It’s really easy to start up and get going no matter what you want to do. It costs £40 to set up a limited company and away you go. Are you thinking of starting a new business? Here are 10 reasons why you should start your own small business :

1: It’s easy to start - As mentioned above it’s really easy to set up a company. There are numerous company formation agents who will set up a company for you in about 3 hours. If you have a product and customers waiting you can start trading immediately. (don’t forget to account for everything so you can pay the tax man your profits though….)

2: You can sack your boss - Fed up with the person you call your boss? Think you can do better than the company you work for? Well you don’t need to put up with idiots in the office or bullying any longer. When you have your own business then you are the boss. You set the standards, goals and pricing. You decide what to sell and to whom. (of course you can get it completely wrong so make sure you know what you’re doing !!)

3: No more public transport or traffic jams - wow, sitting in traffic for 2 to 3 hours a day or standing on a train and paying high prices must be a thing of the past. With your own business you can decide where your premises are located or simply work from your home office. Not only will you not have the daily grind with thousands of others but you’ll save the travel expenses and have an additional 2 to 3 hours a day to either develop your business, use for family time or to get all those jobs done in time.

4: You employ who you want to - All those people your boss employs that you have to train up are a thing of the past. Why do people employ folks with no knowledge of the job or disrupt the rest of the office or who turn up late each day? And to think that they get paid the same as you? If you have your own consulting or internet business then it’s just you. But if you expand it’s you who can choose who you have working for your business. No more layabouts but good people working for your business to make more money for you.

5: Redundancy no more - Deperate times call for desperate measures and when there’s a recession looming then costs have to be cut. This generally means marketing and training are cut to the bone and people are not replaced when they leave. Then the big cuts come and of course most businesses over do it and fire too many staff. That threat of redundancy is just not there if you have your own business (of course downtimes have to be met with brilliant products of your own and great marketing - but as we know that doesn’t have to be expensive - just good)

6: Complete satisfaction - When you are making money for yourself and your business develops the pride of what you have achieved is second to none. After all it is you who has developed that business. Imagine in just a couple of years time when you have a thriving business that’s buying you stuff you could only have dreamed of before. That feeling of satisfaction can never be replaced.

7: Get out of a dead end job - do you feel there is no chance of promotion or your face doesn’t fit in the large organisation you’re in? When you are out of the merry go round of “big business” you can concentrate on your business. You’ll know where you are heading because you’ll have a plan of action to develop your business. No more stress on a Sunday night knowing that the week ahead is full of boring nonsense.

8: Make money for you not someone else - All your hard work is for someone else. See all the big profits your company is making because of your knowledge and experience. Why line the pockets of your bosses when you can line your own pockets? All those products you’ve developed in the past could be working for you rather than some faceless corporation. All those customers you’ve won in the past should be buying your products and services to build your business.

9: Life is not a rehearsal - Of course we are only around for 70 or so years so why waste it ? Would you rather be speaking to your grandchildren about the excellent business you started and developed that you’ll pass onto them one day or all the opportunities that passed you by that you didn’t grab hold of. You can start at any time in your life but it’s harder and harder to start the older you get. If you get the opportunity from redundancy or being put out of work then it might be the right time to start and then you’ll have a great story to tell

10: What have you got to lose ? - If you have a great well researched idea, have developed your business plan and run it past some of your friends and relatives and been given the thumbs up then what have you got to lose ? If your idea is really sound then go for it. You’ll never know if you’ll be a success until you try. Perhaps start the initial elements whilst you are still employed so you’ll know early if you can sell stuff. You don’t need to jump in right away so start small. Above all - just get something done.

But getting people to try your products or service at first and move from an existing supplier or favourite shop is likely to be your first tactical marketing exercise.

If you are not getting these customers it can be all too easy to think that lowering your prices will attract new business - and this will likely be a successful strategy - but at the expense of short term profits and longer term health of your business.

In a service business low pricing may also put people off because a price also indicates value and setting too lower a price might suggest that your service is not really that good enough and people will not purchase. So stick to your overall strategy and properly market your business. Simple ideas are usually the best. Try not to over complicate matters. Here are some suggestions to try out to build your initial customer base.

