Getting ready for Google's change in search algorithm

It's official, Google has changed it's search algorithm again and websites will top Google search based on it's friendliness on the mobile platform. This is also why Business Trove is changing the webpage design.

So summary of tools which can help you.
 - Mobile Friendly Test
You can type your url into the web tool above to see if your website is friendly on the mobile platform, and make necessary changes to it.

 - Making your website mobile
If you're a blogger like us, you can check out the link above on how to convert your blog into a mobile friendly one without maintaining two sets of codes, or what is commonly called responsive websites.

These tools should have you get things moving!

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Crowdfunding in Singapore - Which Platform to go to?

Say for instance you've got a great idea but you do not have the capital to realise the idea. Bank loans are too risky for you, and your idea is relevant to the masses, the general public, and (of course) something that everyone needs. Crowdfunding seems to be the way to get the start up funds you need, and generate the publicity to get your customers before your product/ service comes out.

Many crowdfunding platforms have landed in Singapore and with so many choices on hand, we'll do a comparison of these platforms from an entrepreneur's point of view.

Pozible

Based in Sydney, Australia

Fees (only applicable on successful projects)
5%: total funds raised up to $100k
4%: total funds raised between $100k - $500k (or projects issued an invitation code)
3%: total funds raised of $500k or over
Merchant transaction fees, e.g. credit card, pay pal charges applies

Project Types
Pozible projects are typically art related projects, and project funding seldom exceeds S$10,000.

CoAssets

Claims to be the first southeast asian crowdfunding platform for real estate projects

Fees 
Fees are charged on a case-by-case basis.

Project Types (as quoted from CoAssets FAQs)
CoAssets is a targeted leads generation site, comparable to property listing portals. Such property listing portals do NOT sell properties. Instead, these portals allow property stakeholders (i.e. developers, agents, owners) (collectively, the OPs) to list available properties and real estate projects for interested investors to view. These property listing portals are not involved in any transactions between OPs and investors.

The types of projects listed by CoAssets are:

1. Bulk purchase – invest in multiple real estate units;
2. Crowdfunding – investors co-invest in units with others or peer-to-peer lending by investors to OPs; and
3. Pre-Sales – purchase of units before official launch.

Kickstarter

Kickstarter is perhaps the most well known crowdfunding platform in the market. They are very open with the success rates of their projects, which is almost 40%.

Fees
Processing fees are between 3% to 5% depending on the country which the project is hosted. Though they are not in Singapore, the fees for hosting projects in the US are listed here.

Project Types (inferred from Kickstarter website)
Film video projects are the most common (and also have the most number of unsuccessful funded projects), whereas Theatre and Dance projects have the highest project success rates, of more than 60%.

Indiegogo

Claims to be the largest crowdfunding engine in the market.

Fees
Depending on whether flexible funding or fixed funding options are chosen, the fees varies.
For Flexible Funding projects, you're charged 9% of pledged amounts if you do not reach your goal. For Fixed Funding projects, you'll not receive any funds if do not reach your goal.
For both options, a 4% of pledged amounts are charged when you reach your crowdfunding goal.

Project Types
Indiegogo has a wide variety of projects, and its focus seems to be for individual projects as half the projects they feature on the homepage are from individuals.

Crowdonomic

Claims to be the largest South East Asia crowdfunding platform. This platform clearly distinguishes between brand funding, equity funding and reward funding projects.

Fees
4% of funds raised plus merchant fees. Regardless of whether the project meets the goal, money is collected from the people when the pledge is made.

Project Types
About reward funding projects (which is the type for other crowdfunding platforms listed here), Crowdonomic has mainly creative and lifestyle projects.

Publishizer

Crowdfunding platform for authors and playwrights. Needless to say, the projects are for books.

Fees
For successful projects, 5% of funds raised and merchant fees are charged.

Haystakt

Claims to be the world’s first crowd-pricing platform and a marketplace for original, creative products. Haystakt is for projects turning creative ideas into material products.

Fees
5% for successful projects, and merchant fees are charged.

