For small businesses especially it has become a fact of life and an incredibly helpful tool in developing brand awareness and loyalty. Fact is, there are many benefits of having a website for your small business. Here’s why yours could do with one too:

• Increases credibility. Everyone likes transparency and your customers are no different. Today, consumers expect companies to have a web presence and might be turned off by businesses that don’t. Additionally, professional contact details are often a customer’s quickest way of vetting a company’s legitimacy at-a-glance. With a website, you can create your own custom email addition a touch of professionalism to your address.

• Extends your reach. Studies show that, in 2017 over half of humanity will be online. That means that your website has the potential to reach billions of people, some of which are potential customers. Especially if you have products to sell, a brick and mortar shop just can’t compare to the power, accessibility and visibility of a digital storefront. Your website can extend well beyond the local market and appeal to clients on a global scale.

• Cost effective. Unlike a physical retailer or print advertisement a website is always open, always available, and can be updated with the click of a button. Considering its reach, websites are endlessly more cost effective, especially if you use a website concierge service, which can save you both precious time and money, turning your website into an affordable commodity instead of a large investment.

• Great communication tool. Think of your business website as an online brochure or catalogue. You can use it to keep your clients up to date and informed about your company. Yet, in contrast to other media, you are able to use many different ways of communicating and engaging your customer base including videos. Plus, websites are great networking tools and a way for others to get in touch with you.

• Effective customer service. Since most customers nowadays expect you to have website, not having one is doing them a disservice that might drive them to the competition. In addition to that, you can create a lot of extra value for consumers by providing additional information such as FAQs, press releases, tips on how to use your products and much more.

As you can see, there are endless reasons to have a invest a little in building a site. What is a website if not the communication tool the 21st century?  Businesses who are not present online are sure to miss out on a lot of opportunities, visibility, and ultimately, customers.

The post What is a Website (And Why Does Your Business Need One)? appeared first on MBJ LONDON.

Exactly six months ago, five teams from around the globe were getting ready at Google Campus in London to make their last pitches at the final of the MBJ LaunchPad 2015 competition. In front of an audience of hundreds of people, they were trying to win the top prize – a £100k equity-free investment to develop their business. We reached out to some of the finalists to see where they are now and how their business ventures are progressing.

MoonROK – Winner

MoonROK is one of the only English language media outlets dedicated to Korean pop music (K-Pop) in the world. K-Pop has one of the largest fan bases of any genre in the globe, with many of its artists boasting hundreds of millions, and in some cases billions of views on their videos.

Ever since winning the MBJ LaunchPad competition MookROK have gone from strength to strength. Not long after returning to their native USA from the MBJ LaunchPad final, MoonROK won the KIC Challenge competition in Washington D.C. As well as a $10,000 cash prize, the team won one year of office space and accommodation in South Korea. They are due to move their headquarters from New York City to Seoul in June 2016.

MoonROK also recently returned to the UK in April 2016, having got to the final of yet another competition. This time it was for the Business Rocks event in Manchester. Whilst the team did not win the overall cash prize of £50,000 for their category, they came fourth out of several hundred finalists. Being in the UK also gave MoonROK the chance to pop into the MBJ office for a couple of days and work alongside our growing team.

To top things off, the team look set to have closed their first seed round of investment. As they continue their upward trajectory, we strongly advise you to keep a close eye on MoonROK.

moonrok.com

Beep Beep – Runner Up

BeepBeep, like most startups, have gone through several makeovers. The team has now found a winning formula: “On Demand Valet Parking”. They are initially focused on serving the city of Amsterdam, and soon, The Hague with further expansion planned in the pipeline.

When the Beep Beep team came to London for the final of MBJ LaunchPad the team was comprised of three co-founders: Scott Moran, Karan Bagai and Shashank Batra. Since graduating from their MBA program, Karan accepted a sought after position with an investment bank. Shashank took a position at one of the Big Four accounting and consulting firms. Scott has remained CEO of Beep Beep and has since taken on three (soon four) new members.

The revised Beep Beep business model offers users the ability to drive up to anywhere in city centre, call a Beep Beep Expert Valet, who will whizz along on a scooter to meet the user and park their car for them in a local partner garage. When the user needs their car back, Beep Beep will guarantee its return within 15 minutes to anywhere in the city centre. Users can track the whereabouts of their car through the app to ensure that it is where it’s supposed to be at all times.

Avennu – Runner Up

Avennu is an online market place based in New York City whose vision is to connect professionals and businesses to urban spaces suited to their unique needs. They cater for a multitude of potential requirements such as weddings, photo shoots, charity events, and many more.

Since MBJ LaunchPad, Avennu has made big strides, partnering with London based Sofar Sounds. Sofar Sounds has a large presence in NYC hosting over 100 intimate music shows per month. Furthermore, Avennu has partnered with a 2000 sq. ft. event space in downtown Manhattan. They plan to use the space as a laboratory to try out several new technologies that will strengthen the business and its product offering.

