Getting Started with The Basic Plan

Your website header is the first thing customers see when they land on your site, so it’s important to give it a good look once your UENI website is live. Remember, first impressions count!

Take a look to make sure that the header image is to your liking, as well as making sure that the business name, your logo, and title are correct, plus any contact information (like your WhatsApp number or email).

Take a moment to look over this part of your page and make sure all of it is to your liking – you can edit all of these elements on the Sections > Header page in the Editor.

No matter what sort of business you run, it’s important to make sure that your opening hours accurately reflect when your shop or company is open – yes, even if you’re an online shop. This info is displayed on your business page and is also displayed on your Google My Business account, which helps local people find your business.

The opening hours are also used to power our Booking Tool, so if you have no opening hours displayed your customers will not be able to book time with you.

How do I check and change my Opening Hours?

If you wish to edit the opening hours displayed on your site, log into your Business Hub and click on My Website (this will take you to your website editor).

Click Sections and scroll down to Opening Hours.

You can use this section to edit or remove your opening hours. You can also list your business as open or closed on certain days using the blue checkbox icon.

If you prefer to see a video, check out our how-to guide here.

For storefront businesses, the importance of a correct address is clear: if you’re relying on customers to visit you in person, they need to be going to the right place!

Even if you don’t have a storefront that people want to visit, making sure that you’ve correctly listed the areas that you cover is essential to helping people know if your services or products are available to them.

In 2020, it’s rare to find a business that only has one method of representation on the internet. From social media like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to other websites, your customers want to get an idea of what your business is about from multiple outlets – so if you’ve got a really great IG presence or have a bunch of great Etsy reviews, link them on your website! It’ll help Search Engines and customers get a better understanding of your business.

When you log into your UENI Hub, you’ll see a big purple Choose Domain button under your Pro Features Page (it also appears in the hub).

Once you click Chose Your Free Domain, a search bar will pop up that you can use to search for the domain name you want (e.g. yourbusinessname.com). This will check if the URL you want is available:

Here you’ll be able to see whether the domain name you’ve selected is available, as well as our recommended options. Make sure you double-check your spelling and choose your domain carefully, because changing it later will not be free.

Not happy with the results? Just hit Search Again to see some different options.

When you’ve made up your mind, just click Confirm Selection to finish up.

All done! Keep in mind, it can take up to 72 hours for your new domain to point to your UENI website.

Once your domain name is live, it’s time to set up your professional email. Just like the Domain, this is available under the Pro Features section:

All you have to do is fill in your desired email name and a password, then click Submit.

See the example below on how to pick an email handle (e.g. ‘info’). In this instance, we’ve selected info@choose-your-domain.com.

Once your email address has been successfully set up, you’ll see a confirmation in the hub as shown in the example below.

To access your new email account, use the Go to my Email button on your Hub, or click here to access the UENIMail login page.

Use the email address and the password you selected to login to your new email account.

A logo is an essential part of your business’s identity, and it’ll be prominently displayed on your business header. As such, it’s important that you make sure your logo looks great on your website. It’s also important to know that the best size for a logo is 200 pixels by 200 pixels.

When resizing your logo, it’s important to consider any space around the logo.

As you’ll see below, both of these images are about 200 by 200, but the first image has considerably more white space around the outside of the image than the second

So when you go to upload them, you see that the logo is much smaller on the page:

Don’t have a logo? You can Click Get My Logo below the upload button to have one made for you.

The cover image is the large image at the top of your website – so it’s the first thing users will see when they land on your page.
In other words: if you can only spend time on one image: make it your cover. The ideal formatting for this image is 1900 by 500 pixels – in other words, it’s going to be a landscape image, wider than it is tall.
Just like with the Logo Image, it’s very important to get the image as close as possible to these dimensions to ensure that your website looks great on mobile devices as well as desktop computers.

If you don’t have a properly formatted image ready, don’t worry. high-quality images will also work, as long as the image has a strong central focus, like so:

Your Gallery is the place where you can really show off what makes your business shine. No matter if you’re creating, plating, designing, or building: great photos of your work can leave a huge impact on potential customers.

Our minimum image size for the gallery is 1024 x 300 pixels, and with your Basic plan, you can upload as many pictures as you want.

To add images to your Gallery, head into the Editor, then, head to Sections and select Gallery:

If you want to upload a new image (that you didn’t provide during your signup), you’ll want to select the Upload image option to upload a new image. You can upload images directly from your own device, or via an external URL.

Besides unlimited image hosting, your Basic plan also gives you the option to upload videos to your Gallery.

To take advantage of this, your video must be uploaded to Youtube or Vimeo. If you’ve uploaded your video on one of these platforms, you can add it to your Gallery by opening the Editor, heading to Sections and choosing Gallery. Once you’re there, head to Video Library, paste your video’s URL and click Import.

When your video appears, you have to choose it and click on Add to Gallery. Don’t forget to save!

The About Us (Or About Me) section exists to help your customers really understand your business. From how long you’ve been in business to anything exceptional about the work that you do or the services you offer – this is the place to let the world know whatever you want to let them know about your company.

If you’d prefer to watch a video to learn how to edit this page, click here

When we created your UENI page, we added some business-specific content based on the information you provided, but feel free to rewrite it or replace it entirely. The choice is yours.

