Will the Cloud become a Dominant Enterprise Tool?

As businesses become more familiar with cloud technology, many companies are moving towards enterprise cloud solutions. Enterprise cloud solutions offer a comprehensive set of benefits for a company, and it seems as though many companies are finding these benefits very compelling. The great majority of companies that are using cloud technology expect to increase their cloud technology budgets and the cloud computing market overall is growing at a staggering rate.

What are the benefits of the cloud for enterprises?

The enterprise cloud offers scalable resources such as storage and processing speed. Enterprises can grow their cloud platform to suit them, making the enterprise cloud an extremely cost-effective solution overall. The enterprise cloud also offers elastic resources, which can be very beneficial to a company that needs a reliable enterprise system and experiences strong fluctuations in activity. Finally, storage is one of the most compelling reasons many companies move to an enterprise cloud solution. Companies today collect more structured and unstructured data than ever before, and all of this data can be safely stored in the cloud.

How will the cloud evolve in the future?

Many believe that the hybrid solution involving both public and private clouds will become the dominant form of cloud platform. Companies will need to plan ahead for this development. Already, most companies that are taking advantage of the cloud are using this type of hybrid enterprise cloud. The cloud is expected to gradually take on more computing and more storage, and projections indicate that the cloud will continue to grow as an overall enterprise solution.

Presently, the hybrid enterprise cloud allows a private and public cloud system to work in tandem and fully replicate a traditional enterprise network. In the future, this bridge between private and public cloud will likely become more streamlined and may even enter the consumer market.

Will the cloud become more popular?

All forms of cloud computing are expected to continue growing in popularity. While similar, the enterprise cloud simply offers many benefits that a traditional company network cannot compete with. The enterprise cloud even provides solutions for some traditional IT problems, such as mobile device management.

Twenty percent of all enterprise companies are already intending to use the cloud. The only area in which a traditional network has been seen to exceed an enterprise cloud solution is in the area of security, and security on the cloud can be managed in a variety of ways. With the incredible benefits that the cloud platform offers, it’s very likely that it will continue to grow and that it will eventually become the dominant tool of enterprise companies.

Will the Cloud become a Dominant Enterprise Tool?

The Top Five Web Applications of 2013

If you want to keep up on the latest cutting-edge online innovations taking place online, one good resource is the annual Webby award, presented by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences. The 2013 Webby Award for best web application resulted in one clear winner out of the five nominees, yet each one has a significant following and each offers completely different services.

5. Visual.ly

Sites such as 99Designs and Fiverr help creative people find a market for their work. These sites also help those of us who are less creative find someone who can make our projects look good. Now Visual.ly does the same thing for infographics, videos, presentations, and other interactive creations. With more than 145,000 users, Visually is the marketplace for anyone looking to buy or sell these creative services. Visual.ly is working to help the world bring its stories to life, and they’re off to a great start.

4. SeatGeek

When you’re looking for tickets to the next sporting event, concert or other big happening, you should check out SeatGeek. True to their name, this site geeks out on finding the right seat at the right price. You can search for any team, artist, event or venue to see which tickets are available and exactly where the seats are located on a venue map. The site collects information from multiple ticket outlets and even has an option to track the price of tickets for your favorite events. More than 1.8 million users already use SeatGeek to secure the best deal on tickets.

3. Squarespace

Squarespace was started in a dorm room in 2004 and they’ve grown into a team of 190 people with the goal of helping people give voice to their ideas. The site helps people to create their own website with little to no knowledge of web design. Basically, anyone that can use a word processor can create a good looking website they can be proud of using Squarespace. This has helped the company to launch more than 1.8 million websites already, and they’re poised for continued growth into 2014.

2. Grammarly

English grammar is so complicated that even the word processor on your computer is prone to making mistakes. According to Grammarly, their web application will catch “up to ten times more mistakes than popular word processors.” This has helped the site build a following of more than 3 million registered users. This application makes it easy to correct grammar mistakes, improve your writing, identify contextual misspellings (such as too versus two) and detect plagiarism. It’s like a proofreading buddy on the Web.

1. Dropbox

For many people, Dropbox winning the Web Services & Applications award is no surprise because this free service already has over 200 million users. Certain Windows cloud providers offer similar services, but with a larger amount of free storage than the 2 GB offered by Dropbox. However, Dropbox is compatible with Windows, Mac, and Linux computers in addition to all the devices running Android, iOS, Windows Phone, and Blackberry. Furthermore, there are ways to increase the free storage available on Dropbox.

 

The Top Five Web Applications of 2013

Will Server Hosting Survive Cloud Computing?

Cloud computing is increasing in popularity at such a rapid pace that many are wondering if cloud computing may replace dedicated server hosting entirely. Scalability is often cited as the chief reason, since cloud subscriptions allow businesses to obtain the services they need whenever they’re needed.

Most agree that dedicated server hosting isn’t going anywhere, but many feel the need for dedicated servers and appreciate the opportunity to manage and configure them as they see fit. Some of the prominent fans in this arena are open-source users. Other fans are enterprises with the need to store and process secure information, with banks and intelligence organizations falling into this category. No one expects an end to dedicated server hosting, but it will definitely be a part of hosting for many years to come.

