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5 Quick Small Business Website Tips

/ Insights      / 5 Quick Small Business Website Tips

5 Quick Small Business Website Tips

A website is a huge opportunity for small businesses to attract new customers and strengthen relationships with existing customers.

We have put together a set of five quick tips that will help small business owners get the most from their website.

Tip 1 – Make Sure Your Website Is Mobile Friendly

We have repeatedly spoken on this blog about the importance of your website by those using mobile devices.

This is especially critical for businesses that operate within a small local area as appearing in local mobile results means people can find you on the move when they may need your product/service urgently.

Tip 2 – Add A Blog

Google loves websites that have lots of fresh and relevant content, publishing a blog post once a fortnight will ensure that when Google looks at your site it can connect what you are saying to what your customers need.

Tip 3 – Make Your Contact Information Easy To Find

If people visit your website and want to find out more but cannot find a way to get in contact with you easily then they will leave and find a competitor.

We recommend you have your business phone number on every page.

Tip 4 – Make Your Site Visually Appealing

Images can help explain what you offer to customers and make your site more visually appealing. The more appealing your website to the eye the more likely people are to stay and assimilate the information on your page. This tip goes hand in hand with easy to use navigation so people can find what they need straight away.

Tip 5 – Promote Your Blog Posts More Than Once

Only promoting a good quality informative blog post is a wasted opportunity, use social media to repackage the content repeatedly to ensure

If you would like to know more about what your business needs to keep up with modern consumers and changes to the way online marketing works give us a call on 020 8861 0115

anu_panesar

Anoop Panesar

Business Development Manager

Digital marketing and tech specialist Anoop is a well-known figure in the Harrow and North London community. Currently the Operations Director for Aspiring Panda, the company uses cloud and development expertise to solve some of the toughest business challenges – which has recently included consulting with East African nations to provide sustainable farming.

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Technology

A Smart Business Website Does Not Have To Cost The Earth

/ Insights      / A Smart Business Website Does Not Have To Cost The Earth

A Smart Business Website Does Not Have To Cost The Earth

Creating a business website that suits the needs of your business can be daunting for small business owners. It is a decision that can frustrate even the most experienced business owners.

There is so much choice and the prices seem to range from pennies to tens of thousands of pounds with no one properly explaining the difference. This can make it really difficult for business owners to know what is the right fit for their business.

This conundrum led us to create our ‘Smart Website’ concept specifically designed to put a professionally developed web design within the reach of even the smallest business.

The concept is that we give business owners the features that they need in a simple way. This allows our customers to get the benefits of having a website built by experts, without the eye watering price tag.

This sites are mobile friendly, seo optimised and beautifully designed in a way that is customised to your business whilst remaining easy to maintain.

Smart Website Main Features

Be In Control – Our sites are designed to allow you to upload and update the content on your website at anytime from anywhere you can access the internet.

Use Your Own Colours – Our template is customisable to allow it to reflect the colour scheme of your brand

Integrate Galleries For Photos and Videos – Images and videos help customers picture and understand your goods and services. These can be easily integrated within your website

Integrate Social Media – Social media is a great way of gaining new customers, we allow visitors to your site to see your latest social posts and vice versa.

If you are unsure whether your business has the right web presence, or you are looking to create a new one and think a “Smart Website” is for you give us a call on 020 8861 0115

anu_panesar

Anoop Panesar

Business Development Manager

Digital marketing and tech specialist Anoop is a well-known figure in the Harrow and North London community. Currently the Operations Director for Aspiring Panda, the company uses cloud and development expertise to solve some of the toughest business challenges – which has recently included consulting with East African nations to provide sustainable farming.

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Technology

Three Ways Social Media Can Help Your Business

/ Insights      / Three Ways Social Media Can Help Your Business

Three Ways Social Media Can Help Your Business

Social media is an increasingly important part of the marketing of small businesses across the UK. With more than 30m users of Facebook alone, it is getting harder and harder to ignore that your target audience is active on social media.

For business owners that are resisting moving their business onto social media it is likely that they are missing out on opportunities and risking getting passed over in favour of companies that are more proactive with their digital marketing.

If you are on the fence, here are three ways social media can help your business succeed:

Generate Referral Business From Existing Customers

Existing customers are often the most effective way of getting new business as they refer their friends and colleagues to your product or service. Social media is an incredibly powerful way of harnessing this and broadcasting the goodwill your existing customer base has for what you do.

Target & Advertise To Potential Customers

Social media is powerful for businesses, in part due to the data that the platforms create and store about their users. Harnessed effectively, this can be used to advertise your business to exactly the people you want to target.

This means that you spend less money on traditional less well directed advertising platforms such as print or radio advertising.

Customer Service

Whether you are on social media or not, your customers are talking about you both the good and the bad. If you are on social media then you have an opportunity to see what they are saying about you, reinforce the positive and fix the negative.

After all, there is no more powerful an advocate than someone who has a negative experience that is given excellent customer service.

