In this bumper blog, we have consolidated and compiled a really handy list of business hints and tips. Here you will find a huge range of tips, covering business, online, marketing, day-to-day tips and just about everything else in-between! These tips are in no particular order, so why not have a read through them all – you never know, you might pick up a few nifty tips to help you!
We are always adding to the list, so if you have any tips to add to our ever-growing list, please let us know by getting in touch with us and we will add your tip(s) and include an acknowledgement to you as well!
- Setting up a Limited company? If so, check to see if your proposed company name is available on Companies House WebCheck tool first.
- Registering Domain Names and setting up Social Media accounts? If you are, make sure your business name is available on Social Media too. You can check this quickly and easily by searching on Namechk – namechk.com
- Claim your Google My Business profile! Google My Business gives you extra visibility when people are searching for your business – especially so in the Google maps section. If your website is also optimised with an SEO strategy, you might even see yourself in the map section at the top of search results pages too!
- Business cards are important – don’t scrimp on good quality business cards – remember it’s the first impression you make when introducing yourself and your business to someone – make sure it’s a good one!
- Need images for your website? If so, check out these royalty/license-free image resources: https://www.everypixel.com/ and https://librestock.com/
- Don’t use images found on Google image search – the images are not for copying! If you don’t have the option to buy images from the likes of Adobe Stock, Shutterstock, Getty Images or similar, there are websites that provide royalty-free images. See above tip!
- Need to boost your productivity at work? A small but effective tip here; write down the 3 main tasks you want to get done that day. Doing this will help to focus your mind on the task in hand. By the time the end of the day arrives, you will be able to determine how productive you were.
- Drink water! Sounds obvious, but if you work at a desk (or any job for that matter) don’t forget to keep hydrated. Aim for at least 1-2 litres of water a day. Keeping your levels topped up will help your concentration and reduce fatigue.
- Got bloggers block? If you have a blog on your website, you must keep it up to date, but if you are stuck on what to write about, how about writing some case studies, create some a how-to guides, interview a customer, discuss any upcoming changes within your industry or write a profile on your company and give your customers an insight “behind the scenes”.
- Spelings! and punctuation!!! Another simple tip here, but make sure the content on your website is thoroughly spell-checked. Customers can be really put-off by websites that contain poorly written text with spelling errors, bad punctuation or use of correct grammar.
- Passwords – are yours secure? When did you last change your passwords? Sounds all too obvious, but make sure you create strong passwords that aren’t easy to guess. Passwords like “fluffy123” or “Pa55word” just won’t do. Try https://passwordsgenerator.net/ for creating secure passwords!
- Google Analytics are you using it? If not, you should be. Google Analytics is a free tool and will show you the top sources of website traffic, number of website visitors, devices your website is viewed on, most popular pages and much more besides.
- Google Search Console is another tool that will show you average position of every search term your website is ranked in Google by. You can also find out information about any mobile usability issues, website coverage and more. Both Google Search Console (and Analytics above) are very useful tools.
- It’s all in the (Domain) Name! When you purchase your Domain Name, make sure you register both .co.uk and .com versions. It will protect your intellectual property and your business.
- Logo and branding are important so keep it clean and simple. Go for a vibrant and modern brand colour palette that reflects your business, and when thinking about your logo try and avoid unnecessary drop shadows, bevelling or other design effects that can make a logo look instantly dated.
- Embrace digital marketing by making sure you either manage your own social media or get someone to do it for you. Likewise it is important to consider Search Engine Optimisation (or SEO for short) because your prospective customers are likely to look you up or discover you on the web first, before any other marketing medium, so making sure you are there right when your customers are looking for you on Social Media or via Google search is a must.
- Don’t let your social media stagnate! If you use social media channels in your business, keep them up to date with engaging content posted regularly. Social media is one of the biggest digital marketing tools online, and often, customers will look at your social media channels before making a decision on whether to use your services (or not), but if you aren’t posting and keeping them maintained, it will put customers off.
- Engage with other businesses and individuals socially! Even if you keep your social media profiles regularly updated with content, make sure you leverage the benefits of social media by engaging with others. Commenting, posting in Facebook community groups and sharing content that others post are all great ways to build a following on your own social media channels and generate a buzz of activity around your business.
- Write a business plan! If you are a start-up business, or thinking about starting a business, make sure you write a business plan. Something that is so important, but often overlooked, a business plan can help identify any potential pitfalls and help you to avoid sinking money into a business idea that will not succeed. Equally, a business plan can provide the opposite guidance, and help to focus your mind on what’s important during the early days/years of your business.
- Think about tax and legal obligations right from the start otherwise it can be difficult and costly to resolve further down the line, especially so if HMRC come knocking. Will you be self-employed or a limited company? Will you be VAT registered from the off? What are your tax liabilities? Is your website built to be GDPR complaint? All these questions and more need to be addressed and resolved as one of your priorities right from the start of your new business journey.
