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Digital Branding

How to Do SEO for Your Site with Keyword Research Tools

on October 15, 2018

Search Engine Optimization of a website always centralized around the keyword and has been the important element. Since ages, a lot many changes have made and with this evolutionary component of SEO, choosing the right set of keywords for the content building has become a necessity. You have to make your ways through these keywords in order to increase the rank. You need to start monitoring the progress of site based on keyword precision. As per the expert belief, the usage of keyword has become complicated due to some reasons like:

  • Now the search query in Google focuses on the semantic part of the content from the user context rather than querying up the word by word typed in information. It has become tough to optimize each and every word of the specific set of keywords.
  • No proper information can precisely determine the information about the ranking. Google has stopped providing the information, and some third party is now offering information about the rankings.
  • The rankings have become volatile and are meddling the potential consistency of keywords. Google makes changes due to which there is a constant optimization from the competitor alongside your strategy.

Photo credits: https://pixabay.com/en/seo-sem-marketing-optimization-web-758264/

No matter what, the keywords are still a very important element of the SEO and other marketing strategies. The keywords provide an insight into the user patterns followed for search which helps in guiding the topic and builds the focus on marketing strategy. You can obtain the metrics using tools that can let you know about your website performance. There are many steps by step streamlined way which can tell you how to work on your keyword Research for Search Engine Optimization. You can check keyword inspector.com to find out more. You have to keep in mind about the targeted audience while working on keyword Research using the following tools

  • SEMRush: This is a paid tool with some limited free options. It is very valuable for conducting Search Engine Optimization of the site which is not only restricted to Keyword. You can get information about the complete site by entering the domain name and also get information about the ranking. If you are planning of outdoing some of your competitors, this information is helpful. If your sole purpose is to work on ranking, then this tool is best.
  • SpyFu: This tool’s prime focus is on the competition which is needed if you already are a level down from your competitor. Instead of finding the detail about yours, try to find out about competitor domain. By doing so, you can evaluate the focus and strength of your competitor’s keyword relativeness with the content. You will get the understanding of how to choose a keyword for prime target and in the end; you will be winding an excellent strategy for optimizing the site.

Conclusion

It is very important to have a strong SEO for your site and strategy for the keyword order to beat the competition. With the help of tools, you might be able to achieve your goal.

Digital BrandingSaaS Branding

A STEP-BY-STEP Guide to creating a SWOT Analysis for your brand strategy

on October 10, 2018

When you set out to build your brand strategy – it’s always best to be number 1 in a new market – then number 2 or number 3 in an already crowded market. But, how do you build a great foundation for your venture?

The answer? A SWOT Analysis.

WHAT IS A SWOT ANALYSIS?

A SWOT analysis of your brand strategy would give you an idea about the strengths (S), weaknesses (W), Opportunities (O), and threats (T) of your brand’s ability to dominate the market.

SWOT ANALYSIS EXAMPLE

Let’s take real-life scenarios. A good friend of the writer named Sameer was starting a business where he would buy journals from India and sell it to the United States through an e-commerce store.

After a lot of research, he found a journal he liked and took his first step towards his goal. Upon the advice of the writer, he followed this step-by-step SWOT analysis for his product.

1 – Evaluate the Strength of your Idea

Sameer first did a quick Google research for the following keywords.

1 – Journals USA Buy

2 – Journals California Buy

3 – Self-improvement Journals USA Buy

4 – Gratitude Journals California Buy

He found some common denominators in the competitor’s websites.

Firstly, he found that there was virtually no copy under any of the products.

Secondly, he found that each of these websites had multiple journals for sale.

So, he found where his strengths lay;

  • He would sell just one journal on his website.
  • He would focus on a benefit-driven copy for his website.

2 – Swallow your Pride and Admit your Weakness

Next, Sameer needed to closely look at his weaknesses.

His biggest weakness was his marketing budget. If he were to take the Ad words route based on the projections, it would cost him close to $25 dollars to acquire a sale.

