Seven things every business website must have
 So you’ve created an incredible looking website, and you’re ready to launch it on the Internet. Audit your site first. There are seven essential elements that every website should include if you want to ensure success.Privacy Policy / Terms of Use - Privacy Policy is essential for every website since people are entitled to know how you’re going to use their personal information. Terms of Use is a disclaimer that indicates to your visitors what they’re agreeing to by using your website. In today’s litigious society these document also serve to protect you.
You can find several sites on the Internet to help you draft these documents such as: - OECD Privacy Statement Generator: http://tinyurl.com/5plgpc If you feel your website has special legal needs, it is advised that you consult with a lawyer who specialises in Internet law.
Contact Us Information - Would you want to do business with a website that does not include any contact information? Although you may not be able to include a phone number, you should at least have an email address or a “contact us” form. Your visitors will feel much more comfortable doing business with you knowing there’s a way to contact you if they need to do so. If you don’t know how to create your own “Contact Us” form, try one of these free online services. - Bravenet: http://www.bravenet.com/webtools/emailfwd/
Search Box / Site Map - If your site includes many pages you should offer a way to search the site, or at minimum have a “site map”. A site map is one web page that contains links to every page of your site, usually broken down by category. There are many ways to add a search function to your site, the easiest method are: - Google’s customisable site search tool: http://www.google.com/sitesearch/ - FreeFind: http://www.freefind.com/
Site Statistics System - Once you have launched your site, you will want to watch your traffic to see who your visitors are, what pages are the most popular and from where the traffic is coming. All of these questions and more can be answered by using a good web statistics program. Many popular hosting companies provide free statistical packages, but yours does not, the easiest way to track your visitors free of charge is using Google Analytics: http://www.google.com/analytics/
Site Navigation - Although it sounds like a simple thing, making the menus self-explanatory and easy to use is important to every site. Menus guide your users through your website, making sure they always know where they are and how to get to where they want to go. So you must make sure that the menu is present on all the pages of your site.
Search Engine Optimisation - If you build a website you want your pages to rank well in Google and the other search engines. To achieve this, every page of your website should be optimized for no more than 2 to 3 keywords/phrases. For optimal results, use your keywords in your titles and in the content of every page. Don’t forget to use them in your image titles, tags, and in the names you give your pages, too. Design every page for a specific message then optimise it accordingly. To get a really effective result, you probbaly will need to consult a SEO specialist though.
Social Media Share Button - Social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace, are increasingly important for marketing your websites. So include an easy way for your visitors to share your content with others. Some of the social media sites offer a way to add a share button directly to your site. In addition, you’ll find several free services that will give you the code you need to instantly add a “share button” to your web pages so that users can instantly share them with their friends. To generate social media buttons go to: - AddThis: http://tinyurl.com/ce8ffd - SHare This: http://sharethis.com/publishers/ - TwitThis: http://www.TwitThis.com
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What should your Privacy Policy say
What is your favourite motivational quote
 Summer is over, the weather is rubbish and not a holiday in sight for months…so I had a browse around on the LinkedIn entrepreneurs’ site for some motivational quotes. Here are my favourites;
What is your favourite motivational quote? Read more…
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Open Office Monday
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Apps download overtakes songs
According to Asymco, the hybrid industry analysis advisory and app development firm, Apple customers will have downloaded more iPhone/iPod/iPad apps than songs by the end of the year. In its 2.2 years of existence, the App store has reached the same total downloads as the iTMS reached after 5 years! They are both expected to hit 13 billion downloads around the end of the year.
The growth is impressive but understandable: between the time it took for general consumers to adopt digital music purchases as a normal practice and the prevalence of free apps available (in contrast to the scarcity of free iTunes music), it’s logical that app downloads would climb at a higher rate than iTunes downloads.
