Posts

4 Reasons Why You Should Choose a Stainless Steel Table for Your Business

/in /by

StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article | 4 Reasons Why You Should Choose a Stainless Steel Table for Your BusinessEquipping a business appropriately often proves to be one of the most important steps of all. When the furniture and fixtures within a place of business do a good job of supporting the activities that take place there, everything becomes a lot easier.

Certain materials tend to be well-suited to use in particular types of commercial furniture and other assets. Stainless steel, for instance, is often used in the construction of tables that end up being perfect for businesses. There are four good reasons to consider buying a stainless steel table for a business, and a quick look at each of them follows.

1. Stainless Steel is Strong

High-quality stainless steel tables like those described at aeromfg.com are readily available. One of the reasons why steel is such a popular choice is simply that it is so strong.

The very word “steel” has become virtually synonymous with strength in everyday usage, with works ranging from movies to popular songs playing on the association. Although the strength of steel varies depending on the alloy, it is always considerable.

This fact alone can make a stainless steel table perfect for a business where significant loads are common. Many such assets can support loads of hundreds of pounds or more without an issue. Even when weight-bearing capacity is not a primary concern, a business that owns a steel table will often welcome the material’s strength.

2. Stainless Steel Resists Corrosion

As its name suggests, stainless steel has an inherent ability to resist certain types of degradation. Chemicals and dyes that would permanently stain other surfaces will generally leave no marks on stainless steel.

The trait at play in this case is actually even more valuable and fundamental than this fact would suggest. Stainless steel not only resists staining, it shrugs off many corrosive influences that would undermine the structural integrity of other materials.

3. Stainless Steel is Easy to Clean and Maintain

Whether used for prep work in a restaurant or as a workbench in a lab, a stainless steel table will also always be easy to clean and sanitize. Steel’s complete lack of absorbency ensures that contaminants remain on its surface, where they can easily be wiped or scrubbed away.

Sanitizing agents like bleach can also be used on stainless steel without worry. Overall, stainless steel is one of the easiest materials to maintain, which often makes it perfect for commercial tables.

4. Stainless Steel is Affordable

There are some exotic materials that might be a match for stainless steel with regard to performance. In no case, however, will a competitive alternative also be as affordable.

Although a high-quality, commercial-grade stainless steel table will generally cost a significant amount of money, the amount of value implied by that price tag will inevitably be a lot higher. Stainless steel tables not only excel in many commercial environments, they do so at prices that are every bit as impressive.

The Perfect Type of Table for Many Businesses

Stainless steel tables are regularly found in business facilities of many kinds. Tables are inherently versatile assets, and stainless steel is just as much so in its own valuable ways.

While there will be times when a table made from a different material will be more appropriate, stainless steel quite often shines when used to make commercial tables. For the four reasons above and a number of others, it will often be wise to consider buying one for a business.

3 Growth Strategies To Help You Expand Your Business

/in /by

StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article | 3 Growth Strategies To Help You Expand Your Business

One way to measure business success is by looking at how far you’ve grown. If your company stays in the same state for years on end, then are you achieving your potential? Realistically, you should look for ways to expand and grow your business whenever possible. To give you a head start, here are some strategies to try out:

Broaden your products/services

Many companies expand by venturing out into different areas of business. You probably have a set of products or services that you sell. So, why don’t you branch out and add some new ones to this list? Think about things that relate to your business and can make a lot of money. By adding them to your repertoire, you can tap into new markets and find new customers. An example of this is the fashion retailer ASOS. Initially, they only sold clothing items on their site. But, they started adding new things like makeup, books, skincare products, etc. All of these things still related to their overall business, but it brought in new customers who perhaps weren’t interested in the other products but like the new ones.

Open chains in different areas

The next idea is a classic one. To expand your business, you need to dip your foot into other territories. Your company may be successful locally, but what about nationally/internationally? Start opening new chains in different locations to bring your company to new markets. All you need is a good commercial builder to help you create your new premises, then you’re good to go. It’s a genius way of earning more money and finding new customers without changing anything about your business model. Try this on a national level, then move internationally when you get big enough.

StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article | 3 Growth Strategies To Help You Expand Your Business

Invest internally

The final idea is to take some of your earnings and invest them back into your business. With this internal investment, you can make significant changes to the way your company operates. As an example, you may invest in your employees and create new roles to bring more people on-board. Consequently, this provides you with more manpower to get through more work every day. In theory, you’re in a position to speed up your service and take on more clients. As a result, you provide a better service for existing clients and have the capacity to make more money by bringing new ones in. Another idea is to invest in the processes you use. Upgrade to modern processes for more automation and efficiency. Again, this can help your business improve its service and take on more work. In essence, investing internally can help you grow by allowing you to do things that you previously couldn’t.

As mentioned at the beginning of this piece, the growth of a company is a key indicator of success. The best businesses are always getting bigger and looking to expand in different ways. It shows you’re not comfortable with what you have and that you want to improve. So, get started today by trying any of these three growth strategies.

Look and Feel Like a Business Owner from Head to Toe

/in /by

When you look and dress the part as a business owner, you instantly feel more powerful, motivated and well respected. No matter what type of industry you’re working in, you need to feel comfortable and stylish, so now is the time to shake it up. If you’re trying to find your business style, there are a number of ways in which you can approach this. First you can focus on the way you dress physically and then you can adapt your mindset to meet entrepreneurial criteria. Spend some time assessing where your style and mindset is right now and you will soon know the areas that you need to work on.

Simplify Your Style

First of all, it’s time to hone in on your business style. If you’re working on a construction site or your brand has a very laid back vibe, you will definitely want to consider ariat fr jeans for your everyday work clothes. Not only will you feel really comfortable, but you will also be dressing for your role. Of course, if you’re working in the corporate sector and need to wear a suit everyday, you might need to explore other options. Assess your business style and simplify it. You don’t want to have to wake up every single morning and make a tough decision about what to wear.

StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article | Look and Feel Like a Business Owner from Head to Toe

Take Your Time to Get Ready

Taking your time to get ready every single morning will not only work wonders for your overall appearance, but it will help you to adopt the right mindset too. Business owners who have a very specific morning routine are often more successful as they get into good habits. Do you have a healthy start to your day every morning? Now might be the perfect time to assess it!

Adopt That Money Mindset

If your mindset isn’t focused on making money, it’s not going to happen. You need to adopt a money mindset right now and believe in your own capabilities. As soon as you start to show true passion and belief in yourself, that’s when other people will start to see it too.

Be Unapologetically Ambitious

As well as adopting your money mindset, you also need to show extreme ambition every single day. In fact, you can be as ambitious as you like when you own a business. As long as you can set realistic goals that have tangible steps to get there, the sky is the limit. Once your goals become aligned with your actions, you will really start to see the results you’re looking for.

Being a business owner isn’t just about looking the part, it’s about feeling like you belong too. Many entrepreneurs suffer from imposter syndrome when they are first starting out; this can lead to a lot of self doubt and negative mindset. As soon as you find a style you’re comfortable with, your confidence will start to shine through and you will be a force to be reckoned with.

5 Ways to Convert Your Garage Into a Home Office

/in /by

StrategyDriven Starting Your Business Article | 5 Ways to Convert Your Garage Into a Home Office

If you work from home or if run your own business, a garage conversion could be a great way to add a home office to your property, saving yourself the added expenses of rent or overhead.

Garages are enclosed spaces where cars or other items are stored, so they can be ideally repurposed for other uses. And because you are not actually building from scratch, you may not need to apply for planning permission, but you should confirm with your local council to be safe.

Below are some important tips to keep in mind when creating a home office out of your garage.

1. Clear the space

To create your dream office, clean and remove everything you currently have in the garage.

Find new storage options for bicycles, garden tools, car accessories, and Christmas decorations, or store them carefully in boxes that you can discreetly store elsewhere.

You should also thoroughly clean the garage before you do anything else. Make sure that there are no cobwebs or car lubricants left when setting up your new office space.

Part of clearing the space may include clearing land. You may be surprised at how much room you have in your backyard when you use a Forestry Mulching service. You may even find that you have the space to install an outbuilding for your office space. 

2. Be creative with lighting

When you change your garage space into a home office, you should be as creative as possible. Consider your garage a blank canvas to repurpose it as best as possible.

