Are you a freelancer who is experiencing one of the absolutes in the average freelancers business?

Those absolutes in general online workers is either one of two things all the time.

Feast or famine.

While it’s a great thing when the feasting time hits your business, you are starting to see the famine side continuing longer and longer for your business.

You need to make a change.

Here’s some great tips you can apply right now to begin getting more clients for your freelance business.

Reach Out To Past Clients

One of the many mistakes a new freelancer makes is not getting testimonials for their business.

If you’re working your business alone, you can understand the overwhelm and lack of time you seem to have to do something which seems meaningless.

However, more than 75% of freelance jobs comes from word of mouth.

The call you will make to one of your happy clients in the past will be to get a testimonial from them so you can list it on your website. However, this is just an icebreaker for you to ask them for five referrals.

Each of your clients has friends and colleagues in your industry who can use the work you provide.

Since you did an outstanding job for them in the past, they won’t be hard pressed to reach out to these business opportunities on your behalf.

Freelance Communities

While you may feel alone in your work at times, there are countless freelancers who are doing the exact same thing you are.

It is always a great idea to attach yourself to like-minded people who are going the same direction as you are.

In that sense, there are groups and communities you can join which will share jobs and opportunities for your business, which clients are picky and which one’s are great to work with.

I have set up a freelance content writers group on Facebook and it has steadily grown to 1200+ people and counting.

These groups will help you grow as a freelancer as well.

Honing your craft is something you should be doing daily and the experience of those in front of you is a great way to do so. Learn from others mistakes and apply them to your own business.

Narrow Your Expertise

You may think it’s a great idea to be a jack of all trades type of freelancer. However, this is further from the truth when it comes to getting clients.

Pick out a niche in which you excel in and begin narrowing this niche down tighter and tighter.

After you have chosen your niche, start creating content and/or projects which pinpoint this expertise that can help your potential clients succeed in whatever it is they’re doing.

After that, share this expertise on social media, get people in your community to help you share in order to get the most out of your content or project.

Guest Post

My own business profits from this type of strategy. Guest posting on high profile sites like Entrepreneur, Inc, and Forbes (working on that one now), can bring more visibility to your expertise and people will reach out to you themselves.

Make sure you are writing in the correct vertical or category on the high profile site as your expertise so you won’t be getting stray clients from social marketing especially if you’re an SEO expert.

Stay Consistent

Once you have logged your expertise, found a nice group to settle in and continually contacting clients for referrals, the only thing left for you to do is to stay consistent with your work.

People notice consistency and it will reward you in the long run.

Continue to create your content for free, give advice, but when it comes to clients coming to you for help, capitalize on this opportunity and ask for the sale.

If you have been consistent with your work, your expertise will speak for itself and you will be able to charge what you’re worth.

In Conclusion

Being a freelancer is a great job to have. However, there’s a lot of online workers who give it up too quickly because they don’t see results right away.

It takes a little while for this to happen but while you wait, you can always join freelance platforms like UpWork to continue to get paid until you can keep clients coming to you.

What do you think? Have you any suggestions for new freelancers who are just getting started?

Let us know in the comments!

The post How A Freelancer Can Acquire More Clients Quickly appeared first on Wade Harman.

Website security is more important than ever. The increasing number of cyber attacks is a clear sign that proper security measures are needed.

Website security is even more important for small business websites and personal blogs because these are the sites targeted by malicious attacks the most.

Even with the best security measures, however, there is still the possibility of your site getting hacked. When that happens, you have to take the necessary steps to secure your data and get the site up and running as quickly as possible. Here are the steps to take after your website has been hacked.

Secure as Much Data as Possible

The first thing you should do after your website has been hacked is to make a complete copy of the site.

This is useful for two things. First, you can take the site offline as soon as the backup process is complete, preventing the site from infecting visitors or other websites, in particular, sites on the same server.

The second benefit of making a complete copy of the hacked site is recovery.

You can observe the site more closely in a controlled environment and you can learn more about the hack, as well as how
to prevent it from happening again in the future. You are also preserving the latest version of the site.

Revert to an Older Backup

If you have been taking backup and security seriously, chances are you have a complete backup from a week ago at the latest.

For those of you who don’t have a backup routine in place, this article serves as a reminder to get one set up for your site immediately. A daily backup or a weekly routine should be enough.

