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No business can be a success without the right technology. It’s important that you invest enough money in technology and you stay up to date with the latest innovations if you want to stay relevant. If you don’t do that, your competitors will be able to offer a better level of service than you can. The right technology also saves you money and increases productivity, so it’s not an investment that you can skip. The problem is, business technology is incredibly expensive and so many businesses exceed their budget trying to keep up with the latest developments in the tech world. But it’s not sustainable if you are going over your tech budget every quarter, so you need to find ways to keep it under control. These are the best ways to manage your technology budget more effectively.

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Reinvest When You Can Afford It 

It’s important that you invest in technology on a regular basis, there’s no way around it. The thing that you need to think long and hard about is when you should invest that money. When the business is doing well and you start making good profits, you should always consider reinvesting that money, and technology is a great way to do it. If you spend the money when the business is doing well and you have profits to reinvest, it won’t cause you any financial issues. But if you try to make those investments when business is slow, you will feel the financial strain a lot more.

Don’t Let Technology Become Obsolete

A lot of business owners think that they can save money by making their tech last as long as possible. So, instead of updating their computers, they try to keep them up and running until they are completely obsolete and they cannot be used at all. The problem is, computers will reach the end of their useful lifespan long before they are obsolete. They will start running at a snail’s pace and malfunction all the time. You will end up spending so much money on repairing the same issues over and over again. When you add those costs up, you’ll realize that it’s actually more cost effective to upgrade things regularly instead of using outdated hardware.

Stay On Top Of Maintenance

Upgrading things on a regular basis is important if you want to reduce your technology costs, but you need to make sure that you stay on top of general maintenance as well. Even new technology is prone to problems, but if you constantly monitor your systems and perform routine maintenance, you can avoid any big, expensive issues. That’s why you need to outsource to a company like Charles IT and have them manage all of your maintenance. They will be able to handle things like security, and flag any problems before they start costing you a lot of money.

Understand What You Are Buying 

This sounds obvious, but if you are honest about it, you probably don’t fully understand a lot of the business software that you buy. You’re not an IT expert and so it’s easy to be taken in when a sales rep tells you that their new piece of software is going to revolutionize your business with all of its amazing features. But do you actually need those features? So many businesses are paying for complex software that they don’t need, especially if they are a small business. You could be wasting a huge amount of money without even realizing it because you don’t understand what you are actually paying for. Outsourcing to the right IT service will help a lot here because they can advise you on what your business needs and what it doesn’t. When you are implementing new technology, you should always think about the gaps in your business. Which problems need to be solved and which technology will help you solve them? If you come at it from that angle, you are only buying what the business needs, rather than spending lots of money on the vague promise of business improvements.

Buy Refurbished Hardware

When it comes time to replace computers, it’s going to cost you a lot of money. But have you thought about buying refurbished hardware instead? If you buy from a legitimate supplier, the computers will be as good as new, but they will be a lot cheaper. This is one of the easiest ways to save a lot of money on your technology budget.

It’s easy to go overboard with your technology spending but if you are not careful, it could cripple your business. Follow these tips and you should be able to manage it more effectively.

Cybersecurity has long been an essential consideration for business managers and owners. But the nature of those threats has evolved considerably over the last decade or so. We’ve seen a fundamental shift in the incentives facing hackers, making it far more lucrative to develop techniques which can breach digital security.

So what’s going on? In the past, the majority of hackers were mean-spirited people who just wanted to cause chaos for the sake of it. Cybercriminals would develop nasty programs, mainly malware, that would sit on company computers and cause problems. Typical attacks would slow down business networks and computers, annoying workers. The most devastating attacks would erase entire hard drives and make the system inaccessible for days. It was all generally pretty unpleasant.

But there’s been a change. It’s not just about maliciously attacking company IT infrastructure for no reason anymore; it’s about getting hold of their valuable data and either selling it or holding it to ransom. This change has made the act of hacking far more lucrative. Criminals who can get hold of company data can potentially extract significant sums of money, making cybersecurity a growing issue. Ransomware attacks grew by more than 46 percent in 2017.

