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10 Must-Have Free Chrome Extensions for UK Users

Enhance your browsing experience with these free Chrome extensions available in the UK:

Grammarly: This AI-powered writing assistant goes beyond basic spell-checking. It offers real-time grammar, punctuation, and style suggestions across websites, email clients, and social media platforms. It can even detect tone and provide vocabulary enhancements.

LastPass: A robust password manager that not only stores your passwords securely but also generates strong, unique passwords for each site. It auto-fills login information and can be synced across multiple devices, ensuring you never forget a password again.

uBlock Origin: An efficient, wide-spectrum content blocker that not only blocks ads but also stops trackers and malware sites. It’s lightweight on system resources and allows for custom filtering, giving you control over what you see online.

The Great Suspender: This extension automatically suspends tabs that you haven’t used for a while, drastically reducing Chrome’s memory usage. You can customize the suspension time and whitelist important sites that should never be suspended.

Honey: Automatically scours the internet for coupon codes when you’re shopping online. Before you check out, Honey tests all available codes and applies the one that saves you the most money. It also offers a rewards program for additional savings.

OneTab: Converts all your open tabs into a list with a single click, freeing up to 95% of memory. You can restore tabs individually or all at once, and even share your list of tabs as a web page.

Google Translate: Offers instant translation of entire web pages or selected text. It supports over 100 languages and can even pronounce translations aloud, making it invaluable for language learners and international browsing.

Pocket: Allows you to save articles, videos, and other content to read or watch later. It removes ads and formatting for a clean reading experience, and content can be accessed offline across various devices.

Todoist for Chrome: Integrates your to-do list directly into your browser. You can add tasks from any web page, set due dates and reminders, and organize tasks into projects. It syncs across all your devices for seamless productivity.

Dark Reader: Generates dark themes for websites on the fly. It’s customizable, allowing you to adjust brightness, contrast, and sepia filters. It’s particularly useful for reducing eye strain during night-time browsing or in low-light environments.

To access and download these extensions, visit the Chrome Web Store

How to Build a Brief for Your Website

Being active online has never been more important, regardless of which industry your business sits in or who your target audience may be. From impressing Google with your SEO-driven content, to creating a cohesive journey from social media or email marketing through to purchase, having a plan for your digital strategy is an integral part of success in the modern world of business. 

But in order to build a digital strategy, you need to have an online hub which collects customers and users from every individual journey and provides them with the information and answers they need in order to complete a purchase or reach out to you directly. We are of course talking about your website. 

Your website is the online storefront of your business and is your most valuable resource when it comes to competing in the digital world. So, it follows that getting your website right is pretty important – wouldn’t you agree? That’s why, to help you to navigate the benefits of a great website in the new year, and to support you whether you’re looking for site upgrades, updates, or a whole new look, we’ve created this blog on how to present a great website brief. 

The Importance of a Website Brief

The website brief is what you will provide to your developer or third party design company – such as our team here at Slate. It is the job of a developer and designer to translate your brief into a site which reflects your business vision, portrays your personality, entices your target customer, and ticks the boxes of completing the customer journey to contact or purchase. 

In short, the website brief is your way of communicating what you envision for your website, through to the people who will be bringing that vision to life for you. It is also the touchpoint through which you can ensure that deadlines and timelines and understood and will be your main tool in ensuring that your website is completed to the agreed budget for the project. 

So yes – to cut a long story short, the brief is important.

How to Build Your Website Brief

STEP ONE: Discuss the brief 

Before putting pen to paper or fingertips to keypads, your brief should start with a harmonious understanding of the kind of your website you need for your business. This is a conversation that should be had with all stakeholders, and we recommend that the more insight and input you can gather, the better your long term gain will be – after all, your website will be seen by a great many eyes, and so the more input you can get from different perspectives, the better the odds of creating something that will appeal to the masses. 

STEP TWO: Who are you?

The very first part of your website brief should deal with who you are as a business, what your vision is, and who you want to appeal to and sell to. This deep dive exploration should go into great detail around who the website is being designed for – a decision which will have huge implications on the way that the user experience is designed and navigated during the design and development process. 

During this stage we also recommend communicating information regarding the stakeholders of the business, as knowing this can have an effect on the way certain information is presented. It will also provide your developer or designer with contacts should they have specific questions or challenges further down the line. 

STEP THREE: Create your project overview

Now it’s time to answer some key questions. 

– Is the project a redesign or a new-from-scratch website?

– What do you expect as part of the overall project delivery?

– What obstacles do you anticipate arising, and how can you overcome them?