Depending on how often you update your site, a backup that’s a week old or younger is relatively easy to work with. You can get the majority of the site back up in just a couple of hours. The rest can be restored from the complete copy you created earlier.

Dealing with Data Loss

Some hacks and attacks are more malicious than the others, resulting in data loss and catastrophic failures.

There are two ways to handle the situation.

You can choose to replace any broken hardware with new hardware and simply restore the lost data from your backup image.

This is the ideal way to go.

If a backup is not available or you have to recover files from a broken hard drive, then it is best to let a data recovery expert do the hard work for you.

Service providers such as https://www.securedatarecovery.com/ are more than capable of restoring important files directly from the platters inside your broken drive.

Additional Security Measures

Getting the site restored and running is just the first part of the process. The next part is preventing future attacks from happening again.

A hack usually starts with a backdoor, so take the time to scan your server for possible backdoors and security holes.

You also want to review your site’s database and individual files for malicious codes that can be used to perform future attacks. Update your security measures based on your analysis of the attack and you can return to having a secured, smoothly-operating site in no time.

The post The Steps to Take After Your Website Has Been Hacked appeared first on Wade Harman.

Your business is important to you and that’s why you want to do everything in your power to keep it moving forward nicely.

Your decisions effect the company and play a role in shaping the future. If you catch yourself slacking, it’s time to revisit why you got into business in the first place and what you hope to see happen as time goes on.

It’s important for you to step up and be a leader if you want to see change occur. Take the initiative to get the ball rolling and start making improvements that’ll benefit everyone.

See four ways to keep your business running smoothly.

Focus on Client Satisfaction

Your customers should be your number one priority. Put them first and attend to their every need and request. After all, they’re what’s going to keep your business running strong. Track their satisfaction scores and be aware of what you need to do to improve upon to increase their levels of approval.

Ask them what they like and don’t like about your products or services, and listen to their feedback. Take them seriously and implement changes based on their recommendations.

The more robust your client base, and happier they are, the stronger your numbers.

Backup Data & Files

Accidents happen and computers crash, so prepare yourself for the unexpected office disasters.

Use backup software to ensure your data’s safe should an unforeseen misfortune take place. You don’t need the extra stress of losing files because you weren’t prepared for the worst.

Use software as an effective way to backup and restore files on just about any type of system. A disaster can be avoided by using backup software to recover data, and will prevent your team having to scramble and redo their work, or worst yet, tell a client you’ve lost important files.

Secure your data and important records by having a plan in place when tragedy strikes.

Problem-Solve

It’s easy to want to give up when plans don’t go your way, but that won’t get you very far. Use your critical thinking and problem-solving skills to resolve issues in a timely manner.

Business owners need to have the ability to minimize issues and come out even stronger on the other side. Find ways to work through problems instead of magnify them and stress everyone out.

It takes a robust leader to take charge in these tough situations and make the right decision.

Have Solid Teams in Place

No one ever got ahead working completely alone.

You need support systems and teams in place to come out on top. Hire staff and leadership who know what they’re doing and have a desire to contribute to the overall goals of the company.

You want people who work hard and get the job done right the first time. Hire individuals you can count on in tough situations and will perform well when the stakes are high.

Conclusion

Companies don’t always make the right decisions.

That’s why it’s necessary to have proper plans and procedures in place, to ensure there’s a stability factor. These are four ways to keep your business running smoothly.

The post 4 Ways To Keep Your Business Running Smoothly appeared first on Wade Harman.

Are you running a business where customer service is your top priority? Any brand who has a product or service should always be considering the customer service angle of their business. After all, their business depends on keeping customers happy.

Customer service has evolved tremendously over the years. Especially so with the ever changing www because now your customer has direct access to your brand and will continue to gauge your services not only on how fast you reply to their problem, but also how you tackle their nuances with originality and personal touch.

Here’s three options you can give your brand a leg up in the customer service world and create more opportunities for trust, engagement, and involvement in the future between your business and the customer.

#1 – Keep The Experience Better

With anything pertaining to customer service, the number one goal for a business is to always make sure you observe the customer’s experience with your brand.

From the inner workings of your business in allowing a 360 degree feedback from your employees, which allows every worker to evaluate your work ethics and standards, to vamping up your outer experience with the customer. This allows them to have feedback on everything you present them which gives them more freedom to speak their mind and be at ease with your company.

