How To Perform A Cyber Security Assessment

Cyber security is an important factor in a company’s risk management strategy. It needs to be performed correctly so that it won’t leave the company vulnerable to potential threats and attacks.
When it comes to security assessment, the needs of companies vary because the needs of a multi-national corporation cannot be compared to a mid-sized business. However, all companies regardless of size will always try to minimize the amount of risk it undertakes. To do this, risk assessment is a procedure they cannot do away with.
Luckily, risk management does not have to be complicated. It can be broken down into these steps:
Come Up With A Risk Management Plan
Even if you’re good in cyber security, you can’t be everywhere at once. You need a team to back you up and help you gain insights to the total risk of your company. Businesses are usually composed of departments and all of them work differently. Therefore it is important to have a team that can work cross-functionally not only to communicate risks but also to come up with holistic analysis. A good team should have:

• Senior management to provide oversight.
• Chief information security expert (or its equivalent) to check network architecture.
• Marketing to discuss stored information.
• Product management to guarantee product safety as it undergoes development cycle.
• Human resources to provide insight to employee information.
• Manager for each significant business line to take care of all data at this level.

You want to make sure that business objectives are aligned with security goals which is why you need a cross-functional team so that you can get the desired results.
Catalog Information Asset

Interdepartmental risk management is important because it allows you to catalog all information assets. Let’s say that some things won’t escape your notice such as information your business collects, stores and transfers but the same can’t be said with different Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) used by other departments.
Departments might not also realize that they can put information at risk by using some SaaS vendors. In fact, 3
rd
party vendors are usually the source of data breach risks. There are questions you need to ask yourself to help you understand the different information collected, stored and transferred by your company. These include:

• Types of data collected by department.
• Where is it stored?
• What is the transmission process?
• Why are you collecting this information?
• Which vendors does each department use?
• Which info is accessed by vendors?
• What is the authentication process for info access?
• What devices are used by the workplace?
• What are the networks utilized to process these information?

Answers to these questions will give you a clear insight as to what your business is dealing with.
Risk Assessment
Importance of information varies in every organization because some are more critical than others. This is also the reason why not all vendors are secure. After taking a look at your information assets you should now turn your attention to the possible risks posed by vendors.

• Identify networks, system and software crucial to your business.
• Identify information that should have management confidentiality, availability and integrity.
• In case of data loss, which devices are at high risk?
• What are the chances of data breach or corruption?
• Determine the system, network and software that are vulnerable to data breach by cyber criminals.
• What is the potential financial reputation in the case of a data breach?

Risk assessment is not easy and takes time. However, it can be made easier by making a catalog out of your information assets and identifying areas that are easily accessible by cyber criminals. Therefore it is important to go over every information, data, software, network, system and device to understand risks they pose.
Risk Analysis
Risk analysis is the next step to assessment. The way information is secured is not always risk-free. Therefore it is important to consider:

• Probability of cyber criminals accessing data.
• Financial, reputational and operational impact of a data breach.

Determining the probability of impact will help you determine risk tolerance level. This way you can accept, transfer, mitigate or refuse a risk.

Come Up With Security Controls

Coming up with risk tolerance will give you ideas on security controls. They should include:

• Network segregation.
• Password protocol.
• Workforce training.
• At-rest and in-transit encryption.
• Vendor risk management program.
• Anti-malware and anti-ransom software.
• Firewall configuration.
• Multi-factor authentication.

These are just examples of some controls. The most important thing is to always remember to align business goals with security needs.

Monitor and Review Effectiveness
Cyber security is always a hot topic. Somebody will always try ways to come up with methodologies to compromise security controls. This means that businesses need to maintain a risk management program and monitor IT environments regularly for any new threats that could arise. Make sure that your risk analysis is flexible to adjust to new threats. An unbreakable IT security profile is something that can evolve with any risk that comes along the way.

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Reducing IT Costs

It’s no secret that can be expensive especially when it comes to business. However, it is the cornerstone of many businesses so it’s not really something that you can easily do away with. Aside from this, IT costs are continuing to rise as technology becomes more advanced so budgeting for it can be difficult.

Luckily, there are ways you can reduce IT costs without sacrificing the quality of your service or security. Here are some ways you can reduce IT costs for your business.

Renegotiate Existing Contracts

If you don’t ask then you won’t receive. Some business owners simply sign a contract with their vendors and then leave them as is. What they don’t realize is that could be missing out on deals, promos, price reductions and offers.

Negotiate with your vendors if you’re serious about reducing IT costs. Some benefits include:

• Get what you want.
• Receive a good deal.
• Save money.
• Win-win situation for both of you.

Consolidate

Some businesses don’t realize that they’re using multiple vendors for different needs. However, consolidating vendors, platforms and software can help you reduce IT costs meaning more spending power. It will also help improve security.

Other benefits of vendor consolidation include:

• Easier vendor management – fewer vendors mean less relationships to manage.
• Lesser freight costs – the more vendors you have the higher the freight cost since you have to pay for every fare.
• Better relationships with vendors – easier to cultivate vendor relationships. Now that you’re spending money on your chosen vendor they will value your relationship more.

Use the Cloud

The cloud has become an indispensable tool for many businesses. Using the cloud can help reduce IT costs because it can eliminate the need for expensive storage hardware kept on-site.

Cloud computing is cost effective because businesses can scale their needs as they arise. It is also efficient because businesses don’t need to worry about underlying infrastructure costs or maintenance. Best of all it gives businesses a technological advantage by providing innovative technology.

Use Open Source Software

Software can be very expensive in terms of purchasing cost and annual maintenance. Luckily there are open source software that can help you eliminate this cost. There are even software that you can customize because you have access to the source code.

Other benefits include:

• Ability to let your start small. You can start with a community version and then upgrade to commercially supported editions as your business grows and expands. If it doesn’t require support you can continue with the community version indefinitely.
• Solid security. Open source sometimes gets a bad rap in terms of security. However, this is not true because the open source community is very responsive especially when it comes to information security.
• Attracts better talent. Many industry experts believe that IT is headed towards open source. Many like to create their own projects and have the ability to interact with others to develop solutions. Having the ability to be flexible and free helps to attract better talent.
• Flexible and agile. Technology is evolving fast so you have to compete not only on flexibility but also agility. If not you’re going to lose to the competition. Open source gives you the ability to be technologically agile especially when it comes to solving problems.