The average selling price of an app is believed to be around number $0.29 (derived by dividing app revenues by total downloads). This suggests that while 75% of titles on the App Store are paid, somewhere upwards of 75% of downloads made up by downloading free apps. It also means that while apps are crushing songs in unit sales, songs still have strong revenues on their side.
It is also very interesting to see how much ads contribute to app revenue. It seems not so much that developers would rather give away an ad-supported app than sell it for $0.99, but ads do make a lot of those ‘free’ apps a little less than free.
What makes apps so popular?
1. Apps let you personalize your phone in the same way as only ringtones and wallpapers once did. When you get hold of someone else’s mobile phone the first thing o do is to look at what apps they’re using.
2. Apps are surpassing music in part because so many of them are free and probably get sampled more often because they’re free.
3. Mobile applications like Pandora, Last.fm, Deezer, Spotify, MOG and Rdio provide free and/or paid subscriptions to streaming music. You don’t need to download and pay for a song in iTunes if you use one of these applications – you can just listen to it over the Internet instead. In addition, some apps are music themselves.
Compulsory Pension Provision from April 2012
 From 2012, in stages, all employers in the UK (except single person companies) have to automatically enrol all ‘eligible jobholders’ into a pension plan and pay a contribution of at least 3% of a band of total earnings. Employees will also have to contribute 4% and the Government gives 1% as tax relief, making an 8% total pension contribution. There are 1.2 million employers in the UK who will be affected by this change. The vast majority of them presently offer no pension provision to their employees at all.
From next year, employers will have to automatically enrol those who ordinarily work in the UK, earn more than about £5,000 and are aged between 22 and state pension age. If a jobholder is younger than 22 or older than state pension age then the employer has to offer them membership of a pension plan, and if they choose to join, pay a pension contribution for them. So, this will affect a huge chunk of an employer’s workforce. It will cover part-time staff as well as full-time, permanent and temporary staff. While automatic enrolment itself will be compulsory, once automatically enrolled, a jobholder will have one month to give the employer a valid opt out notice. Employers have a choice about the type of pension plan they want to use. They can use a private pension plan, as long as it meets certain criteria, or they can use the National Employment Savings Trust (or NEST), which is a new plan being set up by Government, but which will be run privately.
What should employers be doing? - Check if your existing pension arrangements meet the criteria for qualifying schemes - Consider the effect of the cost of automatic enrolment on your business - Review employment documentation ahead of 2012 to ensure that the statutory requirements are met |
Finance tips for small businesses
 According to official statistic, two-third of small businesses that needed to refinance their debt were successful but were forced to pay higher fees for new loan. They were also often pressured by their bank to change the terms of their original debt facility.
But whatever the financial climate is, funding remains an important strategy to help grow your business, and it is perhaps never more important than during the transition from recession to recovery. Here are some top tips on what to look out for when negotiating with a bank:
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Business Training Courses
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Turn Your Idea into a Business
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Saturday, 25 September Tuesday, 12 October
£ 95 + VAT 1-day course with handouts, tea, coffee & lunch |
| Do you have idea that will make a great business? Then this course is for you!
If you are starting a new business, you have to identify your existing skills, build new ones and increase your business knowledge. Learn to plan, organise, implement and control your business. |
9:30 – 10:00 Registration
How to develop your idea into a business plan How to build your competitive advantage Developing your strategic skills and competencies Contingency planning and business sustainability 12:30 – 13:15 Lunch Business ownership Patent, trademark and copyright protection Privacy and data security Electronic business models and strategies 16.30 – Networking
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Marketing in the Social Media Age |
Saturday, 2 October Tuesday, 19 October
£95 + VAT
1-day course with handouts, tea, coffee & lunch
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| Do you want more customers but have no money for marketing? Then this course is for you!