With a marketing budget of $500, he couldn’t risk running out of capital. So, he decided to explore alternate forms of advertising instead of Ad words.

 

3 – Look for Opportunities in Lesser Crowded Areas

Sameer had been hearing a lot about Instagram shoutouts.

Upon some quick research on Instagram hashtags, he found that the yoga handle has closed to 2 million posts.

Now, coincidentally Sameer practiced Yoga as well. So he decided to put his $500 dollars into marketing his business through shoutouts.

He found the best handles related to yoga and spirituality wrote a quick starter e-book on yoga which he used as a low tripwire offer of about $7 and then created an upsell page with the journal with a tagline “Journal like a Yogi”.

 

4 – Search for threats that can effectively shut you down

Sameer’s biggest threat now was the long lead time that comes with going through the funnel approach.

Upon his first couple of shoutout tests, he found that he got a 2% conversion on each shoutout expenditure.

So, at about $50 per shoutout – he would get close to 5 sales of his e-book. But no one was buying his journal.

He was $200 short and had just about $300 left before he ran out of his capital.

After looking at the analytics on his Upsell page – he found that a majority of the users bounced off within the first 10 seconds.

After a lot of dwelling, he decided to test a down sell page.

So after a user purchased his e-book he would then send them to the Upsell page for his journal.

Once a user clicks away from the page – he sent them to a down sell page where he gave the customer $20 off their first purchase.

After sending about 5000 people to his website – he saw that his tripwire e-book sales remained the same but this time he managed to sell one journal which helped break even on his shoutout expenditure.

This was a promising enough start for Sameer to continue on with this venture.

 

CONCLUSION

A SWOT analysis is just a tool you use to fine tune your business strategy. Do not make the mistake of spiraling down the analysis rabbit hole. An action is the greatest key to finding out if your theories are based on sound results or not.

Result driven advertising should help you here. Closely monitor what effect each one of your USP’s or offers has on your customer. Evaluate your cost per lead and lead time and then go about fine tuning it until you can fully automate the process.

Once you have found a good marketing strategy you need to scale up your operations and the best way for you to do that is to use a CRM software for marketing.

Kapture CRM is a cloud-based marketing SaaS provider that helps you automate a lot of the key tasks in your business.

Kapture CRM customizes its offerings according to the needs of your industry. The cloud-based platform can be used over a mobile application as well that is integrated over both iOS and Android platforms as well. Currently, Kapture powers 500+ brands in 12 countries.

 

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Digital Branding

SEO Ranking – Most Important Steps (Beside Keywords)

on October 10, 2018

Everyone knows what SEO is and its importance in today’s marketing world. However, a lot of people seem to be confused by how exactly it works, and what’s important when writing in this style. So if you want your article to appear at the top of the searches, you are going to need to focus on more than just keywords. Of course, keywords are, well – key; but there are other things to pay attention to, and here they are.

Relevant content

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There is a reason people focus on a single topic (or a relevant group) for their website. Sure, there are some websites – predominantly news focused – that cover a broad range of topics, but if you want your content to be optimized, and if you are just starting out, you want all of your content to be relevant to each other. Posting an article that is completely unrelated to your overall theme will throw people off and they might not return, or they might miss your main message completely.

Dwell time

One thing the algorithms look for is how long people actually spend on your site. If they just click to enter and realize it’s not what they expected then click right back out, it will hurt your rating more than help it. This is why misleading titles and introductions are a terrible idea, and why you should employ reader retention strategies. Nowadays, readers’ attention spans are getting shorter, and the “two-minute reads” are getting a lot more attention, but what happens when you want people to stay longer? Well, giving them more content is the easiest way. As soon as they are done reading the first article, they should be offered several others to choose from (all, of course, with eye-catching titles and intros). This will make sure your reader stays with you for as long as they have time.