Cloud vs. Server Hosting: Overall Strengths

The choice between cloud and dedicated server hosting is a decision closely related to business needs. For startups, smaller companies, or enterprises that have a global distribution, a cloud-based environment is highly suitable. However, owners and managers of traditional small and medium-sized businesses with old servers aren’t going to the cloud but are deciding to acquire new servers.

Business owners are alerted to the fact that they need timely upgrades when the existing infrastructure is reaching its limit and things are noticeably too slow. Many owners have put off upgrading their servers because of issues related to the slow economy. Nevertheless, these same owners haven’t made the transition to the cloud. In many cases the gating factor was cost. According to Forbes, in 2013 the cost of moving existing applications is about $100 per user per month for cloud services.

Compare this to a scenario where 20 people require computer access. Let’s say you’re satisfied with your current applications and don’t want to incur the overhead, substantial expense and disruption associated with a migration to the cloud. When smaller businesses purchase their own servers, they can easily pay for them in a 12-month period if they choose not to migrate.

Cloud and Server Hosting Positioned to Serve a Distinct Business Type

Cloud computing supports applications that run on mobile apps. Real-time asset management, immediate order fulfillment and real-time updates are just a small selection. With software services paid for by the month, applications’ costs are lower for startups. Maintenance costs are also much lower and any reconfiguration to add memory and space can be easily done. Data is automatically backed up, so the risk of data loss is minimized, and data is also accessible from anywhere in the world. Software licensing savings is also another advantage.

Cloud computing is highly suitable for startup businesses that can reap the benefits of front-office and back-office services at minimal monthly costs. Enterprises relying on a need for mobility find cloud computing the best option in terms of functionality and accessibility. When business processes require collaboration, cloud computing can be helpful with group efforts.

Dedicated server hosting, however, is excellent for small to medium-size businesses that must have strict control over security, such as for HIPAA-protected medical records. It can be less expensive than cloud computers and allows you to have tight control of configuration. Companies and organizations that make use of open-source products are especially likely to prefer this type of platform.

Will Server Hosting Survive Cloud Computing?

Are Localised Top-level Domains Better for Local Businesses?

Creating local domains are helpful for local target demographics. Typically, websites that end in .net, .com, or .org are targeted toward American users. Search engines typically target search results based on location. This means that if you want to market a product to a certain country, Australia for example, then a domain name ending in .au will show up in Australian results before a .com domain.

Creating local domains are helpful for local target demographics – Shutterstock[/caption]

There are many advantages to offering local, targeted websites, particularly if they are written in a language other than English. Non-English speakers will go out of there way to find a site written in their native language. This means that if you have a site in that domain country registration and in the native language, you already have a huge advantage over competitors. However, there are also some advantages to creating websites with global appeal using a main domain ending like .com.

Thinking Globally

Making a website suitable for multiple websites is a hard challenge. You may have to create multiple versions of your website. Using a country-code top level domain name for each website can also be helpful.

The Types of Domain Names

There are two types of domain names that search engines use to determine the region for a website. ccTLDs (country-code top level domain names) are used for specific countries, like co.uk for the United Kingdom, .de for Germany, and .au for Australia. These codes will show up in the top of the search results for that country. That is the biggest advantage to using a country-specific code. gTLDs (generic top level domain names) are not tied to any particular country. .com, .org, and .net are common GTLDs. Other GTLDs are .asia and .eu because they are not tied to any particular contry. The advantage of using this kind of domain ending is that you can target viewers from around the world and may not have to offer multiple websites for each specific country. However, if you do want to target a specific country, these endings are not the best choice.

How Geotargeting Works

Search engines uses a variety of elements to determine how to geotarget the results for a particular website. Basically, if a ccTLD is used, this will place that site in the top results for that country. You can also use Webmaster Tools’ manual geotargeting for gTLDs to target your generic domain name for a specific country. This can be helpful if you want to target a particular country but don’t want to exclude visitors from other countries. Using a certain region’s language will also help target your website to that area no matter the domain suffix. Local currency markers, the business physical address, the phone number for the business, and even other links can also be used to geotarget a particular website.

Pros and Cons for ccTLDs

ccTLDs offer many advantages. The main one being that it is easy to geotarget the site for that country. The server location is irrelevant. You could make a German-targeted site from America, for example. It is easy to separate all sites with distinct TLDs. The trouble with this kind of domain name is that the cost is expensive, you may not have as much name availability, and it usually requires more work.

gTLDs Pros and Cons

GTLDs have their own sets of advantages and disadvantages. Advantages include ease of set-up, you can use specific geotargeting, it is easy to maintain the sites. You can use different server locations to set up subdomains in different countries. The trouble with it can include confusion from specific country visitors and separating the site information can be a challenge.

There are times when both generic top level domains and ccTLDs are necessary for business. However, it is up to each business and site owner to determine if the value of country-specific data outweighs the simplicity and ease of gTLDs.

Are Localised Top-level Domains Better for Local Businesses?

Keeping WordPress Running Smoothly

If your webpage takes more than 4 seconds to load, 25 percent of viewers will abandon it for a site that loads faster. While WordPress may at first seem like an easy to use, out-of-the-box website platform for small business owners, WordPress sites can have a very slow load time that will affect your bottom line. Learn to spot signs of trouble with WordPress sites and to fix slow-loading pages.

