marketing | Oui Blog

June 30, 2017

The Basic Regarding Margin That You Must Be Aware Of

| Business | No Comments

Do you do trading in commodities? If you do then you must have certain basic knowledge about certain factors so that you can do effective trading and earn more. When you trade with future contract then there is a deposit that you have to make. Let us today know about such deposits.

Types of deposits that need to be made

As I was saying that there are certain natures of deposits that you need to make when you trade with future contracts. These natures of deposits are called MCX Margin. If we see then there are four types of such deposits.

Initial Margin: This is the initial deposit that you have to put down as capital when you start to do business after opening a trading account with a broker. This amount acts as collateral and allows you to have entry into the futures market.

Mark to Market Margin: This nature of margin is calculated daily. The nature of calculation is the difference between the closing and the opening price of a contract.

Special Margin: The reason for the introduction of this nature of Margin is to have an effective control over excessive speculation so that the interest of common traders can be protected.

Delivery Margin: This nature of margin need to be deposited as a contract approaches the period of delivery.

Facts that you must have a clear idea

  • If you wish to have Margin then you need to open an NBFC account along with the Demat account.
  • There is as such no minimum requirement that you need to deposit. You can start with an amount with which you are comfortable with.
  • If you wish to trade in a market of commodity then it is seen that you require Rs. 20000 as margin.
  • If you wish to deal with currencies then it depends upon the nature of the contract that you intend to deal with.

What is funding of margin?

This is a nature of loan facility which allows you to have money so that you can start your trading in shares. You have only to pay a fixed percentage of the total value and the reaming part is paid by the lender. This is very beneficial if you deal with trades on the basis of delivery and hold the investment.

Advantage that you can achieve

There are advantages that you can achieve by proper utilization of MCX Margin. The most important advantage is that with a small amount of money you can have trading done in a significant higher amount of money.

A word of caution

You must be aware that margin is like a double edged sword. The profit and loss both are amplified to a large extent. It is always prudent that you do your trading following all the rules and regulations so that you can earn more. It is always good to know how you can use margin in the right manner so that you can have all the benefits.

January 23, 2017

Get Started Quickly With Proven Marketing Tips

| Investments | No Comments

Some startups launch quickly but run out of gas early while others get off to a slow but sustainable start. Is it possible to combine the best of both launches for fast and sustainable results? Recent startups like TripADeal, Australian Skin Clinics and TOBCO Constructions here in Australia prove its quite possible to achieve three-figure growth quickly and sustain it year over year. Let’s look at how these companies did it, so you can apply these marketing tips for startups to your business.

1. Find your Customers, and Market with Them in Mind

Have you found a niche you’re trying to fill? “Everybody” is not an easy niche to break into even if you’ve got massive financial backing for aggressive production, marketing and sales pushes. Instead, determine the demographics that are most likely to want what you offer, then tailor everything to them from the colors you use in packaging to the style of ads or corporate gifts you employ to attract positive attention. Stay focused on your primary market until you get traction with it…and then build a huge following within it before you even think about expanding the focus. Broadening the target too quickly is a classic mistake of fast starters that fizzle quickly.

2. Build Mutually Beneficial Partnerships

Part of the entrepreneurial spirit is the willingness to go it alone, to believe in the dream when nobody else does. However, as Web Smith, now Director of e-commerce for Gear Patrol says, “While that spirit of adventure has launched many entrepreneurs, the greatest — and most sustainable — startup success stories tend to be tales of partnerships.” Smith suggests choosing partners with the same values, mission, style and target audience, and then mutually supporting and promoting one another’s online and offline efforts.

3. Brand to Be Remembered Positively

Mundane branding doesn’t spark anything in people’s brains, so don’t be dull. Choose branding logos, overall design, color schemes and visuals, motto’s and jingles with the creativity and uniqueness to stand out from the crowd. John Guidos of Chicago’s experiential marketing agency ICE Factor recommends branding that is memorable, creative, appealing to the five senses, cost-effective, quirky without seeming forced and enthusiastic yet professional. Summing up the approach, Guidos says, “The ultimate goal of experiential marketing is for the consumer to remember the experience and discuss it with others after the campaign. More importantly, the consumer should recognize the brand and how it applies to their world.”

Get Started Quickly With Proven Marketing Tips

4. Use Corporate and Promotional Gifts Effectively and Effusively

One way to brand to be remembered is to have a large supply of gifts on hand that appeal to your demographics and fit the style you’re creating and then to give them out enthusiastically. Entrepreneurs know they should always be marketing, and giving away useful promotional products like these is a fabulous way to get noticed and convert recipients into customers.

5. Give Back

People support businesses that make a difference. Find both local and online ways to give back that fit your company and will resonate with your target audience.

6. Get Noticed Locally

Let your local news outlets know about your company and how you are giving back to make a difference. They’re always looking for feel-good stories to counteract the daily dose of bad news to be reported. Toss in a few of your best promo gifts, and you’ll probably receive free and positive attention.

