A Beginner’s Guide to Maintaining Your LLC

Forming an LLC is an exciting accomplishment for any entrepreneur or business owner. 

But the work doesn’t end after the initial business formation process. There are certain steps and requirements to maintain your LLC and ensure the LLC remains in good standing with your state.

Once you’ve identified these requirements, it’s relatively easy to maintain your LLC on an ongoing basis—and this guide will teach you how. 

What is LLC Maintenance?

After the LLC formation, there are various maintenance requirements to protect your LLC and keep everything in good standing with the state and IRS. 

Each state has its own unique rules when it comes to maintaining an LLC. But generally speaking, any requirements, fees, taxes, paperwork, and additional filings are due annually. 

While the majority of LLC maintenance is ongoing, you might need to complete a few one-off tasks to ensure compliance and keep everything organized. 

The Basics of Maintaining Your LLC

Again, LLC requirements vary from state to state. But we’ll take a closer look at the core components of maintaining your LLC that are fairly common across the board. 

Articles of Organization

The articles of organization are a legal component that gets created during the initial LLC formation process. This legal document is formally used to establish limited liability companies at the state level.

Contents of the document include rights, liabilities, duties, obligations, and more for all LLC members (owners).

In many cases, the information on the original articles of organization will stay the same for quite some time. However, there are certain situations when you’ll need to amend the documents and file that amendment with the Secretary of State. 

Examples of an event that would require an amendment to the articles of organization include:

• LLC name change
• Registered agent change
• Registered agent address change
• Changing the financial structure and taxation of the LLC
• Changing the management structure of the LLC

Updates to your LLC’s operating agreement typically wouldn’t be required with your amended articles of organization. The operating agreement is more for internal use as opposed to state compliance. 

If you’re unsure whether a specific event or action should trigger an amendment to the articles of organization for your LLC, consult with a legal professional who can give you guidance on your state laws. 

The official process for amending the articles of organization varies by state, but be prepared to incur a small one-time fee for each occurrence.

Annual Report

Many states require an LLC to file an annual report. In some states, this is known as the statement of information (SOI). 

For example, in California, LLCs must file a statement of information using Form LLC-12 with the Secretary of State. The information contains publicly accessible information about your business, like the LLC’s address, member information, and registered agent information. 

California requires SOIs to be filed within 90 after the articles of organization have been filed. Then you’ll need to file a new statement of information every two years, regardless of whether or not the information changes. 

There is usually a filing fee associated with LLC annual reports or SOIs.

Business Licenses and Permits

Most LLCs require one or more licenses to operate. The exact licenses and permits will vary based on industry and location. 

Not all licenses need to be updated on an annual basis. So you need to understand when each permit expires and what the process looks like for renewing each one. Failure to do so will increase the liability for the LLC and potentially land you in some compliance-related trouble. 

In some cases, incorrect or expired permits can result in fines or even business foreclosures. 

Some common examples of licenses and permits that you’d need to maintain include:

• Liquor licenses
• Health permits
• Zoning and land use permits
• Occupational licenses
• Reseller licenses
• Building permits

There are over 150,000 filing jurisdictions nationwide. In addition to the state requirements, certain cities and counties also have rules regarding different business licenses. 

DBAs and Fictitious Business Names

Many LLCs operate under a DBA (doing business as) or a fictitious name. 

For example, the name of an LLC might be something like “Francis John Holdings, Limited Liability Company.” But the LLC could operate as “Frank’s Pizza,” or something much simpler. 

Typically, DBAs are not indefinite. When they expire, you’ll need to go through a DBA renewal process. 

This is usually very straightforward. It’s just a matter of completing the proper paperwork before the name expires and paying any required fees.

The expiration time varies by state. For example, DBAs in Texas must be renewed every ten years. But California requires LLCs using a DBA to renew those names every five years. 

Annual Taxes

Paying your taxes in full and on time helps keep your LLC in good standing with the state and IRS. 

Depending on how your LLC gets taxed, the business itself might not pay any income taxes. For example, sole proprietors with an LLC can use pass-through taxation to pay business income on their personal tax returns. 

However, some states require a minimum LLC tax each year. 

For example, all LLCs in Delaware are required to pay a $300 annual tax. California’s minimum annual LLC tax is $800, but that number increases based on the LLC’s income for the year. 

Annual LLC Meeting

Unlike a corporation, annual meetings are not officially required for LLCs.

With that said, you should follow whatever procedures have been outlined in your LLC operating agreement. If the operating agreement calls for these meetings, then it’s important for you to hold them.

Even though the state won’t necessarily be checking on this, failure to abide by operating agreements could cause your LLC to lose its liability protection if you’re challenged in court by another member. 

3 Tools to Simplify the Way You Maintain Your LLC

Maintaining your LLC alone isn’t always easy. But if you’re using the right tools and resources, the process is much less of a headache. 

#1 — ZenBusiness Registered Agent. 

ZenBusiness provides an array of services for business formation, filings, compliance, and more. But when it comes to maintaining your LLC, the ZenBusiness registered agent service will simplify your requirements. There are two packages to choose from, Standard and Complete—starting at $99 and $149 per year.  

In addition to the basic functions of a registered agent, ZenBusiness takes this one step further with lots of extras. All of your LLC files and legal documentation gets stored in an online dashboard, allowing you to view, print, or download them at any time. The ZenBusiness team also handles all ongoing state filings, including an annual report. You’ll also benefit from two annual amendments to ensure your LLC remains in good standing, even if you need to change information. 

#2 — Northwest Registered Agent

Northwest Registered Agent is one of the most reputable and reliable registered agent services in existence. Their customer service is second to none, making them a top choice for any business owner that needs assistance maintaining an LLC. They provide dozens of free legal forms for LLCs, including articles of organization, operating agreement, meeting minutes, resolutions, articles of amendment, capital contributions, and more—all of which makes it easy to stay compliant.  

With Northwest Registered Agent, you’ll benefit from a corporate guide to help you navigate the waters of different state and local requirements. They provide pre-filled state forms, annual report reminders, and phone support with qualified agents. This exceptional registered agent service for LLCs starts at just $125 per year. 

#3 — Incfile

While Incfile is best known for its business formation services, it also provides extensive resources and services beyond the initial LLC filing. They allow you to obtain a certificate of good standing from the Secretary of State to show that your LLC is registered and officially authorized to operate in your state of formation. This document is often required to obtain certain business licenses that you need for maintaining your LLC.

Furthermore, Incfile offers a wide array of additional LLC compliance services. You can use them for annual LLC reports, business license searches, DBAs, fictitious names, IRS filings, registered agent services, and more. The registered agent service starts at just $119 per year, and it’s free for one year if you register your LLC with Incfile.

3 Tricks For Maintaining Your LLC

Maintaining your LLC doesn’t need to be complicated. The following quick tricks and best practices will make your life much easier, so you can sleep easy at night knowing your LLC is in good standing. 

Trick #1: Use a Registered Agent Service

Each state requires LLCs to maintain a registered agent. Technically, you could do this on your own—but we strongly advise against that. 

The primary purpose of a registered agent is to receive government correspondence, service of process, and compliance-related documentation on behalf of your LLC. But if you’re using a registered agent service, you’ll typically benefit from much more than the basics. 

The best registered agents will help you remain compliant and ensure that all of your LLC paperwork is up to date with your state. They might handle the majority of the paperwork on your behalf with pre-filled state forms. Some registered agents will remind you of upcoming annual reports, fees, and other requirements. 

If you use a registered agent service, like the tools listed earlier in this guide, it will make everything easier as you maintain your LLC. 

Trick #2: Separate Business and Personal Expenses

This is a common problem for newly registered LLCs, especially for sole proprietors and single-member LLCs.

States don’t legally require you to open a business bank account. But this is something that you should do immediately after registering your LLC. 

Even if you’re not doing anything wrong or illegal, the idea of using one account for business and personal transactions is a big no-no in the eyes of the IRS. If you’re ever audited, you’d be heavily scrutinized for this.

Additionally, you could lose the liability protection of your LLC if you’re mixing business and personal accounts. To avoid this, just open a business checking account as soon as possible.

Once you have an EIN and a business name, most banks will let you apply. 

Trick #3: Keep All Required Documentation in a Safe Place

Maintaining your LLC is all about staying organized. If you’ve got paperwork, documents, licenses, and everything else all over the place, proper maintenance will be a challenge. 

Your principal place of business or main office should include copies of the following documents:

• LLC articles of organization (and any amendments)
• LLC operating agreement (and any amendments)
• Full list of each LLC member, including their last known address, contribution, and shares
• Copy of EIN confirmation letter
• LLC meeting minutes (if required in the operating agreement)
• All copies of financial statements and tax records
• All business licenses and permits

In addition to physical copies of these documents, you could also keep them online in cloud storage for safekeeping. 

Quick and easy access to these documents will simplify things as you take the required steps to maintain your LLC. 

What to Do Next

Now that you understand what it takes to maintain your LLC, you should consider a couple of other things. Here at Quick Sprout, our team has put together tons of resources and useful pieces of information for business owners and entrepreneurs. 

In addition to opening a business checking account, you should also get a separate credit card for your LLC expenses. Again, this will make it much easier for you to separate your personal and business financials. For some guidance and more information, check out our list of the best credit cards for startups.

As we’ve mentioned several times throughout this guide, the exact requirements for maintaining your LLC will depend on your specific state. So it’s in your best interest to consult with a business attorney if you have questions, concerns, or need some direction on what exactly is required. Instead of spending a fortune on a traditional lawyer, you should be able to get the right assistance using an online legal service. 

