Top Three Advantages in Tapping into the Freelance Market

When a business is opened, the first thing that the owner does is search for employees. That, at least, is the standard move as more employees mean more manpower to finish the projects and get jobs done. Times are changing though, and nowadays both employers and employees are getting to know and understand the strength and promise of the freelance and the contractual market.

So what exactly are the strengths of this part of the labor market? Several reasons exist, but the top 3 advantages are:

Cost - Freelancers are paid on a per project basis. Business owners just have to determine who to hire, and then agree on the fee that is to be paid for that project. Most contracts end upon delivery of the project. There is no training cost, no hourly fees computed, just the raw contract. Also, work materials are not a problem as the freelancer usually has the basic materials required to finish the job. The business does not have to provide permanent office space and hardware.

Time – Again, freelancers are paid on a per project basis, or at least most of them are. Since this is the case, it is extremely beneficial for them to finish projects as soon as possible so that they can go ahead and attend to other jobs. The more jobs they finish, the more income they earn.

Quality - This has never been a problem in the freelance industry. Even though speed is essential, freelancers still make sure they deliver quality work as they need to build a strong customer base. A strong customer base means more opportunities for jobs, translating once again into more income for the freelancer.

At times, certain business projects require a third party to look into it in order to make it improve. This is also an advantage that one gets when using freelancers. Freelance employees have a huge amount of experience as they work with different people on different projects. Some are even exposed to various cultures as they can work with employers from different countries. This would allow them to contribute new ideas to whatever projects they work on, and employ strategies that they have developed.

With the advantages stated, much is to be gained by employing freelancers. There are still positive points to having in house employees, but the fact that there are freelancers that are readily available should never be discounted.

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Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Top Three Advantages in Tapping into the Freelance Market

5 Ways to Grow Your List

The quality and quantity of your opt-in email list will greatly affect the level of success you, as an internet marketer enjoy. Whilst beginners complain that they can’t get enough people to subscribe to their list, professionals are always looking for ways to refine their lists and improve quality by cutting down on quantity. Whichever approach you take, the bottom line is that you still need to constantly grow and cultivate your list – here are five ways to start building your list today.

Make Your Opt-In Form Highly Visible

Many internet marketers only place their email opt-in form on their homepage, assuming that this is the most popular page on the site. This is a mistake for two reasons – firstly, not everyone will arrive on your website’s home page (they may land on a splash page or a content page) – secondly, only having your opt-in on the home page simply limits its visibility. For these reasons, you should aim to have your opt-in available and highly visible on every page (or at least the majority of pages) of your website.

Provide Something of Value

Too many times, we see different websites offering the same cheesy, low value PLR (Public Label Rights) eBook in return for an opt-in. Whilst you may want to use a PLR product as a base to work from, and perhaps to gain ideas, you really should try creating a freebie that is both unique and that resonates with your site as a whole. By this, I mean, at least ensure that the colour scheme and graphics match up with that of your website. Most importantly though is that you provide something unique and of value. Taking a weekend off to put your own eBook together will pay huge dividends down the line. If you’re not a great writer, hire a ghost writer and provide them with the raw information.

Create Referral Incentives

Create an additional product (eBook, audio recording, etc) that your current subscribers can receive in return for referring three or five friends to your site (or opt-in page). You may want to display this offer upon initial signup (as a sort of up-sell), or promote it in your auto responder series. Either way, make sure its appealing, useful and of high quality. Getting this trick right can equate to a ratio of about 1:1, which means that for every signup, you are assured of another signup free.

Create a Contact Us Add-on

This tactic is particularly powerful, but needs to be implemented ethically. On your contact us form, create a checkbox that reads “Also sign me up for your newsletter” or something similar. What’s important is that you ensure that this checkbox is not checked by default, as that is unethical and will ultimately just lead to a lot of unsubscribes.

Hold a Competition

This is possibly the oldest trick in the direct marketer’s book, but is nonetheless still incredibly effective. Hold a competition with a decent prize (possibly one of your products or services), and allow people to enter by opting in to your competition list. Provided that you market the competition well (and offer a desirable prize), you should receive quite a few opt-ins. When implementing this tactic, consider the average value per lead, and then work out a marketing budget for the competition using that figure.