It has been designed to take you through the key concepts that underpin a successful business in the present, fast changing environments. |
9:30 – 10:00 Registration
Understand your customers Marketing plan Pricing and promotion Improve your sales and negotiating skills 12:30 – 13:15 Lunch Branding and your message Build your business pitch Make your website work for you Using social media tools 16.30 – Networking
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Finance and Fundraising |
Saturday, 9 October
Tuesday, 26 October
£ 95 + VAT
1-day course with handouts, tea, coffee & lunch
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| If you are starting a new business, you have to build some new skills and enhance your business knowledge.
Learn how to generate more income or when and how to get investors for your business! |
9:30 – 10:00 Registration
Learn to plan, organise and control your business Effective cost and cash flow management Budget preparation and sales forecasting What you need to know about business contracts 12:30 – 13:15 Lunch The right financing options for your business When your business is “investor ready” What investors are really looking for How to avoid the common mistakes 16:00 – Networking
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Presentations Skills Training |
Saturday, 23 October
Tuesday, 2 November
£ 95 + VAT
1-day course with handouts, tea, coffee & lunch
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| This intensive course is designed to equip you with the skills and confidence you need to make the right impact in demanding business environments, such as negotiations, investor meetings.
If you have an important presentation, meeting or interview coming up, then you simply cannot afford to miss this course! |
9:30 – 10:00 Registration
What makes presentations work? How to use various media tools? Learn to communicate effectively Your message with a greater impact 12:30 – 13:15 Networking lunch Learn to overcome your nerves 1-on-1 presentation coaching 16:30 – Networking |
Speaker Biographies
Aniko Zagon DPhil – Course Leader
Aniko is business management expert who has set up many innovative projects in the public and private sector and worked, in senior managerial roles, in start-ups, listed companies and the NHS. She is also an experienced business coach with a broad experience in helping businesses build strong growth platforms.
Aniko is a Sloan Master in Business Management, London Business School, a Member of the Professional Standards Committee of the Chartered Management Institute (FMCI), and a Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Management Consultants. She is a BBC and RADA trained educator with a background is in neurosciences research into stress management.
tbc
Outsource or not?
 The point of outsourcing is not necessarily to find someone who can do the task better than you but to offload work so that you can focus on the core of your business and do what you are best at.
Outsourcing allow you to share your business risks, gain competitive advantage as you will be able to increase productivity, and cut operational costs.If you are hesitant about outsourcing, because of the costs, then you are not valuing your time appropriately. Give yourself some credit, and follow these tips for outsourcing success…..read more…
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Half of our time on the internet and quarter of it on social networking
 The research by Ofcom shows that we are spending almost half (45 %) of our waking hours wit digital media and spend almost a quarter of it on social networking sites. On average, we spent on browsing Facebook, sending messages, playing games, and so on, for 6.5 hours in May 2010.
The growing popularity of smart phones and the changing way we use our mobiles is helping us to do much more simultaneously; we now cram 8 hours 48 minutes of digital media use into just 7 hours on an average day. The over 55 generation is the fastest growing age group in digital media use, with half now having broadband at home. More and more older people are getting online and finding that things like email and e-commerce are very important to them. Approximately 23% of adults sent emails or went online through a cell phone in the first quarter of 2010, including 45% of 15-24 year olds, the Ofcom study revealed. Using the internet in this way is the fastest-growing mobile media sector, with a million new users in the first quarter of 2010, taking this audience to 13.5m people. Looking to social networking, 61% of 15-34 year olds are registered on portals like Twitter or Facebook, as are almost half of 35-54 year olds and 20% of 55-64 year olds. Social networking is responsible for 23% of online activity, a figure which has surged from 9% in 2007, thanks to Facebook’s explosive growth. The social media platform also took a 45% share of mobile web usage in December 2009, with 20% of all social networking conducted by 16-24 year olds carried out from smart phones. More broadly, the amount of time spent on the fixed-line internet has increased by over 66% since 2008, meaning adults now spend 14.2 hours a month on this pastime. Read the full report: http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/research/cmr/753567/CMR_England_2010.pdf |
