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10 Ways to Improve Data Backup

Using common data backup services such as ottomatik is the primary method of protecting your data. However, using this approach is not enough; there are many other things that you must do to guarantee the security of your backed-up data. Moreover, in the current times, cyber attacks on backed up data are on the rise. Therefore, companies must constantly revise their data backup practices to ensure that they are doing the right thing always. Here are a few tips that you can use to improve the way your backup your data. The tips are important because they cover all aspects of managing data during the backing up and even retrieval stages.

  1. Use an expert

It is always advisable to consult an expert while backing up your data. Normally, the data backup process is very complex. Although you may not necessarily need to show that you have the technical expertise related to the process for you to back up your company data effectively, at times, you may have to carry out a few technical processes for you to complete the process successfully. It is because of this that you may need the services of a data professional.

  1. Plan for a possible security breach

When it comes to matters related to data backup, it is always a good idea to be prepared for a disaster. Normally, disasters may occur if your company becomes a target in a cybersecurity attack. Also, things may go wrong if there is a natural disaster at your premises and part of your data gets destroyed in the process. During such times, the way that you respond to them determines whether you will survive the calamity or not. If you have enough disaster preparation methods in place, then it may be easy to manage the crisis.

  1. Use deduplication

Deduplication is an approach to backing up data that usually involves the process of evaluating data sets to identify duplicates. The duplicated data sets are then removed, and the remaining clean version of the data is compressed. The purpose of using deduplication is to reduce the amount of space that is used to keep data. If you have a lot of data, then you may consider the issue of space. When you use deduplication, you end up utilizing minimum space to store your data.

  1. Take advantage of distributed backup processes

Distributed backup is one of the most important processes of managing the entire data backup process. The essence of distributed backup is that a company uses various nodes to store the backed-up data as opposed to keeping it in one place. The use of this approach is advantageous in several ways. For example, it speeds up the process of recovering data from the backed-up points. Also, when you distribute the places in which you store your data, you minimize the chances of losing the data if a calamity strikes your storage facilities.  

  1. Use 2FA

2-Factor Authentication is a process that is used to minimize the chances of unauthorized access to data or even accounts. In the case of data backup and security, the method is used to limit people who can access the stored data. In practice, the number of persons who can access data usually determines the level of risk that backed up data is exposed to. Therefore, it is prudent to protect your data using 2FA to limit the number of persons who can get access to the data at any given time. Moreover, when you use 2FA, you will be certain that the people who are accessing the data have genuine clearance and are using familiar devices.

  1. Test the retrieval speeds

The speed at which you can access your stored data may be the single most important factors that determine whether you are resilient or not. Business resilience refers to the capacity of organizations to continue offering their essential services in the face of a disaster. If, for example, your premise is destroyed by fire, your capacity to continue offering your customers and other stakeholders the key services that they need is a measure of your resilience. In practice, this is possible if you can access your stored data within the shortest time possible. thus, the speed at which you can access the stored data, or the retrieval speed, should always be high enough to help you maintain your key services in the face of a disaster.

  1. Train your employees

The way that your employees respond to crises can influence your ability to retain key services. Moreover, blunders by some of your staff may result in large-scale problems. Therefore, you need to be careful when managing the process to ensure that all your employees understand the security measures that you have put in place and how not to breach them.

  1. Use the cloud

Cloud storage is one of the most secure and economical ways of backing up data. Cloud storage services normally run their services by offering companies space on their servers to store as much data as the firms would like to keep. The good news about using such services is that it is economical and that you can easily scale your data storage as your business grows.

  1. Be conversant with the policies of your service provider

It is wrong to believe that if your service provider is a registered vendor, then the company has the best policies and practices in place. It may be wise to familiarize yourself with the policies that your firm uses to understand your rights and how you can enhance the process of keeping your data secure during storage.

  1. Encrypt your data

Data encryption is conducted to enhance the security of backed up information. There are many encryption protocols that are in use; therefore, you must choose one that suits your needs. The most important advantage of encrypting your data is that if hackers find their way to your data backup warehouse, they will not be able to use it because they will need encryption keys.

