Mobile Apps Every Entrepreneur Should Have

 ‘There is an app for that’ is a common phrase these days. There are various useful apps for almost everything. If you are an entrepreneur, you look for the ways that help you save your time and improve your productivity. So many apps are available for entrepreneurs that you can use to lessen your burden and to improve your efficiency.

Here are some mobile apps that every entrepreneur should have.

Recruiterbox

Recruiterbox is a mobile app to receive and manage job applications that your company gets. This app helps you organize your recruitment procedure. You can create and customize this app as per your recruitment process and track applicants as they go through the process. With this app you can collect all the information about the applicants.

MobileDay

MobileDay is fascinating app for entrepreneurs. It provides one-touch access to conference calls. You can effortlessly get connected with any call with your Android or iPhone device. MobileDay is compatible with any conference call service. It looks through calendar, reminds you about a call, reduces hassle of dialing, and notes down conference details.

Google Wallet

Google Wallet is a smart app that saves your time that you invest in searching for your credit/debit cards. Once you get registered with this app, all you need to do is pick the card you want to use. All of your info gets securely stored on Google's safe servers. If you also provide you with a facility to disable your card, in case it gets lost.

WriteThat.Name

WriteThat.Name is a very useful app for entrepreneurs, as it automatically scans the signatures of people from your email. It extracts their contact information from the emails and merges it with your phonebook and email contacts. If you receive a new email, it saves the contact details and if the person is already in your contact list, it updates the details.

SignEasy

SignEasy is a way to sign documents without printing or scanning documents easily and quickly. With this app you can sign your documents with your phone. SignEasy saves the time and hassle of scanning and printing documents. You can send signed documents in a timely manner.

Google Drive

Google Drive is a great app for entrepreneurs. It is a place where you can save all of your important documents, files and data in a secured cloud server. It allows you to access your files from your phone, PC and tabs. Google Drives saves data automatically and don’t have to worry about losing it. It is very easy to share data using Google Drive.

There are several other apps that save your time and efforts. You can use them to increase your productivity on the move. 

Google Launches Street View On Google Maps

To make Google Maps more efficient and useful, Google is continuously adding new and useful features it. Google Maps for mobile is a great innovation for people who want to locate a certain place on the move. Google has recently updated its mobile version for Maps. With this new feature you can explore the world at street level. It allows you to access Street View on iOS devices.

Google Maps Street View allows you to view popular landmarks, world’s most popular places, restaurants and navigate a trip virtually. You can virtually visit your hometown, or any place around the world with Google’s Street View. You can also visit Amazon, and browse a gallery to view albums from all over the world.

Google Maps Street View runs on Safari browser on iOS devices such as iPhone and iPad. It offer Street View feature along with the traditional Google Maps design. Google Maps Project Manager Amanda Leicht describes in a Google’s post that “To make Google Maps even more comprehensive, accurate and useful, today we’re making Street View available on mobile browsers.” She further states that, “With access to Street View on your phone, you can use panoramic, street-level imagery to explore and navigate the places around you, even on the go.”

To access Street View you need to touch and hold a specific location on Google Maps to open info window. By touching the Info window, you will see Street View icon. Touch Street View icon to use it.

Navigating the Street View option

-         Pan the map using your finger.

-         To zoom in, drag the Pegman icon in the lower-left corner. Drag it to a certain level in the image to zoom directly to a specific position.

-         To zoom in, double tap with your finger in Street View. To zoom out, single touch with two fingers.

-         To navigate Street View, touch Compass mode in the Google Maps menu. To navigate Street View you need to use your phone itself. To change view you can slant, revolve, spin, pan, or rotate the phone. To exit, touch Compass mode again.

-         To exit Street View, touch Go to map in the Google Maps menu.

Mapping feature requires the Safari browser to run. Google is planning to provide a direct link to access Maps on iOS devices. User can save a bookmark of the page to their device's home screen.

Twitter Introduces User Directory

The world is going bananas over social media networks. This is the reason why Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter continuously updating their features to provide better user-experience. Recently, Twitter has launched a User Directory of names. With the launch of this feature, the micro-blogging site hopes that it will drive traffic to its domain and boost value to advertisers.

The latest Twitter update, User Directory is placed in the footer of its homepage. It has alphabetical collection of Twitter’s users from A to Z. It also collects information about the profiles with non-Latin character names. The link has been to Twitter default homepage (you can see it, when you are not logged in).