Offshore Outsourcing

It’s no secret that offshore outsourcing is a good way to cut IT costs. There are many talents around the world that offer lower prices in exchange for their abilities. Outsourcing can also give your on-site talents a break. However, work should always be carried accurately and existing workflow should be maintained. This is why you have to hire outsourced talents only from reliable providers.

Use Managed IT Services With Fixed Fees

Use managed IT services that have fixed fees. IT services usually have varied fees depending on your requirements or whether you need it long or short term. However, using services with fixed fees can make your budget easier to manage.

IT services should include security service that protects your business from cyber-attacks. This should help reduce cost because maintaining an in-house cyber security team can be expensive.

IT costs can be expensive but it is essential for all types of businesses that operate on the web. The above strategies are good examples of those that don’t sacrifice quality. These tips can help you free up cash and maximize profit without compromising the IT requirements of your business.

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E-Commerce Predictions For 2019

The ushering of the New Year is usually accompanied by predictions. However, unlike the spiels you usually hear from fortune tellers at your local flea market, these predictions are more reliable since they are backed by some of the most important names in the internet and tech world.

As we all know, WordPress is powering approximately half of the world’s website. It is being used not only for blogging and networking; it is also the top choice for E-Commerce websites. With so many users around the globe there might be people who are wondering what’s 2019 going to look like for WordPress and E-Commerce?

Let’s ask the experts who were present in Nashville for the WordCamp US in early December of last year. WordCamp is the national conference for WordPress.

Zach Barrientos – PayPal

Zach Barrientos of PayPal merchant services is predicting a boom in the marijuana industry. He explains that as the US federal government regulates the industry, demand for the product will increase and so will the number of sites catering to this type of business.

Matt Cromwell – GiveWP

Matt Cromwell is a partner and head of support for http://GiveWP.com. His prediction centers around donations and non-profits. His prediction is in line with the increase of donations given in the US during Giving Tuesday. According to him, people in the US gave $70 million in 1 day and he sees this number increasing phenomenally. Donations are part of e-commerce so many people are paying attention to this space.

Patrick Garman – Mindsize

Mindsize Partner Patrick Garman predicts more people moving out of the WooCommerce space and moving to WordPress. WooCommerce will remain as a heavy player in the e-commerce space because everyone can use this and WordPress to start their shop. As stores grow and expand there will be many users who will have a love-hate relationship with these builders. This is why he predicts that WordPress will develop a more hybrid approach with other platforms like Big Commerce and Shopify to help provide solutions.

He hopes that solutions generated by these players will be agnostic so that it will become easier to integrate between WordPress and whatever platform they are using.

Justin Nealy – GoDaddy

GoDaddy hosting supervisor Justin Nealy helps people set up their websites every day and predicts that e-commerce ecosystems like WordPress will make it easier for newbies to create an online store. While WordPress is easy to set up, it can be overwhelming to somebody completely new to creating a website or selling online. With help from plugins like Gutenburg, he states that anybody can create a WordPress site with whatever plugin they want.

Brian Richards – WPSessions

Brian Richards runs WPSessions and by extension WordSesh conferences. His prediction for 2019 is a more headless style e-commerce approach just like what BigCommerce is bringing to WordPress.

He is interested in seeing more boutique shops with people creating more independent Etsy shops because barrier of entry for these types of e-commerce shops is reduced.

Chris Badgett – LifterLMS

Chris Badgett of LifterLMS on the other hand predicts a shift from off hosted eCommerce to WordPress eCommerce due to GDPR and privacy issues in Europe. He predicts that users from this area will want to move from the SAS kind to self-hosted WordPress so they have the data located in their country, which is one of the requirements for European GDPR.

He also predicts more complex tax issues in e-commerce and hopes to continue to see more innovation in this space. He predicts that more players will emerge in the tax solutions so that the average user can easily figure out and manage tax especially on a global scale.

What are your e-commerce and WordPress predictions for this year? What do you think about the predictions above? Tell us by leaving your comments below.

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Keynote or PowerPoint: Which App To Choose For Presentations?

When it’s presentation time, using the right kind of software can make the job easier. For PC users, the choice is obviously PowerPoint but Mac users have another option: Keynote. So which one do you choose? They’re both great for different uses. This article will talk about the pros and cons of the two software to find out which one is suitable for your needs.

Keynote

Keynote is designed for Apple devices. It works on their computer, tablet and phones using the iOS software.

This program allows users to create sleek presentations with its easy to use tools and intuitive design. The side navigator has options for designing slides and different layouts, animations, fonts. Keynote is also able to make presentations from other software.

Keynote Pros

• User friendly.
• Lots of themes to choose from.
• Basic setup lets you align and position elements for a sleek looking design.
• Can be used for different types of multi-media like sound, video and other file types.
• Great integration across different devices.
• Polished animation, transition and transparency effects.
• Software is free for all iOS devices.
• Photo manipulation tools like cropping is easier in Keynote.
• Lots of extra templates you can download.
• More polished overall aesthetic.

Keynote Cons

• Not highly adopted as other programs.
• Does not support 3D effects.
• Learning curve if you’re coming from software.

Choose Keynote if you’re a Mac user and want to make your presentations look like PowerPoint. It is relatively easy to use and comes installed with your OS. It’s a good option for creating presentations.

PowerPoint

 PowerPoint is probably the most popular presentation software in the world. When it comes to going head to head with other tools like Keynote, ease of use is always the biggest consideration. If you’ve been using PowerPoint for a long time, switching to Keynote might not be easy for you.

PowerPoint was originally designed for PC and is now part of the Microsoft Office Suite. It works on PC and Apple devices. Keynote works well on mobile devices but PowerPoint is more limited to creating presentations on your desktop.