Causes of slow WordPress sites

Too many plugins are the top cause of a super slow WordPress site. Take a look at your index and see how many plugins you’ve loaded down your site with; if the number is really high, this is your problem. Ideally, you would use a smaller number of plugins that performed only the necessary functions. So-called SEO plugins sound like a great idea in theory, but do little to affect your site’s SEO and can cause slowdowns. Delete any plugins you are not using simply disabling them isn’t enough. This should increase site speed. Consider using the Plugin Performance Profiler or P3, a free WordPress utility that examines plugins and rates their performance. This can clue you in onto which plugins are affecting site performance, or demonstrate that your plugins are working fine and your problem lies elsewhere.

While you’re cleaning out your plugins, make sure you are using the latest WordPress release and that the plugins you do use are up to date. Note that rarely updated, out-of-date plugins can be a security risk. If some of your plugins have never been updated, you may want to consider finding a different, more current plugin that performs the same task.

Your WordPress theme could be causing the site slowdown, especially if it’s a free theme that you downloaded from a random site. While it’s okay to use free themes, limit your free theme use to those from the WordPress repository, since these are vetted for security threats like malware.

Finally, your problem may not lie with WordPress at all. If you host your WordPress site on a shared host that operates slowly, no amount of improvement to your WordPress site will speed up the page. Consult your web host for more information on website speed, bandwidth and site uptime. You may have to switch to a more reliable WordPress host to improve your page’s load time.

Improving a slow page

The suggestions above will help speed a slow site, but are certainly not comprehensive. If you aren’t already using a cache, implement a cache plugin. This stores frequently-loaded pages and calls them up faster than normally so your website users experience your site as faster.

Storing plugins in the functions file (functions.php) can also improve speed. By dropping all of the relevant plugin code in here, your back-end won’t have to work as hard looking for relevant code and can perform functions faster. From your own favicon to Google Analytics and AdSense, the code you paste here drives your site’s performance, function and utility.

The WordPress Support forums offer tips and tricks to diagnose performance issues and speed up a slow site. While this may seem like a lot of work, it is ultimately worth it to improve website speed, stop turning off potential customers and boost your return on investment.

 

Keeping WordPress Running Smoothly

Building for the Future: IT and Cloud Block Storage

Planning is essential to determine future IT requirements

Businesses with I/O intensive databases and file systems need the freedom to move and grow within their existing infrastructure. Not all businesses have the resources to do this and conclude that they will suffer financial loss because of their inability to meet customer needs. Rackspace’s cloud block storage can provide the resources they require. This type of storage allows a business to utilize standard volumes during the times when they prefer to maintain rather than expand storage capacity. Standard volumes work well for everyday file system needs, and SSD volumes help databases and other I/O-intensive applications perform better. Both standard and SSD volumes are compatible with next-generation Cloud Servers of any kind, and payment only for provisioned block storage is required.

Delivering business optimization through cloud consolidation

IT departments are delivering services in a new way. Cloud computing has contributed to this change and resulted in decreasing operational budgets for IT. Focus has changed to designing and building apps and innovations.

There are downsides to movement to the cloud. One especially blatant example is discontinuities and disparities among systems that contribute to unanticipated overhead costs. Such situations can be avoided by creating comprehensive cloud strategies. Implementation should deliver business benefits, not business headaches. A vendor neutral consolidation of disparate cloud apps can enable business to benefit by cloud while obtaining the fastest results.

A solution like this enables businesses to define their cloud computing vision. They can incorporate an architecture, application and infrastructure management focusing on usability and customer service.

Supportive and knowledgeable cloud partners can help organizations move away from cloud sprawl and into a structured life cycle approach. A collaborative and holistic approach must deliver a consistent, flexible and managed experience. At the same time, it must provide the flexibility productive teams need. The ultimate goal will achieve the insights and cost efficiencies healthy businesses require.

Cloud computing offers business executives resources that are easier to manage

Executives recognize that cloud means very efficient IT and much more. With the cloud, it’s easy to support and manage new business models. One manufacturing CFO described its positive impact on manufacturing traceability and quality with deployment of cloud based ERP. Employees also had superior access and control with mobile and electronic workflow.

A hospitality company recommends the mobility solutions their team uses when meeting clients around the world. It has enabled their sales directors to function most effectively. Creating a cloud infrastructure to support different roles helped create successful situations team wide.

Several executives appreciated how cloud enabled them to create new information-based products and services, as well as facilitating their distribution. McNee, CTO of a large media company, indicated how cloud services distribution is as an effective solution as the post office was a century ago. Our digital delivery platforms — smartphone, web and tablet — rely on services, software and infrastructure for rapid delivery.

Users can acquire new cloud technology quickly and at a monthly fee. This technology will rapidly allow them to respond to changing customer needs while enabling them to empower a mobile workforce and deploy data wherever and whenever it’s needed.

Business Insider advises switching to management that works from the bottom up, rather from than the top down. Leadership that is focused on the outcome, decision characteristics, and the culture of the organization, rather than on specific decision-making or work review, will be more successful in today’s rapid changing environment.

 

Building for the Future: IT and Cloud Block Storage

SEO Tips for Magento Users

Magento was developed as the “next big thing” in ecommerce and shopping cart solutions. Unlike the shopping cart services that came before it, Magento has nearly limitless customization. This is very important for developing websites that will succeed in today’s crowded marketplace. With this level of customization comes the ability to utilize search engine optimization (SEO) within your shopping portal. SEO can help attract not only more traffic, but also the right kind of traffic — consumers most likely to make a purchase from your website. When you start setting up your cloud-hosted Magento marketplace, keep the following tips in mind to build the traffic you obtain from organic searches.