You always want to present an atmosphere of personalness which, in turn, creates a sense of trust within your community.

As long as you can continue to poll your audience, learn their wants and needs, and get to know them as much as you can, you will begin to understand what drives them when it comes to a personal experience with your brand. This then allows you to adjust your customer service processes accordingly and makes everyone happy.

#2 – Allow the Customer To Have Control of Where the Interaction Happens

In the early 90’s when you had a problem with a store, or needed to ask a question what was the first thing you had at your disposal?

The phone.

Do you remember calling up the number they gave you on the piece of paper and then holding on the line for hours on end waiting to take your turn to solve your problem?

That was so aggravating to customers. If your company continues to only be available by a phone number then you’re probably losing business by the droves.

As you know, the evolution of today’s customer service outcome is the fact at how your company can be contacted on every social platform you have an account on, not to mention the direct avenues of connection you give them for your business like email and such.

When you open your doors to allow your customer to contact you wherever you please it makes ease of use and engagement more appealing to them.

Maybe your customer prefers not to email? However, they notice they can contact you via Twitter, which is a platform they’re comfortable in using. Giving them the control of where the interaction happens creates trust and respectability within your brand towards the customers and let’s them know you are looking out for their needs.

#3 – Your Company Stays Informed Of Everything

From the CEO to the administrative assistant, you should be developing your staff in the art of staying informed about what’s going on inside of your company at all times.

There’s a song which says, “If we all pull together, how happy we’ll be…”

Daily/weekly meetings of the inner workings and problems of your business and how each staff member can do their part to make it better gives each employee a small responsibility in helping you pull this customer service train down the rails successfully.

In no way should you be hiding specific problems from anyone you work with. Listen, every business is going to have hiccups and problems every once in awhile. The sooner you understand this, the quicker you will be to allow the people with the real skills to help solve the problem into your inner circle.

Not only inward problems but also learning about the problems on the customer’s side of your business. Maybe a link doesn’t work, or perhaps they are getting the wrong handbag when they purchase one. Whatever it is, address these problems as a team and continue to stay informed to increase customer service happiness.

In Conclusion

Customer service is always evolving and it’s up to you to continue to drive your business towards these inevitable evolutions and grow right along with it. Your business will surely thrive when you think about the customer and how your brand can make them happier.

The post How to Deliver Exceptional Customer Service Through Staff Development appeared first on Wade Harman.

Are you a real estate agent looking to improve your overall business? In this real estate market, there’s a lot of strategies you can use to drastically stay ahead of your competition.

While other real estate agents are still getting accustomed to emails and lead generation, you are way ahead, always pushing the limits with your business and forever trying to improve the way your real estate experience reaches your potential clients.

One of these strategies you may not have thought about yet is the use of drones in your real estate business to keep you a step ahead of your competition. Here are some ideas you can use drones to improve your own real estate business.

1 – Better Photography and Overall Feel

One of the main ways real estate agents like you capture leads and customers is through the way your client sees the property in question.

While walking around the perimeter with your phone is one way to get some good photo’s, using drones for this aspect will give your client a better bird’s eye view of everything they’re interested in at one time.

As you may have guessed, with a drone you can take more aerodynamic photo’s which make your property (and your business) look and feel more professional and exciting. This view gives your client an original way to look at the property they love and it’s always a step in the right direction.

2 – Provide More Visual Stimulation at a Reduced Cost

Bill Brown, the President of NAR said, “Any opportunity you have to further educate the buyer to the property they’re purchasing is a win-win for everybody.”

It’s really all about the budget when it comes to your marketing dollars and providing the perfect visuals for your customers. With drones, your cost drastically comes down because if you do decide to have an aerial shot of your property, you’re not having to pay a high priced helicopter pilot to do it, you can do it yourself with the proper certification.

3 – Provides A Trendy Buzz

Simply having a drone in your marketing arsenal will cause your clients and colleagues to buzz about what you’re doing. It’s different. It’s edgy. People love to keep tabs on someone who is always pushing the limits and testing new things, especially when it pertains to how they’re going to react to something you’re doing.

Drone technology is still a novel idea right now. Having one for your real estate business will set you apart from other agents because you have proven you can go one step further for your client.

4 – Better Views Of Bigger Property’s

This is a no-brainer. The higher you can take the picture, the more property you can include in the photo.