The following infographic shows the skills that your company needs to counter the threat of cybersecurity. It details the dangers that you face and the capabilities that your organization needs to counter them. It also includes essential information about training in case you haven’t yet developed the skills to counter emerging threats.

Infographic by University of Alabama Birmingham

Most businesses want an app. But not because they know what to do with one. But just because it sounds pretty cool to say ‘we have an app.’ But that can change if you put in some of the groundwork in order to firm up the idea and turn it into something achievable. If you have never built an app before it can be daunting. But, you could opt to work with a team like https://iot.intellectsoft.net/custom-android-firmware-development-services and know you’re in good hands.

In general, these are some of the things you should do before you call in the big guns.

Photo by NordWood Themes on Unsplash

Goals & Problem Solving

Almost all products are designed and come to life because they are the means of solving a problem. The vacuum was a quicker way to sweep, and now all homes have one. Whatsapp was a free form of group communication – now it is an app on most phones. In both cases, they solved a problem for the consumer – but just very different kinds.

Depending on what your business is (or will be) you have the option to market your app to the public, or for B2B. Think carefully about the issues that face both markets and when doing your research, be sure that there is nothing like it already. If there is, and it is a successful app, consider that the company you have to do better than.

Sketches

Sit down with some paper and begin to visualize what your app will look like to the user. This will take a few goes before you get something that you think will work. Get as much feedback as you can. It is an excellent idea to download some similar apps and make a note of what you do and don’t like. This will give you a great feel for how the user experience will be. When you are working with a company to build your app, you will get some excellent guidance as to what layout gets the most use.

Research

You’re going to need to know what people enjoy using and how they will use the app. If you are creating something with minimal options, then you need to make sure that each of them is easy to access – the primary function of the app should be apparent. Quick tips:

• Test other apps in the same market

• Find some design inspiration – but careful, it’s not too close.

• See what the technical aspects of the application will be – are they achievable?

• How can you market and monetize it?

It is always worth remembering that very few ideas are ‘new,’ it’s more like old ideas are built on and improved over time.

Test, Test, and Test Again

When the app is being built, there will be many bugs and kinks that need to be ironed out before it is rolled out. Call in friends, family, and people who build apps (if you know any) to give you honest feedback about how it performed.

The goal here is to cement your ideas and get the app to the market – but don’t aim for an overnight release. Instead, aim for a high functioning release.

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Technology is something which is essential for businesses and people alike. We use technology  every single day to help us make life that little bit easier and this can be a huge benefit for us and everyone else around us too. Today we are looking specifically at business and how we can increase the wealth we aim from our business by using technology every step of the way.

Manage mobile devices for compliance

If you have a really large team of people to manage as a business it can be difficult to keep track of your workers. This is why mobile device management for all company owned devices can be a great thing for you to use. When to comes to real-time visibility into device inventory and behaviour of your employees as they use their phones at work, it can be good to track them and ensure that they are using their phone responsibly.

Use wearable products

Although it might not seem like an Apple Watch or another wearable device like a Fitbit will be much use to you, it can be surprising how good it is. A watch or wearable device allows you to see notifications quicker and respond to things on the go. It will also be handy to have on you when in a meeting if you don’t want your phone to disturb a conversation.

Use Twitter to steal customers

One of the best resources that any business can use online is social media. Social media is a powerhouse of marketing and it is a wonderful way to worm your way into your customers’ thoughts and feelings. To ensure that you are able to gain a good reputation online you can use social media sites such as twitter to get in touch with customers and build positive relationships with them. By doing this you will be able to steal customers from other brands simply by being friendly and showing that you can connect with them in a more tangible way.

Stay up to date with trends

If you are looking for the best way to grab the attention of your audience and tell them in, you need to know how to do that by looking for trends. Let’s say for a company such as Alpha Zone who offer forex trading courses: this is a niche market and can be hard to market for, however when we look at finance and business trends we see that people want flexible careers and entrepreneurship. Marketing a course as being a pathway to financial freedom is a smart way to approach this.

