In Google’s terms, the Panda update is designed “to reduce rankings for low-quality sites”. These are generally large content aggregator websites or ‘farms’ that “copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful”.  According to Google, as many as 12% of search results were affected, with many sites losing significant visibility online.

“This isn’t a temporary measure either”, says Jack Adams, senior search manager at SearchCatalyst. “Google’s Panda update has been a long time coming, forming part of a more concerted effort to improve the visibility of unique, quality content in Google’s organic rankings and ultimately improve the user’s search experience.”

For every site that loses a ranking, one must gain; in this case, sites that purvey high quality, specialist content on a subject.

Adam’s concludes:

“With most UK SMEs being experts in their respective fields, the opportunity to attain search presence at the expense of large content aggregators – which previously would outrank smaller websites based purely on the inbound links spread thinly across their mass of content – is now more possible than ever before. Coupling this with potentially increased capital as a result of the revised Enterprise Investment Scheme, UK SMEs now also have the funding to realise this opportunity too”.

There are many things to consider as you move forward in this venture, such as some business advice on how to come up with successful ideas that will work, as well as the pros and cons of starting your own company.

You might be asking yourself how exactly one goes about starting a business online.

While it might sound like an obvious truth, it must be made clear that if you are looking to start your own company, you first need to be able to offer a compelling new business idea.

If you’re still unsure of how to form a new proposal, why not use the experience you already developed in previous jobs? Think of the things you didn’t like about these former situations and what you could do to improve upon them.

Another way to come up with a great business platform is to bounce ideas off friends and to always have a pen and paper with you. Some of the greatest ideas are born in the most spontaneous of moments, so it is always important to be prepared.

Don’t be afraid to look at other people’s ideas. All business owners know that competition is a fact of life. Yet as you go forward, be sure to implement your own unique ideas so you can offer a service that is more useful and compelling to potential consumers and clients.

Once you come up with something, don’t rush into starting a business straightaway. It is important to realise that not all business ideas turn out to be viable business opportunities. Therefore, you must be practical, realistic and consider a proper business plan before you take any action. There are several things to assess before going forward and putting your ideas in action, so let’s consider the following:

• Is there a pre-existing or potential market for your idea?
• Can your idea make life easier or solve a common problem?
• Is it realistic?
• Will you be able to generate profit?
• Is there room for the company to develop and grow?

These are all common concerns that must be addressed before you begin formulating any business plans related to your idea. Remember that it is important to offer something unique and special, yet at the same time it is crucial to be practical.

Once you have figured out what it is you want to work towards promoting, you will be able to make a more solid plan for business. Some great ways that will help you get started can include doing market research, making calls and telling people about your upcoming venture, mapping out the specifics of how your business will operate, and of course, setting up a website to further help spread the word.

As you begin to set up your business, don’t be surprised to find that this is not going to be a cakewalk. In fact, many new entrepreneurs will find that running their new business can become rather emotional and stressful, with a required time commitment that is unlike anything they have experienced before.

Starting a business is very much hard work and in the early phases it won’t always be pretty. At first it can be a little discouraging with long hours, initial setbacks, stress and a lack of initial profit. Therefore, it takes a strong person to be able to sail through the storm to find the benefits of running their own business. And yes, while it may take time and a lot of hard work to see them, they certainly can come.

With your own business, you are able to do something you love everyday. It is a challenging task but at the same time, it is a passion and creation borne of your own hands and hard work.

This can leave you feeling a deeper connection to working and allow you to feel pride in all of your accomplishments.

All new business owners must be aware of the fact that in order to begin trading as a private limited company by guarantee, you will need to register with Companies House. If you’re not feeling very confident about the legalities of setting up a business and find the paper work daunting, it might be a good investment to go through an agent, apply online or use an accountant.

Another thing to consider is that you must have a director of the business declared, and said director must be over 16 years old.

Additionally, all businesses in the UK with employees require employers’ liability insurance. This limited protection ensures coverage to all of your employees in the case that they fall ill or get injured on the job. However, it might be a good idea to top up this option by taking on both public liability insurance and professional indemnity insurance where applicable.

As you can see from reading this, there is a lot to consider when it comes to starting your own business. It is a long process that requires critical thinking in order to come up with viable business plans, and further, a great level of commitment and strength to be able to go through with it.

So long as you are prepared to be realistic and can come up with a concept that truly can work in today’s market, and are willing to put in a great deal of time and effort, there is no reason why you shouldn’t be able to move forward with your business plans and create your own company online.

