Planning a Summer Move: Move Your Corporation From One State to Another |  |
- Planning a Summer Move: Move Your Corporation From One State to Another
- Podio Launches Video Conference App
- 5 Ridiculous SEO Myths That People Believe
- Google Databoard Lets You View Research, Create Infographics
- Angel Investments Since the Economic Downturn
| Planning a Summer Move: Move Your Corporation From One State to Another Posted: 15 Jul 2013 04:00 PM PDT
Are you planning a move to another state? You probably already know how to change your mailing address or switch your cable service. But how do you legally move a corporation or LLC from one state to another? When a corporation or LLC conducts business in any given state, it must register with that state. So, if you're planning to move your business to a new state, you'll need to register it with that state. In general, there are two ways to handle this – and the right approach will depend on whether your move is permanent and whether you're planning on operating your business in both your old and new states. Move Your Corporation: First ApproachDissolve the Corporation in the Old State, Start it in the New StateIf you're permanently moving to a new state and you have no plans on operating your business in the old state, then the cleanest approach is to close the corporation/LLC in your original state and register a new corporation or LLC in the new state. While specifics may vary by state, here's a general overview of how to do this:
Move Your Corporation: Second ApproachFile a Foreign Qualification in the Second StateIn those situations where your move is only temporary or you'd still like to conduct business in your old state, then it doesn't make sense to close your business and start a new one. In this case, you should keep your corporation or LLC registered in the original state and then foreign qualify in your new state. This is also the procedure you'd take if you're not moving, but just plan on conducting business in another state. Here's a general overview of how to foreign qualify (again, specifics vary by state):
Summer moves can be busy. Yet in the midst of a physical move, you'll also need to take your legal obligations seriously whenever crossing state borders. Filing upfront will be simpler and far more affordable than having to deal with the consequences of operating improperly. Moving Photo via Shutterstock The post Planning a Summer Move: Move Your Corporation From One State to Another appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
| Podio Launches Video Conference App Posted: 15 Jul 2013 01:30 PM PDT
If you’re still searching for the right video conferencing service to interact with your business partners, your customers, and your suppliers, Podio has added a new Podio video conference feature you may want to consider. Audio and video service was launched this week for Podio at no extra cost for users of the collaboration software whether you have a free or premium account. Anders Pollas, co-founder and product manager at Podio, introduced the new service recently on the official Podio blog. There are at least 200,000 Podio clients already using the business collaboration platform. With the new video chat app, users will be able to interact with each other using video and audio. But that’s not all. The workplace management and social site also recently added instant text messaging to go alongside its suite of other business apps already geared for group input and interaction. Use Podio Video Chat to Increase CollaborationUsing Podio, you can see which projects other members of your team are working on. You can then use the new video chat app to start a quick one-on-one or group video conversation with them. All chats are stored in the archive so they’re accessible at a later time. The new video chat feature will also allow users to share files through cloud services like Dropbox, Google Drive, Box and Microsoft SkyDrive. The video chat service from Podio does require a one-time browser plugin download. It’s currently available for PC and Mac browsers and will soon be available in iOS for iPhone and iPad, according to Citrix, which owns Podio. Image: Podio The post Podio Launches Video Conference App appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
| 5 Ridiculous SEO Myths That People Believe Posted: 15 Jul 2013 11:00 AM PDT
The SEO industry is wrought with folklore. Much of what is said doesn't come with the evidence to back it up. Granted, we're not immune to truisms of our own, and sometimes it's not a bad idea to put intuition first. But there's a difference between truisms or ethical stances and opinions masquerading as facts. I'd like to debunk a few SEO myths today, so let's get started. SEO Myths1. Links Are the Most Important Ranking FactorThis is the one SEO myth that gets said so often everybody accepts it as truth. It's so ubiquitous that I wouldn't be surprised if we accidentally found ourselves saying it at some point in the past. Links are just so crucial and so hard to earn that we tend to think of them as the most important ranking factor. The truth is very different. Relevance is the most important ranking factor. Take a look at the latest compilation of ranking factors from Search Metrics:
