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Best Rated CBD Oils – What to Look out for

Steven on February 17, 2020

It has been several years since the first boom of CBD oil but we are still seeing ever-increasing growth within the industry. The market has now got so big that it is now worth just under $22billion in total. This is an incredible figure for a market that was so small not so long ago. Yet, the investment that suppliers and manufacturers have put in has driven consumer demand to a point where there is a whole host of CBD oil products to suit every consumer need within the market place. This does come with a drawback, however, in that new emerging consumers that wish to enter the CBD oil market and purchase CBD oil products are struggling to wrap their heads around what products are best for them. The sheer amount of choice is so great that it can be hard to identify what is there number one priority. As such, this article is here to alleviate some of these consumers for new and existing consumers as it will answer some of the key questions with regards to what to look out for in terms of the top-rated CBD Oils out there. If you are interested in knowing more about Lazarus Naturals coupon, or some of the top-rated products then click here.

Price is a vital factor for which consumers should be aware of

For new consumers, it can be difficult to identify a good deal from a bad one in the CBD oil industry. This can be down to the fact that there are just so many suppliers or retailers in the marketplace that there are constant price wars occurring. As such, prices of CBD oils can fluctuate on not only a daily level but potentially even hourly. Therefore consumers are right to be aware of false prices that can improve if you shop around. We are big advocates of making sure you pay the right price for the best rated CBD oils and as such implore you to not only shop around but utilize price comparison tools to do so. There are plenty out there that will ensure that you are not getting ripped off for the price you are paying for a top product and will compare and contrast. This is a great resource for those that do not want to beat around the bush with finding the best CBD oil products and want to gain and get the information quickly rather than doing the leg work themselves.

Forums – A great resource for those wanting more in-depth information about CBD oil

CBD oil specific forums are great for those wish to gain further information about CBD oil products. They provide information on what to look out for in a top-rated product and how the quality of a CBD oil product can differ dependent on the manufacturing process. As such, quality is a big factor for them and a lot of reviewers see this as an important thing to be aware of in the purchasing process for new and existing consumers.

Digital Branding

The New GeoIP Extension Taking Over The Expanding Businesses

Steven on February 15, 2020

Introduction

Ecommerce businesses have been on a successful trend over the past few years. People have started considering them as the ideal option for their shopping purposes. This has been very helpful for the businesses as a whole. While there are amazing benefits to business with increased customer interaction, there are some increased responsibilities too. To be able to cater their customers, businesses often have to expand their courses of operations to different countries. This can be a tricky experience.

Why is expansion difficult for businesses?

Although some people might disagree but expanding to other countries is seen as one of the most critical steps in the business survival. Yes, it is a definite requirement when the customers demand, but it has its downsides too. There are a lot of things that a business has to consider while they are at it.

They need to keep track of the language the clients are willing to communicate in. Furthermore, the time difference also plays a huge role in maintain contact with the customers. The currency factor also comes in to play as the business will need to keep a track of the latest rates at which the currencies are exchanged. So how can the business tackle such scenarios arising?

The new Magento extension

The increasing problems in no way mean that the business should stop considering the idea of expansion. Instead, the business must look for solutions to these issues. The new Magento 2 GeoIP extension helps the admin to assure that they keep their customers satisfied at all times. This new tool will help in redirecting customers in accordance to their preference. It will maintain the switching of currency, language as well as the time as per the customer’s requirements. This will ensure that the business can expand the business with ease.

Functions of the GeoIP extension

The best part about this new GeoIP extension is that it will automatically detect the customer’s location. This way the business does not need to worry about these small issues. Instead they can focus on other matters of strategic importance. The clients will be redirected to the preferred IPs in order to ensure that they receive the best customer experience.

The tool also helps in mentioning the prices in the currency that the client uses. Before going ahead with any given function, the new extension will give a pop up window for the client to consider. The language change will also be done automatically making sure that the customers do not have to go through the hassle of translating. The tool also helps in restricting the noisy customers away from the website. This automatically makes sure that there are no free riders.

Advantage of GeoIP extension

As we have discussed the function of the extension above, it is a real asset for the business if they use it efficiently. This can help them in having the ideal customer service that will increase their customer loyalty overall. The customers will also feel that they are being respected and given attention. The ignorance of social barriers is a real plus for the business and it will help them in making their mark in the market.