John Morrison, an agent from Illinois, used a drone to capture one of his properties from the air. It had a basketball court, tennis court, pool, and lake. However, all of these aspects of the house was behind the home. No one could see it from a stand alone front-facing image. Using the drone, he was able to include every aspect of the home and all of it’s valuable assets in one photo dramatically raising interest and leads.

5 – Drones Can Give ‘Town Tours’

Another personal aspect drones can give you is you are able to give the prospect a personal view of the town the home or property is located in/around.

As you already know, the client is not only interested in the property they’ll be purchasing, but also the town they’ll be living in. This gives you a great edge in the environment because with a drone you are able to fly around the town and give a view of where the family will be living in the future.

In Conclusion

Using a drone as a real estate agent may seem unreasonable and expensive right now, but it’s one business expense you should opt in for. You always want what’s best for your brand as an agent and using the characteristics of your new drone is going to set you apart from the rest of the crowd.

Your new customer is waiting for a personalized view of what you represent and it’s up to you to give it to them. Not only as a property, but as an idea and an experience.

The post How Real Estate Agents Are Using Drones To Improve Their Business appeared first on Wade Harman.

Many companies are moving to the cloud to improve their business security, flexibility, load time balance and storage. We have therefore chosen to offer an insight into cloud services, so you can identify whether it could benefit your business.

What is the Cloud?

You might have heard the term “the cloud” bandied about, but have no idea what it means. Well, it is not a physical server.

It is a virtual solution that is run on a network of servers, with each server offering a specific function. For instance, Microsoft Office now offers a cloud-based solution that allows subscription users to access the applications online using Office 365, without over installing the software onto a computer using a disk.

You might be using cloud services and not even realize it. For example, when you upload a photograph or video onto Instagram, you are essentially uploading the file onto the cloud.

You might view them as websites, but the likes of Dropbox and Google Drive are cloud services, which can effectively store your information in a secure environment. Click here to view more examples of cloud computing

Why Should a Business Embrace the Cloud?

If you want to reduce your overheads, improve your storage level and heighten security, you should seriously consider moving to the cloud.

You will only pay for what you use, so it can be a great way to take control of your budget, and you can scale your package up or down to complement your business needs.

Not sure what cloud service to choose? Not to worry. Take a look at the different cloud hosting solutions currently available.

A Cloud Server

Instead of opting for an expensive dedicated server or VPS server, you can move to a cloud server, which offers a degree of flexibility to suit your company’s growth.

It is, therefore, the ideal solution for the smooth operation of an individual website or a complete backend infrastructure for a large organization.

Application Hosting

SaaS providers commonly use application hosting for their mission critical workloads, as the cloud platform can support a range of applications that can be customized to their needs.

Unsurprisingly, many companies are embarking with application hosting to simplify their e-commerce and managed software, which will greatly improve the user experience.

So, whether you are a start-up business or an established company, you can select a flexible solution for an online application.

Private Cloud

A private cloud is ideal for companies who want full control of their cloud infrastructure. The likes of Umbeehosting.net can, therefore, build a reliable private cloud that meets your desired capacity, flexibility and security requirements.

You can implement two dedicated servers on site, as well as an SAN-based storage solution. So, you will have full control of your cloud environment.

A Hosted Desktop

If you are looking to centralize your files and applications in a secure data centre, you should look no further than a hosted desktop.

You can access the files on any internet device, while all your files will be stored in a safe and secure location so that you can access the applications and file in any location across the world.

The post An Informative Guide to Cloud Services appeared first on Wade Harman.

Are you a new blogger or writer looking to get started in this industry?

It’s not like you can start a brand new blog and begin reaping the rewards of 100k monthly views.

You’ve got to start somewhere, and while it’s a long road, there are some shortcuts you can take to help you with recognition (audience and social branding) and experience.

I wish I had seen a post like this when I first started blogging.

To have someone map out what I needed to do in order to build an audience is something better taught than learned. While you may be able to figure this out by yourself, it will take both time and failure before you get to where you need to be.

Last week I was thinking of this very thing.

I can help you.

This post will share the exact roadmap you should be taking to further your blogging career, build an audience, and establish yourself as an authority writer.

I’ve made a lot of mistakes, but failure isn’t a stopping point. It’s a launching pad.

Are you ready to blast off?

