Industry Voice: Digital tools and techniques to maximise your business' potential

With technology featuring more and more in our day-to-day lives, are you keeping up to date with the latest digital tools? Could you be reaching your clients more effectively?

You could grow your business and ensure you're ahead of your rival firms, as well as remaining competitive within the market. These practical digital ideas and tools, which are highlighted on Aviva's HealthcareZone, could be essential in building an even closer relationship with your clients.

Website

It's a good idea to have a presence on the internet. By showcasing the services you offer and providing relevant information on your website means you can attract business from further afield.

Think about the following tips for your website:

• Use appropriate key words when writing content. However, remember that what you're writing should be easy to read for your clients, so don't include any jargon

• Ensure your site is easy to navigate. Think about how people browse, looking for links that take them logically from one section to the next, and back again

• Refresh your site occasionally. Search engines give priority to sites that are maintained, refreshed and kept up to date.

Once you have your website up and running, it is definitely worth implementing a number of the digital techniques and tools below.

Search

Your website is the shop window for your business. But like a shop, if you're tucked away down a dark alley, no one will be able to find you.

Ensuring clients can find your website easily is imperative. By utilising search engine optimisation (SEO) techniques, you can ensure that your site is found by search engines, like Google, when clients are looking for your business.

Implementing search phrases and keywords into your site is one way to help you move towards the top of the rankings amongst search engines, improving the visibility of your website, and of your business.

Make sure you use a wide range of keywords and specific terms, as repetitive keywords can be seen as spam by search engines. Furthermore, by regularly uploading fresh content onto your site and having links to social media, it will help you appear higher in searched rankings.

Installing an analytics tool can help collate statistics to measure your website's performance. For example, Google Analytics is a free tool that can help you to understand how many people are visiting your site, how long they stay and what they're looking for.

It's also important to look for blockages or pages with a high drop-off as this indicates that there may be a problem with content or navigation.
Ultimately, appearing high in search engines can drive more business to your door - so it is vital to get search optimisation spot-on.

Content

Blogs, videos, infographics, pictures, presentations and polls - these are all good examples of content that your business could generate to engage with clients.

Valuable content keeps people coming back - meaning you not only attract people to your site, but could also establish your business as a leading industry entity and demonstrate your professional capabilities - reassuring clients of your specialist skills. Producing beneficial content adds value to your advice and the service you offer.

Not only is it important in attracting new clients, but because search engines such as Google or Bing put great emphasis on content when working out search rankings, it should help clients to find you more easily.

Regardless of what content you're creating, it is essential to develop it in a way that will be compelling to both existing and potential new clients. As an example, keeping up to date with the latest industry news and adding your comments is an easy way to show your knowledge and experience.

Free web tools

Incorporating free web tools can help you to measure, monitor and get the best from your online presence. There are tools available to your business to assist with payments, creating and sharing documents, and also to improve your networks.

From video calling with Skype, gaining primary research from customers via Survey Monkey, to taking payments with WePay, there are many tools that could help you to grow your business. For more information, visit the free web tools page on HealthcareZone.

Google tools

You are probably aware of Google's presence as a search engine, but there are a number of products and services Google also offer designed to help make your business more efficient. The following Google tools could help drive clients to your website and potentially maximise your business' potential:

• Google AdWords - a sponsored advertising section on Google where your website can appear with a short description depending on what search terms have been used

• Google Analytics - allowing you to generate detailed statistics on who is visiting your site and what areas they are looking at

• Google Trends - showing you how often a particular search term is used and how the language of the search terms has changed over time.

Email

A convenient way to communicate with your clients and deliver a message quickly. For many of us, emails have become an integrated part of our daily lives - whether we access them through a computer or a mobile phone.

Sending an effective email requires careful planning, incorporating timing, testing, targeting and evaluation are key to any email campaign. Here are a few tips to think about when emailing:

• Construct a subject line that will capture the audience's attention - make it engaging, but to the point

• Ensure the content is pertinent. Think about the message you are trying to convey, and deliver it succinctly

• Utilise your client database appropriately when planning an email. Think about who is receiving the email, and tailor the language and messaging suitably to that segment (group of your target audience), making sure you're targeting the right people.

To look into these digital techniques and tools in more detail, and find out about other ways to grow your business, visit Aviva's HealthcareZone.