Many people dream of owning small businesses. Unfortunately, not all of them realize that small companies often have a hard time competing with larger businesses. Perhaps that isn’t such a serious concern, since you can use these four tips to make a small business feel like a big one.

Build a Professional Website

It doesn’t matter whether you own a farm or a travel agency, your company needs a professional website that gives visitors valuable information about your business, products, and services. If you don’t have a website, a lot of consumers will assume that you’ve gone out of business. Despite this, about 60 percent of very small businesses don’t have websites.

This is a mistake that will undermine any attempts to find new customers. Don’t think you can solve this problem by slapping together a website in a few minutes. Today’s shoppers are concerned about online security, so they only want to use secure, professional sites. If your site looks like a GeoCities page from 1995, no one will want to use it.

Considering how important your website is, you should consider hiring a professional to design it. If you want to take the DIY route, choose a platform that’s easy to use. Squarespace and WordPress are good places to start.

Use a P.O. Box

You sell the world’s greatest mousetrap, but no one is beating down your door to buy one. That’s probably because they don’t want to send money to a residential address. Again, this comes down to trust. Consumers simply do not trust small businesses that sell products from obscure addresses.

You can make your business look larger and more successful by using a P.O. Box as your address. For even better results, look for a company like the UPS Store that will give you a street address and suite number. Having a suite number on Broadway will look more professional than having an apartment address on Random Way.

Choose Cloud-Accessible Accounting Software

Accounting creates some of the biggest challenges for small businesses. Everything from sending out invoices to tracking your expenses can take a lot of time. Heaven forbid that a customer disputes a charge. If you’re using old software, it could take you hours to track down the pertinent information.

Using cloud-accessible software like Sage 50 helps alleviate these problems. With cloud-accessible software, you can access your account from anywhere as long as you have a device and an internet connection. This flexibility makes it easier for you to research problems even when you’re not in the office.

The right accounting software will also make it easier for you to create budgets, manage projects, and view expenses. In other words, it gives you the tools that big businesses use to save time while keeping their customers happy. If you want your small business to look big, you will need to adopt professional accounting software with plenty of features and flexibility.

Attract More Social Media Followers

Social media is a crucial tool that will help your business reach current and potential customers. It’s also an important part of making your small business feel like a big business, although you may not be able to compete with the world’s largest international brands like McDonald’s (56.9 million fans), MTV (48 million fans), or Facebook (162 million fans).

You can, however, boost your profile’s popularity so you look more important within your industry. Laughing Lotus, a popular yoga studio in New York City, has over 12,500 Facebook likes. That’s an impressive number for such a niche, brick-and-mortar business. Such a high number of likes identifies Laughing Lotus as one of the area’s most significant yoga studios. That can mean a lot to consumers trying to decide which studio to visit.

Start your social media project by researching competitors to see how many followers they have. Your goal is to beat that number by giving readers quality content, sharing fun pictures, partnering with other popular businesses, and rewarding customers who follow you online.

Bottom line

Making your small business look big could give you the boost needed to attract more customers. Within a few years, you might find yourself wondering how you can make your massively successful corporation feel more like the small business it started out as.