How To Build Your Audience

Being a new writer/blogger in a particular industry is like stepping off the bus in a new city. You don’t know anyone, or where anything is.

Building your audience is what you should be focused on. It’s the main goal.

However, ‘building your audience’ is still a pretty general term.

6 years ago, I stepped off the bus just like you. I knew I needed to build my audience but wasn’t for sure how to do it. Sure, I read different articles which described tips which included a truth bomb – I should build my audience.

No crap.

I knew I needed to but no one was telling me how.

I had to learn it the hard way.

Hopefully, you won’t have to make the same mistakes as I did, nor will you have to wait as long as I did either.

Let’s start from the beginning.

The Blogging Schedule

I am going to assume you have already chosen a niche-specific industry to write about. You have researched your expertise level and what you love to do so you have built a blog around this plan.

It’s very important you do this to get started.

If you haven’t decided what niche or industry you need, or if you’re not sure how to do it, take a look at these articles which can help you out:

• Blogging Wizard – How to choose the perfect niche
• Chris Ducker – How to find your niche
• HubSpot – How to become the best blogger in your niche

Okay, the first thing you need to do is to get some content on your new site.

This is going to be extremely painful if you’re a beginning writer. I remember some of my first articles. They were 350 words and it felt like I was pulling teeth to write much more than that. But I struggled through it.

There’s no magic number to how many posts you publish, but let’s set a goal to have 5 new posts on your blog.

It’s here when you need to sit down and figure out a posting schedule. This is important because sooner or later, you’re going to have people who will be used to seeing your articles on certain days. If they don’t get them, it creates distrust with your audience so you want to make sure whatever posting schedule you figure out in the beginning is what you can stick to consistently.

Most individual bloggers allow for two posts per week.

There are different opinions on how many articles you should publish on your blog. The more quality content you can push out, the quicker your recognition. But it’s a heavy load to carry in the beginning.

It can be disconcerting when you don’t know anyone or anything in a new ‘world’.

When I first started, I began posting three articles each week, but as my audience grew, and my knowledge of the blogging industry along with it, there were other responsibilities I began to take on which made me regret a posting schedule of three articles per week.

Eventually I toned it down to one a week…I’ll share why in a minute.

Building Your Blog – Guest Posting

As a new blogger, you’re not going to capture traffic all by yourself in the beginning.

You need to take advantage of the guest blogging strategy you’ve been hearing so much about.

Sure, getting published on Entrepreneur.com would definitely help your blog traffic out and get you recognized, but if you’re having trouble pulling 350 words out of your head then gigantic sites like these shouldn’t be your first target to guest blog on.

In other words, you need to work up to these sites. Remember, you’re still gaining experience in writing, building your audience and your traffic as well.

But where in the world could you guest blog which would give you traffic and notoriety? There’s a lot of places you can go, but not all of these sites help. Some can even hurt your site because of their affiliation with Google and the type of links they provide.

Having a ‘backlink’ from these sites is why the majority of people guest blog in the first place, however, don’t think of it as gaining a backlink. Think of guest blogging as gaining more traction with your audience.

Don’t get caught up in the link building process just yet.

Where was I?

Oh yeah, where can you go to guest blog? Who would take your articles and still have a good reputation for your site?

There’s tons of great sites you can post on, some of which are right here and will more than likely accept your guest post if you understand how to construct a coherent sentence structure.

Now just build your portfolio.

Write everywhere you can and don’t forget to continue to be consistent on your own blog. But still have a regular guest posting schedule as well. As you develop your writing skills in guest blogging you can graduate to THE BIG SITES who accept guest posts from experienced writers.

Warning – if you don’t want to get shot down stay away from these sites until you can better understand what they need from you and how you should be writing it for their audience.

Building Your Blog – Tools

I’m not a guru on blogging tools, however, I know what works for me. Once again, these were facts I had to figure out on my own and they are useful in building your blog.

First of all, you’ve got to have some tools to help your blog grow.

From WordPress commenting plugins to social sharing tools to post and scheduling, all of these work to help establish your content to your potential audience.