Garages are typically have the worst lighting, so make sure that your new home office is well lit.

I strongly recommend buying inexpensive lighting fixtures if your garage is not exposed to direct sunlight during business hours.

A creative way to add light into your office is to paint it with bright colours and/or use creative bright patterns. This alone gives the office a colourful and uplifting mood.

3. Make it comfortable and secure

As you are repurposing your garage into a home office, remember to make it as comfortable and as secure as possible. This means making it less susceptible to outside weather conditions. For example, you may want to replace the existing garage door with a modern insulated garage door, so that your office remains warm and cosy during cold months.

As an added advantage, a modern insulated garage door will provide extra security for your tools and equipment when you are not at the office. On the plus side, this type of door will be a strong deterrent to thieves.

Finally, you should also invest in a good heater and fan to be comfortable during all seasons.

4. Design your new space

Even though one of the reasons for repurposing a garage into a home office is to reduce the cost of overhead and rent, you still want your new office to be a great space to work in, and to reflect your personal taste.

Of course, you can simply invest in an ergonomic chair and desk, but why not take the opportunity to design a really nice home office?

Personalise your new workspace with a workstation, relaxation sofa, and an entertainment system. You can also add some practical details such as rugs, framed pictures, and throw pillows.

5. Setup and work

Make sure you have reliable and effective technologies that will make it easy to do your work.

Many households now have wireless networks, but often the wireless signal is weak or absent. To solve this problem, buy additional routers or wireless signal amplifiers to boost the network environment in your new home office.

If necessary, invest in higher-quality data storage, processing and printing technologies.

Furthermore, wire everything to keep cables clean and to have minimal interference.

Finally, converting your garage into a home office is both doable and easy. Try the tips in the article and see if you can put your garage to good use.

6 SEO Trends You Can’t Ignore This Year (and Beyond!)

/in /by

StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article, 6 SEO Trends You Can't Ignore This Year (and Beyond!)

Whether you’re a business owner or a marketing manager, you’ve probably heard about the importance of SEO for your company on more than one occasion. Maybe you’ve even already put in the leg work toward kickstarting your SEO and creating a solid plan to grow your online presence.

But, having an SEO plan in place isn’t enough. It needs to constantly be looked at, tweaked, and changed in order to fit with trends and algorithm changes. Google made headlines in 2019 with its BERT algorithm update, and the search engine shows no signs of slowing down on changing the way it promotes pages and content.

That’s just one example of how quickly things can change and how fast technology moves. If your company isn’t keeping up with it by allowing for an adaptable SEO strategy and by using quality SEO services, it won’t take long for you to fall behind in your marketing efforts.

So, what are some of the trends you need to keep up with in the world of SEO, in order to stay relevant?

1.  User-Focused Content

For years, you’ve likely focused on keyword strategy and link-building. While those things aren’t just going to disappear overnight, it’s important to start shifting the way you create content. For example, with Google’s ever-changing algorithms and people’s desire to form more relationships with businesses, rather than just be target demographics, content is going to have to focus more on user intent.

It’s not going to be enough to piece together words and phrases people might search for. Even keyword research tools may become less useful as time goes on.

So, what can your business do to keep up with the change in where content is going? Listen to your customers, clients, and followers. Focus on their questions, concerns, and comments through every aspect of their journey with your company, whether they use your product/service or not. By really listening to what people are saying about your business, you can hone in on what they’re looking for, and develop your content accordingly.

2. High-Quality Content

It’s no coincidence that the top two spots on this list focus solely on the content of your website. Content is king for a reason, after all.

Not only is it important to shift your content more toward the reader, but it’s equally important to make sure that content is readable.

What does that mean?

Simply put, if the content you’re pushing out on a regular basis isn’t easy to understand, it’s going to start to rank poorly. Google might not be advanced enough to play the role of editor yet, but there’s no doubt that day is coming, soon.

In the past, releasing new content regularly was a good tactic for boosting your rankings. While updating your content regularly is still a must-do, it’s not enough to put together poorly-written pieces just for the sake of a ranking. Instead, your mindset should be to have the best content on the web, consistently. If you don’t feel that someone on your team has the writing skills that will continue to get you noticed, it’s worth it to hire professional writers, even on a freelance basis.

