Businesses are complicated and incredibly complex. It does not matter how careful you are, there will always be some things that you forget to do when trying to create a thorough and concrete brand. We aren’t talking about things like forgetting to have a solicitor read over a contract or forgetting to launch your website; we mean tiny little things that just slip through the cracks.
Here are some of them, so you hopefully won’t forget them.
Choosing a Font for Your Content
When creating a website, have you thought about the font you want to use? Many think about the font that they can use for their logo but few will extend that to their actual copy.
However, this can have a massive impact on the readability of your content. There is such a thing as the best font for email and the best font for static content. People have spent a lot of time developing these fonts and you need to pick the right one for your needs. For example, if you have a website that caters primarily for children, you need to make sure that the font is easy for them to read, especially if they are not yet confident readers. This is a bigger choice than it might appear to be.
Completing Your Brand Story
Every business needs to have a brand story; a core set of values that they demonstrate and are ready to bring to the world. Whether this is a mission statement or where you source your products from, there is always going to be some form of information that you wish to pass on to your customers.
Frequently, new brands forget to properly express this. They might have it all mapped out in their heads, have it plastered around the office, only to forget to put it on the site itself.
If you have a very strong brand voice and a message that you want to convey to your customers, you need to make sure that you are shouting it from the rooftops. Make sure you have a brand statement page ready to go on your website, and make sure it isn’t buried somewhere in the recesses of your site. This could be a very important statement that helps to influence customers when they decide whether they want to shop with you. Make sure you take the time needed to flesh it out and put it in pride of place on your site.
Getting Proper Security in Place
Did you know that cybersecurity attacks are more likely to target small businesses? This is because smaller businesses tend to have poorer security compared to a large corporation. However, a small company can still handle incredibly sensitive data; data that should not fall into the wrong hands.
Even a business that will not have computers at the heart of it will still need them in some capacity. For example, a hair salon needs a computer to record bookings accurately, order new products, and keep track of important business records like accounts and employee timesheets. The computer is going to be one of the most important devices in the business, so you need to make sure that it is adequately protected.
Another key area some companies are particularly lax in is in password security. How often are you guilty of using the same password for everything? While this is not advised for your personal dealings, it should definitely be avoided for professional ones. Use strong, complex, and unique passwords that differ between the programs and accounts that need them.
Setting a Recovery Email
Many sites and software require you to add a recovery email should something go wrong. While you could use your personal email, it is better to set up a dummy email account that the entire company can have access to.
For this email, you should use a free service like Gmail. This will be a good choice as having a Google account comes with a load of other benefits that you will need for running a successful business. If you then encounter a problem with a piece of software that requires you to recover an account, you will be able to do so quickly.
Optimise Your SEO
Search engine optimisation helps to make your site as visible on search engines as possible. To do so, you need to put the right kind of information throughout your site for the search engines to pick up on. For example, one of the best tools for search engine optimisation is keywords. These are short phrases that people will put into search engines and the right selection could bring up your page.
Keywords are just one part of the many disciplines of SEO. When you have a new business, you need to make sure that the SEO on your website is as good as possible as it will help you gain much more exposure for your business. In the early days, you will need to push up exposure as quickly as you can to begin to build up a customer base. SEO is going to be one of the main tools that you need for this, so you cannot neglect it here.
Address Your Forgotten Steps Now
With so much going on in the setup and maintenance of a business, it is only natural that there will be some things that you do forget. Nevertheless, you need to make sure that you are rectifying these mistakes as and when you find them. Take the time to go over your business plan now to try to identify areas that may be a little weaker. Before you know it, you could have found a whole host of small errors that you can soon fix.
The sooner that you can address small errors like this, the sooner you can be confidently running your business, focused on the larger problems over the smaller ones. Identify the areas you are falling behind in and start making changes there today.
