one of the most recognisable business ‘celebrities’ and an icon of can-do. Born in London in 1950, Branson went into business aged 16 with youth culture magazine Student, from the crypt of a church. Though he dropped out of school, he’d always had an entrepreneurial
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streak and it’s been reported that he tried and failed to sell Christmas trees and budgerigars before he launched Student.
tough love In his (bestselling, naturally) autobiography, Losing My Virginity, he recounts the following story: “My childhood is something of a blur to me now, but there are several episodes that stand out. I do remember that my parents continually set us challenges. My mother was determined to make us independent. When I was four years old, she stopped the car a few miles from our house and made me find my own way home across the fields. I got hopelessly lost. My youngest sister Vanessa’s earliest memory is being woken up in the dark one January morning because Mum had decided I should cycle to Bournemouth that
day. Mum packed some sandwiches and an apple and told me to find some water along the way. Bournemouth was 50 miles away from our home in Shamley Green, Surrey. I was under 12, but Mum thought that it would teach me the importance of stamina and a sense of direction. I remember setting off in the dark, and I have a vague recollection of staying the night with a relative. I have no idea how I found their house, or how I got back to Shamley Green the next day, but I do remember finally walking into the kitchen like a conquering hero, feeling tremendously proud of my marathon bike ride and expecting a huge welcome. ‘Well done, Ricky,’ Mum greeted me in the kitchen, where she was chopping onions. ‘Was that fun? Now, could you run along to the vicar’s? He’s got some logs he wants chopping and
Image ŠVirginAtlantic
Secrets of success | Richard Branson
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