Track progress

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It’s amazing how many people think that statistics are just for science and that they don’t need to know any of that if they are just running a website. But let’s say you sign up for some SEO reporting that gives you a report on how you are doing on demand and you notice that there was a sudden drop of reader retention and dwell time. What do you do? You investigate. You look for the exact moment that the drop started and see what was done there. Did a campaign suddenly end? Did you post something that people just didn’t like? Did you hire a new writer whose style just didn’t vibe with the readers? All of these are potential reasons you are losing readers and not reaching the peak of the search page. Tracking everything allows you to combat changes and make everything run smoothly.

Good formatting and proper image size

Opening an article and seeing a wall of text is just not something that people want. You might think it’s a way to trick them into reading all of it instead of just the parts that they are looking for, but then you are missing the whole point of writing. All of your articles should be divided into logical paragraphs with proper headings, clearly distinguishable from the rest of the text. Your image sizes should also be optimized, not only for faster load time but for easier reading. Make sure you check how your article looks on several devices, to make sure that the photos don’t shift something to the side or end up in an incorrect place.

Most importantly, make sure that you are always working on your writing. The better the actual articles are, the more people are going to read them and the more they are going to boost your SEO rating. In the end, everything we do can only bring us up so far, but the main quality has to be in the writing itself.

 

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Digital Branding

The Worst Guest Blogging Mistakes

on October 8, 2018

Each owner of a website that accepts guest blog posts is quite aware of the potential benefits. To begin with, guest bloggers can provide a fresh insight and more information about relevant topics, which increases the popularity of the website. Next, regular visitors to the site are offered an opportunity to enjoy a slightly different style of writing, which they may prefer to the one they are used to. Finally, the more content is created, the greater the traffic to the website, which translates into financial profit eventually… if the guest blog posts are not a disaster.

Many people aren’t careful enough when allowing (or writing) guest blog posts. For some, the most important is that some content is created. This is a major problem since quality needs to take precedence over quantity when it comes to running a profitable website. So, what are the most common mistakes found in guest blog posts that we need to avoid?

Content

People read your blog because they are interested in the content you’ve created. If you are skillful enough when it comes to writing, your readers will enjoy it more, but they are primarily interested in what you write, rather than how. Also, though you don’t want to bore people with your posts, you can’t really expect them to learn much from a short post (under 500 words, for example). So, finding the right measure when it comes to the topic and brevity is the key.

Visual aid

The way a blog is written also influences the impact it has on readership. Having long chunks of text rarely stimulates anyone to read the whole post. In most cases, such texts are briefly skimmed and though they may be informative and educational, the impact is likely to be missed. That’s why many successful bloggers resort to using bullets and relevant images to attract attention to the content. The former allows readers to find relevant information easily, while the latter has a great impact on search traffic since images are indexed by Google. However, make sure your choice of images is organic and relevant for the best results.

Not engaging the reader

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Another common problem is the fact that many posts simply don’t engage readers, but simply present information. This is reflected in the choice of register and lack of questions, especially in the introduction. How many times have you started reading something and gave up very soon afterward, because you were just bored? Every reader wants to feel that you’re writing just for them. Of course, this doesn’t mean you have to become too personal, though some people may like it. Sharing personal experience is ok, but the trivial details of your life are hardly a matter of anyone’s interest.

Being too prolific

Although you can’t get traffic without posts, you can’t expect that multiple posts each day will help you achieve your long-term goals. It’s impossible to expect that you can maintain (let alone improve) the quality of your posts with hyper-production. This is particularly true for inexperienced bloggers. You don’t want the posts on your page to show symptoms of burnout.

Avoid blogging for blogging’s sake

The internet is saturated with posts about “how to blog” and your post on the same topic is unlikely to provide any relevant new insight unless you are positive you know something that others don’t. Readers are interested in very concrete topics and have come to your website because they thought they’d find what they are looking for or even be pleasantly surprised to learn something they didn’t expect. This element of delighting the visitor is one of those that make your page stand out among thousands of similar ones.

If you manage to avoid these common mistakes when it comes to guest blogging, you will stand very good chances of making the most of having someone else contributing to the growth of your readership and, consequently, bank account. So, be wise when it comes to using this powerful tool.

