When building a website for your new business, you need something easy to read and navigate that offers you the flexibility and customisation you need to make the website work for your business and your needs.
No two businesses are the same, and your website needs to reflect your individuality and be accessible. 90% of people will click off a website if it loads too slowly, has too much going on, e.g. pop-ups, sign-up forms etc., or is hard to navigate.
Keep these features and elements in mind when creating your new website.
Pick The Right Website Builder
You need to be looking at the right website builder for your needs. If you have an ecommerce site, then Shopify or Woocommerce can be your best choice. At the same time, for general business blogs for taking enquiries or highlighting what you do, Wix, WordPress and Weebly are typically the most popular website builders across the internet.
If you are unaware of what you must do, you should work with a website developer to help you get the right features, platform, and aesthetic for your business. It is also worthwhile to have someone in your corner for ongoing support and help, whether you need joomla support, WordPress support or assistance to scale your website and increase capacity; it can avoid any hiccups and get you up and running as you need.
Competitor Research
You should be looking at your competitor’s website and what works, what doesn’t work, what they include and issues you should avoid. What stands out for you that you want to have or leave out? What would you be doing differently?
You need to align yourself with your website’s industry standards and include some elements that are unique for your site and can help you stand out amongst the noise.
SEO Friendly
When building your new website, you must ensure that it is SEO-friendly from the beginning. This means having a clear title and meta tag on all pages and sots, optimised content and images, fast load speeds, alt tags on photos, internal linking, and straightforward navigation, and it also needs to be mobile resolved. Over 60% of people who use the internet do so via mobile devices, so your website needs to be adapted to load correctly for desktop and mobile users.
Pick A Template
Your website template must be crisp, clear, and suitable for your industry. Look for customisable templates that help you display products or information. From here, you can add or remove parts that don’t work for you and ensure complete usability throughout the site. As with hiring a website developer, you can also hire a website designer who can work with you to include everything you need and give you tips and suggestions on how best to build the perfect theme that is designed for everything you need it to do.
Building your website requires you to know precisely what you want before you make it live to avoid any mistakes and errors moving forward that can affect your business.
The business world is evolving rapidly thanks to digitalization, and many businesses are turning to artificial intelligence (AI) to improve operational efficiency, drive innovation, and gain a competitive edge. A recent survey suggests that AI has the potential to automate about 40% of the average work day, driving work productivity as a result. But it’s one thing knowing how beneficial AI is for your business and quite another thing to understand what your business needs, especially with so many options available. The following tips will help you choose the right AI-enabled tools for your business.
Have clear business goals
Having clear and measurable goals for your business would be best, and your ideal AI tool should help you drive those goals. Your targets should be measurable and align with your business objectives. For example, are you looking to cut business costs? Do you want to gain some level of competitive advantage? Are you trying to improve customer satisfaction? Such questions can determine what your goals are and guide your evaluation process.
Identify your business needs
One important tip is identifying specific challenges you want to address and determining the best AI-enabled tools. Whether you want to automate contract processes, improve customer experience, enhance your decision-making process, get better insights from data, or optimize your supply chain management process, you must clearly define your objectives. That’s the only way to identify what tools will help you solve or address your challenges. For example, if you deal with or manage several contracts daily, you can use AI-enabled software designed for contract extraction, digitization, contract comparison, and categorizing all contractual commitments.
Evaluate your technical requirements and constraints
Do you need to consider any compatibility issues? What about maintenance costs, data requirements, security, scalability, and reliability issues? Are you looking for unique features in your ideal software? Do you or your staff possess the required know-how to operate and maximize your preferred software, or will you need third-party assistance? These questions can help you evaluate the technical requirements you need to meet and understand your constraints regarding using any AI software. You will also be able to compare and contrast software features, potential benefits, and trade-offs of different tools before deciding on the one that meets your expectations and matches your technical needs.
Consider the tools available and evaluate their capabilities
So, you’ve assessed your business needs, you know what goals you want to achieve, and you understand your technical constraints. It’s time to consider the available AI tools and evaluate their capabilities. Recent studies show that there are 14,700 AI startups in the US alone, each offering a different AI tool. That shows how wide your pool of options is.
You need to take the time to explore, conduct thorough research, and monitor the AI market to identify tools suitable for your business. You can use industry publications, various online resources, and other reputable sources to gain valuable insights about new tools, trends, and functionalities. Some tools may appear groundbreaking initially, only to prove irrelevant, so you must continuously assess a tool’s capabilities, performance, and accuracy before investing.
When it comes to your business, everything you do or say is put out there for the world to see. Whether you’re a new business or you’ve been kicking around for a while now, professionalism is always something to be focused upon.
As with any client, customer or supplier you work with, it’s important that you’re putting your best foot forward and showcasing the utmost professionalism.
If you’re looking to improve your business from a professional front, then it’s definitely important to figure out methods by which you can achieve this. There are always areas of improvement that a business can make when it comes to the company, whether that’s branding or just in how employees present themselves.
Here’s how to make sure your business comes across as a professional one.
Ensure all your employees have business cards
First and foremost, one of the most important things that a business should have is business cards. These are often given to most employees who work for the company, or at least represent the company in a way that requires them to have a bulk load available to give out.
Business cards, although somewhat less effective than they used to be now that the internet is around, are still useful. They become a trigger for clients or customers to remember the individual they met. Whether that be at a business event or networking function, having a business card is a prompt.