PowerPoint Pros

• Thousands of themes and templates.
• Editing is easy thanks to drag and drop interface.
• Easy and seamless integration with MS Word and Excel.
• Slides can be converted to handouts and look really great.
• Easy data and chart integration for building quick graphic works.
• Advanced functions provide a lot of control for pro users that can control almost any aspect of the design.
•  Smart design suggestion can help you create more visually appealing slides.

PowerPoint Cons

• Adding multi-media can be flaky.
• Cropping and photo editing can be tedious.
• It’s easy to create bad design with garish animation with just 1 click.
• It’s not free.
• There are a lot of unneeded functions that get in the way.

Use PowerPoint if it’s the best option for your working environment where people are used to collaborating on PowerPoint. It’s the go to option for people who don’t use Mac. It’s compatible with any type of computer since the slides will work.  It’s also preferable if you’re bringing complex data into charts or slides because it is integrated with Excel.

Conclusion

If your working environment is composed of people who do a lot of presentations, it’s probably a good idea to have everybody comfortable with both Keynote and PowerPoint. If you have an option, Keynote is a good choice if you’re working in slides without massive amounts of data and PowerPoint is preferable when working with charts and numbers.

Do you prefer Keynote or PowerPoint? Which tool are you most comfortable with? Tell us by leaving your comments below.

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Best Ways To Boost E-Commerce Conversion Rates

There are many ways to get people to visit your e-commerce site. But getting them to go to your website is just half the battle because the real one is to convert visitors into paying customers. According to Moz.com, average conversion rate for a typical e-commerce site is 1.6% and 92% of people who visit a website don’t make a purchase.

Unlike traffic, there is no direct way or a fool proof formula to boost conversion. All websites have to create an experience so that your website sells. There are also many different factors that influence a customer’s decision to buy. Website owners and webmasters need to be intentional and strategic in setting up the buying process so that your website converts.

Here are some of the best ways to boost e-commerce conversion rates.

Recommend Products Based on Customer Behavior

If you were in a real store, the salesman would not suggest products that were irrelevant to your choices. The same is true when it comes to interactions between your website and the customer.

There are many tools you can use that recommend products to customers based on their behavior. A good example is Unbxd which uses AI to analyze actions of users on your site to suggest the best products in the footer and sidebar automatically.

A/B Test Whenever Possible

Every single detail in your e-commerce store matters because they will want to make your visitors stay or go. Luckily unlike brick and mortar stores, it is very easy to make little changes on your website to test different options like CTA, content, header and footer options, buttons, colors and other details.

Constantly doing A/B testing can help increase your revenue because you can consistently improve the little details that can help or hinder the conversion process.

Reviews and Peer Generated Content

Almost all people who buy online read reviews first before making a purchase. According to a study conducted by the Spiegel Research Center, 95% of people read reviews before purchasing a product.

This means that including reviews can help boost conversion rates by aiding customers in making a decision on your site rather than searching elsewhere.

Amazon does a good job of not only including customer reviews and peer generated content. They also allow users to post photos of their purchase.

 Customer Support

In a brick and mortar store, staff would be available to guide customers through the decision making process. However, in an e-commerce site, a customer usually decides by himself. All they have is your interface to help them figure out their options. This means that their experience in your website drives sales for you.

But customers have questions during the buying process and this is where customer support comes in handy because any unanswered question can cost you a sale. Studies suggest that 92% of customers feel satisfied when a website has a live chat feature.

Speed Up Your Site

Your website should not take more than 3 seconds to load. According to Hubspot, fast loading pages can deliver between 7-12% higher conversion rates compared to slower ones.

Luckily, this can be fixed easily by installing tools such as W3 Total Cache that can help you minify HTML, CSS, etc.

Include Exit Offers

90% of the visitors that come to your website for the first time are not coming back. This can be disheartening because you worked hard and paid for the traffic and it’s not making you money.

A good way to entice this type of visitor is to include exit offers to communicate with them and to convert them in the future. Tools like OptinMonk uses AI to determine when a guest is leaving your site and offers products based on their behavior. You can offer them a discount and get their email to make the sale later.

Remove Checkout Friction

Amazon has mastered the frictionless checkout. The more hoops customers jump through during a checkout process, the more likely they will abandon their shopping cart.

Always strive for a one-click-checkout. There are checkout plugins so that customers are taken directly to the checkout process. This is better compared to clicking multiple times or having popups disrupt or confuse customers.

Multiple Payment Options And Free Shipping

Free shipping used to be a perk but customers nowadays are expecting it (thanks Amazon).

Many customers don’t like to see their total go up because of shipping fees. Instead of letting customers see the shipping fee, include the cost of shipping on the items. Also include multiple payment options like Paypal and credit cards so that customers can choose the most convenient choice.

Taking a few extra steps to make sure that your customer experience is well designed and covers all the bases of customer service can boost conversion rates. Once you get the formula down, your growth can be exponential.

What do you think of our suggestions? Do you think they will work on your e-commerce site? Tell us by leaving your comment below.

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Factors To Consider When Choosing A VPN Provider

As more and more people use the internet, privacy and security are becoming major issues. VPN or virtual private network can come as a handy tool if you want to hide your internet footprints.

There are still many people who are unsure about VPN especially because there are so many myths surrounding it. The most common question regarding VPN pertains to its safety and the next is which service is the best?

Here are some factors you need to consider when choosing a VPN provider.

Protocol and Anonymity

People turn to VPN when they want to be anonymous on the web. There are many reasons for this and the most common is for privacy and protection. This is why the foremost on your mind when choosing a VPN provider is their protocol and encryption technique. This is to ensure that date is transmitted securely from your device to the VPN server.

VPN service providers usually use many different protocols. However always choose a VPN provider that uses OpenVPN protocol. For encryption, your best bet is a provider that uses AES-256 bit encryption.

No Data Logging

Choose a VPN provider that does not log your data. There are service providers that log and store data such as your websites visited, payment information, connecting time stamp and other details which defeats the purpose of using VPN in the first place.

Shortlist a number of VPN providers and then check their privacy policy thoroughly. Check how these companies store, collect and dispose data. The best VPN provider has a no data collection policy.

