All posts by Steven

How a Workplace Accident Can Damage Your Brand

Steven on February 6, 2020

Having a strong brand is crucial in the route to business success. But, one mistake can ruin everything you have worked for in years. A good example is a workplace accident that can be a massive blow to your talent and your business altogether. So, how good is the level of safety in your workplace? This article will tell you how accidents at the workplace put your business at risk. In the end, you will know how to protect your brand in such a scenario.

Damaging Reputation

A good reputation is so important in business these days, particularly in the age of social media. A single mistake can be amplified to damage everything you have built over time. A good reputation speaks volumes about the work and the people in your business. It’s important in attracting lucrative opportunities, attracting top talent and customers. In fact, a damaged reputation is quite challenging to fix. It will take a lot of time and cost to rebuild. There is even no guarantee that the efforts will be fruitful!

Financial Losses

When accidents happen at the workplace, the public will often not care to know who was at fault. In some cases, the news and media content about the risks in your workplace will spread around. You will lose customers and business relationships. You will also lose cash in compensating the victims of the accident. If you were at fault, then you might even end up paying millions of dollars for damages. It can bring your business to its knees or you might even lose the business.

Decline in productivity

Workplace accidents can lead to a decrease in productivity in several ways. For starters, when one staff member is injured, others will have that fear as well. They will start looking over their shoulders, and the panic mode might be there for long. It is even worse if the accident was fatal because some top talented employees can decide to quit.

If a lawsuit is filed against you, you may end up spending a lot of time in courtrooms, which is both emotionally, physically and financially draining. If the victim was severely injured, he or she will need some time off to recover or they might not be able to work again. It will be quite a blow if other employees are unable to fill the position adequately. You will have to look outside which can be another challenge in attracting top talents to fill the role.

Legal implications

There are many laws put in place to protect workers, depending on where your business operates. In the case of workplace accidents, employees are entitled to compensation as per the law. They can file a lawsuit for compensation against you citing negligence on your part. You can spend years in legal tussles with legal teams, a feat that translates to losses.

What to do After a Workplace Accident

It’s always important to have a proper emergency response mechanism to help injured employees. It may not be your fault, but it becomes your business when accidents happen when they are in the line of duty. Proceed to investigate the cause of the accident. Some causes are apparent, and this is something you ought to have had control over. Other hazards may be hidden but it might be within your control as well. You must seek professional help when assessing the risks as it will also reveal other underlying risks and the extensive impact of the hazards. Also, with the risk assessment report, you will have a glimpse of what you can do in the future to prevent accidents. Some preventive measures may be as simple as installing a new fire extinguisher and educating the staff, or as expensive as replacing manual systems with automatic ones. Nonetheless, preventive measures are important to ensure this doesn’t happen again!

The next and most crucial step is to handle to incident. After the risk assessment, you need to look for an attorney who is offering the best legal representation money can buy to help protect your business. An experienced accident injury attorney will help you to prevent further damage to your brand. The attorney will build a proper defense in case of a lawsuit. They will help you settle the case in a way that protects your business.

Tip: Always ensure you have the right safety measures in your workplace. You may not see the results immediately, but you will be increasing employee safety, improve your workplace productivity, and avoid financial losses.

Final thoughts

Workplace accidents can happen anywhere, and there is so much that can be lost. Now that you know about the disastrous effects of workplace hazards, it is time to take action to protect your brand!

Digital Branding

Watch Out! Signs You May Need to Change Your Managed Service Provider

Steven on February 6, 2020

Businesses that work with Managed Service Providers (MSPs) do experience a large number of benefits ranging from increased flexibility to decreased costs to higher security to predictable scalability. Outsourcing IT systems management to MSPs allows companies to focus on their primary projects and not worry about downtimes or other technological issues.

However, all MSPs aren’t great. If you have some concerns about your IT partner or not sure about where your business is going concerning technological changes, it may be time for a new service provider. Similarly, you may already be working with an IT firm unlike other managed service providers that aren’t perfect, and these signs will ensure that you’re on the right track!

The following are the signs that will tell you whether or not you should transition to another IT partner.

No Dedicated POC

If you’re the person that has to report every technical issue to your managed service provider, you’re in business with an unreliable company. Furthermore, if you don’t have a dedicated point-of-contact and are shuffled around from person-to-person, it may be time to start looking for another IT partner. To help you with this situation, we recommend that you find an MSP that offers a 24*7 help desk as well as a dedicated account manager to handle all your issues and queries. Moreover, if ever there is a technical issue, you should be informed about it via the MSP and not vice versa.

