Working Online? Here Are Some Tips To Be More Productive

As the Covid-19 Pandemic rages across the world, more and more governments including Australia are imposing work-from-home and lockdown measures in order to curb the spread of the disease.

Work-from-home or WFH is a good option for companies and businesses and their employees because it allows continuation of the business. Implementing this kind of feature wherever possible provides security not only for the business but for the workers as well.

The main problem with WFH is that it can be distracting to actually work from home. Children and other distractions like the TV and fridge can impact productivity.

If you’re working from your residence right now, here are some tips that can get you through the day and prevent productivity from dropping.

Space For Home Office

Not all of us have a home office. One of the best ways to get into work mode is to find a separate space in your home and make it into a work space. For example, you can convert a small room and put a desk, computer and other office essentials so it mimics your work setting and help you concentrate.

If you don’t have a room available that can be converted into a home office, you can rearrange some stuff in the living room for example and make a small cubicle and transform it into your work space. This is a good idea if you live alone. However, it can still be distracting especially since everybody is cooped up indoors right now but a few rules imposed can keep you focused on work.

Working from the bedroom or kitchen is strongly discouraged even if you live alone. The kitchen is usually the hub of the home. The kitchen experiences a lot of foot traffic since the fridge and probably mom is usually found there.

The bedroom is off limits for a very obvious reason. It can be hard to concentrate there when there’s a very inviting bed a few steps away.

Having a clear space for work in your home will tell your brain that you’re not at home; you’re at work which will help you focus on tackling assignments that need your attention.

Rules Rules Rules

WFH individuals will probably have family members or roommates that are also WFH. If this is the case, it is important to have a set of rules that will help everybody stay productive.

For example, if you have a home office make sure that people at home know not to disturb you during working hours unless of course it’s an emergency. You can keep the door closed as a sign to avoid disturbing and open it to let them know that they can talk to you for a bit.

If you don’t have home office but have a dedicated working space, make sure that your kids or family members stay in another part of the house. Tell them that the perhaps the living room or den is off limits at certain hours of the day.

Other rules like no loud music, schedules for coffee breaks, snacks or lunch should also be implemented as well as other instructions like no screaming and not talking loudly. Have rules that will remind everybody to respect your working hours and make sure that they understand everything so that it is easier to comply.

Have A Buddy

Family members and roommates are great but having a work buddy can help you get into work mode. For example, you can have periodic video or phone conferences with your team or cubicle mate to make sure that you are reminded that you’re at work.

You can schedule your conferences or reassure each other that you are available for a quick chat over the phone or through text.

Stick To Routine

Everybody has a work routine they follow and this is usually different from other people. There are people who make the coffee as soon as they come in. There are also others who organize their desk or check their email upon arrival at the office.

Even if you’re just in your living room, make sure to follow the same routine. Having a work routine helps to establish good habits and following a specific pattern of activity helps you remain productive. Routine helps you to allocate time better so that you can accomplish assignments that need attention during your work day.

Don’t Forget To Communicate Often

Communication is the backbone of an organization. Effective communication helps get things done quickly and communicating often and clearly can help accomplish goals even when you’re working from home.

Communication is even more important now that everybody is at home. While face-to-face communication is still better since it gets the point across more clearly, communicating via email, phone and video conferencing is still better than no communication at all.

Communicating frequently makes it easier for everybody to understand information accurately.

Wrap Up

Working from home is easier if you have digital solutions available for your company or business. The right applications can help boost your brand and expand awareness. Having the right tools and programs can make your dreams into reality.

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Best Sites To Learn Coding For Free Or At Low Cost

With a third of the world staying indoors due to the Covid-19 Pandemic, many people are stuck inside their homes for the foreseeable future. In some countries like Australia, strict lockdown measures like closure of libraries, galleries, restaurants (except for take-out), gyms, spas and mass gatherings are banned until further notice.  With everybody stuck at home, isn’t it time to be more productive and learn something new?

In the old days, learning how to code was for geeks only. But this is not true anymore. Nowadays, knowing the fundamentals of coding is important for freelancers, businessmen and marketers. If you’re interested in coding, here are some sites that offer their services for free or at an affordable price.