Here’s some tools I use which helped me bring more attention to my personal blog: (Some of these are affiliate links and I will get paid for referring you)

• Social Warfare – This is absolutely the best blog sharing plugin for WordPress I’ve ever had the pleasure of putting on my site. Before Social Warfare, I had tons of broken-hearted relationships with other social sharing plugins but they always disappointed me. Social Warfare allows you more control – from placing a pre-loaded image for your tweet when someone clicks the button (go ahead, click it and watch what happens: you don’t have to do anything), to constructing a perfect image for Pinterest. Social Warfare has been designed to make the sharing experience a lot faster and easier for the reader. Any of those social buttons you decide to press after you read this, I did a lot of work on the backend so you don’t have to do any work now. It’s beautiful and my first recommendation for your new blog. I’m also not giving Social Warfare enough credit – the guys over there have really integrated it into a lot of other things which make it more helpful. Click the Social Warfare link to find out more about it.
• Buffer – This tool is great because you don’t have to pay for it if you can’t afford it right away. However, there is a limit for the free version, but it can help you all the same. Up to 10 social posts can be stored in your social accounts to be blasted out throughout the day. If you do decide to go to the next tier level (which is $10/mo and totally worth it), it gives you more freedom with posting and, of course, it allows you up to 100 shares on each social account. An individual blogger can get by with the $10/mo version easily.
• MailChimp – Every new blogger needs to start capturing emails. This was one mistake I made early on because I didn’t know what an autoresponder was. Forget all of that. When I finally did learn I needed to capture emails, I went with the first one I heard about and it was pretty expensive. With MailChimp, everything is free – up to 2,000 subscribers. This is perfect for the new blogger because I understand your need to eat and not spend your money on an autoresponder system which carries 3 subscribers. Grab MailChimp, create a list, build your signup form, and start capturing emails for free. If you want the extra bells and whistles, it’s going to cost you, but the things you can get by with now (like scheduling an email blast) still works on the free plan.
• WPSubscribers – This works with your email autoresponders and it attracts more sign ups. Now, you don’t REALLY need this, but it did increase my opt in rate by 37% when I first put it up. It simply creates a better looking opt in form, pop up, exit pop up, top banner, etc (there’s lot’s of choices) and you can choose to use all or one of these features. If you are really targeting a specific genre of audience this can help drive your point home to them.
• 750words – One of the best things I did was to sign up for this feature. 750 words is a tool you need if you’re a new blogger because it prompts you to write 750 words every day. As you may have guessed, the more you write, the better you become. I’ll talk more about this later.

Building Your Blog – Writing

The last tool I just mentioned is going to help you do a lot of that. 750words.com teaches you to brain dump and simply write everything in your head at the time. Don’t think, just write.

The best practice I did besides 750 words was being consistent in creating quality content on my blog and through guest articles I wrote for other people.

There’s really not much else to say on this topic. No one can teach you this part, you have to get down and do the work yourself if you want to be recognized.

Read other influencers in your industry. What are the popular blogs in your niche? Scour these sites and learn their writing styles and habits. You can begin to understand how your writing style can bloom by watching other great writers.

One of my favorite writers is Demian Farnworth and take a look at this video, there’s a lot of great writing pointers in here from the master himself.

Building Your Blog – Relationships

Relationships are the key to any great blog or business out there. You’ve heard the saying, It’s not what you know, but it’s who you know. There has never been a truer statement.

Relationships can open so many doors to your blogging business.

Most of the time, the people who you want to build relationships with are people who can bridge the gap between your blog and their audience. AKA, influencer marketing, the term can become confused because it can be deemed a selfish marketing act, but you have to look at it in terms of helpfulness.

Your blog needs a specific audience – “Jim” has a million followers who would definitely love what you have to teach them. So naturally, you want to befriend “Jim”. If Jim would give you a shout out, it’s possible some of his audience could trickle over to your site.

But how do you get Jim to notice you? Out of the noise of all the other bloggers who are trying to do exactly the same exact thing you’re trying to do?

Here’s how.

Create an environment of helpfulness and you will always see relationships built for your brand.

One of the ways I have built relationships with influencers all over the country is because I learned what they needed from me.

Could Jim benefit from you writing a helpful post about his new book release? What if you saw something on Jim’s brand page on social which was wrong and possibly costing him followers?

Take note about how you can help Jim, all while consistently engaging him and his brand on social media and sharing and commenting on his blog at the same time. You see, what you’re doing is creating remembrance of you in his mind. So when the day comes when you finally understand what you can do for Jim, he’s going to say to himself, Hey, I remember them…they’re super engaging and know my brand.

