This is a checklist for small business owners who do not have a business degree. Other business professionals might fall out of their seat reading this because it might imply that starting a business is as simple as a checklist. This list merely skims the surface of a bottomless ocean.

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85% of small businesses get customers through word of mouth. Here are steps you should do to generate word of mouth from customers.

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Todays business environment is moving at a faster pace than ever before. It’s imperative that organizations of all sizes be nimble enough to respond and pivot according to business and market demands at a moment’s notice, or risk falling behind their competition.

To this point, many small businesses often struggle when it comes to effectively scaling their operations. This process entails making hefty IT investments, and while necessary for continued growth, many entrepreneurs just can not afford to do so.

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Most reporters write on a different topic every day. Unless they are a beat reporter covering your industry, the reporter does not know more than you. If you have been in the business five or 10 years, be confident in your knowledge of industry trends and current events.

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Owning your own business is often touted as the ultimate coup in the working world. You set your own hours, pursue projects you are interested in, and maybe work in your pajamas. Obvious challenges aside, it sounds like a pretty nice gig. Such jobs are largely enjoyed by men, who make up an estimated 71 percent of business owners in the U.S. But that might slowly be changing.

A report from the Institute of Womens Policy Research shows that women are steadily increasing their presence in the world of small-business ownership. About 29 percent of Americas business owners are women, that is up from 26 percent in 1997. The number of women-owned firms has grown 68 percent since 2007, compared with 47 percent for all businesses.

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Despite the warning, a number of extremely well known brands are still scrabbling to minimise the impact of Google’s mobile algorithm update, leaving smaller businesses with the advantage as long as they do not panic according to leading UK and US Search experts.

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Why you should you blog?

Through posting simple things such as helpful tips, special discounts or the latest industry news you can effectively maintain your customer relationships and give people a reason to visit to your website.

More recently blogging and content marketing has been widely used to enhance SEO strategy. Writing articles around the keywords that you are targeting will help to improve rankings in search engines. Furthermore, if you write unique and valuable articles, other websites will link to your content and as a result; this will increase your website's back-links.

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Established businesses have one obvious advantage over their younger counterparts: Deep pockets.

Fortunately, what todays small business lacks in budget can be made up for with strategy and a few carefully chosen tools. Here are six smart marketing ideas gleaned from my experience running a company that teaches small firms how to compete with big ones.

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What is a Domain Name Strategy?
The purpose of a domain name strategy is to proactively protect your brand online by reducing the chance for others to use your brand name in their online activities, specifically, in their website URLs.

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Last month, Forbes reported on the best cities for starting a business this year, and much attention is frequently given to the locations working the hardest to attract founders who will create coveted jobs. But which cities are the most hospitable to those who hold those positions?

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Starting a small business is tough, but growing one — or just keeping it afloat — is even harder.

Even though more than 500,000 small businesses are created each year in the U.S., only half of them survive past their fifth year, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration.

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Big  Data seems to be the phrase on everybody’s lips these days, and without a doubt, it has revolutionized the business world. Companies are getting valuable insights reading into mountains of data collected from all kinds of sources. Using Big Data simply makes sense, but the very prospect can be intimidating, particularly when it comes to small businesses and startups. One recent survey shows that 35 percent of startups are not even considering the possibility of leveraging Big Data or taking into account how much data is being generated every year – such a decision could be disastrous for the future success of a company.

Small businesses may feel that the ability to leverage Big Data is simply outside of their grasp, but Big Data solutions have become much more affordable in recent years. In addition, they are easier to use and oftentimes automated. In other words, small businesses have every reason to get into the Big Data game now as long as they know how best to use it. Here are just a few ways small companies can truly make Big Data work toward further success.

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Social media may be the last thing on your mind after a long day of managing employees, interacting with customers, ordering inventory and keeping an eye on your finances. But it is an important tool that can help you market your business and engage with customers.

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How small is small? New federal data shows that most small businesses are very small. By definition, a small business could have up to 499 employees. The average American small business has about 8!

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Thorough research and strong internal security practices can help small businesses secure their data and IT infrastructure in the cloud.

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With every passing week comes a story about some technological snafu at big companies—and even in the government. But small businesses are very vulnerable to cybersecurity issues, both because they lack the resources of big enterprises and because their lack of resources means that an attack can be even more devastating.

Here are some best practices that small businesses can put into place to make sure that they are secure.

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Among the countless factors a small business owner must consider when running his or her business, social media is quickly becoming one of the most important.

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The Internet of Things includes, among many other items, sensors for monitoring business and home security.

How IoT Can Help Small Business Compete
Here are two examples of small businesses that have figured out to compete against Goliath by finding low-cost ways to incorporate IoT into their operations:  

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Why devote 10 minutes a day to Facebook? There are many reasons why, but most importantly Facebook can help strengthen your relationships with your customers. The smaller your business, the more important these connections can be to help keep your company thriving.

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During Twitters analyst day in November, the company announced that it had 60,000 advertisers on its platform. Earlier this month, the company announced that it had grown its active advertiser base to 100,000 and laid plans to reach thousands more. The company is expanding its self-serve ad platform from 33 countries to the rest of the world, counting businesses in some 200 countries and territories eligible to send sponsored tweets.