No To Free VPN Providers

Nothing in this world is free, including VPN service. You should be wary of companies that provide free VPN service. If services are free, this means that something is compromised. Always remember that it’s better to spend money than compromise your privacy.

If you’re looking at VPN services for home or personal use, make sure that it is within your budget. Usually price increases as the number of connections and features increase. There are also VPN companies that provide generous discounts if you avail of their services for a year rather than paying monthly. If you feel that a certain plan and its features are best suited for your requirements, it’s better to get a yearly subscription compared to a monthly one.

Getting a free trial is not bad though. There are many options to consider and you can check out their features during the free trial to find out which one is the best suited for your needs.

Number Of Servers

When it comes to servers, the more the better.

VPN bypasses the geographical restrictions imposed when accessing the internet. This is why there are people looking for VPN services so that they can view Netflix or other sites not available in their countries.

Check the locations where the VPN servers are located. If you want to connect to a specific location, make sure that they have a lot of servers available in that area.

At Least 2 Concurrent Connections

Choose a provider that allows for multiple concurrent connections. You might want to connect to a desktop and your smartphone at the same time.

There are many VPN providers that have this feature. It is best to use a provider that allows at least 2 concurrent connections at the same time. Check the number of connections you need before subscribing to avoid inconvenience.

Platform Compatibility

This is pretty straightforward. If you need a VPN for Mac, then it should be able to support this platform. The same is true for Windows and others. It is also best to make sure that it can also run on Android and iOS.

Always make an informed decision before subscribing to a VPN provider. It can be an intimidating task but doing research can help you make a better decision.

What features do you look for in a VPN provider? What is your experience with your VPN provider? Tell us by leaving your comments below.

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How to use Google Analytics: Tools to Analyze Your Website’s Data

So your business is doing well. Your website receives traffic, and activity occurs on its pages. Though, nothing is storing this valuable information which can be used to make data-driven decisions. There is a lack of insight generation. To reverse this untapped potential, you decide to employ Google’s free Analytics application that is housed within their Marketing Platform. This product provides an array of features to help analyze your site’s data with the goal of generating insights on behaviors, trends, and associations useful for improving your online presence and future business. The time has now come to set the service up and dig into its features.

Setting It Up

To start, make sure you have a personal Google account and head to https://marketingplatform.google.com/about/analytics/. From there, click “Start for free,” and then “website.” The next entry asks you to create an account name, which will serve as the Google Analytics account associated with your personal one. Then, enter your website name, url, industry category, and time zone. Your industry category does not impact tracking or data collection but rather enables Google to create customizable reports that suit your industry-specific needs. Once completed, you will receive a tracking ID unique to the site that was just set up. In order to enable tracking, some web hosts or website builders like Wix provide features or plugins that allow you to input the tracking ID right into a field. If this is not an option in your case, you can enter this tracking ID into a specific section of a tracking snippet, and then paste that snippet into the code of each of your site’s pages that you want to track. Though tracking snippets can come in different forms to account for functionality, basic tracking snippets work fine for most purposes to start. If you want more information on this, Google’s tutorial pages provide details regarding additional snippet specifications. In general, it is a good idea to browse the various resources Google provides for powering up your website with their analytics.

Overview

Once within the Google Analytics interface, you will see an audience overview dashboard that reports different types of data such as sessions, users, and pageviews, among several others. Scrolling down will pull up demographic splits like language and country. The information displayed in this view comes from the combination of all pages on your site. You can refine the insights displayed on this overview page by date range as well as audience segments. Lastly, a menu resting on the left of the screen provides ease of navigation throughout a majority of Google Analytics’ capabilities.

Segments

Segmenting the audience will isolate a subset of traffic to be juxtaposed against overall site traffic or other segments you wish to analyze. To define (create) a segment, you must set specific conditions related to user, session, or hit data. If the correct combination of those aspects fulfill their conditions, the associated data point enters the segment. Sessions and hits differ in that hits are specific user interactions (click, pageview, transaction, etc) on your site that occur during a session, whereas sessions are the group of hits occurring in a certain time frame or before a defined ending activity.

For your analysis, you might create a segment of users in the United Kingdom who spend at least 2 minutes on your home page — in order to separate them from the rest of your data in reports and dashboards. You can also combine conditions using “or” or “and” operators in order to produce more specific segmentations.

Essentially, segments allow for breaking traffic into more nuanced groups that could be of particular interest. The tool might also highlight important details or lucrative adjustments regarding your site, content, or product, as revealed through the groups targeted with the segment.

Goal Setting and Alerts

Google Analytics lets you define goals — specific on-site activities that you tell the platform to view as a conversion. You may, for example, set a goal that checks if users visit five pages in a session. Every user that visits five or more pages will subsequently be entered as a conversion for that goal. Creating your own definitions for conversions empowers generation of custom ratios and statistics to gauge occurrences on your site.

Site owners commonly utilize goals for monitoring key performance indicators such as purchases, submitting contact information, signing up for a service, or viewing a certain piece of content. Indicators of performance vary across businesses and sites. For example, a commerce entity may value and track purchases, while a marketing one might define performance by the number of email signups. When setting goals for your objective, make sure to contemplate what signifies success, or conversion, in addition to what might provide clues on the broader spectrum of behaviors that make up the critical sales funnel. People might not be purchasing your product today, but they could have viewed it three times, indicating high likelihood of future purchase. Some may decide to set both of those activities as goals. Lastly, alerts function just like goals, but instead of logging conversion, they simply notify you (via email if desired) when a set condition fulfills.

Views

Thus far, you’ve become familiar with creating segments and goals for one particular view – the default overview – that shows combined data from all pages on your website. With this said, the analytics platform lets you add views for up to 25 subdomains per property. Each view you create houses its own segments, goals, alerts, reports, and dashboards. If you create these tools for one view, they can be copied to any other. Within each view, you can also apply filters to exclude certain data from the dashboard or to restrict viewing access for members of your organization.

Reports and Dashboards

You can create reports that – well, report – on different metrics. These forms let you create custom visualizations of data that can be cut in a number of different dimensions. All created reports exist in the “reports” section of the menu, but you can place ones you so choose into each view’s dashboard. In addition to reports, dashboards can house segments and individual widgets including: Metrics, Timelines, Geomaps, Tables, Pies, and Bars.