3. Managing Your Reputation

As more businesses and websites compete for high-ranking spots, your reputation will start to play a big part in where you’re found on that list. Google will look at the E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) of a business based on its digital impression.

You should only be publishing content about things you know. With words like “fake news” trending in today’s society, it’s easy for people to be skeptical about things they read online, so you have to prove yourself as a trustworthy source of information. Always double-check what’s being published to make sure it’s accurate and true. One false statistic or exaggerated claim can end up causing a lot of damage.

Your reputation will also be scrutinized when it comes to negative comments and reviews posted about your business online. Negative comments may have deterred potential customers away before. But, now? They could turn Google off from giving your site a high ranking.

If you have other people writing for you or contributing pieces of information to your website, it’s just as important to make sure they have a solid reputation, too. Quoting someone who has been proven to be a fraud or someone with no authority in a particular subject could make your content (and business) seem just as ill-informed.

So, do your research, write what you know, and work hard to preserve positive customer experiences.

4. Focus Your Attention on Mobile

Did you know that 60% of Google searches are done on a mobile device? Or, that over 2 billion people use their smartphone exclusively to access the Internet?

If you’ve been ignoring optimizing your website for mobile, it’s time to make it a priority. Mobile search is only going to become more popular over time thanks to a society on the go, and consumers are growing used to instant gratification. If your website doesn’t load quickly on a phone or is impossible to navigate, they’re going to turn away in a matter of seconds and look elsewhere.

It’s worth it to higher graphic designers or web designers who specialize in mobile web development to make sure your site is easy to work through, even on a smartphone. It used to be the norm to create a site on a desktop and later optimize it for mobile. Now, the trends are showing us that it may be time to start flip-flopping that old rule of thumb.

5. Building Your Brand

More companies are starting to focus on paid advertising, especially on social media. There was a time where spending very little on social media could get your business heavily-noticed. Now that the practice is becoming more saturated, the ROI is reduced. It’s also likely that the cost will go up, so you’ll have to spend more to get less.

Chances are, you’re going to have to continue to spend something on social advertising, just to stay relevant. But, it shouldn’t be where you focus all of your attention. Instead, shift your goals toward building your brand and promoting brand awareness.

Both Google and Bing have made it known that linkless mentions of your business are used as ranking signals. So, the more people that are talking about your company online, the better.

When you utilize social media listening, you can pay attention to how often your brand is being talked about and what people are saying. It also gives you a great opportunity to interact directly with customers and followers of your business. When you give your business a personality by talking directly with your audience, you’re developing trust. That can help you to stand out among competitors who are simply following the normal trends with canned responses and limited social interaction.

6. Voice Search Optimization (VSEO)

By 2022, voice-based shopping is expected to reach up to $40 billion. That’s just one of the staggering stats associated with this phenomenon that continues to grow in importance. VSEO is huge among teenagers and young adults, so it’s undoubtedly going to take over the next generation of searchers.

What does that mean for your business? Since people are asking more direct questions via voice (and typically doing so using full sentences), you’re going to have to consider exactly how those questions will be asked.

What makes VSEO different from traditional search is that when someone is typing, they’re more likely to use snippets of a phrase, or just one to two words in order to get the information they want. Since searching via voice tends to feel more conversational, they’re going to use longer questions and phrases. Those same questions and phrases need to be brought up in your content in order to be seen. Think about how most questions start, with the same few words:

  • How?
  • Why?
  • What?
  • When?

If your content isn’t including those key terms or the answers to the questions people are asking, you’re going to become less relevant when it comes to your overall ranking.

So Many Changes, So Little Time

With technology changing so quickly and Google coming out with new algorithms all the time, it can feel as though it’s hard to keep up with the latest SEO trends. But, there’s one major theme that you can probably see through all of these trends: The user should be your focus.

When it comes to the content you produce, the trustworthiness of what you say, the ease of which people can view your site via mobile, and how well your brand connects with consumers, it all comes back to user experience (UX).

So, while keeping these trends at the forefront of your marketing/SEO plan will help to keep you from becoming stagnant in your efforts, the most important thing to keep in mind is how those efforts are targeted toward the people searching for you, and those who have already discovered you. That’s a “trend” that will only continue to become more important each year.