Archives for August 2018

Take Security Seriously: Don’t Let Criminals Destroy Your Business!

August 18, 2018 by Contributed Post Leave a Comment

When you run a business it becomes your entire life, you pour blood sweat and tears into your venture to ensure it’s a success. A lot of the time, your business will be your sole source of income- you might have your entire life savings tied up in it. So when something threatens it, it can be worrying and frustrating. But it’s a fact of life, we have to protect ourselves against criminals and as an entrepreneur, this means protecting your business. Here’s how you can go about it.

Business Protection

On Your Premises

As a business, your premises will be home to lots of expensive equipment, stock, sometimes even cash that criminals would love to get their hands on. Burglars target businesses because they know the rewards are great, in the case of lots of shops and offices no one is around after closing time giving them opportunity to get in and out unnoticed. CCTV and a burglar alarm act as a deterrent as well as making it easier for them to get caught if they do still enter. A secure safe that’s hidden away and bolted down should house any valuables and cash. Be sure to have cash collected regularly, the more that you have sitting around the more you stand to lose if you are targeted. While methods to keep criminals out are essential, you still need to play it safe. Metal, lockable shutters that pull down over doors and windows are another effective way to keep criminals out. While these methods might not be a hundred percent guaranteed, because most burglars are opportunistic, making their lives harder can often be all it takes to avoid being targeted.

Online

These days, it’s not just your physical premises you need to protect. With more and more business being conducted online, the more opportunity there is for security breaches. These aren’t just a problem for bigger business, many criminals actually prefer smaller companies as they know that in most cases their security will be easier to get past. Hackers gaining entry could mean anything from rinsed bank accounts to stolen customer details- since these can then be used for fraud purposes it’s the law to inform your customers. This can result in a big blow to your reputation and could put people off wanting to shop with you again. Upgrade to cloud based servers which are encrypted for security, and use good security software. Educate yourself, learn about ransomware protection and other attacks that you could be subject to and ways to defend against them. Even passwords need to be considered, often criminals gain access to businesses due to simple passwords being used. Update them and be careful who knows them. Trusted, senior staff members should be the only ones with this kind of access.

Just in Case

Finally, if the worst were to happen either online or in person, having the right insurances n place mean that you won’t be left out of pocket. Do your research, make sure you have the right insurances for your business and read the small print so you know exactly what you’re covered against.

6 Smart Steps to Setting up Your Business in Healthcare

August 18, 2018 by Contributed Post Leave a Comment

Since you were a youngster you always dreamed of helping people as a career one day. The time has finally come to make your younger self proud and embark on a new business venture you never thought would reach reality. From managing a mobile workforce to assessing the needs of each of your new clients, you are ready to take on the challenge. Being in the healthcare industry comes with many hurdles, but if you have got the knowledge, professional assistance and the drive behind you, you will be able to make it an instantaneous success.

Find a Wonderful Workflow

When you are running a healthcare business you need to make sure the day to day running is smooth and seamless. Patient safety should always be your number one priority, so make sure you seek out professional support for your data and analytics. A consistent workflow and system will be the key to a successful business.

Hire Excellent Employees

Your employees will always be the bread and butter of your company; without motivated staff members your workplace won’t be able to thrive. Fully vet every member of staff you employ and be sure to go through background checks and references before offering full time work.

Make Sure You Are Fully Qualified

As well as having qualified staff members, you also need to have a licence to practise healthcare in your area. Follow the relevant guidelines from your local authority so that you are fully covered in case you are inspected.

Consider Your Budget Carefully

Opening up your own business is a costly affair, so make sure you have plenty of savings before you dive head first into more investments. The cost of equipment, technology, cleaning and maintenance will add up over the years so make sure you are fully prepared for this.

Put Your Patients First

Your job is to care for your patients, so always make them your priority. Listen to their problems, give them constructive advice and always follow up with them on a regular basis.

Focus and Never Give Up

You are already on the path to success with your healthcare business, so staying focused on your goals is more important than ever. It can be very easy to lose motivation and become demoralised after a couple of hurdles along the way; don’t let anything get you down and always follow your passions through until the very end.

