Not heeding these warnings can lead to costly mistakes, such as litigation and employee turnover.

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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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If you are thinking about starting a new business in one of the states in the US, then this list of 10 best states for business taxes could be very useful to you.

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Every business owner should be forecasting sales. You may use actual numbers if you have historical financial records. But what do you do if you have nothing to refer back to? You will need to determine how many potential customers are there and how many of these potential customers are likely to buy from you, decide the average sale per customer, and then project this out for the year.

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What do you want to achieve in 2015 for your small business? The beginning of January is the time for New Year's resolutions, so here are my top 10 resolutions for small business owners and entrepreneurs.

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By 2020, most small businesses in the U.S. will be powered by the cloud, according to Intuit. Is your business ready?

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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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A report commissioned by eBay finds that more than 190,000—or 90 percent—of its small and medium-sized businesses used its platform to export in 2014. (Tweet This) To compare, in 2009, fewer than 30,000 were exporting. The findings come from eBay's Public Policy Lab in its 2015 U.S. Small Business Growth Report.

Despite that growth, less than 5 percent of U.S. small businesses overall are exporting, according to estimates from the International Trade Administration.

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Entrepreneurs are born idea people, with a seemingly endless supply of light bulbs flashing over their heads. But it takes more than good ideas to find your market niche and to build a successful business. It is even harder to do if you are not familiar with the market thats drawn your interest.

Small Business Tech Report

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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Walk around any town in Indiana and you can see it: Small businesses are the lifeblood of our state and the engine of our economy. And yet, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is set to implement a rule that would harm Hoosier small businesses.

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From making a financial plan to creating an exit strategy, here are some helpful tips for establishing and running your small business.

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Innovation is usually used to describe ways of adding value to things that already exist. Invention is the creation of something that never existed before. And then there is creativity.

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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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Women playing a bigger role in small businesses is no longer big news, of course. In 2014, there were roughly 9 million women-owned businesses in the U.S., employing nearly 8 million workers and recording nearly $1.4 trillion in sales that year, according to data from the National Association of Women Business Owners.

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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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Deciding what to call your company is probably one of the most fun and exciting aspects of starting a small business. You might have launched this venture by scribbling business name ideas on a bar napkin while hanging out with friends.

But naming your small business is also serious business. Your decision could affect your ability to reach a broader audience and grow. And making the wrong choice could even get you in legal trouble.

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But some lessons you can not learn until you are actually at the helm of your company. Here are nine surprises you might run into by owning a small business:

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Trucking companies and building contractors dominate the fastest-growing industries for small businesses, according to new data from Sageworks, a financial information company.

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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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After seeing the dreams of so many wonderful people end with a closed store sign, we were determined to find out how to help so we enlisted the aid of several resources for business owners to come up with a list of what they need to know.

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Imagine this:  You have found the perfect business idea, one that seems to add up from every angle and could not be better for you and your future plans.  The only problem is that you do not have the capital to open the doors.  Well, unfortunately this is a rather significant problem for a small business startup ... particularly in todays lending environment.

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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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Chances are that you have already gone paperless. The Cloud has largely replaced reams of paperwork, stuffed file cabinets, and onsite data storage, making it easy to keep and maintain all the information you need. In fact, in the next five years the number of small businesses using the Cloud is expected to double to 78 percent.

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According to a new study, one in six marriages that began in the last three years has resulted from an interaction that started online. At the same time, Nielsen also reports that four out of every five corporations in America are now leveraging social media to help expand their client base and build relationships with customers.

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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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From struggling with a business plan to hiring the wrong talent, there are a lot of opportunities for small-business owners to make mistakes, especially when starting out.

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Cloud-based services such as Spotify and OneDrive have irrevocably changed the way we consume, store and share content in our personal lives.

Similarly, many large organizations have become well accustomed to the cloud, having years ago turned to hosted storage and remote disaster recovery to boost productivity, reduce costs and preserve business continuity.

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Connections. Community. Mentorship. Immersion in management theory, market strategy and financial forecasting. A big, fat résumé boost.

The benefits of getting a business degree are multifold. But as many MBAs and their undergrad counterparts can attest, so are the falsehoods imparted.  

