Author: Hitsteps

When you run a business, you will inevitably suffer from some sort of technological issues. While some of these are highly complex and cannot be dealt with alone, there are also plenty that are solvable by taking a few simple actions. If you know how to deal with common technical problems yourself, you can keep your business running smoothly.

Restart Your System First

While it has become a cliché to talk about turning your computer off and on again, the number of times that this proves to do the job is staggering. Whether you have a frozen laptop or a misfiring printer, this should be your first step. The same goes if you are having connection issues with your Wi-Fi You may find that it is just your operating systems that need updating.

Slow Computer

There is nothing more frustrating than a computer that seems to take an age to load, but before you decide to throw it on the scrap heap, you want to make sure that it is the actual cause of the problem. Often, websites that take an eternity to load can be the fault of a poor Wi-Fi connection and not the computer itself. If you are still experiencing problems with your PC, you should check to ensure that you have enough space on your hard drive. Now is a good opportunity to get rid of some of those unnecessary files. Again, another possible issue is that you have not installed your updates, so do not ignore that message the next time that it pops up!

Pop-Up Ads

One way of avoiding adverts from spoiling your browsing experience is by installing an ad blocker on your system. There are plenty available these days, and they can help to make browsing the internet a much more enjoyable experience. If you find that an excessive number of ads are still appearing, it may be that you have inadvertently installed adware onto your system. You need accredited antivirus software to keep this off your system. You should only need one that will perform the necessary scans for you but have an additional check if you are worried that something has got onto your computer that should not be there.

Your Systems Are Too Old

If you are unable to run the latest programs, it may simply be the case that your systems are too old. Alternatively, you may not have the necessary expertise to keep them running effectively, which is where a professional service like Iconic IT can help. Ultimately, if you do not keep on top of updating your hard and software from time to time, it is more likely that it will not run as effectively as you would like.

By keeping these four points in mind and trying out the methods as a starting point, you may well be able to avoid tech disruption at your business. Many more problems than you think can be solved easily.

Whether you’re in the process of setting up your own business or you’re a seasoned small business owner, having a strong online marketing strategy is essential to your success. As well as this, when coming up with your business’s marketing plan, you will have no doubt considered who is the target audience for your product or services. From Twitter to Snapchat, Instagram to YouTube, the sheer quantity of online platforms can soon become overwhelming, especially if you feel that your business should have a presence on all of them. To assist you with getting the best from your online platforms, here are three ways that you can reach your target audience online.

1. Identify what platform your target audience will respond best to

Research shows that different demographics of people respond differently to different types of social media. For instance, Snapchat is popular amongst teenagers, and Instagram has a large user base of Gen Z and millennial women; Facebook, however, is the most democratic social media platform, having the largest number of users across all ages and genders. To take advantage of this research, you could ask your customers and followers to complete a questionnaire to provide you with information about the demographics of your customer base. This will give you the information to know on what social media platform you should focus your online marketing.

2. Collaborate with bloggers and influencers

Although still a relatively new career choice, bloggers and other online influencers command a huge amount of respect and influence over customers, having built up their own trusted brand. With some bloggers and influencers reaching well over a million followers, a post or two about your product will ensure that your business reaches a huge number of potential customers. With bloggers and influencers active in a variety of different fields, from book bloggers to fitness Instagrammers, you are sure to find an online influencer to suit your business’s ethos. For instance, Click Intelligence can match you up with a blogger suitable for your business who can help to increase your online presence by producing great content on your behalf that you can use for your business.

3. Interact regularly with your customer base

There is growing evidence that customers respond better to businesses that are open and transparent with them, disliking traditional hard sales techniques such as a constant stream of promotional information. This is perhaps because most customers like to feel that they are building a relationship with a trusted business, rather than being a disposable statistic in a corporate setting. Considering this, you must connect with your customers over your business’s social media platforms. You could, for instance, host a Livestream when launching new products to provide your customers with a proper look at what is on offer, as well as being available to answer any questions they may have about your business. By doing this, you are then able to build up a trusting relationship between your business and your target audience.  

Anyone who is starting up a new business rarely has a plethora of money that they are willing to throw around. After all, that’s why people start businesses, to sell a product or service in return for profit. As you grow your business, you will have access to more financial resources which you can use to pay for upgrades, but when you start out, you need the bare minimum.

Lowering your start-up costs will help reduce the stress and financial burden as you embark on your new journey as an entrepreneur. Here are some of the ways that you can do it.

