What’s the difference between UX and UI design?

What’s the difference between UX and UI design?

Alright, web design devotees and confused creatives, gather ’round! We’re about to embark on a journey through the often misunderstood lands of UX and UI design. It’s gonna be more enlightening than that time you finally figured out the difference between “your” and “you’re”!

But first, let me spin you a yarn from the trenches of design confusion. Picture this: It’s 2014, and I’m at a job interview for a “UX/UI web designer” position at a hip tech startup. The interviewer asks me to explain the difference between UX and UI. Confident in my knowledge, I launch into a detailed explanation about how UX is all about making things look pretty, while UI is about making buttons work.

The result? A look of horror on the interviewer’s face that I hadn’t seen since I tried to explain Bitcoin to my grandma.

Turns out, I had it completely backwards. And thus began my journey to truly understand the difference between UX and UI design. A journey that, hopefully, will save you from similar embarrassment in your next job interview or dinner party conversation.

So, how do you tell the difference between UX and UI design? Well, grab your favorite caffeinated beverage (or a glass of wine, I don’t judge), and let’s dive into this design dilemma!

UX Design: The Invisible Superhero

First up, let’s talk about UX design. UX stands for User Experience, and it’s like the invisible superhero of the design world. It’s working behind the scenes to make sure everything runs smoothly, but you might not even notice it’s there unless something goes wrong.

UX design is all about making sure a product or service is easy to use, efficient, and enjoyable. It’s like being the party planner for a digital shindig – you’re making sure everyone has a good time, can find the snacks, and doesn’t get lost trying to find the bathroom.

Here’s what UX designers do:

  • User Research: They’re like detectives, but instead of solving crimes, they’re solving user problems. They interview users, conduct surveys, and analyze data to understand what people need and want.
  • Information Architecture: This is fancy talk for organizing information in a way that makes sense. It’s like being a librarian for digital content.
  • Wireframing: UX designers create basic layouts of products. Think of it as the skeleton of a design before all the fancy clothes (UI) get put on.
  • Usability Testing: This is where UX designers watch people use a product and take notes. It’s like being a creepy stalker, but for a good cause.
  • Prototyping: They create working models of products. It’s like making a rough draft, but for apps and websites instead of high school essays.

Do Professional Removalists Aid Efficient Office Relocations?

Do Professional Removalists Aid Efficient Office Relocations?

An office relocation is a task laden with several to-dos and complications, but that doesn’t change the fact that it sometimes needs to be done. Can you manage to minimize downtime and sustain operations while you relocate? Such a high-stakes situation requires the expertise of a great removalist company, whose input is often invaluable.

You may think all they do is move the chairs and tables and get them into the new office. Well, they do that all right. But they also plan, execute, and adjust the relocation with acute precision. A potentially stressful, disorganized office move could turn into a structured and orderly one in no time.

Should I leverage a removalist company’s expertise for my relocation? You’ll find out below. Without further ado, let’s see how removalist companies affect office relocations.

Popular Office Relocation Challenges

Office relocation could be a hard nut to crack due to the following challenges:

Minimizing Operational Downtime

Moving from one office to another is nothing like moving from one house to another. With offices, operational downtime is a huge factor to consider. The move disrupts your work, which may lead to financial loss.

But to prevent this, you have to plan meticulously. With adequate planning, you can limit downtime as much as possible. It’s all about balancing effective relocation without sacrificing business functionality.

The Importance of SSL Certificates: Securing Your Website and Building Trust

The Importance of SSL Certificates: Securing Your Website and Building Trust

Hey there, website owners and digital enthusiasts! Today, we’re diving into a topic that’s absolutely crucial for anyone with an online presence: SSL certificates. Now, I know what some of you might be thinking – “SSL what now?” Don’t worry, by the end of this post, you’ll not only understand what SSL certificates are, but you’ll also know why they’re so darn important for your website’s security and your visitors’ trust.

Let me kick things off with a quick story. A few years back, Slinky Web Hosting was working with a small business owner – let’s call her Sarah. Sarah ran an online boutique selling handmade jewellery. She was doing pretty well, but she noticed her sales weren’t growing as fast as she’d hoped. When we dug into it, we realized her website didn’t have an SSL certificate. Potential customers were getting scared off by those “Not Secure” warnings in their browsers. Once we fixed that, her sales shot up by 30% in just two months! But more on that later. Let’s start with the basics.

What is an SSL Certificate?

SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer. An SSL certificate is a digital certificate that authenticates a website’s identity and enables an encrypted connection. Think of it as a digital passport for your website. It proves you are who you say you are and allows for secure communication between your website and your visitors’ browsers.

personal appearance

Consult a Professional Digital Marketing Agency Before Going Online

These days every business should have an online presence. Doing business today is not like it was a decade or more ago. With laptops, tablets and iPhones, your customers or clients spend much of their time online, so this is where you must be. Otherwise, your business will not be as successful as it should be.

But getting online is not as simple as throwing up any website and hoping you will be found. Consulting a professional digital marketing agency before you start will enable you to get up and running without making many of the mistakes that can hinder your business and make it look amateurish, not to mention bury it many pages below the top search engine results.

Just as you wouldn’t dream of designing your own logo without any professional help, or writing out and designing an advertising brochure by yourself, so you need to consult a professional digital marketing agency to ensure you get all the components right. After all, your business website is a marketing tool, just like a big ad in the newspaper was for businesses long ago – and still is, to some extent.

