Month: August 2020

Every business owner is looking to get their business noticed on the search engine results page (SERP). There are various SEO tactics that can be used to get a higher ranking for your brand on Google. However, some strategies – called ‘Black Hat’ strategies – manipulate SEO rules which can be considered unethical, and even cause your brand to lose its traffic.

It is important to stay aware of the types of black hat strategies that are used, to ensure that your business can actively avoid being punished by Google.

Keyword stuffing
Some websites have repeated keywords within their content to hack the search engine into thinking that its content is relevant. The actual content itself has little meaning and loads the website with relevant keywords. This can create a poor user experience from the poor quality of content, and cause Google to drop your website’s ranking.

Hidden text and links
Alternative ways to stuff keywords into website content also include changing the colour of the font to be the same as the background, adding text behind images, intentionally positioning text off-screen, setting the font size to be zero or hiding links by adding them to a small character – such as a hyphen or a full stop – so that website viewers cannot see the text and links, but search engine bots can still read it.

Link schemes
Buying or selling websites that rank high on Google’s algorithm already, using excessive link exchanges or using automated programs that create links to your website are all black hat methods intended to manipulate site rankings and make your website look more popular. Good link building strategies should focus on deliberate, selective growth that is planned and carried out with care, as opposed to churning out a large volume of links solely for quantity purposes. Ensure that the links have meaning, and are placed there to add value to your content.

Cloaking
Intentionally providing different content to search engines and website users is called cloaking. While the cloaked website may appear in a search about one topic, the actual content of the website may be about something else entirely. The purpose of the deception is usually to drive traffic and generate advertising revenue from this increased traffic.

Black hat SEO methods should be avoided to prevent your website from being banned from Google and other search engine websites. These measures can be extremely damaging to your rankings and website traffic. Instead, consider focusing on improving content quality, accessibility and relevance which can bring up your website’s rankings organically without risk of permanent bans by Google.

Maximising returns on investments is the primary goal for every business owner who invests in a marketing campaign for their brand. Learning how to properly test and troubleshoot your budget according to your business needs can help you save a failing campaign from costing you money.

Objectives
The first step to budget optimisation is being clear with the goals you are trying to achieve through this campaign. These can include generating qualified leads, driving content downloads or building awareness of your brand. Understanding your objectives can help you decide what aspect of your campaign needs more finances.

Testing
Deciding how to set a maximum and minimum spend per day on your campaign can be challenging. A two to four week testing period can help in narrowing down the range that works best to deliver the results set in your objective phase. A common strategy is to start with a mix of ad formats including sponsored content, text and message advertisements. This testing method can help in identifying the types of ads and content that provides optimal results for your brand.

Adapting your budget
Budgeting for marketing campaigns may present a range of issues even after the testing phase. It should be noted that constantly changing and adapting parts of your campaign to run smoothly is a part of digital marketing. It may help to start with a daily budget that is higher at the start of the campaign, and use these insights to then optimise your campaign and lower daily limits if required.

If your campaign is exhausting its budget too quickly, consider lowering your daily limit. If your campaign is not spending its budget, then you may need to automate your bidding option or set more competitive bids. Automated bidding aims to deliver the most results while spending your daily budget in full. This can also help to provide fast results, which can be useful if your marketing content is time-sensitive. However, this will also lead to faster spending of your budget.

Having a strong digital presence has now become a basic part of running a business. Business owners are investing time and resources into developing and upgrading their websites. An important thing to remember during this process of website migration is efficiency.

When shifting from one website host to another, poor planning can lead to longer periods of downtime for your current website. Losing online customers can damage brand reputation and lower your website’s SEO rankings.
Consider following these tips to help you migrate to a different host more efficiently, and minimize downtime.

Careful cancellation
If you cancel your current plan with your website host, it is likely that it will be immediate. This means there is potential for you to lose all the customer data and all the content on the website. Before moving your website host, ensure that you have carefully weighed your options and have selected the host that is right for you.

Backup your files
Your existing host provider should have a feature within their control panel that allows you to back up your data. To make the migration process easy, consider selecting a hosting provider that has the same web-based technology as your current hosting provider. This makes restoring your backed up data faster and easier.
The data will download as a compressed set of files. It is important not to decompress any of the files to ensure that the new host is able to receive them in the compressed form for it to process.

Transferring files
The control panel for the new host should allow you to restore backup. In this setting, select the full-site backup files that you downloaded earlier. When all the information has been transferred, ensure that the database is working properly. Backup files cannot have any information related to usernames, passwords or other permissions, as this has to be manually entered into the new web hosting provider’s interface.