Avennu are currently seeking new partners that share their commitment to community and creative industries.

www.avennu.com

After the huge success of MBJ LaunchPad 2015, the project was put on hold for 2016. This enabled the MBJ team to focus on growing the company internationally and to implement MBJ’s new Websites As A Service (WaaS) product model. Waas offers high quality, fully managed websites to small and medium sized businesses at affordable rates.

MBJ LaunchPad will make a big comeback in 2017. The MBJ team has already begun putting some stokes in the fire so keep an eye out for updates![/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

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1. Branding & Design

Convey the brand suitably and creatively. Your website design should reflect the business the way you envisage it and how you would like it to be perceived by the public including prospective customers. Think of your website as a 24/7 public relations representative. Your website design should encompass the mission and vision which can be displayed in the user experience. When designing your website, consider the user journey and what your ideal customer should learn and/or do when they leave your website. Don’t underestimate the importance of good company branding.

2. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Readiness

Keywords: Keywords are an essential aspect of search engine optimisation that you frequently hear about. Keywords are relevant words or phrases that your prospective customer may enter into search engines to find your website. You should consider the incorporation of keywords in your website design.

Body Text: The body of your web page should be informative, describing your product or service with relevant keywords that your website is eligible to rank for.

Page Loading Speed: Slow loading times can highly effect search engine optimisation. Factors such as a low-quality host server and an overload of large images reduce the loading speed. It is also essential to make sure that any media on your website is optimised and has a satisfactory loading speed. You can test your page loading speed on GTmetrix. A good webpage combines fast loading speed with an appealing website design.

Page Titles: The page title is one of the most significant aspects of a website . Every page on your site should have a title starting with a relevant keyword and it is important that the context of the title matches the content of the page. Page titles should help you rank for a keyword and make users click through to your website.
The length of the page title shouldn’t exceed the recommended amount of characters. We usually advice page title not to exceed 65 characters where your focus keyword is at the beginning.

H1 Headings: An H1 tag or heading will usually be the title of a post and the most significant text on the page. The H1 heading is not to be confused with the page title, which is the title that is shown on the SERPS. There should be only one H1 heading per page.

URL Structure: A clear and concise URL structure should be in line with your page title and H1 heading. For instance, https://mbj.london/products/ has a crisp URL structure and clearly displays the content of the link.
Meta Descriptions: A descriptive text explaining and summarising the content of the page. The main purpose of a meta description is to get people to click through from search engines. We recommend meta description to be between 135 and 160 characters. Meta descriptions should be unique, it is better to leave them empty than copy/paste or have irrelevant content. If it is not filled, then Google will pull a snippet from the text containing the keyword used.

3. Social Media Integration

With 2.3 billion social media users in the world, it is safe to say that a thorough social media strategy is essential for businesses. In addition to a well designed website, a social media presence is important when attracting and maintaining customers.

4. Blogging

Bringing your brand name into the blogging world allows you to establish yourself as a credible source and a knowledgeable leader in your industry. Both on-site and off-site blogging are advantageous for SEO.

5. Maintenance

Developing and managing your website through a subscription-based Website as a Service (WaaS) option ensures that your web presence receives ongoing maintenance. Regular upkeep typically includes long-term (quarterly and yearly) updates to your web presence to ensure your website is running smoothly. Other important aspects of web maintenance include fast page loading, fixing any broken links and backlinks, as well as web analysis through Google Analytics and MOZ.

Bonus Tip – Hosting

The quality of your cloud hosting will also determine your website’s SEO ranking. Server Speed: Although the optimal loading time for a website is under 3 seconds, if the loading time exceeds 10 seconds, visitors are more likely to leave your website and go to one of your competitors. Speed and security are vital to the amount of traffic on your site.

Downtime: It is important to minimise downtime and make sure that pages do not become overloaded. This can interfere with potential customers reaching your site as well as search engines accessing it for crawling purposes. Amazon Web Services (AWS): At MBJ, we use AWS as our preferred hosting partner. Popular companies such as Netflix, Expedia, Coursera, and UniLever use AWS. It is the world’s largest and most secure cloud services provider.

The post Website Design Advice from our Team appeared first on MBJ LONDON.

Design & Branding

Branding a business properly is essential to building s successful brand and implementing an effective marketing strategy. The brand will become a symbol and represent the image of what a business does. The imagery, designs, and phrases associated with a brand can help a business gain, and maintain a loyal clientele. Our WaaS packages provide the support of a graphic designer as well as a brand expert that will assist with the visual details of your website. Customers tend to stick to what they know and expect consistent and unique branding that will make your business memorable.

Colour: The colours that are selected to represent a brand typically come with subconscious undertones from the perspective of the consumer. Think of some popular brands and what their colour schemes represent and the message the brand is trying to convey. Companies such as Virgin and Coca Cola exert a sense of energy, passion, and confidence through their bold, red logos. Other companies like The Body Shop, Lacoste, and Starbucks utilise green in their branding to exemplify a feeling of balance, growth, and equilibrium.

Consistency: Consumers generally like to see consistency in a brand, and a memorable sequence of imagery such as logos or certain designs is an effective method. The repetition of important details on a website as well as any key phrases or slogans will reinforce the strength of the brand’s power.

