Finding and Keeping Outsourcers

By on May 19, 2012 in Outsourcing

If you are looking for a long-term outsourcing solution, then the best way to do that is to find one good worker and continue working with them on your future assignments. Even though it seems simple, when you go into the nitty-gritty of employing freelancing outsource professionals, you will find that it is a difficult job. You need a lot of things commitment, devotion, quality, ingenuity, good price, etc. It is not always that you will hit the jackpot when you are looking at getting work from someone whom you have never met and probably know nothing about their geographical or social position.

That is the reason why once you get a good person to do your job, you must go all out to retain him or her on your outsourcing payroll.

How do you do that? There are three important Rs to remember here.

Ratings

Once a particular assignment is over, you get a chance to rate the professional. This is usually a ten-star rating system on most freelance websites, while even some forums have this system. Dont forget to rate the employee for their good work. For you, it is more important to rate people for their good work than for their bad work. You wont work again with someone who has ruined your project anyway. But when someone does a good job and you commend that with a good rating, they will be happy and inspired to work with you again.

Reviews

Reviews work in the same way as ratings. Only, these are much more elaborate because you say what you feel in words. You could be as upfront here as you like, and dont hold back on mentioning something that you liked. For outsourcing professionals, both ratings and reviews mean a lot it is akin to having outstanding achievements marked on the rsum of an offline professional.

Relationships

It is also a good idea to have a friendly and frank rapport with a professional who has done a good job for you. Remember that you probably need them more than they need you because there is no dearth of jobs for them. Being a little casual and non-imposing in your communication helps. However, at times, you might need to draw the line, but do so subtly as long as it helps.

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Don?t Ignore The Power Of Video

By on May 18, 2012 in Online Biz Fundamentals

It’s been out there, so why don’t you have a video made yet that promotes your business and gets you your share of online video traffic? If it is because you are intimidated by the whole process or are just a little camera shy then I only have one thing to say to you. Get over yourself! If you knew how much business you were losing on a daily basis you would try to build yourself a time machine to go back to the beginning and get a video out there for everyone to see right from the get-go.

A good video can take you from mediocre sales to astronomical sales in very short order. All you need to do is make sure it is professional and that it puts your business in a good light. Everyone with an online business should get a video out there to benefit from all the online video traffic that there is available. The numbers are astounding.

Check out what is out there first thing. You need to see what is selling then make your own version. Try to be creative and as unique as possible. You don’t want someone coming after you because they think you copied their video. You need to know about new techniques and effects that have become popular.

If you still are camera shy then you will need to hire someone to be your spokesperson for the video. Use the good sense that God gave you and pick someone who can represent you and your business accurately. You and your video have to be believable in order for people to come to you to buy your product. If you are not believable your customers will not be your customers, they will be someone elses.

Also, if you do not know anything about shooting a video there are videographers for hire who can help you get the professional quality you need to promote your business and be extremely successful. Professionalism means bigger profits for you. If you put out a rinky-dink video you will probably be laughed off of the internet. Sell yourself and your business to get the traffic you need to be a success.

When your video is complete and ready for posting make sure to get maximum exposure and post it to every video hosting site you can find. Basically, go viral. Getting your video out there for people to see is your main objective as soon as it is finished. Obviously, you will want to look at it first to see if it meets your approval. If it does, do not hesitate, get it out there. Your bottom line depends on it.

And do not forget when you sign up to these video hosting sites to put a link to your website in your profile. Search engines will sprinkle a little love on you and rank you higher in the results pages. This is another source of traffic that goes hand in hand with the online video traffic you have already generated.

Go active as soon as it is finished. Obviously, you will want to look at it first to see if it meets your approval. If it does, do not hesitate, get it out there. Your bottom line depends on it.

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Essentials of adding Adsense to Your WordPress Posts

By on May 17, 2012 in Wordpress

Video: Adding Google Adsense ads to your WordPress blog posts.

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Social Media Reaches Out To Offline Business

By on May 16, 2012 in Social Media For Biz

There are literally thousands of articles online speaking about the importance of social media for online businesses. A simple Google search will likely turn up more information than anybody could want regarding how best to use Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace, and Facebook for the purpose of online business and these social networking sites are merely the tip of the iceberg. There are several other, lesser-known social media sites that can factor into the game for online businesses, as well.

Its obvious why social media sites are important for online business. Its a free, efficient way of marketing to the virtual crowd. After all, if your business is virtual, then it only makes sense that you should be advertising where the virtual populace goes to hang out and chat with friends. Its the equal to putting up a sign at a baseball game or the mall. Online businesses must market to an online audience.

However, many people mistakenly believe that social media need not factor much into the running of an offline business, and this is a serious mistake. Even if you own a store front with tangible products and physical shopping carts and not a Caf Press website with a shopping cart icon in the corner you should still be meandering through the virtual crowd with the rest of the world.