– What sort of involvement do you expect to have as the client?

– How often do you want the design company to touch base with updates?

– Will you be providing the content yourself, or is it important for your design and development team to have an understanding of your brand’s tone of voice too?

STEP FOUR: Define the goals

What will your website be looking to achieve, and what are your key success indicators with the build and launch of the new site?

This is the information that will help to ensure your design is created and your website is built with its goals in mind – for example pushing visitors towards certain actions, encouraging them to engage, or introducing new products or a new business concept. 

STEP FIVE: Who are your competitors?

When it comes to website design and build, there is a widespread understanding that if something isn’t broken, it doesn’t need to be fixed. In this context, it means that you don’t need to completely redefine the journey or website structure if there are examples of good practice already floating around in your industry. Providing your design and development company with some competitors to your business will give them insight and ideas into how you want your site to look and will let them explore what is already working and driving success in the industry. 

STEP SIX: Your requirements

This is where it gets more detailed, as you need to outline what you want in terms of your design spec, what your ideal timeline is, and what your ideal budget is. This is the step that will likely require some back and forth as both you and your third party negotiate on deliverables and what is realistic and fair for both parties – however, you need to note that work will not be commenced until this is cleared up, so it is an important discussion to have. 

Most design and development companies will operate under set rates for website build projects, so it may be worth collecting a few quotes before deciding on the right company for you. 

To learn more about the website build process, and to collect a quote for your next project from Slate, get in touch with us today. 

Navigating the New Normal of Remote Working

There’s a lot of value that comes with remote working, from maintaining a healthy work-life balance, to saving costs on commuting, travel, and hiring venues for meetings and conferences. Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, where working from home became the only option, moves were already being made across a variety of industries and sectors, with … Continue reading “Navigating the New Normal of Remote Working”

There’s a lot of value that comes with remote working, from maintaining a healthy work-life balance, to saving costs on commuting, travel, and hiring venues for meetings and conferences. Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, where working from home became the only option, moves were already being made across a variety of industries and sectors, with businesses heralding hybrid working and a flexible approach to home and office working for the benefit of employees’ morale and motivation.

With that said, as we move through the gradual easing of restrictions and office spaces start to reopen, what does the new normal look like – and could remote working be here to stay?

 

Which industries are best suited to remote working?

There are arguments for and against home working across virtually every industry, with remote meetings and conferences presenting benefits and their own challenges depending on the number of participants and their ability to cease talking over each other and overloading the microphone system. In the creative industry in particular, as cited by many of the clients we work with here at Slate, remote working presents an opportunity to free up your workspace and immerse yourself in environments that inspire and influence your work – giving individuals space and freedom to work where they want to, and in a structure which works for them.

Remote working is also proven to increase productivity, can reduce business costs and help you to reduce your carbon footprint, as well as enabling a business to extend their talent pool and take on new recruits who are not geographically close to their business but whose values and skills align perfectly with the company.

As such, when it comes to ascertaining the industries best suited to remote working, the list is endless – it all comes down to the way you manage and communicate with your team and the way you support them as required.

 

The Challenges that business owners need to manage and unpack

For businesses, one of the biggest challenges they faced moving into the new normal of remote working during the pandemic came in the monitoring and management of tasks, however, most businesses have found that employees who are motivated and well supported are more than capable of managing their own time and responsibilities. It all comes down to trusting employees and having faith in their ability to prioritise and get the job done.

The simple fact is that remote working isn’t without its challenges, whether they be in relation to resources, teamwork, or motivation. While many creatives find the freedom of remote working to be a benefit, there are others whose work can suffer with a removal from the physical presence of a team, with the lack of people preventing them from being able to bounce ideas off of colleague and peers. A lack of the necessary resources is another challenge that can put a pause on certain work, with many employees finding they don’t have the infrastructure at home to complete the role to the best of their ability.

As a small business owner or employer your job is to support your team in overcoming these challenges and change the way you work in order to embrace the rise in remote working. A great way of understanding the challenges faced by your team is to communicate regularly with employees across every level of the business, both through smaller team meetings and larger company meetings. These kinds of virtual meetings provide individuals with an opportunity to touch in with the wider company and understand ongoing goals and tasks, get to know members of extended teams, and see where they fit into the company on a larger scale. Another option is to hold remote work training, which will aid line managers in ensuring that their teams are performing well and will aid employees in everything from creating a safe and comfortable workspace, to knowing who to contact if they are struggling.