More than anything else, growing your opt-in list is a long term process. Commit to the process, continually research new ways to grow the list, and have a little patience – All of these traits will pay off in the long term.

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Derek Jansen is an SEO consultant and educator – Sign up for the Free SEO Course @ www.SEOBasicsCourse.com today.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

5 Ways to Grow Your List

Protect Your Business and Your Sanity – Back Up Your PC Data

Disasters happen, no matter if it’s in “real life” or in the business world. When it comes to protecting the physical assets of a business, many companies and private professionals have insurance to cover themselves and their businesses. But here’s an important question: What are you doing as a business owner to protect one of your most valuable assets – the information stored on your computer?

Digital assets can be the single most valuable part of a small business, both for small storefront and office-based companies, and also SOHO (Small Office / Home Office) practices. In the Information Technology (IT) world, that information is called “mission critical” data. Are you doing the basics to protect your critical business information? For my money, backing up that data is the easiest way to create a simple, effective disaster-recovery plan. one that lets you sleep comfortably at night, without worrying about lost business information.

I’ll talk about all the different kinds of information stored on a PC that should be saved and backed up. Every computer stores huge amounts of information. But don’t worry! Only a small percent is the kind of data that needs to be saved on a regular basis. I’m talking about information that changes on a day-by-day basis. Think about it: new clients are being added to your records every day, or additional inventory arrives on a regular schedule. All kinds of important records change every day, including financial records, customer files and more.

The good news is, Windows-based computers store all this information in one central folder. Folders are the containers the computer uses to store information. Storage devices such as the internal hard drive contain numerous folders and sub-folders, and each of those can be used to store program information or what’s called “User Data.” In a word (or two), user data is the “stuff” you create. No matter if it’s a document you typed, a pictures transferred from your digital camera, or a song downloaded from an online store, its’ all “user data.Any PC folder can contain more folders, or files, or both.

In the newest version of Windows, (Win 7), all the user data you create is stored in a folder called Users. To find it, click the Windows “Start” button, then look at the upper-right portion of the two-column layout. Usually, the upper most right item will either be your user name, or some other name that was put there when the computer was first started. You might see a name like Owner or Administrator. Under that one folder, you’ll see all the various sub-folders in your user account. Inside, there are folders including Documents, Music, Pictures and others. Documents are the most important “chunks” of data to back up, but you may also need to save additional folders such as Pictures, Music and others.

Coming up in a future article… where are all these important files to be backed up located?

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Bill Sklodowski helps small business owners and SOHO (small office / home office) professionals “leverage their digital assets” with easy-to-understand, articles, videos and training materials in two important areas of business: Digital Marketing and business-related computer skills. You can see the entire series on PC data backup at => pchelpforsmallbusiness.com

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Protect Your Business and Your Sanity – Back Up Your PC Data

Keyword SEO: The Way of the Samurai to Boost Conversion Rates – Part 1

First off, this is the first part of our two part article on traffic conversions. It is one of the most important topics when it comes to SEO and thorough understanding must be established. Traffic conversion doesn’t just happen by itself, you need the right strategy and even a keywords niche tool to help you out there.

Let’s take all this slowly, one-step at a time to help you totally understand this concept. You have understand the role of page rankings and how it affects your page rankings. Let’s say; you got on the Top 10. You get all these valuable traffic, don’t leave it to a waste, use it?
You have to convert them. Traffic is equivalent to cash and the more traffic you get, the higher your possible earnings will be. Sounds great right?

Going back to the concept of keyword SEO optimization, that’s where the ground for your conversions starts. Every time a potential customer goes to your site, it’s a chance for your to actually sell. So how do you do it?