Why? Even though your business might be physical, chances are that your customers are spending a lot of time on these social networking sites. If your store exists in the real world as well, working both the social media angle and the traditional means of advertising can give you a double edge over the competition, and thats not an advantage that should be glanced over lightly. Thousands of people do their shopping primarily online these days in the comfort of their homes in order to have a chance of bringing some of that business through your physical door, you need to be working on the virtual side of things, as well.

So when you sit down in your store in the real world, dont forget to spend some time thinking about how you can promote your store in the virtual one. Most people have a foot in the physical and a foot in the virtual nowadays, and you have a serious advantage in being rooted in the physical world. Online businesses have no stake in the world outside of the Internet, but you can step into the virtual world with ease. Be sure to take advantage of this position you have as somebody who owns a physical store, and the benefits youll reap will be incredible!

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Why You Should Consider Using WordPress For Your Business Site

By on May 15, 2012 in Wordpress Articles

WordPress is a pretty simple platform. There isn’t a lot of danger or ptifalls associated with it. I don’t want to scare anyone but there is one issue that can be quite dire. WordPress may infect you and your site with a disease…Plugin Fever. This plugin fever will start before you know it and will have you mindlessly activating plugin after plugin until the inevitable happens…plugin fever! Symptoms include;

lethargic response time

on page confusion

ugly design lesions

In some rare cases – outright fatal errors.

Chilling, I know! Luckily this disease is easily avoidable and fully curable. You just need to protect yourself with these steps:

1. Self Analysis – Take a step back and think about if you really need a plugin. Plugins add a lot of great features to a site but do you need to have each one that tickles your fancy? My guess is no. Take a look at your installed WordPress plugins and really think about if you need them. Does your plugin help generate traffic? Does it help keep people engaged? Does it offer a feature you need on your site? If you say no to all of these you might want to think about deleting that plugin. When you start adding plugin after plugin you are risking slowing your site. You also risk a possible conflict between plugins or a plugin and your theme.

2. Eliminate Redundancy – One of the quickest ways for plugin fever to set in is to have multiple plugins that do the same thing. Go through your plugins and see if any of them offer you the same functionality. If they do, then one of them is redundant. You don’t need 4 SEO plugins. You only need one XML sitemap generator. There are plugins that will help your visitors submit your site to social bookmarking sites — one will do the job. Every redundant plugin you have has a chance to break or slow down your site. Instantly remove any redundant plugins.

3. Upgrade – Once you have trimmed the number of plugins you use, make sure all of your plugins are upgraded. This is an easy process and should be taken care of quickly. Plugin upgrades will usually address security and any possible conflicts. You can do this in your back office easily so there are no excuses. Everyone has some plugins, and they need the same care you give the rest of your site.

These three steps can help ward off Plugin Fever. It is up to you to ensure your site is in perfect working order, and these three steps can help optimize your plugins. It is easy to get carried away with plugins since they can do just about everything. You need to remember that too many plugins can slow down or break your site. They can also conflict with each other and your theme so be very selective.

One last piece of advice. If you ever notice serious issues with your WordPress site – then deactivate all plugins and see if that fixes the issue. If it did, reactivate each plugin until you find the one that caused the error. Remove the error causing plugin. This will come in handy at least once in your WordPress days, that I can promise you. Good luck and may all your plugins run smoothly!

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How to create backups for your WordPress sites

By on May 14, 2012 in Wordpress

Video: How to create backups for your WordPress sites

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Essentials of adding a lead capture form from your autoresponder to your WordPress blog

By on May 13, 2012 in Wordpress

Video: Adding a lead capture form from your autoresponder to your WordPress blog.

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Are You Using Email Marketing To Expand Your Business?

By on May 12, 2012 in Online Biz Fundamentals

One of the most valuable assets an online business can have is an opt-in list. Whats this and how does it work? Were here to help!

An opt-in marketing list is where a customer (or potential customer, but its most often somebody who has purchased something from your site) gets an option to include themselves in on an email list that your company sends out.

This is very different from spam, which is where unscrupulous business owners go phishing for random email addresses that they find on the Internet and relentlessly pelt these poor souls with emails. Spam does nobody any good and basically ends up costing a business a lot of money only to irritate people.

An opt-in list, though, is a brilliant for business because the people who receive your emails are actually interested in receiving them. You can send this list of people who are interested in keeping constant correspondence with your business occasional emails no more than twice a month, usually, and only when you have something of worth to say or offer which can detail everything from the current goings-on of your business to deals and offers and promotions. Many companies offer special promotions to those who join their opt-in list as an incentive to, well, opt in.

Opt-in lists give customers who are interested in you your attention. Even better, the effect of an opt-in list is entirely traceable, as if you start offering promotions through your list youll be able to tell how many of them get redeemed. Opt-in lists are also another great way to get out more of that free expert content you offer, specially designed for those who wish to follow you. Many smaller businesses offer Q and A sessions through their opt-in list, where followers can ask specific questions that can be answered through the general forum of your email.