Digital Branding

Get Socially Professional With The Best Instagram WordPress Themes for Your Site

on October 8, 2018

If you are an online business, you must have a presence in social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to connect with your targeted audience. Today, your targeted audience is looking for the personal touch. If you are successful in providing your audience with the personal touch, the chances are high that you can convert visitors into loyal customers for your website or blog. The best part of social media platforms is that they are free and much cheaper than conventional marketing and advertising platforms. However, it is prudent for you to ensure that you have a marketing strategy that differs from one social media platform to another. For instance, if you are using Twitter, you must have short yet compelling messages that grab attention. If you are on Facebook, content is the key, and you should have an attraction caption that compels readers to go through your post. If you are on Instagram post visuals that speak and create a deep connection with your targeted audience!

The advantages of choosing Instagram for your marketing needs online

With 1 billion active registered users on Instagram monthly, you will be missing out on a large chunk of targeted customers if you are not on Instagram, it is high time to register now. The registration process is simple. You need to download the mobile application on your smartphone and follow the instructions. Once you have registered on the social media platform, you can start uploading pictures and videos that pertain to your business. Instagram has many captivating photo filters to help you get the desired effect when you wish to upload photos of your business online. Moreover, you do not need a high-quality digital camera to get high-quality photographs for your needs. Since it is a mobile platform, you directly upload the pictures to your profile. You do not have to use a computer for the purpose.

Instagram helps you to reach out to new audiences and expand your targeted market. When you are on the move, you can edit and upload posts as and when you wish to. In short, you will find Instagram simple for you to use and operate. The photo-sharing platform works well for your business primarily because people nowadays like to view pictures and videos moreover content. This is why Instagram is shooting up the popularity charts quickly. It is a mobile application platform that everyone should use for their business if they are looking for success and better brand presence.

How to increase fan following for your Instagram profile with WordPress Instagram themes?

When you have registered yourself on Instagram, the next step for you is to increase your likes, shares, and comments to invoke trust and credibility in the online market. There are reliable sources like GramBlast to help you increase likes, shares, and comments however you can also double your Instagram followers by incorporating it with your WordPress site. Besides, the above, you can also integrate Instagram into your WordPress site with the aid of Instagram WordPress themes. These themes improve the appearance of your website and attract the targeted audience to it as well.

Best WordPress Instagram Themes for your site

Given below are some of the best WordPress and Instagram themes you can use for your website or blog:

  1. WordPress Instagram Widget- If you are looking for an Instagram WordPress theme that allows your visitors to get access to your Feed, this is the theme you should opt for. As the name suggests, it is more a widget and a theme. You do not have to rely on complicated downloads when you are looking for Instagram to be incorporated into your WordPress website. It is popular on many websites, and since it has a very light code, it does not hamper the loading time of your site at all!
  2. Flexi Instagram Feed- If you are looking for some interesting Instagram layouts for your website, this theme will do the needful. You can opt for the carousel gallery format for displaying your images. If you like your pictures to be posted on your phone, choosing for the Polaroid layout will add a lot of glamor to your photos and provide you with the desired appeal. This theme also tells your audience where the image was taken as it gives you a world map to tag the location. You also have better control over what you want your audience to see.
  3. EasyNote Instagram WordPress Theme- If you do not want your Instagram Feed to be the primary feature of your website and would like the Feed to be displayed on the header or the footer of your site, this theme is the right one for you. You can select the best content that you wish to show to your audience and make it the dominant feature of your website. So, if you intend to display the best of your website’s layout, this theme is the perfect one for you.

Check out these top WordPress Instagram themes for the better brand presence and fan following. They have unique features, and they always help you optimize your website fully when it comes to reaching out to your followers via Instagram with your WordPress website.

Therefore, if you wish to grab the strategic edge in the market, it is time for you to bank on Instagram WordPress themes today. They work for all types of businesses both big and small. Take a look at each one of them and go in for a demo first. Ascertain what your goals are and set the desired theme so that you get noticed better. These themes have the goal of increasing targeted traffic to your website and also make it look professional. An appealing site will always attract customers to take the smart step and activate the perfect WordPress Instagram theme that meets and matches your needs with success. Grab attention and make your followers happy with regular visual content they will love to see- all the best!

