Category: SEO

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This Software Will Boost Your Business

Modern businesses can hardly call themselves modern businesses if they don’t have the right software. A lot of business owners swear by Microsoft Office suites, which works out well for many of them. But there are at least a couple of problems if you’re only going to use Microsoft Office. The first is that Microsoft Office suites are expensive – you can get most of the same functionalities from the likes of OpenOffice and Google Drive for free. The second is that you might find yourself surprisingly limited if you’re not willing to look into other software solutions!

We’re going to take a look at some of the best software solutions for many different aspects of office-based businesses.

Accounting

Don’t just assume that an accountant is going to do just fine with pencils, a calculator, and maybe a copy of Microsoft Excel! This isn’t really the most efficient way to go about the job. If you’re interested in improving efficiency for accountants, then you might want to take a look at the software that Intuit offers. QuickBooks is one of the most popular software solutions in this area of business, though some feel that there are better and cheaper solutions. Still, a free trial of QuickBooks is certainly worth investigating if you want to make your accountant’s job a little easier!

Human resources

You have an HR department, right? Sure, not every business needs one, but as soon as you start to go from a very small business to a small-to-medium-sized business, you might want to rethink your approach. Ellis Whittam provide assistance for those looking to set up such departments. On the software side, BrightHR is one of the more popular names in the field right now. The right software makes it so much easier for employees and HR workers to keep track of communications and requests. Employees can access the software in order to book days off or check how much annual leave they have remaining.

Project management

Without the right management, projects can turn into a confusing mess very quickly. Even projects that seem fairly simple at first can turn into a chaotic jumble of crossed wires and missed deadlines. Making sure everyone is on the same page, with project and task visibility at a high priority, is what you should be aiming for here. There are some free web-based solutions that you should consider; Trello is a user-friendly project management platform that is popular with both businesses and individuals.

 

Analytics

Without analytics, you’re not going to have a great idea of just how potent your web presence is. And, as I’m sure you’ve heard from other sources, a good web presence is essential for businesses that wish to grow their consumer base. Google Analytics is the first name that most people will suggest and, to be honest, there’s little reason for us to suggest that you should look to another solution! Love it or hate it, Google can be instrumental to the success on your website and social media platforms, so using their solutions is usually the most reliable way of improving and tracking your presence.

 

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Making Websites Work for Small Business: Neat and User-Friendly

There’s a shocking amount of businesses out there with a terrible website. You probably don’t believe me, as we’re at the pinnacle of the digital age and most of us live with half our head online already, but some websites are still as useless as they were back in 2000. After a short but frustrating visit to an entirely pink website with comic sans font, you’ll feel the smooth relief of clicking into a mobile-friendly and seamless website. Why can’t they all just be like this?

Use the website

Pay a visit to a brilliant site and think about what makes it so good. The way it looks is usually the first thing to come to mind – your eyes follow a natural pattern, it’s not at all cluttered, but rather neat and clean. The content flows beautifully, like an infinity pool, and the information you need is placed strategically on the page. It’s thought-through, a piece of design art, and laid out to be of as much use as possible to the reader.

Now, pay a visit to your website and see in which category it ends up. If it’s old, a bit messy, or even if the colors are a bit off, you should think about a redesign. People would want to spend a lot more time on your site, they will be proud to recommend it to their friends, and it will communicate that your business is on-point and helpful. Usability Geek has a good article on using white space.

Develop a brand strategy

As the website will represent your business, the one designing it needs to know what you stand for. The people who are already loyal to your business, your employees, everyone with a relation to the brand you’ve built will be deeply disappointed if the site communicates something differently – it may even hurt your business. Use a digital print company like 1st CS Signs and Print to market your business offline as well, making the brand of your business more reliable than it would have been by only being online.

 

Deliver great content

An excellent business website needs a good blog. Make plans for it, dream about the increased traffic that will bring in more money, and feed it regularly. Your competitors are just living off the same standard blog posts; they’re not even that good, and SEO has probably not even been given a thought. It’s even worse if SEO is all they’ve thought about, and the posts don’t contain one original idea.

 

I’m all for a good old-fashioned home-cooked blog post. By that, I mean that if you’re able with words and enjoy writing, you should try to do as much as possible yourself. If you don’t have the time or the skills to keep your blog updated, think about outsourcing it. Alright, it won’t be a home-cooked blog post, but it will be well-written, original, and useful to your readers.  

 

Your competitor might have an alright site, but that’s because the daughter-in-law of the founder did it in her spare time – and she’s not going to keep updating it. Since not everyone got the memo from ten years back about updating their website and staying on point with the trends, your business has a significant advantage.