Google Search Console

How To Use Google Search Console To Improve Your SEO

Whether you are an SEO beginner and need simple SEO tactics or are a seasoned pro, Google Search Console has to be regarded as one of the most effective and powerful SEO tools you have available, and better than that, it is free.

Of course, there are many marketing tools and many variants of the ‘correct’ SEO strategy that can be paid for, and some of them are regarded as ‘must-have’ by a large proportion of SEO experts, but anyone who doesn’t use Google Search Console, is missing a trick.

To clarify any confusion, Google Search Console was previously called ‘Google Webmaster Tools‘ so you may have heard of, or even used it when it had its old name.

Its main role is to help monitor how your website appears in the search engine results on Google, and if there are any problems, to help you identify and sort them.

Those errors can come under many categories and require different actions which can include fixing broken backlinks, submitting sitemaps, or correcting technical errors that have arisen on your website.

As for SEO, Google Search Console offer huge opportunities for you to fix or optimise your website, and here are some of the ways that it enables you to do so.

5 Tips For Entrepreneurs And Business Owners Who Wish To Invest In Shares

5 Tips For Entrepreneurs And Business Owners Who Wish To Invest In Shares

You may be someone who owns a business or who derives their income from several sources thanks to your entrepreneurial skills, and this post relates to another means of increasing your wealth, which is investing in shares. Share investment is one of the core means of wealth creation that financial planners regularly plan for and manage for their clients, and the beauty of share investing is that entry to it is relatively easy.

Unlike property investment, where you need a huge level of capital or need to be prepared to borrow hundreds of thousands of dollars, you can get started with share investment with as little as $1,000. Obviously, at that level, you are not going to earn a huge return, but it is a great way to dip your toe in the water and to see if you like share investing.

If you do and plan to increase your level of investment significantly, then we again stress it is important that you discuss this with Perth financial planners. Trying to trade shares without advice or support is a recipe for disaster. In addition to speaking to your financial planner, there are several core principles that you must follow. These ensure that you buy and sell shares sensibly and that you reduce your risk of losses.

Below we have highlighted five tips as these are the most important ones to follow and thus stay true to share investing’s core principles.

Why The Costs To A Business Of Drug Addiction Are More Than Monetary

Why The Costs To A Business Of Drug Addiction Are More Than Monetary

The people who require admitting to a drug rehab program come from a wide variety of backgrounds. Not all are the archetypal “down on their luck junkies” that the movies tend to depict. Instead many of the individuals in drug rehab are in professional roles, including lawyers and accountants, and others are in gainful employment.

A business and drug addiction raise many issues including what level of support is given to employees by employers when drug addiction occurs, and the impact that drug abuse can have on a business. Whilst supporting employees is a positive attitude to take by employers, the negatives that drug use can have also need to be considered.

For example, just an employee who suffers from drug addiction can cause not just for the business as a whole, but other individuals working within that business. Some relate to that individual’s ability to do their job properly, some are behavioural, and ultimately there are those which can create extremely serious consequences. First, let us look at some problems from drug addiction affecting how the person fulfils their role.

5 Reasons Why Drug Addiction Is More Common Amongst Well-Paid Professionals Than You Might Expect

5 Reasons Why Drug Addiction Is More Common Amongst Well-Paid Professionals Than You Might Expect

If surveyed people about who they imagine a typical person attending drug rehab might be, it is almost certain that a majority would describe someone who has come from a broken home, perhaps an abusive childhood or whose life has been one mired in poverty. That classic model of a typical drug addict probably comes from media depictions of drug use and abuse.

Whilst it cannot be denied that some people who have not had the most idyllic of lives do turn to drugs, it must also be pointed out, that many well-paid professionals have also fallen under the spell of drugs and require drug rehab services.

Although they do not account for the majority of drug users, and some surveys put the percentage of those who could be classified as ‘professionals’  who admit to using illegal drugs regularly is around 10%. That might not seem a huge number, but it accounts for over 250,000 individuals who have a drug problem in Australia.

One myth to dismiss immediately is that the main reason professionals with high incomes are regular drug takers is because they can afford it. Ask anyone who helps those addicted to drugs and they will tell you that, for their patients, the amount of money they have is not what drives their drug use, it is their addiction. Actually, those with little or no income are usually able to fund their habit whenever they need to, albeit some may turn to crime to do so.

So, if their high income is not what drives their drug addiction, why do around a quarter of a million professionals in Australia, turn to drugs? Here are five of the most common answers to that question given by high salary professionals who have entered drug rehab programs.

7 Reasons Every Family Lawyers Business Should Be Using Email Marketing

7 Reasons Every Family Lawyers Business Should Be Using Email Marketing

When it comes to marketing your family lawyer business online, there is one way to do so that has stood the test of time, and that is email. Email marketing is tried and tested with countless businesses relying on its effectiveness to promote their goods and services for a significant proportion of their revenue.

Whilst no transactions usually take place via email, businesses of all kinds use email to communicate with their email subscribers and as that relationship builds it is part of what convinces an individual to become a client of that business. Like it has been with family lawyers, that can be the reality for your family lawyer business, too, and to drive that point home, here are 7 of the many benefits that using email marketing can provide.

