Posts Tagged ‘Australia’

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Jun212010

Setting up a Company in Australia

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First of all it is pretty easy to do, you simply go to the ASIC website and search for the company name you would like to register to see if it has not been taken, and to be extra sure I also suggest you search in the business registration website as well by clicking on ABN look up and you can type the name of the company just to see if anyone else has this name.

Now that you are 100% certain nobody has registered your name, you can download the form 201 which appears as a drop down from the right sidebar on their home page and leads you to this page and then gives you the option to register either a public or proprietary company, to keep this really simple, I recommend you register the proprietary company (201c) which has a cost of $400.

This is the download form (unfortunately they do not yet have an online version) Once you are ready to fill out the form, remember that it is highly likely you need to nominate yourself as the director, and you can leave other directors and secretary pages blank if you do not have partners, however if you have partners then you will need to fill out those pages and also state the shares each partner has. Otherwise leave it as 100 shares at 100% ownership at $1 per share. (This is just an example)

From the time the application is submitted there is usually a 3 day waiting period, it really doesn’t take that long and then you will need to wait a week or two on the company registration certificates. You will need the original certificate in order to open the company bank account.

You will then have an ACN number which will be very useful for when applying for certain things. Remember also that if you think that you will be earning over $75,000 to apply for GST. This means you will need to charge 10% on top of all your invoices to your clients. But also remember that by doing so you will need to get your bookkeeper to fill out the GST statements each quarter before giving them to your accountant, which can be very time consuming and costly.

For those who are in need of branding out, I highly recommend trademarking your name as well. This can be done through IP Australia and remember to do a search there as well!

And if you have a new product on the market, do not forget to patent it!

Last but not least if you are after website design or search engine optimisation services for your new company at affordable prices please do give me a bell – info@danlew.com

I hope you found this post useful and wish you all the best in getting a company set up and good luck!

Feb232010

Australian Business Directory

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For those of you who are not aware back in my recent posts about setting up an office back in Australia and discussing about doing business in Melbourne I thought what better way to top it all off by putting together an Australian Business Directory – Ausindex.com.au.

For SEO purposes getting lots of links from quality directories is a key factor in search engine rankings. I always recommend my clients to not only get quality links from sites like business.com but also any relevant links from local directories are also important in gaining authority in Google and other search engines.

Most of the Australian directories I found were either charging too much, or were totally junk. The business directory I put together is of very good quality and includes all very good categories in my opinion, and is very good for SEO as the url’s. are very short and neat.

For a featured business listing it’s only $15 per year and a standard business listing is $9 per year. 3 way link exchanges are also acceptable.

For quality assurance purposes all business listings will also be verified and checked before approval so that the directory stays clean and official. Articles are also accepted and at a small submission cost.

If you have a business in Australia it’s worth checking out and adding a few listings as I will be optimising this site for maximum performance. See you on there!

Jan312010

Australian Online Businesses

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Online businesses in Australia are surely one of the most thriving and profitable. For example Carsales.com.au, Wotif.com, Sitepoint.com and Digitalpoint forum just to name a few are all Australian owned sites and are very well known and profitable.

USA web businesses in my opinion are really overrated. I even know that top UK sites are also leading the market. Look at Wayn.com for example, they are UK founded and are a travel social network site with over 20 million users.

Exploroo has also some similarity to Wayn and was an inspiration for me to get involved as a founder and partner. Although my true passion is being involved with SEO and servicing clients, I am always open minded to different ventures that can bring me success.

If you can get onto a big idea then there is lots of opportunity. Fairfax saw a big opportunity in RSVP.com.au and had scraped this up for AUS$39 million.

As the internet continues to drive towards success local businesses are taking advantage of SEO services to gain maximum exposure as big companies are really stretching the gap between smaller internet businesses.

But there is still alot of success with smaller sites and bigger returns. They are sitting quitely in the background with no need of big noting themselves.

This ranges from any service related companies that use their website as an open door to direct orders. This includes clothing shops, hotels chains and many other smaller businesses.

Overall though as the economy strengthens in Australia so does business. There has not been a decline yet in property and was recently mentioned that Australia is one of the least most affordable places to live in the world, in this report included Sydney and Melbourne.