If you are unsure how to get a strategy that works for your business contact the Aspiring Panda team.

anu_panesar

Anoop Panesar

Business Development Manager

Digital marketing and tech specialist Anoop is a well-known figure in the Harrow and North London community. Currently the Operations Director for Aspiring Panda, the company uses cloud and development expertise to solve some of the toughest business challenges – which has recently included consulting with East African nations to provide sustainable farming.

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Technology

How The Internet Of Things Is Changing How We Do Business

/ Insights      / How The Internet Of Things Is Changing How We Do Business

How The Internet Of Things Is Changing How We Do Business

One of the technology trends of the next decade will be the adoption of the Internet of Things (IOT) across the business landscape.

What Is The Internet of Things?

The internet of things is the name for the ability for everyday objects, devices and vehicles to collect data and transmit it via the internet. This allows for devices to be controlled and managed externally.

A Universal Example

Utilities are one area that the general public will see the IOT impact upon their lives in the next few years. Currently smart meters for electricity usage are being rolled out, which will allow companies to monitor and bill customer energy usage without having to enter the customer premises to carry out regular meter readings.

This is also being adapted to allow homeowners to control their heating remotely, this allows them to save money on their energy by having more control and ensuring that their house is warm when they go home by turning it on when they need it, rather than to a pre scheduled timeframe.

How Will This Affect Businesses?

The ability to use the principles of the IOT means that businesses can automate and manage processes that may have been previously difficult to track and monitor.

This can assist in the decision making process and allow businesses to have a tighter control of business processes and employee productivity.

At Aspiring Panda we have recently been working with and advising companies how to use the IOT in conjunction with IOS and Android apps to assist in previously difficult or dangerous monitoring tasks.

Helping companies understand the potential benefits of the IOT has underlined to us how this will be one of the most important tech developments of the next few weeks.

anu_panesar

Anoop Panesar

Business Development Manager

Digital marketing and tech specialist Anoop is a well-known figure in the Harrow and North London community. Currently the Operations Director for Aspiring Panda, the company uses cloud and development expertise to solve some of the toughest business challenges – which has recently included consulting with East African nations to provide sustainable farming.

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Technology

How Dry Cleaners Can Compete Using Technology

/ Insights      / How Dry Cleaners Can Compete Using Technology

How Dry Cleaners Can Compete Using Technology

The UK dry cleaning, and the cleaning services industry more widely, is worth more than £1bn per year, employing over 30,000 people within nearly 4,000 businesses.

An industry report shows that the last five years have been challenging, due to the economic downturn, lower household budgets, and lower demand. Although the number of establishments has declined an online opportunity has emerged.

Demand is starting to recover, however the opportunity lies in adapting to changing consumer habits to craft a customer service that is both cost effective and convenient to the client.

Using Technology To Compete

The internet may not have had a huge impact on the industry in the early stages of the dotcom boom. The last five years have seen a revolution in how consumers research and buy products.

By harnessing this as yet underused resource, dry cleaners can offer click and collect or delivery services to their customers at the press of a button. These kinds of services add convenience to the customer who can order, pay, and even get their clothes collected and returned without leaving their home.

By combining this with text/email marketing with app based push notifications, dry cleaners can maintain regular contact with their customer base, increase referrals, retention and the annual value of each customer.

Apps are popular with the younger generations, making dry cleaning more accessible than the traditional high street shop front, potentially creating an entirely new market for your services.

Creating A Laundry App

Creating a dry cleaning app can be done in many ways, from working with larger providers, to an independent presence. At Aspiring Panda we see the value in helping a business maintain its brand, particularly if it is a longstanding business that has reputation and merit. However, this does not mean that a dry cleaner needs to invest in a bespoke app.

At Aspiring Panda we have a product that we can customise to your business and integrate it seamlessly into an existing website. If a business does not have a site, then we can even create this for you.

If you would like to know more about how your dry cleaning business can compete using a mobile app, just give us a call.

anu_panesar

Anoop Panesar

Business Development Manager

Digital marketing and tech specialist Anoop is a well-known figure in the Harrow and North London community. Currently the Operations Director for Aspiring Panda, the company uses cloud and development expertise to solve some of the toughest business challenges – which has recently included consulting with East African nations to provide sustainable farming.

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Development Technology web

A Guide to Mobile Responsive websites

/ Insights      / A Guide to Mobile Responsive websites

A Guide to Mobile Responsive websites

In the last five years the way in which we search the internet has changed. Internet traffic has moved from the desktop to the mobile device. This is powerful for consumers and retailers and contributed to a huge change in the way Google ranks websites.

This year Google changed the way it treats websites that are not designed to display correctly using smart phones and tablet devices. From the 23rd of April 2015 Google changed the algorithm that ranks search engines depending on whether a website is “mobile friendly”

This change is due to the change in internet searches, with more than 50% of web searches now made on mobile devices rather than on a desktop PC. This change means businesses need to ensure their website is mobile responsive or risk a decrease in visits to their sites.

Many Businesses Are Still Not Up To Date

However through our networking and the projects we have been working on it is clear that there are still a large number of businesses that have not updated their site to be mobile responsive.