Email Marketing Is Not Complicated

Whilst some online marketing methods, such as SEO and PPC advertising, require a significant level of knowledge and experience, email marketing can be learned relatively quickly. There are certain principle that must be followed such as not to disrespect your subscribers by emailing them only promotions and nothing else. Beyond that it is nothing more complicated than writing quality emails and sending them to your subscribers.

The Three Stages of Sponsoring Overseas Workers For Australian Businesses

The Three Stages of Sponsoring Overseas Workers For Australian Businesses

For employers considering taking on workers from overseas, there is a process that must be followed to for a work visa to be granted that allows them to work in Australia. As part of that process, an employer is regarded as a worker’s sponsor, and it is essential that they what the approval procedure is. Failure to follow it can mean an application is rejected.

The main process has three stages to it, and we recommend seeking help from an expert migration agent in your destination to make the process as smooth as possible.

  • Approval Of The Business As A Sponsor
  • Approval Of The Position Being Offered
  • Approval Of The Visa

For each one of those three stages to be completed there are a number of requirements that must be met, and as you read on, we will outline the requirements for each stage.

Stage #1: Approval Of A Business As A Sponsor Requirements

In order for a business to be considered a valid sponsor of overseas workers it must be approved as a Standard business Sponsor (SBS). There are two main requirements which must be met. The first is quite simply that the business is currently trading and operating as a valid business. There is no minimum time on this, so even if it is a new business, as long as it trading normally, it can be approved as an SBS.

5 Tips That Will Ensure Your Business Relocation Is A Success

Moving a business to a different set of offices or new business premises is a considerable undertaking, even for a small company. While you might have hired the best from Brilliance Removalists Melbourne to help you, it can nevertheless be an extremely stressful project, not just for the business owner but all the staff, too.

There are a multitude of steps and actions that will each individually help to make the periods before, during, and after the relocation easier to cope with, significantly if they contribute to the move’s success. To give you some ideas about what you can do, we have outlined 5 of the most effective ways to make your office relocation something to enjoy and see as a positive experience rather than a horror show you have nightmares about.

Plan for the Worst, But Expect the Best

No office relocation can succeed if it has not been adequately planned. This should start when a decision to relocate has been made and involve as many of your staff as possible. Your plan will cover all of the basics regarding your move, but it should also anticipate any issues that could arise. This is not to tempt fate but to ensure you are ready to deal with any problems.

Make Sure Everyone Knows What They Need to Know

One of our best tips regarding making your office relocation a success is to communicate with everyone for whom the relocation will have some impact. Your management and staff are communicating with them regarding the relocation specifics. Other business associates, suppliers, clients, utility companies, sign installers, landlords, and so on all need to know. If anything, over on providing too much information rather than not enough.

SEO Practices Google Frowns On

6 SEO Practices Google Frowns On

According to SEO Perth Experts, SEO practices can really help you to success in your website business, whether you want traffic that converts to customers or who will sign up for something you offer for free. As with most things, some people try to trick search engines into giving them a high ranking, but increasingly, these practices not only show them up in a bad light but may completely ruin what could have been a bonafide, successful business.

Here are 6 SEO practices to avoid if you want the search engine gods to smile on your website.

  • Keyword stuffing. This is using keywords much more than is necessary for good grammar and relevant information. Some people even put in keywords to the extent that the sentence simply does not make any sense. Search engines are increasingly aware of this and will certainly not rank your website high if you do it.

Web Design

Web Design Tips to Help Your Business Succeed

In many cases the web design of yesterday are now thought to be inefficient because they clutter up the website and give visitors so many options that they see leaving the website as an easier option. In 2016, the emphasis is on de-cluttering the look and feel of the website and only offering one or two options.

At the same time, websites must be responsive so that users of touch-screen iPhones and tablets can still access them and do all they want to on the website with their device. According to professional web designers, to achieve this some of the features we have become used to in website design are gradually disappearing or changing to improve the user experience. Here are some tips to help your business succeed with a modern, responsive web design.

Leave out the navigation bar

While many users are used to seeing the navigation bar down the left side of the page, the modern web page omits this. Tests have shown that visitors rarely click on it. They read what is on the first page and if they don’t find what they want, they leave.

A navigation bar is an unwanted distraction when all you need can be placed on that front page.  And you can have a full page spread without the navigation bar taking up room. In addition, that extra space often makes the website design pop. It’s like seeing a full page ad in a magazine compared with a three-quarter page ad.

Throw out free stock images

Stock images are the images that everyone uses because they are free. Rather than using those, images that are unique to your website are better. Visuals play an important part in attracting people to a website. If yours are top quality and unique, then you’ll be ahead of the pack. And if you commission them especially then you will be at the top.

Web Design Tools

Best Web Design Tools Of 2019

The number of active websites on the internet is ever-increasing, and there’s a rapidly growing demand for specialists in web design and web development in the modern world. It’s therefore important to current designers to be able to work as efficiently as possible to handle the workload that comes their way.

Luckily, there are a lot of website design tools out there that are designed to help make a designer’s life easier. I’ve crawled the web and consulted some of best web designers in the world, found on Slinky Directory, to find the best web design tools and I bring them to you in this article. Whether you’re creating a brand new website, or redesigning a website, the best website design tools of 2019 include:

Adobe Dreamweaver

Although it isn’t cheap, you should definitely consider adding Adobe Dreamweaver to you website design toolbox. It’s one of the most powerful design tools out there, and it essentially brings everything together into one place to allow those without a lot of coding experience to put their own website together.