 

Other areas to focus on as we continue under the “new normal”

One area which has consistently been put under the spotlight over the last few years, is the importance of mental wellbeing – particularly in the workplace, with businesses across all industries and levels being tasked with reassessing their attitude to mental wellbeing and team management in the workplace. Remote working presents challenges with keeping on top of mental health, and that is why it is so important for every employee to have access to both a direct line manager and someone in HR, who they can talk to on a regular basis.

Other things businesses can do is schedule in weekly or fortnightly meetings which are more related to team building than work-oriented goals and check in with employees regularly to find out how they are feeling and whether there is anything the business can do to support them.

Remember that the new normal of everyday life doesn’t just stretch to work – it has also changed the way that most people live their lives in a series of other ways. Our social lives have changed, financial situations have shifted, and many have experienced the harsh reality of the virus itself either themselves or within their family or friends. As a business, you should be focussed on how you can make sure that remote working both supports your business success and your individual employees, taking the time to ensure that resources and supportive management reach into every corner of the business.

We work with creative businesses across a range of services, from design to development, social media and so much more. We would love to hear about the solutions that your business has put into place to help manage and optimise the new normal of remote working – get in touch with us via our social media to share your initiatives and ideas.

How to Build Your Database

Remember a few months ago when our offices used to be littered with business cards, and our inboxes were packed full of useful details about suppliers, clients, and business contacts? The problem with this is that each touchpoint holds different information, and so the data you collect on certain individuals, clients or competitor companies become fragmented and fractured. Not to mention the lack of access to all this information since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Many of us still operate in this way – but there IS a better way. 

Having a database is like taking all of that crucial and useful information about all those different contacts and putting them all into one easy-to-manage place. Provided you get it right, it allows for super easy tracking of any user type or customer category and makes business operations simple to follow. 

Of course, the benefits come once you have a fully-functioning database up and running – so how do you get to that stage where the benefits outweigh the work required?

 

What does an effective and efficient database look like?

The best databases are those which are built AFTER answering the following question:

What are you hoping to gain by building a database, and how are you going to use it?

Once you know this, you can build something which is integrated with your website and which collects the kind of data that you will find useful in the long run – rather than capturing tons of data for the sake of it. (And if you don’t fancy building and integrating all that by yourself, you can always reach out to our team of data lovers for a little bit of support!)

In short, the best kind of database is one that is tailored to your business needs. 

As a creative company, for example, you might like to know what your core client looks like, and what kind of creative support they are looking for – i.e., with the rise of online experiences, are you finding that more and more enquiries are about eCommerce design and how to fuse online and offline experiences?

Here at Slate, one of OUR biggest focus points through our own database is on establishing location and company size, as we market ourselves as a local business agency and so tailor much of our marketing campaigns to the local business audience. 

Once you have answered that key question, the next steps are all around building a database that delivers the information you need to know. 

 

The steps you need to take to earn a 5-star database

One of the first things to do when you build your database is to ensure it integrates with your website or mailing list in the right way. 

For a customer database, the likelihood is that you will want to know who is on your mailing list, who is opening your emails regularly, which of them are clicking through to email links, and how many of them are actually converting into making enquiries or purchasing from your website. All of these break down into different touchpoints on the core customer journey from nurture to purchase, and with the help of a database, you can gain vital insight into what those people look like and how long it takes for them to convert. 

For a business operations database, the internal workings are the same – just with slightly different information. For example, you may need to know what stock you have left, what has been recently ordered, when you last ordered something, and how many weeks or months go by before you need to reorder. 

Both of these examples highlight the fundamental usability of a good database in delivering you the information you need – when you need it. And it all comes down to integration and ensuring your database is fully paired up with the right information. 

And then we come to maintenance. A bit like hoovering the house and cleaning the bathroom, maintenance is something we know we need to do, but we are reluctant to channel time and energy into doing it – particularly if we feel that the information is for our eyes only and so doesn’t matter to the client. 

But this is where we are wrong. If you don’t maintain and clean-up your database on a regular basis, the information will fast become outdated and clients and suppliers will start to receive communications from you that no longer relate to them – or you will continue to monitor the stock levels of something you discontinued months ago. 

Database maintenance is another service you can easily outsource to an organisation focused on customer growth and retention, or you can dedicate time once a month to trawl through and cut out any irrelevant or dead leads. 

 

Nurture your database today for the benefit of your business tomorrow

Learn to use your database as a business lifeline, and pretty soon the benefits of building and maintaining it will become clear. So much so that one day soon, you won’t know how you lived without it.

For more on how to build and optimise your database for the best possible outcomes, whether it’s an operational database or a customer relationship database, get in touch with our team at info@helloslate.co.uk

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