When it comes to business cards, the cost of them is really not that expensive. In fact, you’ll likely make back the money you spend on them, even if they prove fruitful for just one new customer or client.
They’re a form of currency for businesses, which is why if you don’t already have a business card for each of your employees, then now is the time to get one. You’ll find that the more employees who have them, the more effective they’re likely to become as a result.
Stay consistent in brand image and designs
Brand image is something to be very mindful of as a business because it’s another reflection of your business that people are going to see. Whether that’s branding online or offline, every piece of branding you bring to the table, is influential to your company’s success.
With that being said, it’s important to work with your marketing and design team to find ways in which your branding could be improved upon. Perhaps it’s the logos you’ve been using that need tweaking, or it could be that your website is looking a little outdated in its design.
Professionalism is important when it comes to your branding, so it’s useful to go through everything with a fine-tooth comb. Is there anything that is missing from your current branding that could be altered or updated?
Staying relevant as a business is highly important and a way to do that is by staying consistent with your branding. It also exudes more professionalism too.
Have dedicated customer support lines
Customer support lines are a necessity in this day and age. Customers are only after the very best when it comes to the performance of their investments. Whether they’re paying for a service or a product, nowadays they are expecting the very best. If you’re not giving them the very best, well they’ll be sure to look elsewhere.
With that being said, it’s good to have dedicated customer support lines set up. These are integral to business professionalism, especially when you want to maintain the highest level of support for your customers or clients.
Try making sure they have dedicated customer support lines and that the departments are segmented so that you’re giving a personal experience that will be appreciated. For example, you might want to give your customers a number of options to choose from so that they’re more likely to get through to who they need to speak to, the first time.
If you don’t have the resources to offer this service in-house, especially as a business grows, then it’s worth outsourcing it to a call centre or agency.
Work with professional and high-quality suppliers
Your suppliers are highly important when it comes to your business because they keep the supply chain running smoothly. There’s nothing worse than chinks in your supply chain armour. That results in delays, mistakes occurring and more importantly, a lack of results for what you’re trying to achieve.
As a business, professionalism should run throughout the business and within every avenue that you operate in. This includes your suppliers.
With that being said, it’s important to make sure that your business is working with the very best suppliers. They should be reputable and well-liked in the industry and known for all of the right reasons. Whether you need pharmaceutical packaging suppliers for your healthcare business or it’s a manufacturer creating furniture for your home decor company, suppliers are key.
Think about what relationships you have with your suppliers now. Look at what perhaps needs to be reviewed regularly and what might be signalling the end of a relationship. It’s productive and normal for businesses to find new suppliers so if it’s needed, let it go for the benefit of the business.
Pay attention to your social media channels
Social media channels are something to pay attention to, especially when it comes to your business. It’s a microscope placed directly on your business and what you say or do on these channels is permanent.
There have been many businesses in the past that have come under scrutiny or have got themselves into trouble due to what’s been said or done on social media. Therefore, it’s vitally important to show professionalism at every turn with your social media channels.
There are lots of social media platforms to get onto as a business and if you’re new to social media in general, trying to figure it all out can be challenging.
With that being said, pay attention to what you can work on when it comes to your social media and what might be
Give your employees uniforms or a dress code
Think about your employees and how they represent the business currently. Professionalism is often shown through a person’s appearance and when it comes to your employees’ uniforms, this may be worth scrutinizing.
For those that don’t have uniforms, providing a dress code to your workforce might be a suitable alternative. While you don’t want to be too extreme or strict with your approach, you also don’t want to make it too loose that it becomes a problem.
Try to figure out what needs to change with your current workplace uniform or dress code, if anything.
Focus on the company’s first impressions
First impressions count and there’s nothing worse than realizing you’ve messed up an opportunity that would have been good for business. Remember that this is something that needs to be recognized across the entirety of the company.
With that being said, encourage your employees to understand the importance of creating a good first impression. From customers on the phone to interactions online and in-person, every new individual or organization that meets the business for the first time needs to be given that all-start treatment.
Otherwise, your business is likely to become forgettable and that’s not what you want when it comes to the growth of your company
Utilize technology for tools and software
Consider what technology is beneficial for your business to embrace. There is an abundance of tools and software available to make use of when it comes to presenting the best appearance for your business.
The way you conduct your business operations is important, so look at how each department could improve upon its own systems with the help of technology.
Always over-deliver to your clients and customers
If there’s anything that you should be doing when it comes to your clients and customers, it’s over-delivering. Nothing gets that word-of-mouth machine going like a positive experience. The better the experience and the more wowed they are, the more likely they’ll be to spread the news about your company.
Try to find ways of over-delivering where you can and really expand upon what you’ve achieved already for some of your customers and clients. Level up that drive to impress your customers. You’ll certainly make a bigger impression when you exceed expectations.
Ask for feedback on how to improve your professionalism
Finally, be sure to ask for feedback. When it comes to improving the professionalism of your business, always be willing to speak to those who may have critiques or suggestions for improvement.
This is important because although you may think your business is doing well and performing professionally, that might not always be the case for those outside, looking in. Make sure you’re gathering feedback from a variety of sources whether that’s the average person following you on social media, to clients and existing customers.
Hopefully, with these tips under your belt, you’ll be able to exude professionalism as a company in 2023.
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