Codecademy

Codecademy is one of the most popular places to learn coding. According to their statistics, more than 45 million people have learned from their services to date.

Codecademy has courses like HTML & CSS, JavaScript and SQL to Bash/Shell, Python, Ruby and C++. One of the best reasons to use this platform is because it’s free. There is no monthly subscription or monthly fee to take a class. This is an advantageous feature for people on a budget.

Another reason is because it takes care of all the setup work for you. Imagine spending hours of your in front of the computer trying to make sense of strange error messages you’ve never seen. However, Codecademy is different because make it possible for you to learn the syntax of a programming language via an interactive experience in your web browser. No setup time needed.

Udemy

You can’t write about online learning without mentioning Udemy. This online learning platform can be used to learn how to code as well as develop or learn new job skills.

Udemy has both paid courses and free ones which are taught via video lessons. You can learn coding languages like Learn Python, Django, APIs, HTML, CSS, + Payments and more. Chances are, if you’re looking for a coding course, Udemy has it.

They also have various classes for a course taught at a certain style. For example, if you’re searching for HTML offerings you can scroll through different classes and compare user reviews and preview classes before enrolling. This will allow you to find a class and mentor that meshes with your learning style.

GitHub

There will be times when you’re stuck with a problem and need to find a reference book to help solve it. This is where GitHub comes in. they have a collaboration of over 31 million developers that can host and review code, manage projects, and build software together.

GitHub is a good place to showcase and document your work. Other programmers can comment and help you improve your work so that you can learn. Their system also makes it easy for users to track their progress across versions. On the flip side you can also contribute on other users projects.

MIT Open Courseware

Once you’ve mastered the basics and want something heavier, MIT Open Courseware can help you explore theory behind coding.

Almost all their materials are used in MIT’s undergraduate and graduate classes and can be accessed free of charge from anywhere in the world. Users don’t have to register to access the materials.

Khan Academy

Khan Academy has been around since 2006 and is one of the original online learning platforms. They have step-by-step tutorials where you can learn how to program drawings, animations and games using JavaScript and ProcessingJS, or learn how to create webpages with HTML and CSS. Check out their “Hour of Code”, designed to introduce students to one hour of computer science and computer programming.

Wrap Up

Learning the basics of code can be beneficial to entrepreneurs. You can dive in and fix a bug or two in your website. This will make you a better entrepreneur because it helps you to become prepared especially when it comes to your ecommerce store.

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Essential Social Marketing Tools To Get Noticed

Social media is an exciting platform for marketers. It can broaden your reach and most of all, it can get you noticed. However, many of your competitors are on social media too. Since you have the same target audience, getting noticed can be a bit of a problem. This is why you need to boost your profile in order to be seen and heard.

If you’re wondering how to do this, you’re in the right place. We have some tools to suggest that can help win the attention of your audience on the battle ground that is social media.

Buffer Publish

All social media platforms have their own guidelines for posting. For example, Instagram prefers square pictures while Facebook leans towards cover layout for pictures. This is usually fine, but the problem arises come posting time.

Many of us want our posts to stay relevant for a long time. However, it can easily get lost in the sea of other posts and opinions in a few minutes. One of the best ways to solve this is through social media management.

Buffer  Publish allows you to simultaneously post on up to five social media platforms, and at the same time allowing you to schedule posts using a queuing system. It also features an Unsplash tab so that you can choose from royalty-free photos easily.

The most amazing feature of Buffer is its ability to use the web version, almost everything you need is right there on the mobile app for Android and iOS.

Animoto

Video is undoubtedly the king of all media types but you don’t see it posted on social media all the time. This is because video takes a long time to create, edit and publish. Another limiting factor is that video editing apps have a learning curve.

Animoto is a video creator and editing app that simplifies the whole video creation one step at a time. It all starts by choosing the right template for your video and all that remains are personalization by adding text, colors, animations, etc.

You can also choose from a wide array of royalty-free music that are tailor made for tutorials, demos, teasers and slideshows.

