For small businesses owners, especially those who retailed mostly or exclusively online, it is important to understand the latest trends and changes in the business world so that small companies can continue to turn a profit and react accordingly to alterations in the financial environment. When small businesses need to stay informed, business magazines can be helpful since they are newly updated and present data in an easy to understand format. What are some things that business magazines are covering right now?

First, search engine optimization, or SEO, is growing in terms of how much advertising money is pooled into this online marketing field. Recently, however, the Google algorithm updates have drastically altered the playing field, and many SEO companies have been struggling to keep up. SEOs, before the algorithm change, relied on syndication of content to help boost web rankings for clients. The algorithm change, however, ignores content that is repeated on the web, so that even the Salvation Army experienced a 33 percent drop in the amount of traffic they received.

Second, online business magazines are useful because they give the latest information available and also have a search function, so that you do not need to learn about things that are not important to your business. What many online business magazines are talking about right now is the changes made to healthcare via the Affordable Care Act and how that will affect different companies. The way each company has to buy into the new insurance coverage depends on primarily the number of employees the company has.

Third, this week magazines detail how many businesses are looking to permanently cut certain overhead costs in wake of the recession. This takes multiple routes depending on the type of business. Businesses that traditionally have more flexible hours, such as real estate agents and insurance sales people, are often outsourcing their receptionists in order to save money.