Hopefully this summary helps. As crowdfunding matures, there are other platforms which rises to meet your needs if you feel that your idea does not fit into any of the project types listed here. Google's your best friend and make full use of it!

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Online ad campaign on Facebook

I wouldn't say this is Facebook fraud but this video shares very interesting results from what happens when you hold ad campaigns on the Facebook.



In summary, two things matter. First, you'll need to know if you are reaching out to people in click farms to gain traction or your product has a targeted interest group. Second, the manner which you submit the post/ present the page to gain likes matters. The matter of fact is these posts do reach out to people. You'll have to due your due diligence to make sure it's interesting enough to get people engaged.

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How to Optimize your Blogger Title For Search Engine

Recently I changed over from wordpress to blogger. Previously using wordpress, I was able to get my posts up on the first page of google search. However, emulating a similar style, my posts with blogger fail to make it anywhere near the first page. I suspect that there might be a few reasons behind this, but one of the most obvious was the order of the post title when it appears on google.

Previously while using wordpress, it will show For example 

3 Dos and Don'ts on your First Day of work << Business Trove

In Blogger, it shows
Business Trove: 3 Dos and Don'ts on your First Day of work

Which means, your post might get less picked up and definitely less traffic as your post title will be most relevant to your content than your blog title.


To enact this change, go to template > edit html. 
Locate the code

<title><data:blog.pageTitle/></title>


Replace with the following code:
<b:if cond="data:blog.pageType == &quot;index&quot;">
<title><data:blog.title/></title>
<b:else>
<title><data:blog.pageName/> << <data:blog.title/></title> </b:else></b:if>

And you're done! Now wait a few days for the search engine to recognize the change. 

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How to build a successful presentation team

Presentations are still the most common method to convey ideas and messages in business. Analysts present their findings to higher management through presentations. Entrepreneurs pitch their ideas to potential investors through presentations. When it comes to presentation, there is usually a time limit, but there is usually no rules to say that you have to present on your own. In fact, the more successful presentations revolve around a team rather than a single member.

Here's are 3 tips on how to build a successful presentation team

1. Present By Expertise

People would present better if they know the content. Thus, let your team present according to their expertise - For example, the CTO should handle the technology, the CEO handle the commercialization plan, the COO handle the operations section.

2. Order by presentation style

Recognize that everyone has their own presentation style. You would want an enthusiastic speaker to start to get your panel's attention in the beginning. However, it is impossible to get full attention throughout the whole presentation. Order the less exciting presenters in the middle where the content is less important, and finish with an enthusiastic speaker to wrap the presentation.

3. Have a fair mix

A successful presentation team need not have a team of Barack Obamas. In fact, a good mix of exceptional and OK presenters can do a better job. The exceptional presenters can leave a better impression and what they presented will be etched in the panel's mind. Also, a team of mixed gender also seem to prove useful in improving the presentation.

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How to win against your smaller competitors: a case study

Case study:  Cab-charge Card from a cab company

To win competitors, go the extra step and make lives easy for your customer at no cost.

In this example, the local cab company took away the tedious step of claims processing by issuing a cab-charge card usable solely for cab fares. A cab-charge card works like a credit card but is only usable to pay for cabs. This expedites the claiming process for transport, and staff could only take cabs from selected cab companies offering such a service.

As a result, smaller cab firms which do not have the capacity to offer such a service is squeezed out of the game. On one hand, smaller firms might be more flexible and can focus on a niche area better. But on the other hand, the bigger firms have the resources and capacity to implement new features and services to capture a bigger market, out-competing the smaller boys.

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The power of the media

When a personal plea doesn't do the job, make noise, tell the whole world, employ the power of the masses. The key to this power could lie in the hands of one - your local reporter.

An elderly couple only managed to reclaim their money after a local reporter took interest and published their story. They were billed for 2 years on insurance they supposedly cancelled.

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SEO starting tips for beginners

Tips on what to do first for SEO 

A very simple advice is to do a Google search for some of the "best practices for SEO". There are about 100+ best practices but by paying attention to the top 5 maybe 10, you'll get the biggest bang.

