To get things right at your small business in 2021, you need to master both your website and your finances. Let’s take a look at how you can tackle both of them…
Master your website
A website ranks as one of the most imperative tools for a business in the current day and age. More and more individuals are choosing to shop online. They love the convenience and ease of it. Therefore, if you do not present your products on an eCommerce platform you are missing out on a huge potential for profit.
In addition to this, when individuals want to find out information about a company, where do they head to? Their website of course! Gone are the days of searching through the Yellow Pages. And that’s not it. Your website plays a key role in attracting new customers as well. Through an engaging site and the right marketing tactics, search as ads and software to visualise your PPC data, you can draw more viewers than you ever deemed imaginable.
To ensure you tick all of these boxes and your website is a raving success, here are the dos and don’ts of business websites….
- Don’t make people think – Navigation should be easy and obvious. Within a mere three seconds the person viewing your website should have been able to get to the part they require from your homepage.
- Do use SEO – You will have probably heard the term SEO floating around for a while now. This means ‘search engine optimisation’. Basically, it involves marketing methods which are centred on organically getting your business to the top of search engine result pages, such as Google. You must utilise these tactics whilst constructing your website. Everything from keyword implementation to link building is recommended.
- Don’t forget about the smartphone – Mobile internet utilisation is definitely on the rise. To neglect this would be extremely naïve. You need to make sure your desktop website has been optimised in order to suit the smaller screen of a mobile. Your SEO campaign will also need modifying too. Google picks up different keywords on the mobile internet searching and you will need to make your title tags, Meta descriptions and alike shorter on the character front.
- Do test your website – The biggest mistake people make is that they forget to test their website. Even if you have only made the tiniest modification you need to test it. Not only does something broken look unprofessional but it can actually lead to other areas of your website faltering as well.
- Don’t use flash – You may think the fancy graphic or video looks cool, but the truth is it is just inconvenient. Yes, it may be fun to watch once. But what if someone uses your website on a frequent basis? What if the individual is in rush? Plus your bounce rate is going to increase because a lot of individuals won’t even wait for the video to load. They will just go to one of your competitors instead.
Physical business
If you have a physical store as well as a website, you’ll need to ensure you have a reliable and trusted cash payment system. Depending on the size of the store, you may need a card reader machine, a full till checkout system, or a larger scale, more interactive system, like a kiosk. You can find options for this online, like over at Eposbuddy, which give modern day solutions for taking payment in person.
Master your finances
Running a business can involve spinning a lot of plates – you need to think about so many different elements that you need all of the additional help that you can get. If you are looking for efficient ways of handling your finance processes then there is a wide range of apps and online tools that may be able to make your life a lot easier. Small businesses can leverage huge benefits from automated processes and simpler ways of handling finance-related tasks. If your company needs a professional billing service, do some research into a billing platform, such as Bill Forward.
It might be that your website is an e-commerce site, and you need to be taking payments online too. For this, do you research into the best ways to be collecting payments. There are lots of options out there, such as https://www.easypaydirect.com/merchant-accounts/credit-card-processing-for-small-business/ for credit card processing for small businesses. Your payment processing needs are important when working wihin e-commerce, so make sure you fully understand it first.
Choosing the right bank account for your business is important too. Ideally, you should set up a business bank account rather than a personal checking account. Such bank accounts have perks such as cheaper access to business finance and reduced international fees. Compare banks to find the best account for your company.
If you want to know how you can improve your finance processes, then the following apps may be of interest to you:
PayPal Here
You have probably already heard of PayPal, the global, secure online payment service. PayPal Here is a mobile payment solution that allows you to take multiple forms of payment. You can order a card reader to take payments when you are on the go, so it is the perfect solution for people that go to customers’ houses and need to take mobile payments. You can also customise your business profile and receipts, as well as send invoices to customers.
Wave
For simple accounting, Wave is regarded as one of the best free small business accounting websites available. There are plenty of great features from tracking your income and expenses, creating invoices and even paying employees. You can easily set up recurring billing for repeat customers rather than having to raise a new invoice each month. You can scan receipts from your phone to record all of your documents needed for your accounts. For free tools, Wave certainly offers a great deal of features that could benefit most small businesses.
Be in control of leases
Depending on the type of business you run, you may be spending a lot of staff time managing leases that your company looks after. This can be anything from audit prep and disclosures, to putting lease processes in place and managing the accounting side. If this is the case, look at using an external company or software solution, which can help take control of companies leasing processes. A good software program, like LeaseAccelerator, covers everything associated with managing leases for your company, saving you precious time.
QuickBooks
Another highly popular accounting app is QuickBooks, which claims to be able to save 8 hours a month in managing your accounts. One of the great features is that it pulls all of your financial information into one dashboard to see how your business is doing at a glance.
You can quickly see what expenses are going out and any emerging trends that help you to identify cost savings. It is HMRC recognised, meaning that when your tax is due, you should have everything you need in order to present your accounts to the taxman. QuickBooks mobile is great for preparing an invoice or estimate when you are out visiting a customer rather than needing to head back to the office to complete the necessary ‘paperwork’.
Mint
As you might gather from the name, Mint is a money-focused app that has been helping businesses to manage their finances for some time. It is easy to set up and allows you to bring all of your finances into one place. You can link all of your accounts and cards, to give you one place to go to for all of your financial information.
You can create budgets and get suggestions on how to better manage your finances, track and pay bills and get alerts to ensure you don’t miss payments. Also, because it pulls your finance info through from different sites, you will not need to log into multiple sites to view your finances. This can save you plenty of time over the course of a year.
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