June is about to arrive and the time is upon us to sort out our taxation and end of financial year finances. This time of year is a perfect time to reconsider your business budgeting and allocate funds appropriately for the upcoming year. Think about your marketing budget and place funds into a stream that can work for your business. We have been following some great developments online and have found a well referenced site that’s perfect for online public relations efforts called www.prweb.com. The sites focus is in publishing articles to a huge amount of online locations which can effectively generate back-links to your site which in turn act as SEO tools and improve your rankings in Google searches. We have also been enjoying the increasing value of marketing Guru Seth Godin’s Blogs – http://sethgodin.typepad.com/.
Seth is the most popular marketing blogger on the planet having being included in Time Magazine’s top 25 bloggers of all time 2 years in a row. If you only have 2 spare minutes today then this short video from Seth sums up the need for social media to translate into real world relationships.
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1879276_1879279_1879068,00.html
We enjoy visiting Seth’s page each day for some genius free advice and inspiration.
While investigating how to best spend our marketing budget we came across this short and sweet article on the “10 facebook marketing essentials to consider”. Perfect for the those on a shoestring budget, facebook can be as cheap or expensive as you desire with a host of targeting options for advertising and the worlds largest social network allowing you to reach “every man and his dog” and, even if you have NO budget then some decent time spent interacting on Facebook can bring potential customers right to your business and put you into the status streams of some new potentials. Futher to this, Facebook pages feature some very comprehensive statistics allowing you to gauge better who your target market is and allow you to tailore future efforts with improved demographics data. You can listen to a great podcast relating to this and more at - http://www.bnetau.com.au/blog/aussierules/ten-facebook-marketing-essentials-btalk/7081
Facebook is one of the cheapest (albeit time consuming) and most effective mediums in which our business can communicate directly with customers and the value of setting up your own business page on Facebook cannot be over stated. Facebook is nearly “on par” with search engine giants Google when it comes to search terms. This means people expect to be able to find you on facebook even if it’s not an area of strength in terms of sales for your business. NOT having a Facebook page in 2011 is akin to not having a yellow pages advert in 1985 . There’s no excuses, and if you’re one of those people that use a personal profile to manage your business then think again. Facebook is actively revoking profiles which are in breach of its terms of service and it’s common for profiles to be cancelled when it fails to meet Facebook’s terms and conditions. If you have a personal profile then setting up a business page takes only moments and will return strong results in Google searches too which means your further optimizing your website and online presence just by completing the page setup. One often overlooked feature with facebook pages is custom URL settings. Make sure your page is set with an easy to remember, relevant URL. You can find us on facebook by visiting our own new and improved URL.
https://www.facebook.com/itsimple.digital.agency
While Tax is the subject of cringe worthy shudders to most folk, many rejoice with the impending cheque from the tax office funding beer fuelled nights, a weekend away skiing or possibly that parking fine from 6 months ago which has now been raised $50 by the state debt recover office. One way or another Tax time isn’t going away so you best sort it out now so it can be one of those things that works for you rather than against you. There are loads of online resources to help you make the most of it with some stunning new online tools for those of us that might need more help than we can find in the FAQ’s section of the ATO’s website, which for your information is right here – http://www.ato.gov.au/
Another great online resource for sorting out tax related issues is www.justanswer.com which now has a dedicated question portal specifically for Australian Taxation needs where you can find Australian taxation professionals to answer your questions. Try shooting them a question here – http://bit.ly/jLwPSd
Of course there are plenty of tips available online too and a quick look can bring some very rewarding results. There are also some great articles on how to keep everything taxable on track from www.news.com.au as well as some more resources for finding tax help in your local area.
http://www.news.com.au/money/tax-time/tax-tips-more-gain-less-pain/story-fn8qmzek-1226065416588
If you’re using a tax agent to prepare your tax return this year it’s a good idea to check they are registered. Otherwise you could find yourself with a large tax bill or worse, facing penalties. Only a registered tax agent can charge a fee to prepare and lodge your tax return. Unfortunately there are some people out there who pretend to be registered tax agents when they are not.
Tax Commissioner Michael D’Ascenzo said the Tax Office looks closely at tax returns prepared by people who claim to be tax agents but are not registered with the Tax Agents’ Board.
“Using an unregistered tax preparer who claims to be a tax agent will increase your chance of being audited by the Tax Office,” Mr D’Ascenzo said.
“Your tax return is your responsibility even if someone, including a tax agent, helps prepare and lodge it for you”
While anyone can lodge and prepare a tax return on your behalf only a registered agent can charge a fee for their services. With such a tight budget in 2011 be sure that you don’t pay someone to operate their taxation scam, leave you with a half baked return and dump the full responsibility of sorting out a whole new claim due to reporting errors right back onto you.