Measure engagement

Google Analytics is a tool which every company should take advantage of as much as they can. If you want to help your customers and make sure that they come back to you, you want to know that you are providing them with content they want to engage with. Measuring engagement on your individual blog posts and content will show you which posts are more popular and therefore which kind of content is the best for you to create. This will increase engagement over time and will allow you to win the hearts of your audience.

Introduce yourself

A website is a key tool for any business who is looking to leave their mark online and it is important for you to introduce yourself and give some back story to your business. People like to deal with people and it is important that you give them this chance right from the start. Introduce who you are and why you built this business and this will create an instant connect with people which is great to use. Make sure that you also think about giving some personal touches to make that connection feel real.

Make a blog

A blog is a handy tool to make for any business and it will allow you to create helpful content which will not only increase the reach of your website, but will also bring a host of new customers to your door. By making content people want to read, they will visit your website more often and they are more likely to end up buying from you.

Use video to engage

Video platforms such as YouTube and Facebook are great for you to use as a business and it will allow you to create some amazing content which will excite your audience and make them want to work with you further. It is important as a business that you are able to engage and wow your audience and video can be a great way to do this. You can use your own mobile phone or an SLR camera to make videos and share them online to bring people in.

Create newsletters

Tools such as mail chimp can make your life so much easier as a business and it will allow you to make some amazing online content to pull in your readers and to promote all of your different products and services. For example you can create a newsletter which is aimed at new customers with welcome deals, or you can create one for loyal customers which includes things such as special exclusive deals and content. One of the things which is good about email marketing is that it is low cost and it is super easy. You can connect and share your latest news with people in no time at all and it can make all the difference for you.

Keep track of data

When you have a large client list to deal with it is important that you keep track of every piece of data and make sure that they are all in one easy to reach place. A CRM system is a handy form of software which will allow you to keep track of your data easily and it will allow you to ensure that every customer is kept happy and in contact with consistently. Consistently contacting your customers can make a huge difference to your sales.

It’s all good and well having a business website, but if it’s not doing all for your company as it could be, then it’s time to make a few changes. Having a small corner of the web for your business is only the start; it’s what you do with it that’ll determine the success. While problems can be wide-ranging, many fall into the same old categories. Below, we take a look at four of the common problems that small businesses have with their website. If your site is suffering from any of them, it’s time to make a few changes!

Source: Pexels.com

A Secondary Concern

Social media is important, there’s no getting around it. However, your presence on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram should not be your top priority when it comes to the online world. All too often, companies put the bulk of their energy into getting as many followers as they can, coming up with share-worthy posts, and so on. In actual fact, it’s your website that should be getting most of your attention. Your social media channels are not your end goal; they’re tools to push people to your website, which is what really counts.

Too Complicated

It’s common to look at the most advanced, well-designed websites out there, and then try to follow their lead when it comes to your own company’s site. You’ll have a flashy introduction, plenty of headers, and page after page after page. But like they always say: bigger is not always better! And if you’re a small business, then building a hyper-advanced website will do more harm than good. Instead, keep things simple. It’s not so much about how big it is, but just making sure that it’s the right size (if you’ve got a million products, then a million pages is fine, for instance). You don’t need to do more than what’s necessary!

Trust Issues

There is, understandably, a fair amount of skepticism in the online world about the trustworthiness of websites. People are more willing to doubt the legitimacy of a website than they were in the past. As such, if you’re giving a visitor any excuse to question how trustworthy you are, then you’ll be holding your site back. A site that’s down, for instance, is a red flag for a new visitor. To ensure this doesn’t happen, look at working with a company that can manage small business network; they’ll help to keep your website up and running at all times. Another way to win trust is to simply list as much contact information as you can, and to include testimonials from previous customers.

Lack of Insight

Your website generates a lot of data. The question is, are you using it in the correct way? It’s worth taking a look — it’ll show you what works, what doesn’t, where your visitors are coming from, and so on. All of these things can do wonders when it comes to pushing your website forward. You effectively have all the answers already — you just need to look.