Canva

Canva is an “all-in-one” photo creation/editing application. It is a good choice for designing a cover photo for your Facebook, Twitter page or even a fancy Instagram post.

Canva is relatively easy to use compared to other photo editing software especially if you’re worried about contrast or photo filters, it’s easier to just use Canva.

BuzzSumo

Know what kind of content is trending with BuzzSumo. Apps like Google Trends can also do this but BuzzSumo takes it to another level because it’s more than just a keyword research tool.

Features include the ability to filter trending topics based on date, location, trends and effectiveness. The app can also suggests or recommends content topics and lets you keep tab on content so you know what your competitors are posting.

Buffer Reply

Boost interaction with audience by collecting comments, replies and mentions on your social media accounts. Having an automated scheduling system that posts content is great but in order to keep your audience loyal, you need to engage them.

It also features an auto responder so that you can add a professional touch to your social media accounts. This is a good choice if you want to provide customer service on social media by responding to conversations, support and requests. It can also be shared on your team inbox for monitoring and further response.

Social media marketing is a powerful tool that can help you gain success. Build ties with your audience and raise brand awareness by using the right tools.

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Best Practices To Improve Your Sales

Online shopping is probably one of the best inventions of this century. Thanks to this service, we can now enjoy shopping without leaving the comfort of our homes. Our orders are delivered to our doorsteps and ready for our enjoyment.

Just like physical stores, online stores are also facing stiff competition. Not only is it easy to buy stuff online, creating an online store has also become easier. Thanks to technology, anybody can set up an ecommerce store without coding needed.

When competition is stiff, you need to adapt better practices in order to get noticed and get ahead. Here are some ways you can improve the sales of your online store.

Beautiful & Appealing Images

The internet is primarily made up of text and images. Many of us rely on visual cues in order to navigate a page. Marketers agree that images are powerful tools that can boost audience engagement online. According to marketologist Jeff Bullas, 87% of online shoppers agree that images of a product are more important than customer review.

This is why it is important to take clear pictures of your products. Remember that shoppers will be relying on these pictures to get a feel of a product they can’t really see and touch.

Product Demos

Stunning images are cool but they can’t really impact a buying decision. In an effort to standout, many online shops are turning to product demonstrations to boost sales.

Take Zappos for example. They were one of the first online shops to take advantage of online reviews of their products and it was a success. According to their statistics, Zappos reviews produced 6 to 30% increase in sales. Interestingly, Zappos did not hire actors but staff members. This was one of the factors that helped them get a big chunk of the market because many people trusted Zappos employees who knew their products better.

Variety Of Filters

Many ecommerce shops sell different products. It can be hard to find what you’re looking for when faced with thousands of products within a category. To make things easier for the buyer, online shops have a variety of filters so that they can find what they’re looking for in seconds.

For example, if you’re online store is selling clothing it would be helpful if you can filter brand, size, color and occasion.

But don’t just stop there. You can also include filters like “below $50”, materials, compatibility (for gadgets like smartphones) and special features.

Personalized Communication

This is especially true when you’re selling electronics. Many buyers easily get lost in technological lingo.

While giving out detailed descriptions of gadgets is completely normal, it does not tell you how this gadget is different from the others. This is why you also need to include non-technical descriptions so that people can understand what you’re talking about.  When you stop talking like a machine and communicate like a normal person, overcoming the technological gap is easier because the language is now easier to understand. When this happens, buyers are quick to make their decisions.

Viewing History

Window shopping does not only happen in physical stores, it also happens in online stores. Many buyers like to see many different kinds of products because it is now easier to view and compare products online. Showing them a viewing history will make it easier for them to return to a previously viewed product that they might want to reconsider.

Viewing history also shows “related” products to the ones you have purchased or viewed before. For example, if you have recently bought a handbag from a brand, the online shop will show you backpacks or slingbags and other products from the same brand. Showing related products is a good way to keep user engaged and personalize their shopping experience.

