Does Your Company Need a Mobile App?

31 May,2015 Business Advice No Comment Author: Marie

With the growing ecosystem of mobiles and tablets, apps have become the face of computing. From large web sites to micro blogs to mobile friendly sites, SMEs are now banking on the app ecosystem to grow their businesses. Small businesses are looking for a wider and easy reach and apps help them achieve it. They get to the clients easily without making efforts in to marketing. With an SEO optimized mobile app, it is easy to get listed in the play store. Further apps have the flexibility of engaging customers with in –app purchases and subscriptions for revenue generation of the company. But is always app achieves what the businesses want to do? How do we decide if a business really needs an app? We will have few strategies and key factors that need to be considered before you decide your business needs a mobile app.

Evaluate the potential

Apps no doubt have greater reach and an immense potential to shoot up your margins. All an app needs is a mobile device which is handy. And mobiles are everywhere in the present world. With a smart data connection on it, the app can easily connect to your site. If there is no app, then the customer will have to have a PC or a laptop and needs to connect to the internet. Then typing your website is another pain if the name is not easily known or if it is not SEO capable. App eases the pain at the customer to access you. That is the first key to market your business. Evaluate the accessibility of your business by the customers. Evaluate how the app will simplify it.

How to Use LinkedIn Effectively

26 May,2015 Business Advice No Comment Author: Marie

LinkedIn is one of the most powerful tools for individuals and businesses. It is not just a professional social website, but a platform for networking. It is used by large corporations. It has grown enormously to a near 350 million users. With its powerful features, LinkedIn can help you unravel the mysteries of your reach in professional network. It has catapulted as a social media to a powerful hiring and a reference platform. With its content sharing feature, LinkedIn has moved to a knowledge base that helps like-minded professional to share. In this article, few ways are listed to show you how LinkedIn can be used to reap its potential.

Create your public profile

This is the first and foremost things to get you marketed on the internet. With a public profile, LinkedIn lets you to have an identity in the social media. You can customize your public profile with pictures, a jazzy title, and other fields such as education, experiences to display to the wider audience. The public profile also allows you to list down your professional certifications and publications which are quite valuable for headhunters.

5 Invoicing and Accounting Tools for New Entrepreneurs

25 May,2015 Business Advice No Comment Author: Marie

Business is all about numbers. More importantly, how the numbers are presented. Dealing with numbers is a job that requires skill and nuance. Stock analysts and accountants are more valued due to their skills in dealing with the figures. The company’s profit and loss reports linked up with investor stock value. A misrepresentation of the value leads into several problems including, devaluation, brand loss and other legal issues. It is essential that the books of a company are kept clean and clear. There are consultants like PwC, Morgan etc. does the bookkeeping. But for start-ups that are gearing to make money, these consultants are quite bulky on their books. It is to their benefit, there are free invoicing and accounting tools to help those new and budding entrepreneurs to see the price in the pudding.

Freshbooks (Freshbooks.com)

This accounting software runs on a cloud. It is stamped as “User friendly” tools by Forbes. It helps you save billing time, get paid faster and grow your business. Users using this software spend less time on paperwork as this is completely automated. Estimates reveal that customers double their revenue in the first 2 years by using this software. As this is hosted over a cloud, you can invoice your clients either from your office or on the go. It provides a trial version for 30 days, but is priced as low as $19.95/month.

5 Online Tools for Visual Content Creation

21 May,2015 Web Design Tips No Comment Author: Marie

Visual content is vital to the success of businesses. Creating an effective visual content requires creativity. It also needs an apt tool to represent it. Visual content can be of many forms. Videos, presentations, infographics, and memes are the usual types created. Videos are powerful tools for preparing promos for your businesses. Presentations are slide packs used to convey the thoughts. Infographics are a blend of images and graphics to present the creative mind. It also helps to brainstorm, plot charts. It helps analyze the data to arrive at decisions.

As many businesses move into the cloud, online tools have become widely available. An online visual content creation tool lets you prepare your marketing idea anytime and anywhere. There are many tools available on the web for creating remarkable visual contents. Here in this article, we will have a glimpse of a few of the online tools for visual content creation.

Piktochart

Piktochart is one of the most brilliant tools. It can be used to create presentations and infographics content. It is easy to use. It has ready to use themes to get started quickly. The themes can be previewed and picked up to suit the needs. Its intuitive editing tools let you edit everything. It has a vast library of images to add life with visualization tools. It allows uploading your own images to its library. Unleash your work by sharing your infographics to the world. You can share them online or get them printed in high quality. These can be furtherincluded in brochures. Its shareable feature allows to embed, email or share on other social platforms. It is integrated with Slideshare and Evernote to let you share to a wider audience.

Piktochart is available as a free trial version online. So you can try before you decide to buy it. Its features include a resizable canvas, categorized icons, design driven charts and interactive maps laid on an easy to use and intuitive interface. Its editor consists of a point and click interface, making it easy for non-designers.