- Get your website built professionally! Whilst there are do-it-yourself website builder tools out there, nothing can substitute a professionally built and managed website. At the end of the day, you started a business to focus on your passion, so why spread yourself too thin by trying to comprehend web design if you don’t need to.
- Website content and images are also just as important. Poorly taken images can sell you short, as can badly thought-out or rushed text content. Take some time to focus on these tasks and employ the services of a professional content writer and photographer if needed.
- Track your customer enquiries/leads so you know your best sources of lead generation, especially if you are running multiple marketing activities at the same time, such as SEO, Google AdWords, social media and offline marketing such as printed materials or advertising in magazines or newspapers for example. Simply run a tally in an Excel spreadsheet or similar, and at the end of each month, total up all your enquiries/leads to determine your best marketing methods. Remember to ask any customers that call up how they found you too!
- Don’t use free email accounts for business purposes! It can make you look amateurish. Having business email accounts is inexpensive and will give you a professional image and your customers added confidence and trust in your business too.
- Backup your business data! So many business owners don’t think about this, but it is vital. Computer hard drives and storage devices (such as USB sticks and similar) are not infallible – imagine the consequences of losing all your business files you have worked so hard to create all because your hard drive has failed. The answer comes in the form of Cloud storage. This is inexpensive as well and will give you the peace of mind that your data is always safe and backed-up.
- Got a blog? Make sure you keep it up to date! Post a new blog at least once monthly. Old, outdated blogs that haven’t been updated in months … or even years … can put potential customers off of using your business.
- Using Facebook messenger or a chat bot on your website? If so, remember to keep an eye on any incoming messages/questions. Leaving customers waiting too long for a response can irritate them to a point where they will be off in search of your competitors and quicker responses.
- Set goals and milestones for your business and stick to them. Building your business in this way allows you to focus on tangible, bite-size achievements and gives structure to your overall progress, instead of trying to juggle too many things at the same time.
- Reviews are important so always ask customers to leave an online review for you. It might be Google, Checkatrade, TripAdvisor, Yell.com or anywhere else for that matter. Remember that potential customers will always view your business favourably if you are well recommended by others online.
- Generate engagement on social media channels like Instagram or Facebook by posting engagement provoking content. Ask a question for follower response, setup an opinion poll, invite followers to ask questions, run a contest or giveaway or similar. People will nearly always engage with posts/content of this nature than something that is more run-of-the-mill.
- Landing pages are the basis to SEO so ensure that each landing page is well produced and contains unique content, purposeful information such as trust signals (things like reviews, customer testimonials, accreditations and more) as well as reasons why customers should choose you over your competitors. Add gallery images too if your business sells products, is a restaurant, etc.
- Keep your branding consistent all too often it’s easy to lose track of your brand colours and to start using logo variations (for example, different colours used, font styles, etc). When you first create your logo, think of your brand colours at the same time, and then make sure you stick to the version of your logo you have created (or if you have a designer that has designed logo variations of the same design, stick to only using these) and the same colours on all your printed materials and online too.
- Keep your accounts organised! When filing receipts and invoices, invest in some sort of organiser to keep everything organised, so when it comes to filing your accounts, you won’t have a headache trying to find missing invoices and receipts. Why not use an envelope for each month of the year to file all your receipts too – makes life much easier!
- Do you write lists to organise yourself? If so, why not give Microsoft To Do a try. It’s a great task organiser and can be used on your computer as well as your phone/tablet and will sync across all devices. Best of all, it’s completely free to use! Have a look at https://todo.microsoft.com/tasks/
- Don’t reinvent the wheel … What is already working in other people’s business models, in your industry, in software applications and other business operations that you can emulate instead of re-creating? Don’t waste your time trying to set up systems when you can simply purchase and install one, saving precious time and spending little money.
- Think of website load speed when adding images – a fast loading website is crucial to user experience. Google also throws more weight behind a website that is fast loading over those that are slower. Try not to bog down your website load speed by uploading large files / images.
- Add an SSL to your website – whilst not compulsory requirement, an SSL Certificate will provide an extra layer of security to your website. Google also favours websites with an SSL Certificate installed too. These can be setup, installed and tested quite inexpensively.
- Remember to delegate … Don’t try and manage everything yourself. If you have a small team of staff, or even 1-2 staff members, share tasks between you all. Trying to do everything yourself could lead to burn-out.
- Automate your processes to free up your time! Find new technologies and tools to help automate tasks and streamline processes. In doing so, you can spend more of your time and resources on growing your business.
Summary
Article Name
The greatest EVER list of business tips … Ever!
Description
In this blog we have compiled a long list of really helpful business hints and tips, useful to both start-up and established businesses!
Author
Rob Fisher
Publisher Name
Vaccoda
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