VH Australia – Business Development Advice

Borrowing Money to Grow a Small Business

November 5, 2026VH AustraliaFinance Advice

Growth usually costs money before it makes money. New equipment, more stock, bigger premises or a new website all need paying for up front. Many small business owners turn to borrowing to cover that gap. Before you sign anything, it helps to understand the options and what each one really costs.

This guide covers the main types of business finance available in Australia. It explains the difference between debt and equity, where loans come from and how to prepare an application. It draws on guidance from the Australian Government and the Small Business Development Corporation in Western Australia. Rules and products change, so always check current terms with the lender.

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Preparing a Business Continuity Plan for a Small Business

September 26, 2026VH AustraliaBusiness Advice

A fire, flood, long power outage or burglary can stop a small business overnight. Most owners know this could happen, but not every owner writes down what they would do. A business continuity plan is that written answer. It sets out what keeps the business earning and how you would keep it going when something goes wrong.

The good news is that the plan does not need to be long. The Australian Government’s business.gov.au site breaks it into three simple parts. This guide walks through each part in plain terms. It also covers how to test and update the plan so it stays useful.

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5 Benefits Of Hiring Professionals To Clean Your Commercial Carpets

December 2, 2025VH AustraliaBusiness Advice

If you own or manage a large company with multimillion-dollar budgets and numerous offices, it could be that you employ in-house cleaning staff whose number might include an office cleaner with the responsibility of ensuring all the carpets throughout your commercial premises are cleaned properly.

That is a big ‘If’ because we are certain that the vast majority of those reading this who own or run a business do so in smaller, local businesses that have no intention of hiring carpet cleaners for internal use.

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How Your Web Hosting Service Can Influence Your Website’s SEO

March 4, 2023October 31, 2024VH AustraliaDigital Marketing, Web Hosting

If your business has a website, it is of little use unless it has traffic. Thankfully, there are many ways to generate traffic. Some cost money, and others are free but come with a cost in terms of time and effort. Of the latter, one traffic-generating method that has created fortunes for many businesses that have benefitted from it is SEO.

SEO stands for search engine optimisation, and it is how a website and its pages are optimised so that Google improves its ranking whenever someone searches using terms relating to that business. SEO is an entire industry with experts able to help a website move from obscurity to the top of page one on Google. They do this in countless ways, but they are not the only ones who can help boost your SEO.

Your hosting service provider can also play their part, albeit not in the same hands-on way an SEO agency would. Instead, based on the quality, reliability, and performance of their hosting and their servers, a hosting company can boost your ranking on Google without so much as creating a single backlink. How do they do this, and why does it work? Here are some of the answers to those questions.

Page Load Speeds

The speed at which your website’s pages load is critical to Google rankings. Slow load times mean visitors click away and that is identified by Google which will downgrade the rankings of websites it sees has lots of ‘bounces’ and where visitors do not stay very long.

Server Locations

Whilst the location of a server might not directly impact your ranking it can influence it indirectly. If a hosting company has multiple server locations meaning your website is hosted on a server in the country you are targeting, your pages should load faster for local visitors than if the servers are on the other side of the world.

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WordPress vs Blogspot What Should I Use

December 14, 2022October 25, 2024VH AustraliaDigital Marketing, Website Development

In the modern world of the internet, more and more people are starting to write their own websites and personal blogs every single day. While WordPress remains the most popular website creation platform, with over 25% of the internet built on it, other, smaller sites like Blogger are still used by millions of people.

If you are thinking about starting your own website or blog, the question of which platform to use will come up. While there are plenty of options out there, WordPress.org (self-hosted WordPress) and Google’s Blogger are definitely two of the most popular. Discover more about them both below:

WordPress:

WordPress is the world’s largest website building platform, and is used by millions of people throughout the world. It is reported that over a quarter of the internet’s websites run on WordPress, and many of these are among the world’s largest. There are a lot of reasons why people love WordPress, including it’s customizability and full ownership:

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Affiliate Marketing With WordPress – Is It Worth It?