• 
  Enable SEO within the Admin panel: This is essential – you will not be able to complete the other steps until you take care of this simple change.


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  Titles: It is important that these are created to work within your SEO plan. Make sure you give each page a unique title as these are held in as being very important by the algorithm of most of the major search engines.


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  Descriptions: Avoid anything that is automatically generated. Write content that is targeted to the users, not the search engines. Use the targeted keyword once in each description. More than that and not only will your wording look clunky, it could set off red flags within the search engines.


• 
  URLS: These are important, too. Use short URLs, but make certain you take advantage of keywords when at all possible.


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  Headings: Properly using the H1, H2, etc. headings within your content can make it easier for your customers to read, plus it is an important part of your SEO plan. Keep them at an appropriate size and don’t use more than one H1 header per page.


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  Speed: While it may not directly impact your SEO plan, it is still important that you create webpages that load quickly. Optimize your images and provide alternate text that fits in with your SEO plan — this is a great way to sneak in a few extra keyword phrases.


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  Generate a Sitemap: With the Magento program, you can generate a sitemap and upload it directly to the search engines. This can help the search engines crawl your page more quickly and get everything properly referenced.


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  Internal and External Linking: Links are one of the most important and often overlooked aspects of SEO. Create useful in-page links as well as building those ever-important offsite backlinks.

As you can see, it is possible to use SEO within a Magento-powered ecommerce site. A Blue Acorn article explains that while Magento may not be completely SEO-friendly, it is more than possible to utilize the benefits of optimized pages within the Magento system. Like all types of SEO, it really is about trial and error. Therefore, do not be afraid to try something new, see how it works and make adjustments. Ideally, you wind up with a page that is user-friendly, looks great AND drives more traffic to your ecommerce portal.

Image credit: Stuart Miles on Freedigitalphotos.net

 

SEO Tips for Magento Users

Container Buying Guide - Some Overlooked Facts

In case you work with merchandise or in the export businesses, you are well aware that you need to have some good containers for the shipment problems. They have to be of prime quality and totally reliable so that your products will get to their destination without being damaged or corroded. Another important thing is to be able to unload the containers fast and store them with ease. In order to do all these you need to buy a container that will offer you the safety of serious transportation resources.

Materials

A first thing that you need to mind is the materials that the container is made of. You have to buy something of excellent quality. You may choose a plastic container or a wooden one. However, the most desired type of container is the metal one. They are totally sturdy and most people are likely to actually use them for an extensive period of time.

Capacity

There are some standard sizes that go well with every need that you might have. In order to buy a container that is perfect for your needs, you have to think well about the items that you plan to ship. This will affect the decision of choosing the best size. The volume of products that will be shipped regularly has much to do with all these things. There is the temptation of buying containers that are bigger than what you actually need. This will make you take supplementary actions so that the goods are not damaged while transporting them. The best thing is to get the average requirement and decide well before purchasing the container.

Used Or New

Another debate is related to getting a new or a used container. These products are really expensive and many people are tempted to get used containers. In this way you will save a lot of money and also have your needs catered. In case you decide to get a used container, you have to make sure that it complies with the present times requirements. They need to be safe enough so that your goods are in top shape. If you do not want to ship internationally, you may be satisfied with a container that is not water or wind tight.

Certifications

In some cases, you may find containers that are in great shape, but they do not have all the certifications for international shipping. This means that you have to watch out for all the materials and details that the containers deliver. Usually the international shipping containers are made of steel. However, in the case of domestic needs most people will get aluminum as they can be handled with ease.

You can make your purchase online, but this requires a lot more investigation. You should ask for pictures of this product and try to figure out if it has any signs of wear or faulty repairs. Buy a container that appears smooth without any signs of dents, holes or rust. The key is to choose quality products that will put your business advantage.

Author Bio

Steve Chamley trades products from South America like footwear and bags. He supplies them unbranded to different shops in Australia and New Zealand.

Container Buying Guide - Some Overlooked Facts

3 Interview Questions for Hiring Great Customer Service Reps

Unlike several other jobs, interviews for customer service representatives are focused more around behavioral analysis. In this particular arena, it is important to note one point and that is the interviewer will usually be focused on testing the patience level of the applicant, empathy, communication skills, and ability to deal with people.

Customer service departments analyse retention rates and it is very much essential for HR teams and business owners to make sure that the call centres or customer service departments are staffed with representatives of highest calibre.

Some of the interview questions are designed for customer service reps to understand customer service role in organization. Few are designed to target special scenarios, which even experienced customer service reps find tricky to answer.

Here are some non-exhaustive questions that the interviewer is likely to ask the applicant about the roles based on customer service.

1) Tell me about your dedication towards helping the customer

It is one of the common questions that employers ask. And, they expect the applicants to narrate their experience summary and explain how they handle customers in tough conditions. Experience summary includes explaining your capability of dealing with unhappy customers and helping them solve their issues in a diplomatic way. By answering the customer queries in a successful way, the interviewer confirms that the applicant is pretty strong in logical reasoning and dealing with irate customers.

2) How to deal with an unhappy or annoyed customer

In customer service role, you may repeatedly come across irate customers every now and then. Dealing with angry customers is not a cake-walk for customer service representatives. During the interview, the interviewer needs the right kind of answer from your side and he will analyse your patience level too.