7. Market and Sell Online and Offline

We know offline businesses must have a relevant online presence, but If you’re primarily an online business, is there anything offline you can do to boost sales? When you go huge, you can open stores like Amazon is doing, but short of that, what are your options? Send customers samples to try. Australian companies like GoHaus (timber flooring) and Sephora (makeup) do this as a side promotion. Warby Parker, the $1.2billion eyewear store, sends samples to customers to try on as its main way to do business.

Slow Down for a Faster Start

When talking about startups getting a fast and sustainable start, we’re addressing the period after launch. The preparation phase must be slow and deliberate, a period in which you tailor these proven marketing strategies to your business. If that takes you six to twelve months longer than you’d like, keep your spirits up with the realization your company will get a healthier start with them and be far more likely to succeed as you hope it will. Be patient, get your ducks in a row with painstaking detail, and your launch trajectory will be higher and stronger for your efforts.

February 27, 2016
Is A Hard Loan A Good Investment Tool For Your Situation?

Is A Hard Loan A Good Investment Tool For Your Situation?

| Investments | No Comments

Getting a mortgage today is nowhere as easy as it used to be. Less expensive interest-wise, if you don’t have the right assets or income to debt ratio, you may be left without many options. Hard money loans are the answer to many difficult investment situations. They are structured differently than traditional loans and are most commonly associated with much higher interest rates. Before you take one out, it is best to decide if it is worth it for your investment purposes.

Hard money loans are the perfect solution for investors who intend to purchase a house but never own it long enough to worry about the rate of interest. People who buy an investment property and expect to sell it quickly can benefit from a hard money transaction because they can get quick money without jumping through all the hoops or having the equity that it takes to be approved for a mortgage.

Hard money loans differ from traditional loans in many ways. Often not coming from a traditional lender, hard money lenders or HMLs are typically loaned from either small equity groups or private individuals. The major advantage is that they often do not take into consideration things such as credit scores. As much as twice the average of interest mortgage loans, they also are associated with high origination fees.

Other major advantages are that you can borrow up to 100% of the value of the home. Using the property as collateral, you can mortgage the property with the property, that is very attractive for business who are purchasing the home to fix it up and build quick equity then pay it off just as quickly. Often not making more than a couple of payments on the hard money loan, they aren’t concerned with the rate because it will likely not affect them.

Hard money loans are usually approved with very little paperwork and within just a couple of days. With traditional mortgage loans taking as many as 30 to 45 days to close, it is sometimes an attractive proposition to the seller. Being able to close quickly and to give cash on hand, many sellers may be more willing to take less than to have to own the house for longer than they want to.

So, is a Hard Money Loan for you?

If you are looking at buying a home for personal use, then a hard money loan is not the way to go. If you don’t have the funds to pay for a mortgage now, it is much smarter to clear up your credit, save for a down payment, and try to go the traditional route. If you are looking at a property merely for investment and quick equity building, then it may be a smart decision. The allure of being able to close quickly may save you on the price of the house, and although having a high-interest rate, you likely won’t be paying more than a month or two before you can pay the entire balance off. For more information about the potential to obtain a hard money loan, contact Blue Jay Equity investments for more information about whether it is in your best interest.

July 25, 2015

MasterCard Survey Nets Curious Responses

| Finance | No Comments

Security is a big concern for everyone. MasterCard recently surveyed cardholders about their wants, needs, and fears, and while security topped the list of wants, needs, and fears, other answers were curious to those in the processing industry. While card security has been iffy the past few years, it is set to change (hopefully) in 2016 with the implementation of chip and PIN cards, the worries about card security are warranted.

According to the survey, 77% are concerned about identity theft. 92% are taking steps to secure their identities and keep themselves safe online, yet 46% rarely or never change their online banking or credit card passwords. Sadly, and perhaps most disturbingly, over 1/3 of those surveyed admitted to using a public computer or public Wi-Fi to check their online banking or credit card accounts. Forty-four percent also use the same password for multiple online accounts.

While online security is a big deal, many want security but are not taking the steps to ensure their security. Perhaps it is out of habit that they commit these financial sins, or perhaps they are not sure what to do. The financial industry needs to do a better job of educating the public on what they need to do – and avoid – when dealing with online banking and financial accounts. If not, everyone suffers, from the consumers to merchants, to processors having to deal with a chargeback.

The good news is that 69% already use a chip card, or want one when they are implemented. Some companies are using them as a voluntary option, and so far the feedback is positive. This cuts down on chargebacks, but merchants need to make sure that they have chargeback insurance, regardless of what type of card is being used by their customers. There are few chargeback insurance providers in the USA, but when you find one, make sure that you ask questions. Question their knowledge about the industry you are in, and question how their process works. Every chargeback insurance provider operates differently, and not all are the right choice for every merchant.

May 29, 2015

Top Tips For Small-Business Online Marketing

| Finance | No Comments

Small-business owners are often short of two things – time and money. So when it comes to maintaining an effective marketing strategy for their online presence, this can often slip down their list of priorities. These tips will help focus on the key aspects of the task and will help it seem more manageable. They will lead to better online presence and performance for any site.