Relationship marketing is when you can do something for someone else with no expectation of anything in return. It doesn’t end up working out like this because psychologically, the law of reciprocity states when you do a favor for someone, and it’s truly helpful, they feel compelled to return the favor to you.

When Jim asks you what he owes you, tell him absolutely nothing. You weren’t doing it for pay, you just wanted a friend.

What do friends do?

They share and promote. They have you guest post. They invite you on their podcasts and other media outlets.

They build your brand.

Relationship marketing is a powerful aspect in which you need to start applying to your blogging brand.

In Conclusion

Consistency is your best asset.

Consistency in writing, creating content, engaging with others, guest posting, etc.

There are lots of chainsaws to juggle in the world of blogging. People do it every day, and I am confident you can do it too. All you need to do is follow these short instructions every day, set goals for yourself and go at it.

Do you have some suggestions for newbie bloggers? I’m sure I’ve missed something and I would love to hear your pointers in the comment section!

The post How New Writers Can Get Experience and Recognition in Blogging appeared first on Wade Harman.

Security is bound to be a company’s primary concern. After all, a breach can not only have significant consequences for the business, but it can pose a threat to customers, clients and employees.

Unfortunately, there are hackers who have made a career out of stealing, destroying or holding data to ransom for their own financial gain. Unfortunately, if a company fails to have the effective security measures in place, there is no reason why it will not become a cybercriminal’s next victim.

We are therefore looking at the importance of company security and how you can protect your business.

The Biggest Online Threats to a Business

One of the biggest threats to your business is a ransomware attack, which is believed to be a billion-dollar business for cybercriminals.

If you haven’t heard of ransomware, it is a computer attack that gains control of a system and holds data to ransom to extort money from organizations. Unfortunately, more ransomware innovations are likely to take place in
2017 and beyond, with many financial firms becoming a target for attackers.

Another significant threat to a company is a Business Email Compromise (BEC). Intelligent cybercriminals have created scam emails that appear to have been sent by the CEO, in an attempt to trick a member of a finance or accounts department to transfer funds to a bank account, which is owned by the cybercriminal.

Microsoft Office 365

With many security threats posing a risk to a company’s infrastructure, it is unsurprising that many organizations are turning to the cloud. Instead of storing valuable informative on an in-house computer or server, all your sensitive data can now be safely stored in the cloud, which you can access on any device, anywhere in the world, which can provide a heightened level of security protection against cybercrime.

Encrypted Email Outlook

Any business sending sensitive data over an untrusted network could risk their information being intercepted by eavesdroppers.

So, the internet can pose a risk to your data security, if left unprotected. It is, therefore, advisable to consider document and email encryption, as well as an improved Office 365 email archiving to improve redundancy with the help of Bytes.co.uk, who can provide a range of third-party tools to support your Office 365 environment.

Not only can you benefit from encryption that will only allow authorized recipients to access the information, but you can also protect your business against malware or infection threats with an endpoint security solution, which will allow you to stop hackers in their tracks.

Backup Services

Every organization must backup, or they will fail to meet their compliance requirements. It is, therefore, advisable to have a backup and disaster and recovery solution in place, which can encrypt data when both stored and sent, and you will have the peace of mind knowing you can restore your data when needed – which is essential if you experience a ransomware attack.

So, if you want to tighten and heighten your security measures, it is worth considering moving to the cloud, while using supportive third-party tools.

You should also develop an internal data security policy, which can provide internal education to prevent a business from becoming vulnerable to a cyberattack.

The post How to Protect Your Business appeared first on Wade Harman.

Every day offers another opportunity to grow your business a little bit further. Unfortunately, simple issues could be slowing down your company’s performance, such as employee morale and unproductive processes.

We are therefore providing helpful advice on how to boost your business’ productivity levels.

Identify Unhelpful Processes

It is important to identify what could potentially be preventing your employees from making the most of each working day. For example, does a department head hold too many meetings that stop a team from focusing on their task list?

Is a member of staff working on a tired, old computer that’s slowing down their performance?

Is a colleague a little too distracting in the workplace?

Once you have identified what is slowing down productivity, you can make the appropriate changes to improve the company’s performance and boost employee morale.

Not sure how to gather the answers you need? We recommend an employee survey from insightlink.com, which you can customize to your organization’s requirements.