Work from a coworking space

Office rental is a considerable expense when starting a small business. There really isn’t any reason that you need to rent out an entire office, especially at the beginning. There is always the option to do so further down the line as you scale up and add more staff. Coworking spaces are a fantastic option, allowing you to rent out the desks you require to work from at a fraction of the cost of renting your own office.

On top of that, you can find a coworking space Glasgow which has conference/presentation rooms, lounges and terraces and cafes for you and your staff to use. You can use your coworking space for your business address for as long as you need to.

Outsource

Outsourcing is the best way to save money on staffing costs when you start a new business. Hiring full-time, salaried employees is a huge expense, and often not necessary when you first start your business. Identify what your specific needs are, and find freelancers and contractors who you can outsource the work to. You can find a variety of freelancers on platforms like Upwork, who specialize in different areas, meaning you can choose the perfect fit.

Outsourcing is an excellent option for accounting and finance, marketing, social media, IT and even customer service. You will only need to pay them for the hours they work, meaning you’ll save on staffing costs, plus you aren’t required to offer benefits/health packages, which are another added expense.

Once your business grows big enough, then you may want to consider hiring full-time, permanent staff, but it’s not a required expense when you first start-up.

Do as much as you can

Taking care of as much as you possibly can yourself will save you tons of money when you first start your business. Balance is key, and you don’t want to overwhelm yourself with tasks and end up burning out. That said, learning a bit about invoicing, doing accounts, digital marketing, and basic design will help you out as a business owner. Having basic knowledge in all of these areas will allow you to do many general tasks, at least in the beginning. Some of these tasks include scheduling and posting on social media, writing content for your onsite blog, sending invoices to clients, paying invoices for freelancers, and creating graphics for your social feeds.

There are tons of online resources where you can learn these skills for free, or close to it, with platforms like Udemy or simply by watching YouTube tutorials.

The businesses that succeed and dominate in their industries are the ones that modernize and stay current. Being adaptable like this is vital because it allows you to find ways to improve the running of your company, it can help you to satisfy your target market, and could improve the quality of the product/service that you provide. So, how can you modernize your business? It will depend on your industry, but there are a few key areas to focus on, which could have a big impact on your brand in more ways than one. Read on to find out the best ways to modernize your business.

1. Flexible Working

Flexible working has been a trend on the rise for many years, but the coronavirus pandemic has forced businesses in all industries around the world to implement remote working, which has largely been successful. Flexible scheduling and remote working can bring many benefits to all and it is certainly a smart way to modernize your brand.

2. Reduce Environmental Impact

Similarly, the pandemic has shown that reducing environmental impact can have a positive effect, so this needs to be an area that all businesses focus on. There are many ways to do this, such as:

• Increasing recycling
• Remote working
• Functioning as a paperless company
• Working with green suppliers
• Using energy-efficient appliances

3. Upgrade Your Equipment

Equipment is constantly being improved so it is highly likely that there are better items available, which could have a big impact on your daily operations. Fluent Conveyors can provide custom-made conveyor belts for your operation, which could streamline work processes, increase productivity, and make it much easier, quicker, and safer to transport material onsite. Smart upgrades such as these this can help a business to succeed in more ways than one, and they are always worth the investment.

4. Automate Repetitive Tasks

Another area worth looking into is automation, as this can bring so many benefits to both the business and the employees. Automation can understandably cause some concern due to fears over job losses, but when it is used to help employees in their daily roles it can actually make work much easier for staff and allows them to focus on the area of their role that requires a human touch. Other advantages of automation include the reduction of errors, speeding up processes, and maximizing efficiency.

5. Upgrade Cybersecurity

There has been so much focus placed on the pandemic in 2020, which is understandable because it has turned the world on its head, but it is important that business owners do not forget about the threat of cybercrime, which has previously been seen as the biggest threat to modern businesses. This means that you need to have high-quality cybersecurity products in place to protect your business from the latest digital threats, but you must also make sure that you are training your staff in how they can stay safe and protect business data.

Business owners should always be looking for ways to modernize so that they can stay competitive and improve their business processes, and the above tips are all smart ways to do this.

If you operate a small business, having a website is essential. While businesses of the past had the option of utilizing a website for their products and services, today’s market demands that companies have a decent site. Otherwise, your business is likely to fall behind.

But just having a website is also not enough. Building a site that will attract customers and create conversions requires that it is appealing, functional, and easy to navigate. If your website is too slow or requires too many steps to make a purchase, you may lose customers forever.

If you’re brand new to setting up a website, below is some guidance that may be useful.

Establish Your Purpose

Establishing and defining the purpose of your website is absolutely crucial for its success. When potential customers land on your page, the purpose of your company and what you’re selling should be abundantly clear. The purpose will, of course, vary across businesses, and it may be that you don’t have much to explain. Just make sure that your purpose is crystal clear so that patrons of your site know what they are there for.