Update your domain
At this stage, a copy of all your site files have been added into your new host. However, your domain, or your website name, still points to your old host. To update this, switch your DNS nameservers that you may get from your new host. Detailed instructions on how to change it can be found on your new provider’s website.

After these steps, it is important to test the website and have it running for a few days to ensure that all the features are working properly. Once confident, you can then cancel the old hosting plan. While this is more time consuming, it avoids the cost of losing a customer that clicks on your website when it is down, and minimises the risk of data loss and major site fixes.

As employees return to office spaces, there is a growing concern as to how employees can protect themselves at work. It is crucial that employers carefully plan their work spaces to minimise the risk of COVID transmissions. Consider the following essential ways you can adapt your workspace to protect your employees and customers during these risky times.

Physical distancing
One of the most essential recommendations employers should follow is making sure that there is at least 4 square metres of space per person. Consider making adjustments to the layout of your office space to allow workers to maintain a 1.5 metre distance from each other. These may include wall / floor markings and signage to keep workers aware of the distancing measures. It can be helpful to review tasks and events that require closer interaction, and map alternative ways to complete these tasks while still allowing social distancing to take place.

Close contact work
If the nature of the work your employees have to engage in requires close contact, then extra care needs to be taken to make sure that you minimise putting your employees at risk. Consider minimising the number of people within an area at any given time, and marking off certain areas of the workspace for essential employees only. Steps like staggering start and end times for shifts, encouraging employees to form teams with workers that need to work together, and moving each group to a different area of the office where they still have separate access to facilities can help minimise risk of COVID.

Sanitation facilities
It is important to train all employees on the hygiene practices that will be in place at your office space. Consider signage in washrooms on handwashing protocols, providing well-stocked bathroom facilities and providing hand sanitiser in appropriate locations such as entries and exits. Regularly empty waste bins and encourage ventilation by opening windows and adjusting air-conditioning units to stop them from recirculating the same air.

Cleaning the office space
It is recommended that workspaces be cleaned at least once a day, and commonly used spaces are disinfected as regularly as possible. If your business is more customer-oriented, it may be useful to clean and disinfect more frequently. Surfaces that are constantly touched, like door handles, phones, credit card machines, toilets and buttons should be disinfected as frequently as possible. Consider encouraging workers to disinfect their regularly used items like glasses and phones.

Personal protective equipment
Consider providing employees with PPE like masks, gloves and eye protection equipment to foster safer work conditions. It can be useful to consult with employees about the types of PPE they prefer, to ensure that their areas of concern are being addressed. If employees work in close proximity to each other or with customers where interaction time is longer, it can be useful to install screens or sneeze guards to shield workers from droplets. However, employers must remember that these screens also need to be cleaned and disinfected regularly.

When business is going well, it can be easy to procrastinate planning for the bad times. However, preparing for disaster before it strikes by having a contingency plan can be the key to business survival.

A contingency plan can help businesses prepare for possible circumstances such as natural disasters, employee theft, negative publicity or staff injuries. Having a plan for these contingencies can help your business react faster to unexpected events to prevent ongoing damages, recover from disruptive events, and resume regular business operations as quickly and easily as possible. When writing a contingency plan, consider incorporating the following tactics:

Identify the risks
Think about the key risks that your business could face. This could involve researching your business market, competitors, economy trends, security threats or employment issues. It is a good idea to work with members of different departments in your business in order to foresee potential risks in all sectors.

Prioritise
Once you have identified potential risks, prioritise the ones that are most likely to affect your business. This will ensure that the most relevant issues are addressed first to provide you with a plan if they occur. One way to do this is by creating a risk assessment to identify the most pressing risks.

Create a plan
After identifying the key risks to your business, you can start drafting a contingency plan to mitigate their effects. This should include a clear guideline that outlines what to do when a contingency occurs and how to continue operating the business. The plan should also clarify employee responsibilities, key contact details, timelines of when tasks should be done, restoration processes, and existing resources that can be drawn upon to prevent damage, such as insurance coverage.

Resource assessment
Consider the resources you may need in order to resolve a contingency. This could include extra staff, insurance, PPE, or technical support. In order for the resolution process of a contingency to go smoothly, it is important that you have enough equipment and support so that you don’t have added stress and time going towards finding extra resources.

Share the plan
Once you have written a contingency plan, ensure that they are accessible to your employees and stakeholders. Be receptive to any feedback your employees or stakeholders may have about your plan as there may be room for improvement. It is also important to review your plan over time to ensure that it stays up to date.