Get your idea in shape

Many people want to start their own businesses but do not know which business to venture into. Oftentimes, people who have this problem usually think that others are born with the ability to come up with sound business ideas while others are not: this is simply not true.

To get your idea in shape, you need to challenge yourself to come up with ten ideas per day. The ideas do not have to be about your new business, they can be about anything: places that you would like to vacation, books that you would like to read, and ideas about new comic book heroes. Doing so will enable your idea muscle to grow, and soon you will be writing down tons of business ideas.

Write a list of problems that need solving

Once your idea muscle is in shape, you should write lists that will help you to narrow down your ideas. The best way to come up with an original business idea is to write down problems that need solving, preferably problems that you have been through. When you write down problems that need solving, you will avoid coming up with lousy business ideas.

The most common mistake that startups make is to solve problems that people do not have. To come up with a list of issues that need solving, you should be present and think about the things that are going on around you. Which things bug you on a daily basis?

Come up with solutions to everyday problems

Now that you have a list of things that bug most people, you should start thinking about solutions. If you trust more than one person, you should bring them into the room because they can help you to brainstorm solutions. When you hit a wall on some problems, do not be discouraged; just move on and solve the next one.

Come up with business ideas

Once you have a list of solutions to your problems, you should identify the ones that have the potential to be good businesses. For instance, with the growing popularity of specialty coffee, the time seemed right to introduce wild luwak coffee to the American market. This coffee has an incredible story and an equally indulgent taste.

Choose what you are passionate about

Starting a successful business venture takes a lot of persistence and drive, and it might take a few years for your idea to become a success. That is why you need to be passionate about your idea; you will be less likely to give up when you hit a few obstacles. It also helps to choose a business that is in your current industry.

However, many successful businesspersons have started businesses outside the industry they were working in before leaving their jobs. You should know that whatever business you go into, passion always trumps experience. No matter how much experience you have, you might give up when you run into unexpected challenges and obstacles.

If you need to acquire a business license to pursue your new business idea, you should do it. Businesses such as bars and restaurants need multiple licenses before you can open them. You need to conduct some research to find out which licenses your business needs.

Digital Marketing, consists of many other components. Some of them are; Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing, Search Engine Marketing, Inbound Marketing, Email Marketing and Web Analytics.

Businesses all over the world, know the power of the internet and are looking to invest more in digital marketing. This influx has created a huge upward demand for digital marketing skills. Combined with the shortage of skilled labour in this area, there is a huge opportunity.

Some stats to further validate the demand for Digital Marketing:

• Did you know the demand for Digital Marketing professionals will rise by 38% this year?
• Digital Marketing managers are paid 16% higher than their traditional counterparts
• Digital Marketing spending will increase by 12% while non-internet budgets will decrease by 2%

The challenge is finding a good way to start a career in the digital world. Fear not, here is an elegant infographic on digital marketing skills, the average managerial salary and what blogs and certifications can get you skilled up. Whether you are a freelancer or wanting to work for an established brand it all starts with getting skilled before entering the digital marketing battlefield.

Most of the digital jobs allow you to work remotely; you can work from a remote island sipping your favourite drink as long you have the skills, a laptop and good internet connection.

This infographic was produced courtesy of Digital Vidya a leading online training provider.

Infographic source

Why?

Because websites need to load images and buffer videos.

In this infographic, we can learn how to improve the page load time of any website.

Top 3 Tips to Speed up any Website

Use a Content Delivery Network

Traditionally, the speed of a website varies from where the website visitor is physically located and wouldn’t it be nice if the site loads consistently regardless of where the web server is? This is exactly what a content delivery network does by storing your content on various servers across the globe.

Take Advantage of a Caching Plugin

A caching plugin like W3 Total Cache can compress files and pages; this enables the website to load faster. Caching plugins can also minimize the file size by removing empty spaces and lines.

Use an Image Compression Plugin

In the modern day, you will rarely find a site without any high-quality images. But most sites do not manage the image size or resolution well. If you want to make this easier employ an image compression plugin.

Source: Infographic brought to you by the team from DigitalNext

In Conclusion

Do some basic housekeeping of your website today so you don’t lose out on potential leads to your competitors. Hopefully, this infographic can show you the way to fast loading site.

An Introduction To Online Marketing Of E-Commerce Websites

E-commerce websites can potentially be extremely profitable, but you have to know how to market them right. As with any type of website, it is important to use good search engine optimization strategies. This is perhaps the most important part of marketing a business online. Luckily, there are many resources available to help you do this. There are professionals that can assist you in search engine optimization, and it is also possible to study the subject yourself. You also can do online advertising of your e-commerce site.

Some Basic Tips for Search Engine Optimization of an E-Commerce Business

Search engine optimization techniques help your page to come up high in the search results. There are several basic tips to keep in mind, when you are working to improve the search rankings of your e-commerce website. By keeping these basic tips in mind, it is possible to have a large impact on your search rankings.

