Insurance Insights

Signing a new office rental agreement can be as exciting as it is stressful. However, making the right choice about your rental agreement can take a little stress out of your day as well. Remember these seven things before you sign a rental agreement that could be detrimental to your business plan.

Small businesses do a lot of things to help protect the business and its owners from economic hardships. Things like insurance, security systems, and such are widely understood and employed. However, many small businesses fail to understand the importance of the non-disclosure agreement to protect their interests. Here’s why your small business needs to rethink its policies regarding non-disclosure agreements:

When it comes to business, your reputation is one of the most precious things you have. Businesses today must make a point of managing their reputations as well as their business operations. The Internet makes it too easy for people to get quick vindication when they perceived they were wronged by any business today. Your mission is to make sure your business comes out of a bad situation looking as though you’ve at least attempted to make things right.

Gone are the days of looking through a phone book for nearby businesses who may have what you’re looking for. There are more consumers than ever before utilizing modern technology for finding local businesses, including on their personal computers, tablet PCs and mobile phones. A recent survey has found that 20% of the searches completed on Google are for local results; a hint at how often search engines are locating local results for consumers. This means if you own a business, it is your responsibility to have your business appear on local search results in order for the success of your company.

As recently as a few years ago, there was likely still a significant portion of small business owners who thought that the internet wasn’t necessarily crucial to their ongoing success, but that number seems to finally be dwindling. The latest data shows that many entrepreneurs now fully recognize not only the value of having a website, but also just how much search engines can help them succeed.

Major search engines, like Google, Yahoo, and Bing, are continuously tweaking and updating their search engine algorithms to provide customers — their search engine users — with the best possible experience. Using several factors, search engine algorithms decide if a website is valuable, relevant, and worthy enough to appear prominently in the search engine results.

Testing the usability of your small business website is one of the smartest things you can do, particularly if you rely heavily on your website to sell products or services, or receive advertising or sponsorship revenue.  Whether you goal is to convert website visitors into customers, increase email sign-ups, or sell more products, website user testing is a must-have — and can be done even if you don’t have large financial resources to do so.
Here’s how to get website usability testing on a tight budget:

Having a successful website is one of the strongest marketing strategies available for businesses of any size. Even if your business website is only informational, it is vital that you pay close attention to all of the details, making sure it is as user-friendly and easy to navigate. Viewers of your website won’t want to stick around if there are errors or if they find it difficult to locate information; therefore you should continue to maintain your website and incorporate these five key features of a successful website.

To market your small business, it’s a given that you need a website. But to best brand your company, just having a website isn’t enough. Instead, your small business website needs to have those critical features that every customer and clients wants — and expects — to see. In order to compel prospects to choose you to do business with or customers to make a purchase from your website, you must have the right combination of website features.

Whether your company employs hundreds of consultants or you work out of a home office, if you make your living providing IT services, you need Professional Liability insurance, also known as Errors and Omissions insurance, Professional Liability insurance is your most critical coverage. Professional Liability insurance protects you and your
business from potentially catastrophic litigation caused by charges of professional negligence or failure to perform your professional duties. This might include errors and omissions resulting in loss of client data, software or system failure, claims of non-performance, or negligent oversell.