In this particular job role, patience is one of the most prized commodities. People, who lose their cool too soon, won’t really survive in customer service industry for longer duration.

Whenever you come across this question, you should be able to show a glimpse of your patience in front of the interviewer and convince him that you can deal with all the irate customers in this world!

3) How Do Your Prioritize Your Daily Schedules and Customer Complaints?

Here, the interviewer expects the applicant to be good in managing time. Customer service role is pretty busy and the job role of the service representative is fast-paced. Time management is the key role here to manage customer requests and daily schedules.

Dealing with Overstress

In the customer service role, there may be a bad day for you when there will be number of requests from different customers. It is left to employees to take the request and resolve them duly. The interviewer analyses the answers received from job-seekers and looks into sense of time management from the applicant.

On the Whole

Finally, to make the judgement, the hiring manager attempts to listen to applicant’s answers and assess his/her interpersonal skills, and ability to stay calm in tense situations.

If you are a UK resident and looking for customer service jobs Leeds, you can visit Randstad.co.uk

3 Interview Questions for Hiring Great Customer Service Reps

What"s Cooking: Creating a Home Catering Business

Weddings. Bar Mitzvahs. Graduations. There are so many reasons to have a party – and that’s good for you as a caterer. Starting a home catering business will involve a lot of work on your part. You’ll need to create a plan that establishes how to launch and maintain the business – things like buying supplies, balancing the accounting books, and creating and cultivating client relationships. Here’s how to get started:

Make A Plan

A business plan outlines what you’re in business for. It should be a written plan with a statement of purpose, a tally of initial funding, and revenue and profit projections. It should also detail your expected costs, how you intend to gain and keep customers, and how much money you need to live on until the business becomes profitable.

Why do you need all of this information? Because many businesses need financing from a bank at some point. Even if you have savings, you might be surprised by how quickly you blow through it. What happens when your bank account runs dry? You’ll need more capital to expand.

Banks like to see that you’ve invested your own money into the venture to make it work. They also like to know that you know what you’re doing. A business plan helps convince the loan officer of exactly that.

Get Licensing

It’s a fact of life – the government requires that you be licensed to do business. Make sure you get all of your required permits and licenses before you actually accept any orders. You’ll also need to contact the Department Of Health and have them inspect your kitchen – a commercial kitchen. In most areas, it’s illegal to cook out of your own home.

Define Your Market

It doesn’t do you any good to go charging into the world without having a defined market. Not everyone who fogs a mirror will be your ideal customer. In most cases, specialization trumps generalization. That means that you should try to focus on serving a group of people – say people who are getting married.

Why limit yourself? In a sense, you aren’t. When someone thumbs through the phone book, or does a search in Google, for local wedding caterers, and your name not only pops up but pops up as an expert wedding caterer, then you’ve got a better chance of getting the business. After all, you’re the expert. Think about it from the customer’s perspective.

When you are pricing out a particular service, you might be willing to accept a generalist if it’s not a major concern. On the other hand, you know for a fact that a specialist will do a much better job than any generalist. That’s why master carpenters get paid more than handymen. That’s why the wedding cake specialist get paid more than the local bakery that does cakes for everyone.

Buy Supplies

You’ll need supplies like tablecloths, cooking utensils, pots, pans, and pretty much everything else you can think of that would and should go into a kitchen and dining room. When you run a catering business, you’re basically setting up and breaking down a restaurant every single day.

If that weren’t enough, you usually aren’t allowed to cook out of your home kitchen, so you’ll need to rent out a commercial kitchen. In a larger city, you can usually rent space by the hour or by the shift. In smaller towns, you might be able to rent out kitchen space from a nightclub or some other establishment that isn’t open during the day.

Develop A Marketing Plan

Having a well-designed website is also important, since you want potential clients to feel comfortable with your business before they even call you for an initial meeting – a website can help create that relationship, especially if you offer a free newsletter or post videos about your business for people to watch. Model your site off other successful sites to start with. Make sure it is functional and displays all you products and services upfront. Check out sites like the www.lenstore.co.uk and see how they present their information to their customers.

You can’t do anything without marketing. People need to find you, and the best way to get eyeballs looking at your rate sheet is to use direct mail and direct response both online and offline.

John Sheppard runs a home catering business in the city. An avid blogger, he likes to help others by posting his informative articles on the Web.

 

 

 

What"s Cooking: Creating a Home Catering Business

The Strengths of Local SEO

You have a great location, an awesome product or service and a friendly staff – yet customers aren’t running through your doors. You won’t be in business long if prospective customers can’t find you – espeically if, like most Americans, they are only looking online. If your business is like most others, your target customers live in the same city where your business is located . That’s what makes local search engine optimization so important – it ensures that your customers find you. If you’re not using local SEO, you can bet that one of your competitors is and they’re scooping up your potential profits.

Building a local brand

Building a local brand can be difficult. The first step is to truly understand your brand. It’s the identity of your company. Asking yourself some key questions can help you figure out exactly what your brand is or should be. What kind of customers are you trying to reach? What are your competitors doing? How do you want your customers to know and remember you?

Once you figure out your brand, the next step is to show it off. Your brand will be recognized by its logo. The logo can be words, pictures, letters, numbers or symbols. When designing a logo, be sure it differentiates your business from those of your competitors. You can register your logo with the United States Patent and Trademark Office to prevent others from using it.