Growing Number of Tech Requests

An increase in the number of pending service requests can be a cause of alarm! If your managed service provider isn’t responding to your tech requests promptly, you may need to find another IT partner. A good MSP will respond to service tickets, promptly, and ensure that the number of requests decreases with time. The provider will try to eliminate recurring problems as a first step.

No Fixed Budget

The best part about hiring an MSP is the upfront cost of the services. Unlike building an in-house team and spending money on technological resources, a service provider offers a plan with features that best suit your business. To put this in perspective, an IT firm unlike other managed service providers will ensure that you always have predictable costs, so you can feel confident about your budget along with your IT systems. If you have been facing unanticipated bills from your provider and are exceeding your budget every month, you may need to start looking at another MSP.

Unsatisfactory Security Measures

Most MSPs ensure that your systems aren’t at risk of threats. However, if your current MSP hasn’t conducted a vulnerability assessment in a while, you may need to start looking for alternate options. MSPs should be able to recognize gaps, design a strategy, and best defend your systems from a cyber-attack. To keep your data secure, you need to hire an MSP that conducts regular assessments to identify prospective attacks or outages. It’s a great idea to look for a provider that has a comprehensive plan covering cybersecurity and risk management.

No IT Strategy for Business Growth

If your MSP doesn’t invest in cutting-edge technology to provide you with enhanced services, you may need to start looking out. Your IT provider should provide you with the support and bandwidth that matches your current business while anticipating growth. Unless the approach of the service provider is proactive, they may be doing more harm to you than good. A good MSP will stay up-to-date with technological advancements and provide you with tech-savvy solutions to solve your business problems.

Unable to Scale

To continue growing your business, you need an MSP that can help you scale up. If your managed service provider doesn’t have the capabilities to support your IT infrastructure as it begins to expand, the best thing to do is find someone else. You need a provider that can keep pace with your growing technological needs and deliver the best resources to help with your scalability efforts.

Conclusion

To continue growing your business, you need to match the pace of the market. This requires paying attention to the technology that backs your business. An MSP allows you to outsource your IT infrastructure to expert handlers at half the cost you would pay if setting up a team from scratch. However, you need to watch out for signs that your service provider isn’t working out. To succeed in this ever-competitive market, you need a managed service provider that can support your business and help scale your efforts.

Digital Branding Personal Branding

Something For Nothing: Why Free Resources Are Great For Branding

Steven on February 5, 2020

The importance of branding for a business in the 21st-century has been drilled into each of us. Ever since Apple became one of the biggest companies in the world developing an identity around a lifestyle brand rather than their products, the way new and existing businesses have to conduct and present themselves online has changed dramatically.

Creating a brand that your target audience can relate to is essential, but expensive. At least, you would assume. The advent of free online resources has made it easier than ever for a business to produce the essentials of a great brand. So how can your business make something out of nothing, and why are free resources the key to great branding?

Professionalism

Whatever your business does, professionalism should be at the forefront of your mind. Even if you have a casual, anti-establishment and purposely care-free brand, it needs to be well-made and look as if you put care and attention into your public perception.

Before, professional came at a premium. Now, you can create a sense of it around your business from your early days, without investing a significant portion of your budget. Your public-facing content can be given a professional edge by using free resources.

First impressions to your audience are essential. Each contact point after that is about building an image of professionalism they can trust. How you correspond with your audience is an essential part of this.

Free resources can be used to help get across the professionalism of your business. How you communicate needs to be professional, from your email conversations to the invoices you send to both clients and customers. There are plenty of templates available to help you craft professional-looking invoices complete with your company branding and a layout that presents your business as an industry leader, or one with the potential to be. This is a great way to tell customers and business partners what your brand is all about.

Free video chat tools such as Google Hangouts and Skype are also great assets for adding professionalism to your communication. They’ll allow you to communicate with business partners and investors in a more professional manner, without having to splash out on travel or dinner.

Good branding can be a lot of things, but one thing is should always be is professionally developed. Free resources are one of the best ways to do this quickly and make sure your company doesn’t seem, ironically enough, cheap.

Creativity

A lot of creativity goes into establishing a brand identity. The most recognizable visual elements of top businesses weren’t created on the first try, they developed over time. Having the space to be creative and experiment with ideas is an essential part of the brand-building process, and free tools give you the chance to do just that.

Logos, for example, are a key part of a successful brand identity. They need to catch the eye and encapsulate the brand, whether it’s showing what you do, creating a sense of the lifestyle around it or giving a community something to rally around.

Paying a designer is expensive, so getting creative with free tools is almost a must. Tools such as Hatchful allow you to develop professional-looking logos and experiment with different styles. Even if this ends up being a temporary logo, it’s given you an identity to build around as you get off the ground. Some of the biggest companies in the world have had to change their logo and branding over time.

