Flexibility is the Key to Business Survival

At the end of this year, The BPc will reach its 30th anniversary as a small business providing services to other small and medium businesses. We have a varied set of skills, some of which are uncommon in many companies. This has enabled us to offer consultancy or practial assistance across a range of technical, design, marketing and admin projects.

Current Services

Client demand is the key to the services we offer within our specialist skillset. Our most poplar contracts this year are for website design, website updates and social media management. As demands change, grow or fall, it provides an indication of significant changes within industries.

Since a few months prior to Brexit becoming a possibility, we have had no work from outside the UK. With the final day looming, we are not even contemplating accepting overseas clients.

Additional Future Services

Over the next few months, we plan to add more video-related services for clients. These tend to fall into two main categories: product showcase or demonstrations (which could be 'live' or animated or a series of stills) or informational presentations and 'vlogs'.

We have seen sparks of interest in video services.

We have filmed and edited product videos since 2012 for a small handful of clients and, for the past year or so, other clients have used our filming and editing services. We are looking to invest in a studio next year with appropriate equipment for filming in-house.

Problems can arise when DIY videos feature people who have a great face for radio or the perfect voice for silent film. Don't worry, there are experienced professionals available who can assist and do not cost a fortune (providing you don't want Beyoncé to spend half an hour extolling the virtues of the Hertfordshire pond life).

Popular Services from Previous Years
In 1990, the internet was unheard of by most small businesses in the UK. The BPc mostly focused on a range of marketing, digital design and branding projects plus - believe it or not - word processing and creating templates for company stationery. A small selection of business cards, brochures, catalogues, etc. is still kept in an archive somewhere.

By 1997/98. some smaller business required our services with their emails and, soon after, we began designing websites for them. In 2009-ish, we moved completely over to WordPress CMS website development that enable clients to update their own content.

Flexibility is Key

During the decades, we covered multiple services. When DIY software made it easy for unskilled people to create their own graphic designs, our work in that area dropped off. It usually came back a few months later as clients needed a professional clean-up but, meanwhile, we spent more time on website design.

Similarly, some small businesses try to save money by creating their own websites and, sometimes, this goes very well. However, clients generally don't pay enough attention to optimising websites for search engines - this is when they usually need services from The BPc. If website design work starts to drop, we focus on branding or social media clients.

We don't sit back. This is why we've been building towards a film studio and improved editing suite. There is more in the pipeline, too, further down the line.

Don't hesitate to contact us if you'd like our assistance. Our website lists our services - these have grown organically and website navigation could be easier, to be honest, so we're working on a new design in our spare time. Thanks for getting this far!

Building Website Traffic: Start-ups & Small Businesses

Following on from the post about affordable website options, there are various approaches to marketing your website. 

Sometimes grants are available for entrepreneurs to market products and services (check with your local Council or Chamber of Commerce). The grant will usually, in part, be payable to a marketing service. If there is no grant, how will you finance building your business and how do you prioritise?

If you reach the conclusion that building traffic to your website is the best way to go, your attention will turn to SEO (search engine optimisation for your website), advertising (e.g. with Google Ads) and, importantly, social media. (Usually, at this point, many people declare their dislike of sharing photographs of food, cats, selfies, etc.). It should be noted that social media for business purposes is approached more professionally. LinkedIn and Twitter are the top choices for B2B, Facebook for B2C.

Basic SEO should be part of your website development so choose a company or service that recognises this and, at the very least, provides you with the tools to continue producing great content.

Google Ads are extremely competitive and expensive. There are cheaper options, such as a short burst of Facebook Ads to boost your followers as you use social media to engage with them and direct traffic to your website. Find out more about using social media for business. The Google section covers three very useful topics.

You don't need a separate Google blog, though. Your website should have a blog or news section - be sure to update this regularly. If you can't do it every week or month, schedule it in for every two or three months and maybe tie it in with sending out newsletters. You don't even have to do it yourself, some good writers' fees are  from around £30-£40 per article and you could negotiate a multiple article fee.

Time / Money

The toughest part of all the above is finding resources, i.e. time or money. There is no single solution. The BPc will be able to work successfully with many small businesses and startup companies within minimal budgets. If you'd like to find out more, send a message.

Can Start-up Small Businesses Afford Good Websites?

Good website design has never been so complex, thanks to government legislation and ever-developing Google guidelines. 

Basic Bespoke Website for smaller Businesses

Summary of minimum design work

A bespoke website, GDPR-compliant, with basic on-page optimisation, image optimisation, cookies and privacy policy, etc. can take a couple of days to build. Once the client has viewed and tested it, there are often edits, even when the site matches the original brief.

Once signed off, there is work to do before the website goes 'live' including responsive settings for mobile devices (i-pad, mini, i-phone, etc.) and further testing of form submissions.

There are often optional extras, such as links to newsletter subscriptions, displaying social media and other inter-activity.

Time = Cost

Excluding time spent discussing ideas with the prospective client and any research (which could be half a day), a bespoke website will take your technical design team at least three days. Following that, there is usually handover training for CMS sites and a period of customer support.

A bespoke website, then, has a value of between £1000 to £1500 which is higher than most small businesses have budgeted. There is, of course, always room for negotiation.

What are the Alternatives?

Pay-as-you-go websites

At first glance, some website services seem good value but if you add up the cost over two or three years, this often isn't the case. For example, one company offers a 3 page website, from a template (i.e. not bespoke to clients' requirements) for a fee of £250 plus £25 per month for a minimum of 12 months - total £550. This price excludes optimisation (an optional extra cost) which is essential. A website without optimisation would be like setting up a shop and hiding it behind closed shutters.

DIY websites

Some are very good. Wix seems to be one of them - they offer templated designs that can be modified by users with moderate internet skills. The cost is fairly low, from under £20 per month for a business website plan (hosting and a number of features) but you have to do all the work and pay more to get additional functionality. Don't forget that the monthly fee is for the lifetime of the website so, again, it can work out less economical.

About Website Optimisation

This is a major subject which includes the content and meta-data on your website and off-site links to your website, both of which you can improve. Your website designer may be able to recommend an experienced optimiation service or provide SEO plug-ins to guide you through on-page Search Engine Optimisation.

Links to your website can come from Social Media, such as blogs, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and more. The links need to be associated with keywords that are on your website and need to be ongoing - no point posting a tweet once a year!

It's also worth reading as many current Google guidelines as possible, though these can be full of jargon, and dip into your website analytics every now and then. If you would rather be concentrating on your core business, it may be worth contracting a friendly local website review service to provide monthly - or at least quarterly - reports.

If you have questions, post them in the comments, I'll respond as soon as I can. Or contact us.