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Podium Review

Do you want to get more online reviews for your product or services? Podium has got you covered. By helping businesses send automated invites to customers at every critical touchpoint, Podium can give you a competitive advantage. It harnesses the power of online reviews for companies built on word of mouth. And with its powerful interface, you can also request feedback, convert web chat to text messages, and manage customer messages across different platforms all from the same place.

Podium Pros and Cons

Pros

• Free version available (for US and Canada users only)
• Easy-to-navigate user interface
• Available in both desktop and mobile
• Automated review solicitation
• Instant notifications for real-time response to online reviews
• Multiple customer interaction apps in one dashboard
• Seamless CRM integration
• Smooth onboarding process
• Plenty of customer service options

Cons

• Custom pricing structure available only by request
• Commitment to a 12-month contract required
• Cumbersome for very small businesses

Podium Features

From starting as a simple tool to procure quality reviews, Podium has grown into an all-in-one app that consolidates all customer interactions. With the help of Podium’s support team, you can cherry-pick only the features your business needs, at a price that is well within your budget.

Reviews

The most disgruntled customers are often the most driven to post their negative experiences. So even if you hold your business to a high standard, the negative reviews of a select few can warp people’s perception of your business. To stop these bad reviews from outnumbering the good, you need a reputation management tool like Podium’s. 

Podium is integrated with over 20 online review sites like Facebook, Google My Business, TripAdvisor, and a host of other industry-specific platforms. With Podium Reviews, you can view and manage all customer reviews from these platforms under one roof. No more jumping back and forth between these review sites as you can keep track of all new customer reviews straight from an easy-to-use interface. 

Are you ready to beef up your online reviews? It all starts with a request, and you can convince your customers to provide their reviews using your own message or one of Podium’s preset templates. 

Sending these review invites is a whole new ball game, but this where Podium outshines its competitors. Through its platform, you can set up automations so your customers can receive review invites soon after completing a purchase. With its switchboard feature, you can also determine how many customers will be sent to which review sites, ensuring no platform is overlooked. 

From the same dashboard, you can also set up alerts so you get notified each time a customer leaves a review. By doing so, you can promptly respond to each review and address customer complaints within the Podium app. 

Podium Reviews comes with in-depth reporting to help you gauge how well your business performs based on the reviews. By looking at star rating, recency, and review count, you can determine how well you stack up against competitors and whether your strategies need fine-tuning. 

Campaigns

Podium Campaigns is a potent alternative to old-fashioned email campaigns. Instead of sending emails that are often relegated to either the SPAM or a separate “Promotions” folder, you send marketing promotions to where customers can see them right away: SMS inbox.

We’re not talking about sending out spam texts en masse. Customers won’t receive marketing campaigns via SMS unless they opt in to your list. And with opt-in opportunities available in every customer touchpoint, you can passively grow the list of people who are more likely to respond to your promos. 

With a targeted list at your disposal, it’s easier to craft personalized campaigns that resonate well with your customers. You can send these campaigns to your entire list or to specific segments of your list. 

By using a conversational tone in your messages, you can take the first step towards building a long-term relationship with your audience. The text thread is also two-way so your customers can reply to your messages, giving you more opportunities to earn their trust.

Whether you’re sending out coupon codes or announcing a special sale, Podium Campaigns allow you to take advantage of the 98% open rate of a text message. Moreover, it comes with built-in analytics so you can measure your total revenue, unsubscribe rate, click-through rate, and response rate straight from your dashboard. Using these valuable data, you can fine-tune your campaigns and get better results in the long run. 

Inbox

By integrating Podium with Facebook, Google, Instagram, Zendesk, and other platforms, all customer conversations can be funneled into one location. This enables you to quickly reply to messages without having to juggle multiple platforms at the same time. 

Podium’s inbox also streamlines how you deal with all these messages. Using artificial intelligence, it can automatically group incoming messages so you know which one should be prioritized. Each customer profile also has an interaction history which includes all payments and transactions completed. At one glance, you can get insights about the customer you’re dealing with, allowing you to personalize your messages accordingly.

For the busy marketers who don’t have time to respond to all messages, Podium’s inbox also provides smart solutions. 

You can assign the messages to other employees or another business location. Access restrictions are also available to ensure only the authorized people can answer specific messages. 

Meanwhile, you can set up autoresponders so you won’t lose potential leads even outside business hours or whenever you can’t reply in person. By also automating feedback requests, review invites, and reminders, Podium ensures you won’t waste your precious time on cumbersome tasks.

Feedback

Getting feedback from your customers doesn’t have to involve long, boring surveys that barely get attention. Podium’s feedback feature turns the traditional survey on its head by sending two automated text messages proven to elicit quicker responses. 

Humans are notorious for having short attention spans. By sending short and simplified questions via SMS, you don’t have to wait for weeks or months for answers. Your customers can send their honest feedback almost instantly, which means you can also address customer complaints at lightning speed. 

With regular use of Podium’s feedback feature, you’ll be able to understand your market, explore opportunities to improve your service, and gain more loyal customers. The best part is you can also automate it so you can gather insights about your customers at any touchpoint, not just after they make a purchase. 

You can schedule when your customers will receive the feedback request and also set up automated responses based on the customers’ answers. By doing so, Podium can gather a wealth of valuable information even while you’re not around. 

Podium’s feedback feature also comes with analytics so you can dissect the impact that customer feedback has on your business. Through this tool, you can track your Net Promoter Score which gives you an idea of how satisfied your customers are with your products or services. It also enables you to measure how many customers who received feedback invites actually responded. By understanding how effective your campaign is, you can revise your questions accordingly to elicit more responses. 

Webchat

Through Podium’s webchat widget, you can turn random website visitors into customers. 

Unlike live chat where transactions begin and end in the same chatbox, the webchat follows your visitors even after leaving your website. All the visitor has to do is enter his name, mobile number, and message to the webchat and the conversation will be transferred to his phone. By giving you access to the SMS inbox where people are the most engaged, you can answer queries and nurture leads without being glued to your computer screen. 

The only downside is not everyone will agree to volunteer their contact details, especially those who are only making casual inquiries. But for those who agree to invite you to their personal inbox, the possibility is endless. 

To ensure the webchat can capture leads every single time, you can also set up autoresponders. This guarantees your visitors can get an automated reply even when no one from your team is available, usually during holidays or after business hours. 

Through Google Analytics integration, Podium webchat can give you insights on how your visitors interact with your website, and which web pages perform the best. There’s also an option to receive daily digest emails so you can keep track of every inbound lead. 

Finally, a leaderboard allows you to compare each employee’s response times and other metrics. It ensures nobody in your team is slacking off when it comes to capturing valuable leads. 

Podium Pricing and Package Options

Every business is unique so Podium offers custom pricing tailored to your needs. To get a personalized quote, go to Podium’s pricing page, fill out the form with your contact information, and submit it. A Podium representative will then contact you to get a better picture of your business, its industry, and its locations. 

A customized plan that includes only the features that will best optimize your business will be recommended. Price varies depending on how many features you need and the number of your business locations. A single-location business, for instance, can cost anywhere between $350 and $450. It may be too expensive for businesses that only need Podium’s review feature but remember that Podium is much more than a simple text messaging solution. 

What most users may find off-putting is the 12-month contract that they have to commit to initially. Payments can be made upfront (annually) or in monthly installments.

For those who can’t afford to get into a 12-month contract yet, Podium also has the free Starter plan. Users from the US and Canada can sign up to take advantage of a free textable number and up to 30 communications per month. 

The free starter plan also includes a webchat widget, a centralized inbox where you can manage all customer communications, and the ability to send a limited number of automated review invites via SMS. 

Podium Reputation

Podium has been known as a reputation management tool so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that most users rave about its review feature. In fact, it’s the leading reason why most users gravitate toward Podium. By letting them send review invites via text not only after purchase but at every possible customer touchpoint, Podium can help businesses triple the number of online reviews they get. 

The clean user interface makes it easier to navigate the dashboard and find what they’re looking for at a glance. Podium’s capability to consolidate all messaging apps in one place is also worth highlighting. By eliminating the need to move from one platform to another, Podium effectively streamlines how businesses communicate with their customers.

On the flipside, Podium may turn off businesses that value transparency. Pricing plans are not available publicly so any business interested to get a personalized quote must contact Podium directly. According to those who have already used Podium’s service, the steep cost of the customized plan may pose a problem to businesses that only need basic features. 

The platform has also grown cumbersome for small businesses that only signed up to beef up the number of their customer reviews. The problem is you can’t purchase a plan with only one feature. So even if your team only needs the review feature, they still have to contend with other moving parts they rarely use but make navigating the user interface a tad complicated.

Summary

Podium stands head and shoulders above the competition for helping businesses use every possible customer touchpoint as an opportunity to get reviews. And because online reviews are now the word of mouth of the digital world, multiplying the reviews you get tenfold can drive great returns for your business in the long run. 

However, Podium comes at a steep price, not to mention you have to commit to a 12-month contract before you can get your team on board. If your company has multiple locations and deals with a steady stream of inbound leads, it most likely has the revenue to justify the cost of using Podium’s services. 

On the other hand, small businesses that don’t have the means to enter into a long-term commitment with Podium can use its free starter plan instead. Alternatively, you can use Textedly and other similar services that let you message your customers via text but come with a more flexible monthly payment schedule.