Your brand will have numerous visual elements that need to be developed early on, from a color scheme to a font. Even if these are only temporary solutions until you can afford a more permanent paid option such as using a designer or investing in photoshop, these feel tools give you the chance to get creative and develop a visual identity.

Awareness

Building your brand’s business is worthless if no one can find it. Not only do you need tools to create all the elements of your brand identity, but free tools help you spread awareness of your brand.

Social media is one of the best tools available for a new brand to spread awareness about themselves. While advertising on social media can be a quite costly endeavor, there are a number of free tools that can make your management of social media more streamlined ad profitable, teaching you more about the platform and your audiences on there.

Some of the most popular social media management tools available like Hootsuite and Buffer, used by professionals across numerous industries, have robust free options. You can also make use of tools such as Google Analytics to get more insight into the inner works of your website and how traffic is traveling to it from the places you’re trying to spread awareness on.

Content

A key part of your branding process is the content you develop to advertise and spread awareness of it. Creating quality content is difficult to do on a budget, despite how much phone cameras have developed and editing software has been streamlined. However, the promotion and presentation of this content is easier than to do than ever with free tools.

YouTube is an obvious choice, giving you a free platform to upload your branding content and open it up to a huge audience. Video has become the dominant online content force, with audiences clamoring for more.

Tools such as Headliner allow you to create great quality social and website content free of charge, although you are limited to a certain amount per month if not paying. You can also use tools to create great explainer content for free, giving you a great method of introducing your brand and website to new visitors.

Content is vital for growing a brand, and being able to create, upload and format this content for the most popular platforms for free is a huge budget saver. These tools will help you to do that.

Some of the best things in life are free, and that includes brand-building tools. There’s no need for a business to spend heavily in the early days on trying out loads of different tools they may not want to use in a couple of months’ time. Even using free subscription samples is better. Don’t get locked into paying for months and squeeze every bit of brand building juice you can out of these tools.

Legal Branding Local Branding Personal Branding

Five Ways to Run a Successful Business Meeting

Steven on February 5, 2020

Do you have an important business meeting coming up soon? Whether it’s your first time or if you’ve been doing it for long, there can be some jitters and nervousness running it. So you’re probably online looking out for suggestions for a smooth and successful meeting, like thousands of others worldwide.

Not to worry, because you aren’t alone, it can be difficult trying to find the perfect strategy to have everyone satisfied with your meeting! That’s why I decided to help you out and compiled these different tips to run an efficient business meeting. So read on!

Five Ways to Run a Successful Business Meeting

So you’re about to head your business meeting and have the jitters? Whether it’s a confidence issue or an important audience, there are ways to keep your mind at ease. Follow these five easy and doable tips for your next meeting:

Have Your Meeting In Familiar Areas

The meeting place can be an important factor to boost your confidence. When you’re in a familiar and comfortable area, it can help set you up for a better performance in meetings.

After all, you wouldn’t be able to feel your best if you aren’t familiar with the place you’re in. Think of it this way: If you’re into sports, then you know that teams do even better on their home ground compared to other stadiums or fields. The same goes for business meetings, as the more confident you’ll feel in a place you know and like.

So if you can choose the area where the meeting will be held, do it somewhere familiar, such as your office’s conference room. However, if proximity is a problem to everyone attending the meeting, you can rent virtual meeting room too given they are just like contemporary offices.

Prepare a Professional Presentation

A presentation will speak for what you have to offer or pitch to your audience, which is why it’s absolutely crucial to make it as professional as possible. You wouldn’t want to give a half-baked presentation, which may confuse your audience or put them off. Regardless of what you’re offering, a good presentation can help create more positive responses.

Besides a well put-out presentation, you also need to deliver that presentation well, making sure you do so with certainty. When you do this, your clients and audience knows that you believe and know the field you’re working in. This makes it beneficial to reach your goals and receive satisfaction in all your meetings.

Highlight Your Achievements

The meeting should be focused on the main target and what you offer, yes. However, during the meetings, especially in off-meeting conversations, do try to slip in some of the positive results from your company. This can help customers trust your work even more and have them take action after the discussion.

Not only should you highlight the achievements in your presentations, but you should also add this on your website. There needs to be a section which highlights all your achievements at work because most likely, clients will check it before meeting with you.

With that said, don’t highlight just ANY achievement. Show previous accomplishments relevant to the meeting’s topic, so they are aware of your capabilities and how you’re of great use to them.

Know the Audience Well

As mentioned, clients would search you up before meeting with you to know what kind of a person they’ll discuss with. Just like them, you need to know your clients and audience the same.

Think of business meetings as if you were performing onstage, and your clients are the audience. When you know what they like, the more inclined they are to give positive feedback and responses.

