Just about everyone at some time or other has wished they had more storage space. This applies to both businesses and individuals. With the present state of the economy, creating storage units or additional space can bring in extra income. Storage units can be a source of revenue for businesses or even apartment or condominium owners.

One way storage units are useful is that files can be moved to make better use of office space. Records storage is one prime example of how storage units can be used to help increase revenue. If dated files that are not being used regularly are kept in prime office space, they are not adding to profitability. Moving those files into storage can free up space for more profitable uses such as additional offices.

Some warehouses can also improve or increase their own storage space and store items for others. One ideal and fairly inexpensive way to increase storage space is to use pallets or shelving units which can hold lots of different types of items. Improved storage can also lead to improved operational efficiency. It helps especially in locating needed material or items quickly and easily.

Additional storage units can also work to generate additional revenue by ensuring that raw material is always available for manufacturing ventures. If that company creates storage units or rents storage space, they could buy in bulk meaning that they pay less for raw material. As well, they will have purchased items at a lower price in the event that operating costs increase.

In short, storage units can help a company better manage its inventory which results in increased profit or revenue in the long run. This is something any company would want; especially since the outlay to create more space may not be high. Best of all, storage units can be rented, built, or an existing one modified, for better use.

A family with a storage unit that is not fully utilized could also earn additional income. They can rent the storage for boats, furniture or other items for families without storage such as apartment dwellers. The fact that storage units are relatively maintenance-free is also a benefit as there is little expense incurred by keeping them.

To get additional revenue, some businesses actually rent or lease vacant space in the basement as storage. This can bring in quite a chunk in additional income. Many buildings have valuable storage space in the basement that is used to store junk. Getting rid of the unwanted items and cleaning up the space for storage rental is good business sense.

The troubled economy has led many people and businesses to seek new ways to earn revenue, but it is also responsible for the increased demand for storage space. Look around and see where you have unused space that can be used for storage. This space, if large enough, can be used to bring in additional revenue. Increased earnings are a boom in the best of times, but even more so in the worst of times.

Thanks to the internet, there are now multiple ways for you to promote your self-storage business. The most obvious would be to build a website where you can offer information about your company, products, services, and prices. However, the success of your website depends on its search engine page rank. To be ranked high, you need to augment the website content or promote the site.

How do you promote your website and business online? The best and the cheapest way would be to do it through blogs. Blogs cost next to nothing (some blog hosting sites even offer the facility for no charge). Regular blogging is one way of adding fresh content to your website (if the blog is hosted on your domain). New content attracts search engines, and the more regular your blogging habits, the better your page rank.

Starting Out

Before You Begin Writing Blogs, You Need To Think About The Following:

* Target audience – As the owner of a self-storage business, you have to write keeping in mind potential vendors and customers. You also need to address the industry because this will help you build a network.

* Who writes – Not everyone is born with good writing skills. No matter how good you might be at managing your self storage facility, you may not be cut out for writing. Many managers do not have the time to update their blogs. It would be a good idea to find a professional writer to add content to your blogs on a daily or weekly basis.

* Design and domain name – The name and URL of your blog is important. It affects the recall value of your online brand. The titles of the blogs and domain name need not be the same. In general, avoid long domain names or names with too many special characters. Capital letters and hyphens can be used only if the name looks odd without them, e.g., www.RE-StoreFacility.com. Design is an important element. Dont use loud graphics, and limit the use of Flash. Keep the design professional and dont crowd every kind of information on a single page.

Moving Ahead

* SEO – SEO requires some amount of technical knowledge. If you dont know anything about HTML coding, directory submission, keyword optimization, you might need to hire SEO experts.

* Link building – Reciprocal links with relevant sites with high page rank can boost your page rank as well. Leave comments on other blogs and tagged news sites to get more traffic.

* Allow people to comment and chat with you through blogs. Blogs require some amount of online fame – or notoriety – to move up the search engine ranking ladder. Interactive features can help you build a network and you can use the “comment control” setting for ensuring that your blog remains clean and spam free.

Use these simple steps to create and enhance the features of your self storage blogs. Good luck!

It enables you to have the ability to bulk purchase when necessary and at the same time secure the best purchase price available. You can archive records and store paperwork away without having to take up valuable office or warehouse space, but still having good access as and when needed.

Self storage being extremely flexible can offer immediate rental, providing a fast solution for an office move or reorganisation, with the option of increasing or decreasing the size of unit hired at anytime at your convenience, as each self storage facility has a variety of different size and shape units designed to suit different needs.

Most self storage facilities offer excellent access with one or even more industrial roller shutter doors, wide corridors and with some internal units with double door access allowing larger items of plant and equipment to be stored and manoeuvred. With such excellent access large shipments on pallets or palleted stock items can also be conveniently stored with ease.

Many commercial self storage companies offer a stock management service whereby they will accept any deliveries and place them directly into your chosen unit, and likewise can help with outward collections from your unit, releasing you from any time constraints waiting for items to be delivered or collected.Many Sale Executives are realising the benefits of using a self storage facility, keeping stock and promotional equipment in a central location. Once again utilising a stock management service, freeing their valuable time allowing them to promote and sell their goods unhindered and safe in the knowledge that they have unlimited access to their unit, dropping in anytime when passing by. Other benefits to the Sales Executive are keeping space at home or the business premises free from clutter, keeping their equipment and stock samples in a safe and secure place, removing the risk of damage or theft. Most self storage facilities offer CCTV, police monitored alarms, fire detection systems and monitored door entry access, and an insurance option may be included or additional to the rental charge.