Responsive web design is one of the biggest factors for online success. Our web design services for businesses Australia wide will ensure your ecommerce store looks professional and is both search-friendly and user-friendly.

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Best CRM Solutions For Online Businesses

Businesses know that they are nothing without their customers. This is why they spend a lot of money capturing and attracting customers.

However, attracting a customer is not that easy. The internet is full of competition so the success of ecommerce companies depends on how well they interact with their customers. Many online stores strive to reach out to their customers. This is exactly why you need a customer relationship management (CRM) to help with business.

If you’re looking for a good CRM solution, we have some suggestions for you.

Salesforce

Salesforce is perhaps one of the world’s largest CRM provider with a market share of around 20%. Salesforce has an efficient out of the box CRM called SalesforceIQ which is tailored for small- and medium-sized businesses.

Once your business grows and you need more features, you can easily upgrade to Salesforce’s Sales Cloud CRM with Einstein artificial intelligence. Einstein can analyze all the data in your CRM and provide sales representatives with extra opportunities, such as predictive intelligence.

Zoho

Build strong customer relationships with Zoho . enjoy sales forecasting, mass emailing, reports, and other important features all for an affordable monthly fee. It also supports convenient deployement options like cloud and mobile.

Enjoy the benefits of Zoho’s Zoho’s cutting-edge Zia artificial intelligence. Zia uses cutting edge algorithm that can help boost your business.

Act!

Act! is a good choice for small businesses and individuals looking to boost their customer relations. It contains all your important customer data and allows you to group customers, launch targeted email campaigns and more.

No data or internet? No problem, you can still use Act! and the app will automatically synch recent changes as soon as you’re online again.

HubSpot

The best thing about HubSpot CRM ecommerce software is that it’s free for individual sales representatives. It is also an easy way to way to keep all your customers in a single easy-to-access database.

Hubspot allows users to turn repetitive emails into customizeable templates. It shows you which templates work and which ones don’t so that you can target customers more efficiently.

SAP

Another popular CRM is SAP with over 10% market share. It has a lot to offer any business, from small online retailers to large enterprises. Their SAP Hybris Cloud for Sales is a helpful CRM that allows small business to better understand their customers. This CRM features advanced reports and dashboards that provide ecommerce businesses with plenty of information and predictive analytics.

Its best feature is their sophisticated customer intelligence: you can scan business cards via your mobile device and the CRM will add a new lead to your customer database.

Wrap up

CRM solutions can make reaching out to customers easier and more efficient. It also helps to keep customers informed and engaged. Finding the right CRM might not be easy but our suggestions above will help you get started.

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Benefits of Digital Marketing For Small Businesses

A small business without a digital marketing strategy is akin to a ship without a captain at sea.

If you think this is an exaggeration, you’re wrong. There is more at stake for small businesses compared to their bigger counterparts. As more and more people turn to online shopping, this means that there is a big market small businesses can tap into. The right digital marketing strategy can help increase sales and leads.

However, small businesses have another goal: to grow. To do this they need to make more people aware about their brand, products and services.

If you’re still not sold on having a digital strategy for your small business, here are reasons for you to reconsider.

Cost-Effective

One of the most common excuses small businesses have when it comes to not having a budget for digital marketing is that it is expensive. No matter how big or small your business is you just need to be careful on how money is spent since budget is limited.

Small businesses need to decide how to spend their advertising budget early. Do they want a TV commercial, print ads or billboards? Small businesses need to choose an advertising strategy with good ROI to make their efforts cost-effective.

TV ads and radio spots can be expensive. The cost of this type of advertising can also skyrocket depending on the region or spot you choose to air your advertisement. This is why digital marketing is a better alternative for small businesses. It is targeted towards specific audiences so it has a much higher ROI compared to TV and radio.

Take PPC or pay-per-click for example. Your advertisement can be targeted towards people in a certain location who choose specific keywords when searching for something. This means that people who click on your ads are the ones who are interested in your product or service.

Fast & Easy To Plan

Because digital marketing is targeted towards a specific audience, it is faster and easier to plan and execute. If we follow the example of PPC above, Google Adwords has a learning curve and it might take a while before you get the hang of it, but mastering it is doable.