Reward Your Employees

Rather than employees working to live, you should aim to ensure they live to work, and the best way to do so is by changing the company culture.

Create an office environment that provides a fun, friendly atmosphere, making their job a source of pride.

All work and no reward is never a good company culture, which is why you should try to thank your hard-working employees with awards, gifts and bonuses. There is also nothing worse than a member of staff feeling like they are just a number, so learn all their names, say hello in the morning and take an interest in their daily lives, from the cleaner to the department head.

A little conversation really can go along way – and a senior manager’s friendly nature will filter down to the management team, too.

Utilize Talents

As we’ve just mentioned, it’s important to get to know your staff whenever possible. Not only can this boost employee morale, but it may also provide an opportunity to learn a little more about your employees’ talents.

For example, your graphic designer could also have a degree in English, which means he or she can be a content writer, designer and a proof-reader when designing banners, advertisements and logos. Your administration may also be fluent in another language, so you will have another way to communicate with overseas clients or customers.

The chances are, your employees will have many diverse and wonderful talents that you can utilize to your company’s advantage.

It is important to take the time to listen to your employees. The more you listen, the more open they will feel about discussing issues in the workplace and presenting ideas.

What’s more, a caring boss will boost their loyalty to the company, which, in turn, will improve their productivity levels.

So, take the time to have a conversation with an employee, develop insightful employee surveys and banish any issues or counter-productive tasks that are halting performance.

Your profit margin and employees will soon notice the difference.

The post 3 Ways to Improve Business Productivity appeared first on Wade Harman.

So you have a new product and a brand new website?

Brilliant!

But no one is visiting it. Why?

Well because digital marketing isn’t just about creating an engaging product and showcasing it well. It’s about finding interested customers and driving that traffic back to your website.

SEO (search engine optimization) is still the most popular way to attract a sustainable amount of traffic. However gaining traffic and any sort of search engine rankings from day one is not easy.

It requires work, skill and above all else – useful, engaging information.

For a new website or a business that are just getting started with internet marketing, SEO can be quite frustrating. Despite the recent changes to search engine algorithms and their now real-time approach to indexing, a new website still needs months – sometimes even more – before it can be fully SEO-optimized and get real traction from organic traffic.

So how do you drive traffic quick?

Gaining Traction Early with Pay Per Click Ads

It can be very frustrating to open Google Analytics and see only 1 or 2 visitors accessing the site, but almost all site owners have this experience when their now-successful websites were just a few days old.

What you need is a campaign that works with your SEO and content marketing efforts. Fortunately, internet marketing does offer a number of instruments that can produce instant results and give the site a nice boost of traffic early on.

For starters, you can use ads to promote the site. There are a lot of advertising networks you can now utilize, regardless of your budget. There are also PPC management services that will help you maximize the budget you have for advertising, allowing you to gain more for less.

Paid Ads are particularly effective for new sites. This is because it allows you to understand what the search traffic is out there around your chosen products as well as which search terms and content converts best, thereby allowing you to optimize your SEO efforts around these.

Adwords/Bing Ads still remains the fastest way to drive relevant traffic to a new website here in the UK. Be mindful though, you do have to pay for every click so make sure you have your KPI’s and budget clear from the start.

Social Media and Stories

Simply put – start sharing right away! You can tell behind-the- scene stories about how the products you will be selling are developed. You can even take the audience on a journey and let them be part of the experience of starting a new business and this can happen even before you launch your website.

This content is easy to produce.

Since it is packaged into stories that users can follow, it is also great for building hype and creating a buzz around an upcoming website or product. When the site is live, all you have to do is direct your followers to the new site.

Think about what people might find useful or engaging when using social media that fits with your products and services. Then use things like sponsored posts on Facebook and Sponsored Tweets on Twitter to reach audiences quicker.

Find authority figures in your industry and start sharing information with the people who can make a difference early.

What Next?

As mentioned before, attracting traffic is just the first step. Both paid ads and social media are great ways to promote your site, but you should never stop there.

The second part of the equation is retaining those visitors. You want them to return for more; you want visitors to convert into customers and make purchases or perform a different action.

How can we do that? We’ll save that discussion for another article. Be sure to subscribe and stay tuned for updates right here on my blog.

The post While You Wait: How to Gain Traction Early appeared first on Wade Harman.