In summary, these are important tips that you can use to address some of the most common challenges associated with backing up data. You can use them to keep your data secure during the backing up and retrieval process. Also, you can use the data to keep your services up and running if you become a victim of an attack.
Author Bio:-

Dayna Lutz is the content manager of Ottomatik which is an online platform for hosting your database backup on their storage platform. The company’s storage rides on top of Amazon S3 as well. In fact, they do all the legwork for you. Also, if you already have Amazon S3 credentials and want to store your backup files in your AWS account, controlled by you, then also you can use this platform.

 

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Others

Creating Great SEO Strategies – What You Need To Know About It

If you are thinking of good SEO strategies, one of the things that you need to remember is that a strategy is basically a detailed action plan; and a good plan consists of dependencies, steps, and future considerations. That means that you need to make your plan visual rather than just a concept. Ensure that the strategy is well thought out, tactful, prioritized and ongoing if you will get targeted traffic to your site. Here are things that you need to know when trying to implement SEO strategy.

photo1

Image source:https://senditrising.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/shutterstock_164890805-e1481757011619.jpg

Review your website

According to a leading SEO resource, you have to do an honest review of your site before getting to its promotion. Maybe it already gets a decent amount of visitors, but the audience just does not want to spend their time scrolling your webpage. It coulddue to the poor quality of articles at the site. There are several key considerations that you need to make when reviewing your site. These include:

  • Do you consider traffic to be the real issue?
  • How will more traffic help to improve your conversion rate?
  • What are other people saying about my website?
  • What are my honest assessments of the look of my site?

Being honest with yourself during this stage can help you achieve SEO success for your business.

Determine your SEO goal

Identifying your SEOgoal is key to tracking whether this investment is worth the effort;if you do it in the right manner, you can be assured that it will be. You will need to consider the various factors that you would like to see improve during your SEO operation. Your goal may be to see an improvement in:

  • Impressions
  • Organic traffic
  • Links
  • Bounce rate
  • Conversions
  • Click-through rate

Understand your target audience and where to find them

The goal of SEO is to ensure higher ranking on the search engines and after that drive more traffic to your site. However, if you are targeting the wrong audience, this will not matter much. Therefore, you should take the time to understand your audience. Find details about them such as demographics, preferences and geographical location. One tool that can help you to do this is the Google Analytics. After determining your audience, you will need to set an objective that will be targeted to that audience. Why does your audience take time to visit your site? If you do not have any objectives, you might end up investing a lot of time and hard work without corresponding results.

Research on keyword and competition

SEO strategists say that after analyzing the kind of audience that you want to target, it is time to carry out keyword research. You will need to determine the keywords that you want to target. This is one step that will make or even break your strategy. You can use Google Keyword Planner to research various keywords. Consider the search volumes of the keyword. If you do not know how the landscape in your niche looks like, you will not understand the opportunities that lie ahead. This is why understanding the competition can prove helpful. Read essays on EssayVikings that focus on keyword research.
photo 2

Image source:https://www.seoclerk.com/SEO-Reports/593190/-Depth-Keyword-Research

On-page SEO and structure of your site

The goal of on-page SEO is to help Google understand what your site is about. You will want to ensure that search engines are able to crawl your site to get valuable content. In order to achieve this, ensure that the site has internal linking without any broken links, unique content, good navigation and faster load times. The keyword research that you have done will also prove to be important hereas this will play a key role in optimizing your site. Make sure that you do not overload your content with keywords, so it does not lose readability and value for readers.

Off-page SEO plan

Links play a key role in the ranking of a site. This is why it is important for you to come up with a link building plan that revolves around a good strategy that will help you to attract inbound links. It is advisable to try and earn links naturally. Make connections with people in your industry and the target audience. The more the words go out there about your website, the easier it will be for people to link back to your site. This can prove helpful in improving your SEO.

Monitor and track data and results

It is very important for you to understand what is working and what is not. The sooner you are able to have a system that tracks your data, the better the results. Use Google Analytics to analyze organic traffic.

Final thoughts

Remember that your SEO strategy will not end with these steps. A good SEO strategy should be ongoing. You need to make use of your creativity. Therefore, keep researching on what Google needs and update your site accordingly.