Image Credit: Pexels

Whether your website is a space to share ideas and projects or simply a way to drive business through your conversion funnel, there are 3 rules you must always follow. These rules will help you to design your website but they will also form the foundation for refinement over the years.

So what are the rules?

The first rule of any website is that it must provide a great user experience that your audience will love. User Experience or UX is a term that you must be familiar with by now but you may not be so sure about what it means for your business. In basic terms, anyone should be able to navigate and use your website intuitively for a seamless journey from information gathering to making a purchase. This is what UX and excellent website design is all about.

The second rule is that your website must be recognizable. This means that your branding needs to be obvious and your content needs to read as though your business is doing all the talking. When your visitors arrive at your website, there should be no doubt as to where they are.

The final rule is that you must focus on SEO and continuously refine your website to make sure that you are keeping up with the internet giant, Google. Their algorithm changes almost twice a day! While you might not want to update your website that often (and you probably shouldn’t!), this does show that you need to stay on the ball and think carefully about your website and potential improvements.

Let’s take a look at what you can do.

User Experience

The user experience is the main thing that will make the difference between a customer who bounces straight off the page and the customer who looks at a wide range of pages and then makes a purchase. User experience should be at the heart of your website design, from an inviting home page to a satisfactory menu system and quick links between pages. The more you can do to make your site intuitive, the more likely users are to stay. And the longer a user stays on your site, the more time you have to persuade them to buy.

One underestimated area of user experience is load speed. Optimizing your load speed must be a top priority for business because however wonderful your page is, people are unlikely to wait long enough to see it if it takes more than a few seconds. But reducing the time it takes isn’t just about your visitors, Google also likes speedy loading sites and this is a huge ranking factor.

Your conversion funnel is usually the point of your website. Even if your website is just there to get people to email you to ask a question, it needs to point users in the right direction and show them the path you want them to take. One thing that most websites fail to do is give people enough opportunities to convert throughout the funnel. While one person might need more information, another might want to click through and buy immediately. Putting buttons throughout your site to fast-track people to conversion and using follow-up remarketing tactics will give you as many chances as possible to improve user experience and improve your conversion rate at the same time.

Recognizable Branding

Creating a recognizable brand identity is a key part of business and something you need to spend a significant amount of time on. This isn’t just a case of creating a logo and a color palette, you also need to think about the tone of voice you use, what sort of pictures will complement your site and even how your site is laid out. Your branding is the starting point for your business; it should engage your target audience, build their trust and influence your choice of suitable marketing strategies.

Storytelling is one of the main purposes of any brand. You need to tell your customers what you are about, how you can improve their lives and why you are different to your competition. Crafting a compelling brand story is one of the best things you can do to build your brand and your website is the perfect place to do it.

The look of your brand is the equivalent of a first impression so do pay attention to the colors, images and layout you choose. A sense of space is really important – even on the internet! – so do consider how much blank space you leave on each page too.

SEO

SEO comes into almost every blog about marketing, websites, business, social media and entrepreneurship. Google’s algorithm has literally changed the way businesses approach the world and if it isn’t on your radar now, you desperately need to upgrade your tech terminology and join the rest of us in 2019!

Analytics software is abundant and easy to come by but it is still one of the types of software businesses don’t consider using. You should. And, if you still need persuading, you will be glad to know that Google Analytics is free and easy to use. It will give you all the information you need to work out what your strategy should be and which areas of your website are letting you down.

One big area here is content. While you should definitely focus on making everything you produce easy to access and understand for your target audience, you must also consider Google’s needs. This SEO checklist is quite useful for beginners who want to optimize their site but if you really aren’t sure what you are doing, hiring an SEO specialist is often money well spent!

Making a great website is a long process and you should be critical about how your website works in order to continue refining it. Take your time and do research what your competitors are doing. It’s not cheating to steal a couple of ideas as long as you make them your own. Just remember, the user always comes first.

