Reasons to Start a Blog for Your Business Website

Here are some reasons why you really should start a blog on your business website.
Reasons you might want to start a business website blog:

A business blog is a source of constantly updated material for the search engines which want to see that your site is updated at least once per week as a baseline.

A business blog gives new information to your customers that might not fit in a traditonal article length page on your website. You can create mini-posts or even short notes of a few sentences to let readers know about some idea you have or some special that might be coming up in the not too distant future.

A business blog adds personality to your site. Remember when someone told you that having your photos on your website helps visitors feel at home with you and feel a connection to you? Well, same thing. Speaking in a conversational tone about your business on your blog is a great way to share part of yourself and make people want to know you and buy from you.

A business blog gives visitors another way to connect with you – by leaving comments or answering polls at your blog.

Having two components to your website – static pages that give information that doesn’t change and a business blog section that is constantly feeding your customers fresh information is professional and is slowly becoming the standard among all internet based companies. Traditional companies away from the internet are also using this idea to their great advantage.

Blogs make it easy for business owners to add content to their websites including articles, photos, mp3, and videos. A top-rate and free blogging system is WordPress which by now can be considered the standard in blogging systems. Spend some time to learn WordPress and be able to add and remove content on your website at will instead of paying your webmaster to do everything for you.

We’ll be having some ebusiness training for WordPress here on this site in the near future. Join our newsletter to subscribe and be notified of all the specials we have on these training courses. Some courses will even be free – Join now!

5 Reasons to Incorporate if You’re a Consultant

If you’re working as a consultant in any industry and you haven’t yet incorporated yourself you should really get started today.

A corporation is completely separate from yourself – so, the corporation can make more money than you – and you only need to pay yourself a salary that covers your expenses and leaves the rest int he corporate account.

Incorporating your business has some real advantages for consultants…

5 Reasons Incorporating as a Consultant Is a Must:

1. Saving $ at the End of the Year
You can probably save vast amounts of money on taxes at the end of the year if you incorporate your business. Your accountant can maximize deductions for you – depending what corporate structure your business takes on (LLC, S-Corp, etc.).

If you work for someone else you’re taxed on everything you receive as income. Your taxes might be 30% a year. That’s a lot. Especially considering you have extra money left over that you didn’t really need for expenses each month – and that went into your bank account. Well, you’ve already lost 30% on that income, so, if you deposit it and make 2% interest in one year, what have you really made? Negative 28% interest.

Instead, lets look at another scenario. You incorporate your business. Companies and individuals that are paying you for work done pay your company, not you. You pay yourself from your business checking account just what you need for expenses. The rest of the money stays in your business checking. You can write checks on that for business expenses and pay no taxes on that in the case of LLC and S-Corp companies.

Which is the smarter move?

Be careful, C-Corporations, or regular corporations without LLC or S-corp status pay taxes at the 35% rate on all income. Choose corporate type carefully.

2. Personal Responsibility is Lessened
For strict peace of mind – an essential in today’s stressful times, a great reason to incorporate your consulting business is to remove personal liability from the equation. Making a corporation puts a buffer between your business and personal assets. Your home, personal bank accounts, and other items you own personally like house and car, boat, or whatever are relatively well protected from litigation should someone decide to sue your business.

Incorporation is not a guarantee a court won’t find you personally liable for misdeeds though. You could in fact lose everything if a court decides you acted maliciously or negligently in your business dealings.

3. Less Chance the IRS will Audit you
Unincorporated businesses are audited more by the IRS probably because the IRS knows that it’s more likely to find problems with unincorporated businesses. Schedule C filers are at higher risk for audits.

4. Business Credibility Increases
When people ask the name of your business or corporation and you say – there is none that sends a message. The message is that you either don’t know enough about what incorporation can do for you – or, you’re not a valid company. Incorporating adds instant credibility to your business. It shows others that you’re serious about this – it’s more credible as an incorporated business.

There is also the higher probability that you’ll get funded if you’re looking for money from banks, credit unions, or other corporations. Corporations take other corporations seriously. It’s hard to take individuals seriously if they’re not incorporated.

5. You’ll Likely Find that Your Health Insurance Costs Less
One major expense in American’s lives is health insurance. After you incorporate your business you’ll find it easier to get cheaper health insurance

Summary
Incorporating your consulting business is probably the smartest move you can make.You’ll save money, gain credence in the business community, and locate funding more easily. Your assets will be further from the court’s reach and you’re less likely to get audited than you were.

You shouldn’t need any more reasons than these!

Starting a Business Might be the Best Thing You Ever Did

So many people are trapped in a situation that they see no way out of…

You’re working for someone else and with taxes taken out you’re hurting at the end of each month. You’re living paycheck to paycheck and you don’t see a way out. You want to start a business but it seems overwhelming – where would you start?

Where you’d start is incorporation. Really – it’s that simple and it will do a few things for you to get you started. Let me explain…

The reason you’re hurting for money after taxes are taken out is because you probably don’t have any way to save money on your taxes. You probably aren’t taking any deductions. You probably are paying too much in taxes every year you don’t have a business set up.

You CAN work for someone else AND have a business of your own – for as long as you like. You can have 6 businesses and work for someone else if you want. All you need is one though.

Incorporate your business in the next 2 days. Figure out which type is best – if you’re just starting out you can try a LLC or a S-Corp. Those are your two best bets in most cases. More than 80% of one-person businesses that register their new busienss with us choose LLC entities for the most benefits and their ease of administration (little).

When you let us help you incorporate your business we’ll help you get your Tax ID number for free. You’ll need this soon.

Once you incorporate your new business you can begin many things.

One thing you’ll want to do is start a separate business checking account and use it only for business related things. Keep all receipts for anything you spend out of your business checking account for the business.

Now you can deduct a portion of expenses for computers, printers, ink cartridges, pens, paper, staples, folders, file cabinets, online subscriptions, internet marketing costs – and everything else related to your business. If you need training to learn essential skills for your business – get it – and deduct it.

Incorporating your business helps you get started with everything you need to get started with – as you continue working for another company and earning enough to live on.

At the end of the first year you’ll probably have a couple thousand dollars of business expenses (losses) you can deduct. Pretty cool huh?

You know what else? If you work as a freelance consultant a company can pay you Corp-to-corp which means they take no taxes out for you, they just write you a check to your business name and using the business tax ID number. Guess what? You don’t need to pay yourself that whole check from your bank account either – so, you don’t get taxed on it.

Incorporating your business today is a very smart move that we wish everyone would do. Most people think they need to quit their jobs before they incorporate and start the long process of building up the business.

No so. Just start now – as soon as possible and get things moving forward.

Incorporating your new business, hobby, or idea can be the best thing you’ve ever done as it sets the tone for the rest of your life as a business owner – not a business employee.