5 Best Social Media Management Tools

18 May,2015 Social Media No Comment Author: Marie

The growth of Facebook and Twitter has changed the way the world communicates. Social media has become so popular that it serves as an identity to exist. There are several sites that require a Facebook or Twitter login to authenticate you. Yet managing social media is a pain at times. With so many news feeds and followers, you get lost in the jungle of information. It is always required to organize and categorize the information you seek. Yet there are many spammers which equally exist in the social world, making our lives arduous. Social media tools become essential in such cases. They help you sort out the information, followers and weed out the unwanted ones. There are several social media management tools available, but few popular ones are listed here.

Buffer (buffer.com)

Buffer as the name sounds serves the buffering job between you and the social media. By buffering, it sorts out your audience for you and the information that they are interested upon. It sounds interesting that this great app can channelize your communications. It also helps you schedule the information broadcasted to your audience. It comes both as a free and a paid version. Its subscription is as low as $250/month.

Hootsuite (Hootsuite.com)

Hootsuite add listening capabilities to your social media. It supports multilingual features to enable you to know what’s happening around the world. It uses the GPS location of your whereabouts and brings to you the latest discoveries around you. It is a fantastic tool when combined with buffer. They both as a combo offer a duplex channel for you to target the right audience with the right information from the right location. Further, it is cheaper than dine out meal costing just $65/month.

How to Rank High in Seo in Miami

14 May,2015 SEO Tips No Comment Author: Marie

It is still a mystery how the algorithms of famous search engines work in order to create its search lists. Usually these SEs prioritize websites that have unique and distinct contents. For example, in Miami, a lot of businesses focus on services and travel assistance so if these businesses have websites that want to be at the top of the list, then they have to think of ways to make their websites unique and relevant and rank high in Miami SEO.

To make your websites rank high in SEO in Miami, you just need to stick to these easy steps:

Identify your market. Businesses cannot achieve success unless it has found its proper place in the industry. Once you found your business’s position, this will determine the contents of your blog or website. Like if you own a shop that specializes in motorcycle parts in Miami and you want the website to rank high in top SEs, then you better narrow down what your target market is – is it for yuppies, is it for easy riders, is it fortransient visitors? When you figure out your target market, the content of your website can be narrowed down too.
Increase your speed. Famous search engines always prioritize websites that are swift. So even if your website has unique contents but is slow to upload, it will not be prioritized by SEs. If your trade in Miami is a club or restaurant and you want to showcase your main course or cocktails, you just have to pick your bestsellers. Loading a lot of jpeg on your website adds color, however it impedes the response rate of your website so it is better to just choose only those that will catch the eye of your readers at the same time will not slow down your website’s response rate.
Update your website/blog. Blogs or websites with unique content always rank high in search engines. If you do not add a new entry to your blog regularly or current news to it, then it will not attract that much attention and clamor. For businesses in Miami that focus on events planning, it always have to suggest new wedding trends or hip party spots in Miami so that there is always something fresh and interesting on your blog or website.
Create Partnerships and Testimonies. It is best to create partnerships with your suppliers. This way you create new links on your websites which in effect will make your website part of the loop. Like for events planning entrepreneurs, you can link up with your suppliers or caterers to create backlinks. Creating links and partnerships on your website will increase your chances of making it on top of the search engine list. You also have to use important keywords to increase your chances of getting hits as well.
Expose your website/blog. One way to promote your website or blog is by linking it to social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. By sharing it, it will attract more viewers which in turn will make itspopularity higher. Unfortunately, this is an odd irony.To reach the top of the list, your site should get a lot of views. For your website/blog to be popular in SEO, it needs to appear high in SE lists. I guess this is the circle of website life.

These are just a few yet vital steps to increase your ranking. There are many more strategies that you can take but following these five steps will help you get closer to your goal of ranking high in local Miami SEO.

Twitter Makes Tweaks To Limit Abuse And Abusers

10 May,2015 What's New No Comment Author: Marie

Twitter is working on phenomenal changes to its tweets. This makes it a safe place on social media. Tweeting has become a habit of present day social citizens. It reflects ones ideas, lifestyle and activities. It helps to voice out their perceptions. Recently twitter has been used to promote anti-social threats and terrorism. This has shaken twitter a lot. Twitter has been making policy changes since then. These changes ensure its tweets are safer. It is been building mechanisms to reduce the abuse. It also reduces the use of anti-social phrases. It is easier to abuse someone by a tweet. It becomes prominent due to its wider reach. The tweets are not really screened for its legitimacy. It may harm one’s reputation.

Building up user and community profiles

Twitter has been building up user or social profiles. These profiles check on the language. They also check the style of use in its tweets. It is also researching on building community based profiles. This checks for misspellings, slangs, colloquial terms, etc. This ensures the local reach is safer on twitter. Anti-social elements usually use slangs. They use local terms to preach their propaganda. By building community profiles, twitter can detect the abusiveness in tweets. Once detected it removes those tweets.

Incident data sets

In addition, twitter is focussing on incident datasets. When an incident happens,it gets recorded. And when a similar incident happens again, it can scan the tweets of those users. The scan predicts the abusive languages used. This also involves profiling those users. The data set covers varied synonyms. These are used for antisocial phrases. Groups use alternative terms to escape the screening of tweets. So twitter is focussed on extensive data sets. This helps to avoid such abusive incidents.