Since you don’t have to have a lot of coding knowledge to use Dreamweaver, it has become a favourite among amateur website designers worldwide. And, on top of everything else, it also makes it particularly easy to produce responsive designs, which are absolutely essential in the modern world.

5 Essential Services A Professional Fire Protection Company Should Offer

5 Essential Services A Professional Fire Protection Company Should Offer

Whether you are in need of, or are considering, fire protection services, unless you have a comprehensive knowledge of the subject, it is understandable that you might not be aware of what exactly these kinds of services include.

Another variable will be that some fire protection companies will offer services their services almost like a menu where you select which individual ones you want, and others will package them up with several services included in each package. Regardless of how they are being offered to you, it is important that you are aware of what fire protection services are available to you, so we are going to briefly explain them to you.

One point we must stress is that given the huge diversity of businesses and organisations, and the buildings they are located in, we obviously cannot be too precise with respect to equipment and how each specific service will be implemented, for example. Each location and the fire safety requirements and risks within each will differ, however, we can give you an overview of what the services mean.

5 Nasties That Lurk In Office Carpets Even If They Appear Clean

5 Nasties That Lurk In Office Carpets Even If They Appear Clean

The phrase ‘seeing is believing’ is apt in many circumstances; however, when it comes to the cleanliness and the hygiene of office carpets, it most definitely does not apply. By that, we mean that if you look at the carpet in an office, see it is clean, and believe that it does not require any carpet cleaning, you could be very much mistaken.

The reason you would be mistaken is that whilst the human eye is a marvel of our physiology, it cannot see the microscopic world within the fibres of a carpet. Were it able to or were you to examine the office carpet using a microscope, you would see that, rather than it is clean and hygienic, it instead plays host to an entire world of microscopic unwelcome guests and requires the cleaning services – Let us examine 5 of these miniature nasties.

Food And Drink

Whether it is coffee drips, small spillages from juice bottles or crumbs from sandwiches and crisps, even with daily vacuuming, some of these remain deep within the fibres of an office carpet. Whilst they stay, they are a magnet for bacteria and mould.

Even the occasional rodent out looking for food scraps could be attracted towards your crumb-filled office carpet, which also means that as nature takes its course, the rodent has to deposit its solid waste somewhere. If that is also on your office carpet, the combination of this and the other nasties we mentioned make your office an extremely unhygienic place to work.

Improving Your Dental Practice’s Google Ranking With Effective Website Design

Improving Your Dental Practice’s Google Ranking With Effective Website Design

Any dentist who wishes to have a new website created for their dental practice to show off their skills in dental implants, emergency dentistry and teeth whitening – does not necessarily need to know all the fine detail with respect to the technical aspects of building a website. However, it would serve them well if they did have some knowledge of what specific elements constitute a good web design.

The advantages of this would at first allow them to discuss what they want for their website with more clarity, and thereafter be more able to assess how well the web designer had met those objectives. Moving on from that, knowing how web design can impact search engine rankings, is also a huge plus.

If you happen to be a dentist who is, in fact, currently planning a new website, and with that last point about how web design can impact search engine rankings in mind, here are some of the key elements of effective web design to consider.

Ensure Loading Speed Is Minimal

If you have ever clicked through to a website then had to wait any more than a few seconds for it to load, what went through your mind? Most likely it was not wanting to waste your time, and you probably clicked away to find a quicker loading site. Well, that’s exactly what visitors to your website will do if it takes too long to load.

Loading speed is a vital consideration for any website owner that wants good rankings so you must ensure that your web design takes account of this. Too many initial functions and large files are usually the cause, so ensure these are eliminated or at least minimised.

4 Ways A Business Can Relocate Its Office With Maximum Efficiency

4 Ways A Business Can Relocate Its Office With Maximum Efficiency

Office relocations can happen for all types of reasons. Some can be negative such as a business downsizing due to poor results, but many are positive such as a business expanding, and needing more office space as it employs lots of new staff. Other reasons could be that the lease on a particular office space is expiring and not being renewed. or even that the building that the office is located in is earmarked for demolition.

Relocating to another office can be a considerable project and will most likely require cooperation across a number of departments within the business, requiring business management. There is also the planning and the execution of the move to consider and the potential of lost revenue on the days that office relocation happens, that you will want to minimise.

To give you some assistance in ensuring that everything that you want to happen with respect to your office relocation, happens, and everything you do not want to happen, does not, here are our top tips for an efficient office relocation with the help of office removalists.

Plan, Plan And Then Plan Again

You might have surmised from that sub-heading that we see planning as important, and it most certainly is. The key to your entire office relocation going ahead with as little disruption as possible is how well you plan everything, down to the smallest detail.

If you have departments within your office get each department head to make their own little mini-plan as to what needs to be done in order to move their department. Make updates and alterations as needed throughout the planning stage so that on the day of the move, you are simply checking each stage of the relocation from a checklist as it happens.

5 Unusual Team Building Activities With Specific Objectives

5 Unusual Team Building Activities With Specific Objectives

If you are a team leader, if you do even a little research, you should be able to find lots of unusual team-building activities that you can use to boost, enhance, and motivate your team. Whilst those three objectives we just mentioned are desirable, there are many other benefits that team building exercises can produce.