To launch this feature, Twitter’s mission is to grab users’ attention who are searching for particular people in search engines. When you start looking for someone in particular using Twitter User Directory, bots start crawling through the directory in order to display more Twitter profiles in search. It brings up results based on your preference.

With Twitter User Directory, you can browse public Twitter profiles. It also includes protected profiles. By clicking through the protected account it will not display Tweets of that person. Twitter keeps the protected users’ information private and protected.

With User Directory, Twitter goes a step ahead to find users profiles and making it easier for major search engines like Google, Bing and others. Twitter’s spokesperson had said that Twitter has launched this directory, to help people find they accounts they are searching for with various search engines.

Google and Bing both have already indexed Twitter pages. So it is a matter of concern for SEO experts that whether this new User Directory will facilitate search engines to find new and non-indexed profiles. Currently Twitter directory has up to five million pages with 500 million user accounts. It means there will be lots of information available in the User Directory and people can find it easily using Twitter.

Twitter is for the people who look for news, information, and conversations. With this new feature Twitter’s aim is to attract more search traffic through directory. Twitter is certainly looking forward to raise its business from advertising. More search engine traffic brings more page views. It simply brings opportunities for display advertising. The more page views mean more users will click on them. 

Essential Elements of Your Website’s Homepage

Your website is the online representative of your business. When users arrive at your website, you get a chance to impress them. Your website gives a clear understanding of your business, who you are, what you offer and why users come back again in the future. A research shows that more than 30% websites lack to provide basic information that a user looks for. This is the reason which leads users to leave a website soon after they land to it.

Your website’s homepage is the place to make good first impression on users. Here are some essential elements that your website’s homepage should have:

Provide contact details

According to a study, around 70% small to mid size business websites don’t provide clear contact information on their website. This is one of the major reasons why visitors leave your website. To build customer trust, provide clear contact details on your website. It should include, phone number, email id, and complete physical address along with zip code. If possible provide a map to locate your office/store.

Provide images

Images reflect your business. If you are selling home decorative, your website should include a high-quality image of one of the items that you sell. Some websites fail to provide relevant images and therefore users leave your website. Be thoughtful when you display images. Choose the most relevant/appropriate image of your product to encourage visitors to visit further pages of your website.

Provide clear navigation and links

Website’s navigation is another factor that you should consider. Your website’s homepage should have a clear navigation scheme and links to direct visitors from one page to another. Buttons should clearly indicate what a certain webpage contains. Your website’s navigation and links should help customers to quickly find what they are looking for. Make sure your website doesn’t have any broken links as it stop visitors to complete their orders.

Online registration forms

Online registrations forms help you build users database. You can use users contact details to send regular newsletters, offers and coupons. Sending regular offers and discounts in your emails/newsletters is another great way to bring your visitors to your website. Some business websites provide special discounts and reward points to their regular customers. Provide email/newsletter signup forms on the front page of your website to inform your customers about special offers and discounts.

Social media buttons

Social media network is a place where you can get in touch with your customers. Provide clear links on the front page of your website to encourage visitors to join you on social media networks. Provide clear and identifiable Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter and LinkedIn icon on the front page of your website.

Along with these points, one basic thing that you should always keep in mind is to build customers trust. Most online business-customers relationships are based on trust. You can build customer trust by providing all of the above information on the front page of your website. 

Google Vs Bing: Who Wins the Search Engine War?

The war continues between the two major search engines, Google and Bing. Some people say that Bing is better than Google. While others claim that they get more accurate results on Google. Microsoft has initiated a campaign, called “BingItOn” to convince people that Bing provides more relevant and accurate results than Google. You can conduct a comparison test on your own at BingItOn.com. When it comes to find out which search engine is better you can consider the following points:

Advantages of Google

Both Google and Bing are continuously updating their algorithms to provide better search engine results. Whereas Bing has recently made changes to provide the best possible search result, Google is still efficient enough to provide quality results to a specific search query. Google provides all the information related to a search query including all the data and figures.

Both Google and Bing offer search as you type feature. It displays relevant search queries as you start typing into the search box. Google’s search as you type feature tend to provide more accurate and relevant search options quickly than Bing.

Google’s add on services such as Google Maps, Shopping, Google+, Google Drive and Google Reader work great at providing valuable information to searchers. Bing also offers similar add-on services but Bing’s internal integration is not completely implemented as Google.