Plenty of Content

Search engines are now geared up to scan the content of a site rather than just meta tags. Users also enjoy interesting and relevant content relating to the product or service on the site, which helps ensure they come back again and again. It needn’t be long or complex – just a few facts or tips about your product category or industry sector can be sufficient.

Stay Fresh

Search engines also track how old the content is on your site and how frequently it changes – so keeping it up to date is vital. Just setting aside an hour a week will keep it looking well maintained.

No Shortcuts

Some companies will promise to be able to get your site to the top of search results overnight. Unfortunately, the search engines know when shortcuts are being employed and are constantly fighting to stamp them out – so you may well find that you have paid for a high rank which only lasts a few weeks.

Relevant Links

Yet another element of your site that the search engines will examine is the number of links per page, as well as who your site is linking to. They do not like pages with lists of links, or links that are irrelevant to the content on a page.

Be Organized

This is important not just for search ranking but also for your users – a well structured, logical, easy-to-read site with plenty of clear headings and sections will keep everyone happy.

Make It Accessible

Everyone should be able to access your site, including the visually impaired or colour-blind. The Web Accessibility Initiative provides guidelines on this for site managers.

Good Coding

Although many small-business owners won’t be directly involved in the coding of their site, it is something to be aware of. It needs to be compliant and error-free for search engines to correctly assimilate it. It is possible to run a check on your website using online tools provided by a standards body, the World Wide Web Consortium.

Get Help

Even if you don’t have a lot of spare cash, you can get professional help with your online presence. It’s a good idea to use a fairly local firm so you can discuss your requirements face to face – for instance, if you were looking for website design in Swansea, then a quick search should bring up relevant results such as Swansea web design by Accent-ADC.

Pictures Are Key

Our final tip: whatever you are hoping to sell through your site, high-quality photographs are vital. They’ve got to compensate for the fact that your customers can’t see or touch your product in real life.

May 29, 2015

Improve Your Content Marketing Strategy

| Finance | No Comments

Having great content on your website is a must for any business looking to stay ahead of its competitors. Content that is fresh, informative and relevant to the target audience will attract people to your site, keep them coming back and is more likely to result in a sale. Here’s how to get your content marketing strategy on the road to success.

Be Original

Make sure that what you publish online is unique. There is so much information on the internet, that what you provide is less likely to be viewed if it isn’t original. Search engines also aren’t impressed by content that has been copied from other sources, so be original if you want to find your way at the top of search engine listings. According to The Guardian original content – whether it’s in the form of a blog, case studies, videos or infographics – will help you define the point of view you want to convey, and should set the tone for all of your content marketing efforts.

Easy to Search

There is no point providing first-rate content if nobody is going to find it, so always ensure that what you publish will be easy for people to find online. Before you get started creating your content, build it around relevant keywords related to your organisation. If you are not sure what those keywords might be, consider using keyword research tools to find the most appropriate words or phrases that people would search for related to your type of business.

Know Your Audience

If you want to improve your content marketing strategy, make sure that what you are putting out there is of relevance to your target audience. According to Entrepreneur delivering the right message to the right audience at the right time should be your mantra. In order to do this, it is imperative that you get to know exactly who your target audience is, including their demographic profile and buying behaviour. Invest in analytics to do this, or engage with your audience to find out more about them.

Measure Campaigns

It’s not enough these days just to churn out content, you need to be able to assess how effective it is in order to fine tune your time and resources to those methods that get the best results for your business. Using the services of an expert content marketing agency, such as mash-marketing.com, who offer content and digital marketing in Edinburgh and elsewhere, can improve your content marketing efforts and ensure you are exploiting the best opportunities for your site.

Build Links

If you want to get more people coming to your site and be seen more favourably by search engine giants such as Google, consider building links as part of your content marketing strategy. Link building involves establishing links to your content via other popular and reputable websites. Choose ones that are similar enough to your own site, without being considered a competitor. Crucially, the other websites should be ones where your target audience will visit.

December 30, 2013

Cloud Alternatives: Going Beyond The Obvious Applications

| Web Design | No Comments

Are you in the clouds trying to keep up with all the new and improved cloud-based technologies? Whether you’re relying on a third-party managed-services company for some or all of your company technology, cloud computing’s future growth is inevitable. Companies worldwide are planning cloud-based migrations, or they’ve already migrated their IT functions to the cloud, since many of the issues holding them back are being resolved. The “old cloud” concerns are the next-generation “new cloud” innovations.

Tried and True Cloud Functions

Cloud technology over recent years has allowed businesses to upgrade their IT processes, components and services and gain new efficiencies in the process. Certain Internet services, such as Web-based email, are good examples of what the cloud can do, in that you can send and receive messages anytime, from any location, and you rely on a service provider to do so. To gain the same kinds of benefits, companies around the world have migrated to hosted service providers for the management and support of some or certain IT activities:

· Application hosting

· Cloud data backup and storage

· Customer relationship management (CRM)

· Database services

· Document collaboration and sharing

· Office software applications

· Servers

If your company is not yet using cloud computing for these aspects of the business, it’s time to get up to speed. Much like upgrading to new computers and software, if companies don’t get on board with technology as it advances, the next generation of advances will leave you behind.