As the leader of the team, this means that before you organise a team-building activity, even one which is considered unusual, you should first determine what your goals and objectives are for it. Obviously, you want it to at least be fun for your team, but more importantly, what benefits do you want the activity to produce, and what are the positive outcomes you want for your team.

Without first establishing these and then arranging team building activities that can facilitate your objectives, the activity will be nothing more than a day out, and whilst it may produce some positives, it may not have satisfied the needs of that team as you see it with regards to making it a stronger and more focused team.

To help you make a better choice we are going to list 5 unusual team building activities that all generate one or more positive benefits for a team.

 

1. Axe Throwing

Objectives: Team Bonding, Communication, Leadership

Imagine throwing a dart at a dartboard, and then multiply the thrill and fun by about 100-fold and you might just get to where axe throwing is at. This is a great way to bond your team and to give everyone a competitive edge as they compete in teams to score the most points by throwing an axe and hitting as close to the centre of the target as they can.

 

2. Blind Drawing

Objectives: Listening skills, Communication

Two players sit back to back and one of them is blindfolded. The one without a blindfold is shown a word and then has to describe it to their partner without actually giving away what it is. Their blindfolded partner now has to draw what is being described. …

Facebook To Promote A Dentistry Practice

Using Facebook To Promote A Dentistry Practice

If you are a dentist, you presumably have an interest in how your practice or clinic markets itself in order to attract new clients and patients for cosmetic dental procedures. Obviously, the size of your practice may dictate the budget you have for marketing, but in truth, it is not so much the size of your budget that dictates marketing success, but rather, how effectively it is used.

One of the most popular means of promoting dental practices is social media, and the prime social media platform that businesses use to promote themselves is Facebook. As well as being somewhere where family and friends stay in touch and post funny videos and photos, it is also where literally millions of businesses find new customers.

In order to be one of those businesses, the first thing that your dental practice needs to have is its own page. This is basically your own little piece of real estate within the Facebook platform.

To use your page effectively you need to create useful content that you can post there. For a dental practice, these should obviously relate to subjects like oral hygiene, information about looking after teeth and gums, and news about new treatments, to give just three examples.

Office Needs CCTV

Five Reasons Your Office Needs CCTV

If you own or manage a business, you probably already know just how important it is to have a high-quality, reliable alarm security system. Things like 24/7 monitoring and CCTV surveillance are crucial parts of looking after your business and preventing theft and vandalism.

However, not all businesses have CCTV surveillance or a professional security team included as part of their security system. Generally, this leaves you open and vulnerable to intruders, especially if the rest of your system is neglected or poorly maintained. In the rest of this article, we’ve outlined our top five reasons why you should always install security cameras and/or CCTV to protect your office.

  1. CCTV Reduces the Risk of Theft and Intruders

The simple action of installing visible CCTV cameras can help prevent theft and vandalism of your business premises. Visible cameras are a natural deterrent for intruders and can make burglars look elsewhere for an easier target.

This is logical and our primary reason for installing CCTV around your business. Really, why would an intruder target secure premises when there are so many easier and more vulnerable options out there?

Terminate an Employee’s Contract

When Can I Legally Terminate an Employee’s Contract?

In Australia, both employee and employer rights are clear and comprehensive. In general, Australian employment law is fair and provides adequate protection for all parties. However, it can also be extremely confusing and figuring out what your rights are can be time-consuming and frustrating, to say the least.

Fortunately, though, the information is readily available. An experienced employment lawyer will be able to help you figure out your exact rights, and it’s often worth spending a little money to hire one if you find yourself stuck in a complicated situation.

Contract termination is one such complication area, so we’ve decided to provide a brief overview of the subject from the employers point of view. With this in mind, let’s have a quick look at when you can legally terminate an employee’s contract.

  1. If There’s a Termination Clause in the Contract

Many employment contracts contain some sort of termination clause that provides a way out for those who want to terminate their employment early. Sometimes, these come into place if a particular event or action happens, or they may be triggered at an employee or employer’s leisure.

For example, a particular employee’s contract could have a clause that allows early termination without penalty if particular performance targets aren’t met. Note that it’s extremely important to read all contracts before signing them to ensure you know about and are comfortable with any clauses or other termination details they contain.

Using Email

7 Benefits Of Using Email in Your Marketing Plan

If you are not using email marketing as part of your marketing and sale strategies, then we have one simple question to ask you, ‘Why not?’.

Hopefully, the reason is that you simply were not aware of the benefits of email marketing, rather than not believing it can work. We assure you email marketing does work, and in fact, it works wonderfully well for businesses, large and small, and at a global or a local level.

To reassure you if you have doubts, or to educate you if you have not seen what the benefits of email marketing are, here are seven of the most significant which can make the biggest difference to your digital marketing campaign.

Simple To Implement

Of all the online marketing tools or strategies that you might wish to start, email marketing is one of the easiest. At its very simplest, all you need is two email addresses: yours and the person you wish to email.

As a business you’ll obviously want to do it professionally,  so you will use an autoresponder service that allows you to set up your campaigns, run them and measure them, and it does so via one single log in.

Campaigns Can Be Set Up In Advance

The autoresponder service that we just mentioned is one that allows you to create a series of emails and have them delivered at a time and date that is predetermined by you.

What that means is that in a single afternoon you could create all the emails you wish to send, but instead of you having to physically press ‘Send’ for each and every one to go out to your subscribers, the autoresponder does it for you automatically.