International revenue accounted for just 36% of Twitter's total sales last quarter, but 79% of its users are based outside the United States.

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More than eight in 10 U.S. small-business owners say they would still become a small-business owner if they had it to do over again. This sentiment has changed little over the past 11 years, which suggests that the difficulties many small businesses experienced during the Great Recession did not cause owners to regret their decision to start a business.

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Put a hundred small business owners in a room and you are likely to hear a hundred different stories of how they became successful. You will find people as different as night and day. People from all walks of life and with varying strengths and skills. But look closer and you’ll begin to see commonalities. While their stories will differ, there are also common talents among those who are successful. Take a look and see if you recognize yourself.

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No business owner ever expects it to happen. After closing up for the day or the week, a phone call at 6 a.m. lets you know that the severe storm that passed through town overnight took a punch at your small business, with flood damage, fire, tornado or other damage.

Or it could have been an earthquake or hurricane. Still, what may have taken years to build is in ruins. How do you begin to recover?

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For more than a decade, thousands of businesses have enjoyed the benefits of high rankings in Google searches (and searches on competing engines) thanks to their SEO efforts. Larger corporations pour hundreds of thousands of dollars and allocate entire departments to gaining more online visibility, but even small- to mid-sized businesses can use a fraction of that budget to get more traffic and sales.

However, according to a recent survey by the Small Business Authority (SBA), less than 50 percent of small business owners in the United States think of inbound traffic from search engines as an important source of future business. Another 14 percent declared themselves unsure.

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Millions of small businesses are vulnerable to cybersecurity attacks that can cost an average of $20,000 per attack. Here is some basic wisdom to help SMBs protect themselves.

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The Perceived Amazon Effect

As David and I spoke, he echoed some thoughts that many small businesses have also shared with me. Many businesses see customers come into their stores to learn, and then they make their purchases online via Amazon or other online retailers. The online retailers don’t have the overhead of a brick and mortar store. For one of the products, David mentioned that I can purchase it on Amazon for less than he can purchase it. Of course, in his local market, his Yelp reviews show how much his customers love his store and appreciate his value. If he was local to me, I would happily pay a premium for their high level of service and expertise.

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The best sorts of business plans tell a clear story of what the company plans to do and how it will do it. Given the high failure rate of startups in their first year, a business plan is also an ideal opportunity to safely test out the feasibility of a business and spot flaws, set aside unrealistic projections and identify and analyze the competition.

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When a key employee quits, it is a gut-wrenching experience for most small-business owners.

That single loss will likely result in a significant performance drop for the firm because that lost employee might represent an entire function. The drain will last for months because a good replacement takes time to recruit, hire, train and get up to speed. Plus, a significant portion of the manager’s time will be diverted toward recruiting and training a replacement.

Most small-business managers know little about retention. Their focus is often elsewhere. So they find themselves completely surprised when a key employee quits.

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Getting found online can be a tough thing to do at times. Lucky for you, I am pretty good at it and really enjoy getting my sites ranked. Traffic can mean the difference in staying in business and not. Over the years I have started several businesses and the ones that succeed are the ones that consistently grow in organic traffic. I have put together a list of things that I would do to get your business ranked in Google.

Here are 10 ways that small business owners can get their business ranked on Google:

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Social media has become a necessary business tool for companies big and small. There are now more than 2 billion active social media users around the world, according to a LinkedIn article about upcoming social media trends. More people are now regularly using social media than the populations of the United States and China combined, and the number is growing at a clip of 25 percent a year.

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For as far back as free markets go, word of mouth has been the primary tool small businesses have used to spread their message and market their brand. Within the last few decades, though, the explosion of media has led to wide array of marketing opportunities and techniques.

While word of mouth is still important, social media has taken over as one of the most effective avenues for public relations and marketing for even the smallest of firms.

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I know, I know. It is hard to start thinking about the New Year when we’re stuck in the middle of the hectic holidays. But with January 1 right around the corner, now is the perfect time to reflect on how to grow your business in 2016.

As a fellow small business owners and solopreneur, I know first-hand how tricky it can be to even find the time to think about business development. Some days we are so busy juggling our current client demands, big picture goals — publishing great thought leadership articles, going after a dream client — take a back seat to a ringing phone or email deluge.

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Generally speaking, it allows small business owners to write off up to $500,000 worth of qualified expenses in the year they are made, up to $2 million, rather than amortizing them over a period of years. In addition to spurring immediate spending, which benefits the economy, the deduction theoretically frees up cash that business owners can use to grow their businesses.

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Earlier this month, Microsoft announced that more than 200 million devices (PCs, phones and tablets) were now running Windows 10. Many of those 200 million devices belong to business users, who upgraded to Windows 10 (in many cases for free).

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How can a small company make the most of LinkedIn?

The social network is an inescapable part of online life for working professionals. But much of the advice on how to leverage it is targeted at big names. Over and over, I see small businesses making mistakes on LinkedIn because they are patterning their strategies after approaches that work for larger companies with huge budgets, lots of brand awareness and extensive social-media systems.