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How to Start a Remote Business

Whether you’re starting a side hustle on your own or launching a full-time business with employees, operating remotely is appealing to many entrepreneurs for various reasons. 

But taking your idea and turning it into a reality is a challenging step.

You still need to legally register your business, file paperwork with the state, and take steps to separate your personal assets from the company—even for a remote business. 

Once you get these initial steps out of the way, you can fulfill your dreams of working from anywhere without ever stepping foot into an office.

This guide will walk you through the step-by-step process of starting a remote business. 

The Easy Parts of Starting a Remote Business

The legal aspects of starting a remote business can be intimidating for new entrepreneurs. Registering your business with the state, filing the appropriate papers, preparing for how you’ll be taxed by the IRS, maintaining compliance—the list goes on and on.

Historically, business owners only had two options:

1. Handle everything on their own and risk making costly errors.
2. Hire a lawyer to set up your business and pay outrageous fees.

But today, there’s another option—business formation services. 

By using an online business formation service to start your remote business, you can get 90% of your needs covered by a single provider. You just need to answer some simple questions about your company, and the formation service handles everything else on your behalf.

There are lots of great online business formation services to consider, but Incfile is an excellent option for remote startups. 

Incfile lets you set up a wide range of remote business entities, including LLCs, corporations, and nonprofits. You can use them to obtain an EIN (employer identification number), register your business name, file the articles of organization, articles of incorporation, IRS forms, and so much more.

The base business formation services from Incfile start as low as $0 plus state filing fees. All packages include free registered agent services for the first year, too.

Using platforms like Incfile for starting a remote business will eliminate countless headaches and hours of filing paperwork. It takes less than five minutes to answer some questions and choose your preferences online. Then it’s just a matter of waiting for things to get finalized with the state—the service handles everything on your behalf. 

The Difficult Parts of a Starting a Remote Business

Officially registering the business and getting yourself ready to start operating is the easy part. But then, you’ll face challenges that aren’t solved so quickly—running a profitable business. 

Even remote businesses with low overhead struggle at first when it comes to making money. Getting your name out there, driving traffic to your website, landing customers, and retaining customers are all easier said than done.

Regardless of your industry, business model, or niche, you’re likely competing with hundreds if not thousands of other people doing the exact same thing. 

It can take years to generate sustainable income that you can use to grow the business and pay yourself. 

If you plan to start hiring employees as you scale, this presents other unique challenges as well. You’ll have to worry about managing talent, running payroll, additional tax compliance regulations, labor laws, and more.

Running a remote business doesn’t exempt you from these challenges.  

But don’t let this discourage you. As someone who has successfully started multiple remote businesses, I can confidently say that the rewards far outweigh the challenges if you stick with your plan. Rewards include flexibility and saving a ton of money on overhead!

Step 1 – Choose Your Business Entity Type

Not all businesses are the same in the eyes of the state, the federal government, and the IRS. When you’re launching a remote startup, the first thing you need to do is determine which type of business entity is right for you.

Generally speaking, these are your options:

• LLC
• Corporation
• Nonprofit

There are other business types and subcategories out there, but most fall within these three general entity types. 

If you head over to Incfile and click Start My Business, the first step is choosing an entity and selecting your state.

Once you answer these two questions, it will present you with state-specific information and pricing. For example, the fees associated with starting an LLC in California won’t be the same as creating a corporation in Florida.

I’ll give you a basic overview of each entity type below to help you decide what’s right for your remote business:

LLC (Limited Liability Company)

An LLC will likely be the best option for most of you. According to Incfile, over 80% of small businesses are registered as LLCs. 

This entity type offers flexible ownership options and provides owners with liability protection—hence the name. By forming an LLC for your remote business, you can separate your personal assets from the company ones.

LLCs also have the luxury of choosing how they get taxed. By default, single-member LLCs are taxed as sole proprietorships, and multi-member LLCs are taxed as partnerships. However, you can choose to be taxed as a C corp or S corp instead. 

Consult with an accountant to determine which tax structure is right for your remote business. You can change this at a later time by filing straightforward paperwork with the IRS. 

Corporation

Corporations typically fall into two main categories—C corporations and S corporations. The most significant differences between these two entities are the taxation and ownership structure. 

Similar to an LLC, S-corps provide pass-through taxes. This means that taxes aren’t assessed at the entity level but rather on shareholders’ individual tax returns. 

With C-corps, the business and owners are taxed separately. While you’re technically getting taxed twice here, the corporate tax income is usually lower on personal returns. Again, it’s always in your best interest to speak with an accountant or tax attorney as you’re making these decisions. 

C corporations are better for companies that want to raise money from outside investors. Nearly all publicly traded companies are C corps. 

Nonprofit

Nonprofits are a subcategory of corporations, but they’re usually categorized separately because of the unique requirements. To qualify as a nonprofit, the principal purpose of the company must be for public benefit. 

If you qualify for nonprofit status with the IRS, your company may be exempt from sales taxes, federal income taxes, and property taxes.

Forming a nonprofit can offer liability protection to directors, officers, and employees. 

Step 2 – Register Your Business With The State

Even if you’re operating remotely, you still need to register the company with the state that you’re operating in. 

While there are some exceptions, the vast majority of you will be registering your business in the state where you live. 

For the purposes of this tutorial, I’m going to walk you through this process by registering an LLC in California using Incfile. But the steps will be similar regardless of the entity type and formation service that you’re using.

Select a Formation Package

Incfile, like most business formation services, offers tiered packages for registering a new business. Here’s what those fees look like for an LLC in California:

The cool part about Incfile is the base package, Silver is 100% free. You get the core features of Incfile and only pay the state filing fees (not any Incfile fees). 

The Silver package also comes with unlimited name searches, articles of organization filing, and a free year of registered agent services. But there are other requirements you’ll need to handle on your own. 

The Gold package includes an EIN, IRS Form 2553, an operating agreement, an online dashboard, and unlimited support. And the Platinum level has all of those features plus expedited filing and a domain name with a business email included.

I recommend you go with the Gold package and let Incfile handle everything on your behalf. 

Obtain an EIN

Every business needs an EIN (employer identification number). This is a nine-digit unique number assigned by the IRS that identifies your business for tax purposes. Think of it as the business-equivalent of a social security number. 

EINs are required for business banking, tax returns, payroll, working with vendors, and so much more.

You can apply for EIN directly with the IRS for free. But it’s much easier to get one from your incorporation service. You can add this service to Incfile’s Silver package for $70 or get it for free with the Gold or Platinum plans.

Prepare and File Additional Forms

Depending on the entity type you’ve selected, additional forms need to be filed with the state. This includes things like:

• Articles of Organization
• IRS Form 2553
• Operating Agreement for LLCs
• Corporate Bylaws for Corporations
• Corporation Organizational Meeting Minutes

If you’re using a business formation service, make sure to select a plan that includes all of the necessary forms for your entity type. 

Most formation services also allow you to expedite the filing process for an additional fee. 

As you can see from the example above, the average filing time for LLCs in California is four weeks. But you can pay an extra $50 to get it done in five business days. The fees and filing time estimates vary from state to state.

Name Your Remote Business

Now is your opportunity to name the business and provide additional company information. 

This step is fairly straightforward. Just fill out the form fields as prompted.

You have the option to choose a designator as well. If I wanted to name my LLC “Quick Sprout,” then my designator options would be:

• Quick Sprout LLC
• Quick Sprout L.L.C.
• Quick Sprout Limited Liability CO.
• Quick Sprout LTD. Liability Company
• Quick Sprout Limited Liability Company

You’ll also need to provide some basic information about the purpose of your business. 

The form will also ask you to select a management method. For LLCs, you’ll have the option to choose between member-managed and manager-managed. 99% of the time, you’re going to choose member-managed, especially for a remote business. 

Member-managed means the “members,” or owners, of the LLC are running the day-to-day business. Manager-managed is when designated managers or appointees like a board of directors run day-to-day operations.

Provide a Business Address

Even if your business is remote, you still need to have an address on file with the state. 

In most states, you can’t use a PO Box, and the address will become public record. So I advise against using your home address here. Fortunately, Incfile offers a professional business address and virtual mail service.

It’s just $29 per month, and you can cancel it at any time. But this is worth the price of keeping your personal address out of the public records.

Step 3 – Obtain a Registered Agent

Every business, including remote companies, needs to have a registered agent. Registered agents are available during business hours to handle government correspondence on behalf of your company.

For example, let’s say your business gets sued. Your registered agent will accept court orders and summons on your behalf at their address so that nobody will be knocking on your front door.

While you do have the option, I strongly discourage acting as your own registered agent. It kind of defeats the purpose of operating remotely, as you’ll be forced to be available during all business hours at your business address. 

Incfile offers free registered agent services for one year with the Gold and Platinum plans. 

The service automatically renews at the regular price of $119 per year.

Step 4 – Open a Business Bank Account

Next, you need to set up a separate bank account for your business. 

You’ll need to have an EIN for this step in many cases, which you’ll have by now if you’re going through these steps in the right order.

Many business formation services, including Incfile, have deals with banks to get you set up during the formation process. 

Here’s an example that includes a $500 bonus (terms apply) with Bank of America through Incfile:

You can always skip this and get a bank account on your own. Check out our guides on the best online business banking solutions and best business checking accounts to help you narrow down your options. 