That means you could be earning requests for information or sales from the emails you send out, literally whilst you are asleep.

5 Team Building Mistakes to Avoid

If you’re serious about building a successful business or company, you need to make sure that you build a cohesive, functional team of employees. Unfortunately, this isn’t always as easy as it sounds, which means that you might need to implement some team-building strategies.

However, according to Team Works Development, team building can go seriously wrong if you’re not careful. In our experience, there are a few common mistakes that a lot of team leaders make, and they should be avoided at all costs. The five most common include:

  1. Assuming Everyone Is Equal

Although we shouldn’t have to say this, your employees are not equal. Everyone is different, with unique skills, emotions and learning abilities. If you assume that everyone is equal, you won’t be taking advantage of their unique traits.

Additionally, this assumption can be dangerous because it can lead to some members of your team underperforming and not performing to the best of their ability. Ultimately, assuming every member of your team is equal is a sure fire way to not achieve the results you want.

eCommerce Plugins

What Are The Best eCommerce Plugins For WordPress?

WordPress is, without a doubt, one of the most versatile website builders and content management systems available. It’s great for everything from personal websites to massive eCommerce stores, largely because of its customizability and the huge range of plugins it offers.

If you’re thinking about creating an online store, experienced digital agencies will tell you that you should consider using WordPress. If you do decide to use WordPress, then you should look closely at some of the eCommerce plugins available to entrepreneurs around the world.

I’ve done some research and come up with a list of the best eCommerce plugins for WordPress. They include:

WooCommerce

If you ask anyone who knows anything about WordPress eCommerce, they will tell you that WooCommerce is the best plugin on the market – and it’s completely free to get started!

WooCommerce powers almost 10% of all eCommerce website, and an unproportional number of the most popular sites. It offers a huge range of free features, with premium extensions to expand your store’s functionality.

Since WooCommerce is owned by the same company as WordPress, it integrates perfectly with WordPress website designs. It is very well managed, offers beautiful themes, and lets you add as many products as you want.

SEO for New Websites

SEO for New Websites on a Small Budget

For business owners who have large or even unlimited budgets, it could be that they overlook SEO and go straight to paid advertising to drive traffic to their website. Alternatively, they might employ the services of a large SEO agency and get them to undertake every ranking tactic in the book. However, not every business starts out with an endless supply of money, so what to do?

SEO Sydney Pro advise that if you are starting a new business, with a new website, and are operating with a small budget, there are plenty of actions you can take in relation to the site’s SEO and subsequent ranking. The key is that you take a logical and planned approach to this so that each tactic you employ, compliments and supports the others.

The first part of the plan should focus on setting up all the technical elements, which using automobile terminology, could be referred to as the workings under the bonnet. You should sign up for, and set up, accounts for Google’s Search Console and Bing’s Webmaster Tools, which you’ll be pleased to know costs nothing. These tools will provide you with lots of essential data to help your SEO activities.

The next step is to create an optimized XML sitemap and submit it to Bing and Google. Before submitting this, you must ensure that your website’s ‘robot.txt’ is set to allow the search engines’ spiders to crawl your website rather than disallowing them. Another element you should have in place is that your website should have an SSL certificate so that it has ‘https’ rather than ‘http’ protocol.

If you have already started building your website and adding content, then there are two additional technical aspects of your website that you should start to implement. One is the linking structure and whilst there may not be many links and URLs in a new website, even at this stage you should be optimising internal links with regards to SEO.

Drug Rehab’s Search Engine Ranking

5 Simple Things You Can Do To Boost Your Drug Rehab’s Search Engine Ranking

According to SEO marketing company Oxygen Marketing appearing high in the organic search results for relevant keywords should be a priority for every drug rehab facility. The keywords and search terms that you focus on will depend on what sort of services you offer and how big your firm is, but there’s one thing you need to remember:

SEO is about the technical details.

Search engine optimisation is focused on boosting your website’s organic search rankings. You can create the best content in the world and have the best drug rehabilitation website on the internet, but you still won’t rank highly if you ignore the simple technical details.

With that in mind, I’ve put together a quick list of the top 5 things that drug rehabs often forget about when trying to improve their search engine rankings. They include:

  1. Make Sure Your Page Load Times Are Low

People don’t hang around to wait for websites that load slowly. Slow page load speeds are also seen in a negative light by Google and other search engines. It is therefore essential to make sure that you minimise your page load times as much as possible. Choose a fast hosting provider, make sure that you’re following content best practices, and only use plugins when they’re really necessary.

  1. Get Backlinks

The importance of backlinks can’t be underestimated. They are essential for building your website authority and therefore for SEO. Focus on building high quality backlinks through forum posting, online business directory listings, and guest posting.

Link Building

The Importance Of Link Building For Law Firm SEO

Link building is a vital component of SEO for any online business or website. It’s no different for lawyers or law firms who are looking to improve their SEO ranking. In fact, an SEO strategy without link building is very unlikely to succeed simply because backlinks are such a big ranking factor used by search engine algorithms.

But What Is Link Building?

If you haven’t heard of link building before, don’t worry – it’s pretty simple. In fact, it’s almost as easy as creating decent content for your own website. It refers to placing the link to your website on other high authority sites across the internet. This can be done in a number of ways, but the most popular is through guest posting.