 

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Marketing Others Small Business Social Media Tips

Clever Blogging Tips All Small Business Owners Need to Know

Blogging is everywhere nowadays, and it seems like every business and individual under the sun is having a go. However, there is a method in the madness since blogging is one of the most effective ways to engage and interact with your users, attracting them to your small business to generate sales.

However, blogging can only be a beneficial as it is done right. Today, we’re going to explore several clever blogging tips for you to remember, allowing you to maximize the success of your blogs and take your online business to the next level.

Make it Relevant to Your Business

Firstly, perhaps the most important element of blogging you need to consider when writing is that the content you’re producing needs to be relevant to your small business.

While some topics may seem relevant, they need to ideally be directly related to the products or services that you’re offering, so the customer can make an easy connection. You have to show how they can benefit from buying and using your products and how it can resolve their problems.

Research Your Competitors

While you may feel bad about checking out your competitor’s content, after all, you wouldn’t want them doing it to you; it’s an essential part of business. How are you supposed to stay one step ahead if you don’t know where they are?

Not only can checking your competition give you ideas for content, but you can also check a tonne of elements, such as what their most popular posts are, how their users are interacting with their content and what sort of keywords they are using. Check it and make content better than your competitors with your ideas.

Focus on Your Target & Purpose

Every single blog post that you upload to your website needs to have a purpose. Without this purpose fresh in your mind for every post that you write, you won’t be able to lead customers in that direction, and the entire post will have been for nothing.

Some of the purposes you could think about include;

  • Inspiration
  • Product information
  • Motivational
  • Business story
  • Customer case study
  • Sign up for a mailing list
  • Follow on social media
  • Offer or promotional education

Your blog is one of the methods of conversation with your potential customers, so lead them to the buying process of your products or services.

Think About Formatting and Accuracy

When it comes to presenting your blog content, you need to make sure that you’re formatting your final piece in such a way that it’s as easy as possible for your reader to consume. As you can see from this article, imagine if there were no subheadings and no broken paragraphs, just one big block of text. Would you be happy to read it all?

One of the most important processes you need to undertake when you’re writing your blogs before you upload them is to check them to ensure they are free from errors and mistakes. If you’ve got spelling errors, misplaced punctuation and bad grammar, this will seriously harm the credibility and reputation of your blogs and people won’t want to read them.

According to study, 59% of people stated that they wouldn’t buy any product or service from the company who has grammar mistakes and errors on their website. Check and proofread your content using tools like Grammarix to be sure your content is perfect to go.

Make sure that you break up your content in small, digestible chunks for easy reading, especially when you consider a vast majority of your readers will be coming to your website through their mobile devices. You can also use tools like Cite It In to add any references, citations and quotes in a professional manner.

How Often Are You Going to Post?

The knack for running a successful blog is being able to post consistently. Ideally, you’ll want to be uploading a post about twice a week, but you can do once a week or even daily, depending on the nature of your small business.

However, any less than once a week and your customers will read a post and then forget about your business. You want to be posting consistently, so your customers always have you in their minds, but not too much that it annoys them by seeing you pop up on their feeds all the time.

Consider the Length of Your Content

It’s easy to want to talk on and on about the subject that you and your small business is interested in. Depending on your blogging platform, writing long-form content may be ideal and what your customers are interested in.

However, if you’re marketing to ‘everyday people’, this can cause problems since the typical person wants easily digestible content that only takes several minutes to read through maximum before they get bored and take their attention elsewhere.

Using tools like Easy Word Count, you can make sure the majority of your content reaches around 800 words, an ideal reading time of five minutes or so.

Always Check for Plagiarism

Plagiarism is one of blogging biggest taboo subjects, and you need to make sure that you’re avoiding it at all costs. While you might not be proactively going out onto the internet to copy other people’s work, it’s possible that you do it accidentally without even realizing which is why it’s so important you check each post.

Having plagiarised content on your blog will mean that Google indexes your page and then removes them from their search engine results pages, and they won’t even notify you. Fortunately, there are many online tools, like Copyscape and Academized that you can use to check your content to ensure it’s 100% original.

