5 Crucial Elements that all Business Websites Must Have

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5 Crucial elements that all business websites must have

 

How many times have you heard the phrase, “Check out our website for more information?” I’m going to suggest that the answer is on an almost daily basis. That’s because our business websites have become such a crucial part of our success and we want people to utilise them. After all, they champion our brands, promote our products and give useful information to our visitors.

However, no matter how elaborate or how simple your website, there are certain elements that it absolutely must incorporate. This checklist is obviously open to interpretation and there will undoubtedly be other aspects that you want to include, but I would definitely start with these five as a bare minimum.

A Logical Design

Stunning graphics, a plethora of multimedia wizardry and all manner of bells and whistles are great, but if your website is difficult to navigate your visitors will soon get fed up. They might even go to one of your competitor’s websites to find what they want! That’s why a logical design is an absolute must.

Websites are often designed on paper first and the layout finalised before anything else. Logically-designed websites feature easy-to-navigate menus and intuitive signposts. For example, when was the last time you visited a website that didn’t have a familiar-looking navigation bar running across the top?

Clear Contact Information

This is particularly important if your website is in addition to a bricks and mortar business. A lot of the time people visit your website with the sole purpose of finding your contact information. Therefore, it needs to be clearly displayed – even on the homepage – and not be hidden away out of sight.

You may run the risk of losing potential sales if you neglect to display your business’s contact details and offering them openly helps to build trust and stronger relationships with your customers. It’s also important to provide a range of contact options like email, telephone and physical address (if appropriate).

A Blog

A business blog (like this one) is a great way to reach out to your clients and prospects. Not only does it give you a platform on which to provide useful information, but it also gives your business a voice. And the beauty of a voice is that it helps to build an online reputation and, more importantly, a loyal following.

Moreover, your blog can even help boost your search engine rankings and by providing useful, original and engaging content, your visitors will keep coming back again and again. At the end of the day, the more followers your blog attracts the stronger your brand will become.

Social Media Integration

You will have probably lost count of the amount of times you’ve visited a website and been presented with a range of social media buttons. That’s because businesses want to boost their social media following and if you’ve visited their website then chances are you’ll like their Facebook page, start following them on Twitter or add them to your Google Plus circles.

Social media activity sends strong signals to search engines and so business websites incorporate it wherever possible. After all, by ‘liking’ a company’s Facebook page you are basically signing yourself up to receive further updates from them. It’s kind of like building a mailing list.

Mobile Compatibility

Now more than ever, people are using their smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices to access your business’s website. Therefore, it absolutely has to be mobile compatible. At the very least you need to have a bespoke mobile version of your site or a responsive design that adapts to mobile devices.

Your customers and prospects will be very disappointed if they try to use your website on their mobile devices only to find out that it’s a horrible experience. If your competitors have fully mobile compatible websites then you need to ensure that yours is at least as good, if not better.

 

 

 

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

 

How to create killer content

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How to create killer contentDo you ever feel as though creating online content for your business is stressful? What with blog posts, social media updates and promotional material all forming part of your digital marketing strategy, it can sometimes feel like a struggle to keep creating decent content.

This is especially true if you aren’t much of a writer and crafting engaging material doesn’t come naturally to you. However, by using a content creation checklist – like this one – you can sculpt not just content that people want to read but also be consistent in your writing.

After all, writing is actually a learnable skill and the more you do it, the better you become at it. And by following these simple guidelines you’ll start creating better content right away:

Be alluring

The internet is absolutely littered with content and to make yours stand out you need an alluring title that makes people want to click-through. You could have written the best blog post in the world but if it’s let down by a boring title then chances are people won’t even get to read it.

But what makes a good title?

  • A sense of urgency – For example, a title that begins “Don’t miss out…” automatically makes people curious about the content that follows.
  • Look to inform – The ‘how to’ format is used a lot on the internet because it works. People want to be given knowledge that they can use going forward.
  • Use numbered lists – “Top 10”, “Five Top Tips”, or “20 Ways To…”
  • Incorporate bold/strong language – Notice the word ‘killer’ in the title of this post? Can content really kill? No, but it stands out right.
  • Ask a question – Questions are a fantastic way to engage your reader right off the bat. “Do you dread creating online content for your business?” will probably have most people thinking, yes! Why? Are you going to help me make it easier?

Make people want to continue reading

So you’ve managed to get someone to click-through to your blog post with your alluring title but now you need to keep them hooked. So many pieces of content fail to fully engage the reader at the start and they inevitably navigate away again – don’t let this happen to you.

By using a staggering statistic or a question at the start (like this post does) you further engage the reader and they are more likely to keep reading. Intrigue is very powerful and by triggering it in someone you will get your content read right to the end.

Be personal throughout

One of the best pieces of advice that anyone ever told me was, “Try to write like you talk.” Sounds obvious right? But it really is the best way to approach content creation. Not only does it make the whole process easier but it also gives your posts a sense of personality – people appreciate that.