These lists are also the digital equivalent to having regulars at a store and engaging them in casual chat. Through an email list you can develop more intimate relationships with customers as compared to the normal anonymous buyer that hops into your site to pick up a few items, and then hops out without you knowing anything more about them other than what they bought. Close relationships with customers generate brand loyalty, which is a hot commodity.

Want another bonus? Email marketing can also be entirely free if you manage it yourself. Even if you choose to outsource your email marketing or leave it to an employee to handle, it is much cheaper than print advertising because of how targeted it is. Individual customers make specific requests, and you fill them by sending out the information direct to those who asked for it. Its a very simple, yet incredibly effective method of advertising that is guaranteed to optimize conversions and get people talking about you, particularly if you make your opt-in list a plum deal to join.

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Kiss Spam Comments Away With Akismet

By on May 11, 2012 in Wordpress Articles

All WordPress installations come with 2 plugins already installed (though not activated). They are Akismet and Hello Dolly. I always delete the latter one. Hello Dolly is just a novelty for your admin area. I am sure it is very small, but I don’t use it so I delete it. The other one is Akismet – I suggest you definitely use this. It’s main job is blocking spam comments and although it doesn’t catch them all, it does a great job.

Set up is simple:

Navigate to your plugin menu and activate Akismet. You will get a warning saying you need a WordPress API key to use it. This is also simple to get. You have to start an account at WordPress.Com (free). You don’t have to set up a free blog or anything, just an account. Since I was creating an account I made a quick free blog to drop some backlinks to my site, but that is a story for another article. Anyways, once you have a WordPress.com account, you can find the API key in your profile. You can also request a free API key from Akismet.com if you don’t want to start a WordPress account. Once you have the key you can use it on multiple sites.

After a fairly simple set up process Akismet will instantly go to work. Using a huge database, Akismet will check all incoming comments and automatically mark the comments that match the database as spam. This will save you a lot of time, because you will be receiving spam not long after your site is up and running. I have sites that haven’t even been completed before they were spammed.

Another great feature of Akismet is that it learns, if it is missing spam and you routinely mark those comments as spam it will learn to mark those comments as well. Conversely if it is marking comments as spam, that aren’t you can teach it by marking those comments approved. Although I trust Akismet on my blog, I do check the spam comment area to see if it caught anything it shouldn’t have. If you are wondering about it’s effectiveness – here are the actual numbers from my site since the end of January: 870 Spams caught at an accuracy rating of 99.686%. I am not saying everyone will see those kind of numbers, but that’s how well it is working for me. Quite impressive.

Spam comments are going to aggravate you eventually. If you don’t have this plugin it will happen sooner than you can imagine. WordPress packages this plugin for a reason – it works. Don’t waste your time pouring through spam comments in your email or on your site. Activate Akismet now and thank me later.

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Ezine Advertising Campaign

By on May 10, 2012 in Social Media For Biz

There are all kinds of different ways that you can market your business online, and one of the best is ezine advertising. For the sake of this article we will define an ezine as any publication that is delivered to the subscriber’s computer on a regular basis. The success of your promotion in an ezine will depend on a number of factors. Here are some things that will help you to make the most of your marketing efforts.

The first thing you need to do is some research. This is broken down into two steps. Step one is to find as many ezines as you can that are related to whatever it is you are promoting. Remember to include publications that may be ideal for cross promotion, too. For example, if you sell accessories for recreational vehicles, then you would want to look at any RV newsletters, as well as those that are related to domestic travel, retirement, and campgrounds. The bigger your initial list, the better.

The second step in researching is to find out what you can about each of the ezines on your list. At the bare minimum you should know the number of subscribers, typical open and click-through rate, and what all of their advertising options are. If you can’t find any contact information, or you don’t get a response from them, then move on to other ezines that are more willing to work directly with advertisers.

Once you have all of this information, you should be able to start narrowing your list down to the ones that look best for you. However, you are not ready to purchase any ad space quite yet. At this point you should subscribe to any of the ezines you’re interested in. This will give you an idea of how often they send their ezine, and how often they send other promotional messages. If they publish once a month, but send out “special offers” two times a day, then your message will only get lost in the shuffle. Subscribing will also give you a better feel for what the ezine is really about. You can also look over any archived copies of the ezine that are available.

Remember that your reputation will be tied in directly to that of the ezine, and vice-versa. Therefore you need to choose wisely. At the same time, be aware that many publications will take some time before approving your ad. If this happens, you should take it as a positive sign as it shows they care about the content they send to their subscribers.

By now you should have a good idea of where you want to start your ezine advertising campaign. You will have to decide which type of ad is the best for you. Generally speaking, a solo ad will give you the highest return. A solo ad is a special mailing that contains nothing but your ad. After that, the best option is typically an ad spot nearest the top in a regular issue of the newsletter.

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