Consider Outsourcing

Since you’re trying to run and manage your small business, there may not always be time to write new blogs to the quality that you’re expecting. However, you still need to post. With this in mind, it’s worth remembering that there are many services out there that can help to generate content when you need it.

Sites like Upwork and Paper Fellows are full of writers that you can use to produce content on your behalf, whenever you need them too. Alternatively, if you want to write them yourself, you can use writing guide databases like State of Writing and Via Writing to help you create quick and properly formatted content.

Conclusion
As you can see, blogging is beneficial for your business and can help your potential customers to understand your product or service better. Be sure to use these main tips and you’ll lead your customers to buy from you and use your products to take your small business to the next level.

 

Author Bio:

Brenda Berg is a professional with over 15 years of experience in business management, marketing and entrepreneurship. Consultant and tutor for college students and entrepreneurs at Oxessays. She believes that constant learning is the only way to success. You can visit her personal blog at Letsgoandlearn.com

 

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Others Pinterest Marketing Social Media Tips

Why You Should Bother Building A Visual Identity on Pinterest!

Are you aware that, according to the 2018 Social Media Statistics, there 200 million monthly active users and 100 billion of Pins being created?The chances of your Pins being seen and clicked is low particularly if you don’t have enough followers, you’re not part of any board groups, and you don’t optimize your Pins for search.

The importance of having a consistent visual branding on Pinterest is in order for your target audience to instantly recognize you in a pile of visuals.

Let me give you a good example.

Aside from using it for work or marketing, I love going to Pinterest to find the usual stuff like outfit ideas, easy-to-do recipes, travel tips, and, of course, quotes.

Here’s an example of what my home page looks like as I am writing this piece:

 

why you should build a visual identity on Pinterest wordporn

Now for you, this may seem like bunch of visuals and you probably can’t even tell who made them. However, for me, there’s one visual (oops make that two) that stands out the most – the one inside the red square.

I can straight away tell that this picture quote is from Word Porn because of three reasons:

 

  1. They always use the same font which is a typewriter font.
  2. They always use the same background which is white.
  3. Their name is always included in the visual.

 

Suppose one day, they stop creating their quotes using one of these three, I think I won’t be able to recognize them. They’ll just be another random quote I see on Pinterest. Now, this is the main point and definition of branding: to make your entire self or company stand out from the others. As defined by Business Dictionary, branding means…

 

Branding

 

Visual Brand Consistency Examples on Pinterest

There are some visuals on Pinterest that whenever I see them, their name instantly pops into my head – with or without logo. You can take inspiration from these ones.

 

  1. Lauren Hooker – Elle & Company

Lauren Hooker

 

Just look at how creative entrepreneur, Lauren Hooker, does her Pinterest game. Not only can you see the similarities of the Pin images she makes, she also used them to create cohesiveness by using them as board image covers.

 

Board Image Covers

 

Lauren is consistent using:

 

  • The same font – a sans serif font
  • The same template which has a small rectangular shape at the bottom

 

If you’ll go to Lauren’s Pinterest page, you’ll see how she uses different colors. Nonetheless, I can recognize that the images are from her because the colors she use are soft and pastel like.

 

  1. My Five Acres

My Five Acres

 

Just like Instagram, Pinterest has a lot of users sharing content about travel and pictures of beautiful places. It’s no brainer, we love seeing photos of different places and country.

With all of the beautiful travel photos and tips I see, My Five Acres stands out the most for me because of how they do their visuals.

My Five Acre

My Five Acres is consistent using:

 

  • The same template (square around the top and small rectangular shape at the bottom)
  • The same type of orange for the shapes
  • Their logo inside the small rectangular at the bottom

 

  1. Polyvore

Polyvore

Ah yes, outfit ideas. One of the reasons why I and most women go to Pinterest is to look for what to wear to a certain event or what should we pair with our newly bought black jeans. There are plenty of style ideas but there’s one page that stands out the most to me, Polyvore. It’s basically how they do their visuals.

If you’re habitually looking for fashion ideas on Pinterest, I know you’ll agree with me.