Cloud Alternatives: Going Beyond The Obvious Applications

The New Cloud

With new cloud concepts being implemented and other cloud trends well on their way into the marketplace, companies will not want to miss an opportunity to gain a competitive edge. In this online mobile and social atmosphere where users have high expectations for their online experiences, and ecommerce companies are flooding the Internet, it will pay to be prepared. Some cloud trends for 2014 are already coming to fruition:

· You may have the ability to access personal data and information in non-mobile electronic devices such as smart TVs and Internet-equipped automobiles — not just cell phones and tablets.

· Cloud analytics will become more readily available, enhancing research and industry opportunities for broader efficiencies of every kind, including the use of cloud-based applications for data gathering and response.

· New cloud trends will allow companies to reach their clients in unprecedented ways, from online performances to media-based training and education sources.

· Speed and security improvements are changing how companies who use online data to identify and engage their customers.

Cloud computing is being embraced by more companies, but the issues of security and stability are still ongoing concerns for those who are already implementing cloud-based strategies. Now more than ever, the concerns are getting a lot of attention and with the right plans in place cloud databases and storage are likely to be safer than on-premise solutions. Online Cloud Storage computing is being embraced by more companies, but the issues of security and stability are still ongoing concerns for those who are already implementing cloud-based strategies.

Cloud Transformation

With the Internet, cloud technology and mobile and social architecture driving changes in ecommerce and business models across the world, exciting global opportunities exist for both cloud providers and enterprises leveraging cloud computing. The cloud transformation is changing the IT industry and businesses in many different industries are taking advantage of the efficiencies that it offers.

December 30, 2013

Migrating To A New Cloud: Tips For Minimizing Your Downtime

| Business | No Comments

At some point in the current era of technology, it will become inevitable for your company to migrate its cloud system from one server to another, or to adopt a cloud strategy for the first time. That may entail moving completely to an external cloud, migrating from old to new hardware, or anywhere in between. Cloud migration is an essential part of keeping a business or company competitive, since migrating to better and more efficient systems can lead to faster and more convenient processes, among many other benefits. However, migrating a cloud system may still prove problematic, as an incorrect installation could lead to lengthy downtime and less reliability.

Knowing when a Migration is Needed

It’s important to recognize when it’s time to migrate to a new server, as migrating too early will not yield enough benefits to make the move worthwhile. One of the biggest reasons for migration is to replace legacy or otherwise old hardware with a state-of-the-art infrastructure. You’ll know it’s time for you to migrate to newer software if one of these situations occurs:

  • Your cloud has progressively gotten slower as a result of increased load due to newer, more resource-intensive software
  • Your cloud is struggling to keep up to date as a result of a lack of new features
  • It’s become too expensive to maintain legacy hardware
  • Security has improved and your business needs to ensure that only authorized agents can access the cloud

Migrating To A New Cloud: Tips For Minimizing Your Downtime

Being Aware of the Tasks Ahead and Possible Pitfalls

With the knowledge of why you would migrate a server, it’s important to balance the potential gains with the amount of work that will be required. As mentioned earlier, a server migration will usually involve a move to better-equipped or more suitable hardware, which would cut costs, help with scalability or both. Additionally, newer servers usually have stronger security features that are important for keeping your company’s information secure and private.

However, migrating your cloud involves a possibly long period of downtime while data and services are transferred to new hardware or a new location. During this time, your company won’t be able to access information, which would critically hamper company activity. In the current IT era, it’s critical for your company to be working at maximum efficiency for as long as possible, and a migration, despite the benefits, may ultimately be too detrimental for your business.

Beginning the Migration Process

To start a cloud migration, the first thing to take do is to keep backups and double-check processes. Nothing is more frustrating than realizing data was lost or deleted in a transfer. Taking some time to make backups and prepare the system thoroughly will save much more time and money in the long run as you maintain the new system, such as a hosted Windows cloud service. After the files are migrated to the new server, don’t immediately cancel or shut down the previous server until the new server is up and running. This will ensure that if problems occur, you’ll still be able to revert back to the working model.

Keeping these tips in mind, you’ll be well equipped to migrate your server to new and better hardware. In this day and age, it’s more important than ever to stay current on technology, and migrating your cloud will likely help your company maintain standards of efficiency.

December 19, 2013

CMS Options: How To Choose The Right One For Your Business

| Business | No Comments

Selecting the right content management system (CMS) for your business requires a little introspection. You’ll need to consider how your business will be using this CMS, how visitors to your website will interact with your content and what you future growth plans include. Take a close look at your business to find the answers to these questions. Once you know what you need, you can begin looking for the right CMS to meet those needs. Here’s a guide to help you find the right CMS to match your business needs.