Financial benefits of commercial self storage are not just restricted to time saving by using stock management, but also by removing the need to move or expand into larger business premises with all the expense and restrictions that are associated with it. The extra space created in the current business premises may be better utilised for more productive purposes rather than just storage. Very often discounts can be negotiated with the storage facility for long term rental adding to the savings available.

The web is an ideal tool to source your nearest storage facility, however it is recommended when choosing a storage company you select one that is a member of the Self Storage Association as they will be working with the latest license agreement and insurance. All Self Storage Association members are listed on their website, once on their website simply click on locate a store which will take you to the search page. You then have the option to search by company name i.e. Acme Self Store, or by location i.e. Self Storage in Lichfield or Self Storage Tamworth etc, for the nearest town, if unsuccessful widen your search i.e. Staffordshire for the nearest facilities in your county.

In a consumer driven capitalistic marketplace such as the United States, the average person buys many more products than he or she needs or even realistically store in a typical residential building; therefore, the self storage business has seen an explosion of interest over the last decade. This explosion has been created by a number of factors including the shift of individuals and families to smaller houses, apartment buildings and condos that offer less storage space than typical single family houses, the continuous of a consumer based economy that constantly pressures an individual to buy and consume a never ending series of products, and a counter current trend that says that it is wasteful to throw away items that you no longer use or even need.

The United States economy has always been driven by the production of products. Manufacturers learned early on that if they did not constantly innovate and improve their products, consumers would not see the need to constantly purchase newer products. They would instead rely on the products they already had. Therefore, manufacturers and businesses quickly began issuing newer and improved models of the same products. This process tapped into the average Americans urge to constantly consume products by giving the average American a reason to go out and buy a newer product to replace the older product. Thus, we have families that will buy a new vacuum cleaner because it is a newer series with some different features when they may have a perfectly good vacuum cleaner siting in their hallway closet. The average family in the United States now owns 2.5 vacuums.

Add to this almost sickening compulsion to buy unneeded products is a counter trend that has come to permeate American culture that states that it is wrong to throw away products even if those products have been rendered useless by newer better products. For instance an individual might still have a video game console even though he or she has the newer and better version of that same console. For whatever reason, we seem to want to hold to those things that we have purchased like they are trophies testaments to our ability to buy products that we do not need or even use.

Added to this compulsion to buy and retain items is a phenomenon that has seen a dramatic shift away from the traditional single family home to smaller, more manageable, and more affordable housing options. Thus, we see the construction of huge apartment or condominium complexes. While offering many advantages over single family homes, space is not one of them. There is usually much less available storage space. Closets are smaller, there is usually no garage, and no ability to place storage shed in your backyard.

Thus, the sudden interest in the self storage business can be explained. Like always, people are driven to buy the newest and best product available even if they do not need that product. These people tend to have a very hard time parting from their older obsolete items. At the same time families are moving into smaller, more manageable living spaces. This means that they have less space to store their unused products. Therefore, they rent storage space at self service units, thereby, increasing the demand for such businesses.

Self Storage facilities first appeared in the UK in the 1980s, following on from the success in the USA where it is now a major industry with around 40,000 self storage facilities. It is now apparent that self storage space has become an important asset to the service industry and businesses of all sizes in general.

The two commonly used types of storage are container storage and self storage. Container storage predominantly offers a storage option with limited sized outdoor containers, sometimes stacked and only accessible by prior arrangement with the need of a fork lift truck, often surcharged. Self Storage offers companies and individuals a larger variety of sizes from lockers to large tailor made individual units, or multiple units to meet exact requirements. The units are situated within a larger building offering individual self contained rooms. The larger storage facilities offer a choice of units located on different floors utilising lifts and wide industrial staircases, all with goods handling and distribution equipment such as pallet pump trucks, sack trucks and trollies for ease of access at no extra charge to the individual or business.

Self Storage facilities are usually easily located in heavily populated areas, along major roads and near to retail and business parks. Ideal for business clients as an alternative to owning or leasing expensive industrial units with long leases.

The ideal space maker for businesses, self storage offers businesses the flexibility to manage their own space by swopping between unit sizes as and when required, with the option of short and long term periods of hire via a straight forward license agreement. The individual storage units themselves are lockable and secure with the occupier holding the key. Some self storage facilities offer the option of retaining a key to help with the receiving and despatching of goods on the occupiers behalf. All self storage companies offer extensive security measures such as PIN codes / swipe card entry systems, monitored closed circuit television and police monitored alarm systems, and some even with 24 hour seven days per week security patrols.

As the industry has grown over the years it has developed its own advisory watch dog and governing body, the Self Storage Association United Kingdom. All members of the Self Storage Association have to meet the association’s criteria and use their approved license agreement. With the help of the Self Storage Association and the Financial Services Authority there are now insurance options available for the customers goods whilst in storage.

Self storage can now offer small businesses and individuals a complete safe, secure and flexible storage solution.