With that in mind, here are tips on how small businesses can use LinkedIn.

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Apps consume the majority of mobile media time, but local business apps struggle to compete for attention. Columnist Wesley Young looks at how SMBs can instead use space on the most popular apps to get in front of customers.

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Small businesses are hopeful about growth this year according to the new State of Small Business Report by software solutions provider, Wasp Barcode Technologies.

The study says 71 percent of small businesses expect revenue growth, although 50 percent of small business owners said hiring new employees would be the key challenge facing them this year. And 45 percent said that challenge would be increasing profit.

An earlier survey conducted by Yelp had similarly found small business owners optimistic about growth in 2016. According to that survey, the percentage of American small business owners expecting to see revenues grow, however, is higher (85 percent).

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With the positive effects of social media marketing becoming more and more apparent, most small businesses have started working on a social media marketing strategy.

One of the main aims of social media marketing is to stay relevant to your audience. This might be harder for small businesses as they have more to juggle, in terms of handling tasks. Social media tools and apps can help reduce the stress of multi-tasking and keep your social media activities consistent. Below are social media tools for small business to help make your life as a social media marketer easier.

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Much has changed since 1994 when the U.S. government implemented an initiative to spend at least 5% of its contracting dollars on women-owned businesses. Today, women-owned businesses in the U.S. account for approximately 9.4 million companies and generate more than $1.5 trillion in revenue nationwide. Although it has taken more than two decades to reach its goal, the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) has announced that small businesses  that are majority owned by women earned $17.8 billion in federal contracting dollars, which amounts to about 5% of the $400 billion budget for federal contracts.

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After almost two decades, the federal government for the first time has been able to meet its goal of awarding five percent (worth $17.8 billion) of all contracts to women-owned small businesses.

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The passion that spurs someone to dream of starting a business is not reserved for the techie Millennial in the torn jeans and hoodie. Even the person in the relaxed-fit khakis and reading glasses can feel the zeal.

Research shows Baby Boomers may have a greater passion for entrepreneurship than younger generations. One report showed that, in 2014, those ages 55 to 64 had a higher rate of new entrepreneurial activity than the stereotypical risk-taking 20 to 34 age group.

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Ninety-four percent of independent workers love the control that independence provides, but 67 percent say their top concern has to do with inconsistent income in their micro businesses.

This is according to a recent survey of more than 600 independent workers conducted by the folks behind Invoice2go, an invoice app that allows small businesses to create and send professional invoices from any device.

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I work with a ton of small businesses, and I love it. I love seeing different business models, helping entrepreneurs with limited resources and experience, and getting unique perspectives that you just can not find in bigger, often more cookie-cutter business establishments. One-on-one, we can share information and insights, and build a strategy that is helpful for their business.

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Having a small online marketing team doesn’t mean your company can not scale content marketing initiatives. It means you must know what the best strategies are and have your team focus on a few they can do well.

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Big data and business intelligence (BI) used to be only for enterprise companies. Now, however, thanks to the software as a service (SaaS) revolution, even small businesses can afford to track and tap into a wealth of information.

However, becoming a data-driven small business is not easy. Because you are dealing with complex troves of records that have multiple sources and are therefore highly unlikely to be structured uniformly, it can be difficult to process it all and interpret it into insights your business can actually use.

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The first step to marketing is defining your end-game and strategizing your budget. The first question consultants ask those big, bad corporations going through restructuring is, What do you want? This is when you need to decide what is important to you; do you want to extend your reach or maximize local exposure? Are you looking for brand awareness or conversions?

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As most (if not all) small business owners know, you can’t do or manage everything. And some tasks (HR and accounting spring to mind) are often better left to the experts.

Of course, not every small or midsized business can afford to outsource functions, though in many cases the benefits outweigh the upfront cost. But whether you are planning to outsource or are just thinking about it, it pays to do your homework and due diligence before giving over part of your business to a third-party. Here are six things to consider before you choose a business right partner.

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Until recently, small businesses assumed that they could not access the same kinds of technology and opportunities that big corporations can with vastly greater resources. Rapid technology shifts have led many smaller businesses to expect more from technology.

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Britains vote to leave the European Union is already taking a toll on some small U.S. businesses, with canceled tour bookings in New York and U.K. retailers cutting back their orders from American suppliers.

The plunge in the pound against the U.S. dollar after the vote three weeks ago makes goods and services more expensive for those in the U.K. and means British tourists get less for their money while traveling elsewhere.

Many of the companies are trying to plot a course without clarity on exactly when or how a split may occur.

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Running a business is like running a marathon. You have the law, the government, and the competition all eagerly expecting you to make a mistake. Unlike in the marathon, any mistake you make cannot be forgiven. That being said, many of the mistakes businesses make are usually due to negligence and ignorance. Notwithstanding the intent behind these mistakes, you can be made to pay a huge price for committing them.

However, nothing can hurt your business as much as running afoul of the law in the process of running your business. Small business owners can pay the hardest for legal mistakes.

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