1) A simple “A” board - if you have a retail presence your only job is to get people inside your shop. Once inside it’s the job of your store to entice people to purchase. As people are walking down the street you’ll need to shout out loud with an offer to get people to look at your “A” board and look into your store. A simple message of a free gift or special offer for today only should do the trick.

2) Working with other stores - your potential customers will be visiting other stores in your local area. So why not ask other stores to have a stack of business cards or a small A5 flyer at their checkouts. You’ve probably seen these for other stores and most likely picked one up. Again, put a direct marketing message on these pieces and ask the other store owners to place your message. Offer to reciprocate the offer so you too stock the other store owners cards in your store. As most people won’t take up your offer you will win.

3) Online forum advertising - there are many online communities discussing your product or service right now. Do you know about these potential customers? Search online for your product or service for the forums and join them. Don’t overtly advertise your product but join the discussion and have a message in your forum signature. Once people see you as an expert they will start to contact you. This is an ongoing part of your overall marketing. It may not work immediately as you’ll need to build your profile so stick with it. See what others are doing as a lot of business is generated this way.

4) Leaflet drop - If you have a local business then printing a simple flyer on your printer and physically posting them through letterboxes of your target market is a cost effective way to generate good local business. Your message should follow standard direct marketing principles in that it should be solving a problem that your target customer has and how you are the answer to their prayers. Try a few streets first then follow up to get peoples’ reaction. This way you can see if a) it’s a service they want b) why they may have not contacted you so you can change your message if required. Then try more streets and re-test. This way you will get your message correctly targeted and can develop this marketing angle over time.

Marketing is about providing the right service to people that want it for a profit with correct communication. We hope the ideas above can help and/ or stimulate your own ideas to get more prospects and customers into your business.

You will see that Google is adding the date of the post as the first item in the snippet in the search engine results pages. At a guess this is for the freshness of the result for users but could be an issue for webmasters seeing a reduction in referals from Google.

If you have a post ranking highly that you wrote some years ago a date of 2005 appearing in SERPS will undoubtedly put users off clicking on your link as it looks old and out of date.

So what can you do?

One way is to take out the date of your post in the actual page of the post itself. For a blog page this isn’t such a big deal and you can easily edit Wordpress etc. For forums you might not want to edit the date or perhaps you can do something else with the dates of posts.

Do a search for your industry and see what happens - this is a big change.

Terminal 5 is destined to be the home of all British Airways flights but in the first few weeks of operation they have cancelled hundreds of flights and lost probably thousands of bags.

British Airways is no stranger to industrial unrest which plagued it during the 1970s and 1980s. In recent years there have been strikes affecting all elements of its operation. 2005 saw workers being sacked from their catering supplier meaning all flights for a few days went without food and beverages and all of their flights being cancelled for 24 hours.

An averted cabin crew strike in January 2007 saw many virtually empty flights taking off as talks with unions went into the early hours and with flights previously cancelled (but reinstated) passengers just gave up with BA and went elsewhere.

And this year BA pilots have voted to strike  - Balpa members voted to strike over what they said were plans to staff BA OpenSkies with crews on inferior terms to those of existing staff. Balpa represents 3,000 of the 3,200 pilots that work for BA - talks are underway to try and avert strike action.

So what now? No new home at T5 regular strikes by staff? Do people really care?

It’s a strange place because BA regularly reports strong profits (mainly from its long haul premium classes) and passenger numbers are generally high.

The great thing about the human race is people have very short memories. Most problems with BA are generally short term and although many thousands of people are affected by delays and industrial action they will fly again with the same carrier in the future.

The planning for T5 however is a different issue. Most companies that go for a “big bang” solution of moving from a current proven and working operation to something completely new almost always fail - it is just too greater risk to bring something like this in all at once and now BA is using most of their time on damage limitation and disaster recovery rather than planning ahead.

But we will all forget about the problems although BA will always remain in the news for problems they have rather than excellent product or service. It may not be a great time to fly with BA until the summer months but everything will get better for the passengers and BA - until the next crisis they have to deal with !

Yahoo is to start testing Google’s advertising system Awords and put the results in the Yahoo search results.

The Internet company said it would begin a limited test of Google’s search advertising technology as part of efforts to remain independent from Microsoft. The test is designed to show whether or not the company could extract more revenue if it outsourced its search advertising system to Google, a person briefed on the plan said.