Polyvore

Polyvore  is consistent using:

 

  • The same template – white background and black text in the middle
  • The same fonts – a combination of serif and sans serif fonts

 

  1. Social Media Examiner

Social Media Examiner

 

If there’s one thing I see on my homepage every single time that would be marketing tips. I’m pretty sure all of them are helpful but Social Media Examiner’s visuals, with no fail, are the most noticeable to me which I end up clicking.

 

Social Media Examiner

Social Media Examiner is consistent placing:

 

  • Their URL at the bottom
  • An icon or object at the top that is related to the topic

They may use different colors but you’ll see all of them are kind of vibrant to the eyes. You’ll also notice that they use different fonts.

 

 

  1. PureWow

PureWow

Again, one of the reasons why I and other women go to Pinterest is because there are lots of cooking tips and recipes.

There may be tons of helpful food ideas appearing right before my eyes but PureWow perfectly captured my attention with their Pin images.

why you should build a visual identity on Pinterest Purewow

PureWow is consistent using:

 

  • The same template – white background, showing six pictures, and black text at the top.
  • The same font – a serif font

 

How To Be Visually Consistent on Pinterest

 

  1. Use the ideal image size

banner dimension

The go-to Pin image size is 735 pixels in width and 1128 pixels in height.

But, of course, you are free to creatively use any size you want just like what Polyvore and PureWow do with their Pin blog post recipe images which are longer than usual.

Whatever size you want to use, simply be consistent about it.

 

  1. Use at least 2 branding elements in your visuals

According to visual brand strategist, Orana Velarde, there are four visual brand assets you should be using if you’re dead serious about building a visual brand identity: logo, colors, fonts, and visuals.

 

Visual Brand Access

When you’re making picture quotes or blog covers for Pinterest, use two or all four of your visual assets like clockwork – just like the examples I mentioned earlier.

What if you’re not the only one in your team creating Pin images? How do you keep yourself and the others on the same page?

Fortunately, there’s an exact tool for this. Visme’s Brand Kit allows everyone in your team to have an access to all the visual assets and templates your brand is using.

Visual Brand Identity Tool in Visme

There you have it. Everything you need to know about building a visual identity on Pinterest. Well, almost. Let me know if I missed something.

Either way, I hope I got my point across.

 

AUTHOR BIO:

Belle Balace is a Growth Specialist at Visme, an online visual tool where you can create engaging visuals in less time.
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Instagram tips Marketing Others Social Media Tips

Outreach and Marketing Using Instagram Direct

It has been 3 years since the much-awaited feature ‘Instagram Direct’ was released for use. This handy feature, allows a user to share a picture, video, profile or location with an individual or a group of people (maximum 15). It is estimated that nearly 100 million people use this service every month, nearly a fifth of the number of total users per month.

outreach and marketing using instagram direct

This feature offers functionalities similar to those offered by Social Media newcomer Snapchat. The good news for marketers, though, is that it can ease life substantially by providing another platform to improve your outreach and disseminate information.

Ahead, I have presented some tips and tricks to help you employ Instagram Direct for your marketing jobs and needs. A few advantages of using Instagram Direct are

These points make the Instagram Direct feature a very attractive and effective tool for any marketer.

Let’s get into some more ways in which you, as a marketer, can use this feature to the best of its abilities.

Winner Winner, Chicken Dinner!

Ah! Who doesn’t love a contest! A chance to win and feature on a social channel in front of several people. Oh the adulation! It is basic human instinct and slight greed that makes a competition so attractive and popular. A marketer’s job is to give the customer what he wants, and adhering to that policy, contests should be held regularly.

One of the biggest advantages of holding a contest is the outreach and exposure your brand can get. Customers subconsciously remember the brand organizing the contest they enter, especially if they win. It is a win-win situation for both the marketers and the customers.

Word of mouth subsequently spreads the brand name even more and makes the advertising job of the brand or product much easier. Instagram Direct is the perfect medium for connecting with your customers, individually or in a group.