Even six months after the changes were introduced we still meet businesses that have websites that are currently unresponsive.

How To Check If Your Website Is Out Of Date

To see if your website is mobile responsive or not you can visit the Google website and take the mobile friendly test.

If Google says that your website is not mobile friendly, then it is not too late to update your site, however we recommend that you make the changes as soon as possible to ensure that you do not miss out on mobile search tracking.

If you are unsure what these changes mean for your business or would like to speak to a digital marketing expert then give the Aspiring Panda team a call.

anu_panesar

Anoop Panesar

Business Development Manager

Digital marketing and tech specialist Anoop is a well-known figure in the Harrow and North London community. Currently the Operations Director for Aspiring Panda, the company uses cloud and development expertise to solve some of the toughest business challenges – which has recently included consulting with East African nations to provide sustainable farming.

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web

Many London Business Websites Still Not Mobile Friendly

/ Insights      / Many London Business Websites Still Not Mobile Friendly

Many London Business Websites Still Not Mobile Friendly

Since Google changed its algorithm in April 2015, having a website that is mobile friendly has become vital. However many London businesses are still not compliant and may be missing out on opportunities to reach their target customers.

What Is Mobile Friendly

Mobile friendly is a term to describe a website that has been designed to display websites properly on smartphones and tablets. Sites that are not mobile friendly may be shrunk to fit all the information onto the screen, or be too big and going well outside the boundaries of the screen.

This makes them hard to view and navigate when using a mobile device, which is something Google wants to avoid when it points you to a website via Google Search.

How Do I Check My Site

Checking your site is mobile friendly is simple, all you need to do is run your site through the Google mobile friendly test

Why This Matters

More than six months after the change a large number of small businesses are not yet compliant and are therefore less visible in Google search. This is important as Google is the dominant platform people use in the UK to search for information.

In the UK Google is used for nearly 90% of all searches making it important to be as visible as possible.

The Challenge For London Small Business Owners

Despite the changes being live for some time, many London business websites are still not mobile friendly.

This can be for a number of different reasons, but we believe that many still do not know how important a change this was.

Keeping track of the latest digital marketing trends can be difficult for small business. Knowing which announcements and changes matter is not always easy to determine and neither is the correct fix.

If you are not sure where you stand with your website or digital marketing, give us a call and we can give you the information you need to keep your website up to speed

anu_panesar

Anoop Panesar

Business Development Manager

Digital marketing and tech specialist Anoop is a well-known figure in the Harrow and North London community. Currently the Operations Director for Aspiring Panda, the company uses cloud and development expertise to solve some of the toughest business challenges – which has recently included consulting with East African nations to provide sustainable farming.

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Technology

5 Checks To Make Sure That Your Small Business Website Is Fit For Purpose

/ Insights      / 5 Checks To Make Sure That Your Small Business Website Is Fit For Purpose

5 Checks To Make Sure That Your Small Business Website Is Fit For Purpose

The internet provides businesses with an opportunity to make their business accessible to customers anytime and potentially anywhere. In recent years, the concept of a company website has evolved to be much more than just a flyer or poster promoting your business on the internet.

Instead, with the right design, message, and layout your website has the ability to create and convert leads. However, this means that companies must consider the right approach for their business and invest in the development of an appropriate website.

For the small business, budgets for web design can often be tight. However, there are a number of checks you can do to make sure you have the basics covered.

Check Your Website Is Mobile Friendly

With more than 50% of internet traffic now coming from smartphones or iPads, businesses should make sure that their websites display properly on different mobile devices. In April, Google made this a factor in how easy it was for people to find your site using Google search. You can check if your site complies here – https://www.google.co.uk/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/

Add an Active Element to the Site

With so many businesses starting and then fizzling out, it can be difficult for people to work out whether or not a business is still operating. Adding an active element to your website – such as a social media feed, blog or booking system – lets people know that you are open for business

Make It Easy to Contact You Using the Site

The purpose of a business website is to either sell something through the site or to get a potential customer to express an interest. It never fails to surprise us when we see attractive and interesting company websites that make it difficult to get in contact and make purchases.

Don’t lose out on opportunities – make certain that your contact information or call to action works or is easy to find.

Check Your Site Is SEO Optimised

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the term for the actions you take to make your site more appealing to the search engine rankings. An important part of this is “on-page optimisation” which is the set up of your website so Google can read it correctly.

Make sure your website is set up properly so those looking for you or businesses like yours can find you

Make Sure Your Site Loads Quickly

The average internet user is impatient: if your site takes a few seconds to load your potential customer may leave without absorbing any information. Test your website and make sure it loads quickly.

anu_panesar

Anoop Panesar

Business Development Manager

Digital marketing and tech specialist Anoop is a well-known figure in the Harrow and North London community. Currently the Operations Director for Aspiring Panda, the company uses cloud and development expertise to solve some of the toughest business challenges – which has recently included consulting with East African nations to provide sustainable farming.

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