Step 5 – Secure Your Domain and Create a Website

This step is essential for all businesses, but it’s especially crucial for remote companies. For most of you, your website will be the driving force behind a remote operation. 

Even if you’re not quite ready to launch the site today, you’ll want to secure the domain as soon as you’ve registered a business name with the state.

Your website name doesn’t have to be the same as your business name, but many people mirror these two for simplicity. It all depends on your branding strategy. 

Some business formation services will offer services for domain registration, but this is an upsell that you can skip. Instead, go straight to a domain registrar. These guides will steer you in the right direction:

• Best Domain Registrars
• Best Website Builders

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How to Write a Job Offer Letter

You probably know that you’ll use a job offer letter to offer a job to a successful candidate. 

The problem is, some employers don’t know how to write one. 

A good job offer letter can start off your relationship with your new hire on the right note, but a bad one can discourage the candidate from the start, potentially leading them to refuse your offer–or worse, accept it but already be thinking about eventually working elsewhere. 

So it’s pretty important to get the offer letter right. 

Fret not—our guide will show you how to write one step by step. 

The Easy Parts of Writing a Job Offer Letter 

Some employers believe writing a job offer letter is difficult and time-consuming. The truth is: it doesn’t have to be as hard as you may think. 

Writing a good job offer letter comes down to systematically making sure the letter includes the most critical information. 

For example, there is no one-fits-all job offer template that must be strictly followed per se. 

Instead, a good but concise overview of the job position and company, including specific job details like the start rate, remuneration, work schedule, and benefits, will often be enough to entice a candidate into your position. 

Using a dedicated recruitment software tool can be a big help here.

Workable, for instance, allows you to send job offer letters through tried and tested templates that successfully get a positive response from a candidate. 

The software made our top picks list for being the best overall recruiting software at scale.

Pricing starts at $99 per job per month on the “Paygo” plan, and you can try it free for 15 days. 

The Difficult Parts of Writing a Job Offer Letter 

We’ve mentioned that writing a job offer letter doesn’t have to be complicated. That’s true, but there are parts that some employers will find more challenging.

A good example is factoring in the time to write the job offer letter in the first place. Some employers mention the difficulty of crafting a great job offer letter when they’re busy managing other parts of the company. 

Another element employers find challenging is the order in which to send the job offer letter. Forgetting to send them out during the average day is part of that. 

Other worries include how to send the letter or the format, what exact details need to be included, and whether to be more informal or formal with your job offer letter. 

All of these worries are valid, but don’t let that stop you. Our next section will detail step by step the process of writing a great job offer letter. 

Step 1: Know What Details To Include 

No two job offer letters will be the same. After all, different roles require different things—knowing what to include in yours can therefore be a problem. In fact, it’s a key concern of employers. 

The good news is that there are some general things that every job offer letter needs to include. 

What To Include

There is a little debate on what constitutes the essential parts of a job offer letter, but generally speaking, and without factoring in different job roles, these are the things you must include:

• The job description
• The title of the job
• Some specific detail on weekly duties
• The starting date of employment
• The overall salary
• Benefits information and eligibility for them
• Acknowledgment of the offer and confirmation of acceptance

Remember that a job offer letter is considered a formal document in most cases that’s sent out to candidates selected for employment, so getting the necessary details in there is essential to help them make a decision.

It’s a wise idea to have written confirmation of an offer, to have it readily accessible, so that both the employee and the employer know the exact conditions of the job in question.

Structure the Details 

You know the key details to include in your job offer letter, but you need to know how to structure them. 

A good order to follow—although by no means is this the only way to structure a job offer letter—is to start with the company logo at the top of the letter and closely follow it with the date and contact details. 

For the company logo, ensure you use the official letterhead of your company logo, as this adds a sense of professionalism and legitimacy. Having both of these qualities will inspire the candidate to read the job offer letter more thoroughly. 

On the contact details side of things, be sure to include the date, full name, and complete address of the candidate. 

These details should be followed with an opening line that greets the candidate formally or casually. Deciding between a more formal or casual approach depends a lot on your company’s culture and the image you want to present. So think carefully about what you want to get across here. 

For example, you could start with a straightforward “Dear [Insert Candidate’s name]” then offer them a job on an optimistic note like: “We are very pleased to offer you a position at [Insert Company name].” How you do this is up to you, but don’t be afraid to set yourself apart from others. If your company culture is more casual, feel free to open with a more conversational greeting and offer. 

Follow this with your job details, benefits, and salary, and don’t feel afraid to include an expiry date if appropriate. A standard time is to give the candidate a week to respond. If there are specific next steps that need to happen, make sure to lay those out here as well.  

End the job offer letter with a closing line and include details on how the candidate can reach you. For example, they might have a few questions about the job, and you’ll want to make sure you are available to answer them. 

A positive and detailed response to these questions might be all that stands between an employee joining your business or not, so take your time to respond fairly and properly. 

Step 2: Pick a Template To Follow

We’ve spoken about what to include in your job offer letter and the structure, but it’s helpful to look at a range of different templates for varying job roles. After all, each position and scenario will shape how to present your information to employees. 

Below we’ve included the specifics of some common templates.

Look at Part-time or Full-time Job Offer Templates

A part-time or full-time offer template is standard. 

You can modify the template as you wish, but for part-time or full-time roles, we recommend including the following: 

• An intro addressing the candidate in the desired company culture
• The position and department the candidate will be working for
• The working hours, including details of any breaks throughout the day
• Compensation in the form of a gross salary—12 monthly wages per year
• Mention bonuses and when and if you offer them. A bonus during the holiday period is standard in some companies
• Detail the benefits the employee will receive. Feel free to go to town here as these can be attractive. For example, private health and dental insurance plans, X days of paid vacation leave, educational materials, and other expenses paid.
• Some letters end with the contact details for the HR department or details on how to contact the supervisor

These particulars are standard for both part-time and full-time job offers, so be sure to introduce them in a similar way to the template. 

Workable is a valuable tool here because it offers full letter templates and approval workflows to speed up the entire process: 

In the picture above, the green text is where Workable has auto-populated the details as set by the user. You fill in the basic details, and Workable will do the rest. 

The platform will even let you know when a candidate has accepted the offer. 

Look at Internal Job Offer Letter Templates 

Internal job offer letter templates differ slightly from standard ones.

These offers may have started from an informal conversation with someone already on your team, but they still require a job offer letter to be sent to the candidate to make it official.

Most of the details above still apply. That said, you must mention to the existing employee the full details of the new job opening on the team. This new role might be a move to a different department altogether, so be clear about the details.

Of course, congratulating the employee is vital as you recognize their existing achievements with the company. The more you do this, the more likely they will stay with you for the long term.

Look at Remote Job Offer Letter Templates

Remote job offer letter templates differ because they need to mention flexible working hours, remote work options, tech equipment, professional development, and standard details in a more traditional role.

Will the job offer in question require the employee to be in the office any day of the week, or is the position fully remote? Will you pay for equipment expenses, and how will you communicate with your employee? 

These are all extra areas to consider for remote roles. With the post-pandemic world fully embracing remote working, it’s wise to stay updated with requirements. 

Step 3: Show Your Personality 

Most job offer letters come across as dull, and that’s a problem if you want to fill your roles quickly.

With a new and younger workforce that expects a bit of a flair to proceedings, you need to show your personality in the letter.

Think About Tone

Most companies will write stiff job offer letters that don’t excite their candidates enough to accept the offer.

Think about it like this: you only get one chance here to make a great impression, so a light sprinkling of personality can do wonders. We are not suggesting you become so casual that you undermine the importance of the offer, but some fun here is perfectly acceptable within reason.

It’s a good way of showing your company’s culture and what the employee might expect once they join you fully. For example, are you a fun company where the candidate will work hard but also play hard? If so, don’t be afraid to talk about that in the offer letter–and tell the candidate how much you’re looking forward to having them on your team. 

Choose Your Format

There are a few key ways you can send a job offer letter. 

The first is the formal and physical letter that you post to a candidate’s address. This letter will include all of the details you would expect. Some companies prefer this format, but it’s fair to say it’s not something every company will want to use. 

Email job offer letters are increasingly common, and there are two ways to send these: in the body of the email or as an attachment to the email. 

We prefer having the job offer letter as a PDF attachment that sets out the details rather than simply in the body of an email, but this is up to you and the impression your company wants to create for the candidate. 

Step 4: Know When and How to Send It 

When do you send the job offer letter, though? This question is something many employers ask—luckily, the answer doesn’t have to be complicated.

Contact via Phone

Depending on your company and the role in question, it’s not unusual for a company to contact a candidate via phone.

The call is typically carried out well before you send the candidate the job offer letter itself. In other words, you’re letting them know in advance, which also helps to give them more notice. If you’re a remote company, this might occur on Skype or Zoom instead of a traditional phone.

That said, there is another way to send it, which brings us to our next point.

Contact via Email

We’ve mentioned contacting candidates via email. 

However, an increasingly common way of doing things is to contact them with an initial email before following up later with another one.

The initial email will effectively express the offer.

The second email will detail it more formally and will usually be the job offer letter presented as an attachment in a PDF or other professional format.

Workable offers a dedicated hiring plan that can help out here too:

With the software, you can plan and track your hiring and are notified at every key stage. 

The hiring workspace automates approval workflows and captures requisitions, so you’ll never have to chase candidates again. 

Step 5: Be Patient 

The final step is learning to be patient about the response from your candidate. 

Rushing at the final stage can scare candidates away, some of which were probably hours from accepting your offer. 