Some clients may like the traditional and pain textual presentations, while others prefer even more creativity, with more visuals and samples to see throughout the meeting.

Make sure you know and give exactly what your clients want and need. You don’t need to impress them with frills, but with all the individual and relevant necessities to keep them interested.

Dress and Look Smart

And lastly, your appearance matters in all settings, especially in business meetings. Consciously or not, all of us would judge people by the way they carry themselves, and no one would listen to you seriously if you didn’t look confident and professional.

You don’t need to overdo it, the simpler, the better. You should wear something professional AND comfortable, finding the right balance between the two. Wear colors which suit you best and the attire asked for, depending on the setting and nature of the meeting.

Besides this, have a confident smile and gestures, making sure everything is all positive!

Wrapping It Up

We all know how nerve-wracking business meetings can be, especially if it’s your first time! Don’t worry, with the right tips and a good attitude, you can run things smoothly and have an efficient meeting with a lot to learn. Next thing you know, you’ll be running the conference room with ease!

I hope this article on how to run a successful business meeting gave you ideas on what to do. So don’t wait any longer and begin following any of these tips now.

If you have any questions or want to share your tips and experiences in business meetings, do comment below. All your thoughts are much appreciated!

Local Branding

6 Christmas cake Decorations that are too adorable to Eat!

Steven on February 3, 2020

Cakes are universally regarded as the best way to celebrate any event or occasion with great zeal and fervor. These desserts hold on the participants until the cake cutting ceremony. These edibles are highly adored by the masses and are presented by a number of bakeries, restaurants, and food chains. They are protected by using cake boxes. These casings are available in various shapes and sizes and are typically manufactured with the help of cardboard, Kraft, or other such protective materials.

Various lovely designs can also be applied to them to make them look pleasing to the eyes of observers. In this way, they might prove to be instrumental in enhancing or improving the graph of sales, and that is why they are considered extremely important for the growth and progress of a business.

Cakes and Christmas:

Christmas is a highly liked and cheerfully celebrated occasion all across the globe. This event is organized at the end of the year, and people wait for the whole year for it to enjoy it in an extremely delightful manner. Various types of gatherings of friends and family members are held on this day. But no celebration is considered complete without desserts as they are a symbol of love and affection. These sweet delights are packed in proper Christmas cake boxes to secure them from any environmental damage and also to make them look proper for the occasion. There are different types of decorations that can be practical zed by using certain smart techniques, as described below.

Santa Shaped Cake:

Santa Claus is a fictional figure that is associated with the special event of Christmas. This character is believed to present gifts to children as well as adults. Cakes are extremely delicious items and are part and parcel of this event. They are prepared by mixing bread and cream. This bread can be molded into any desired shape and size. These desserts are prepared in the shape of Santa, and thus, they look appropriate for the occasion. These items are packed in custom cake boxes USA and are presented to the guests to make them feel special and to create a memorable experience.

Write Quotes:

In spite of the fact that desserts are eaten continuously all over the year, their consumption rises to a certain degree during special days and events like Christmas. They are in such a huge amount that custom cake boxes wholesale is required by the retailers to ensure a continuous and uninterrupted supply to the customers. These items can be made adorable to fulfill the demands of the buyers and to win their hearts by writing certain types of quotes related to the event. These quotes can easily be written by using chocolate cones due to which the taste of products is also glorified.

Make Trees:

Trees are also one of the most important parts of the event. They are green in color and are specially prepared for this event. These trees can also be formed on the cakes by making small stands that can either be prepared by using chocolate or cream.

Color of the Event:

Every special event or occasion is associated with some special significant colors. They are not simply shades but are complete psychology and have a direct influence on the minds of the observers. Like all of the occasions, Christmas also has some symbolic colors due to which it is easily recognized by the individuals. Typically, a distinctive combination of green, red, and white is utilized to display the event. The desserts that are presented on this day can be colored into these colors and then packed in proper containers. These containers can easily be obtained from numerous manufacturing firms in a small number as well as in the form of Christmas cake boxes wholesale as per the requirements of the users.

Apply the Snowman Effect:

All occasions are related to some objects that are vital for proper celebration and recognition. For instance, a snowman is regarded as a compulsion on Christmas. This item can be prepared in numerous ways and is frequently seen at the venue of the occasion. This effect can also be applied to cakes by mixing and molding ingredients in a special manner to inspire the observers.

Make the Coverings Compatible:

Cakes can also be decorated according to the event of Christmas by packing them in such coverings that are an exhibition of the occasion. It can be done by using Cake Boxes that are shaded in lovely encasements, and various types of wishes are written on them.