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There is a convenient narrative about small business that we have all heard a million times.  Small business represents a huge, underserved, and highly lucrative market for finance-oriented entrepreneurs and large organizations alike. The prevailing wisdom is that these businesses run on Intuits QuickBooks, which enables them to have organized, accurate, and timely financial information at their fingertips. By all accounts, the small business market should be an easy one to serve. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Organizations big and small have struggled to serve the small business market in an efficient and effective matter, and it is all due to what we call the 90% challenge.

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Between handling customer complaints, keeping track of employee work schedules and monitoring expenses, running a small business is hard work. If you’re looking to increase productivity and organization — or just make your life as an entrepreneur a little easier — a good app might be just what you need.

To help you navigate the seemingly endless sea of apps out there, we’ve compiled a list of our favorites. These 20 apps can help you stay organized and on top of your small-business to-do list.

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As a small business develops, it moves through five growth stages, each with its own distinctive characteristics. Small businesses vary widely in size, industry focus, management styles and capacity for growth.

While each enterprise is unique in many ways, all experience common problems arising at similar stages in their development. For owners, understanding what can be expected in each stage of development will aid in assessing challenges and smooth the transition for business growth.

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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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For the fourth year running, California and Rhode Island earned an F in a massive survey of small business owners rating state and local governments’ friendliness to small business. At the other end of the spectrum, also for the fourth year in a row, Texas and Utah earned an A+ from entrepreneurs.

What matters to small business owners? Nearly 18,000 entrepreneurs surveyed by Thumbtack.com said: Chamber of Commerce-style training and networking; regulatory and licensing simplicity, helpful government websites to cut red tape, and taxes.

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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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You built a stellar reputation for your business. You sold your heart out bringing in a new client. You gave that client your best work. And months later, you are still waiting to see the money in the bank.

And waiting. And waiting.

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In 1938, Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard began working part-time in a Palo Alto garage. With $538 just in working capital, the pair developed an audio oscillator: it would become the first product for the fledgling Hewlett-Packard HPQ +0.00% partnership. Today, Hewlett-Packard sits at #35 on Forbes’ list of most valuable brands, with an estimated worth of $57.9 billion.

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Can you operate your own small business inside your IRA? From 1974 to 2013 that question was in a gray area--the answer was a definite maybe. But the multiple shades of gray have recently turned to black and white.

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Labor Day is a holiday to honor hard working Americans, and small business owners are among the hardest workers around. They are often the first ones in and the last ones out. They toil and sweat beside their employees on the same job site, under the same tough conditions, behind the same counter or in the same office.

The National Federation of Independent Business represents more small businesses than any other organization. In fact, 60 percent of our 350,000 members employ between one and five workers

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There is a reason it’s called exit planning -- the steps involved in determining how to ultimately leave the company you have built require careful thought, deliberate consideration, and plenty of time.

There are many directions you can take in the sale of a company, and considering who you’ll eventually find at the other side of the negotiation table is one of the most important things to understand as you get started down the path to an exit.

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You run your own business. How do you describe yourself to others when talking about what you do? Are you a small business owner? An entrepreneur? Or something else? And more importantly, is there really a difference between these terms?

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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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The battlefields of Iraq are a world away from Merrimack, New Hampshire, and its new microbrewery, Able Ebenezer Brewing Co. But for this companys owners, the can-do attitude they lived by as combat officers has contributed powerfully to their success as entrepreneurs.

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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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There is a lot to be said for those rare few that possess the ability to create huge companies with hundreds or thousands of employees that are all just ecstatic to be at work. It is exceptionally difficult and equally as impressive, which is why they end up taking up space on the front page of a major magazine or journal.

Although it appears flashy and glamorous, particularly with the amount of celebrity that todays super entrepreneurs wield, there is a tremendous amount of flexibility that is lost, almost by default, once you pass a certain size. Now, not only am I not one of those few, but I really do not want to be.

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Up to a point, it behooves small business owners to be resourceful and handle the lion's share of the work. But before it's too late and their companies lose out on its market timing, entrepreneurs need to hire in order to grow, even if that means taking on more costs.

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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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