takepayments blog.

The way we advertise has changed dramatically in recent years and gone are the days you’d post an ad in your local paper or put some flyers through people’s doors and hope for the best.  The internet has become the place to be for businesses of all sizes - take Google for example, they thank online advertising for 95% of its revenue. No doubt you want a piece of the action, but how do you advertise your small business effectively online?

Attracting new customers is the aim of the game for any business with an online presence, so if you discovered your website was having the opposite effect and actually turning browsers away, it would be a pretty dire state of affairs, right? But what if we told you by not having HTTPS at the beginning of your web address, you could be doing just that? Without HTTPS-enabled, Google will show your website as ‘not secure’ to consumers browsing for their next purchase, and, of course, that can be pretty off-putting and could well cost you sales.

For business owners juggling countless responsibilities, one of the most important elements to not dropping any balls is staying organised, and a clear social media strategy is a great tool to help. With 45 million active social media users in the UK in 2020, there’s no doubting the value it can provide to businesses when it comes to consumer engagement, so in this article, we’ll take a deep dive into the world of social media strategies and provide an eight-step plan to putting one together today. 

Google My Business (GMB) is a free tool provided by Google themselves. It helps businesses control how they appear in Google search results and on Google Maps, as well as helping people find you when they search for certain things using the search engine. For example, if someone searches for ‘takeaways in Stockport’ even if they haven’t searched specifically for your business, and you're a takeaway in Stockport with a GMB page, it's likely your business would show up as a recommendation.

Creating a top-notch website is one of the most important elements to running a business - it’s the first impression a consumer on the hunt for a new product or service will get of you, and if it’s not up to scratch it could put them off from the get-go and ultimately lose you sales. From load speed and page design to branding and URL, there’s plenty to think about when it comes to creating a great website, but one of the major developments of recent years and a crucial thing to get right is ensuring your website is mobile-first.