Integration

Google Analytics provides a supports integration with tons of other services, some of which include: Campaign Manager, Google Ad Manager, Search Ads 360 Reporting, Display and Video 360 Remarketing, and Salesforce Sales Cloud. The platform’s help pagesaccommodate integration inquiries with rundowns for each service. A host of 3rd party solutions, perfect for integration with Google Analytics, lie on the Partner Solutions page. This page essentially functions as an app store for extensions that connect the analytics arm with existing business services. Instituting such integrations allows aspects of the business solution apps to serve as elements within dashboards or on reports. If you have data housed within a business solution app, it will also pop up in Google Analytics.

When checking out the Solutions Gallery, you will see where individuals post their custom analytics creations for all to download and use. In some cases, it may more efficient to find an existing dashboard, report, or segment than generate your own, especially if the desired creation proves to be quite complex. The Partner Solutions and the Solutions Gallery both provide descriptions of the various plugins in addition to comment sections that serve as references when perusing options.

As you may tell, Google Analytics offers quite a powerful suite full of functionality and possibilities for customization that are useful in examining your website’s data. Taking advantage of all the various features may require some familiarization. Though, thanks to the accommodative help pages provided by Google and the many online discussions, you should be able to find your way. Now, go on and generate some insights with all of that information connected to your site!

Author Bio:

Sara is an experienced tech expert who writes with her colleagues on Enlightened Digital, to share her passion with others around the web. After 15 years in the industry, her goal is to bring information on all technology to the masses. Her philosophy is to create each article so that anyone can understand the content, whether they are a consumer or a technology expert. Check out her site at Enlightened-Digital.com.

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Best Online Apps for HR Executives

The job of Human Resources (HR) personnel does not stop at screening and hiring the right people for the company, it also includes duties such as making sure that employees get their commensurate pay and benefits, employee satisfaction and happiness at work, and overall employee productivity and teamwork.

Screening applicants and hiring employees is just one of the easier tasks for HR executives, the hardest part is how to ensure that the best employees stay in the company for good – and how the company in turn can maximize and realize their full potentials and talent.

Luckily in this digital age, there are many online and digital apps that can help HR executives and personnel track each employee’s attendance, manage payroll, and gain feedback. All these can be used to ensure that employees are constantly attended to, and that no one gets left behind (especially when it comes to compensation).

1. Zoho Recruit

Of course, there is an app that can make the screening and hiring process easier, and aside from Zoho Recruit, apps such as BambooHR and Workable can do this too. However, let’s just take the spotlight to Zoho Recruit for now because this is the most popular app in this category.

Zoho Recruit allows HR personnel to post jobs at once on multiple leading job listing sitesand Social Media pages such as LinkedIn, Monster, Indeed, etc. The app also allows you to create an applicant form which can be redirected to the company’s website. Most of all, Zoho Recruit helps organize, filter and track every resume that is received from a candidate.

The best part? The app has a completely free version, but this one has very limited features. Its paid version however, has two options. Their most popular package costs $25 per month, while the premium one costs $50 per month.

1. VibeCatch

As mentioned earlier, the work does not stop at hiring and screening employees for the company. It also extends to making sure that they are actually happy and motivated to do their job. Employee engagement is an important duty for every HR executive, and VibeCatch can help out with that.

VibeCatch allows HR executives and personnel to set-up polls, get feedback from employees and enable a crowdsourcing of ideas for company and work improvement. So it could work even for companies who do not have a regular work space yet.

Best of all, the app is mobile-friendly, which makes it easier for both employers and employees to access its features. The app does not have a free version, and price starts at $24 each month for each employee.

1. CakeHR

Recording employee attendance have never been easier with CakeHR. The app is created for small to medium-sized entrepreneurs who don’t want to be burdened with piling documents and spreadsheets that tally an employee’s attendance, absence, leave requests and actual leaves taken.

Aside from time-in and time-out tracking, CakeHR lays out a shared company calendar that could show approved leaves for each employee, approval of leaves for the management to take care of, requests for time-offs from employees, and the number of leaves that an employee is still entitled to.

The app provides two options for payment – one is $3.30 per employee on an annual basis, while the other is priced at $4 per employee on a monthly basis. Interested companies can however avail of a one month free trials service.

1. Workday HCM

Workday HCM is not essentially an app, rather, it is a cloud-based tool that has all the essential features when it comes to HR functions such as attendance tracking, payroll management, compensation plans, recruitment and even up to the retirement process. Aside from that, it is also a place where customer engagement can be improved with its mobile and desktop compatibility.

Workday HCM is however pricey, since its target is mainly large and established companies. Its cost would also depend on the contract agreement, which should not be less than 3 years.

1. HR Management Magazine App

Of course, improvement of customer engagement and management cannot be done without reading up on additional knowledge and trends that concern the HR industry as a whole. The HR Management Magazine app is a place where HR executives and personnel can be up to date with staffing and recruitment strategies, leadership training and seminars, labor law updates, and many more.

Every HR executive should also take into consideration the size and industry of the company they’re working for before deciding which app is best for use. Most apps actually work best for startups and medium-sized businesses (especially those with free versions), but high-priced and premium apps are mostly targeted to large businesses which employ a higher number of employees. With more employees, HR management could get more complicated – hence the need for more inclusive HR services and apps.

Author Bio:

Jessica Radburn is a seasoned writer who enjoys creating helpful articles and interesting stories. She has worked with several clients across different industries such as advertising, online marketing, technology, healthcare, family matters, and more. She is also an aspiring entrepreneur who is engaged in assisting other aspiring entrepreneurs in finding the best office space for their business.

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How to Harness the Power of Instagram for Your Ecommerce Site

With competition in the e-commerce sector getting even stiffer, there is an urgent need for entrepreneurs to innovate. While the internet marketplace has brought about myriad opportunities, especially for smaller brands, the vicious competition on this platform makes it crucial to keep adapting. If you are still sticking to your old website as the only avenue for marketing, you are driving your business to oblivion.