Once you have those basics out of the way, building a local brand is easy … in theory. Sign up for social media accounts – including Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest. Also, look into social media accounts that could be relevant to your business. For example, if you offer B2B services, develop a strong presence on LinkedIn. Make sure you regularly interact with your customers and targeted audience. If a user asks you a question about store hours on your Facebook page – answer it as soon as possible, even if that information is available elsewhere. Your current and prospective customers will appreciate the personal touch.

Since your customers may be accessing your website with their cell phones, make sure your site is mobile-friendly. According to the Pew Research Center, as of February 2012, 74% of smartphone owners use their devices to get directions and other location-related information. A professional web designer or web hosting service can help you create a website that will look stunning on any platform so your customers can find you on-the-go.

Besides having an engaging brand and an exciting website, it is important to implement local SEO strategies. Otherwise, those customers searching for restaurants close to them won’t see yours.

How do I use local SEO?

There are two simple ways to implement local SEO. The first way is to use local SEO search terms. For example, use keywords that fit both your city and services and/or products. For example, a bakery in Austin would use “Austin bakery” in its site instead of simply “bakery.” Besides allowing search engines to find you in local searches, it also will cause you to rank higher when “Austin bakery” is queried because there is less competition for that phrase than the keyword “bakery.”

You can further distinguish your site by listing the specific neighborhood in which your business is located. You can also make sure to use local landmarks and locations within your site. This will also help search engines figure out where you are within your city to enhance your local SEO efforts. If your business is located within a large city like Chicago, if someone searches for “restaurants near Willis Tower,” the search engine is more likely to find you if you mention that you’re close to Willis Tower on your site.

There are many other local SEO strategies that you may find useful. Consider hiring a professional local SEO expert to help you reach maximum optimization on your site. Investing in local SEO can help you build a popular brand name within your community, city and industry, if your business ranks well within the topic. And your business will gain the traction it needs for success with strategic local SEO tactics.

The Strengths of Local SEO

Little known benefits of managed servers

For companies with a small IT budget and limited IT staff, using a managed server may be the best option for your website and other network platforms. That was the experience of Peter Yagecic, director of technology for Situation Interactive, a digital marketing agency.

“For years we had a hybrid approach where we used a managed server provider for our production servers but kept our development environment in house,” he said of his experience. After further considering his staff’s needs, he moved to a managed provider for everything. Then it happened. “A few weeks ago one of the drives in our RAID went bad in the middle of the night. By the time I read the support ticket log at 7 a.m. the next morning, the issue was resolved with no downtime.”

Using a managed server provides many benefits for a business looking to stay current with technology, while reducing the overall total cost of ownership for technology investments, according to John Luludis, president of Superior Technology Solutions.

Turning the managing server has quite a few other benefits that you may not realize. At the top of that list is security. As The Atlantic.Net Blog stated, “The company in charge of hosting your server will continuously maintain the equipment and debug the applications as necessary in order to keep your website protected against viruses and unauthorized attacks.”

The managed server also makes the backup routine easier. In the case of a server issue, a backup of data and pertinent software configurations is necessary to be able to quickly (if not instantly) replace the physical hardware or corrupt software of the machine as required, Dan Abbate, CEO with Robotation, which helps SMBs implement technology, pointed out. With higher end managed server implantations, the network itself can also be backed up by instantly routing traffic to a mirror server (located on another network in the same data center or on another network in another data center) somewhere else in the world. Either way with proper backup systems in place when there is an issue, it has minimal effect on uptime.

Another benefit of the managed server is flexibility. Most managed server vendors will have utilities that make it easier for businesses to spin up new server/application instances than if they host it themselves, said Vann Abernethy, senior product manager for NSFOCUS, an Internet security company. “The ability to scale quickly and within a pre-determined cost range is significant,” he said. “This gives the business the ability to know exactly what the cost will be for growth and helps management plan more effectively.”

The managed server can be a budget saver, Abernethy added. “Managed server vendors utilize economies of scale to offer their services, which is generally less expensive than a business operating the server internally as it saves them from having to purchase the server, hire and train staff, and find the space for it.”

Overall, the most important – and perhaps most hidden – benefit of using a managed server is the peace of mind you’ll have knowing that your data is secure, there is a regular backup routine in place, and it isn’t a budget buster. Instead, you can let someone else manage the technical side of things while you can concentrate on managing your business.

Sue Poremba is a freelance writer focusing primarily on security and technology issues and occasionally blogs for cloud service provider Rackspace Hosting.

Little known benefits of managed servers

4 of the Most Common IT Problems

If you run a business or oversee a business’s IT department, then you will probably run into some of these 4 common problems. When the day finally comes, you should know an effective solution that will keep the business operating as efficiently as possible.

Breaches in Security

Image via Flickr by amelungc

Hackers know that they can get large amounts of data by stealing information from businesses. Even small businesses often have personal information about customers including their addresses, phone numbers, and credit card numbers.

How prevalent is this issue? One survey shows that 74 percent of businesses were affected by some sort of cyber attack within a 12-month period. That means you’ll probably see this issue sooner rather than later.

Incompatible Software

Incompatible software can cause anything from slow responses to a complete system crash. Unfortunately, you can’t always predict when two pieces of software will cause problems when they run at the same time.