Set an Expiry Date 

One way of tackling this is to set an expiry date on your job offer letter.

The expiry date is typically added towards the end of the letter and gives the candidate a set amount of time to accept the role. 

The standard amount of time here is around a week from the date of the offer, but some employers might worry this is not enough time—others might prefer a response in a matter of days. 

Ultimately, set an expiry date that’s best for you and give your candidate a fair and reasonable amount of time to make up their mind. 

Don’t Pester the Candidate 

Top talent is frequently hard to retain, so don’t pester the candidate during the time you’ve given them—that’s if you’ve given them a defined time in the first place. 

There have been cases where a candidate is close to accepting the offer, but the employer was too eager and lost them. 

The point to keep in mind is that candidates typically apply to multiple companies at once, and therefore, they might have many offers available to them during the decision process. 

You want to ensure you’ve given them time to think things through—following up too soon could be a make-or-break decision, so think carefully before doing so. 

Workable features built-in reports that help out here as well. It includes aspects such as the time to hire and the results of what candidates want to see.

Specifically, candidate surveys are a great way to measure what works during the hiring process and help you to build your recruiting practices. 

Know what candidates want to see during the hiring process, and you’ll have a better chance of recruiting top talent overall. 

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9 Popular Ecommerce Products to Sell Online in 2021

The ecommerce industry is booming.

People are buying products online more than ever before. Nearly anything you can imagine can be purchased on the Internet and delivered to your doorstep. It’s a great time to be a consumer.

But as an entrepreneur, you can leverage this craze by creating your own ecommerce shop.

You can take advantage of this opportunity and start an online store from virtually anywhere with Internet access. While technology has made it easier than ever for consumers to buy, it’s also easier than ever before to start an online business.

Sure, there are a handful of things that you need to figure out. You’ll have to create a website, choose an ecommerce platform, pick a web hosting service, and learn how to market your brand online.

But before you get ahead of yourself and start all of that, you need to figure out what you’re going to sell.

Lately, I’ve been talking to so many entrepreneurs who want to sell online, but they just don’t know what to offer. That’s what inspired me to write this guide.

Using in-depth research and trend analysis, I’ve come up with a list of nine popular products that you can sell online in 2021. Use this guide as an inspiration for your ecommerce shop.

1. Groceries

When most people think about selling products online, they automatically think of new gadgets or products that are designed for everyday use around the house. Or they try to think of something innovative that will solve a common problem.

However, it seems like people rarely think to sell food.

Consumers are buying everything else online, so why not groceries? It’s something that everyone uses on a daily basis.

Take a look at the current and projected growth of online grocery sales in the United States alone.

By 2021, experts predict that this will become a $30 billion industry.

Furthermore, the online food and beverage industry is growing at 18% year-over-year

While the majority of grocery shopping still takes place in physical store locations, the ecommerce grocery movement is the way of the future. So this is a great chance for you to jump on board before the market gets too saturated.

There are seemingly endless opportunities here. You could sell anything from snacks, to produce, to prepared and pre-packaged meals.

Ultimately, there is plenty of money to be made in this space if you’re able to carve out the right niche. Just make sure you educate yourself about the legal aspects of selling food online, as the regulations are different from selling other products.

2. Electric scooters

If you live near any major American city, you’ve probably seen the rise of electric scooter usage over the last couple of years.

Depending on the area, this trend has seemingly taken over the streets and sidewalk.

Companies like Bird, Lime, and Razor are pioneering the scooter ridesharing industry. Even bigger names like Uber and Lyft have entered the e-scooter space.

The idea behind ridesharing scooters is great.

Essentially, riders just use a mobile app to locate and start a scooter. Then they ride to a destination and park it anywhere. They are charged based on usage and everything is handled through the mobile app.

With this trend growing in popularity, it seems like more and more people want to own electric scooters, as opposed to just using the rideshare options.

In 2018, there were roughly 44 million electric scooters and electric bicycles sold worldwide. That number is expected to reach 50 million in 2021.

This is a great opportunity for you to seize. That’s because high-end products can be sold at a higher price point.

Research shows that the average cost of an electric scooter is roughly $300. But some high-end models can retail for more than double that amount.

3. Virtual reality headsets

Virtual reality and augmented reality are increasing in popularity.

If you read my blog on a regular basis, you know that augmented reality already made my list of the top mobile trends that are dominating 2021. I also wrote about how augmented reality is impacting the future of SEO.

But now I want to take a moment to talk about the business opportunity for the virtual reality market. First, let me clarify the differences between AR and VR.

AR uses overlays on computer-generated screens to put digital figures into real-world images. For example, AR can be used on a smartphone to play games like Pokemon Go.

As the name implies, VR puts users into a virtual world, using more specialized and sophisticated equipment, like a VR headset.

Take a look at the growth of VR and AR users in the United States.

As you can clearly see from the graph, both VR and AR users are growing each year.

There are more AR users, simple because augmented reality is easier to use and doesn’t require special equipment.

With that said, the number of virtual reality headset users is still continuing to grow and carve out a good-sized market share in this niche.

In 2017, there were roughly 11 million VR headset users in the US. That number has already doubled and will reach 26.5 million users by 2021.

There are lots of potential consumers to target with this product. According to a virtual reality headset review by The Verge, VR headsets have quite the price range. Inexpensive headsets can be bought for less than $100, while higher-end models retail for upwards of $800.

4. Smart speakers

As long as we’re on the technology subject, I figured this would be a good time to talk about smart speakers. This is another trend that’s growing in popularity.

Today there are more than 74 million smart speaker owners in the United States.

However, this only makes up 26% of US Internet users, meaning that there is still plenty of room for growth in this space.

China has that most smart speaker owners in the world, with 85 million. But this makes up just 10% of the country’s total Internet users. Again, this proves a high global demand for the product, with tons of room for growth in the category.

Speaking of growth, look at the number of households in America that have a smart speaker.

There was a 78% growth rate between 2017 and 2018.

Here’s a crazier statistic. More than half of smart speaker owners have two or more devices.

This means that current smart speaker owners are still potential customers for you. This product is a great opportunity to sell online via your ecommerce shop.

5. Vapor products

E-cigarettes and electronic vaporizers, better known as “vapes” are growing in popularity.

There are several different components to vapor products. There is the device itself, which operates by heating a liquid solution. Then there are the flavored liquids, usually containing nicotine. Plus there are other accessories as well, and these products come in all different shapes and sizes.

Just to be clear, I’m not here to talk about the health risks of vaping or anything like that. Nor am I encouraging the use of e-cigarettes or nicotine products.

But like every other product on this list, I’m simply identifying market trends and sharing the information with you. These trends are telling me that it’s a hot category.

By 2023, the global vapor market is expected to reach $43 billion. That’s a 15% compound annual growth rate for five years. The figures are impressive, to stay the least.

There is definitely a market for this product, and plenty of money to be made by selling vapor products online. Just make sure you comply with all of the legal regulations associated with selling vapes and accessories through an ecommerce shop.

6. Jewelry

Jewelry is another product category with seemingly endless opportunities for online sales.

You can target men, women, children, and teenagers with high-end diamonds, low-end rings, and everything in between. There are so many options for products and targets in this industry.

Plus, you can even make jewelry by hand. More than 2 million handmade jewelry products are sold on Etsy.

Studies show that the global online jewelry market is expected to grow at a CAGR of nearly 16% between now and 2022.

According to Shopify, ecommerce only represents 4-5% of all jewelry sales worldwide. However, that number is expected to be 10-15% by 2021.

What does this mean? Jewelry sales, like most products, are starting to trend in the ecommerce direction. There is so much room for growth in the coming years with this product category.

7. Digital courses and learning material

You don’t always need to sell tangible products on your ecommerce shop. You can also sell digital goods like ebooks or online learning courses.

This is another booming industry.

According to Forbes, the e-learning industry is going to reach $325 billion by 2025.

There are so many potential customers here as well. In fact, 77% of corporations in the US use online learning tools. E-learning increases retention rates by up 60%.

So if you’re good at something, take advantage of it. Teach others how to do whatever it is that you know best.

Product content like blogs, ebooks, and videos. Then sell those digital goods online.

The best part about this is the low overhead. Your only costs will be running your website, processing transactions, and your time. Everything else is just straight profit.

8. Drones

The drone market is segmented into two categories.

• Consumer
• Commercial

There’s actually a military category too, but that’s not really relevant for ecommerce purposes.

While you might be tempted to just target the average Joe who wants to flow a drone around his neighborhood, you might want to consider the commercial market as well. Check out the growth of commercial drones over the years.

Between now and 2025, the global commercial drone market is expected to grow by roughly 700%. Now is the time to jump on this trend to get your share of the action.

You can still go after consumers as well. The unit sales of personal drones dominate 94% of the market. However, this only represents 40% of the total revenue share, since commercial drones are typically priced higher.

9. Clothing and accessories

It may sound simple, obvious, or boring, but the online clothing industry is huge.

But in order to be successful here, you definitely need to go after a niche. Trying to sell to anyone and everyone will be too competitive to survive.

By 2023, revenue from online clothing, footwear, and accessories in the US is expected to surpass $145.7 billion. That’s up from $93 billion in 2017.

58% of Americans have purchased clothing online.

Again, this is another industry where you have tons of options. There are different types of people to target, and countless options of products to sell at varying price points. Ultimately, there’s lots of money to be made selling clothes online.