Content Management System

A content management system is the software that helps you organize and present information on the web. This can be a blog, ecommerce site, traditional website or something else. A good CMS helps you create a cohesive front-end to present your content to the world.

WordPress

The most popular CMS on the web, WordPress is used by more than 19 percent of all websites. Using plugins and themes, it’s possible to modify WordPress to do almost anything you can imagine. It can be a regular website or blog, but it can also become a social network, video blog, photography portfolio, ecommerce site, classified ad site, blog network and much more.

Drupal

Another community-supported open-source project, Drupal offers a very robust CMS. These sites are commonly operated by organizations and groups that want a front-end to share with the world and a back-end that will help with group organization. It’s great for complex sites with lots of users.

CMS Options: How To Choose The Right One For Your Business

Magento

One of the best ecommerce content management systems is Magento. It’s very easy to set up a site, add products and start selling online. While other systems can do ecommerce, they don’t do it as well as Magento.

Business needs

Begin by looking at your own business needs. Start with your current needs and think about how the company will grow in the next few years. Do you need a blog? Social network? Ecommerce solution? After carefully considering your current and future needs, you can take a look at the features of any CMS under consideration to see if it meets your requirements. Keep in mind that WordPress, Drupal, and Magento are only three of the more popular CMS options available. There are lots of other CMSs to choose from when finding the right one for your business needs. Determine how you’ll host the site. Running your own server and maintaining a CMS can take a lot of time and effort that could be spent elsewhere. You might benefit from a hosted Magento, WordPress or Drupal solution, allowing you to focus on your content and user experience rather than the underlying technology.

CMS Checklist

Here’s a list of common features people look for when selecting a CMS. Tick off the features you want and count how many times WordPress, Drupal or Magento shows up on your list. The one that shows up the most is probably the right choice for your needs.

· Photography portfolio – WordPress

· Video blog – WordPress

· Classified ads – Other

· Social network – Other

· Customer Relationship Management (CRM) integration – Drupal & Magento

Some common features of WordPress, Drupal, and Magento include:

· Blogging

· Easy to edit (WYSIWYG)

· Asset management

· Search engine optimization (SEO)

· Customization

· Budget-friendly open-source option

· Open-source community support

· Premium hosting and support options

· Multilingual design and support

· Roles and permissions

· Support for multiple websites

The right content management system for your business is the one matches your business needs. Three of the most popular options are WordPress, Drupal and Magento. However, these are only a small fraction of the options available to you. The process of finding the right CMS begins with careful consideration of your own business needs and ends with a comparison of the features included with a wide range of solutions.

December 10, 2013

The When and Why Of Cloud Database Migration

| Business | No Comments

Your business is filled with server racks hosting everything from your email to your website, so you may be looking into cloud strategies to cut down on costs and improve your servers’ performance. A cloud database migration allows you to shift all or part of your servers off-site into a distributed hardware configuration that prevents you from being held hostage to a single point of hardware failure. The practical, day-to-day administration of a cloud database doesn’t differ greatly from an on-site setup, so your network administrators won’t be dealing with extensive retraining or a large learning curve.

Why Migrate to the Cloud?

When you use public cloud providers for your databases, you receive direct and indirect cost savings. The direct cost savings come from only paying for the database resources you need, when you need it. It also cuts down on the amount of software licenses you need to purchase, as the cloud database provider has bulk pricing on this. The indirect costs come from outsourcing the responsibility of maintenance, a majority of monitoring and troubleshooting, so you don’t have to put network resources to these tasks. The scalability of the cloud database servers is especially good if you have varying needs throughout the year or if you’re a business in the middle of a rapid expansion.

The When and Why Of Cloud Database Migration

Risks of Migration

One of the primary risks of cloud database migration is losing data during the migration process. This risk is mitigated by locking down the database or taking it down entirely during the process, so new data is not written to the server while the migration process occurs. It’s also essential to deduplicate as much of the database as possible so you aren’t copying over redundant records. The smaller the database, the easier it is to get it transferred over. In addition, clearing out the log files and caches of the databases also helps to reduce the size. Before making the cloud databases live to the public or your business at large, test it out for problems.

Application Checking

When you transfer your databases, you need to make sure that all of your applications work in the cloud environment. If you’ve been running on older hardware, the applications may not work well or at all in the cloud environment. It’s possible that you may need to use a combination of older servers with cloud-based servers in order to avoid switching over applications along with databases or look into Software as a Service (SaaS) to fill in the gaps.

The types of databases that really benefit from a transfer to the cloud are those that are hardware intensive. Instead of purchasing servers every time you have a new influx of traffic or users, you can scale up the amount of cloud resources you’re using. This also helps to avoid downtime due to the configuration, giving you a high availability option that keeps things going strong for you.

