Helping businesses increase customers and profit.
We can help your business grow. Consultancy services at affordable rates. Internet marketing & Website solutions. Book-keeping & Payroll services. Dundee, Tayside.
Where has this year gone??
Don't think we're alone in feeling like 2017 has gone quickly.
Apologies for lack of news posts this year.
We are keeping busy with our client projects in Bright Chilli plus sending our Write On It notebooks and stationery all around the world.
Wishing all our friends a merry xmas and fabulous 2018!
Google are now penalising websites that use "Pop Ups" for mobile traffic and may not rank them as highly. Find out how you can ensure your web pages aren't affected by this penalty.
Great article from Search Engine Journal - https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-mobile-interstitials-penalty/183216/
Apologies for silence on this blog.
We’re busy working on our new stationery venture Write On It in our “spare time”.
We have lots of great gift ideas for xmas and created a Gift Guide if you need some inspiration - perfect for stocking fillers or Secret Santa presents.
Gift suggestions for the little ones, stationery fanatics, organised or disorganised people in your life and the creative - view gift guide
Meanwhile, we are keeping busy with SEO and Financial Management client work.. never a dull moment!
Hope all good with you Sara & Gillian.
No more HMRC call waiting - "Muzak" !!!
If you need to get in touch with HMRC you can contact them online via a Personal Tax Account no need to write or call (waiting patiently on hold listening to "muzak").
This new service will be make it easier for individuals (employees) to manage their tax affairs.
Services currently available online :-
Register Online
You will need your National Insurance Number and P60 to setup your Government Gateway Account https://www.gov.uk/personal-tax-account
More services will be added in the future.
Staging Date
If you have received your staging date you need to have your new pension scheme in place by this date. It's important so won't incur fines and penalties. Larger companies will be staging at the moment with smaller employers to follow over the next year or so.
Be Prepared - don't leave it to the last minute
The recommendation is to get the ball rolling around 9 months previous to your staging date so your pension scheme is in place. Also consider that a lot of pension providers will be very busy so it may take a little longer for them to open your account.
How much does a workplace pension cost?
The minimum contributions for Employees and Employers are set to:
Before - 05/04/2018 = Employee = 1% & Employer = 1%
06/04/18 - 05/04/2019 = Employee = 3% & Employer = 2%
06/04/19 - onwards = Employee = 5% & Employer = 3%
How to work out your pension contributions - online calculator
Setting up the scheme and charges
It can be a minefield to find out charges for setting up your pension scheme as an Employer and the ongoing scheme maintenance charges. Also, you need to take into consideration the ongoing running costs for employees for their pension contributions and investments.
We strongly advise you to contact a regulated Financial Adviser for further information and check out the Pensions Regulator website.
DISCLAIMER
The content of this article is provided for information only. While all reasonable care has been taken to ensure that the information in this article is accurate, no liability is accepted by Bright Chilli Limited for any loss or damage caused to any person or business relying on any statement or omission in the content of this article.
Image from unsplash
Bright Chilli News Update:
The Bright Chilli team are both stationery fanatics and love great pens, pads and all other types of stationery goodies and this has driven us to open another business in our specialised subject of stationery - Write On It.
We design and produce high quality, handmade Personalised Notepads, Planners & Organisers, Notepads from our Write On It workshop in Dundee, Scotland.
We stock a small selection of great pens & more in our store
Great gifts or treat yourself get Write On It – Today
Find out more at writeonit.today
Is your website working for your business?
A website should be more than just an online brochure for your business or a convenient place for people to look up your contact details. It should be driving sales leads or bookings to help grow your business.
Some of the most common complaints about websites we hear when meeting business owners for the first time are:-
Case Study
We were approached by a client who had experienced problems with all the points above. Their website had been online for a couple of years but it wasn’t producing any sales enquiries.
We undertook a review of the client’s current website and identified areas to optimise.
Before we started the project, the website didn’t rank well on search engines (eg Google and Bing) and didn’t appear within the top 100 for many of the popular keywords and phrases we reviewed.
Looking at our website monitor reports our client is now ranking higher or beside their competitors in search engine results with the keywords and phrases we started tracking at the start of the project.
Within the first 6 weeks there had been an increase in sales leads directly linked to the optimised website.
We are at the end of the fourth month following the website search engine optimisation. This is traditionally a quiet time for sales leads as its “off season” for the client. Enquiries are still coming in via the website from different areas in the UK they haven’t had leads from before.