Conclusion

There has never been a better time to sell products online. Starting an ecommerce store is easy, and consumers are continuing to buy products on the Internet more and more each year.

But what should you sell online?

Use this list as a reference. Unlike other similar posts that you’ll find online, I took the time to actually research industries and trends. I didn’t just pull random products out of thin air.

That’s why this information is so valuable. If you can set up your ecommerce shop around these trends, it has a much greater chance of being successful.

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34 Ways To Improve SEO Rankings in 2021

Where is your website traffic coming from?

If you’re relying on people to find you through a Google search, search engine optimization (SEO) needs to be at the top of your priority list.

You won’t be able to generate leads for your business if nobody can find you.

Did you know 93% of experiences on the Internet start with a search engine? What happens after someone makes a search?

The top result on Google has a 33% chance of getting clicked.

That means if you’re not number one on the page, you just missed out on a third of potential traffic.

What’s even more astonishing is that 75% people won’t even click on the second page of the search results.

The reason why other websites are ranking higher than you on Google is because they are making a conscious effort to improve their SEO.

Fortunately, it’s not too late for you to get started.

There are certain things you can do to increase your chances of getting ranked higher on Google searches.

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I’ve identified the top 34 ways to improve your SEO ranking. Here they are.

1. Improve your page loading speed

Your page loading time is important for a few reasons.

First of all, if your load speed is too slow, Google will recognize this, and it will harm your ranking.

But a slow website will also impact the way your website visitors engage with your pages.

As a result, those negative interactions will hurt your ranking too.

Look at how abandonment rates increase for websites with long page loading times:

How slow is too slow?

Research shows 40% of visitors will abandon websites if the page takes longer than 3 seconds to load.

What’s even more shocking is that 80% of those visitors won’t return to that website.

This is terrible for your SEO ranking because it ultimately kills traffic to your site.

But on the flip side, if your page loads fast, people will keep coming back.

Google’s algorithm will recognize your website’s popularity and adjust your search ranking accordingly.

This makes it extremely important to optimize both your page speed and server response time.

If you want to test the speed of your website, there are online services such as Pingdom available for free.

This will allow you to test your website from different locations all over the world.

If you find that your site is running slow then you may want to check your website theme and plugins.

If your slow server is the culprit then check out my list of the best web hosting providers and transfer to a new host!

2. Produce high quality content

How often do you update your website?

If you haven’t touched it since the day you built it, you probably don’t have a great SEO ranking right now.

To drive more traffic to your website and increase its popularity, you need to give visitors a reason to keep coming back.

Your content needs to be high quality, recent, and relevant.

Another factor that impacts your SEO ranking is so-called dwell time.

This relates to how much time people spend on your website per visit.

If your site has fresh, exciting, or newsworthy information, it will keep visitors on your page longer and improve your dwell time.

Websites that provide highly informative content typically have long dwell times.

Save your content ideas in one place across all the document apps you use.

Here’s something else to consider.

Google Chrome controls nearly 45% of the Internet browser market share, making it the most popular browser in the world.

That number will continue to rise as Chrome was also the most downloaded browser of 2017:

When users bookmark your website from a Google Chrome browser, it can help your SEO ranking.

High quality and relevant content will increase the chances of your website being bookmarked by visitors.

3. Optimize your images

Pictures and other images are great for your website.

But you need to make sure they are optimized properly if you want these images to improve your SEO ranking.

I’m referring to factors such as the file format and size.

Huge images can slow your page loading time, which, as I’ve said, hurts your ranking.

Resize or compress your images to optimize them.

You can also use your images to sneak in keywords by naming them accordingly.

For example, let’s say you have a website that sells toiletries or other bath products.

Instead of naming an image something like “shampoo1,” you could name it “best shampoo for long hair.”

You can also strategically use keywords in the title of your image as well as the caption or description.

4. Break up your content with header tags

Headings are another way to help improve the user experience on your website.

They break up the content and make it easier to read or skim.

Plus, headers make everything look more appealing, which is always beneficial.

If your website is just a wall of text, it’s going to discourage people from spending a long time on it.

As a result, your SEO ranking will suffer.

If you’re running your site on WordPress, you can easily change the header tags.

I use header tags for all my websites and blog posts.

If you’re not utilizing this tool, I highly recommend you start ASAP.

5. Start blogging

Blogging is great for your business.

It’s an outstanding tool for lead generation and helps you engage with visitors to your website.

But what most people don’t realize is blogging also improves SEO rankings.

Here’s why.

As I have already mentioned, producing fresh, updated, and relevant content can drive people to your website and give them a reason to stay on your pages for a while.

Well, blogs are the perfect channel for you to accomplish this.

If you can establish a large group of faithful readers, you can get lots of traffic to your site on a daily basis.

Plus, you can incorporate other things I talked about so far into your posts as well, such as images and header tags.

Other elements, such as links, increased readability, and keywords, can also be incorporated into these posts. I will talk about them shortly.

All of this positively impacts your search engine ranking.

6. Use outbound links

There are certain things you can do to increase the credibility of your website.

Sure, you can make claims, but it looks much better if you back them up.

All of your data claims should be linked to trustworthy and authoritative sources.

As you can see from what you’ve read so far today, I do this myself.

But here’s another example that illustrates what I’m talking about from a blog post I wrote about generating leads on Twitter:

All my facts are citations from authority sources.

And I made sure to use outbound hyperlinks to those websites.

You should not only link to authority sites but also make sure all the information is recent.

Notice that the graph I used in the example above is from 2017.

Outbound links to resources from 2009 are irrelevant and won’t be as effective for your SEO ranking.

You should also include internal links.

These links will direct visitors to other pages on your website.

I used this technique in the first sentence of this section.

If you scroll back up and click on the link, you’ll get redirected to another Quick Sprout blog post.

7. Add more than text

The content on your website shouldn’t be only written words.

As I said earlier, pictures are great too, but there’s more you can add to improve your SEO ranking.

Consider adding other multimedia elements such as videos, slideshows, or audio to your site.

All of this can help improve the user experience.

Why?

For starters, consumers want to see more videos:

It’s much easier to watch something than read about it.

But there’s a direct correlation between videos and other multimedia sources on your website, and it’s SEO ranking.

These features can dramatically improve the amount of time someone spends on your website.

Depending on the length of your videos, people could be on your page for several minutes.

If that happens, it will definitely boost your search ranking.

8. Make sure your site is readable

Keep your audience in mind when you’re writing content on your website.

If you want people to visit your site and spend time there, speak in terms they can understand.

Don’t try to sound like a doctor or a lawyer (even if you are one).

Your content should be written in a way the majority of people can understand.

Not sure if your content is readable?

You can use online resources to help.

One of my personal favorites is Readable.com.

Tools like this can help you identify words that might be too long or difficult for people to comprehend.

9. Fix any broken links

If you’re using authority websites for hyperlinks, you shouldn’t have to worry about the links breaking.

But it can still happen.

Broken links can crush your SEO ranking.

Plus, it doesn’t look good when a link you provide to your visitors brings them to an invalid website.

You can use tools like Dead Link Checker to search for links with errors on your website:

You can use this to check your entire website or specific pages.

If you sign up, you can also set up your account to get checked automatically.

Anytime a link goes dead, you’ll be contacted right away so you can replace it.

You can also use this resource to monitor other websites relevant to your industry.

How can that help your SEO?

Well, if a link goes dead on another website, you can notify the webmaster of that page and ask them to replace the dead link with a link to your website instead.

You’re doing them a favor by letting them know about a problem with their site, so they might be willing to do you a favor in return.

This will drive more traffic to your website. Outbound links from other websites to your page will help improve your SEO ranking too.

10. Optimize your site for mobile devices

As I’m sure you know, mobile use is on the rise.

It’s rising so fast that it’s actually overtaken computers and laptop devices.

In fact, over 60% of Google searches come from mobile devices.

Obviously, Google recognizes this and ranks sites accordingly.

Your website needs to be optimized for mobile users.

There’s no way around this.

If your site isn’t optimized, it’ll hinder the user experience, adversely affecting your ranking.

11. Properly format your page

Take your time when you’re coming up with a layout for your website.

It needs to be neat, clear, organized, and uncluttered.

Consider things like your font size and typography.

Use colored text, bold font, and italics sparingly.

Things such as bullet points and checklists make it easy for visitors to scan through your content.

Take a look at this example from Square:

It’s super clean.

They’ve got a simple picture and reasonable amount of text.

The way the text is formatted makes it easy for people to read, especially with the bullet points.

As you can see, Square also included different header tags and subheadings on their page.

If your website is cluttered with too many pictures, advertisements, colors, and blocks of text, it can appear untrustworthy.

Your site architecture and navigation also fall into this category.

A clean format and design will improve your SEO ranking.

12. Provide appropriate contact information

Speaking of appearing untrustworthy, have you ever struggled to find the contact information of a business on a website?

I know I have.

This should never happen.

All your contact information should be clear and in plain sight for people to find.

The worst thing that could happen is for people to start reporting your website just because you forgot to include your phone number, email address, and location.

This will crush your SEO.

13. Encourage sharing on social media

Every business and website needs to be active on social media.

That’s pretty much common knowledge.

But what’s not as well known is that you can get your SEO ranking improved if people share links to your website on social media.

Here’s an example from a pest control website case study in which they ran a campaign specifically designed to increase social sharing:

The infographic was shared 1,117 times in just two weeks.

During those same two weeks, the website’s organic search traffic rose by 15%.