 

Author Bio: Walter Moore is a senior SEO consultant, a prominent SEO, and digital marketing services provider. He is quite experienced in the field of web marketing as well as website designing. For more information, visit GramBlast.

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Digital BrandingLocal Branding

Make Your Company More Visible

on October 5, 2018

When it comes to running your business, you want to be as “visible” as you possibly can. What do all the big successful companies have in common? They are all “visible,” and they can even be recognized by just their trademark, jingle, or even colors associated with the company. That is the product of tactful and repetitive advertising, and it can work for your company as well.

Giveaway items are a great way to promote your business for a couple of reasons. They make the recipient feel as if you value them and they will remember that you gave them something in return for nothing. It is a great way to establish a bond, and the giveaway item that you give them will continue to remind them of your first meeting as well as your business. It is necessary to make contact with a potential customer numerous times before they will actually engage or buy something, so your giveaway is doing a lot of the work for you.

Great things to give away include pens, apparel such as T-shirts or hats, food, water bottles, and calendars. These make great choices because they are inexpensive so you can invest in many of them to give out and they are also useful, or they are items that most people would want. There is a fine line here though. You want to spend as little as you can in your “freebies” since you will be giving them all away, and you want to keep your costs low so that you can afford the luxury massage table but you also want your promotional items to be something that people will want to keep around for a while.

If your massage business is just starting out, you have a lot of work to do to obtain recognition and to become reputable enough that you will draw in clients. The hardest part about starting a business is that you are the newbie and you haven’t had the chance to make a name for yourself and your services are unknown. Once you draw in a few customers, you will be able to get the word of mouth advertising started, and the best part is that it is free. It is also the very best kind since most people will take the advice of those they know over an ad that they saw somewhere.

There are a few ways to make your company more visible. You should start by registering for and going to a conference focused on your business. It’s a great way to engage potential customers. You should also branch out and visit local businesses owners to see if they are in need of your services. You could even offer them a coupon or incentive to try out your services. They may even let you put some of your business cards in their office for customers to be exposed to.

It is important to do this in person, as it is more likely that they will take you up on the offer than if you called on the phone. You could also join the local Chamber of Commerce. They often offer monthly events that may prove beneficial to your business. Trade shows are an excellent way to gain exposure and don’t forget to offer freebies and coupons to draw in customers. You could also host a workshop or free seminar. It’s a great way to introduce yourself, “sell” your service and answer any questions that your potential clientele may have.

Items that can be shared are a great concept since it is likely that more potential clients will be reached. Be sure to give out an extra freebie to every person so that they can pass it on. Be sure to include your logo on your freebies and to include a link to your website or social media account so that customers will be able to access more information on your company conveniently. Be sure to hand out referral cards as well. Referral cards will motivate people to tell others about your company since there is something in it for them. It is very important to promote your company when you are just starting out so that you can keep snowballing to success. You don’t want to lose your momentum.

Digital Branding

A Basic Guide To On Page SEO

on October 1, 2018

There are times when you will feel like your current digital marketing strategy is not work for you.  This can be frustrating because you could spend hours making great content and engaging with your followers only to see no changes to your search engine rankings.  If this is the case, the fault might lay with your on-page SEO strategy.  However, to remedy this, you will need to boost your SEO game while not making it obvious to users or getting penalized by the search engines.

Start With The Best Title Tag

Choosing the most effective title tags for your content is the first step in a solid on-page SEO strategy.  This means that you need to do some serious keyword research for each of your specific internal pages whether they are a blog post or a static content page.  If you are just starting your SEO journey, there are a number of free tools that you can use to help with this.

The keyword phrase that you choose will need to be in the first 10 to 15 characters of your title.  This means that you should start the title tag with the keyword.  Research has found that this offers the best success rate.