Once you have identified your target audience you can now set up a budget that works for you and then A/B test your ads so that you can find out which ones have better reception than the others. After you have all of this information, targeting your audience will become easier to plan.

Easy To Track

Google Adwords, Facebook advertising and other similar digital advertising platforms have a dashboard that makes ads easier to track. Aside from clicks, you can also access other important metrics like CTRs, impressions and cost per conversion.

Going digital means accessing the right analytics so that you can see what’s working for you and what’s not. For example, you will want to know how many people are opening your email newsletters on a regular basis. Knowing this type of info will make it easier for you to make adjustments to your campaign.

The same cannot be said for a billboard for example, since it would be hard to know how many people saw the ad.

Easy Update

As soon as you get the metrics, adjusting your strategy should be easy. Since you know what’s working and what’s not, you can easily terminate campaigns or readjust them so that you’re only using strategies that have good ROI. This means you are more efficient in using your advertising budget.

Updating ads for traditional marketing is harder to do. It’s not only expensive to rent a billboard, it’s also expensive to print something that big.

Targeted  

As we have stated earlier, digital marketing is targeted specifically for your audience. This means you have control over who sees your ad. More importantly, you can make sure that your ad only gets seen by the people who are interested in it.

There are many platforms that makes targeting possible. For example, you can use Google to target specific keywords that are relevant to your campaign or product. This will enable you to reach a global audience but can only be seen by people who use certain keywords for searching a product. These people will then become your audience or your potential customers.

Wrap-Up

Even though digital marketing is easier than traditional marketing, it still takes patience and dedication to find out which types of internet marketing works well with your product or service. Having vision and foresight helps and jumping on the digital marketing bandwagon will pay off sooner rather than later.

A digital strategy can help your company compete in today’s fast paced world. Marketing is not only crucial to a business’ success but also to touch base with your targeted audience.

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Important UX Designs That Are Trending

We have said time and again on this blog that first impressions are important. In today’s world, everybody online will judge a website’s appearance and functionality in less than 7 seconds. This means you only have a short time to impress your guests. This is where UX comes in.

However, digital touch points are always evolving. What’s trendy today might not be en vogue tomorrow. This is why it is important to know UX trends.

Here are some very important UX trends you need to know about to improve your guest experience and to market your website or product better.

Password-less Logins

Accordign to a Cyclonic Password Security Survey, 27.95% of users forget their passwords more than 10 times per year. This problem is mainly due to password protection protocols that require users to add special characters for a stronger password. While these features beef up security, it only makes password creation and memorization more complicated.

A simple solution is to let users use password less logins. Even though it’s been around since 2016, more websites are implementing this practice nowadays.

A good example of a company going password-less is Microsoft. According to them, they will be removing passwords during the next major update for Windows 10. This could mean that sometime in the future Microsoft will use Windows Hello face authentication, fingerprints, or a PIN code for their PCs.

Dark Theme

Dark theme is getting more and more popular. This is mainly because people who read at night tend to get eye strain when they read using normal mode. The blue light also causes delay in release of melatonin which can cause sleepless nights.

Dark theme is more eye-friendly and now that Android and iOS are embracing it, you can expect this trend to gain traction and to stay long-term.

Air Gesture

Gesture control is another UX mobile trend that aims to make mobile experiences better. Air gestures allow you to interact with the screen without touching it. Using simple gestures you can answer phone calls, navigate web pages, scroll through image and change music.

Both Google and iOS are using air gestures. Take a look at this video below of the Google Pixel 4.

The biggest advantage of air gesture is its intuitiveness and sensitivity to touch. This is why air gesture will always be a trend even if other trends come and go.

Responsive UX

In today’s quickly growing design business, it is more important to be Device Agnostic. It is no longer trendy for designers to be choosy as to which platform they get to design for.

The purpose of design in today’s world is to provide a seamless experience to each and every user regardless of what kind of device to use to access the internet.