It’s crucial to pay attention to the number of keywords on your website. If the keyword density is between one and three percent, this is ideal for your search rankings. However, it is important to never exceed three percent, due to the rules of search engines. Having under one percent of your page keywords will tend to result in low rankings.

If you have a Meta description, this is also beneficial to increasing your search rankings. This can draw in traffic from the search results. The more traffic is drawn to your page, the higher your rankings are likely to become over the course of time. This will result in even greater increases in traffic. The high levels of traffic will likely lead to more purchases from your e-commerce site.

The title and Meta description should both be relatively short. This can ensure that people will be able to read the full title and Meta description. If people are unable to read the full title and Meta description, it will likely do little to improve the success of your e-commerce website.

Resources That Can Help You Improve Your SEO Strategy

There are services that can help you with search engine optimization. However, it is very important to make sure that you read a lot of information on search engine optimization strategies. There are numerous resources available online. For instance, the following websites are excellent resources:

• Vanedelay Design: This link offers 10 practical SEO tips for owners of e-commerce websites.
• Search Engine Land: This website teaches readers how to use good SEO strategies and get noticed by search engines. Here is the link to learn 7 tips for e-commerce website owners.
• Goins Writer offers 12 tips that can help you with your search engine optimization strategy.

Additional Resources and a Live Example

Furthermore, there are services that can help you with your search engine optimization. In most cases, the initial cost of these services will be ultimately earned back from increased profit. However, it is important to find skilled services to help you improve your search rankings. Here are some resources to learn more about how find the right services:

• CIO has ten tips to help you do this.
• Google itself offers advice on this subject.
• An example of an excellent eCommerce site.

Advertising Your Website

There are different options for advertising your website. You can advertise through Google, along with online advertising companies. There are different types of advertisements that you can get from these companies. It is possible to advertise through banner ads, but it is also possible to advertise by paying for your advertisement to come up at the top of search results. Both can be effective means of advertising, and there are tremendous benefits to paying for advertisements within search results.

Here is an infographic presented to you by Monder Law Group that outlines some of the blogging laws.

These laws are as important to an established blogger as it is to someone new wanting to make a kick start in blogging.

This infographic not just outlines the law but also details the consequences that follow if the rules are not obeyed – the most common being Copyright Infringement. Can you believe the number of lawsuits in relation to Copyright Infringement has increased from 1,983 to 5,076 in the last couple of years alone? Now that’s an alarming figure. Leave alone the lawsuit that follows, would anyone like to spend time in jail or can afford to pay fines of $250,000 per offense? I’m not trying to scare you but simply getting the message across.

Hence, if you don’t want to get in trouble when it comes to the law this is a must read for all bloggers. If we all did our homework there wouldn’t be trouble in paradise, would there?

Infographic source

But today, you are lucky.

Why?

Because we have found an awesome and actionable content marketing checklist that goes beyond the traditional list of just the handful of popular social media sites.

It covers content syndication, bookmarking, content curation and content marketing platforms. Furthermore, it’s an infographic which is easy to consume that has example sites where you can start with.

If you are a blogger, content marketer, digital marketer, website administrator or anyone in the online industry looking for promotional and traffic building tactics, you don’t want to skim this one.

Two of my favourite tactics that are underutilized are StumbleUpon and Medium. They are both not your mainstream platforms; StumbleUpon a social site, Medium a content creation and marketing platform all in one. There is not a lot that is missing on the list, especially for starters but you will do well to take advantage of content repurposing to get some more mileage from your old content.

There are plenty of gems on this content marketing infographic by PageTraffic team. Let us know which one is your favourite or what else you would like to add to this list?

Content Marketing Infographic brought to you by PageTraffic.

This also means hackers go after WordPress sites most often than any other sites. So it is important to protect WordPress sites before it is too late.

Now, you may think what the hacker is going to do with my site; it will be useless for them.

A single site may not be that useful to a hacker but a handful of small sites at their control can give them a network of sites where they may post unnatural black hat links. They may use the site for many other illicit activities including for quick search engine optimization (SEO) wins.

Here are some of the common reasons why WordPress sites get hacked:

• Most WordPress sites get hacked because they are not updated to the latest version of WordPress
• Weak password
• Using the default ‘admin’ username and account
• Security vulnerability in a theme
• Security issue with a plugin used
• Theme or plugin not updated to the latest version

Here is an infographic on how to improve WordPress security with some handy tips to protect your site. Some tips are applicable to any site and not just a WordPress site. Protecting your site now is a protective measure and it is better than cure. It is like going to the dentist for a check-up every six months before that nasty toothache kicks in. There is no such thing as 100% protection but each small barrier will detract potential hackers and put a fence on your site.

Infographic brought to you by: YourEscapeFrom9to5.com

Do you provide a service to the local area like real estate agency, plumbing, electrician, locksmith, accountant and lawyer?

Are you looking to get more leads and customers through Google and other search engines link Bing?

Are your local Search Engine Optimization (SEO) efforts well below your expectations or the organic traffic you wanted to achieve well below what your competitors are getting?