Sure, at first glance, it looks like the number of backlinks is more important than having the keyword in the title. After all, backlinks had a correlation of 34 percent and having the keyword in the title had a correlation of zero percent. They must be useless, right? Not even close. The correlation was zero, because across thousands of searches, the top 30 search results all had the keyword in the title. There was no correlation because it was a prerequisite to rank in the top 30. It's simple. To get traffic, Google needs to fetch your page as a match to the query before you even show up. Having the keyword present in your content, preferably in the title, is by far the most important factor. Not to mention, take another look at those ranking factors. Google +1′s correlate with rankings better than links and Facebook activity is tied with the number of backlinks. In fact, Search Metrics reached the same conclusion back in 2012. This is just correlation, not causation, but keep in mind that that's just as true for link data. The messier truth is that the importance of ranking factors changes depending on the search query, because different ranking factors are prioritized under different circumstances. High quality links are important because they are hard to get, but they are not the most important ranking factor. You need to take a more holistic approach if you want to succeed consistently. 2. Bounce Rate is a Ranking FactorThis SEO myth comes up a lot more often than I would ever expect and it's completely false. Matt Cutts has flat out said that Google does not use bounce rate as a ranking factor, nor do they use analytics data. This should be rather surprising, considering that Google can, in fact, easily tell if you have clicked back from a search result and how much time you've spent on the site. So maybe they don't use bounce rate, but instead use time on site before returning? This quote from Matt Cutts suggests that's also unlikely:
A more convincing argument is that Google uses "pogosticking" to infer user satisfaction. In other words, if a user clicks on your page, leaves quickly and then clicks on a different page and stays on it for a long time - then that user probably wasn't very satisfied with what you had to share. More importantly, Google has a large collection of other user behavior metrics, some of which they are almost certainly using:
Not to mention the growing collection of Google+ and signed in user data. Click-through data is likely used as well. But not your bounce rate. 3. Domain Age is an Important Ranking FactorSome people swear by domain age and may even call it a more important ranking factor than links. But, once again Matt Cutts has come right out and said that the impact on search results is very small once you get past a couple months and that links are a much more important ranking factor. So why is it that some people swear by domain age as such an important ranking factor? Undoubtedly, older domains are more likely to have accumulated links over time. They have been around long enough for more user data to be taken into consideration and their competitors have had more time to get punished or demoted for guideline violations. In other words, when domain age seems important, it's really because stronger ranking factors have been influenced by the domain's age. Just having an old site isn't going to benefit you. But having a site that has proven itself consistently for extended periods of time is another thing entirely. 4. You Can't Compete With High Domain Authority ResultsSEOs can often find themselves obsessing over domain authority, especially during competitive analysis. In reality, we don't even have strong evidence that there is such a thing as domain authority. At the very least, it is loosely defined and defined differently by everybody that uses it. We've used this terminology ourselves, but really it's just a way of generalizing the potential of your internal links. Let's start with Moz's own correlation data. Among site-wide factors, even their own domain authority metric isn't the best factor to use. It has a correlation of 21%, while the total number of linking root domains with partial match anchor text has a correlation of 25%. This is actually identical to the correlation for the number of linking root domains with partial match anchor text among page level factors. Again, 25%. Is there any reason to suspect that what we call domain authority is anything more than the power of internal linking? In my experience, I haven't seen any data to suggest that domain authority exists in any meaningful sense. I'm more inclined to believe that internal links are essentially as helpful as external links. If you come across a competing page on a high domain authority site, all you really need to do is look at the links to that page, whether they're external or internal. Treat the host domain just like any other. In other words, if the competing page just has one link from the home page, all you would need to do is get a link from a page with more authority than their home page and you'd have them beat. I'm simplifying, of course, since there are so many other ranking factors to deal with, but as far as "link juice" goes, I've never seen any evidence to suggest you should think about it any other way. 5. The Best Way to Grow Traffic is to Boost RankingsAnd finally, we come to a foundational SEO myth that might shake some SEOs right to the core. We strongly believe that it's important to improve your ranking potential with inbound links, relevance, purposeful content and many other factors, but rankings are not the only way to increase traffic. I've successfully made the front page or the top spot enough times to realize that my traffic estimates for keywords are inconsistent at best. Google's keyword tool is a poor guide and the only way to accurately estimate traffic is to buy PPC ads and pay enough to show up every time. Since it takes tremendous resources to improve your rankings for competitive keywords, you can end up pouring a lot of wasted effort into a single ranking. A less risky way to grow traffic is to continue investing in promotion while producing content for relatively low competition keywords. When