Key areas are:

- Start with key phrases and keywords you want search engine to find the site.
- Create Content with the words/phrases has some bearing.- Create different pages for different keywords/phrases to avoid dilution i.e if a page has too many meanings, it will be demoted by search engines.- Setup proper meta-tags- Title the pages properly- Get links from other sites (e.g blogs or websites of association or affiliation orgs) using proper link text that matches those keywords.

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3 problems to prepare when making an overseas sales call

Due to differing timezones and nationality, overseas sales call present a bigger challenge than local sales calls. Here are some of the  problems to anticipate to increase success rate:

1. Communication problems

Different accents make it hard to understand.

2. Technical problems

The other party cannot hear your voice.

3. Reluctance to pick up

An overseas incoming number could be dubious, hence your potential customer might choose to ignore it.

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Tips on making a brochure

Making a brochure is a common marketing tool, and especially preferred when you want to directly introduce your product to a potential client in a succinct and clear manner. When done correctly, a brochure is a very practical method which has the advantage of communicating key attributes of your product or service effectively

Before designing a brochure

It is critical to ascertain the motivation for creating the brochure. In fact the first step before you do anything is to ask yourself what is the objective of the brochure. As it is important to be as clear and to-the-point as possible, it is thus equally important to first develop the brief of the brochure, by asking 3 key questions: 

1) What is the goal of the brochure?

2) Who is the target group?

3) What are 3 main take-aways that readers would gather from this brochure?

Are you on the right track?

After developing the brief, the next step is to assess whether the brochure is the best way to do it. Based on research, a brochure is most effective for certain functions

1) You have a defined market

 You need to have your target market ready for brochures for a couple of reasons. Firstly, brochure though not expensive, can be a substantial cost if you intend to distribute to a large mass. If you have no target market, probably a better alternative would be flyers/ emails which you can blindly distribute at low cost. Secondly, the content would be created in such a way to appeal to this target audience, and is also why brochures can be so effective as a marketing tool.

2) There is a location/event

Brochures are apt if conferences, seminars and trade shows are your everyday tools of trade. These places are also where your target group congregates. For example, at a scholarship fair, you can bet that most of the people attending will be students and parents.

There are a variety of ways to distribute your brochures at conferences. Park your brochures at a clear stand near your booth, or you can place your brochures at your allies’ booth. Anyone who reads your brochures is a potential sales lead. Ensure that your brochures make it easy for readers to get in touch with you, an essential design factor of the brochure which I will cover in the next section.

3) Your Customers need to think before buying your product or service

If your product requires some sort of commitment or a considerable sum of money to purchase, a brochure is a good tool to “remind” customers about your product and its selling points. People who take your brochures are interested in your product to begin with, and producing a brochure would allow such costomers to capture the essentials parameters of your product for easy comparison with competitor products.

A Well-Designed Brochure

If you are firm that brochure is the best marketing method for your product, we would now look at some tips to make a well-designed brochure.

·         As the saying goes, a picture paints a thousand words. As far as possible, a rich image would catch the attention of the read more than what a chunk of text can. Cut down on the amount of tax, and as far as possible, write in point form instead of complete sentences. A graphical brochure would serve to enhance the reading experience.

·         Introduce headings. If chunks of text cannot be avoided, make sure every chunk of text can be summarized by a heading for easy digestion.

·         Depending on your target group, avoid technical terms that your customers might not understand. Anti-bacteria definitely sounds more easy to understand than anti-Streptococcus- pneumoniae

·         How to contact you? This is the most important part of the brochure but believe it or not, sometimes forgotten. Always provide your contact in the form of a website, facebook page, phone number, address such that customers can use their most preferred way to contact you. To entice customers to contact you, include an attractive discount which is valid only for a short period of time so that customers would contact you within the offer window.

To sum it up, before you start to make your brochure, know your objective and audience. Always write and design the brochure in a succinct and graphical way to capture attention. To increase chances of closing the sales lead, make it easy and attractive for customers to contact you.

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