Digital Branding

What is UX/UI design

Steven on January 29, 2020

The term UX originated in 1993 in the depths of Apple Corporation, the decryption sounds like User eXperience. With the growing popularity of mobile devices, this concept came into fashion and began to be used everywhere. But even now, not everyone can answer with certainty what UX design is, how it differs from UI design and why these things are often mentioned in the bundle. We can help you figure it out.

What is UX design

Simply put, UX design is the design of the user experience. It is one of the first steps in product creation and serves to make the application logical, convenient and useful. UX-design of mobile applications and websites determines what impressions a person will get from their use, how exactly he will use these products.

Where is the best place to place login to your personal cabinet? How many steps does it take for a user to subscribe to the mailing list or place an order? How will he understand that the operation was successful? These are the questions that the UX-designer solves.

UX design includes different components:

information architecture;
interactive design;
usability (an indicator of simplicity, convenience, and efficiency in the eyes of users).

UX-designer understands the psychology and emotions of users, analyzes their expectations from the product and sets a goal to be achieved. Then he selects the right tools and comes up with an application or website structure that meets all the necessary parameters.

UX-designer does not have monotonous tasks, so different projects often require people with skills from different areas. There are entire laboratories with powerful technical equipment, in which a team of several people is working on research. These laboratories tend to focus on the impact design has on conversion rates. They have devices that record the psycho physical reactions of users (e.g., eye movements and heartbeat), they conduct surveys, observe users using the on and off method, and much more.

What is UI design

User interface design or UI design is a visual representation of UX design. Its task is to make an application, website or other product intuitive, attractive and easy to use with the help of certain graphics solutions.

The UI designer is responsible for what each individual screen or page will look like. His area of responsibility is graphic controls such as buttons and checkboxes, fonts, mockups (check this postcard mockup), color schemes, and various visual images.

What should a button look like to make it easy to press? What font size should I choose to make the text readable? How do I make a bug report so that it attracts attention but is not annoying? Answers to these questions help you find the UI design.

Working on what an app will look like on a gadget screen, the UI designer is focused on mobile platforms’ headlines – Apple and Google’s recommendation sets that make third-party apps look uniform and seamlessly integrated into the overall concept.

If to draw quite a simple analogy from life, UX-design is a layout of the apartment and communications, and UI – a choice of wallpaper and flooring. However, in practice UX and UI design are closely interconnected, the second logically follows the first, and often the same person or UI/UX design agency like ramotion is engaged in both. Therefore, the line between the two concepts is blurred, and they are indicated together.

Personal Branding

Fashion in the Workplace – How to Find the U in Team

Steven on January 28, 2020

Fashion, that ever-evolving, but always cycling, roller coaster, reflects and borrows from so many sources – culture, celeb media and expected norms, but what do the clothes we don for work say about us?

The Workplace Balance

For centuries, probably since we wore skins and carried spears, we’ve been following trends in fashion, some more slavishly than others. But there’s always been a little room for personal interpretation, and the more daring amongst us have grabbed that, adding an accent here, a small touch there, and reveling in that difference, that individualization that sets us apart from each other.

As our selected clothes tell the world who we are, or conversely, what we want the world to think about us, those little individual touches give away more than we realize. They show what’s inside, what makes us tick and what matters.

In the workplace, what impression do our clothes give, and is that individualization as important there as on the street?

Giving the right impression

First impressions count, right? And the indirect communication given by our choice of outfits is crucial to initial perceptions, albeit based on subconscious split-second assumptions. In any given workplace, the peer pressure suggests that you dress similarly to your colleagues, which tends to, by our very nature, follow the fashion trends.

However, there are some general tips to follow:

If you think something is inappropriate for work, it probably is
Dressing with confidence suggests you possess confidence, and studies show this reflects in the quality of your work
Darker colors give the impression of authority
Wear something you feel comfortable in
Apply subtle makeup
Look after your nails. This is particularly important as your nails are often on the show. For example, when you’re typing on a keyboard, the moments when you’re shaking hands with your co-worker, or when you hand over a cup of coffee to your coworker. There’s nothing worse than a co-worker who has gritty nails

Okay, so we’ve got you looking appropriate for your environment, wearing dark colors, feeling comfortable and confident, with lovely, well cared for hands. But are you comfortable? Your clothes fit well, and your shoes don’t rub, but inside, are you comfortable?

Dressing in the same style as your colleagues bring a sense of community, of belonging and feeling part of the bigger picture, which is important to us as members of society, but where’s the ‘you’ part?