The e-commerce industry is growing rapidly and if the challenges you are facing today are driving you to the wall, you just have to consider the opportunities you are losing. According to a study by eMarketer, retail e-commerce sales will shoot up to $4.058 trillion in 2020.

A similar study by Big Commerce says that over 51% of Americans today prefer shopping online, with over 96% of all consumers already having completed a purchase online. The same study says e-commerce is growing 23% year-over-year, which highlights the opportunity that every business can enjoy if they have the best digital marketing strategy.

There are over 3.7 billion internet users according to Internet Live Stats and you have to position yourself strategically to leverage the opportunities available. The best way to do this today is by riding the crest of the Instagram wave. The days of Facebook dominance seem to be over with its reach reducing and Instagram now gives the innovative marketer an opportunity to thrive. In fact, Instagram has been labeled the world’s most powerful marketing tool and for many good reasons.

The Power of Instagram Marketing

With Facebook’s decline in business marketing, it was only a matter of time before another platform came up. This time, Instagram, a photo and video sharing platform started by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger in 2010, has come in to provide the much-needed solution. With over 700 million monthly active users (MAUs) and 500 million daily active users (DAUs), this is one of the most powerful social media networks today.

Close to 50% of brands in the U.S are already using Instagram for marketing purposes and according to eMarketer, the number is expected to go up to 71% by the end of 2017. A recent Forrester Research tagged Instagram as one of the most effective social marketing tools.

All these numbers highlight the power of Instagram for your marketing campaign. If you are struggling to leverage the growing numbers of internet users, it is time you learnt how to build your Instagram followers, but first things first.

Harnessing the Power of Instagram for Ecommerce

While it is very easy to set up an IG account, it is more difficult to start getting followers on Instagram and achieve your business objectives. In fact, this is the reason why most brands say social media offers no returns. In the rush to build an IG account, most business owners miss out on the bigger picture and they find it hard to get any results from their campaign.

If you want to leverage the power of IG, consider the following:

• Create an Instagram Strategy

Like with any other business campaign, you have to create a roadmap to get you to the desired objectives. There are many objectives of taking your brand to Instagram and it is advisable to first assess what you want to achieve before even opening your account. For example, do you want to increase your e-commerce website’s visibility on social media or do you want to drive sales?

Are you more after brand awareness or do you want more mentions of your products? Whatever the idea you have, make sure you set it down as this will guide the rest of the campaign. You should also consider the type of content you will be posting, schedule of posting, and the person tasked with posting content among other factors.

• Optimize Your Bio

The cardinal rule when creating a profile for your e-commerce website is to use a public account and use the new business tools to give your profile a professional touch. More importantly, you need to optimize your bio by giving detailed information about your business and more importantly adding a link to your landing page.

This is the only chance to direct traffic to your e-commerce site and it is surprising that most marketers overlook it. While at it, make sure you have optimized the landing page to make it easier for shoppers to compare the products available and make a purchase in a few steps.

• Integrate IG Photos into E-commerce

The easiest way to use Instagram for conversion is by integrating IG photos into your e-commerce website design. You can use a feed or a widget on your landing page with your IG posts to showcase your products. For instance, if you are selling eyewear, why not share posts from your IG account by customers who are wearing the same? This instantly creates a sense of authenticity in your products and you will witness better sales conversions. There are many 3rd party Instagram tools which you can now use to embed Instagram photos onto your website.

• Show Your Best Products

The power of visuals drives Instagram and this is also the reason why it has become one of the most powerful marketing tools over the last few years. It is now possible to showcase your best products in the best way possible. With IG photos, you have an opportunity to call attention to your products.

The platform has the amazing photo and video editing features to give your images an edge. These amazing photos will attract visitors to your store and from there it gets easier to close a purchase.

• Contests Galore

If you want to engage users on social platforms, start with a contest. The same applies on Instagram and it is easy to get started; you just need to choose a prize, pick a contest-specific hashtag, create a contest “theme” and finally aggregate and display the photos online.

• Use the Full Power of Hashtags

Now that there are no links, you have to leverage hashtags which allow connection of your Instagram followers with the larger marketing strategy. Start by getting a small number of real Instagram followers using popular hashtags. To get the best out of your hashtags, use a mixture of broad and specific terms. However, avoid overusing hashtags or using irrelevant ones.

Using Instagram for your e-commerce site is a learning process and these tips will help you get started.

This is a guest contribution by Scott Harris for Instamacro.

Author Bio

Harris is a leading blog writer and content marketing professional with thousands of real Instagram followers for his postings.

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Helpful Tips On Hiring An Outsourced Web Designer

Outsourcing has become the norm for small to medium and large enterprises these days, and how could it not be? It is a smart move for companies looking to save or cut costs and still get what they need done, when they need it.

Among the most highly outsourced jobs today is web design and development. It has become too costly for companies to have their own in-house web developers, especially if they just need them for seasonal projects. This is why outsourcing to a web design company or individual contractor has become the more logical and practical option.

But while hiring outsourced talents appear to be the better option, especially for small and upcoming companies, there are downsides to it that can also be detrimental for business. This includes not getting the expected outcome, abandoned work, and so on. So how can you hire an outsourced web designer and be well satisfied with it all the way through? Here are some helpful tips that you can do.

1. Come up with a specialized screening process – Whether you’re outsourcing to a company or directly to a remote contractor, it would help to come up with a special screening process to easily filter out those that are unqualified for the job. Example of which is by providing specific instructions to follow upon their submission of their application and if not met, would automatically be not considered for the job.
2. Ask for samples of previous work and references – In hiring remote “creatives” (e.g. writers, designers, etc), it’s necessary to request for a couple of the sample work they’ve done, whether it’s from their portfolio or work that they did for previous clients. It would also help to get references, whom you can contact regarding the work done by the remote contractor. Not only will you get an idea of their work ethic, but you’ll also be able to verify if they’re a suitable candidate for the job you need to get done.
3. Prepare list of questions – Don’t just rely on spontaneous conversation when doing the formal interview. Live video chat is preferable (e.g via Skype or Google Hangouts) and you’ll need to have a fixed set of questions to ask and go through with the candidate. You can then compare answers among candidates to see who’s the best person for the job.
4. Observe communication throughout hiring process – Are they very responsive or does it take some time before you hear back from them? How respectful are they when discussing the details of the job? The hiring process would normally take at least more than a week and that’s enough time for you to assess how well they communicate. Communication is key in managing a remote employee and if there are certain red flags just from the hiring phase, then it may be a sign to simply move on to the next candidate.
5. Read between the lines before committing – You and your outsourced employee should agree on a contract that specifies your terms and conditions for the employment. As with any other agreement, due diligence is important before signing and committing to a binding contract.