This again gives much push to RealEstate.com.au, Domain.com.au along with job finding sites such as Seek.com.au which are already one of the top 100 sites in Australia according to Alexa.

What do you think about Australia Online Businesses? Are you one of the few that are being rewarded quietly, or do you need to improve your online presence including SEO alot more before your business reaps the rewards!

Jan252010

Doing Business in Melbourne

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Generally speaking if your wandering around Melbourne at cafes wearing a suit and have business cards handy, deals are very easy to come by.

Most people who are from Melbourne are very social people so network marketing is very easy and conversation with CEOs are not a problem, as they too also like to get out to their favourite restaurant or coffee for a business discussion over lunch or dinner.

I am originally from Australia and spent most of my life there, although I have invested 6 years overseas doing business in Bangkok, Thailand and London, UK, there is one thing about Melbourne that inspires me to continue business there. That is the fast paced lifestyle. It is naturally in me to be very hard working and around business minded people that take their work serious.

One thing about Melbourne is the cold weather which keeps you on the go. I really enjoy doing business there. I will be going back around March to set up a new office there, so should be exciting. I plan to make my SEO Melbourne business well known particularly around the Caulfield area.

When doing business in East Melbourne or the city, it’s very convenient to go from one client to the next as trams come and go every 5 mins or so. Just setting your day up for scheduled appointments is the key, as you want to meet at a specified time. I generally feel that early morning around 9-10am is good as it gives you a nice 1-2 hours if necessary before lunch if they have already something scheduled during this time.

In my field relating to SEO and Internet Marketing taking a laptop is vital for any appointment regardless if they have a projector or not, and remember that following up with a client over lunch or inviting the client to your office as well is also a good idea.

And one big tip, if you want to get in your clients good books ask what is their favourite football team, no matter your interest, they will appreciate you asking!

Oct122009

Google Wave

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After 2 years of production in Sydney, Australia, Google have finally announced their new platform Google Wave . There has been alot of interest in getting an Invitation to try it out before release. It is still in beta stage and will be officially ready early next year.

They call it the 3p’s – Product – Platform – Protocol

What is really cool about this product is when you are emailing you can kind of quote each paragraph to comment on each paragraph and it automatically does spell check and corrects words for you.

google wave

What is also amazing is there is an instant messaging type of system within the platform, as you type and have a conversation the user can see that your typing and instead of waiting on the message, you can see what the user is already starting to type before they have clicked submit.

There is also a playback option that if another user jumps in on the conversation or email, they can see what was said previously without having to go back in other emails. Just really a remarkable option.

Another amazing option is the photo gallery tool. I must admit this is going to be a real test on Facebook as most users love Facebook purely for the reason that they can upload all their images. But with the Google Wave it’s so much more advanced as you can drag and drop photos straight onto your email. Once you see how this works in the video below, your mouth will honestly drop.

photo album google wave

This product being open source will be great competition in my view to Microsoft as Microsoft are always clearly after the money. And will kill programs like outlook and any other email programs will totally flop in my opinion. I tell you im certainly ready to move over as soon as they release this to the public, without question.

The Google Wave concept was initially developed as “Walkabout” by Lars and Jens Rasmussen, the brothers who developed the software that became Google Maps.

Oct122009

Ten Year Update for eBay Australia

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From the days where retailers were closing up their retail stores to come online in 1999, eBay Australia was launched by Kerry Packer’s ecorp and started off with 9000 members. Today they have 8 million registered users, and have generated 2.6 billion dollars worth of sales and have sold 173 million items and have recently celebrated eBay Australia Ten Year Anniversary

eBay

“The site has grown from an auction-based sales site with an average of 94,000 listings a month in 1999 to today’s online shopping phenomenon, averaging almost 80 times that number of listings each month.”

I remember back in the day where you could almost sell anything and it would sell, today this is still happening. It was reported that a Nutri Grain sold on eBay today for $1000, just 1 grain of Nutri Grain, how bizarre!

But even through growing times, eBay on the other hand is still cutting back on jobs as stated recently. With 1600 layed off in 39 countries, and 18 of those will also be cut in the land of Oz. They will then be investing in other ventures one company Bill Me Later .

For those of you who are not aware , Skype is owned by eBay but recently in September eBay sold 65% of Skype to a private equity firm Silver Lake Partners for 1.9 billion leaving ebay with 35% shares.