Show the reader that you care by interacting with them throughout. But how do you do that you say? By asking questions like I just did. It involves the reader and shows that you are writing with them in mind.

The word ‘you’ is extremely powerful throughout an entire post and is more likely to lead to the reader becoming one of your customers in the long run. Plus, a sense of personality will see readers returning to your blog again and again.

Be consistent

Finally, it is important that you are consistent with your content. After all, building a list of regular followers is the key to success. Your audience have become your audience because they like reading what you write. The quality of past blog posts isn’t going to be enough to keep them interested if your new content isn’t up to par.

Always try to:

  • Post new updates frequently – don’t post five updates in a single day and then disappear for a fortnight.
  • Be recognisable – structure your posts carefully and let your audience become used to your layout. People enjoy consistent posts that look familiar every time.
  • Offer real value – By doing this you’ll inevitably increase your search engine ranking as well as pleasing your readers. Just don’t focus on the former, however, too much. You should always write for people first and search engines second – always!

To attract more followers and win more customers, you need to make your content stand out from that of your competition. Stagnant, boring content will just sit there. Lively, fresh, engaging content on the other hand will entice big audiences.

 

 

Image courtesy of Gualberto107 / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Flexible working now available to all UK employees

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Flexible working now available to all UK employeesIf you’re one of those people who finds themselves fighting a never-ending battle between balancing your personal and professional commitments then this post is definitely for you.

Last month, the UK government announced that from June 30 every employee in the UK would be able to request flexible working arrangements – a right that up until now only applied to certain carers and parents with children under 17.

On the face of it you might be wondering what’s in it for businesses? Well, the government estimates that the new plans will lower absenteeism, improve productivity and reduce staff turnover, which will realise economic benefits of about £475 million over the next 10 years.

But what exactly is flexible working and what do the new rules actually mean? Let me explain further:

What is flexible working?

Flexible working is when an agreed change is made to an employee’s working pattern. This can actually manifest itself in many different ways but the most common types of flexible working are flexitime, home working, job sharing, part-time working and changes to working hours.

The new rules are thought to be particularly attractive to young people who are just starting out in their careers and want to undertake additional learning or training and older members of staff who are approaching retirement.

Who is now eligible to apply?

Anyone who has worked for their employer for at least six months (26 weeks) continuously is eligible to apply for flexible working. Known as ‘making a statutory application’, employees can make one flexibility request per year and their employer must consider it in a ‘reasonable manner.’

Not all applications, however, will be automatically approved under the new rules; they simply allow all employees to make flexible working requests.

Why might an application be rejected?

Obviously, not every flexible working application will be successful and there will be times when employers have to decline requests. However, employers can only decline a request for one of the following business reasons:

  • the burden of additional costs
  • an inability to reorganise work amongst existing staff
  • an inability to recruit additional staff
  • a detrimental impact on quality
  • a detrimental impact on performance
  • detrimental effect on ability to meet customer demand
  • insufficient work for the periods the employee proposes to work
  • a planned structural change to your business

These are the same reasons under which previous flexible working requests could be declined and the new rules don’t change them in any way.

How will applications be dealt with?

In a ‘reasonable manner’ by the employer is what the law states. The application process will ultimately see the employee have a face-to-face meeting with their employer in which the flexible working request will be discussed.

Employers then have three months in which to notify their employee of the decision – unless a longer period is agreed beforehand with the employee. A clear business case must be included with any rejections and the relevant business reason from the list above stated.

All flexible working applications will be dealt with on a first-come first-serve basis by the employer. This means that conflicts may occur and if they do, businesses are advised by the government’s Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (Acas) to try to reach a compromise with the employees involved.

So if you’ve ever longed to reduce your hours or experience the benefits of flexitime, now is your chance!

 

 

Image courtesy of franky242 / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The Number 1 Problem at Work – and a few ways to fix it

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The Number 1 Problem at Work image for blogHow many of you encounter productivity traps in your day-to-day work? I’m guessing the answer is most of you, if not ALL of you. Don’t worry, you’re not alone. I too have moments of weakness where my mind gets distracted by social media, catching up with celebrity gossip and finalising dinner plans with friends via text.

However, the word ‘trap’ implies that we’ve fallen victim to some unknown danger, but the reality is that our lapses in productivity are easily remedied by someone we know very well: ourselves.

That’s right! We’re not helpless and can, in fact, overcome these productivity leaches by making ourselves more aware and slightly adjusting the way we work. All it takes is willpower, intention and practise.

The biggest problem is that all the technology that surrounds us has become a source of food for our hungry brains. For example, every time we receive an email, an instant message or a text, our brains spring into action. These small, innocent alerts are like a technological sugar rush and, like a sugar rush, they give us a small high followed by a lull.