December 5, 2013

The Hosting Question: Cloud Server or Dedicated Server?

| Web Design | No Comments

Cloud servers are great, but dedicated servers are still hanging on. If you’re considering which would be the best choice for your company’s needs, it’s tough to find information on cloud servers that isn’t glowing, but that’s for good reason. Virtual storage and virtual computing power are a huge step forward. In the last few years, companies of all sizes have been able to realize new efficiencies while saving money, and team members can now collaborate and share data on projects, regardless of where individuals are located.

If you do a comparison of cloud services versus dedicated servers, you could reach the conclusion that taking the cloud route can offer many more options, such as more choices for operating systems and faster provisioning speeds. So is the dedicated server on the way out? Is our future going only “to the cloud!” as the Microsoft commercials shout at us? Not necessarily, or at least not necessarily right now.

Dedicated servers definitely have appropriate uses, especially for newer, smaller companies that may not want everything that public or private clouds have to offer. Also, clouds aren’t perfect, and concerns still exist when it comes to access, security, and the challenges of downtime. Here we’ll examine a couple of snapshots of each option and discuss what works and what concerns exist.

The Hosting Question: Cloud Server or Dedicated Server?

Dedicated Server Breakdown

If you love control and don’t have traffic concerns, then a managed dedicated server will be best for you. All the hardware is right where you need it to be. You don’t have to worry about your system resources slowing because of other people’s traffic. You’re also the only one to access your server, a big plus for security fans. Plus, it’s also easy to upgrade physical hardware, such as memory and disk space, and to customize software to work exactly for your company’s needs, rather than a uniform upgrade through the cloud that needs to be tinkered with later.

Cloud Server Breakdown

Security is definitely a big reason why we can’t conclude that the cloud is the end-all, be-all. No matter how much encryption exists for your data, it may still have some vulnerabilities when it leaves your possession. Hackers also could try to access your system, actively steal or alter your customer’s data as well or just monitor your process.

On the other hand, companies going the cloud route can find it to be a definite cost-effective IT solution. You have a lot of redundancy, and you don’t have to pay for a lot of hardware and maintenance, although you will have to pay for extra bandwidth and hosting costs. For special projects, you may even find ways to access a virtual system and pay by the month.

Overall, do the advantages of the cloud outweigh the concerns, especially if you have active security protocols in place? As long as they match up with your business requirements. Clouds of any kind can connect with physical servers, and there isn’t a single point of failure as there might be with a dedicated server. Yet if your business wants to avoid any security uncertainties and ensure that your server is being monitored around the clock, a dedicated server may be the best choice to make.

October 9, 2013

How To Build A Successful E-Commerce Site?

| eCommerce | No Comments

The internet has radically changed the world of retail, making eCommerce websites a lucrative business for those who are clued in. The ability to minimise overhead costs while reaching a seemingly endless customer base or audience means that eCommerce websites work on any scale, whether you plan on selling a couple of items a year or hundreds of items a day. But how do you go from having an idea to running a successful eCommerce website? Here is a basic guide to setting up an eCommerce website, which will hopefully help you get on the eCommerce ladder and get you well on your way to building a successful business.

How To Build A Successful E-Commerce Site?

Man Sitting With Laptop And Credit Card Shopping – Shutterstock

Find your Niche and know your Niche

Know what you’re selling and have faith in your product. For example, if you want to sell shaving supplies, then do some competition research on other shaving supplies websites on the internet. Get to know everything there is to know about shaving supplies and the people who buy them. Information is power, so the more you know about alum balm and shaving kits (or whatever is analogous for your niche), the better.

Build an Attractive Website

No matter how great your product is, people will still make judgements about your product based on the window dressing—which in the case of an eCommerce website is the web design. Web design is important because it should perform two functions: firstly being aesthetically pleasing, and secondly helping a user navigate your website from the home page to the product they want to purchase. If your website does not impress a visitor or makes it hard for them to find what they want, they will leave. It’s that simple.

With that in mind, ensure that you put time and effort into creating a website that is worthy of the product you want to sell. If you don’t invest in great web design, then your sales will suffer.

Settle on an E-Commerce Solution

Choosing a great eCommerce solution is important for your business on two levels. Firstly, you want to think about how easy you are making it for people to buy things from your website. If it does not allow customers to use the most common methods of payment (credit/debit card or PayPal), then they will likely not make the purchase. Secondly, using third-party websites like PayPal can lead to large transaction fees, which can hurt your bottom line. Whether you go with a big player like WooCommerce or another option, think about how the solution will work for both you and your customers.

Build your Marketing Strategy

Nobody can buy your products if they do not know your website exists, so ensure that you start thinking early about your marketing strategy. Priming your website for search and building a social media presence all matter for generating leads and creating conversions, so invest your time and effort wisely. An efficient internet marketing strategy should pay dividends.

Work on your Customer Service

Customer service can be hard to define on the web because you are unlikely to actually have very many personal interactions with your customers. That means that when you do have said personal interactions, like someone emailing you about a lost order, you need to be as professional as possible. Maximise on every opportunity to prove your customer service skills, because that good karma will translate into good social word-of-mouth. Great customer service is the surest way to transform a customer into a returning customer, which is the key to prolonged success.