An example of this will be a blog post on the wedding invitation trends for 2018.  A good title would be something like 2018’s 10 top wedding invitation trends.  A less effective title will be something like Looking for invitation ideas for your wedding?  Check out these 10 trends.  It is better to keep the title short and sweet because no one wants to read a title that is more than 10 words long.

Do Not Forget The Meta Descriptions

After you have spent some time coming up with the perfect title for your internal page or blog post, you need to look at the meta description.  When writing your meta description, you need to ensure that it is engaging and concise.  However, you might be wondering how the meta description will affect your on-page SEO.

A meta description is a tiny summary of no more than 320 characters that lets a reader know what the page or post is going to be about.  As with your page title, you need to make a point of including at least one of your keywords in the description.  If we take the wedding invitation post from earlier, a good meta description could be something like:

Stumped on how to design an invitation that uses 2018’s top wedding invitation trends?  So not let the wedding stress you out more and just keep reading instead.

Optimize Your Images

If you are looking for one of the fastest and easiest on page SEO tips, this would be it according to Dallas SEO company Pixel Cut Labs.  However, you may be surprised but the high number of people who are not aware of this or understand how this can boost your rankings in the search engine results.  Optimizing the image will actually start before you place it on your website.

When you save the image on your computer, you need to ensure that the file name actually contains the keyword that you are going to use.  This provides you with one piece of content that will help you get onto the important first page of the search engine results. The same needs to be done for any videos as well.

Choose A Relevant URL

Another crucial step in on page SEO will be the URL of your page.  This is what shows up in the search bar and the actual link which directions people to the content that you have.

The easiest option for a URL will be to let Google generate a random string of letters and numbers for you.  However, this is not going to help you very much when it comes to SEO.  What you should be doing is thinking about including the keyword in the URL.

When you do this, you need to keep it short and sweet.  You should not have a URL that is too long or hard to remember.  For the wedding invitation post, you could use a URL like URL.com/2018/wedding-invitation-trends.

Link Back To Your Old Content

The last step in an effective on-page SEO strategy will be to link back to old content.  Taking the time to have internal links which lead to relevant content on your website is important.  It is very important that you only link to content that is actually relevant to the new content you have. If you have a travel blog, make sure your travel hacks are related for more than one blog and try to link them with useful keywords.

Your readers and the search engines will be able to tell when you are trying to hack your way into better rankings by linking to a post you wrote 10 years ago about a completely different topic to what you are writing about now.  You also need to be careful with linking and not over-saturate your content.  You should not include more than 4 to 5 internal links in a 1000-word post.  After all, you would like for your readers to finish the one piece of content before jumping to another piece of content.

Legal Branding

Why Employers Should Drug Test Their Employees

on September 20, 2018

Drug use in the United States has fluctuated over the years, yet one problem which still arises today is not having a work environment free of the dangers of substance abuse. The problem of drug use in the workplace is still a growing trend and many employers are standing up against the prevention of hiring and eliminating drug-using employees in the workplace through instant drug tests which can be a lifesaving asset for your business.  

The Importance of Drug Tests

OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) statistics show about 75 percent of the current illicit drug users in the United States 18 and older are employed – that is an estimated 10 million people. Statistics also show that on a daily basis, at least 42,000 Americans come to work under the influence or even getting ‘high’ while on the job. With marijuana being the most commonly used drug and being legalized for recreational use in many parts of the country, we anticipate the number of drug users in the workplace to only increase unless business owners stand up against hiring any drug user or by cleaning up their current list of employees by enforcing a drug testing procedure in their business plan. The burden of drugs in the workplace will get worse if employers do not take extra measures to protect their businesses to screen new and current employees. It is already estimated that businesses lose approximately $100 billion each year alone from problems arising from hiring a drug user. Not only should drug testing be integrated into the hiring process, but it should also be done every couple of months for pre-existing colleagues. If you’re unsure of which products are best, it’s definitely worth researching various drug test kits, but products similar to the 10-panel drug test are great.