Technology moves fast and businesses need to keep up if they’re going to stay relevant. There are so many pieces of business software out there that you can use to streamline your operations, save money, and make your employees more efficient. But it’s easy to get stuck in old habits and carry on using the same software that you’ve been using for years, without adopting anything new. Even the business owners that do understand the importance of updating software regularly sometimes get it wrong because they fall victim to a good sales pitch and end up spending money on software that doesn’t really do anything for their company.

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If you haven’t updated your business software for a while and you don’t really know where to start, these are the pieces of software that you should be using right now.

Chatbots

Everybody knows that good customer service is essential in all businesses and in the past, the way to achieve that was through good training and, most importantly, a well staffed customer service team. Having a lot of employees in your customer service department means that nobody is waiting on hold for ages or sitting there for days waiting for a response to their email. All customers get a quick reply and a swift resolution so they’re happy. The only downside to that is the cost. Paying all of those salaries and renting an office space large enough to house that customer service department is incredibly expensive, but luckily, there is some great business software out there that can help you to get the best of both worlds.

Chatbots are pieces of software which imitate a human being fairly convincingly, in fact, you’ve probably seen them already on various sites when you enter and a small chat window pops up asking if you have any queries. 9 times out of 10, that will be a chatbot rather than a real person. They can answer a lot of the basic queries that customers might have which is so valuable because a lot of customer service staff spend the majority of their time dealing with the same issues over and over. But a chatbot can take on that workload, which means you only need to employ people to deal with the more complex issues, so you can massively cut down on the number of customer service staff you need to pay without compromising on customer experience.

Legal Management Software

Your legal department is such an important branch of your business because they’re the ones that make sure that you aren’t going to get yourself involved in a lawsuit and if you do, they’ll help you to deal with it effectively. They also handle any contracts that you may have with vendors and suppliers and they’ll also ensure that you’re complying with any government regulations that apply to your business. Without them, you could easily land yourself in a lot of legal trouble and probably end up with huge fines that would force you to close the business for good. The problem is, the legal documentation that they have to deal with is extensive and incredibly complicated, which means that they’re not always the most efficient department in your business. But if you invest in case matter management software that allows them to easily collect all contracts and supporting documents, as well as email correspondence relating to each separate organization in one place, it makes life so much easier for them. If there is a contract dispute with your shipping company, for example, they can easily bring up the contracts and any emails that you sent back and forth when you were agreeing on the terms, instead of spending a lot of time trawling through endless amounts of paperwork trying to find the relevant bits.

Analytics Software

Social media marketing should be an integral part of all marketing strategies, but a lot of businesses still don’t really know how to do it effectively. The key to successful online marketing is using analytics software properly. When you’re running a campaign, it’s important that you know who it’s reaching, whether it’s connecting well with them, and exactly how much website traffic it’s bringing you. It’s not enough to just launch a campaign and then track sales in the following months to see if it’s effective. You need to know exactly why it’s working so you can continue getting it right in the future and if it isn’t working, you need to know where you’re going wrong. Good analytics software will give you in depth information about the customers that are visiting your site and clicking your ads so you know which demographics are responding well to your marketing efforts and which aren’t. You can then adapt your future marketing efforts accordingly for maximum reach.

Social Media Scheduling

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Using analytics is vital if your social media marketing efforts are going to pay off, but you also need to consider the amount of time that you’re investing in it. There is so much noise on social media and if you’re only posting every now and again, your posts will get lost in amongst everything else and nobody will ever see them. That’s why you should be posting every day and preferably multiple times a day. The issue with that is the amount of manpower it takes up. If you’ve got people that are spending their entire day posting on social media and not working on other areas of marketing, that’s not an effective use of their time. That’s where social media scheduling tools come in, they’re one of the best business automation tools that there is and if you’re not using them already, you should be.

You can set up all of your posts at the beginning of the week and then set a schedule for when you want them to go live. That means you only need to spend a short amount of time at the beginning of the week setting up your social media profiles and then your marketing team can work on other projects for the rest of the week. A lot of the social media scheduling tools also give you good analytics so you can measure the reach and engagement that you’re getting on posts and see which ones aren’t really landing very well.