As a result, their SEO ranking improved as well.

And that was just over a couple of weeks.

Imagine the results you’ll see if you encourage social sharing as a regular part of your SEO campaigns.

One of the best ways to do this is by including social sharing icons on all your content.

You should also share links on your social media pages.

When that information appears on people’s timelines, all it takes is just one click for them to share it.

14. Use keywords

Take a look at the components of the Google ranking algorithm:

Keywords play a major role in this formula.

You want to include words people will search for throughout your content.

But do it sparingly.

If you go overboard saturating your website with keywords, Google will pick up on this, and it will have an adverse effect on your ranking.

Keywords should fit naturally into sentences.

Include them in your header tags and even in image captions.

You should also use long-tail keywords, which are three or four word phrases that could be found in a search.

For example, someone probably won’t just search for the word “phone” when they’re looking for something.

But they may type in the phrase “best phone for texting” as an alternative.

If your keywords match their search, your website will have a greater chance of getting ranked higher.

15. Write click-worthy titles and descriptions

When it comes to writing titles for search engines, the first thing you have to know is this…you only have 65 characters to write your headline.

You could write the greatest headline, but if it’s over 65 characters, it will get cut off. This is what you will see:

Fortunately, the most important part of the headline is saved, but the rest is cut off. So keep it short.

Here are some other tips to keep in mind when creating click-worthy titles:

• Front-load your titles with keywords – You should front-load all of your keywords in your titles. People will typically only scan the first two words of a title.
• Keep it predictable – Your title should click-through to a page that meets the expectations of the user.
• Clear – The reader should know what your webpage is about in 65 characters or fewer.
• Make it emotional – Dan Shure wrote a great guide to writing titles, and one of his most important lessons is to make your titles emotional. See his SEOmoz article Are Your Titles Irresistibly Click-Worthy and Viral?! for great examples.

16. Create clean, focused, and optimized URLS

While your title tag needs to be emotional, your URL doesn’t. Let me show you what I mean.

Here is an example that Dan Shure used:

Avinash’s title tag is optimized for SEO and click rates. It’s optimized for SEO because of the keywords “digital marketing,” and it is optimized for click rates because of the words “change or perish,” which are very emotional, wouldn’t you agree?

His URL, however, does not include “change or perish.”

It doesn’t need to because it is only ranking for “digital marketing.”

How might you change this title tag to optimize it further? I’d rewrite it like this: “Digital Marketing: 2015 Rule Book. Change or Perish.”

That way you move the two keywords up front.

17. Write a great meta description

The meta description is the next element you must optimize.

If you view the source code, the tag looks like this:

<META NAME=“Description” CONTENT=“informative description here”>

If you use a WordPress plugin like All-in-One SEO Pack, you’ll get this form at the bottom of your blog editor:

Google has made this easy by giving you tips on how to create good descriptions. Here are the two most important:

• Make them descriptive – Front-load keywords that are relevant to the article. If you like formulas, ask “Who? What? Why? When? Where? How?” That’s a formula journalists use to report. It works equally well when writing descriptions.
• Make them unique – Each meta description should be different from other pages’ descriptions.
• Make them short – Google limits meta descriptions to 160 characters or fewer.

While meta description is not as important your heading is when it comes to getting clicks because people don’t seem to pay nearly as much attention to the description, it is still important from an SEO ranking perspective. So don’t ignore it!

18. Create a mobile app

You probably think I’m crazy, but hear me out: creating a mobile app can help bolster your SEO.

Granted, this is a rather expensive option, but it’s also an investment.

How exactly can an app boost your SEO? Google is now indexing apps on Google search with Firebase App Indexing.

When people are searching for keywords in your niche, they could find your app, and that creates some juicy SEO.

For example, when you search “reserve a restaurant” on Google, you’ll find an app on page one:

When your app pops up on a Google search, it automatically becomes a valuable resource.

But back to the main point—you can see the benefits of having a high-ranking app on Google. Yes, it’s costly, but it’s so worth it.

19. Use latent semantic indexing (LSI)

Although latent semantic indexing (LSI) is very powerful, not very many sites are using it. And that’s a shame because LSI can give your site a serious SEO boost.

LSI is the process search engines use to find related keywords in addition to your main keywords. In other words, LSI finds synonyms for keywords.

For example, if you’re writing an article about Facebook, you’d include “social media network” as an LSI keyword.

Let’s take a look at LSI in action. When you Google “buy new laptop,” one of the first pages that pops up is this TechRadar post:

Right away, you can see that “best laptops” is one of the post’s keywords.

You can see other keywords and phrases sprinkled throughout such as “budget” and “affordable.” And sure enough, when you Google “budget laptop” and “affordable laptop,” the post appears on page 1.

This article is a great example of how LSI can improve your SEO. Take it for a spin, and you’ll see just how effective it can be.

20. Sniff out unnecessary code

Code is good, but you know what they say about having too much of a good thing.

In this case, if your site has excess code, search engines will take longer to crawl your site, which is bad. On-page JavaScript and CSS are among the main offenders here.

Your code should be as lightweight as possible. This will also help your page load time, and a faster load time means better SEO.

21. Join question-and-answer sites

People are hungry for knowledge. That’s why so many people post on Q&A sites like Yahoo! Answers and Quora.

But there aren’t many answers out there. That’s where you come in.

The trick is to compose a thorough, well-written answer to someone’s question, preferably a question that doesn’t have many answers. You need to write the best answer possible and include links to your site when it’s relevant. (Don’t get spammy here!)

By doing this, you’re accomplishing two things at once. First, you’re helping the person asking. Second, you’re getting attention to your links, exposing them to countless readers. You’ll be seen as a valuable resource by the community, and people will be more likely to click your links.

22. Use infographics

Infographics pack a huge SEO punch. At Kissmetrics, we used infographics to generate over 2 million visitors and 41,142 backlinks. And our infographic strategy is still flourishing:

For your infographics to be super powerful, you need two things: great design and great content. Don’t overlook the content when creating infographics. Lots of people do, and guess what? Their infographics don’t perform well.

I also recommend coupling your infographic with at least 2,000 words of high-quality content. That’s because Google won’t index the text on the infographic itself, so writing longform content will give you extra ranking power.

One last trick on infographics. Make them move!

One of the coolest infographics I’ve seen is this one on cheetahs. What’s cool about it isn’t the data. It’s how the data and visualizations move within the graphic.

So, how successful was this concept? Let’s just say 1,170 websites link to it. Not too bad for one infographic.

23. Get some press

When I started out in the SEO world, I would manually build links, and it would take me months, if not years, to see good increases in rankings because my sites lacked links from authority sites.

But one day, I launched a site in the podcast space, and it got covered by sites like TechCrunch. Within weeks of the coverage, the site started to rank on page 1 for competitive terms in the podcast space.

It was then that I realized the power of press. From then on, I always got press for each of my companies, which helped them rank higher and faster.

So, how do you get press? A simple way is to pay a PR agency like PR Serve, who has a performance-based pay model, allowing you to pay it only when it gets you press.

A cheaper way to get press is to build relationships with reporters. By continually helping them out with their stories and giving them feedback, you will increase your chances of them eventually being interested in covering your company.

Or, if you want to go for the cold approach, which is harder but still works, you can always follow this PR email pitch template.

24. Get interviewed

I’ve found that the easiest way to generate links is through interviews. Every time someone interviews you, chances are they will link to your website. The links will be fairly relevant too as the linking web page will typically talk about your story or what your company does.

I know what you are thinking though…it’s easy for me to get interviewed because I have a well-established brand. And although you are right, it wasn’t easy when I first started out.

During the early days of my entrepreneurial career, I would continually email two to four bloggers a day who interviewed other people in my space to ask them if they wanted to interview me.

Most of them ignored my email or said no, but then I quickly learned that if I emailed them with feedback on their other interviews, they were more likely to agree to interview me.

For example, if Mixergy did an interview with your competitor, you could email them with your feedback on the interview. You could tell them that the interview was great but also highlight the points with which you disagreed. You would then end the email by asking if they want you to come on the show for an interview.

By using this tactic, you should be able to get one to two interviews a week.

25. If links are hard to find, think laterally

In some niches—such as marketing, recipes, and entertainment niches, for example—it’s very easy to get links.

There are hundreds of thousands of blogs that are willing to link to you if you make a good case.

But in some niches, those blogs just don’t exist.

That’s when you need to get creative.

One very effective strategy is to get links from related niches.

For example, if you’re a plumber, related niches would be:

• home DIY
• home decor
• beauty/life (e.g., a proper way to unclog sinks or prevent clogs)

Basically, think of any other niche that you can add your expertise to.

Then, all the typical SEO tactics come back into play: guest posting, forum posting, etc.

Let’s go through an example.

Let’s say that you’re a home decorator.

One related niche is home buying and owning, which has a different audience from your typical home decor enthusiasts.

You could write about how home decor could add value to your home. In fact, that turns out to be a good long-tail phrase:

What could you do with this?

You could create content for your own site and then reach out to home buyer/owner blogs asking for a link. That’s a standard SEO tactic.

Alternatively, you could use the idea for a guest post on a popular site.

Not only will it rank for the long-tail keyword that you target (sending you continuous traffic), but it’ll also send you a lot of immediate referral traffic from the site you post on.

Start by thinking of as many related niches as you can, then generate as many ways as possible to add value to those niches.

26. Boring niche? Here’s how to make it more fun

What can you do in a boring niche?