September 11, 2013

Free Up Your IT Team: The Benefits Of Managed Colocation

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It’s been said that one of the main leadership skills is the ability to delegate. When you assign tasks to other people, it allows you to tackle more important decisions, and for a business owner, this means spending more time handling business responsibilities, instead of being burdened by lesser tasks.

Free Up Your IT Team: The Benefits Of Managed ColocationWithin the frame of IT, this is what managed colocation allows a business to do. It provides a means for managing technology services, whether the client is an enterprise or start-up, without the need for the same level of IT requirements. The cloud storage team of a managed colocation service provides constant support and surveillance of a company’s website and data systems, allowing internal IT teams to be free from basic practices and refocus attention on enhancing a company’s infrastructure.

Moving to the Cloud

When you move your company’s data to cloud storage, a learning curve will definitely be involved. Transferring files, updating systems and backing up data will be slightly different than what your IT team is used to with an internal server. However, since managed colocation means that your servers are managed by the hosting provider, the issues of security, power delivery or other operational issues are no longer the responsibility of your in-house IT staff. Instead, the team at your cloud hosting company will handle these tasks properly and expeditiously.

Opportunities for Growth

When your IT team doesn’t need to focus on the everyday tasks of managing your server and data backups, your team is free to accomplish new projects. New opportunities to improve your business’ workflow arise now that your IT department has the time to focus on company needs and start building upon what’s already been established.

As an example, if your company runs on a custom application, your IT team could enhance and perfect it so that the application better integrates with other company software, or so that the application provides additional utility. If you’ve been meaning to get your company’s old records in order, your IT team could create a system for data input from old files. Or if your company website doesn’t bring in the traffic you’d like to see or it fails to meet all your customers’ or clients’ demands, your IT team could turn their focus to your Web presence. A variety of different opportunities open up when managed colocation is adopted.

The Costs of Cloud Management

When it comes to the cost of managed colocation services, the old adage of you get what you pay for comes to mind. Despite its reputation for efficiencies in small business circles, the move to cloud storage isn’t cheap. Depending on the type of storage and services for which businesses opt, they may spend more on off-site technology than they would on the same services in-house. However, with the advantages of storing data on the cloud and utilizing cloud-based applications from anywhere, cloud storage makes sense for many companies, from start-ups to conglomerates. The real savings here is in time and energy, so you can focus your internal team on better operations and the expansion of your business.

According to Forbes, the reliance on cloud services for businesses is on the upswing, and it looks to remain that way for the foreseeable future. Even with an IT team on board, the cloud’s versatility and accessibility make it a worthwhile expense. Managed services make the transition to the cloud easy, keeping your internal team focused on your company’s future and profitability.

September 11, 2013

The Benefits Of A Dedicated Server: Dependable, Fast and Scalable

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Shared hosting may be fine for a fledgling business at its inception, but after some success has been achieved, the need for a more robust solution will become apparent. Although a larger shared hosting plan can work for a period of time, a growing company will soon need a better solution, and this will likely be in the form of a dedicated server.

Advantages & Points to Consider

The Benefits Of A Dedicated Server: Dependable, Fast & Amp; ScalableHere we’ll outline some of the benefits offered by dedicated servers and some things to keep in mind when choosing a provider:

  • A good dedicated server can handle far more than a shared hosting plan allows. With a shared plan, you’re literally sharing a server with several other businesses. Therefore, the machine’s resources are capped and divided. With a dedicated server, you get the entire thing to yourself.
  • Dedicated servers can provide faster response times. Since you can use all the server’s resources instead of having to share, it may be able to render your Web pages much faster than a shared host could. One caveat: Beware of “cheap” dedicated servers that are so stripped down they aren’t any more powerful than what you’d get with a shared plan. Cheap servers can be great for people who just want to play games, but they’re not enterprise-level solutions.
  • Dedicated servers don’t have as many limitations. Although most dedicated server providers impose some restrictions, this is mainly to ensure basic security and to prevent activities such as email spamming. You’ll be able to run pretty much any kind of software you want.
  • Consider server security when deciding between managed and unmanaged dedicated servers. Maintaining security involves technical activities such as installing update patches on server-side software such as Apache and PHP, setting access permissions, logging activity and more. If you don’t have the qualifications to handle these tasks and don’t want to make errors while figuring it out, go for a managed dedicated server. That way the server company can do all that for you.
  • The original provider doesn’t always offer the best deal. Sometimes it’s cheaper to go through a reseller because some resellers are so big they get volume discounts. Make sure to check all the options rather than making assumptions.
  • Don’t assume a single server will always do the job. A site like Amazon, for example, has enough servers to fill a data center of its own! Therefore, you should choose a solution that makes it easy for you to add capacity as needed.
  • Keep scalability in mind. The dedicated server provider should be able to upgrade and downgrade your machine to meet your changing needs without any hassle. It should also be easy to add or remove machines from your package. This is good for more than long-term business growth. Many ecommerce sites, for example, experience a traffic spike during the holiday season. You don’t want to have to permanently add capacity just to cover a two-month period of high demand.