The way we think of companies and businesses are changing, and now with the Web, it is more possible for everyone to engage with the world as an entrepreneur. Be your own boss and get your own ideas across. Once the blood, sweat and tears have begun to settle, you’ll be able to see the seeds of your hard work grow and flourish, and that is worth everything.

Due to the current financial situation many who have found themselves out of work or on short time and unable to make ends meet are considering working for themselves.

These days many small businesses are started as a hobby or sideline while the owners are employed elsewhere, this gives the owner the opportunity to test the water and decide whether their idea is a viable proposition.

Over the last year we have seen an increase in the number of people who do not have the security of full or part time employment, who have what they think is a viable idea for a new business but are struggling to find finance while they test the water.

With the recent hike in gold prices we have even been asked by some of these budding entrepreneurs ‘Should I sell my gold to finance this business?’

Of course this is a question that only the person asking can answer, but for those with a ‘brilliant idea’ who have no other options we offer the following advice.

While gold has increased in value through the financial crisis companies that buy gold are in business to make a profit too. So do not expect to be offered the retail value of your gold collection or you will be disappointed.

The price that we, the public, pay for a piece of jewellery is probably three times the actual cost of the product itself, so if you paid £300 for a gold ring the real value of that ring is only £100.

Bear in mind also that the scrap value, which is what you are being paid, could be much less than the real cost of the item. This is not a rip off, simply how business works.

Also take into consideration that sentiment counts for nothing when trying to raise money and that wedding ring that your grandmother left you may have high sentimental value to you, but not to the buyer.

While we are on the subject of heirlooms always consider carefully before selling of items of sentimental value, it may come back to haunt you.

In our opinion if you really believe in the business that you want to create and selling your gold is the only way that you can get it off the ground, by all means go for it, but first take into consideration the points made in this post.

Quite often borrowing can throw up any number of these little pieces of jargon and it can be helpful to know well in advance of making any applications for a small business loan, credit card, overdraft or any other facility what these all mean and how they may impact you.

One of the terms most frequently applied to such business banking options is APR – and while many may have seen those three letters appear neatly next to any number of advertisements and at the bottom of many a financial form they may not have a full understanding of what they relate to.

The phrase APR stands for Annual Percentage Rate and is a tool that is used to calculate interest levels for all sorts of lending. It is also useful to small business account holders as it allows them to compare the cost of different loans. If the APR is high, then in most cases this means your repayments will be high. However, there may be other charges and fees that apply to the loan or credit card that are not included in the APR – but that does not mean it should be treated any less importantly.

So, entrepreneurs may think to themselves ‘well, that’s easy, all I have to do is grab the package with the lowest APR and I’ll be sorted’. But unfortunately, administration costs, legal fees and early repayment penalties are all things that should be taken into consideration. In addition, particularly low figures for the rate may not be available to you and may depend on how your credit history shapes up in the check the bank makes.

Those looking to take advantage of the various options available to them through Lloyds TSB business banking may at this point be wondering ’so what are the options available?’ and the answer is – plenty. The bank has base-rate linked loans that fluctuate in line with the figures set by the Bank of England, but fixed-rate options are available for amounts ranging up to £100,000 – meaning the applicant is well aware of what they will have to pay back and by when. In terms of plastic, the Lloyds TSB business credit card offers a typical APR of 18.2% variable and has an interest-free period of up to 45 days on new purchases if the user pays the balance in full and on time each month.

“Expat-like terms” – made available in a way that is freely sharable, modifiable and redistributable, similar to the Expat software package, whose terms are published at http://www.jclark.com/xml/copying.txt – this is often used as a clear, simple example for encouraging wide distribution of electronic resources (software).

“clandestine Google Analytics” – Google Analytics is a service from Google, Inc for tracking users through a website in various ways. I believe the Data Protection Act means that English websites should obtain informed consent from users by publishing a Privacy Policy on their site which discloses what the GA service will be used for and linking through to GA’s own Privacy Policy. Some websites attempt to run Google Analytics on users’ computers without explaining why and without any Privacy Policy. That is what I mean by “clandestine”.

“valid xhtml” – validating against the eXtensible HyperText Markup Language standards published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) – the underlying language of the web. There is a test service provided at http://validator.w3.org/ and passing it is a key stepping stone towards making an accessible website. There’s not really such a thing as “invalid xhtml” – if it doesn’t pass validation, it’s not xhtml. So I guess I’m guilty of using a tautology sometimes – sorry about that.

Is it worthwhile knowing those three phrases? Are there other key technical phrases which you think site owners should know?