Digital Branding

SEO & Branding: How To Increase Branded Traffic

Steven on February 14, 2020

Shoes. Cosmetics. Beverages. The chances are a few brands came to your mind instantaneously as you read the categories. Whether it be Nike, Chanel, or Pepsi, there are certain brands that have managed to become synonymous with their categories. That is the power of branding.

According to research conducted by Marketing Profs in 2015, over 77 percent of marketers believe that creating a strong brand is essential for the growth of a company. Furthermore, according to Forbes, consistent branding efforts help raise the revenue of a business by a whopping 23 percent!

One thing is for sure- branding is a must for the success of your business. While generally, marketers tend to focus on the benefits of brand awareness and recognition in revenue generation, there is another critical benefit branding provides. It helps in boosting your online presence!

What is SEO, and why it matters?

Before we delve into how branding can help SEO and vice versa, it is vital to understand why SEO matters to begin with.

Well, it is because in today’s online world, getting your target audience to visit your website is not easy. A few statistics will help you in gaining a perspective.

• According to Internet Live Stats, over 75000 searches are done on Google per second

• Advanced Web Ranking found out that over 67 percent of clicks go to the first five organic search results

• Ahref’s study discovered that over 91 percent of content online does not get the organic reach it needs

SEO helps in gaining a high organic search engine ranking. It uses various techniques and methods to boost your ranking and thereby increase the chances of people visiting your website. Remember, only when people visit your site then only you can actually leave an impact on them and convert them into customers.

How does branding help?

Considering Google is quite vague about its ranking algorithm, it is hard to achieve success in SEO if you focus on short term goals like achieving a high rank.

SEO without a purpose won’t help you in gaining a high ranking. This is only so much you can gain by creating backlinks and including high ranking keywords in your content. You must also take steps to build an authentic and trustworthy online brand.

According to different studies and SEO service experts, Google, along with other search engines, tends to encourage websites that feature a strong brand presence. Such sites can get a better ranking despite having fewer backlinks!

This is why branding and SEO must go hand in hand. Creating an SEO branding strategy can help you genuinely leverage the online world.

How to increase branded traffic

Here is how you can combine SEO tactics with branding efforts to reap optimum conversion rates and brand awareness.

1. Identify and use branded keywords

Apart from high ranking generic keywords pertaining to your category, you must also find and include branded keywords in your online presence.

What is a branded keyword?

A branded search is a query that includes the name of your brand. By adding these keywords into your content, you target users who are already aware of your brand, thanks to your branding efforts. These users have a higher chance of purchasing from your business than other people.

The more branded searches are done regarding your business, the higher you will rank organically. Now, there are different variations of the branded keyword that you must cater to. Some users might be looking for reviews about your brand, while others would be comparing your business with other similar options.

Make sure your content is optimized for all such branded searches. This ensures that users get information about your brand from you.

2. Use local SEO

Did you know that over 46 percent of search queries on Google use local keywords? Any user with a high commercial intent will then go to Google to find whether your brand is near them or not. If you are a local brand, it is essential to leverage this consumer behavior by implementing local SEO.

Focus on geo-targeting. Optimize all local business listings present on Google to ensure that you can drive traffic to your site from Google directories and Maps. Conduct link building with a special focus on getting links from other websites that are present within your local area.

Each of these tactics will allow you to optimize your website for local SEO. If you are a known brand locally, you will automatically be able to reach users that are already convinced of your branding efforts.

3. Build your authority

A great way to increase branded traffic to your business is by focusing on building an online brand. A lot of times, marketers tend to focus on abstract branding methods. This includes creating a logo, a tagline, and positioning. While these methods are critical to the success of a brand, branding merely begins with such techniques.

The next step is to build a robust and credible image online. As you do so, your ranking will automatically improve. You can use optimized content to build your brand and its authority.

It is essential to publish content that would matter to your target audience and the industry. This helps in reinstating your position in the sector as being an expert and trustworthy brand. It also helps in boosting your brand awareness and reaching a wider audience than before.

So, when it comes to publishing content, look beyond your website. Contribute to the online world by demonstrating your expertise via Guest posts on authority websites. The better the sites are, the more credible you will seem.