At Bright Chilli we have a methodical approach and start with the immediate goals/needs of the business as a priority.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) doesn’t have to be a daunting task.
If your website isn’t producing results contact us for an informal and jargon free chat.
Bright Chilli - helping businesses across Angus, Tayside and Fife
Find out more about our internet marketing services:-
Are you making the most of cross-selling opportunities? eg if you sell clothing - promote other items that match the product eg clothes to create an outfit
If you know customers will be looking for Christmas gifts. Create a new xmas category and make it easier for the new visitor to find exactly what they are looking for or a call to action category – “inspire me” (if appropriate for your business)
Customer reviews are a powerful tool, we regularly look at reviews before making purchases from Amazon, John Lewis etc.
If you have the facility to include product reviews in your online store asking your previous customers to write reviews of products they have purchased.
Give visitors confidence to make a purchase from your online store. Are the following clearly visible on your website?
Our website ranking report lets you see where your website ranks on Google and Bing with a comparison against competitors.
What we need to know
Send an email to sara@brightchilli.com with the following information:-
1. Your business name
2. Business website
3. Your name
4. Contact email address
5. Competitors websites - up to 4 websites
6. Keywords you would like to track eg products, brands, service or think people would use to find your website - up to 10 keywords*
* keywords are the terms people enter to find your business on the search engines for example to find Bright Chilli you can type in website optimisation dundee, search engine optimsation dundee, book-keeping tayside, seo tayside
We will collate the keyword ranking report and return it via email.
T&C - business website must be located within in the UK.
It is National Stationery Week soon (27 April to 3 May 2015) and our friends and colleagues know we are stationery addicts!
Found a really interesting article on a website while buying stationery (but for the office, so that doesn't count.. right?) "What does your favourite pen say about you"
Get Britain Writing - Find out more about National Stationery Week it's great for all ages.
Who will you write a letter to, or send a card or postcard?
The multi-function pens (below) are one of our favourites and the description in this article is pretty spot on.
What's your favourite pen and do you agree with description in article?
Have you noticed some unusual domain names appearing in your Google Analytics source/medium report recently?
These referrers - crawlers, robots, spammers don't stay on your site for very long usually 0:00 to 0:06 seconds so they are pretty easy to spot compared to normal web traffic.
These spammers are really annoying and distort your google analytics reports.
Update July 2015 since we created the video in February 2015 we have noticed the spammers techniques have changed slightly and making it harder to detect and segment using the steps we had in the video.
We offer a bespoke service to segment the spam, bots and crawlers from your Google data find out more here
Every business with a website should have their site tracked with some form of analytics so you can measure and manage performance.
If you want to know more about Google Analytics and how it can help your business email hello@brightchilli.com or call Sara on 0844 736 5611
It's the last week of February and this year is flying by.. it won't be long until the end of the current tax year 5th April 2015.
HMRC recently released an employers bulletin - there are a couple of changes we wanted to bring to your attention.
From 6 April 2015, Class 1 Employer National Insurance Contributions (NIC) for employees under the age of 21 will no longer be payable (on earnings up to the Upper Secondary threshold or UST). You will have to choose one of the new 7 NIC categories when assessing their secondary NICs. It is the employers responsibility to apply the correct category letter based on the circumstances of each employee.
From 6 April 2015 the student loan threshold will increase by 2.5% to £17,335.
Did you reclaim your £2000 Class 1 National Insurance Employment Allowance? If you claimed this in the year ending 5 April 2015, you will automatically be entitled to reclaim this again in future years unless you advise HMRC otherwise. You don't need to do anything to continue reclaiming this!
If you didn't reclaim this or are a new employer - check for eligibility
These will come into effect from 6 March for PAYE schemes with less than 49 employees. This has already started for employers with 50 or more employees. Notices will be issued in late May 2015 for any penalties incurred. This could range from £100 - £400 per month, depending on the number of employees. Please make sure you file your returns on time to avoid unnecessary penalties.
Bright Chilli provide a payroll processing service to help businesses across Dundee, Tayside and Fife who don't want the hassle of dealing with their wages calculations, deadlines and filing for the HMRC Real Time Information System (RTI) across
Please contact Gillian Lindsay on 0844 736 5611 or email gillian@brightchilli.com for more details.
Questions we are often asked by business owners:-
To help with the points raised above, email marketing is a really useful tool to build into your Marketing Strategy to connect with your customers, clients or prospects eg:-
And there's more..
