Bytestart Small Business Newsletter #15

   

Please forward this newsletter on to your colleagues - they can join instantly here.

Latest Small Business Updates

1. Setting Up a Limited Liability Partnership (LLP)
2. The new Business121 Small Business Blog
3. Tips for small businesses to avoid network crises
4. How long since Google updated Pagerank?
5. 'Over 50,000 Britons earning income from online auctions’
6. Design your small business site with Firefox in mind!
7. Outdoor Advertising – why it could work for you
8. Free Business Banking for Startups
9. More tax investigations for small businesses
10. Google's "Good Writing" Content Filter
11. TV Series focusing on businesses in financial difficulty
12. Fastest ever broadband soon to arrive in the UK
13. The lazy world of the "employee"
14. Firms urged to be wary of rip-off insurers

Setting Up a Limited Liability Partnership (LLP)

An LLP is similar in some ways to a standard Partnership, except that the individual members have lower liabilities to any debts which may arise from running the business.

There are more administrative duties involved compared to the Partnership business structure. In fact, an LLP is more similar to operating a Limited Company.

In terms of liability, the Limited Liability Partnership is itself liable for debts run up in running the business, rather that the individual members of the LLP. As a result, LLP's are only recommended for profit running businesses.

http://www.bytestart.co.uk/content/19/19_1/set-up-a-limited-liability-partnership.shtml

The new Business121 Small Business Blog

Yes, we've fallen for the latest Internet publishing phase and set up a small business blog at our sister site, Business121.

Bryan Jackson, who edits much of Bytestart, will be posting his thoughts on the small business world most days, so for the latest views and offbeat stories, please visit http://www.business121.co.uk/blog/

Tips for small businesses to avoid network crises

Businesses are putting their profits and productivity at risk by failing to ensure that vital systems like phone and data networks are protected against threats such as power cuts and extreme weather, according to new research released today by BT. Also included, some 'top tips' for dealing with network crises!

http://www.bytestart.co.uk/content/15/small-business-networks.shtml

How long since Google updated Pagerank?

According to one of our favourite web marketing tools (Page Rank Update List History), Google hasn't updates its 'Pagerank' or backlinks for 83 days.

The Google Pagerank as displayed in the Google Toolbar, shows Google's judgement of the relative importance of any given web page. Pagerank is determined by a series complex algorithms, one of which is the number (and quality) of links pointing to that webpage from elsewhere on the web.

http://www.bytestart.co.uk/content/promotion/how-long-since-google-upd.shtml

'Over 50,000 Britons earning income from online auctions’

This is one of the key findings from an article in the August edition of Monthly Economic Bulletin published last week by Centre for Economics and Business Research.

Auction websites like eBay may be the next big boost to consumers’ wealth, adding in excess of £3,000 to the assets of the average United Kingdom household.

http://www.bytestart.co.uk/content/news/1_12/earning-from-ebay.shtml

Design your small business site with Firefox in mind!

Given the dominance of Microsoft's Internet Explorer amongst web users, it would be easy for many web designers to concentrate their efforts with a single browser in mind.

Several years ago, Netscape was used by a healthy chunk of possibly more discerning Internet users, but in recent years, the numbers using Netscape has slumped to near the 1% mark.

However, a new browser has emerged, particularly over the last year, which may well ensure that web designers will have to design pages with more than IE in mind.

http://www.bytestart.co.uk/content/22/22_1/firefox-design-website.shtml

-------------------------------------
BYTESTART PARTNER ADVERTISEMENT
-------------------------------------

Many small business people will have a horror story or two to tell about the hassles they have had trying to arrange a mortgage. It's all too easy to obtain an 'online agreement in principle' only to find that, after a nerve wracking two weeks wait, you're rejected when the underwriter realises you are not a permanent employee or asks you to show accounts (which clearly won't reflect what you truly earn - otherwise you need a new accountant!!)