July 7, 2021April 10, 2023VH AustraliaDigital Marketing, Website Development

Affiliate programs are becoming increasingly popular in the digital world as businesses try and gain a majority share of their industry. Creating affiliate sites using WordPress has become a niche industry which – for some – is extremely financially rewarding. However, like everything in the digital world, affiliate marketing with WordPress isn’t for everyone. Is it worth it for you?

What Is Affiliate Marketing?

Basically, affiliate marketing involves you promoting someone else’s products or services and receiving a commission on every sale or conversion that you make. Affiliate marketing has existed for decades in the physical world, but it’s very different in the digital space.

On the internet, affiliate marketing can be completed by pretty much anyone. For example:

Owners of existing websites might choose to include affiliate banners or affiliate links throughout their website, making the most of space that they would have been using anyway.
High-profile social media influencers use affiliate marketing regularly, promoting certain products or services in order to make a profit.
Dedicated affiliate marketers create affiliate-based websites designed to generate affiliate income.

For the rest of this article, we will be assuming that you want to create a dedicated affiliate website with WordPress.

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5 Tried And Tested SEO Techniques That Still Work In 2020

June 15, 2020October 31, 2024VH AustraliaDigital Marketing

Given SEO’s somewhat technical nature, it is easy to assume that to do SEO correctly, you need only use the latest tactics and techniques.

While keeping up to date with what is working is to be encouraged, you must not lose sight of the fact that tried and trusted techniques also play a huge role in boosting and maintaining rankings.

In other words, you should look to use an effective combination of the latest SEO and SEO that has proven itself for many years. If you are wondering what some of the latter might be, here are five of them.

#1 Understand How To Measure Your Ranking Performance

This is SEO 101, but it is still shocking how many website owners spend hours implementing SEO but barely a few minutes measuring its effectiveness. Always measure your results to make the necessary adjustments and improvements.

#2 Mix Up Your Backlinks

Backlinking works, but only if done correctly. Too often the same types of backlinks are used which is a red flag to Google. Mix up where they come from and the keywords you use, to make them more natural. (more…)

5 Things You Could Be Claiming, But Aren’t

September 10, 2019October 15, 2019VH AustraliaBusiness Advice, Finance Advice

Tax returns are difficult, time consuming and a pain in the neck. For many people, qualified accountants are the answer, no matter how expensive they are. However, other people can’t afford to use accountants or tax agents to lodge their tax return, and this can lead to mistakes.

Even if you have lodged your tax return correctly, and have fulfilled all of your legal requirements under Australian law, you still might be losing a lot of money due to an incorrect tax return. You may have forgotten to claim certain work related expenses, or you may have forgotten that you could claim some things altogether. Our top 5 things that people could be claiming on their tax returns, but aren’t, include:

Travel expenses

If you or your employees travel for work, you can claim any travel related expenses. This includes things like aeroplane or bus tickets, accommodation and food. Make sure that you keep any receipts, and note that you can only claim these things if the sole purpose of the trip is business.

Charity donations

A lot of people either don’t realise that they can claim charitable donations on their tax return, or they simply forget to do so. For someone who donates even small amounts to charity every year, it is definitely worth claiming your donations as a tax deduction. Sure, it might not save you a whole lot, but it will lower your taxable income, and it will reduce the amount of tax you have to pay.

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5 Ways to Protect Your Personal Assets When Starting a Business

February 14, 2017October 15, 2019VH AustraliaLegal Advice

It’s important to consider the way you treat your personal assets when you’re starting a new business. If you do things right, you should be able to separate your personal and business assets, protecting yourself, even if your business goes broke.

It’s always a good idea to speak with a decent commercial lawyer or account before taking any drastic financial management steps, but it’s also a good idea to know what options are available to you before you speak to anyone.

With this in mind, we’ve put together a short list of the top 5 things you can do to protect your personal assets when you’re starting a new business. They include:

Structure yourself as a company

Structuring your business as a company, rather than as a small business or sole trader, can help protect your personal assets. Companies are seen as separate entities, and only the company’s assets will be at risk if something goes wrong.

A business planner or commercial lawyer will be able to help you decide what the best business structure for your financial needs is.

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