A company that purchases or writes proprietary software can quickly find that incompatible programs lead to inefficiencies. When software reacts this way, it’s often up to the IT team to find a solution or explain the problem to programmers that can patch up the proprietary software.

Too Much Data

Your network can only handle so much data at a time. When you push beyond its boundary, tasks that usually take a few seconds can stretch on for minutes.

This is obviously a problem that has adverse effects. It often happens because companies see that they have stretches when a lot of data gets sent. But, they also have times when the network does very little work at all.

That’s where the benefits of capacity planning can help. When you want to get the most out of your computers without spending a lot of money on upgrades, you just need to plan your day and set realistic usage expectations.

Teaching the Humans

Computers are simple. They do what they’re told. As long as you know how to tell them to do what you want, you won’t get many problems from them.

Humans are another story. Many of the most common IT problems have little to do with computers and everything to do with the people trying to use them. The United States Department of Commerce says that 62 percent of working Americans rely on the Internet to do their jobs. Unfortunately, 32 percent of households don’t have broadband access.

That means a lot of workers need additional training to do their jobs. As a member of the IT team, you might find yourself teaching a lot of people how to do things that you learned as a child. It’s unfortunate, but you either teach the person how to follow a specific process, or you go back at least once a day to solve the same problem.

What IT problems do you run into frequently? Do you find that the same problems seem to come up all the time even though you’ve explained how to avoid them? Feel free to vent your frustrations!

4 of the Most Common IT Problems

Database Efficiencies Within the Cloud

A primary motivator for a business is beating its competitors to market in every way: with innovation, products and customer service. As cloud computing has developed, it’s been a means for businesses to outsource responsibilities to a cloud vendor so that they can better focus on running their companies and making themselves more competitive. When it comes to storage, cloud databases, which involve storing data online instead of on physical servers, are simplifying database management and giving businesses that sought-after competitive edge.

Businesses are also embracing cloud database management because of its efficiencies in performance and cost. A cloud database allows businesses to take advantage of its architecture as a shared online resource, while benefitting from pay-as-you-go pricing. They can also utilize these services without having to constantly train and hire IT staff with the right skills, or invest in new on-site hardware. Cloud databases are becoming so prevalent throughout the IT field that 2013 was predicted as being the year of the cloud database.

The cloud strategy for databases

Traditionally, businesses have had to maintain multiple databases covering different aspects of their activities. For example, a business may handle a high volume of merchant accounts, a highly geographically dispersed sales force and a complex payments program. The weight of this database management could very well impede a company’s competitiveness.

A cloud database, however, can organize company data together on a single, uniform and scalable platform. It can help employees and management work cooperatively, reducing delays and miscommunications. Colleagues can better share information, with the end result being improved operational efficiencies.

Businesses can even choose between different types of storage, which offer distinct kinds of performance and price. Standard volumes of cloud storage target everyday storage needs, which are typically large volumes without speed requirements but with great performance demands. A strategy that uses solid state drives, or SSD, is better suited to applications with quick access as their top priority. Additionally, cloud database applications are scalable to accommodate new products and services.

Cloud databases gain strong backers

Although businesses may already be sold on the benefits of cloud database applications, they may be more willing to join in as industry giants affirm the technology with new commitments. Tech leaders Oracle and Microsoft recently gave cloud databases a strong vote of confidence by banding together to ensure Oracle’s software runs on Microsoft’s platform, Azure. Before that, Oracle put aside its rivalries with cloud provider Salesforce.com and they’ve fused the Oracle platform’s applications with Salesforce’s finance and human resource cloud-based applications.

Benefits outweigh risks

Despite all the advantages of shared Internet computing, enterprises place a premium on their data. The risk of having this data breached keeps some businesses from taking the cloud database plunge. However, certain methods can be used to secure this cloud database, and cloud hosting providers are implementing the best available security practices. To reduce the threat of risks, enterprises can use a combination of private and public clouds, using each for different storage needs.

As businesses discover the efficiencies of cloud databases, the technology will not only help them get to market faster, but create new business opportunities. Cloud-based databases mean more innovative applications that allow businesses to improve their competitiveness, and pay-as-you-go models allow businesses to start small and progress as their needs dictate. The point is to get started.

Database Efficiencies Within the Cloud

How to Connect Better with Remote Employees

Connecting – Courtesy of Shutterstock

The modern age of information brings up a lot of problems that never would’ve really occurred at the same level in the old days. One of these involves dealing with remote employees. It can be a lot more difficult to manage employees remotely then it is to manage people who are at the same location as you. Fortunately there are a few things you can do to help improve the situation.

Record Everything

It’s a lot easier to keep track of employees when they’re nearby since you have them sign things, and you can ask them questions directly. This is less the case with remote employees. So this means that it’s important to write down everything relating to a project that the employee is working on. Staying organized is pretty important for that reason. If you don’t stay organized and record everything relating to that particular employee or project you can quickly become confused and if they are far away it can be harder to clarify things quickly and easily.

Stay Connected

It’s also important to make sure that you keep in constant communication with remote employees. If you don’t have the ability to walk down to their cubicle to ask them a question due to them being on the other side of the planet, it becomes even more important to make sure they know that they can email you with any questions whenever they need to, and vica versa.

Do More Than Just Text

One problem with using text only is that you will tend to miss the full picture after a long enough time away from the remote employee. There are some things that just can’t be expressed terribly well in text only, such as exactly how someone feels about a project. It can also be hard to show exactly how a project is going. This is why it’s important to use remote collaboration tools like Trello or Google Docs to keep track of everything and allow for project managers to get a sense for how projects are going.