Google Works To Improve Spam Detection Systems On Google Maps

10 May,2015 What's New No Comment Author: Marie

Google is one of the most admired companies for presenting information. Google Maps is one such app that provides the details of locations around the world. It is difficult to pin locations when detailed maps are not available. In developing countries, it is a constant change of the face of emerging cities. Maps need to be updated regularly. They need to be clear and accurate.

Spam in Google Maps

Google recently found spam in its mapping service that was added by a map maker called “nitricboy”. Online tools help users to pin locations on Google maps. This reflects the latest and accurate details on its mapping systems. Map maker is an online tool to map locations on Google maps by its users. After discovering spam markings in its mapping services using map maker, Google has been improving ways to detect spams.

Role of online tools in spamming

Spammers use these tools to point locations with meaningless mappings. Spams are popular in emails. They are less harmful than viruses. They are sometimes used by marketing agencies to promote their services to a wider audience. They are also used by spammers to exhibit fun and insane messages to the public.

Review the posts for spam

Detecting spams is a difficult task. For example, in mapping of location of a bus station, a spam can pin promotional ads for travel services from that location. As spams can be promotional, it is difficult to detect the spam and remove them. Google is investing in spam detection systems to ensure their mapping services reflect the right information. This is achieved by content scanning and reviewing before it gets posted on the maps. Much like Facebook where the user’s posts are published only after review, Google is finding ways to pin locations by users after a review.

oDesk is now Upwork

5 May,2015 What's New No Comment Author: Marie

The new and improve oDesk is here and they have a new name too – Introducing Upwork, a new name, and also a new platform for connecting you with great jobs, faster and more easily than ever before.

In Upwork, you’ll see a familiar oDesk functionality and your existing profile but with a lighter and more mobile-friendly design.

There are also a few surprises including the:

New messaging tools for faster collaboration
A new mobile app for iPhone and Android
A new Hiring Hub with helpful ideas, articles and guides

Upwork Mobile App

In the coming months, Upwork promises to focus on four areas of innovation:

Faster hiring – Upwork is making it easier for freelancers to update their availability and for businesses to find, interview and select freelancers who are ready to work right away.
Better collaboration – Upwork is introducing a new messaging experience will include chat and video, plug into your favorite services, and organize conversations into chat rooms. Plus, you’ll be able to communicate with your teams through native Android and iPhone apps.
Larger teams – Shared team workspaces will make it easier for multiple freelancers and clients to collaborate. Businesses can create and engage large freelance teams quickly, safely, and in compliance with Upwork Enterprise.
Professional growth – Upwork will be a platform where independent professionals can thrive. With access to work history stats, the ability to earn Top Rated status, and information on high-demand skills, freelancers will have the tools to get more and better jobs.

The company also introduces a new CEO, Stephane Kasriel, who is a former head of product development.

oDesk users have mixed reactions with the change of name and with the change of the website design – some loved it, and some don’t.

You can begin experiencing the new platform today by going to upwork.com and let us know which one you think is better, the old oDesk or the all-new Upwork.

Source: Upwork Blog

What Is Link Building, and Why Is It Important?

4 May,2015 SEO Tips No Comment Author: Marie

Search engines and optimization techniques have evolved to a greater extent. They help in building strong brand images. They provide easy referrals on the social platforms. They are continuously redesigned to reap the benefit of social presence. Link building is one such technique that brings immense value for social marketing. It is a strategy to direct traffic to your website by building links from other websites. Its sole objective is to increase the number of links that drive traffic to your website. More links to your website mean more visitors. More visitors would mean a high ranking in search results. The ranking is used by advertising companies to display promotions. A high ranking will directly increase the brand image of your website. Link building is essential for search engines to retrieve the content sooner. It is one of the proven techniques to improve brand awareness.

Basics of link building

Link building is an essential SEO technique that requires various skills. It requires content creation, programming ideology, and business skills. It drives the search engine traffic. It redirects the internet traffic to your website. It involves an intelligent and logical way of creating links. There are many strategies such as black hat and white hat SEO strategies for link building. The rewards of a high quality link are huge. Increased traffic means more revenue; more reach to direct consumers, and thereby increased sales figures. Some of the web platforms rely on link building techniques to cover customer surveys, market studies and analyst reports.

Types of links

There are various types of links. Resource links are links that point to resources. Resources may include media contents such as images, videos or even URLs. They can be licensed or free for all. Resource links are widely used. They increase the user rating of the website. There is also another type of links called editorial links. They are freely available. They are usually provided by the website owners. They usually carry good content. They are useful for online marketers as they are content specific.

BlogSimplio Labs Blog

Does Your Company Need a Mobile App?

How to Use LinkedIn Effectively

5 Invoicing and Accounting Tools for New Entrepreneurs

5 Online Tools for Visual Content Creation

How to Rank High in Seo in Miami

Google Works To Improve Spam Detection Systems On Google Maps

oDesk is now Upwork

What Is Link Building, and Why Is It Important?

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