Not to mention that this is an excellent way to leverage the credibility and following of other established websites to boost your brand’s ranking!

Verdict

The objective of increasing branded traffic is simple- ensuring that your online and offline branding efforts don’t go in vain. By appearing in a top position for the right branded keywords and by establishing your image as a credible source of information, you can help increase the right traffic to your website.

Now that you are aware of the connection between SEO and branding, you are more than ready to outstrip your competition and emerge as the best brand within your category, both online and offline!

Do you think there are other ways you can boost branded traffic to your site? Let us know.

Author Bio:

About Ashley Rosa: Ashley Rosa is a freelance writer and blogger. As writing is her passion that why she loves to write articles related to the latest trends in technology and sometimes on health-tech as well. She is crazy about chocolates. You can find her at twitter: @ashrosa2.

Digital Branding

SEO Trends You Should Watch Out For in 2020

Steven on February 12, 2020

With the end of the decade, Google had introduced a completely new algorithm, which started certain trends for the coming year. Keeping an eye on these trends will help any and every website owner to improve the ranking and stay ahead of their competition, without observing any drop in ranking. 2019 saw important changes like mobile-first optimization because most of the internet users started using mobile devices along with Google Assistant, Siri, and Alexa. Few trends will remain important this year while some others might not be as significant. Let us consider the ones that are listed below.

Voice search

With the rise of virtual assistants, voice search has also started rising. This is going to be one of the biggest trends of 2020 and this is also going to affect search engine optimization greatly. You might be asking how, and here are the answers.

Voice search is different from the text and they are extremely conversational. Apart from that, search queries are longer, which means that the websites are targeting long-tail keywords.
When voice searches are being targeted, keywords have to be replaced with phrases, which make the work easier for Google. Users will also be able to find whatever they want easily.

Local search

According to https://www.inc.com, if you are not using due diligence for local SEO, you will start losing out in front of competitors. According to several studies, 9 out of every 10 searches are normally for products and services that are present nearby. 50% of the searches are going to result in actions to visit physical locations or place an order. This is not going to die in 2020. Rather, it is going to become even more popular.

The success of a local search is possible because of using mobile devices, which will help you to easily locate a coffee shop that is present near you.
Local search is also drawn by reviews, which are associated with products and places. You will be able to view recommendations from the reviewers before you are going to any business.

To get more information on this, call the professionals of New York SEO organizations.

Search intent and keyword content

Google released an important algorithm in the previous decade, which provided more priority to search intent. This is going to become one of the biggest trends this year because SEO experts are constantly discovering new ways of optimizing keyword context and search intent.

For several websites, it is visible that searchers are searching for at least three kinds of results.
When content is being created, the three categories are going to determine the structuring of the content and how they are going to be used. Search intent is going to carve out important trends in the manner in which the keywords will be used.

Structured data

This is going to be one of the most popular SEO trends of 2020.

It is no more a secret that Google loves structured data and any website owner would like to gain that position. Structured data include snippets and frequently asked questions.

Conclusion

It is important to understand all the SEO trends of 2020. This is going to help businesses to outrank their competitors and gain success without struggles.

Legal Branding Local Branding Personal Branding

Money-Saving Tips When Starting a Warehouse Business

Steven on February 12, 2020

No matter how enthusiastic and hard-working you are, starting your own business is never an easy feat. There is much more than just coming up with an idea one day and opening your store/office/startup the next. Starting your own warehouse rental business from scratch means that you will have to think about a million seemingly irrelevant things but also that you will have to invest a significant amount of money. If you would like to become an entrepreneur and a warehouse business owner, here is what you can do to make sure you don’t break the bank in the process.

Try to optimize space

In the warehousing business, land cost happens to be one of the largest contributors. Your main goal should be to optimize all your warehouse functions in order to utilize the space to the fullest, but also to ensure maximum efficiency. This means that you have to double-check to make sure that the cost per pallet stored is optimal. If your warehouses have high ceilings, make sure you bring plenty of sturdy shelves and racks too. As for isle space, ensure that the equipment you use is right: for example, hydrostatically powered forklift trucks would do wonders for such narrow spaces. You can even find great used forklift trucks at MLA Holdings and get the best machine for a fraction of the cost. Remember that not all of your equipment has to be brand new to get the best results.