Decide on a Good Host

Hosting is vitally essential for the performance of your website. Popular hosting companies include:

• Bluehost
• HostGator
• GreenGeeks
• InMotion
• SiteGround

Depending on your tech needs and budget, hosting can cost anywhere from $2 to $100+ per month. In terms of the type, you can opt for either shared hosting, which means you’ll share a server with other sites, or dedicated hosting, which means you’ll have your own private server.

The latter is obviously more expensive, but it means you’re not at the mercy of other websites and the potential for slow bandwidth speed. Whichever host you choose, ensure you select one that has everything you need in terms of support, security, and site performance.

Choose a Domain

Your domain name is as valuable as the name of your business. It is the URL that you will be sharing to promote your site, so it needs to be short, descriptive, easy to type, and jargon-free. Included in this is your top-level domain (TLD) and whether you will go for .com, .net, .org, etc. Depending on whether your site is international, you’ll need to do some research on the best TLD for your business. Once you’ve chosen your domain and TLD, you can visit sites like Wix, GoDaddy, or Squarespace to find out whether your name is available or already taken.

Create Engaging, Easy-to-use Pages/Interface

As you’re building your site, you must create pages that are memorable, engaging, and impressionable. The last thing you want is for people to land and leave, all before exploring your services. To do this, you’ll need to create an eye-catching interface with excellent content. As this can be the more challenging aspect of website building, you may want to hire a custom website design company. These experts can make your ideas reality while providing the technical know-how and experience to ensure the site is sleek and efficient.

Setting up a website for a small business is challenging, but not impossible. With the right guidance and support, you can be well on your way to having a well-designed and engaging site that customers will want to return to time and again.

 

Cyber security is something that every business owner should have on their priority list. Not only do you need to be able to have methods of protecting your clients’ information that they have entrusted you with, but you also need to be able to keep your employees’ information safe and secure. Everything from personal information to bank details are susceptible to cyber threats if not safeguarded appropriately.

Unfortunately, despite your best efforts to implement the right systems and practice cyber security measures yourself, your information can still fall prey to cyber-attacks if your employees aren’t adequately trained in cyber security as well.

With that in mind, here are four ways to teach your employees the best cyber security practices so that you can help keep your company safe and protected from any attempted breaches.

1. Understand Cyber Security Yourself

The first thing that you will want to do prior to educating your employees is to educate yourself. There are a number of cyber security practices that you will want to learn more about so that you can be the one spearheading your security efforts. While there is merit to consulting with cyber security experts, there is no substitute for obtaining that knowledge for yourself. You can earn a degree pertaining to cyber security online via an accelerated program. Find out more information at https://studyonline.ecu.edu.au/.

 

2. Place an Emphasis on Training

You can’t expect your employees to maintain good cyber security practices without the proper training. Furthermore, that training shouldn’t be just a one-time thing. You should start the training process for cyber security at your company right from the onboarding process.

Furthermore, the world of cyber security is constantly evolving and changing. This means that the manner in which employees at your company are trained should be an ongoing process as well. Make sure that all employees are kept up to date with the latest developments as they pertain to your company’s particular security measures.

3. Check in Via Evaluations

From time to time it becomes necessary to conduct evaluations with your employees concerning various aspects of your company’s internal operations. Such evaluations might pertain to employee satisfaction or other things of that nature. These evaluations can provide you with valuable insight into how your employees are feeling about their job situation.

You can also conduct evaluations and surveys in order to discover where your workers are at in regard to their cyber security knowledge. If the results of the surveys and evaluations indicate a lapse in knowledge, then you will be able to conduct a training in order to bring people up to speed.

4. Encourage Questions

Oftentimes, employees can have a tendency to avoid asking questions out fear of appearing inadequate. When it comes to cyber security, though, you don’t want to leave anything up to chance. For this reason, you need to make sure that you encourage your workers to ask questions if and when they come up.

Nobody would disagree with you if you said that cybersecurity is essential. However, if you asked them to take time out of their day or inconvenience themselves in the name of cybersecurity, you might find that people are less agreeable. This is because although people understand the term, they can’t quite connect it up with how it is relevant to them.

What are the risks

The thing most at risk from threats to your cybersecurity is your sensitive information, particularly customer information. Hackers will try to get hold of financial information, which poses a clear financial risk, but they will also find and sell valuable customer information. This then not only damages the reputation of your business but could mean that you are fined for not properly safeguarding sensitive data.