promotion fails to improve my rankings, I often find it more useful to just move on and produce more on-site content. You want to have a system that chooses keywords with relatively high traffic potential with little or no promotion for that individual piece, as well as writers and developers who can put together the best piece of content on the subject. You need to think of this as a process and get some project management in place. It's a good idea to use a tool like WorkZone or the heftier MS Project to keep your process in check. ConclusionSuccessful SEOs put myths to the test and don't take advice for granted. I hope this has been enlightening. If you have counter-evidence or other SEO myths to add, I'd love to hear what you have to say. Myth Photo via Shutterstock The post 5 Ridiculous SEO Myths That People Believe appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
| Google Databoard Lets You View Research, Create Infographics Posted: 15 Jul 2013 08:00 AM PDT
Google recently unveiled a new tool that allows you to view a variety of the company’s research, in one place, through a simple to browse dashboard. It also enables you to easily combine the data of your choice into custom infographics to share with your customers and audience. Introducing the new Databoard for Research Insights on the official Google Inside Adwords blog, Adam Grunewald, Google’s Mobile Marketing Manager explained:
Simply enter Google Databoard and choose the research that most interests you or is most relevant to your business. What You Can Find in Google DataboardFor example, one collection of studies entitled Mobile Search Moments examines mobile search and how it affects conversions and consumer behavior. Another entitled The New Multi-Screen World looks at how customers engage with smartphones, tablets, laptops and other screen-based communications. A third section on mobile in-store research looks at specifically how smartphones have transformed retail. A fourth called Our Mobile Planet simply looks at how consumers use the Internet with the arrival of the smartphone. You can download a study in its entirety in PDF format or select a portion of the study you would like to view. Once within the study you can click on individual “data tiles” containing specific data and graphs providing more detailed information. Share or Create an InfographicIf you want colleagues, customers or social media followers to have the information too, Google has made the process very simple. A button at the top of each page lets you “share” the information you are looking at via Google Plus, Facebook, Twitter, or e-mail. You can also copy a URL link and place it in an email or on your website or blog. Another feature lets you add selected data tiles into a customized infographic which you can then share on social media channels, through email or through a URL link. The below video gives a simple overview to get you started with using the Databoard for Research Insights for your business, customers, clients and followers. The post Google Databoard Lets You View Research, Create Infographics appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
| Angel Investments Since the Economic Downturn Posted: 15 Jul 2013 05:00 AM PDT
In an earlier post, I discussed how venture capital deals have changed since the financial crisis and the Great Recession. Today, I want to point out some changes in angel deals and angel investments over the same period. Because there is a lot less information on angel investing than on venture capital, I will concentrate on just four dimensions of angel finance:
Number of Angel InvestorsThe number of angel investors isn't appreciably different now from what it was before the Great Recession. The Center for Venture Research (CVR) at the University of New Hampshire estimates that there were 258,200 angel investors in the United States (PDF) in 2007 and 268,160 in 2012. That's a change of less than 4 percent. Amount Angel InvestmentsThe amount of financing provided by business angels has changed by much more, declining 20 percent inflation-adjusted terms from before the recession to last year. According to CVR’s estimates, angels invested $27.3 billion in 2007 versus $21.8 billion in 2012 (both measured in 2010 dollars). Number of Companies FinancedIn contrast to the amount of money provided to entrepreneurs, which is now lower than before the start of the Great Recession, the number of companies receiving financing is currently substantially higher. The CVR estimates a 17.3 percent increase in the number of companies funded by angels between 2007 and 2012 (from 57,120 to 67,030). Angel Investment SizeThe decline in the amount of capital provided by angel investors combined with the increase in the number of companies that business angels have financed has led a sizable drop in the size of average angel investments. As the figure below shows, average angel investments were roughly one third lower last year than in 2007, when measured in real terms. Moreover, the relatively constant size of the average angel investment in the early part of the 2000s and again since 2008 suggests that the financial crisis and Great Recession has led angels to fundamentally alter the size of their investments.
In short, angels have responded to the changed economic environment, not by exiting the market, but by providing less money to more startups, thereby dramatically reducing the size of the average angel investment. Business Angel Photo via Shutterstock The post Angel Investments Since the Economic Downturn appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
| You are subscribed to email updates from Small Business Trends To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
No comments:
Post a Comment