Hiring an outsourced employee always has its risks but do it the right and careful way, and you’ll certainly reap the benefits of having the work you need at a more cost-efficient level and be completely happy with the results. Of course, it’s also one thing to hire and it’s also another thing to nurture the working relationship you have with your outsourced employee. At that point, it’s also dependent on you, as a business owner and superior, to be able to effectively manage and guide your outsourced employee as you would with your in-house employees.

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5 Reasons Why You Should Hire a Pro For Your Site’s SEO

SEO has long been an important strategy for businesses to succeed. It’s even become more necessary in this digital age, especially since more and more consumers are relying on e-commerce to purchase what they want and need.

While there are several optimisation tactics that you can very well do on your own, completely managing it while running your business may not exactly be the best idea. Here are 5 compelling reasons why you should just go hire a pro.

Reason #1: SEO requires technical knowledge.

Let’s get one thing clear: SEO is not easy. Sure, you can start and do some form of SEO yourself but there’s more to it than just reading an article on the best SEO practices. Professional optimisation covers a lot of technical ground, from content to user experience, as well as off-site and specific local SEO strategies that would prove useful for your business.

This is not to say that you can’t do SEO by yourself. It simply means that if you want a more comprehensive and effective way of optimising your site and get the results you want, then it’s better to invest in a dependable and trusted SEO agency.

Reason #2: SEO requires time and attention to detail.

As a business owner, you already have a lot to deal with in running your business on a day-to-day basis. Do you really have the time to constantly monitor and implement various SEO strategies for your site?

Your time is extremely valuable and it would serve you and your business well to leave it to professionals who can really focus on optimising your site, which entails a number of continuous and progressive tasks. A dedicated SEO agency is also updated with changes and updates in algorithms and rules, as well as keeping track of your competitors. All of these come into play into having a successful SEO campaign.

Reason #3: They can provide extensive analytics and do proper monitoring.

It’s not enough to simply see the numbers from your SEO efforts. What’s even more relevant is to know “why” that’s the case and how to go about fixing or improving it further. A professional SEO agency would know what to do with the numbers and more importantly, understand the relationships among your site’s key performance indicators.

Always keep in mind that optimisation is a continuous process. It’s not a one time, big time effort, which is why it requires consistent monitoring and analysis to identify points for improvement. With proper understanding of analytics come better strategies to improve ranking and online presence of your business.

Reason #4: The pros have the pro tools.

There’s a myriad of software solutions and online resources that can help in developing and executing SEO strategies. However, some of which cost more than your marketing budget allotment, which is why it doesn’t make for good business sense to acquire the program on your own.

The professionals are pros for a reason and this includes having the right tools on their belt that provide the right assistance and guide for various SEO strategies and tasks. A truly reliable and proven SEO agency invests in premium software for effective optimisation and they would be able to assess which applications would best work for your business.

Reason #5: Significant ROI potential.

Compared to other conventional means of marketing your business, SEO provides some serious potential for return on investment and a long-term one at that. Traditional advertising can cost you way more than having to pay for monthly SEO services from a reputable agency. With continuous SEO efforts, your business will certainly reap the rewards with the boost it’ll get down the line.

Don’t scrimp on your optimisation budget. It would benefit you, even more, to hire a professional and trusted SEO company Sydney to take care of boosting your business right from the get go. Leave it to the pros to help get your site ranking high, while you sit back and take care of other important business matters.

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5 Tips on Improving Your Skyscraper Content

Skyscraper content has earned a reputation of being an effective medium in increasing click throughs and site traffic. In short, it’s known to be a reliable SEO tactic.

However, this resulted to a lot of sites coming out with guide posts with over 10k words, promising to give you everything “you need to know about” this and that. And while some truly offer substantial content, most of these just comprise of a whole lot of nonsense fillers and cringeworthy copies.

At the end of the day, this makes a skyscraper content ineffective, especially if it doesn’t really convert readers into buyers. So how do you create a skyscraper content that truly engages and well, one that doesn’t suck?

Here are 5 tips to improve your skyscraper content that you can work on right now:

1. Make Headlines Out of Subheads

Apply what you know about crafting engaging headlines into how you write your paragraph subheads. It should say more with less, but it should also give a clear picture of what’s about to go down in the paragraph following the subhead.

Headlines are supposed to intrigue and catch the attention of the reader right off the bat. If your subhead is vague and unsubstantial, you can pretty much bet that the reader would just skip right through probably until the very end of your skyscraper piece. So instead of simply saying, “Grow Your Audience With Quality Content,” perhaps you can try a little more headline-worthy subhead like, “Rouse Your Audience’s Interest with Content that Clicks.” It may not be perfect but it’s something that would make your readers pause and have a read.

2. Say More By Writing Less

It’s a given that a skyscraper piece requires a very high word count–one that’s much higher than your regular average blog post. And given this word count requirement, a lot of copywriters tend to just fill in as much fillers as they can, which bores readers to no end.

Using fillers can be appropriate sometimes, but not most of the time. If you can be more succinct and tell them straight with just a few words, then do it.

If it reads, “As you may already know, writing a skyscraper content can help your site increase page views and overall foot traffic.” Maybe you can reconsider and dial it down a bit by saying, “Writing a skyscraper content can help increase your site’s foot traffic.” More succinct, more readable, more engaging.

3. Don’t Make It About You

Readers only care about themselves and what you have to offer them. This is why there’s no point in making your skyscraper content about you and what you think.