Cybercriminals will also leverage fragile connectivity so that they can use ransomware to disrupt your business and, in particular, the IoT (Internet of Things). If you have a lot of smart technology, this could pose a great deal of risk.

They are evolving as technology does

Cybercriminals are intelligent. As technology evolves, the threats evolve too. More and more businesses are utilising the cloud to store customer data, and as they do, the threat to that data is growing. This is creating new challenges, especially for small businesses.

AI and machine learning are the emerging technologies that everyone is getting excited about. Unfortunately, just as we can utilise this technology to improve our businesses, so cybercriminals can utilise it to expose weaknesses in our defences and make their attacks more effective. Similarly, creative cybercriminals can ‘poison’ machine learning, by sneaking in malicious code that causes the programme to malfunction.

Even smart contracts such as those used by Ethereum aren’t safe. It’s such a new technology that researchers are still finding bugs that can be exploited. This is something that any cybersecurity policy will need to cover in the future.

How you can be prepared

For small businesses, staying on top of cybersecurity can seem like an unending task that is taking you away from the core functions of your business. Plus, because cybercriminals are evolving so quickly, it can be hard to stay on top of what you need to be doing to keep your business safe. To give yourself the best possible chance of keeping your business safe, you could enlist a small business IT support provider. You can pay the experts to keep your business safe, while you do what you do best.

There are also some measures that can be implemented quickly and efficiently to up your security level, both in your business and personal life:

• Encrypt your data, especially customer data.
• Backup your system so that if you are the victim of a ransomware attack, you don’t lose everything.
• Educate your staff on cybersecurity, particularly on phishing attacks, which will often be targeted at employee email addresses.
• Ensure that customer data is secured behind a firewall.
• Be mindful of social media; people create fake accounts that they will use to gain access to your data. Only befriend people online who you know actually exist.
• Limit the amount of personal data you put online. If it’s not there, nobody can steal it!
• Keep your software updated. Software companies will release updates to fix bugs, including vulnerabilities to Cyber Attack.
• Use multi-factor authentication. It’s a bit annoying but effective.

Finally, try hacking yourself. If you can get in, then you need to rethink your security.

If your business wants to secure many customers, blow its competitors out the water, and enjoy superb growth, it is crucial to invest in various technologies and outside-the-box ideas.

However, developing an innovative business can be complex, as there are many technologies, employees, and processes you might need to consider.

To move with the times and keep up with your rivals, read the following advice on how to create a more forward-thinking organization.

Provide Your Team with Creative Freedom

Strict rules can often stifle the creative process. To create unique, engaging marketing campaigns and sales strategies, you must provide your staff with more freedom to think outside the box.

To provide greater creative freedom, you must:

• Encourage brainstorming sessions
• Listen to your employees’ ideas
• Request unique ideas
• Ask for your staff members’ thoughts or opinions on a campaign or project
• Promote collaboration across departments

Embracing creativity will help your company to develop a distinctive brand while improving staff morale.

Don’t Fear Failure

Entrepreneurs must never fear failure, as it is inevitable that one or more unique ideas will not work out when building a forward-thinking business. Fear of failure can cripple innovation and help braver brands to dominate an industry.

Establish yourself as a market leader by daring to be different and embarking on unusual tactics on your website, social media profiles, or commercial marketing campaigns.

Invest in the Right Technologies

Different companies will have different needs. If you are unsure about the best technologies for your brand, invest in IT consulting services from HERO Managed Services LLC. They can provide bespoke tech solutions to match your organization’s exact needs, which can push your business into the future and maximize its ROI. You can also relax in the knowledge that your brand will never fall behind the times and can keep up with its modern rivals.

Identify Risk

Rather than dealing with problems when they arise, take a more proactive approach to business by minimizing its risk. For instance, you could:

• Analyze the latest cybersecurity threats
• Create stronger client contracts
• Understand your clients’ liability points
• Review likely market and economic risks
• Plan for worst-case scenarios
• Hire experienced attorneys to avoid legal issues

By pinpointing potential threats to your organization, you could protect your brand by creating a plan to bounce back from an issue as soon as possible.

Make Plans

To become a forward-thinking organization, you must plan for your business’s success. In addition to preparing the immediate future, your company would be smart to plan for the near- and long-term future.

Identify how you will expand your team, workplace, and products and services throughout the years, which will allow your business to keep up with demand and never miss out on a sale.

For example, if you have limited experience in business, you might not know how to grow an organization. You could, therefore, plan to hire a CEO when you feel you can no longer lead a company to success.

To develop an innovative brand, you must embrace creativity, improve your productivity with the best technologies, plan ahead, and identify various risks to your operations.