Finding the ‘You’

Blending in and being part of the crowd is good for workplace morale and bonding, but we also need to be able to show a little of ourselves, of our own personalities. It’s advised to keep accessories to a minimum, but there are a few subtle things we can do to show who we are:

Most of us carry bags, so why not make yours a little different – maybe with a shocking pink lining or piping in a complementary color
If wearing heels, choose a daring splash of color for the sole
Madonna is famous for her faux beauty spot. Choose an appropriate color eye pencil and add a little ‘mole’. Apply a dusting of translucent powder to fix it in place
Maybe there’s a particular celebrity you admire and can borrow a style idea from. Most celebrities have adopted a particularly unique sense of style, and most styles can be adopted at a relatively cost-effective price when you strip the clothes from their designer labels.

Being an individual whilst being part of the team is important, and this is the case in the workplace as much as anywhere else. Why not give it some thought and find your own ‘you’?

Digital Branding

What are the Core SEO Trends and Strategies to Focus in 2020

Steven on January 24, 2020

The old SEO strategies and techniques that we used in the past still work but don’t seem to be as effective as expected. As Google is continuously updating its algorithm to deliver users the most relevant results, SEO experts all across the globe are becoming aware of the new SEO trends and strategies that are considered to be the future of SEO.

What are the Core SEO Trends and Strategies to Focus in 2020?

In order to beat the competition in the online market, we need to re-think and update our content and SEO strategy as per the ever changing updates of Google search engine. Keeping this in mind, we need to update our website and adopt the recent SEO strategy so as to ensure that more prospects and customers find us on search engines. So now, the question is “What are the Core SEO Trends and Strategies to Focus in 2020?”. Below is a comprehensive list of new SEO trends and strategies to follow in the coming year 2020:

Optimize your Website for Featured Snippet
Invest your Time on Influencer Marketing
Implement Voice Search SEO
Focus on Mobile UX Factor
Generate Video Content on Website
Enhance Dwell Time on Website
Content Length and Quality Importance
Artificial Intelligence in SEO
Work on Semantic Search and Intent Optimization
Understand the Need of Structured Data
Positive Impacts of Brand Mention
Optimize Content as Per Google BERT Update
Install Amazon Polly to Increase Dwell Time

Optimize your Website for Featured Snippet

A featured snippet is the search result that appears at the top in a box before the #1 position on SERP. The featured snippet has a very good click-through rate, so it is recommended to take advantage of this feature. To avail of this feature, we need to generate clear and simple answers to commonly asked questions on our website which may be featured on top of SERP based on their quality.

Invest your Time on Influencer Marketing

The current trend is showing that users are more likely to engage with a trustful, respected and well-known person than with ads. So, we should invest more in influencer marketing to enhance SEO efforts. Influencers can also help create valuable backlinks, an important factor in determining Google rankings. Before engaging with an influencer, make sure what type of content you want them to create, how it links back to your website and if they are relevant to your industry.

Implement Voice Search SEO

Voice searches have become a popular trend due to the advancement in mobile devices. So, we should optimize our website for voice searches and understand how to implement conversational searches into our SEO strategy. For voice search, you should focus on content with keywords having conversational queries, long queries, local targeting, and an FAQ page is a must for voice search SEO. For voice search optimization, make the title tags and first headers sound like a question similar to what a user is going to ask. For example: If your blog’s title is “Minimize Software Development Cost for Startups”, then try to make it “How to minimize Software Development Cost for Startup Businesses?”. Additionally, you can also optimize the old content with this strategy.

Focus on Mobile UX Factor

Mobile UX is an important factor in determining a website’s ranking, so a mobile version of a web-page is a must. Mobile first indexing is one of the core indexing and ranking factors. If your page doesn’t look good on mobile devices, you may lose ranking. It is essential to have a mobile version for a website to drive more users towards your website. Getting higher in the Google mobile page index will make your web-page highly authoritative.

Generate Video Content on Website

Videos are the new source of information for the users browsing online. As per studies from Google and other reputed organizations, 6 out of 10 users prefer to watch videos online than TV because online videos are a much better source of academic and entertainment information. As a result, this has greatly affected modern SEO, and marketers are now optimizing the videos for search users so as to reach out to the maximum audience. The video optimization starts with adding relevant keywords to the video headline and in the description.

Dwell Time to be the Major Ranking Factor

Time spent on a web-page before bouncing back would be one of the major ranking factors in the coming days. The dwell time metrics are very important as they tell, how interested users are in your content and if they are getting the desired information about what they are looking for. Having a better dwell time means users are more interested in your content, so we should focus more on generating quality and valuable information for the users to get ahead of the competition.

Content Length and Quality Importance

As we know, content quality is one of the core ranking factors for any website, but now the search engines are also considering the length of content as a core ranking factor. Currently, users are now looking to get complete information from a single authentic source that is why they prefer to read lengthy content from reliable sources. Recent studies revealed that more no. of users are reading articles having a content length of 2000 words than fewer words. So, we should focus on generating lengthy content embedded with comprehensive and quality information that answers almost all the related queries for what a user is looking for.