Once you’re in the Editor, head to Sections and click the About section. From there, you’ll see a field that says About Me Title, and one that says + New Content Block. Each New Content Block has fields for text and images, as you’ll see below:

Now, you’ll notice that there was the option to upload a picture. What’s the difference between a content block with a picture and without one? Let’s see:

Personally, we think it looks better with an image, but if you’d rather leave images out of this section, you can!

Please Note: you can add as many Content Blocks as you’d like to your page. By default, we give your business three, but that’s by no means the limit.

Service and Product Descriptions are very similar to the content blocks that make up your About Us or About Me section – the biggest difference is that they’re made up of two sections: Groups and Individual offerings.

Think about it this way: Groups are the category of the work being done, while the individual elements are the specific services you offer.

In other words, for our bespoke calligraphy page, we would have one section for Calligraphy and one specific service for the types of Calligraphy that we offer. So if the business does both Thank You Cards and Chinese Calligraphy, you would add in Chinese Calligraphy as part of that service group.

When you’re in Sections, you’ll want to head to Services & Products. From there you can title your service section overall (we’ve named ours Our Calligraphy) and create Service Groups. For our first service group, we’ve created one called Calligraphy Services, but if we also sold custom clothing, we’d put that in a separate group.

Clicking into Caligraphy Services, we can add a new service. Let’s add Chinese Calligraphy now:

By making sure that your product or service description is fully explained, well written, and creatively put together, you’re increasing your chances of turning people who are casually browsing your site into customers. Combined with a great product or service photo, anyone who has landed on this page will have all the information they need about whether or not this offering is the right fit for them.

All UENI plans include free Google My Business listing set-up. This feature is included in all our plans –yes, even the free plan. Thanks to our partnership with Google, we can verify many businesses on GMB automatically. This means that most of our customers will receive their website and Google listing at the same time.

However, some business types still require manual verification, and Google will not display listings on Google Maps they are completely verified. If this is the case, you’ll need to take additional steps to verify it and get it published.

1. Double-check your business address

In order to manually verify a Google listing, we’ll need a complete and accurate business address. It doesn’t need to show up on your page, but we cannot build your GMB without it. Even though Google offers a few other verification methods – a phone call, text, email and Google Search Console – the only method that’s available to all users is a verification postcard from Google. While you may not conduct your business at a physical location, Google requires a full address to send your postcard, and won’t accept PO boxes or remote mailboxes in this field.

2. Choose your Verification Method

Next, you’ll need to pick a verification method. To see the verification options available to you, simply login to your UENI Hub here.

You’ll see the following screen:

If the business address method is your only available option, you’ll have to request your postcard by clicking the Send PIN button. Depending on your location, it may take up to two weeks to arrive at your address of choice.

Once you have received the PIN through your preferred verification method, enter it in your UENI Hub. Google will then review your business listing and publish it within 24 hours.

Methods like a phone call or text will be faster, as you’ll receive your PIN instantly, but keep in mind that the review process still applies before your listing is published.

Please note: At the time of writing, GMB is advising that postcards may take longer to arrive due to COVID-19. For the same reason, reviews may take up to 3 days.

Currently, there are 2.77 billion social media users worldwide and this number shows no sign of slowing down. When it comes to promoting your business, having a social media is a definite must. If you do it right, you’ll be able to reach millions of people at once.

Nevertheless, try not to use every social media channel out there. Select only the relevant ones that your clients frequent as this will help you connect with them more directly.

For example, you could open an Instagram account and share beautiful and eye-catching photos of your products. Alternatively, you could use a Twitter account to showcase your expertise and position your brand as a leader in the field. It all depends on the platforms that best fit your audience.

When you first get your page, you’ll find that UENI has done extensive keyword research for every industry we work with, selecting the most common words and phrases users type into Google when searching for a specific business or service. Based on this, our expert copywriters and SEO specialists optimise all the elements of your website that will help you rank well on search engines.

But we’re not you. We don’t run your business. We can make educated guesses about what kinds of keywords you want to target, and how you want to describe your company, but when it comes to really making the page rank, you’re the top authority on the matter.

So what can you do?

We’ve got a whole host of tips available for you, but the first (and biggest) step is to make sure your content is top-notch, helpful to searchers, and gives them what they want.

Most business owners struggle with keeping their reviews sparkling, and spend a lot of time on them. Did you know that as much as 69% of consumers don’t trust online reviews older than 3 months?

Available to our Basic, Plus, and Reputation plan customers, our Review Booster is a great way to encourage your customers to leave your business a review after booking an appointment or sending you a message. The best part? You don’t have to do anything!

Our Reviews Booster automates the process of getting new 5-star reviews, by sending an email to your visitors a day after they have booked your location. They are then asked to rate your service. Don’t worry, less-positive reviews are kept private so you can handle any complaints or issues discreetly.

How Does It Work?

Our Review Booster is a feature where UENI will help you follow up with your customers that have made a booking request or sent a message to you via your website.

Typically, these follow up emails are sent one day after the booking was due to take place, or 1 day after the message was sent, depending on whether they booked or emailed.

If there is no date attached, the review email will occur after three days.

We will not send Review Booster emails to your clients if:
You have sent them an email from your Hub already, or if your Google My Business Profile is not fully connected & verified.