Once you have figured out how to incorporate all of the following things into your new business, you will soon have a thriving healthcare company on your hands. As long as you find a streamlined and productive workflow and an effective way to store your patient’s data, you won’t be able to go wrong. Remember that the healthcare industry can change people’s lives forever, so you are doing an amazing thing by embarking on this scary, but exciting venture. Stick to your goals, never lose focus and you will have a very bright future ahead of you.

How to Expand Your Home Business On a Budget

August 17, 2018 by Contributed Post Leave a Comment

If you have been running your business from home for a while and would like to expand, meet clients, and have a real office venue, chances are that you will be looking for flexible options first. Below you will find a few tips on how to spread your wings without getting yourself into debt and expanding your business without the huge financial commitments.

Short Term Contracts

One of the options you should look into is short term contracts. You don’t have to commit to a long term lease, and can try out the location before you sign up for a long term agreement. There are plenty of business centers that allow you to take on a 30-day rolling contract, so you can test drive the space and facilities and find out how it works out for you without having to commit to staying there for 6-12 months.

Building Your Office

If you would like to save money and reduce your monthly outgoings, you could also build your own office in your back garden or on a cheap land. From office containers that can be moved any time to garden offices made of timber, log cabins, and steel structures, there are plenty of budget-friendly options. Choose the one that suits your lifestyle and your long term business needs. It is, however, important that you create an advanced security and add access control systems, so you can protect your business.

Flexi Office Spaces

If you only need the office space for a couple of days a month, you can get yourself signed up for a flexible business space. One of the main benefits of this solution is that you will be able to come and go as you please, and the package will include all the services, including your internet access, reception, phone service, and – sometimes – even a virtual assistant and mailbox service. This way, you can budget better and avoid spending too much on getting access to the facilities.

Meeting Room Options

It might be the case that you only need a place where you can meet current and potential clients. Instead of inviting them for a coffee at your local restaurant or bar, you can take advantage of flexible meeting room hire. You can book the room in advance using an app, and get tea and coffee served. Some professional business clients will value this solution over a cafe, as it gives them more privacy and helps them focus on what you have to say better.

Renting from Other Businesses

If you can’t afford to go out there alone, you might find office space in other businesses’ premises. If you don’t want to pay for your own heating, property tax, internet, and reception, you can share the space with other businesses and take advantage of the established location.

Expanding your home based business can be challenging, and you will have to find the most suitable option for your long term plans and your budget. Consider the above options to safely grow your venture and avoid stretching your budget too far.

You Can’t Have A Website Without It Being Optimized

August 17, 2018 by Contributed Post Leave a Comment

A good website really is going to carry your business from success to success. We love that the internet is growing at such a fast pace, and there’s now such advanced search engines for our websites to be found on. But, with all the advancements that seem to be happening, some websites are falling before. Some just simply aren’t keeping up with the times, and it’s one of the reasons why some companies out there just aren’t getting the sales that they so badly need through the internet. Considering everyone prefers to shop on the internet rather than going into a store now, we would say it’s pretty imperative that any of you who do suffer with internet sales, read this article. Because one thing that can really help your website with sales is optimization. A website can be optimized in a couple of ways, and it really does have benefits for your profit, and for your customers. If you haven’t thought about it before, or don’t really know what ways it’s possible to optimize a website, then have a read of this to find out more!