The test will involve using Google’s search advertising system, called AdSense for Search, to deliver ads that appear alongside Yahoo’s search results. The test will involve searches conducted in the United States on Yahoo.com, not on any of the company’s search affiliates, and will be limited to no more than 3 percent of all search queries, Yahoo said in a press release.

Whatever next? Google to purchase Yahoo themselves?

Well this article is aimed to get you going and come up with something meaningful.

We are guessing that you know what you want to do and have seen an opportunity by way of a large customer base with a need you are satisfying with your product or service.  Here’s the best way to start your plan.

It’s best to start at the end ! That’s right, start with the end goal of your business idea or dream. Decide for yourself the profits you want to make in the next 12 months, the following year and the year after that. Remember you should look at profits first. For the purpose of this article, we’ll just look at the next 12 months trading (as you must get through this alive otherwise your business is dead in the water in any case ! ) Say the profit you want to make in the next 12 months is £10,000.

Now it’s time to calculate your fixed costs. These are essential costs that you will have to bear whether you sell 1000 units of your product or none at all. These might be rent and rates, web site hosting or advertising. Add all these fixed costs to your profits figure. Say this figure is £4,000.

Next it’s time to look at your product you’ll going to sell. Find the selling price (say this is £10) the direct cost of producing that product (eg: raw materials) (say this is £4) and any other directly associated costs with selling just one products (eg: sales commissions, credit card fees etc) (say this is £1). That means the profit per sale is £5.

To find out how many you need to sell in a year is now simple. Add your profit (£10k) and your fixed costs you need to cover (£4k) and you have £14k you need to produce in sales profit. We know the profit per sale is £5 so you now know that you need to sell 2,800 products (£14k divided by £5) in the next 12 months to cover all your costs and produce the overall profits you want. Can you do it ?

Selling 2,800 units may sound too much at first, but start to break this number down. That’s 233 per month or 54 per week (of course all these are averages and you’ll have seasonal differences, but when you break the numbers down it may seem more managable)

Now you have your numbers and you believe it’s all achievable you’ll need to put plans into action to show investors (and yourself) how you are actually going to achieve these goals. This will mean exactly what you’re going to do. Write down what you will do on your first day in business. Will you be doing some marketing to get customers? Setting up shop? buying product? recruiting staff? etc etc.

The business plan is your document showing the goals your want to achieve and exactly how you are going to achieve those goals. Good for you? Great - any questions !

Of course, if you only have a one page website this is not going to carry weight in Google at all. I would suggest at least 30 pages (although this will include a contact us, about us, and site map page) and you should be fine.

For years we have been told we need fresh content. Along come programmers who have made this exercise “so easy” because now you can develop “unique” articles in minutes ! how? by plagerising others original works. You may not be able to spot the similarities straight away but any search of a few phrases will bring up the original artice that was produced.

So where’s my proof I hear you ask.

Well some changes are happening at Google right now and the search results are just a mess. But even before this a site in Google SERPs for a business related phrase comes up at the very top for some big term queries.

This site has always been around. It is practically a dead site with no additional pages being added for a long time. And when do you think the last update took place? 2004 - that’s right - 4 years ago.

So who needs all this “fresh content” for Google? Best to concentrate on developing a proper site with just the right amount of information for your visitors and get people to link to the pages you have developed. Then go onto the next niche and do the same and save your money on nonsense software.

This is great news for the economy at large but also for the entreprenerial spirit and a “just do it” mentality that has been with the UK for centuries. These days there is the highest amount of support for new businesses and people who have never run businesses before. Even if you just type in “small business” into Google and don’t mind clicking on all the ads, you’ll find all the research and information you need to start and grow a business.

The biggest step is taking the initial plunge. Our advice is to attempt to begin your business whilst you are still employed. This doesn’t mean developing a multi-million pound empire in your lunch time but beginning to get your first customers, developing your website and marketing materials and starting to get referrals. Once you have some momentum you can think about quitting your job. The worst you can do is think your business will succeed but you have no plans or customers — but quit your job any way; this way you will surely fail.

So a few quick tips to get going:

1) Write a business plan - yes, you have seen this before and it sound boring and complicated - but really, it will open you eyes to what is really required for you to get your first profits. You will know how many customers you’ll need per week and at what profits - real essentials - without this information written and in your head you will lose.