http://www.bytestart.co.uk/content/taxlegal/9_12/self-employed-mortgage.shtml

-------------------------------------

Outdoor Advertising – why it could work for you

Of the £16,777m spent on advertising last year in the UK, 5.05% was spent on outdoor advertising – almost £850m (Source : Advertising Association/WARC). That’s more than was spent on radio advertising (3.24%), consumer magazine advertising (4.88%), cinema advertising (0.95%), and internet advertising (3.56%). It’s therefore no secret that outdoor advertising works, but what relevance is that for the smaller business who doesn’t have the £14m outdoor advertising budget that mobile communications firm O2 spent in 2004?

http://www.bytestart.co.uk/content/24/24_8/outdoor-advertising-why-i.shtml

Free Business Banking for Startups

Why pay more than you need to for business banking?

Alliance & Leicester's new Free Business Current Account provides free and unlimited non standard cash transactions.

http://www.bytestart.co.uk/content/taxlegal/9_11/free-business-banking.shtml

More tax investigations for small businesses

More than one in ten (12 per cent) of SMEs in the UK have been subject to a tax investigation in the last 12 months, according to NOP research released last week conducted for the Tenon Forum. This includes investigations of either their business or themselves and has increased by a third on the November 2003 figure of nine per cent.

http://www.bytestart.co.uk/content/news/1_12/more-tax-investigations-f.shtml

Google's "Good Writing" Content Filter

The web pages actually at the top of Google have only one thing clearly in common: good writing. Don't let the usual SEO sacred cows and bugbears, such as PageRank, frames, and JavaScript, distract you from the importance of good content.

I was recently struck by the fact that the top-ranking web pages on Google are consistently much better written than the vast majority of what one reads on the web. Yet traditional SEO wisdom has little to say about good writing. Does Google, the world's wealthiest media company, really only display web pages that meet arcane technical criteria? Does Google, like so many website owners, really get so caught up in the process of the algorithm that it misses the whole point?

Apparently not.

http://www.bytestart.co.uk/content/22/22_1/googles-good-writing-cont.shtml

TV Series focusing on businesses in financial difficulty

Firefly Productions is making a sensitive and intelligent documentary series for Channel 4 about families facing financial difficulties who are looking for ways to cope.

The purpose of the series is to encourage a wider public understanding of the changes forced on families going through financial difficulties and to show how they can hopefully find a way out of their situation.

http://www.bytestart.co.uk/content/news/1_12/tv-series-focusing-on-bus.shtml

Fastest ever broadband soon to arrive in the UK

Although the days of "dial up" are only just behind us, Internet access has evolved at a staggering rate over the past few years. The days when it seemed to take hours to download a single image are long gone (thank god!)

Happy as I am with my Wanadoo broadband (1mb) service in my home/office, I was interested to read that a 24Mb service could arrive in the UK "within weeks".

(From Bryan Jackson's small business blog)

http://www.business121.co.uk/blog/2005/08/fastest-ever-broadband-soon-to-arrive.shtml

The lazy world of the "employee"

Every now and then, I read an article which further demonstrates how lucky we are to be self-employed. I turned my back on the 'normal world' of petty bickering and office politics over 15 years ago, and the thought of having to go back to that world makes me feel ill!

According to the BBC, an overwhelming majority of bosses and employees think that some of their colleagues consistently underperform.

(From Bryan Jackson's small business blog)

http://www.business121.co.uk/blog/2005/08/lazy-world-of-employee.shtml

Firms urged to be wary of rip-off insurers

Small and medium-sized companies are being urged to demand that their insurance brokers reveal in full what commission payments they receive, according to ThisisMoney.

http://www.bytestart.co.uk/content/20/20_3/firms-urged-to-be-wary-of.shtml

Please tell other small business people about our new newsletter service. They can sign up instantly at http://www.bytestart.co.uk/content/about/subscribe.shtml

All the best,

The Bytestart Team

• Free Accounts Software for small businesses - Download TAS Basics Now!
• Starting Up? Get 18 months free banking, and much more from Lloyds TSB!
• Home Business Insurance - Save money with Direct Line for Business. We guarantee to beat any quote for the same cover. Immediate quote available.