Mobile Responsiveness

According to a recent forecast, the number of smartphone users worldwide will reach 2.4 billion by 2018. In the UK, approximately 76% of adults have a smartphone and over 32 million smartphones are purchased annually (source?).As a result, the need for a mobile-friendly website is key to maintaining a steady pool of clientele. Mobile responsiveness has now become an essential feature and a definite expectation for smartphone users throughout the world. Google and other search engines heavily penalise websites that are not mobile responsive meaning that those which are not, risk falling behind the competition and loosing business. WaaS provides the ability to effortlessly adjust the page from desktop to mobile.

SEO Readiness

With WaaS, your website’s Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) will be updated on an on-going basis. There are certain strategic aspects of SEO that should be incorporated right from the start when developing a website in order to create a successful SEO and online campaign.

Keywords: Selecting suitable and appropriate keywords to place on your website are also crucial to a successful SEO strategy. The right keywords will not only drive traffic to your site but also increase the amount of prospective customers. SEO- friendly keywords can be added to various places on your website including anchor texts and links, page titles, or captions related to multimedia content. Choosing the right keywords will increase the amount of relevant traffic that will reach your website and ultimately, the fluctuation of sales.

Meta descriptions: A key aspect of your description should be on your business’ competitive advantage and unique selling point(s). What differentiates your business from your competitors? From an outside perspective, why would they click on your site in Google search as opposed to many others? What makes you stand out? Are you a non-profit? Keep in mind that a value proposition simplifies SEO. Are you an exceptionally user-friendly e-commerce site? Do you provide top-class customer service? Do you offer high quality products discounted prices? Free shipping? These are examples of important details to include in keywords and meta descriptions.

Maintenance

One of the most important aspects of a successful web presence lies in the maintenance and upkeep of the relevant technology. The Website as a Service model allows for regular maintenance and updates to be included in the overall package. With the fast-pace of technology in today’s world, it is often difficult for business owners to keep up with the ever-changing cycles of technical innovations, updates, and changes.

Website Hosting

The foundation of a website lies in the server that it will be hosted on. Our Website as a Service model boasts Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud hosting as our partner. AWS offers secure, reliable services to a multitude of clientele including Expedia, Unilever, Airbnb, and many other large companies.

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The last twelve months have seen an explosion in the number of people who could be described as mobile workers. According to a survey from Good Technology, 132 million of us were taking our smartphones to work by the end of 2013 and by 2017 that is likely to treble. A survey from Plymouth University found that 70% of local businesses gave their employees a mobile phone while 80% gave them a laptop. Already it is becoming common for workers to have several types of smartphones, tablets and laptops for personal and business use.

This remarkable growth has been sparked by an increase in the availability of productivity and work based apps. Previously, mobile workers did little more than check emails; now they can edit and create documents, take part in video conferences, update their paperwork and collaborate with multiple stakeholders all across the world.

This is made possible by the growing sophistication of cloud-based communication and collaboration systems. For example, an employee could use an integrated system which allows him or her to be contacted on the same number through mobile, home and desktop phones. Companies can deposit information into a central resource which can be updated by multiple users on multiple devices.

The benefits are clear in terms of collaboration, productivity and staff wellbeing. A recent study by CISCO found that two thirds of staff would welcome mobile working and those companies that implemented it would benefit from more productive and happier employees as a result.

For example, those workers who are traditionally mobile in their day to day work could see a revolution in their working day. Previously, they might have needed to return to the office several times during the day for meetings, administration or to pick up documents. Now they can conduct teleconferences with colleagues, view documents seamlessly over a secure connection and update their schedule on the go.

So, the desire and technology are clearly there, but, even so, problems remain as a recent report from the NHS into mobile working discovered. It found that the number of mobile working projects being initiated had doubled in 2013, but nearly 30 % of them had failed.

This experience is reflected in other industries. Forrester Research suggests that 50% of workers have experienced delays because key decision makers can’t be reached while a study by Vodafone found that 67% of multinationals blame multiple platforms for holding up progress.

Outdated business systems, siloed infrastructure, the wrong choice of device and a general reluctance to change have all been pinpointed as major barriers, while many still worry about the security implications of any mobile working strategy, particularly those which involve cloud storage.

Although the security on offer for these systems has improved markedly in recent years and is now as good or better than most traditional systems, transferring data to a third party exposes any business to a number of risks. Equally, quality varies, with a number of sub-standard of quasi cloud-based operations still in existence. Some traditional physical operating systems have attempted to ride on the popularity of cloud- based enterprise without offering any of the true functionality.

Even so, the signs for the future point to an acceleration of growth in the number, quality and variety of business applications. As firms of all sizes become more accustomed to more flexible and mobile operations they will start to blend seamlessly into day-to-day working life. Moreover, as the market settles we will see a natural process of evolution slimming out the competition which means fewer, but better operating systems.

One country that does not seem likely to embrace the mobile office, though, is France, which recently introduced a law allowing users to legally ignore any emails sent after 6pm.

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