The most backlinks that your website has from other sites, the more credible it will appear in Google’s eyes. Well, this isn’t actually completely true, because it’s a bit more complicated than this. Backlinks from other high-quality sites are worth more than backlinks from poor-quality sites, while backlinks from very poor-quality sites could even result in penalties. It is better to have one link from a number of sites than a number of links from one sites, because every new site that links to you will increase your credibility.

Google Updates

Google Updates and What They Tell Us To Avoid

Google dominates the internet search engine industry, so if you want your website to be ranked as high as possible, you should pay close attention to what Google says it is looking for. Over the years Google has sought to make its results the very best they can be and in doing so, have introduced several updates in terms of what they see as a positive and negative SEO practices.

Some of these updates had a devastating effect on thousands of websites who saw their ranking plummet overnight. The majority of these were websites whose SEO optimisation techniques had become undesirable to Google. By moving these sites down or out of their results completely Google expected that the people using their search engine where seeing higher quality results.

Here are the main updates Google have introduced in recent years and what they mean in terms of SEO practices.

Panda

Released in 2011, and still part of Google’s primary algorithm, the main objective of Panda was to tackle the number of websites with low-quality and spammy type content. Specifically, it penalised:

  • Content stuffed with keywords
  • Plagiarism and copyright infringements
  • Duplicate content, especially within a website
  • Low word count pages, or ‘thin content’

To avoid any of these penalties you should always ensure that any content on your website is good quality, is original, has at least 300 words, and reads naturally.

Penguin

Whilst Panda dealt with spammy content, a year later Google decided it wanted to address the issue of dubious backlinking practices. They sought out websites whose backlinking profiles were unnatural, and which seemed to be trying to manipulate Google linking algorithm. Penguin’s main targets were:

Apply For GST

Do I Need To Apply For GST For My Business?

When it comes to tax in Australia, it can be hard to get your head around all of your obligations, especially if you are starting your first small business or something similar. Goods and services tax (GST) experts Accountants Australia advise that GST is an area of confusion among a lot of first time business owners, and is something that gets brought up at their offices regularly.

Additionally, contacting a commercial lawyer can help you with your business taxes. GST in Australia is very confusing. Some small businesses have to have it. Some small businesses don’t. So how do you know if you need to register for GST? Basically, it all comes down to how much money you expect your business to turn over each financial year.

Firstly, what is GST?

GST, or goods and services tax, is basically a small fee that the government puts on top of all purchases and sales in the country. It currently sits at 10% of the price of the item, which means that when you sell something, you will actually have to collect 110% of the amount that you actually want to sell it for – if your business is registered for GST. The 10% tax rate then needs to be paid on to the Australian Tax Office (ATO).

Legal Help

Need Legal help with Starting or Running your Business?

Reliable Business Lawyers look out for your Best Interests

Every business entrepreneur is aware that starting and running a business is no mean task but they may not be familiar with the type of problems that may crop up. Hiring reputed commercial lawyers like Lawyers Perth right from the beginning helps prevent problems and reduces the likelihood of stress, confusion and heavy legal expense at a later stage. Most business owners may consider hiring a lawyer as an expense (especially when they need every dollar to invest in the business). However, the truth is that having a lawyer looking out for you can help you concentrate on other tasks without having to worry about legal implications of decisions. Business lawyers are trained in Australian commercial law and will explain to you the pros and cons of different options and business decisions. They will help you weigh the advantages against potential pitfalls and as a result, you are able to make informed commitments. As online business advice experts will tell you, a business that is unfettered by legal problems and headaches is more likely to thrive, grow and prosper.

prevent-litigation

Tips to Prevent Litigation Against Your Small Business

Lawyers will tell you that litigation once only happened to large businesses; these days, it is also increasingly happening in the small business environment. It can be disastrous for any business, but even more so for the smaller one that doesn’t always have the resources to pay for it and recover. If you own a small business, here are some tips to prevent litigation from happening to you.

  • Watch your mouth. Being careful about what you say or write will help keep you out of hot water. These days, some people are on the defensive all the time, which means a thoughtless joke or comment can be taken the wrong way, and the next thing you know, you are up for slander, libel or harassment of some kind.

Email Marketing

How To Ensure Your Marketing Emails Get Read

If you are not tracking open rates for any of your email marketing campaigns then you should be. If you did check your tracking numbers you may be shocked at how few of the emails that you send actually get opened.

There can be many reasons for this, and it can be very frustrating, spending time making sure your email is as good as it can be, only to see more than half your subscribers don’t even open it. However, there are some actions which you can take to improve open rates and one of the most effective is to improve the subject lines of the emails you send.

One of the most obvious reasons subject lines can impact on open rates is that many people simply scan the subject lines when checking their email, and if they like it they open the email, and if they don’t it gets trashed. This might sound brutal but it is the reality.

Making your subjects more appealing means they must first spark interest in the person looking at them and this interest can fall into one of three specific categories.

ECommerce Store

Choosing a Niche For Your ECommerce Store

If you have decided to open an eCommerce store, is it going to be a general store or a niche store? If you are unsure what the difference is, it’s simply that a general store will sell to any market, and a niche store will focus on selling products which relate a specific subject.