2) Cashflow - many a profitable business has gone bust because they run out of cash. You can get working capital/ cash flow through loans, factoring, invoice financing, improve payment terms, purchasing on credit etc etc - just let the cash work for you.

3) Customers - oh yes, but real customers that really want your product. Don’t ever attempt to try and sell to everyone, because everyone doesn’t want your products and services - and that’s guaranteed. Just select exactly who is going to purchase your product and only pitch to them

4) Products/ services - the next item after (3) is to have a product or service that people actually want. Don’t develop something you think is needed because you think it’s an idea. If you want to survive you’ll need to sell more than one of your products to many hundreds, thousands may be millions of customers, so it’s going to need to be popular.

Trust that gets you going and you join the nation of small businesses in the UK very soon !

Obviously you are a victim of credit card fraud. No worries you think. Just call your credit card company and everything will be fine. After all they are nice people and they’ll simply credit your account with all those fraudulent charges because that’s what they do.

But have you ever thought of who really pays for the fraud? Most people probably believe that the credit card companies or the bank pays for this. After all, they make billions of profits per year so why not? They can easily swallow this and really it’s their fault.

It’s the banks fault because:

• they designed the cards
• they accepted the charge from the merchant in the first place
• they design all the anti fraud systems

But actually the bank never pays. In fact they make a profit on each fraud transaction and here’s how.

Whenever a consumer reports a fraud the credit card company issues a chargeback against the merchant - ie: the company that supplied the goods and took the original transaction. The merchant then is offered the chance to provide evidence that the consumer received the goods or products (although with some banks they won’t dispute any online transactions).

9 times out of 10 the merchant loses. So guess what? The bank charges back the original transaction to the merchant. ie: the merchant or shop has provided the goods, took the credit card payment in good faith using the banks’ own systems, but the credit card sale is reversed by the bank so the shop loses money.

On top of that most banks also charge an admin fee for the convenience of charging you back the sale in full.

So, credit card fraud is seen as the fault of the merchant or shop. Just by using systems provided by banks the merchant never knows if the card charge taken is fraud.

The banks have introduced a type of online “chip and pin” called 3D secure (although why they didn’t simply use chip and pin only who only knows). This shifts the responsibility onto the bank. But also reduces conversions because this is a new scheme and a new password to be remembered by consumers.

Really, the banks should take all fraud. If they process the charge they should pay and not charge bank to the merchant.

If you are looking for unsecured loans most loan providers used to ask for audited accounts for 3 years or more which proved extremely difficult for new business owners to get finance. However most lenders will opt for self certification which basically means you provide details of your accounts (or get your accountant to develop these for you) and provide these to your lender.

In general unsecured loans for self employed people are higher especially in today’s credit crunch market and may now be tough to source especially if you personally have a poor credit rating or history. But if you want unsecured then try a few lenders, especially your own bank initially, to see what they can offer you.

Other ways to get unsecured finance is to get a loan from a family member, friend or colleague - just ensure you have any agreement written down, signed by both of you and witnessed properly as you never know what may go wrong in the future. You can of course borrow from your credit cards but this will present you with extremely uncompetitive and high levels of interest rates which is something you don’t want when you are starting in business.

Another way is to get a loan secured on your hoome. Perhaps it’s best to talk to your current mortgage provider rather than contacting a company that advertises on day time TV. If you have a flexible mortgage where your credit balance in your current account is offset against the amount of your mortgage you may be able to draw down back up to your initial mortgage loan amount. If not, you may be able to re-mortgage to release some capital that you can use for your self employed business.

Before even thinking about a loan it’s essential you have an up to date business plan - this will enable you to see if you can pay back the loan and interest in the time scales you are thinking of. Additionally you should look at several scenarios just in case your business doesn’t develop as fast as you think it might intially.

Please also take professional advice. This article should not be seen as advice over one form of loan or another. Any loans you take out will have to be repaid at some point and if you take out a secured loan against your property then your property may be at risk if you can not afford to repay it.

There are plenty of companies to help with self employed loans and it’s best if you get several quotes and be sure to check any terms and conditions which may be attached to the loan itself.