Let me give you an example of how you can connect with your customers and engage them in your contests using Instagram Direct. You can send an image of a product to a select few and ask the user to think of a tagline for that product. The best 10 taglines will get that product for free!

contest

Alternatively, you can hold public contests, in which say, the first 10 commenters for a picture each day, will get entry into a lucky draw. If you are able to, ask customers to post pictures which include your product and special hashtags. The best pictures will be judged its owner will be awarded a prize. You can even use the photos further for a marketing campaign or just to show customer involvement on your Instagram page.

For Your Eyes Only

Customers love it when exclusive products are released. Limited edition products sell almost instantly and satiate the customer’s hunger for new products. Everyone wants something unique. This makes our work easier. Just make sure that when you release such products, you advertise them judiciously since over-advertisement decreases their appeal.

Instagram Direct is perfect for such purposes. You can use it to contact an individual or a small group of people, maximum of 15. Give users a sense of exclusivity and make them feel special. Sneak peeks to the latest product might be just the thing you might be missing.

Before launching the product in the market, send a sneak-peek to around 100 customers. These customers will feel valued and special. Word of mouth has been known to be the best form of spreading information and guarantees a high conversion rate. Organic recommendations lead to many more sales and brand reach, without the hard work.

Choose the users carefully and send them just a sneak peek, make sure that they will be interested to know more. Don’t mention too many details about the product, which can bore a user. Send an attractive image with a catchy tagline and a link to the product page. Your users will surely want to know more.

Word of mouth is probably the biggest weapon you have in your arsenal. Your product will spread like wildfire if you have targeted the right users. When sending a sneak peek always provide a link to the product page in case a user wants to know more.

Listen To Your Customers

The attribute provides a user-friendly dais for identifying your network on a personal level and creating conversations about the brand, owing to the comments that are visible to everyone included in the direct message. You can always take a list of users to choose between two products that are featured in a picture or as for their feedback on the product line.

When a customer gives feedback asked by you in an exclusive way, it provides him/her a sense of appreciation and a sense of value which is a priceless asset for any brand.

customer service

Going through user profiles can also be beneficial. Search for hashtags related to your products or brand and spot users who have bought a product recently. You can thank them or communicate with them directly using Instagram Direct. This will really make the user feel special, improving your reputation as a brand.

Treat Your Loyal Followers

The most important aspect of marketing is to make the customer feel loved and serviced. Your brand updates and offers must be presented to your customers and loyal followers first

A simple way of identifying the low hanging fruit, or spotting the followers who have supported you regularly, is by using the popular website simply measured.

simply measured

This website offers great features related to the analytics of your social media accounts. It tells you about the followers who post your content, like your content or comment on your content regularly. It gives you a good idea of your most loyal followers and also provides additional information such as what time you should post your pictures and which location has the most active users.

Use these metrics to identify your die-hard followers and then communicate with them through Instagram Direct. Offer coupons and special offers to show your gratitude and thank the follower.

Small steps like these can be extremely beneficial in the future and ensure that your followers and fans feel loved and appreciated.

Check Out The Competition

A useful resource for understanding what your customers want is your competitor’s page. Browse through your competitor’s posts and search for users who are active and communicative. Also, judge the popularity of posts and determine what works.

Instagram Direct also allows you to send messages to users who are not following you. Try approaching new users via Instagram Direct and offer them an alternative to your competition.

More users, especially active ones, guarantee more engagement, activity and eventually sales.

Where You At?!

Location services on Instagram have totally changed the landscape. Sharing locations on Instagram is gaining more popularity day by day and has increased the effectiveness of posts.

location

A good example of how you can use locations to gather more interest and increase your exposure.

Images with locations receive more engagement than those without locations. This is because a person relates to a location more easily than he or she relates to a hashtag or a product.

location important

Users can search for images close to their geographic location and can add locations to any image. Adding a location gives your image another dimension of appeal to involve your audience.

So adding locations to Direct messages can also be very effective and efficient in involving your audience.

Use the tips mentioned above to make full use of Instagram Direct. This feature has a lot of potential, especially for marketers, and if you’re not already using it, you could be missing out on possibly 100s of followers. Just make sure not to over-message and annoy your audience.

The biggest advantage of using Instagram Direct is that it allows you to communicate with an individual user and also allows you to connect with a group of users and start a discussion.

Get with the times and start using Instagram Direct.