Choosing the Best Provider

These are just some of the things you should consider when deciding on a dedicated server. Don’t forget about business basics such as the host’s reputation, the length of time it’s been in business, and the location of its data centers. Once you consider all these factors, it should be easy for you to find the dedicated server hosting solution that will meet your needs now and in the future.

September 3, 2013
Business Loans: Separating Fact from Fiction

Marketers using aggressive steps to fight new inbox by Gmail

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Marketers have resulted to taking aggressive steps in a bid to fight the open rates decline after the change of inbox format by Google. The new inbox now places all the promotional emails automatically in a new tab, away from the primary inbox of the users. The new inbox format filters the incoming emails into 5 groups: promotional, primary, social, forums and updates. Rather than offering a single inbox view – this feature however exists for the mobile – Gmail is now placing the emails into separate tabs as they come in, something that is forcing the users to move promotional emails manually back to the primary inbox if they prefer them there.

GmailThe result of this is that there are few people who see the advertising emails or a delay before the Gmail users gets them. According to a MailChimp blog, this has resulted in a decline in the open rates. After analyzing the Gmail delivery for the last one and a half year, MailChimp found out that open rates to Gmail were more than 13% for 15 weeks. However, after the change in the inbox format, the open rates dropped to 12% from 13% during the weekdays and less than 10% during the weekends.

However, MailChimp in their blog said that they weren’t willing to say there was an emergency. They added that they still did not know what the Gmail’s adoption rate was but it was an early indication of a problem and they were closely watching it.

Some online businesses are however viewing this as an emergency. Rhys Davies, who runs several websites in the UK, said that his main store, www.yourjigsawpuzzles.co.uk, relied heavily on email marketing for repeat customers. He added that though the new inbox format had not been completely rolled out in the United Kingdom, they were already experiencing about a 30% drop in the opening of emails. He said that he was more worried about the impending Christmas season where that drop could theoretically mean that they lose 15,000 pounds a month.

Return Path’s Senior Director of Email Research, Tom Sather, found out that the reading rates for the emails had dropped by 0.31% after the release of the Gmail tabs compared to the previous 30 days. He however believes that the spam folder is having the greatest impact on the open rates than the change of the inbox format. Sather said that the company had realized that fewer emails were making it to the inbox while more were being delivered to the spam folder. He added that the current benchmark at the Gmail’s inbox was at 85 % and in the month of June, the Benchmark had always been below that. He also said that in June 2013, an average of 42% of all the emails that were read, mobile devices were used, and these are not influenced by the Gmail Tabs. This, together with the declining inbox rates shows that some factors outside the feature of Gmail Tabs that have a hand in the declining open and clicks through the inbox rates.

August 12, 2013

Starting a Succesful Online Store in 2013

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It is sure a very tempting and profitable idea to start an online store, for some product that you think it is in demand today.  The reasons you might be thinking of why you would start an online store are:

  • Online stores are much easier to maintain ( most of them work with no intervention or need to be taken care of )
  • You can change your store’s look to the users demands
  • You can add products much faster and cheaper
  • You can reach much more people online than in real life via word by mouth or ambulant marketing
  • Much more cost-effective and profitable than real life stores, because it is easily reachable
  • Will win you the reputation of a modern business

And much more of them that i can not think of right now because i am tired. But i have friends who have started, for example a cheap iPhone 5 store. The official price for the iPhone is 500 euros but they are selling them for 300 and are making heavy money out of it. If some small guys can do that money, why should not you? As usual, internet offers us an opportunity that we can not pass so we will build our own succesful online store :).

So, the steps to creating your own succesful online store, here are them:

1 – Decide your Product

Or your product category. It would take a lot of work to open yourself a general store now (because most people don’t accept general stores lacking something and we will not be able to deal with all those suppliers out there right now either. ). I would go for technological products (because there is always a new and shiny one people want to buy to look better than their friends). A category can be, for example, technology.

2 – Give your online nice clothes

Finding your website a nice template is a good start. Choose the best template that will give the feeling of your store (for example a technology template for your technology store, or a beautiful design theme for your women articles store. Whatever the main product you are selling, your website should be easily navigable, look impressive ( statistics say that a good-themed website gets more popularity than a website that is only functional ). You can find loads of them for your preffered e-commerce script at both Theme Forest and Theme Vault websites. The trick here is to find yourself one of those HTML5 responsive eCommerce themes to make the competition look outdated next to your online store.

 

3 – Make yourself heard 

The last part of this is making yourself heard. If you are not good at online marketing, simply find yourself an internet marketer and a SEO expert. You have a high need online to get your voice heard by others. You need to get your website on social networks, get backlinks from reputable websites that already sell what you say, get good reviews about your website, and generally do a good promotion of your website.

Taking all these steps are enough to get you up and running with your new online store. See you in the next article!