Are You Sending The Right Message?
Read this great article by Hubspot - "How To Create a Fantastic Email Newsletter [Checklist]"
Write a great headline on your email
180 power words for headlines from co.schedule to help you create a fantastic headline.
Low cost and effective
Email marketing is a cost effective method to communicate and market your business. There are many email marketing providers and emails can be sent out either free or at low cost depending on volumes (we like mailchimp).
We recently published our own newsletter (will open in a new window)
Sign up for the Bright Chilli Newsletter Today
We can help
If you would like to find out more about email marketing for your business please email sara@brightchilli.com or call 0844 736 5611
Happy New Year!
First week back and hope everybody is raring to go!
We had a great 2014.
Here’s a little insight into some of the diverse range of projects we worked on last year at Bright Chilli.
Business Development
Our business development strategies cover a broad spectrum of areas and depend on the needs of each client eg marketing, business systems, recruitment and product launches.
We help clients’ develop strategies and implement action plans which resulted in them running a better business.
Website – Website Optimisation / SEO
We built a couple of websites this year using WordPress and optimised existing websites for new clients where the sites weren't performing well.
We achieved some great results with improvements in website rankings which in turn increased website traffic and sales for our clients.
When reviewing our website ranking reports for clients and you can track their sites change in position.
It reminds us of the old Top of the Pops tune by
Led Zepplin “Whole Lotta Love” when they would run through the charts!
How safe is your website?
We worked on an interesting project where a client’s website had been duplicated across a number of different websites without their permission.
As it was a copyright issue, you would have thought Google would have been helpful but that wasn't the case. We successfully had all the duplicate sites removed – we will let you know how to check your own website is safe, in a future post.
Financial Management
We helped new clients put their business finances in order.
Book-keeping
We provide a comprehensive book-keeping & VAT service and our clients receive regular reports to understand how their businesses are performing and importantly, how to drive them in the future, further reading.
Example monthly reports :-
Payroll
Our payroll bureau service ensures all our clients are filing their wages reports on time and avoiding fines / interest penalties, further reading.
Legal Compliance
If you are a company director are you aware of your legal requirements to file your accounts and annual return with Companies House?
One client wasn't aware of the severity and impact of late filing of their accounts / annual return and hadn't been informed by their accountant. The consequence of the late filings meant there was a large fine to be paid.
We love this quote by Tony Robbins and bear it in mind while planning our own development strategies.
We are looking forward to sharing all our news, snippets (and maybe some photographs) this year.
Follow Bright Chilli on social media :-
We are news/info junkies
Sign up for our newsletter and we'll send the occasional email with a round up of interesting news to direct to your inbox.
According to the “weeks until christmas” website there are only 18 weekends until santa arrives!
Review the 5 steps below to optimise your website
Find out where you rank on Google and Bing, free website ranking report - see below
1. Products
2. Cross Selling Products
Are you making the most of cross-selling opportunities? eg if you sell clothing - promote other items that match the product eg clothes to create an outfit
3. Store Categories
If you know customers will be looking for Christmas gifts. Create a new xmas category and make it easier for the new visitor to find exactly what they are looking for or a call to action category – “inspire me” (if appropriate for your business)
4. Customer Reviews
Customer reviews are a powerful tool, we regularly look at reviews before making purchases from Amazon, John Lewis etc.
If you have the facility to include product reviews in your online store asking your previous customers to write reviews of products they have purchased.
5. Confidence
Give visitors confidence to make a purchase from your online store. Are the following clearly visible on your website?
Our website ranking report lets you see where your website ranks on Google and Bing with a comparison against competitors.
What we need to know
Send an email to sara@brightchilli.com with the following information:-
1. Your business name
2. Business website
3. Your name
4. Contact email address
5. Competitors websites - up to 4 websites
6. Keywords you would like to track eg products, brands, service or think people would use to find your website - up to 10 keywords*
* keywords are the terms people enter to find your business on the search engines for example to find Bright Chilli you can type in website optimisation dundee, search engine optimsation dundee, book-keeping tayside, seo tayside
We will collate the keyword ranking report and return it via email.
T&C - business website must be located within in the UK.
Find out how a small change in your selling price can have a dramatic impact on your gross profit and sales transactions.
Try our new online decision making tool - Impact of Price Change on Profit.