Document Sharing

The way that people work is changing rapidly and more businesses are moving toward remote workers and flexible schedules. More people than ever are working outside of the office which is great because people tend to be more productive when they can work to their own schedule and do things in their own way. It also means that work isn’t confined to normal business hours, so you can offer a 24/7 service to your customers. However, if you’re going to take advantage of this new style of working, you need to implement software that will help your employees. Document sharing is the most important piece of software that you need because employees will need access to certain information when they’re outside of the office. They’re also great when people are collaborating on projects because they can pass things back and forth easily and work together on documents in real time, even if they’re not in the office.

VPN

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Virtual private networks (VPN) have become very popular as people become more concerned about their online safety. If you’re sending sensitive documents over email or using a document sharing service, you’ll need a good VPN to protect you so you don’t lose any of that data.

A lot of businesses have fallen behind the times and they’re not using these pieces of software. If you aren’t either, you need to update your software right away.

If you operate a doctor’s office, a dental practice or other kind of healthcare-based service, you’re probably already aware of the difficulties of establishing an effective online presence. Most of the articles and advice you’ll find are related to eCommerce or other service ventures, whose aims and objectives can be very different from your own.

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This doesn’t mean you can’t use this advice to your advantage. Whether you want to raise awareness of your work, attract new patients or improve communications, there are some amazing things you can do to boost your online presence. Take a look at some of the following tips to help you make an impact in healthcare online.

Build a website that people want to visit

In the rush to have a web presence, any kind of web presence, many websites in the healthcare sector have remained basic and bland. It’s understandable, as the majority of practices wouldn’t have a dedicated web manager or content producer to keep things up to date.

However, if you’re serious about making an impact online, you need to invest in your website. It should be an interesting, attractive destination that works well and speedily. You can see examples of effective hospital and healthcare websites to see the types of things that work and have succeeded in establishing a great online presence.

Create informative and engaging content

To ensure a successful online presence, you need to create some engaging content. Why should people care about you and what you do? You need to sell the things that set you apart to help generate an interest. Through your website and social media accounts, you can create content that people want to interact with or that resonates with them.

Explore different ways of creating engaging content for your social channels and website to help build up a following that can help you to reach your goals.

Do some research

If you’re new to having an online presence, or you’ve not been very active, it’s a good idea to do some research. You can research the activities of other similar organizations and businesses to help you identify trends, what’s current and the sorts of content you should be focusing on. This can help inspire you to set a direction for your online activity and work out what you want to achieve.

Put effort behind your promotions

To drive traffic to your website, and hopefully encourage people to take action once they’re there – you’re going to need to promote it. You can create your own marketing strategy to help you do this, either through social media, paid promotion and other methods that can help you to increase your page views.

You also have the option of bringing in outside help, especially if you lack any marketing or digital personnel. Experts Patient Prism have excellent insights into growing dental practices, and there’s a lot to be learnt from people who specialize in these areas.

Another factor to consider is to spend money on promoting your business. Even the smallest of budgets can be stretched widely using advertising platforms such as Facebook and YouTube, allowing you to target people in your locality and reach the right audience. If you want to experience business growth, it’s worth putting some money behind your marketing to help you achieve better results.

Stay up to date

Establishing a good website and social platforms to promote it is a significant step forward for your business, but now you need to keep it up. By creating some targets and goals for yourselves, you’ll have something to work towards and the basis if an ongoing online strategy.

Some social media tips for small business owners can be very useful to help you keep up. From using scheduling tools to banking your content, there are shortcuts and time-savers that will make it easier for your business to maintain its online presence and continue to grow. Providing members of your team with some additional responsibilities over your digital content can help with their professional development, while also giving them the chance to explore and learn new skills outside of their current role and responsibilities.

Whatever the aims of your online presence, it’s important to form a strategy and find ways of enhancing it. The internet is a great tool for communicating and sharing ideas, so why not be a part of it? A small investment into your online presence could generate some amazing results and help your business or organization get seen by a larger number of people.