1. JavaScript or other crawler-unfriendly navigation that may impede indexing

This one is best avoided at design-time, by including Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 Level A in the design brief, but if you’ve ended up with JavaScript-based navigation on your site (check by doing “View Source” and searching for the code for your home page link and so on – if you can find it, then it’s probably not javascript) and it’s based on some template system, a webmaster can probably do a whole-site edit to put the navigation links in the page properly – or at least add a useful <noscript> tag.

2. Navigation that buries important pages within the site architecture.

The structure of the website’s files and the structure of the link menus do not need to match, so if there’s a page that you feel is important, get your webmaster to add it to the navigation links across the whole site.

3. Duplicate “pages” getting indexed under multiple URLs.

This usually happens for one of two reasons: one is inappropriately-parked domains, which is mistake 6 below and often fairly easy to fix; the other is a misbehaving web application, which you’ll need to get a programmer to fix.

You can do a simple test of your web application by starting at your homepage and following links to a particular page; then open a new browser window and try to reach the same page by different links (or a site search) and compare the address bars (the bit of your browser showing http://) – do they match? If not, you’ve got this problem.

4. No keyword phrase focus in the content or conversely, keyword phrase stuffing

You can use a good word-counter on the text to see how common different keywords and keyphrases, or use the “webmaster tools” section of some search engines to see what they’re focusing on.

Keyword-stuffing can be fairly easy to see. If you “View Source” on a page and there’s a large block of keyword-intensive text somewhere in it that doesn’t appear it when viewed in a browser, then it’s probably stuffing. Many sites regard stuffing as a sort of spam, so you don’t want to be found doing this.

To fix these problems, rewrite the page text appropriately.

5. An optimized home page, but that’s it

Repeat your checks from problem 4 on a few pages other than the home page to discover whether you suffer from this. Also, see whether your website statistics show search engine visitors arriving at a variety of different pages (these are sometimes called “Entry Page” statistics).

6. Additional domains owned by the company are not properly redirected

If you usually use .co.uk, but you also have a .com domain, try visiting a random page on your website, then click in the address bar and replace the .co.uk with .com – what happens?

If the page is Not Found, then your domains aren’t properly redirected and you need a Redirect adding to the second one.

If the page displays but the address doesn’t change itself back, then your domains are probably pointing at the same webspace but aren’t properly redirected, which will mean you’re probably making mistake 3 above. Usually, the simplest way to fix this is with a conditional redirect. On Apache webservers, you can add a .htaccess file containing something like:-

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.yourdomain\.co\.uk$ [NC]
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.yourdomain.co.uk/$1 [R=permanent,L]

That even works on BT Business web hosting, by the way. If it doesn’t work, try asking your web hosting provider to enable mod_rewrite for you or ask them to suggest how to achieve the same result.

The above list of mistakes was published on Search Engine Land last week. The correction methods are all things used by my webmaster cooperative.

However, whether you want your success to be online because you would like the freedom to work from home, be your own boss or work the hours you want, when you want, the simple truth of the matter is that online business success is attainable, as long as you have a solid business plan and start your online business venture for the right reasons, using the right people and tools, and being dedicated and committed to the cause.

If you start by thinking it will be easy then it will probably end in tears. But if you have a plan, seek the right advice from the right source, use the right tools and people for the job and push yourself to keep on top of everything, then the possibility of succeeding and generating a successful online business is relatively greater, quicker and cheaper than if you were to start an offline business.

Firstly, consider your business plan thoroughly before putting thoughts into action. If you start with the confidence that you are sure your idea is water tight then you will have 100% commitment to your business. This confidence and commitment will show when you discuss the business with others.

Secondly, I have come across so many companies, big and small, over the past 11 years that have a great business idea but their website is awful. Whether the design is poor quality or the website is difficult to use, don’t attempt to cut corners with cheap website design and development. To me a cheap looking website is a bad advert for your company’s products or services.

It’s strange but a company will always have a professional graphic designer to create an advert or brochure, so why do they not use professional web developers?

Finally, once you have a professionally -designed and developed website, you must undertake and manage an online marketing program. Whether it consists of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) or Paid Inclusion for SEM (Search Engine Marketing) such as Google’s AdWords, you must monitor your traffic and website stats.

So, in conclusion, follow these steps to generate online business success:

• Make sure your business plan is solid before stepping out into the WWW (World Wide Web)

• Employ the services of a professional website development agency

• Setup & Manage a SEO/SEM program

• Monitor the results with website and traffic stats software

And finally, Act on the results!

For Website Development & Internet Marketing contact www.BuzzinFly.co.uk