Here are the easiest means to provide you for the highest possible conversion rates.

a. Make sure your website is user friendly and easy to navigate, it should have the elements to drive your visitors towards your goal. As mentioned before, one of the means that you can actually promote your site is by creating articles. Always make sure that your articles are indeed keyword rich; sounds convincing but DON’T sound as if your selling your site on their faces. Do all that in your resource box and make sure your readers read through it. Make sure that your main site’s registration form is conveniently accessible and easily seen on your site and not just on the home page. You may not be able to tell which page your viewer is looking for but if they do want to join your site; you can provide with with your main link and viola!

b. Always spend time to check if your paths are working. Meaning, you should follow-up on any missing or broken paths. This will just make your readers disappointed. Having a dead-end on your link creates a negative impact on your site. And by that, it directly affects your conversion rates.

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Get those traffic up and running today! Get your free trial of the Market Samurai software and get all those wanted traffic and conversions all for yourself! Get to know about their Keyword SEO secrets and of course, the Market Samurai software itself. Download Your FREE Copy of Market Samurai and Laser-Target High-Traffic, High-Profit, Low-Competition Markets With Devastating Accuracy => www.MarketSamurai.com/c/freetrialdownload

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Keyword SEO: The Way of the Samurai to Boost Conversion Rates – Part 1

Improve Online Reputation Management with Proactive PR

Practicing online reputation management is a must for any public relations professional who believes his or her company may face a corporate crisis in the future. As our news gathering and reporting moves online, online reputation management is becoming more important. Now, news stories and blogs are being indexed by search engines, and many times, if a company makes the news, that can sometimes be the first item found in the search engine rankings.

Proactive PR is important for online reputation management, because it means you are creating positive search engine results, which can keep negative search results from ever appearing. You can focus on positive content-generating activities, rather than putting out fires via reactive management.

Here are five ways to improve your online reputation management.

Start a blog. Fill it with as much positive information as you can find. News releases, product and service descriptions, customer questions, employee interviews, and anything else you can think of. The more content you can create, the better your online reputation management efforts will be, because you will have a central location you can direct people to.

Create a Twitter profile and a Facebook page. Fill your networks with customers, journalists, and anyone else who would have an interest in your company. Answer customer care questions, link to your blog posts, and be a valuable resource to anyone you interact with on these networks. An important part of your online reputation management will be to create positive relationships with people. This way, if something ever does go wrong, you’ll have a group of people who are willing to support you, or at least forgive you.

Use your own face and name on your company’s social media profiles. While this may not be possible for a large corporation, it’s crucial for a small business. An important part of your online reputation management will be to put a personal face on your corporate brand. People will be able to relate to your company more easily, which will make your online reputation management efforts much easier.

Join a niche social network for your industry. Start communicating with people on the network, especially answering questions and providing information. You can help your online reputation management by becoming a trusted resource among your industry peers and customers. Form relationships with people on the network, make referrals to people inside and outside the network, and work to become a regular, well-known presence in the group. If there is a crisis that hits the media, you may end up finding allies in your industry group who will speak favorably about you.

Good online reputation management includes effective search engine optimization. Do all of these other steps with an eye toward SEO. Your ultimate goal is to win all searches on the big three search engines; Google, Bing, and Yahoo; which will help keep negative entries off the front page. If you’re already sitting on top of the mountain, it will be harder to unseat you. But if you aren’t even on the front page when an incident blows up, you’ll have a hard time getting to the front page let alone the top of the results. And the longer you wait to begin, the harder it will be.

It’s important you begin your online reputation management efforts immediately. If you ever find yourself in a crisis, and the news results hit the search engines, it’s too late to start thinking about online reputation management. You’ll be playing catchup for days, weeks, and even months later, trying to overcome every news story, blog entry, and tweet that other people have been posting while you’re still setting up your first Twitter account.

The key to online reputation management is to do it before you ever need it, and to create a positive online brand. Follow these five steps and you’ll be ahead of the game.

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Rostin Ventures principals have extensive experience in restoring reputations online, using Reverse SEO among other tactics to provide positive Online Reputation Management Services (ORM Services). When an individual or company name is being searched in Google, Yahoo, Bing and an undesired page or website appears, they can push the negative page back in the search results where it will rarely, if ever be found. www.RostinVentures.com

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Improve Online Reputation Management with Proactive PR