Safety should be your priority

Sadly, every year people lose billions of dollars in warehouses, whether it happens because of a mistake in placement, theft, or plain old stock damage. If you want to stop this from happening, you should invest in proper packaging from your items first, a state-of-the-art alarm system as well, but also ensure that you have good storage procedures, which will then help eliminate any unintentional damage. All your employees should go through extensive training as well. At the doors, you should have security guards, and there should also be guards for employees and as well as visitors who are entering and leaving the warehouse. This might seem like a huge investment at first, but you will be protecting your property and your inventory this way.

Mind the electricity bills

Heating and lighting use the most energy in any warehouse, which is why it’s up to you to try to find a way to save money and energy while still keeping your warehouse well-lit and warm. You should try focusing on long-term energy saving, so by spending a bit more in the beginning, you will ensure that your bills don’t go through the roof in the future. It’s imperative to turn off your lighting and equipment when you don’t use them, so it’s not a bad idea to get occupancy sensors and timers. Also, when you don’t use your office equipment and computers, they should be turned off as well. Energy-efficient lighting is also a great idea, as LEDs will give you a much better value for your money. Not only that but they are also more efficient and such bulbs last longer too.

Don’t shy away from new technology

In the UK, almost half of SMBs (small and medium-sized businesses) either use manual methods to track their inventory or don’t track it at all. As a result, they are falling behind not only their competition but the time too. A good Warehouse Management System (WMS) will save you a lot of time and effort because there will be fewer manual errors, and you will have a better insight into your stock levels. Do a bit of research first to find out exactly what WMS would work best for your storage – you don’t want to spend a fortune on one only to discover that it’s suitable for another kind of warehouse business.

Infographic created by WSI, a 3pl distribution company

Utilize cross-docking

Cross-docking is removing the middleman by transferring the product from the supplier directly to the customer. This will also reduce your costs across several different points: you will spend less time and money on storage, product management, delivery, and labor, and you will also get a better grip on on-demand desire and trend with customers. With so many different types of products on the market, there are also different forms of cross-docking, and you will have to find the one suited for you. The main aim is to ship out the inventory exactly how it was received, and not have to make any changes whatsoever. To make sure the process is seamless, you will definitely need a first-class WMS.

Lower labor costs

A huge chunk of pretty much any warehouse operating budget is labor. You will need people to work in your warehouse, and that will cost money. You don’t want to start paying people less, but you also don’t want idle workers either, so you have to come up with a good solution. Try reducing their dwell time in the warehouse first, as it will significantly improve your overall profits. Also, do whatever you can to retain your employees for as long as possible. Training inexperienced workers cost money as well as time, and keeping experienced employees is a much better option. Do whatever you can to keep people close: offering cross-training is a good idea, as is providing continual training seminars whenever new procedures are implemented will improve productivity.

In order to start your own warehouse business, of course, you will have to invest a certain amount of money, but it doesn’t mean that you aren’t allowed to try to save some in the process too. You should do the math carefully and try to come up with new ways to save money without compromising your budding business in the process. After all, you have to know which areas of warehouse business need hefty investments and which ones can work with less.

About the author

Ron Wolf is a hobby designer and a DIY enthusiast, and, above all, a very blessed father of two. Besides that, he has a strong passion for writing. He is a featured blogger at various blogs and magazines in which he shared his research and experience with the vast online community. If he is not working he enjoys being outside with his family. Hiking, bike riding, and BBQing are always a thing for him. In the evening, he likes to watch documentaries or build something with kids in their lego corner.

Digital Branding

SEO For Beginners: An Eye Opener How-To Guide

Steven on February 6, 2020

This is the most straightforward SEO guide that you shall come across on the internet. With tons of jargon being published every day on the internet, it can be a bit misleading to follow them. Well, this step-by-step SEO guidebook for beginners is simple and gives you all the necessary tips to improve your site’s ranking on Google.

So, without any further ado, let’s list down the steps right away.

Step1. Make Sure Your Website Is Google Accessible

For users to be able to see your website, you need Google to see your website first. Google uses crawlers, or as they are commonly known as ‘bots’ for finding new content on the internet. Once, the crawlers access any piece of content, it is indexed in Google’s database.