Artificial Intelligence in SEO (Rank Brain)

Artificial intelligence is the new trend in SEO which many companies are following. As Google uses AI to deliver highly relevant results, to identify keyword stuffing, bad backlinks, irrelevant content for users, it’s necessary to use AI in your SEO strategy so as to meet the search engine requirements. AI also determines metrics such as bounce rate, time on site, etc. Using artificial intelligence in SEO and content strategy can be very useful to gather important data and customer insights which can lead to overall SEO success.

Semantic Search and Intent Optimization

Now, Google doesn’t use the exact match words that are being typed by users in the search box. Google actually looks at the user’s query context/intent and analyzes the highly relevant search intent to reflect the results. Google has a very good understanding of searchers’ intent that is why the traditional content creation with a single keyword doesn’t work now. So, it is necessary to use Text Optimizer and make a collection of the desired search queries into related concepts and entities. This semantic research will help create content having sentences based on some common co-occurrence analysis of the term you select.

Understand the Need of Structured Data

Structured data refers to displaying data in an organized way. It can be used in many different ways to display a website’s information as enhanced results in SERPs in the form of rich snippets, rich cards, carousels, knowledge boxes, etc. Google is interested in fetching more data from your web-page and giving more exposure to your website. So, it is recommended to implement structured data on your website to boost visibility and ranking. Marketing experts working in various emerging software development companies in India are now focusing hard with the developers to implement structured data for all websites on which they are working to enhance the SEO efforts.

Positive Impacts of Brand Mention

Google included brand mention as a part of its algorithm update and is tracking how many times your brand is mentioned online. So, it is the time to work around brand mentioning as Google is not only looking for links but also for people talking about your brand on social media and other online platforms.

Optimize Content as Per Google BERT Update

Bert is basically termed as Bidirectional Encoder Representations From Transformers. BERT is powered by AI and ML to provide a new way to efficiently understand the language for Google searches. It has an immediate effect on how websites are ranked on SERP. As per the BERT update, your focus should be on the context of the search term not on the keyword (with an inclination towards conversational queries). It will consider the overall context of the keyword by analyzing the other terms associated with the keyword in order to understand the actual intent behind a user’s search queries.

BERT will analyze the long-tail keywords to understand the overall context of the phrases in your search query. It is assumed that long-tailed phrases will help in improving results. BERT also implies that content is always the king which requires a primary focus above all SEO parameters, so it is required to focus on using long-tailed key phrases in your On-page SEO and content strategy. The use of keywords in the content doesn’t need to be exact, you can instead use different words of the keywords after keeping in mind the user intent behind the search query related to that keyword.

Just for an example: The exact keyword used within content like “software development India” will be given less value as compared to the phrases like “list of Indian companies delivering quality software development projects”.

Install Amazon Polly to Increase Dwell Time

Amazon Polly, a speech recognition tool will help you increase the dwell time of users on your website as it will read aloud any content piece for your site visitors. This tool is available as a WordPress plugin and can easily be integrated into blog posts. Having both the reading and listening options on your webpage will make users engaged for a longer period of time, and therefore enhance the dwell time which is a major ranking factor.

Bottom Line

All the aforementioned SEO strategies could be a game-changer for any website you own and will help you get a better search engine ranking and ensure a continuous inflow of highly relevant traffic as compared to your competition. We would be glad to hear your views or suggestions regarding the content. You can contact us directly through our comments section.

About the Author

Manoj Rawat, a Growth Hacker, Ideator, Innovator, techy and an experienced SEO, SMM and Marketing Consultant with over 8 years of IT experience. He loves to share technology trends, marketing tips & strategies among online communities. He is an avid sports person, traveller, & nature lover.

Digital Branding

How to Design Your Office for Maximum Productivity

Steven on January 24, 2020

Designing an office isn’t just about putting in place the best chairs and tables made up of the best quality material. In fact, if you think about it and if you do some research, you’ll get to know that designing an office includes a lot of things which you shouldn’t take for granted. Your workspace environment, the ambiance, and the overall design affect your productivity and the productivity of your employees.

If you think about it, it all makes sense! Would you ever want to work in an office that’s untidy all the time, with broken chairs and tables that are unbalanced? That’s exactly the point that we are trying to explain here. Your office, its maintenance, and its overall environment will reflect the kind of work you do, the kind of person you are, and on top of it all, it will also affect your creativity and productivity.

So, if you are thinking about investing a little time, effort, and money to design your office, then yes, you are about to take one wise step that will pay you off later when you start working.