Website Optimization

SEO Optimized

Let’s start of with one of the biggest ways to optimize your website, and that’s SEO. SEO is one of the biggest marketing techniques out there, and it’s one of the best ways that you can get yourself noticed in search engines. By using various techniques, SEO boosts your website up the pages on Google, and allows you to be seen before many other of your potential competitors. But, it doesn’t happen easily, and it can take time. A lot of people go for black hat SEO as it gets faster and often more reliable results. But, it does come with its risks, and some companies faced being penalised if they have too many spammy backlinks. But, other chose white hat, which is a lot more secure, but doesn’t have as many reliable results. As a business, this is a technique that we highly recommend you go for, but you definitely need to make sure that your website is SEO optimized so that you can get the best results. One thing you need to check is what the best seo platform is. Platforms like WordPress has its pros and cons, but it might not necessarily be the best to optimize for SEO. Once you’ve found the best platform, the first way of doing this is to ensure you have keyword based titles. This means that any keywords you think customers would search for to find products, or information, should be in some of the titles on your website. You also need to make sure you have a good sitemap. SEO works as ‘robots’ crawl the internet, go through websites, and read the information on every page of your website. If you have a sitemap, it’s so much easier to navigate, and it shows a more structured website!

Conversion Rate Optimized

Conversion rates are monitoring how much traffic that’s flowing through your website, actually turns into customers. Because for all of the people that come through your website, only a handful of them will actually complete what they came to do. Others will have a look around, probably figure out that they don’t like the look of your website, the right product isn’t there, or the price of your products aren’t the best, and they’ll take themselves elsewhere. The main way that you can optimize your website in this area, is to make sure that you’re giving your customers a clear direction. If the website flows, they’re more likely to complete what they came on your website to do. The second option you have is to actually optimize the website using various different techniques, such as these, and then hire a company that will use software to measure it. You’ll then be able to see clear statistics of who is doing what, and how many conversions you’re actually getting. You’ll then have data to analyse, and will be able to formulate a plan of the areas that might be suffering a little bit more, and the areas that are thriving on your website.

The Benefits You’re Going To Find

With both of these techniques, the main benefit that you will find is that your sales should increase. If you’re using both of these techniques, you’re going to put yourself in a better position for growth, as the likelihood of you being able to attract customers, and then make sure they’re turning into conversions, is much higher!

Hacks For Successfully Increasing Website Ranking

August 17, 2018 by Contributed Post Leave a Comment

If you want to give your business the very best chance of success, then you need to guarantee that your business website is doing the job it was designed for – pulling in new leads. Now, to do that, it’s crucial that your site ranks highly in Google and other search engines, as otherwise your chances of success will be impacted.

The question is, of course, what steps can you take to ensure that your website ranks as highly as possible? Below is a guide to ways that you can give your website’s search engine rank a boost.

Better Website Ranking and SEO

Publish relevant content

When it comes to website ranking success, one of the most important factors to consider is your content. If you want your website to rank highly in Google and other search engines, the content that you are posting needs to be relevant to the industry that you run your business within.

Quality content is one of the very best things that your website can have. You want to only showcase content that has been created specifically for your site and has been written to a high-quality. Low-quality content, even if relevant, can do more harm than good, which is why it’s so vital that if you don’t have the skill or experience to write website content, you outsource the task to someone who does.

Update old posts

Having a good search engine rank isn’t just about creating new content, it’s also about taking the time to update old posts. Did you know that by updating old posts, you can help to boost your website’s search engine rank? Keep your content fresh, and your site will rank higher in search engines like Google.

Get help with SEO

SEO is a vital part of creating a website that ranks highly. All your content must have relevant SEO incorporated into it to rank in search engines. The issue is, however, that when you don’t know how to create quality content, you can end up keyword stuffing, which can mean that Google will blacklist your site.

For instance, say your keywords were ‘cannabis’ and ‘medical marijuana,’ in a well-written piece of content they would appear five to seven times. In a piece that is stuffed with keywords, they would appear 20 times or more. If you’re not an experienced writer, it’s not easy to create quality content, which is why so many businesses now outsource this task to specialists.

Create a ‘link-worthy’ site

A big part of how your website ranks is linked to how many other websites link back to it and its content. This is partly why having a blog on your website is seen as being so beneficial for your website’s search engine rank, as it gives people more content to link back to.

What it’s vital to understand is that not all content is link worthy. If you want your website to rank highly in search engines, its content needs to be highly linkable. To create content that is link worthy, you need to ensure that what your website discusses is interesting and relevant and that the content itself is perfectly written.

There you have it, a guide to all of the best hacks for creating a higher ranking website.