An example of a general eCommerce business could be one that sells t-shirts, caps and other printed goods across all sorts of subjects such as pets, sports, types of employment and hobbies. A niche eCommerce store which also sells t-shirts etc will only sell them if they are within the niche the business targets, such as dog lovers, golfers, teachers or camping enthusiasts, for example.

The main benefit of starting an eCommerce business which targets a specific niche, rather than across general markets, is you can very easily identify those who have an interest in your niche. You will also find that people within a niche can be very passionate about it, and often buy everything they can which relates to it. This will not be the case if your products are more generally targeted.

Leasing Disputes

Leasing Disputes under Australian law and Commercial Tenancy Tribunal

Under Australian law, as soon as an individual signs a commercial lease, he is legally bound to fulfil all terms and conditions of the lease, including the payment of rent, for the whole duration of the lease. Verbal agreements to change the lease are not binding in Australia. If a tenant and the landlord (the individual or business entity leasing the premises) desires to amend the terms and conditions of the lease, such amendments must be set forth in writing, usually with the participation of commercial property lawyers on one side and another firm representing the other side. Both the tenant and landlord must consent to any alterations in the lease. If both the tenant and landlord are completely aware of and consent to the lease conditions, there should be no disputes. Common grey areas, or the areas for confusion involve rent increases and lease renewals.

One of the reliable means of handling leasing disputes is mediation. A hearing by a special tribunal may be viewed as another way to remedy leasing conflicts and disputes. Each State and Territory of Australia has its own tribunal that specialises in handling commercial tenancy disputes. Thus, ACT Tenancy Tribunal was established in 1994 to handle disputes concerning retail premises, or premises located in a shopping centre and small commercial premises that are not located in a shopping centre. The ACT Tenancy Tribunal presently rests its decisions on the Leases (Commercial and Retail) Act 2001.[1]

personal appearance

The Double Edged Sword of Your Personal Appearance

If you are a woman in business you may have become aware that your personal appearance can be a double-edged sword. You do everything to make yourself attractive and presentable for the job only to find you can’t advance because someone thought you were too attractive and that would distract the male employees. If you’ve been in business for some years and have wondered if you should get Botox treatment for those fine wrinkles, take this into account.

Of course you want to look your best, but the trouble is that if you appear too attractive you’ll have to work twice as hard to make people take you seriously. Those with suspicious minds may have other thoughts on how you got the job in the first place or how you managed to keep it. This is why it’s good to go with what you like and don’t pay too much attention to what other people think of you.

Business Plan

What Should be in Your Business Plan

Behind every successful business there is a comprehensive business plan. According to experienced financial planners Andep, there are many things this plan should contain, apart from your personality, including a financial planning section. This should be written by a financial advisor, or at least from information they have provided. Having a financial planner to help will show any lenders that you are serious about your business and they will be able to quickly see whether it is a viable investment opportunity for them.

Here are some of the other things that should be in your business plan: –

  • The title page is more important than you might think. By including this page your lenders will be able to quickly see what the plan is for and general information about it.
  • A one-page business summary. This will need to be written after everything else, but it should be included in the front so investors can get a comprehensive, but brief idea of your business.
  • About your business: this is all the information about the structure, registrations, premises, location, staffing and your products or services.
  • Your marketing plan: You need to do a marketing analysis of the industry you are entering, describe your target market and your competitors. Detail your key marketing plans and how you intend to meet your targets – digital marketing, traditional marketing, email marketing? This will show investors you know what you are doing.

Dress-Sense-in-Business

Business & Your Appearance

It is said that a woman’s age is told by her hands rather than her face. Whether that is true or not, many women in business turn to cosmetic surgery in particular botox in order to present a smooth and young looking face to the world. But if the back of their hands are wrinkled and spotted, their age is still going to show up. That is why it’s important to take care of your hands as well as your face.

There are many facial cosmetics that can hide small veins or age spots on the face, but not as many for the hands. In any case, you need to wash your hands often and that would remove the make-up on them. The best way to keep hands looking young is to slather them in moisturiser at night and after washing them.

social-media-marketing

About Social Media Marketing

If you are a startup or new business in the online world you may only have a small budget for your internet marketing spend. If so, social media marketing may be of interest.  Social Media Marketing is a good way to market your business without spending big dollars on advertising, but the trade-off is that it takes time, at least to do it right.

The learning curve is not terribly steep, especially if you have used social media platforms for fun. Most people have been on Facebook and similar social media sites just for fun, so are used to how it all works. You may have even clicked on one of the ads you see on your page and bought something. Why did you click on it? Because it was something you were interested in.

So imagine having an ad in such a place for your own business. Other people are quite likely to click on it if they are interested in your product or service. The only difference is, now you will learn exactly how to make that ad. This is the backbone of the matter and is hidden from those who click on it as buyers.

commercial-leasing

How to Find the Best Corporate Property to Lease

Professional legal advice will tell you that there are many different criteria to finding the best lease, but before you can even start to look at what is in the lease you have to find a new office building that suits. Here are some tips to help find the property best suited to your kind of business.

  • Know your target market. Only by knowing the market and where they are likely to be can you be sure of putting your business in the same place. While location is not that important for some, it can spell success or disaster for others. So if you have a coffee shop or a butcher’s shop you need to be right where the foot traffic is, but also where there is plenty of parking. If you sell bulk supplies of timber or hardware your business will be in the industrial area. But you’ll need room for larger vehicles to drive in and access their goods rather than multiple parking spaces for cars.