Encourage Collaboration

It’s important to try to facilitate collaboration and communication between team members, especially if some of these team members are on the other side of the globe. A lot of miscommunication can happen as a result of poor communication between team members which is more likely if they aren’t really talking to each other very often. This is much less of a problem when it comes to employees that are in the same area, since the social nature of what they’re doing is much easier and has less hassles associated with it.

Use Cost Effective Phones

It can be even more tempting to not communicate enough when employees are on the other side of the world and when they can only talk on the phone through expensive methods. This is why something like a Business VoIP approach can be very useful. Many of them have very cheap or even unlimited programs that will make it easy for people to communicate over the phone essentially for free in any area where they have access to the Internet. If this approach is used, the employee might as well be across town since the inconvenience is mostly eliminated.

How to Connect Better with Remote Employees

5 Preliminary Steps Every New Business Should Take Before Launching

Nine out of ten businesses fail within the first five years. This is partially because they don’t take the preliminary steps to set them up for success. If you’re thinking about starting a new business, take a look at these five things you should do before launching to increase your chances of growing and being successful.

Create a Business Plan

Image via Flickr by plantoo47

Having a great idea doesn’t ensure your success. You need to have a plan to get there. Create a physical plan for your business before you launch and then put it somewhere so you can refer to it often. Your business plan should include goals for your business, a timetable for when things should happen, and anything else that will put you on the path to success. There are templates available online to help you get started.

Analyze Your Competition

If you’re trying to compete against products and services that already exist, you should analyze your competition so you can make your products and services better. These days, customers are very savvy about comparing products and prices, so you have to have the best products at the best prices to come out on top. You should also make your products and services as unique as possible so that your business stands out to potential customers.

Get Your Finances in Order

Finances are the biggest reason why businesses fail. You can’t just start spending money as soon as you launch your business — you need to take things slow and carefully manage everything. Start by creating a budget that includes everything, from employee wages, rent, and utilities to advertising and emergency money. Then stick to it! Don’t hire more employees than you can afford, and don’t spend too much money on improving the appearance of your store until you build a loyal customer base. Also, you should use a tool like CreditSignal by Dun and Bradstreet to monitor your credit score.

Register your Business and Get the Proper Licenses and Permits

If you neglect to get the proper licenses and permits in your area, you could face fees later, and you could possibly even experience a lawsuit. That’s why you should be sure to get the proper business license and find out all the various permits you need. For instance, it’s illegal to be a street vendor without a permit or if you don’t have permission from the land owner where you’re stationed. At the most basic level, of course, you should register your business, but be aware that many more permits and licenses could apply to you particular type of business.

Create a Plan for Advertising and Promotions

If you want your business to be successful, you need to be able to attract new customers. So, you should have an advertising plan before you launch your business. The more detailed the better, but you should at least research how much it costs to advertise in your local newspaper and online and build money into your budget for it.

These are just a few of the preliminary steps you should take before launching a business. The more research and planning you do, the better chance your business has for success. You’re more likely to succeed if you start out on track.

5 Preliminary Steps Every New Business Should Take Before Launching

How to Increase the Sales of your Products?

Imagine a scenario. Your company has a product. The product is the best of its kind; it is environment- friendly, it gives best in class results, even the price of your product is very reasonable. Still the sale of the product is not up to the mark that was expected from it. In this case you need to figure out what is wrong! The answer to this dilemma is that even though the product has a cutting edge and reasonably priced there is not much awareness about it. This may be possible due to none or a very weak marketing strategy.

This must be corrected. There must be a strong marketing strategy and robust advertising done to boost the sale of a product. Advertisement means a small media broadcast that states facts about a product and tries to present the product in an attractive way. There is a saying which when translated to English means “If you speak about your berries then only they would be sold.” This means that if you advertise about your product it will have a higher selling rate.

Each and every type of media today is used for marketing purposes. There are A/V commercials in TV, audio commercials on the radio and graphic commercials in the newspapers. The advent of the internet and its subsequent popularity has made the internet the next big platform for advertising. Internet marketing is such a huge thing that there are companies which do just that. Advertising agencies which work only on the internet are a trend right now. These vary from companies whose websites are designed to be an online Megastore to companies which design the small ads seen on the side panels of popular social networking sites. Even the social networking sites provide direct marketing services nowadays.

There are many types of internet marketing. The most popular amongst them are:

1. Pay per Click


2. Push Mails


3. Ad displays


4. Using networking sites as a platform


5. Posting videos of the product on different sites

All these are like different marketing strategies. They should be reviewed and the best option for marketing your product must be chosen.

For example, your product is something which is software related and needs to be downloaded from the internet into any device. It is a nice idea to have payment taken from the download by clicking on the necessary link. Similarly if the product is something which needs viewing of photographs or needs to be described through text the option of sending emails to a lot of people is something worth considering. The only investment here would be buying of an extensive database. One can have advertisements designed into a graphic image and/or a simple video(s) which can be put on different websites and/or social networking sites which provide a special section for advertising.

Online advertising is a big thing right now. Most companies prefer advertising on the internet as it is easier to handle, has a wide range of reach and is not too costly. Marketing on the internet is a very real option today.

 

How to Increase the Sales of your Products?