Can you really make painting homes fun?

If you approach the subject with a notion that it is, in fact, boring, then you probably can’t.

But usually, there are ways to make content at the very least entertaining.

Brian Dean did a great case study of this exact idea. Mike Bonadio, who runs an SEO agency based in NYC, had a client who worked in bug control—boring.

However, he created a high quality infographic on an interesting topic: how bugs can help you defeat garden pests. That infographic got picked up by a few prominent blogs:

Gardening is a related niche for pest control (just as we discussed in the previous section).

But Mike took it a step further by creating “fun” content.

Bugs aren’t supposed to be fun, but he made it fun by focusing on the benefits that bugs can provide.

And you can do this in every niche by focusing on exciting benefits and surprises instead of the boring parts.

For example, do you seal driveways?

Well, that seems boring at first, but what if you created content like:

• How many gallons of sealant would it take to seal Leonardo DiCaprio’s driveway?
• Choosing the wrong driveway sealant will cost you money: A comparison of the true cost of paving a driveway

I’m not so sure that all of those are real things, but the point remains. Turn the boring parts into an important element of a story, but not the main focus.

Back to the case study—how did it go?

Extremely well, I’d say. After Mike reached out to sites in that related niche, he was able to get over 60 referring domains and hundreds of links:

On top of that, he got over 2,100 views from referral traffic in the short term. His client’s site still ranks #4 for the term “exterminator NYC.”

Can you make your niche interesting to your customers? I know this is difficult and requires some thinking, so let me give you another example: Blendtec.

Blendtec is a company that sells…blenders.

Not exactly a sexy product.

However, you might have heard of their “Will it Blend?” video series.

In these videos, they blend all kinds of crazy objects, like iPhones, superglue, and even skeletons to answer the question: “Will it blend?”

They now get millions of views on each video they produce.

More importantly, those videos get linked to a lot, and those videos link back to Blendtec’s website, which makes them rank highly for all sorts of blender-related terms.

27. Diversify your links

There are a lot of different types of links you can get such as blog roll links, homepage links, links from blog posts, directory links, educational links, footer links, etc. SEOs have a tendency to build only one, instead of each, of these types of links.

If you want to rank high, you can’t just focus on one type of link building method such as directory links. Instead, you need to get links to your site from blogs, directories, and sometimes from the homepages of other sites. Just make sure whatever links you are building are also relevant as those links tend to have the biggest impact.

For example, with Quick Sprout, I have a variety of sites linking to me. Here is an example of a news site link, a sidebar link from a popular blog, a link within a blog post, and a link from an educational website, all linking to my site. The diversification of links coming into the site is what partly accounts for over 50% of my monthly traffic from Google.

28. Get set up on Google Business

Local SEO is important, especially if you’re a brick-and-mortar business.

If you’ve been skimping on this aspect of SEO, you’ll want to spend a few minutes setting up an account on Google Business.

This allows you to edit the info on your business, verify contact info, add images, monitor reviews, and more.

This can give you a huge advantage over competitors who fail to capitalize on this powerful resource.

29. Find link opportunities on BuzzSumo

You can use the same process with BuzzSumo.

Just enter your search phrase, and you’ll get a list of results.

Here’s what I get with “content marketing:”

From there, click on “View Sharers” on any articles that interest you.

You’ll then see a list of people who shared that article.

These can all be potential people with whom you may want to form relationships, which could eventually translate into link-building/guest-blogging opportunities.

30. Turn a standard post into a long-form post

I’m not going to insult your intelligence by stating the obvious fact that long-form content ranks better than, say, a typical 500-word post.

You already know that.

But here’s a nice little trick you can do with thin content.

Look for a shorter post, under 1,000 words, that’s pretty good but never lived up to its full potential.

Then spend 30 minutes “beefing it up” by adding more content, charts, graphs, visuals, etc. until it’s bona fide long-form content.

31. Get into Google News

News articles get pulled by Google on two SERPs—the traditional SERP you’re used to and the News section.

You may not have thought of Google News as a traffic source, but consider my point. It’s a traffic wellspring!

Check out this screen shot:

To get into Google news requires perseverance, honest reporting, cutting-edge articles, and regular updates.

If you are up to it and want your website to show up on the Google News SERP, here’s what you should do:

1. Start a “News” section on your blog/site.
   Update it regularly (1-2 newsy posts a day is a good practice).
2. Publish authoritative, unique, original, and newsworthy content. For research, set up a Google Alert for keywords in your niche.
3. Informational articles such as how-tos and guides do not qualify. Every post must be newsy.
4. Do not publish aggregated content.
5. Every news article you write must be authoritative.
6. The byline of each post must be linked to the author’s profile, which should contain their contact information and links to their social media profiles.
7. Follow the Google quality guidelines before starting your news section.
8. You need to subscribe to a paid Google account to become a Google News Partner because you can’t get in with a free account. The best thing is to sign up for a Google Apps email account, available for as low as $5 per month (https://apps.google.com/pricing.html).
9. Finally, start publishing, and enroll as a Google News Partner after building up sizeable content (at least 50 pages).

Yeah, it reads like a slow process, but it’s worth millions!

32. Become an expert in your niche

Sounds like a tall order, right?

But it’s not as difficult as you think.

You can increase your website’s traffic by growing your personal brand. I spent about a decade cultivating my personal brand. I then used that personal brand to boost traffic and generate high-converting leads, creating several multi-million dollar businesses.

You can do the same. Here is how.

Start sharing your knowledge tactfully and helping others without giving away your business secrets.

First, register at Q&A sites such as Quora, Yahoo Answers, and WikiHow. Join LinkedIn groups, and reach out to other sites in your niche that could benefit from your guest authorship or input.

Start answering questions and helping users. Do not promote your business or link to your website.

If your answers are helpful, users will start requesting your help. When you see help requests coming in, it’s time to strike (in a good way, of course).

From this point on, help people, but link back to your article or site when you do so.

Followers and browsers will follow your link, and your site traffic will multiply like crazy.

Yahoo Answers, LinkedIn, and Quora are liberal with links, but WikiHow has a tough backlinking policy, so be careful. Whatever you do, be polite, and write factual helpful information.

33. Influencing the influencers

You may have heard that influencer marketing is dead, but I can guarantee you that if any influencer links to your post, a swarm of traffic will follow.

Now, you cannot overtly approach an influencer and request that person to promote your content. Why? Because the minute the influencer reads your first line, they’ll understand what you want. Honestly, it’s a turnoff.

Influencers receive hundreds of content promotion requests every month. They can spot one from a distance.

Here’s what you can do instead. Influence and motivate the influencer to share your content.

I’ll show you how you can attempt that with an example.

Let’s say I am targeting “men’s fashion” as my keyword phrase. I Googled “top blogs on men’s fashion.” There are plenty of meaty results:

I visited one top blog, Off The Cuff, and found it was founded and owned by Christopher Hogan.

Next, I visited Christopher Hogan’s Twitter page. It looks like he tweets often, and some of his tweets are about formal fashion in different seasons (he has 3,300 followers. It’s a bit low, but there’s a twist in the tale).

That gave me an idea—a content strategy that can be endorsed by many influencers (with a gazillion followers).

Here’s what I’d do next:

• Check around the other top blogs. Figure out which bloggers have thousands of followers on Twitter or Facebook.
• Read their posts/tweets. Search for their interviews online to figure out what motivates them.
• Create an article (or video or infographic) based on my research. If I wanted to influence Christopher Hogan, I would create an infographic or write an article based on formal fashion for men for summer. I would stock the items that feature my content in my online store. I could perhaps title it “Men’s Formal Fashion for The Summer Inspired by Christopher Hogan Designs” (or some other designer).
• I would then tweet it to him or post on his FB page. If it appeals to him (and it should because I would have spent a whole lot of time and love making it), he will share it. That would get me targeted traffic that has the potential to convert.
• Even if he doesn’t retweet, I know I’m sitting on killer content bound to get noticed by guys who strut around in formals during the summer.

What I have given you is just an example. And it’s only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the potential of this technique.

Use your creativity to devise even more advanced and informative content within your niche.

You can use other tools, such as Followerwonk or Buzzsumo, to find influencers and apply the same technique.

34. Tools outperform content marketing

What’s the number one way websites are getting links these days? Content marketing, right? And although that’s correct, it doesn’t mean it is the best form of link building.

I’ve found that releasing free tools in the market place generates more backlinks and traffic overtime. In other words, it is a better investment than content marketing.

By releasing a free tool on Quick Sprout, I was able to:

• Increase my pageviews per visitor from 1.8 to 2.35.
• Decrease my bounce rate from 74% to 63%.
• Increase my time on-site from 2 minutes 10 seconds to 3 minutes 10 seconds.
• Increase visitor loyalty.

The key with releasing free tools that generate thousands of visitors and links is for you to create something that is easy to use and is high in demand. The best way to figure out what to release is to see which companies are doing extremely well in your space.

Conclusion

Search engine optimization isn’t just a fad that’s going to phase out soon.

It’s something your website needs to concentrate on right now and in the future as well.

If you’re just starting to focus on SEO, you’re a little bit behind, but it’s definitely not too late to implement the strategies I just talked about.

Don’t get overwhelmed.

Start with a few, and move on to the others.

Monitor your results.

Checking your traffic and search ranking will help validate your SEO strategy.

Soon enough, you’ll be making your way toward the top search results on Google.

Who knows, you might even be able to claim that number one spot.

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