So what’s the answer? Well, I’m glad you asked because I’ve identified three time-killers that we all need to be aware of:

Tab-tastic browsing

Firefox, Google Chrome and even good old Internet Explorer now all offer us tabbed browsing. And while many people think that it increases productivity, I’m here to tell you that it can actually hinder it.

Too many open tabs either signals serious procrastination, or an inability to focus on the task in hand. After all, you can only really focus on one tab at a time, so once you’ve completely finished with it, close it. You can always open it again if you need later.

An article I read last year on Lifehacker entitled Why You Should Never Have More Than Nine Browser Tabs Open really stuck with me. Check it out for yourself.

The scourge of email

Okay so ‘scourge’ may be a strong word to use but you get what I mean. Email is both our best friend and our biggest enemy. We’ve got into this strange habit of automatically dropping whatever it is that we’re doing to reply to an email.

This is a really unproductive situation to find ourselves in and a much better approach is to treat each email on its own merits. For example, if you get an urgent email that requires a quick response deal with it. Everything else can wait until later.

Never attempt to use your inbox as a task list – it won’t work. You’ll never empty it because the very nature of email means that it keeps on coming. If needs be, write yourself a good old-fashioned handwritten list to work from.

Your smartphone

I understand that smartphones are really useful. In fact, they’re fantastic, but they can also be one of our biggest distractions in the office. Nowadays, nearly all our smartphones are sync’d to our emails, our calendars and then there are text messages.

If you’re sat in front of your computer, do you really need an alert that you’ve got a new email?

The solution, you ask? Simply switch it off. If you can’t bring yourself to do that then put it into airplane mode; even silent will do. Basically, any mode that will allow you to focus on your work and not on your phone!

At the end of the day, your smartphone isn’t the be all and end all. If you’re not convinced, check out another recent post that I wrote pitting smartphones against virtual assistants.

These are just three day-to-day distractions that we all face. There are hundreds more and while we might not be able to do anything to eradicate the sound of a loud, nagging colleague, we can get our own houses in order.

 

 

Image courtesy of pakorn / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

 

5 Tips for Boosting Your Social Media Following

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5 Tips for boosting your social media following

Establishing a social media presence for your brand is one thing; boosting it, however, is quite another. That’s why large organisations often have dedicated teams with substantial budgets specifically to handle the social media element of their business.

That’s because it’s simply not possible to create a social media page for your brand, post a few updates and expect people to find you; let alone start liking and following you! Furthermore, one of the main points of social media for business is to get your brand’s followers to actively promote your products and services through their own social media network.

But what chance is there of that happening if you can’t boost your social media following in the first place?

The answer is very unlikely, which is why I’ve compiled a list of 5 tips for building an engaged social media audience and loyal following.

Be careful with your content

Social media should not be used to constantly plug your services and attempt to sell your products. An approach like that is a sure-fire way to lose followers and, even worse, brand credibility.

Instead, post content that people find genuinely useful and interesting. This will inevitably engage your audience more strongly and encourage more retweets, shares and likes – the things we all, as social media marketers, definitely want.

Try to follow the 80/20 rule: 80% useful information and 20% promotional content. That way your sales pitches won’t feel quite so incessant.

Identify your influencers

Regardless of your industry, there will be key individuals who act as influencers and have the ability to sway your target market. Identifying who these people are and forging a relationship with them can be the key to your social media success.

After all, these people already carry a lot of clout when it comes to your prospective followers, so getting them on-side is a great strategic move. For example, share their posts that appeal to you, respond to community discussions that they start and try to identify what issues matter to them, so you can engage with them more directly.

Run Competitions

It might sound a bit archaic but running competitions and contests is an effective way to boost your social media following. The bottom line is that people like free stuff and the chance to win something is appealing.

Don’t worry if you’re not sure where to start when it comes to competitions. Websites such as Offerpop allow you to devise and implement your own bespoke promotions. Moreover, there is the ability to stipulate that only your followers can enter your promotions.

Just be sure to make the competition interesting and appealing to your target audience and offer a prize that will make them want to engage.

Experiment with paid ads

Facebook and Twitter both offer paid advertising platforms that are a great way to further your reach and ultimately attract some new followers. Both networks offer very detailed options when it comes to paid ads, so you can be sure that you are targeting exactly the right demographic for your brand.

Why not try paid advertising on both platforms and see what kind of success you realise? You might find that one reaps bigger rewards than the other and choose to concentrate your efforts accordingly.

Promote your social presence

This has to be the simplest way to boost your following, but often there are times many businesses pass up perfect opportunities to promote their social presence. For example, every time you communicate with customers and potential customers you have an opportunity to plug your Facebook page, Twitter account or Google Plus profile.

Add social media links to your website homepage, offline marketing material, email signatures, business cards – basically any touch points that you have with your customers.

It’s also a good idea to give them a reason for them to connect with you on a social media level, so highlight your competitions, useful content and influencer backings wherever possible.

These are just 5 of the many tips that I share with my clients to get the very most out of their social media campaigns.

 

 

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net