The burden and costs to business owners of hiring a drug user in the workforce include:

  • Higher missing work rates
  • Higher accident rates
  • Higher turnover
  • Less quality and productivity work

Keep the Workplace Safe One Employee at a Time

Drug use can impair one’s judgment, give slow reaction times and is just plain out dangerous and a liability nightmare for some business owners. For some businesses, it can be more of a liability to have a drug user as one of their employees, such as factory worker in charge of an assembly line or an employee who is driving on the job making errands or deliveries, can be disastrous in terms of liability and safety. By incorporating a drug screening plan, your employees are looking forward to staying drug-free and you are helping your business avoid those small mistakes which can cause an accident and lead to serious injury or even death. It’s important for employees to be fully cognizant while on the job and that’s why we’ve incorporated an instant drug screening device to help you and your business.

Employee Performance

Employees under the influence of drugs may struggle to stay on task, come in on time or even do the job right. At the end of the day your business will struggle should you be allowing employees who use drugs in your workforce. A common instant use drug test allows employers to target a strategy to exclude those employees who aren’t reaching their full potential due to illicit drug use, removing weak links and improving their company’s performance by eliminating the weak link. At the end of the day, it’s about your business and you need to protect your asset by only hiring viable workers who can show up on time, do the job as described and aren’t a liability for your company.

Turnover Rates

One of the more common issues is any small business is the amount of turnover rates. By prescreening your employees with an instant use drug test as part of a pre-employment procedure, you are opting in possibly saving your business thousands in extra labor costs in terms of the hiring process, training, and work placement. As big as a problem as turnover rates are for many small businesses, instant use of drug tests are a simple way to reduce the problem prior to any employment agreement between the possible employee and your company. 

A Drug Test Made for Your Business

There is no denying that workplace drug testing offers a careful way to establish the truth of someone’s drug use and as a protection, many business owners have opted in using drug test procedures to screen their new hires and current list of employees. In situations where the employee has a responsibility for the safety and/or welfare of others, and the employer has a responsibility to ensure the employees’ competence is viable for the job, is a strong argument for workplace drug tests to be carried out for both liability and productivity of the business.

However, if a workplace drug test procedure will be carried out, there are some basic ethical principles which need to be taken place to avoid any violation of the rights of the employee.

These include, but are not limited to:

  • Consent: Current and upcoming employees should know, ideally prior to taking the job, that drug abstinence is an expectation to fulfill the job at hand, and the workplace drug test is a planned occurrence in the business and mandatory requirement prior to being hired.
  • Confidentiality: People’s privacy must be respected, including whether workplace drug testing has taken place as well as the result.
  • Disability discrimination: An applicant or employee who is taking medication for a disability is protected by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Prescribed medications may turn up on drug tests, and some drugs that would otherwise be illegal (such as opiates) are legitimately prescribed for certain conditions of users with conditions which are prescribed by a doctor. If an applicant is turned down because of a positive drug test, and the applicant’s medication was legally prescribed for a disability, the company could be liable.
  • Repeat tests should be conducted when a workplace drug test is positive, and your employee should be given the opportunity to explain a positive drug test result to avoid possible discrimination or false positive test.
  • Provide resources on addiction counseling and/or rehab for those who are positive on a drug test.

Beyond the immediate financial impact of reduced quality, productivity, and strict liability caused by drug users in the workplace, there is also the long-term risk of losing market share due to a competitor or a loss in business reputation and credibility. With review sites such as Yelp, Google and Angie’s List to name a few, whatever happens even as a one-time occurrence may have a devastating effect on your business for years to come.

By taking the necessary step to protect your business today, you will reduce a great deal of risk by mandating a drug test on a regular occurrence in your HR department hiring process and current employee roaster. As an investment towards your business, the drug test itself is a minimal cost compared to employing a drug user.

 Article Resource Links:

Disclaimers

*Consult with your local state jurisdiction for further laws on state municipal codes regarding employee drug testing. This website or contents within are not listed as legal advice.

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