If the answers to the above questions are an astounding “YES” then we have got you covered with a local SEO Optimization infographic created by AgencyPlatform.com that covers on-site tips, Google+ local page improvement, citations, reviews and local links.

An Infographic from the team at: AgencyPlatform.com

Your quick wins in regards to local SEO can come from citations. Find your website mentions online and make sure the listings are correct and consistent. Work on getting good customer reviews in the long run. If you can remember a recent customer who complimented your service, ask for an online review. Make sure your NAP – Name, Address and Phone listings are accurate and consistent across the web.

As a long term plan create local content that serves the local market and the target audience. Try and look for local links. Links don’t come naturally if you are not creating amazing, pillar content. Link building to a certain extent is a pro-active measure and if you need help hire someone. Pay more attention to your social media profile and do not just share links to your products or services. Provide links to quality content from authoritative channels. In short take care of the local area without being too self-serving.

Local rankings can be a bit of a challenge but with this infographic, you can get the ‘house in order’ and get the basics covered. Good luck optimizing your local SEO efforts.

Beware influencer marketing can get you results but it needs great content that can get the attention of a busy entrepreneur or two.

If you wanted to go see the Pyramids of Egypt you are probably going to need help. There is no reason you can’t do it alone; it’s just going to cost you more time and money.

Here is an awesome infographic on Influencer Marketing created by eBrandz.com that covers all aspects of the process.

Infographic credit

The smart way to go about with influencer marketing is taking a step by step approach.

Step 1: Create awesome content.

There is no substitute for awesome content. Content that helps the target audience solve a problem, learn something and provide a guide or tips.

Step 2: Find an Influencer who produces similarly awesome content.

Hopefully, they are easy to work with. Don’t reach out to “Top-Tier” influencers like Neil Patel or Pat Flynn as they are online superheroes and would probably not have time for the 100 such requests that come to them every day.

Step 3: Go to town promoting your content, the side-kick moment – enjoy it.

Don’t forget to thank the mentor endlessly for their time and effort.

Influencer marketing is about the relationship, don’t treat it as a transaction. It is easier to beat somebody else’s trumpet than your own, as long as the music is good. Create great content consistently and be patient. Don’t go to the same influencer time and again; find new ones to work with to cover uncharted territory. You will learn a ton by working on your own and you will learn even more with an influencer in a short time period. Good luck with your influencer marketing campaign.

The reason? Cost, most likely.

Why is this a bad move according to Neil Patel?

• Email list is a recurring source of traffic. You publish a post and send an email to your subscribers and you can get recurring traffic for each new post.
• Email subscribers convert better than any other online marketing method or source.

Here are 20 Actionable Tips to Build Your Mailing List in an Infographic.

20 Tips to Increase Email Subscribers – An Infographic from YourEscapeFrom9to5.com

If you like this Infographic, please take a moment to share it.

Lessons from the Infographic

Tip #1 – Use your ‘About’ page to get email subscribers. If your content is good, people naturally want to know more about you and that’w why this is a good page to have an opt-in box.

Tip #2 – Use an opt-in checkbox when commenting. People who comment are action takers and there is a better chance of converting them into subscribers.

Tip #3 – Do not use double opt-in pages. Do not use two web pages – one to get the subscriber details and another to confirm it. Use confirmation emails instead.

Tip #4 – Use opt-in popups specific to a page a user is in.

Tip #5 – Provide additional content for email subscribers.

Tip #6 – Use author bio call to action for opt-in.

Tip #7 – Ask users to opt-in when they are about to exit your page. Throw the dice and find out if they like to stay updated.

Tip #8 – Host a contest or provide a freebie for opting-in.

Tip #9 – Explain the benefits of subscribing to your mailing list.

Tip #10 – Guest Blog to promote your brand and to build your mailing list.

Tip #11 – Have an opt-in box in your ‘Home’ page. Having a call to action in your ‘Home’ page is a great tactic to increase email subscribers.

Tip #12 – Have a ‘Thank You’ page for new commenters with a sign-up box.

Tip #13 – Experiment with your opt-in box and button colours. Use colours that stand out.

Tip #14 – Use an opt-in box that slides up. This is less annoying than pop-ups.

Tip #15 – Use a HelloBar for collecting email addresses. This is a bar at the top or bottom of web pages dedicated to collecting email subscribers.

Tip #16 – Have a sign-up box in the side bar.

Tip #17 – Join other bloggers to build your mailing list.

Tip #18 – Use the sign-up button on your Facebook fan page. Create a fan page if you don’t have one.

Tip #19 – Make your sign-up box stand out and non-intrusive.

Tip #20 – Use a mixture of the above tactics.

Conclusion

Don’t just use one of the above tips and hope to fill your subscriber list – use a few of the tactics. A stand-alone subscribe page is not going to cut it and is a good sign of a new blog. Have a sign-up box in your home page and about page; you could also have one in high traffic pages. Good luck building you mailing list.

If you like a PDF version of this Infographic or any other Infographic published on YourEscapeFrom9to5.com then kindly join our VIP list