3 How To Write An Online Business Profile With Easy

doylc.com - How To Write An Online Business Profile - An online business profile is a simple but powerful tool. Not only does it allow people to find your business on the Internet, it can also help them to decide whether they want to use your business or not. An online business profile attracts customers, potential employees and investors, and even the media, who can use your online profile to find out more about your business. Since it's such an important tool, it's important to learn how to write an online business profile that gives a positive first impression.

Figuring Out What to Write

Determine your goals. Your content will be focused on what specific information you want to communicate to your audience. Simple profiles on social networking sites or local directories should be geared toward showing off your products and telling people about your business in a brief, positive, and upbeat way. However, other profiles may require different approaches.

For example, to find job applicants, highlight the benefits of working for the company.

Profiles used to attract media attention and sales should highlight features that make the company stand out and its contributions to the community.

If you are looking for investors or financing, make sure the profile contains financial information and a solid business plan.

Start with your mission. Your profile, at minimum, should describe exactly what your business does. You want readers to come away knowing what your business is currently doing, what it plans to do in the future, and how it will accomplish those goals. To that end, you should compose a mission statement that sums up this information in one or two sentences. Search online for examples of mission statements if you are having trouble creating one.

A mission statement should start with the benefit that the business provides to the customer. For example, "providing excellent computer repair service at a fair price."

Then, add in what the business does for its employees and owners. For example, say that you empower employees and allow them to develop industry-leading skills. For owners, you could say that you create a solid return on investment.

From there, refine and shorten your mission statement until it gets your point across at succinctly at possible.

Write about history. Unless you are creating an internal business profile, include information about how your business came to be the way it is today. Start with a bit of backstory about the founder(s) and the initial idea behind the business. Then, proceed through any major structural or product changes. Include information about partnerships, strategy shifts, and management changes. Focus on your successes and, if necessary, account for serious failings. If you explain a failing, explain even more clearly how you overcame it.

For example, you could that say that the idea for your business grew from your personal frustration with a lack of a comparable product/service in your area. Explain how you and your co-founders originally planned and designed the product and business.

If there were any difficulties along the way, say something like, "We started running into issues with quality control as we expanded. However, we were able to institute a successful management training program that quickly remedied these problems."

Profile your leadership. Give short biographies of the founders of the business, at minimum. You can include more upper-level management bios if you have room. Discuss their previous positions, honors, education, and their present role in the business. Paint your management in the best light possible so that your leadership team will shine to potential investors and customers.

For example: "Mr. Smith, has been the company's Chief Financial Officer for 15 years. During this time, he has proven instrumental in cutting costs and widening profit margins. Mr. Smith came to the company after spending 15 years with the nation's top accounting firms. He holds a master's degree from Harvard Business School."

Include other pertinent information. Any other information you might choose to include will depend on the purpose of your profile. Make sure that this information is relevant to your audience before including it. For example, you might choose to include any of the following:

Recent business developments.

Locations/areas served.

Any patents or other intellectual property.

Specific descriptions of product or service offerings.

Social or charitable involvement.

Describe things that make the company stand out from the competition. Avoid sounding generic at all costs. Include any awards or facts about the business's history that could make it stand out. This creates interest and cements the business in the mind of the reader. For example, community involvement, overcoming economic struggle, ties to celebrities or community leaders, and expert skills of staff or owners could be facts that make a company special.

Think about how these facts might make a prospective customer choose your business over another. Ideally, included facts should be both interesting and promote your interests.

Making Message Clear

Format your profile clearly. Your profile will be useless as one, big block of text that is difficult to read. Instead, split your profile up into logical parts that discuss different aspects of your business. Make sure that formatting and font size remain consistent throughout. Make sure to leave your profile open, with spaces between headings and text.

Tailor your tone to your audience. Anywhere you place a business profile, you will be writing to a specific audience. Your content should obviously be adjusted based on who you are writing to. However, your tone should also be adapted to the audience.

For example, if your profile is aimed at customers, you might want to talk less about your leadership and focus on your products and social mission, all the while retaining a positive and open tone.

However, a profile that faces potential investors would be better off focusing on management experience and revenue projections while using a more serious, matter-of-fact tone.

Your profile could also be edgy, formal, or homey, among many other options, depending on the type of audience you are writing to. For example, these tones would fit a skateboard manufacturer, luxury clothing retailer, and farm supply store, respectively.

Show some personality. Compose the profile in a tone that jives with the industry your company is in. If you are selling hip new products, aim for an edgy tone. More traditional companies like law offices or financial institutions should go for a tone that conveys security and safety. This should be true throughout the profile and supported by the business's stated purpose and community or charitable involvement, if any.

Avoid using figures of speech that might might make your profile harder to understand.

Use keywords in the profile. Keywords are the words users will type in to search for a business like yours. It's important to include them, since they can help improve your ranking in search results, but they must be integrated into the profile in a way that flows and doesn't look spammy.

For example, a business that provides e-commerce solutions might include words like e-commerce, solutions, fulfillment, merchant, shopping, web, hosting, software, cart, and business.

Keep it simple. Write the company profile in plain English without excessive use of jargon, so that the media and customers unfamiliar with the company's services or products can understand it. If you create or sell products or services that are not well known, explain what they are and how they are used in layman's terms. This does not mean, however, that you should omit industry-specific terms where they are necessary.

Finalizing The Profile

Provide contact details. At the beginning or end of the profile, include the company's full address and contact information like email and a phone number. Make sure the address can be found and is included in online mapping systems like Mapquest and Google Maps. Email addresses should have a 'mailto' link so that users can click to send an email. Include a clickable URL to the company's main website, and any other links that can help users find out more information about the company.

You might also provide contact details for upper management, or at least basic information about them.

Add high-quality photographs. They should be professional shots that show off the company's accomplishments and products or offer a personal touch with pictures of staff and principals. If you have included management bios, place a professional-quality picture of the executive next to each one. The picture should be recent, clear, and in-focus, showing only the executive wearing business attire.

Provide links to additional information. If you are writing a business profile for your website, feel free to link out from your profile to other pages. For example, you could have an "overview" page with your company profile, with links to management bios, social responsibility, product pages, and so on. Doing so can help simplify your business profile so that it only contains the most important information.

Make sure the profile is error-free. The best way that you can improve your business profile is to ensure that all grammar, punctuation, and spelling is error-free. Though many potential customers may not notice, these mistakes could end up costing you business. If no one in your organization is capable of producing good writing, consider hiring outside help.

Remember to keep the profile updated. Update your profile(s) regularly, especially when the business's circumstances, policy, or leadership change. Make sure to update the profile for any awards, recognition, or new product offerings. If you have multiple profiles across platforms, make sure to update them all.