Online video marketing content can be a valuable tool for a client looking to boost their business through online marketing. Not only do you have the ability to convey information about a brand in a visually appealing way, but you can also utilize creativity to garner interest for a particular brand. That said, creating that video content can be a tricky task at times.

Your client will very likely have some sort of vision for their video content. You will, of course, be bringing your own creativity to the table, too. Bringing the two visions together in a practical and cost-effective way to produce the ideal video content will take time, collaboration, and compromise.

Here are a few tips to help you when you are trying to create quality online video marketing content for your client’s brand.

Equip Yourself with the Right Tools

As the world of online marketing continues to evolve, so, too, do the tools that marketers and content creators have at their disposal. When it comes to collaborative projects like video content, you will need to be equipped with the right tools for the job.

You very likely have your preferences when it comes to the software that you use, but if there is one that you should consider looking into, it is an incredibly useful and user-friendly frame.io alternative. This proofing software gives all parties involved in the project access to the content for reviews and edits without compromising on multimedia functionality. Moreover, this product offers excellent security features so that you don’t have to worry about your project in that regard.

Make it easy for all parties involved, including your clients, to submit feedback and comments in a variety of ways that will prevent things from getting lost in the shuffle or misunderstood entirely. Everyone knows that effective communication on such projects provides the best chances for efficient results. For this reason and so many more, it is definitely worth the investment to equip yourself and your team with the right tools for the job.

Have a Solid Strategy

The main trick to creating optimal online video marketing content is to start the creative process with a solid strategy. By laying out the details of your process and how you are going to go about creating your content, you give yourself and your team a roadmap to follow. Moreover, you give your clients the ability to follow the project effectively so that they know what sort of results and timeline they can expect to follow.

When you are developing your strategy, be sure to include proper SEO practices. A catchy title, effective keywords within the video’s description, and other SEO-related considerations should all be taken into account. An outline for the message that the video will convey is also something that needs to be nailed down right from the start.

Remember that this is a collaborative effort that will take effective communication from all parties involved. With the right tools and planning, your online video marketing project can be incredibly successful.

There you have it: three tips for creating quality online video marketing content. Good luck!

Often people say if something isn’t broke, don’t fix it. You might think your website is working just fine, but if it’s stopping your brand from reaching its full potential, then it is broken. Here’s a simple guide on how to migrate to a new website.

Decide what you want to change

So, you’ve decided you want to change your website. Now you just need to decide why! Make a list of all the things that you don’t like about your website. Whether that’s the appearance, the content, or the user experience, you should imagine your new website like a blank piece of paper. Carefully consider the results of your page analysis tools to find out which elements your visitors aren’t using. Copy over the things that work but leave behind the things that don’t.

Be ruthless. Migrating to a new website is one of those big decisions that a company makes just once every few years. It might also be an excellent time to make other big decisions, such as whether your brand’s logo and colours work for you. You should consider the psychological properties of colours seriously, for example, blue can provoke feelings of intelligence and trust, whereas yellow suggests friendliness and creativity.

Pick the right platform for you

 Now you know what your website needs to do, you’ll need to decide the best way to do it. One of the most important decisions you’ll need to make is which platform will power your new site. If you’re running online commerce, platforms such as Magento are trusted by big brands across the world. They offer a wide range of ready-made features which are fully customisable, so you can bring your vision to life exactly how you want it.

With so many options, it’s also essential to seek the advice of someone who knows how to use the system. Teams with a lot of experience of the platform, such as Manchester magento developer can help guide you to which features will enhance the functionality of your website. There’s no point using a platform that can do virtually anything if you’re unable to pick out the tools that will help you build the best website. It’d be like buying a Ferrari and never moving out of second gear!

Testing 

Once you’ve decided on how your website should look and how it should function, it’s time to check that it all works in the way you want. Set up a small trial section on your server and put yourself in your customers’ shoes. If you’re not happy with anything, then your web developers can offer you alternatives.

Curate your content carefully

Once you’re happy with your website, take some time to create all the content you want for your new website. Although there may be a temptation to get your new website up and running as soon as possible, you don’t want to launch a website with very little on it. For example, if your website has a blog consider publishing four or five exciting entries for people to read rather than just the traditional ‘welcome to our new website’ post. Make sure you proofread them carefully, as mistakes can give a wrong first impression of your brand.

Even more testing

Before you complete your website migration, it’s essential to thoroughly check everything. Not only the functionality of your new website but that your old pages redirect to the right content on your new site. Once that step is complete, then it is time to enjoy the benefits of your new website.