Its easy to use - you only need to enter 3 figures get started.
If you want to increase your price but are concerned that some customers will be resistant to the price rise – view how many sales transactions you can deduct to maintain the original gross profit using the software tool.
If you want to reduce your price and are concerned about the effect on your profit view how many additional sales transactions are required to maintain the original gross profit using the software tool.
Having worked in accountancy practices for a number of years we know it's what happens today and in the future that's important (not just the historical annual financial accounts). Find out how. we can help your business.
"How do I calculate my gross profit"
is a question we have been asked by many clients over the years and...... it isn't always the new business owners that ask.
Gross profit measures your profitability before expenses/overheads and relates directly to your sales/turnover
As an example:
Sales/Turnover or Takings £1,000
Less Direct Cost of Sales:
eg purchases, materials etc £700
Gross Profit £300 (Gross Profit = Sales less Direct Costs)
Gross Margin % 30% (Gross Profit % = Gross Profit divided by Turnover)
Gross margin % measures profitability
Higher values indicate a higher return on sales. This is the difference between the price of your product and what it cost you to buy or make it. Therefore the only way to increase your gross margin is to sell at a higher price or buy at a lower price.
Don't forget about your overheads/expenses
Remember the Gross Profit is calculated before general expenses/overheads are deducted so you must allow for rent, rates, wages etc.
Simple Profit and Loss Statement Example
Sales/Turnover or Takings £100,000
Less Direct Cost of Sales
eg purchases, materials etc £70,000
Gross Profit £30,000
Overheads/Expenses:
Total Expenses £18,000
Net Profit £12,000
Looking After Your Business Finances
Find out more about our book-keeping and management account services.
To find out how we can help you and your business contact Gillian on 0844 736 5611 or email gillian@brightchilli.com
The content of this article is provided for information only. While all reasonable care has been taken to ensure that the information in this article is accurate, no liability is accepted by Bright Chilli Limited for any loss or damage caused to any person or business relying on any statement or omission in the content of this article.
There are great Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) benefits when reviews are gathered on third party sites eg Google+, Qype, Yelp, Facebook etc. When reviews are added directly to your own website it doesn't have the same benefits for SEO.
Free Custom Review Instructions
We have found this great free tool to print out instructions for your business to help customers submit Google reviews via smartphone, desktop and mobile browser.
There are 3 pdfs available for Google review instructions:-
Access the Review Handout Generator
Every business will know the best timing for its own clients and customers. All you need to do is work out the timing of handing out the report to ask your customers eg after appointment or by email 5 days after appointment etc
Finally
Make sure you are accessing your Google+ page regularly to check your reviews.
Many businesses are reporting their organic Facebook post reach has decreased. This is due to changes by Facebook's algorithm, which means their business posts aren't appearing as often in news feeds.
Check your Facebook Page Insights to view how your posts are performing eg reach and engagement (clicks, likes, comments and shares) see example below.
Bright Chilli Facebook Insights page
We help clients develop their marketing strategy and Facebook may be an important factor as there are different ideas that may be implemented.
Please remember that Facebook have strict rules for pages running promotions and you must follow their guidelines which keep changing. (eg like and share competitions breach the rules just now)
This great infographic highlights some of the marketing tips we share with our clients, download the full infographic (pdf) from Shortstack.com.
If you have problems downloading the pdf please email hello@brightchilli.com and we will send a copy.
If you need assistance developing a marketing plan for your business or haven't yet developed a social media strategy (view social media training page) contact sara@brightchilli.com or call 0844 736 5611 for more information.
After a busy week book-keeping, preparing wages, developing marketing strategies and optimising websites for our clients.
The Bright Chilli team like to get out and explore our lovely city, Dundee. This weekend we climbed up 232 steps to the top of the St Marys Tower, Old Steeple in the Nethergate (thankfully there were a couple of rest stops on the way up!)
The tour takes an hour. It’s fascinating to see inside this amazing building which is also one of the oldest surviving in Dundee and the views across the city are spectacular.
The tours are free but you need to book a place to find out dates of tours https://www.facebook.com/McManusDundee
If you need more history facts - http://www.dundeestmarys.co.uk/history.html#oldsteeple
Can you recommend any tours or places we should visit in or near Dundee, Tayside.
If your business has an online store, are you aware of the New EU distance selling rules and how they will affect small businesses?
The directive comes into force on 13th June, the article (link below) is easy to digest with questions and answers.