Photo Driven Interfaces

Thanks to advancements in technology, websites today are utilizing more real-time pictures. Photography is becoming a big factor when choosing design themes and this is not only for photography websites. Combining amazing photographs and UX design is making websites more interactive and attractive.

The purpose of course is not to confuse users with a lot of pictures. Designers need to maintain substantial margins, spacing, whitespaces, and color balance.

Wrap Up

There is no denying the popularity of laptops, tablets and smartphones nowadays. These devices have become an important part of our lives and UX designers need to respond to these changes.

It is now becoming clearer that designing apps and programs that gives users a good experience is essential in the success of an app. However, UX should also include all aspects of the end user’s interaction with the business, its products, and its services.

A good UX designer in Sydney can help boost your website and business performance.  Their tailored web app solutions can get you ahead of the game and reduce tension with personalized services.

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Best Ways To Retarget Visitors To Your Website

One of the best ways to improve your sales is to retarget the visitors you get in a week or even a in a month. Re-targeting visitors has become popular especially with Facebook Ads becoming trendy and being one of the most popular social media around.  In fact, many companies are investing in re-targeting ads on Facebook to bring back customers.

However, this is not just possible with Facebook. Other platforms such as Google Adwords can also be used to retarget audience and boost conversion. The question is, if you’re using the right kind of approach to re-target potential paying customers.

Here are some effective ways you can retarget your customers.

Retargeting Based on Search Habits  

Retargeting based on search history is one of the easiest ways to get return customers. In this method customers are retargeted from the search history in a site especially from e-commerce or multi-vendor marketplace site. Later on, you can retarget customers on social media platforms such as Facebook by taking your search preference data on their site.

For example, you can retarget customers when they search for products on Amazon. Soon after their search, you can retarget the users so that they can see ads of their previous searches on their news feed.

Retargeting Using Social Media

Nowadays, people who search on Google get retargeted on their social media accounts such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

For example, somebody is looking for a perfect diet plan on Google. Right after this, social media platforms like the above mentioned will begin showing ads for Keto, meal plans and other types of diet ads on their Facebook news feed. This is an effective promotional strategy that can boost a company’s brand and conversion rates.

Twitter also uses a similar methodology for retargeting ads. It starts gathering data from users’ search engine history and then display similar ads based on their interest. Therefore when users start searching using their Twitter bar, the platform automatically retargets them with promoted ads by several companies related to their search interest.

Instagram is another platform that is becoming more popular. It also has come a long way from their beginnings 5 or 6 years ago. Nowadays it also has become a popular retargeting tool for companies who are looking for better conversion.

Just like Facebook and Twitter, users will begin to see ads and promotions based on their search history on their feed. This is a good way to catch their attention while improving conversion and cashing in on the latest trends.

Site Retargeting Ads

Aside from social media, it is also important to lure visitors by retargeting your ads on other websites. This is done by utilizing different information collected by search engines. Data like visitor’s IP, location, subscription, time on site, etc. are collected by search engines and then you can retarget them by showing your ads on other websites.

If you noticed, you can usually see ads of some of the things you searched for when visiting totally different websites.

For example, you can clearly see the advertisement displayed on the right side of the website while the user was checking out blogs on a website. This is a type of site retargeting ad that is run by Adsense and is effective in getting a potential customer’s attention.

Ad Optimizing Techniques

• Appealing Headline – headlines should grab user’s attention. Make sure that the potential client will want to take time to check it out.
• Engrossing Copy – retargeting ads means having lots of copy. Most of the time you need to explain your brand in a limited set of characters and this is why you copy needs to be on point. It should describe what you’re offering and give visitors a reason to click.
• Engaging Media Content – adding a static image or GIF can help potential customers get engaged with the visual offer you’re trying to present. For better result, the visual content should related to the deal your offering as well as to the copy.
• Catchy CTA – the CTA in your ad should be in a bright contrasting color with a personalized copy on it. The CTA plays a big role in the ad so make sure there is sufficient gap in the ad so that viewers can view them properly.

Every customer to your website was once a visitor. An experienced Sydney internet marketing agency can help you boost your conversion and leads.

 

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