Sure, you may be an expert giving legit advice through your skyscraper content. But you have to still make it about the readers. So how exactly do you do it? By taking yourself out of it and not drawing any attention towards you. You can do this by not using “I or we.” Use “you” as much as you can–pretty much how this post you’re reading right now goes.

4. Transform Boring Topics With a Little Wit

You can do better than sounding like a Wikipedia page. Most topics that uses skyscraper structure are not that exciting and mostly technical. But even if that’s the case, don’t resort to sounding like an encyclopedia and try to inject a little wit and creativity to make it more fun to read.

For example, you can easily find several skyscraper pieces on SEO strategies. A lot of these would include technical terms, which are just all too boring to read. Case in point, a sentence might read: “Putting these SEO strategies into effect can contribute in improving your site’s ranking and lead conversions.” Did you just yawn reading that? So did we.

Maybe you can turn it into something like this: “Using these SEO strategies play a big role in higher rankings and increased sales!” What it all boils down to is how you re-craft your message and making it more exciting for your readers.

5. Pay Attention to Sentence Length, Sequence, and Pacing

Just like with how songs have a certain pace and build-up that rouses emotions to its listeners, your skyscraper piece also needs to have the right sentence length, sequence, and pacing.

The best way to do this is to start short.

And then slowly build it up with relevant information to support your message.

Once you’ve gotten hold of their attention, you can move on to writing complex structures that include technical information, comprising the very meat of your skyscraper piece. (See what happened there?)

Conclusion

Skyscrapers are really effective if you know how to do it right–and not just for the sake of wanting more clicks.

A lot of planning and preparation goes into it before you hit publish. But the best way to truly make it as effective as it can be is to pay attention to the writing.

It’s about the information you present and how you present it to your readers. It’s both the content and the structure–the information and how you craft it and deliver to your audience.

Pay attention to these details and you’ll see your site get indexed and ranked. Not to mention, it’s what makes customers who actually buy out of mere readers.

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Small Business’ Guide on Doing SEO on a Budget

Starting a business can be quite daunting for a lot of reasons. One being the proper allocation of capital and where to invest your limited resources into.

In today’s digital landscape, SEO has become an integral part of growing one’s business online. You simply cannot do without it if you want your business to be known to your target market.

Good news is, you don’t have to go all out in paying for your site’s optimisation.

There are several ways to go about successfully implementing various SEO tactics while keeping in line with your budget. We’re giving you three solid tips to start with, so take out your pens and prepare to take some notes!

Tip #1: Assess which tasks you can do in-house–and do it well!

SEO is comprised of a wide range of tasks and techniques and a lot of it can be done by in-house employees even without having an extensive mastery of SEO–and do it well.

All it takes is a bit of research, practice, and dedication to growing the business. In fact, some of these tasks should be rightfully done by in-house employees given their first-hand insight into the business.

So what exactly are these tasks we speak of? It includes content creation and keyword research. You can even count technical SEO if you dare.

When it comes to crafting content, there’s really no better person for the job than the one who knows the inside-out of the business. The more niche the business, the riskier it is to outsource content creation to an agency that most likely doesn’t have the same level of extensive knowledge as an industry insider.

In connection with content creation, keyword research can likewise be done within the company. There are so many tools–both free and paid–that can be used to come up with proper keyword strategy. A person from within the business would be able to effectively conduct competitor research, as well as identify terms that would be most useful to optimisation.

Tackling the “technical” aspect of SEO may seem a task for experts, but there are parts of it that can be done by in-house employees. Some of which include working with developers to perfect the mobile responsiveness of your site, as well as doing page indexing, site crawlability, audit of internal links, and so on.

With the resources and information about SEO that’s made available and accessible online, in-house employees can arm themselves with the basic techniques to pull these tasks off with ease. These tasks can also be collaborated on by several employees, making it even more effective and sustainable long-term.

Tip #2: Automate simple tasks that take up your time

Once you’ve figured out the tasks that you can do in-house, it’s now time to analyse and see which among these can be automated to save on time and manpower.

Rather than having to do it manually, you can check to see if there are online tools you can make use of to take care of tedious and time-consuming tasks.

Most of these tasks have to do with analytics and reports. These information are integral in assessing how your site is faring in comparison to competitors. It will provide you pertinent trends and highlight any issues that you may have to improve on to get better foot traffic and ranking.

For example, you can use Seomator or DeepCrawl to have scheduled monthly audits of your site. Getting this bird’s eye view of areas to improve on gives you a better insight of what you need to focus on in terms of your SEO efforts on a monthly basis.

Tip #3: Admit when you need help and outsource specific projects

Sometimes, even your best efforts aren’t enough to fully implement a successful SEO strategy. And when this time comes, you have to be humble enough to admit defeat and ask for help–also known as outsourcing.

There are several agencies that focus on helping small businesses with SEO efforts at an affordable and budget-friendly cost. Good thing about hiring an external partner is only having to pay on a project basis as well. For some tasks, it proves to be more costly to hire a full-time in-house employee than paying off an agency on a monthly or case-to-case basis.

Examples of these tasks that may be better off outsourced to an external agency include link building and advanced SEO strategies.

You may think that link building should be easy enough to do in-house. However, there are aspects of it that would be better handled by experienced pros. Just consider the fact that they normally have more streamlined and tried-and-tested practices to get you more links in less time–and do it in an ethical manner. It can also be a pain to continuously monitor your links, so it’s better to just have it effectively managed by an SEO agency instead.

Another reason to pay for SEO services is to put advanced strategies into effect. From having a robust one-off analysis of your site to an extensive optimisation strategy plan, a team of experts may be able to handle it much better than putting the burden on yourself or on your team.

Conclusion

Maximising your budget doesn’t have to mean that you have to scrimp on the majority of your SEO efforts. Sometimes, it may even cost you more if you opt out of paying for professional SEO services.

What you need to focus on is properly assessing which aspects of optimisation efforts would benefit your business if it’s done in-house, by use of automating tools, or by outsourcing such tasks to professional agencies. Through this, you’ll be able to fully make use of your allotted budget wisely and you can likewise expect a profitable return on your investment as well.

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