Tips On How To Design Your Office

Speaking of which, here are some important tips that can be very useful for you while you design your office for maximum productivity.

1-Work On The Lighting

One of the most important things to consider while designing your office is lighting. You don’t want yourself or your employees to come and fall asleep when they enter the office, right? Well, if yes, then test the lighting properly, make sure that it works in tandem with the paint on the walls of your office and so that it is bright enough for you and your team to work without falling asleep or feeling tired.

2-Paint

The second important factor to work on is the paint on your office walls. Most people don’t pay much heed to this factor, which is what they end up regretting. If you don’t want to be one of those people who regret the color they chose to paint on the walls, then make sure to opt for a moderate tone. Go for white and off-whites because too dark or too vibrant can be disturbing for you and your staff.

3-Use Motivational Quotes

Nowadays, people prefer using motivational and inspirational quotes on their walls instead of abstract paintings. Especially for an office, this makes sense that you have some inspiring quotes or pictures that can give you a boost for your productivity and creativity. Our top suggestion: Bemore Store.

If you’re looking for beautiful canvas prints or t-shirts with inspirational life lessons on them, then this is the store that you need to head to right away. They were built to inspire people with life’s wisdom and feature art and apparel lines as well as a dedicated blog. And on top of it all, and in line with their mission, the store donates a portion of every product sale to cancer research through a partnership with a research fund. It’s a great site working for a great cause, which is why you should try them right now.

4-Control The Noise

The last and another important thing to work on is the noise. Noise can cause a disturbance, and it can seriously mess up your productivity levels, so don’t take any risks with it. Just ensure a design in which each employee has a separate cabin so that there’s no noise and no disturbance.

These are some of the important things you need to consider while designing your office. All of it can help you with your productivity levels, so try the tips and then let us know what you think!

Digital Branding

6 Helpful and Loving Ways to Employee Recognition

Steven on January 21, 2020

Recruiting an employee is a challenging process and retaining your best people, needs a lit bit of more effort. It requires to implement honest and thoughtful employee recognition. Such a culture motivates and rewards employees in a way that extends far beyond material incentives. In today’s hectic schedules employee recognition is a powerful employee tool to reach out to your best employees and motivate them to strive harder.

So, why are so many leaders still neglecting this invaluable practice? Most of the leaders don’t recognize the importance of this powerful tool as they received little recognition in their careers. They underestimate this idea to grow and retain their company staff. Eventually, it takes extra effort from their side to recognize their employee’s achievements and reward them with suitable needs.

If you are an employee who refers to your employees as one of your valuable resources and wants to retain your top talent. Then you can start to initiate some change in your workplace by implementing an employee recognition program. To know more about employee recognition program benefits, click here. Below are some 6 helpful and loving ways for an employee recognition program that you can custom design as per your business and industry-

1. Personalized appreciation

Make sure to create a culture of recognition in which there are emails in where one employee alone is appreciated for the efforts given. This creates a sense of longing for everyone and would try to work harder to achieve it. A personalized hand-written note is something that will never go out of style since people love to feel valued. Mention highlighting what they have done to be deserving of this appreciation.

2. The Extra Mile programs

A special program to an employee who goes beyond their call of duty and strives to make things happen for the company. This is known as the extra mile program where the company will constitute a special kit to the employee who went the extra mile and made a contribution to the company. It can consist of supporting a team member, working after office hours, did overtime during a company crisis, etc. Receiving recognition on behalf of small acts of kindness will become a part of the company culture for which employees are trained to think beyond just their job descriptions.

3. Wall of fame

On achieving monthly or yearly targets a company can keep some rewards in terms of motivation. Wall of fame is also one type of recognition where the company’s most valuable employee is being recognized by having their photos displayed on a wall specially set up for this purpose. It lends inspiration for all the other employees and motivates them to take it as a challenge.

4. Offer beyond-the-call-of-duty perks

A company can also provide those employees with special privileges of parking space or paid time off who consistently perform at the highest levels. Sometimes they can even receive some financial incentives for work well-performed. The financial incentives should be open-ended and unpredictable to motivate their employees to work harder.

5. Surprise Bonuses

Appreciating your employee with surprises, in the form of money, coupon codes, vouchers, travel packages, etc. can boost their confidence. Adding a small note of hand-written appreciation attached with it will feel extremely genuine thus making your employees feel valued. Such kind of employee recognition practices can make a difference in any kind of organization.

6. Build an employee retention program

Incorporating an employee retention program in your company will also create moments that people will look forward to. Employ a reward system or a cash bonus or paid vacation for an employee who stays with the company for many years. This is a great idea and always effective when implemented well and motivate the employees to look forward to work for more time with the company.