Advantages of Bing

Bing’s biggest advantage is that its social integrations are stronger than Google. Bing has contracted both Facebook and Twitter to provide more social data than Google. Whereas, Google still relies on its less-used social network, Google+. Bing integrates social suggestion from Facebook and Twitter to SERPs.

Bing’s attractive result pages are more appealing than Google. Its visual appearance attracts more users. Similar to Google, Bing also offers services like Bing Image search, videos, news, translator, maps and much more to provide quality results to users.

Bing also offers additional features as you can access Facebook from Bing bar. Install Bing on your desktop to conduct quick searches.

Both Google and Bing provide almost similar results, but everyone has their own preference to use their favorite search engine. The war between these two major search engines will continue in the future as well. It’s up to you which search engine you prefer. You can use both and find out which one provides more accurate and related results to your search query. You can compare results from both search engines to find answers to your question. Happy Searching!

Essentials of Social Media Marketing

When you run a digital marketing campaign, you expect quick results. But achieving desired result is not an easy task. It takes a lot of time and efforts to attain your goal. Today’s online marketing trends include various effective techniques and social media marketing is one of 

the essentials that you cannot miss.

According to a report, around 72% of marketers are using social media for lead generation. The study indicates that there are various stages of social media development process. Every brand has to go through it to start generating ROI. It was also found that lead generation using social media requires time and efforts.

Here are some tips to leverage your digital marketing campaign through social media:

Speak and be human, not robot

On social media networks it is essential to personally interact with your community. Your community wants to hear from you not from robots or your company logo. Mingle with your community and follow your audience. Research and share interesting content at regular intervals. You can also schedule your updates and track your social media activities.

Key Takeaway: Appoint a dedicated team member to interact with your fans.

Research

Conduct a research about your audience before launching a digital marketing campaign. As it is important to identify who your target audience is? You can find your target audience on online forums and blogs. If you know your target audience, you can design your campaign more effectively. You can create relevant content and share engaging status updates with them.

Key Takeaway: Research and find at least one person (target audience) and engage him/her.

Keep engaging

Only launching a social media marketing campaign, cannot guarantee you success. If you don’t connect with your audience, they will forget you. When your audience reaches you, respond to them. Answer to their queries, and thank them to sharing your content. Share insightful information with them. Don’t end up conversation abruptly.

Key Takeaway: Follow your audience, talk to them and engage them to develop your brand advocates.

Share, share, share

Don’t engage your audience using automated messages, sales pitch or event invitations. Audience doesn’t want to get such messages regularly. Instead share your success stories, client testimonials or a video of your conference call. Offer your audience something that they expect such as free downloads, or a product sample or discount coupons.

Key Takeaway: Get together with your team members to get some creative ideas to share interesting content with your audience.

Social media is an incredible marketing tool to meet new people and to get connected with them. Create long term social relationships and try to take them to the next level. 

Tips to Make Your Photos Search Engine Friendly

In order to achieve high search engine ranking, every element of your website play an important role. Search engines consider various factors such as content quality, website design, navigation, load time, videos and images to rank a website. Attractive and high quality images not only attract users, but they attract search engines as well. Proper image attributes can make your images search engine friendly.

Search engines have an entirely different method to see images. Search engine bots can’t see your images until you describe them. Here are some methods to make your images search engine friendly:

File naming

Your images should have a descriptive file name including target keywords. Search engines can read and index file names. You can implement relevant target keywords to name an image. For instance, if you run a bakery shop and want to add cake image on your homepage. You can name the image as “wedding-cake.” You should use hyphens instead of underscores, it can cause search engines to overlook your image.

Alt text

A very nice looking image of your wedding cake will not be found in the search result if you fail to name it. Alt text attribute, this is another important part of image optimization. It helps search engines crawl and index your image. The alt text should also include relevant keywords. Usually search engines prefer longtail keyword phases over short.

Title tags

There are various opportunities for you to make your images search engine friendly. Title of your image is definitely beneficial for your SEO activity. It is a technique to get your image indexed by search engines. Add relevant keywords that you may have used in the file name, and alt text.

Captions

Photo captioning is beneficial in two ways. First, it improves your image’s visibility in SERPs.  Second, it informs your visitors about a webpage, blog or images as they scan through your website. Image captioning is a part of your image optimization process. Follow standard rules of English while add captions to your images.

Above image optimization tips will improve your website’s ranking as well as increase traffic to your website.