If Google has trouble viewing your content, then it is pretty obvious that your content will lag in the rankings on SERPs. So, you need to make sure that your website is free from crawling errors. You can simply search your website domain using “site:example.com” as a search term in the Google search box. This would result in all the pages that are indexed with Google. So, if there’s any page missing in Google’s database, you can manually submit it for indexing, using Google Search Console.

Step2. Opt For Keyword Optimization Of On-Page Content

Further to improve the visibility of your site, you need to rank for more keywords. Not just the ones that have high traffic volume but also the easy ones. You can use Google’s suggestions for optimizing your content for LSI keywords that users are searching for.

To begin with, you can type the most relevant keyword that you can think of but do not press “enter” or the “search” button. Look for the suggestions that Google puts forth. For example, type the term “marketing tools” and look for what Google suggests. These search terms are surely being searched by the users, as they are being suggested by Google. Since keyword stuffing is no longer beneficial, you’ll need to include different versions of the same keyword. And in addition to it, you can include contextual words that are commonly used with your primary target keyword. This is where Google’s suggestions come in handy.

Step3. Make Sure Your Website Is Mobile-Friendly

A couple of years ago, Google updated its core algorithm with “mobile-first indexing.” Since the majority of Google’s users are using mobile devices, if your website isn’t optimized for mobile use, it might not rank as well in search results.

Fortunately, you can easily find out if your website is mobile optimized using Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test tool. All you need to do is feed the page you wish to check mobile-friendliness for, and you can easily get an answer in yes or no. If yes, then you are in luck, or else you may need to put in some efforts with your website designing team to get it fixed.

Step4. Optimize Your Site For Quick Loading Response

Online users don’t like to wait anymore. This is mainly because of the improved data speeds and user experience that websites and internet service providers tend to focus on. Usually, users bounce back from a page that takes more than 2-3 seconds to load.

An increased bounce rate can affect the overall ranking of your website in SERPs. Sarah Kirksey from WPFarm.com says that one way to decrease site loading time is to optimize any images on your website. Alternatively, you can also switch to a dedicated hosting/server package or Virtual Private Server that gives you more freedom, along with securing your data. Shared hosting can put your data at risk and also increases the loading time, mainly because of the high traffic on the server. Implementing a dedicated server can significantly improve your website’s performance.

Step5. Cross Check Any Crawl Errors & Broken Links

Since search engines, including Google, uses crawlers to access your website. The bots keep on crawling through content and links to update new content, from time to time. Likewise, you also need to keep a check if your website is experiencing any crawl errors.

In addition to checking for any crawl errors, you also need to look for any broken links that your website may have. Google and other leading search engines make note of the backlinks that a site has to rank it in results for relevant search terms. A broken or a bad link can do more harm than a good link can bring in benefits for your site. For this reason, you should continuously keep a check on the link health of your website.

Step6. Seek Collaborative Opportunities With Bloggers

Apart from checking for broken links, your site also needs new links. Since these backlinks are a measure of the authority that your website holds on the internet, new and relevant links become all the more important for SEO.

For this purpose, you can seek collaborations from influential bloggers. These bloggers can help secure contextual links for your website, along with spreading the awareness for your brand. Soon you can realize a jump in your website rankings. All you need to make sure of is to maintain niche relevancy and publish content that your audience finds useful.

Step7. Give Your Site Some Final Touch Ups

Once you are done with all the basic setup that your website needs, you can give some final touch-ups. You can optimize the URL of your landing pages to suit the title. Essentially, you need to keep them short and include keywords as well.

Furthermore, you can optimize your snippets and schema markups with the keywords that you haven’t used in your content but are relevant to the content on the page. You can also, try shifting to HTTPS to offer improved data security to your users. And Google surely loves secure websites. There are many technical elements that you can optimize. Once you start receiving traffic for your relevant keywords, you can put your efforts in that direction. But, let’s leave it for some other time.

For now, all you need to focus on is improving your website’s visibility. It is only after you start gaining sustainable traffic on your website, that you should, move further. But, keep in mind, SEO is not an overnight magic trick. It requires a lot of effort, and that too consistently.

SaaS Branding

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!