Tips for Small Businesses

When you’re running your small business, you sometimes have a tendency to focus on what you’re working on at that moment and forget to take a step back and look at the full picture and see what we’ve forgotten.

I want to go over 5 items that are important for your small business.  While they might not take much time or effort to fix, they’re important for your business.

Website Security

What is the first thing someone sees when they go to your website?  If it’s a big warning sign, then they may leave and never come back!

You need to make sure that you have an SSL certificate. This basically means that when someone types in your website, instead of saying “http,” it says “https,”.  The added S means that it’s secure. Recently, Google has decided that if you do not have an SSL certificate and your site is not completely secure, then they’re going to have this screen come up warning the person browsing and going to your website.

Recently, Google decided that if you do not have an SSL certificate and your site is not completely secure, then they’re going to have this screen come up warning the person browsing and going to your website.

Do you want visitors seeing: “This site is not secure. Do you want to go back where you came from?”?  Heck NO! Most will choose to go back to safety and not even make it to your website.

Make sure that you have that SSL certificate. If you have someone managing your website, contact them. If you are doing it yourself, contact your hosting company.  Most of them can help you with it.  (If not, it might be time to get a new host!)

Everything’s Mobile

I know I talked about this in-depth recently, but it’s worth repeating, make sure you have a mobile-responsive and mobile-friendly website.

If you’re starting fresh with your website, that’s one of the first things that you want to ask either your web developer or, if you’re doing it yourself, you want to make sure that what you’re using is mobile-friendly from the beginning so that you don’t have to expend extra work on making it mobile-responsive.

My Personal Favorite: VIDEO!

Of course, you MUST have video on your website.  At a minimum, you should have an introduction video telling everyone who you are and what you do.

Video helps speed up the know, like and trust factor. With over 80% of internet traffic being video by 2020, you need to include it in your marketing strategy.  Don’t forget to put it on YouTube and other social media channels.

Bonus Tip: Transcribe or have your video transcribed.  This helps for several reasons.  Ever have your sound turned off, but scroll through Facebook? Did you notice words on lots of videos so you knew what was going on? That’s one reason you should have them transcribed. A bonus tip for you on video is to make sure that you transcribe your video and have that metadata in there when you upload that video.

A bonus tip for you on video is to make sure that you transcribe your video and have that metadata in there when you upload that video.

Make sure when you upload the video to YouTube, you upload the transcription file. Transcribing videos can be very time consuming, that’s why I started using Go Transcript. (*affiliate link)

I gave a 5-minute presentation recently talking about how to record your own video for an introduction or live stream.  If you have questions about incorporating video, I’d love to chat with you about it.

Grab my Video Tips!

Elevator Speech

While we’re on the subject of introductions, make sure you have that elevator speech down pat!  Whether you are going to be talking on live stream or getting up and talking in front of a networking group, you need to have that one-minute elevator speech ready.

What you do and the services you provide and also how to get in touch with you. You need to make sure that you have that down so you’re not fumbling and taking up your time. Some networking groups only give you a minute to say who you are and what you do. If you are fumbling around, you’re not going get your point across.

Here’s my introduction I redid recently and I usually say something similar, but shorter when I am at networking events.

Say what?!?

My fifth and final tip for you in this post may sound a little bit strange but I’ve actually seen it, so it bears mentioning. Make sure before you get 500 or  1,000 business cards printed, that they have the best (professional) contact information for you.

I went to a networking event a while back and I got a card from someone and it had their name on it and what they do, but no email or phone number. What exactly was I supposed to do with that?

Make sure to include your: name, phone number, email, website, and if you also have a brick-and-mortar store, your address. If you don’t have a brick & mortar location, consider including the city and state, especially if you offer a local service.

What’s Professional?

Make sure that you’re using a professional email address. Do not put your Gmail, BellSouth, Yahoo, AOL, etc. on your business card. It’s simply not professional. Use either your website url or your name.  For instance, my email address is Tricia@TriciaClements.com.

This shows your potential client that you mean business!

 

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