Category: Articles

Branding is more than just creating a clever logo. It’s building a unique identity that stays with your audience. Through effective branding, you can build a loyal customer base, attract new clients, and broaden your business’ influence within your market.

However, your competitors are also taking their brand-building activities seriously. Without a clear strategy in mind, it will be difficult for your business to get attention. 

So, how can you make your brand stand out from the noise? Let’s take a look at a few approaches:

The rationale behind effective branding is a desire to connect with your audience. You want your business to be relatable by engaging people at a more personal level. Personalized branding creates trust and, in effect, gives potential customers a compelling reason to take a specific course of action, such as signing up to your mailing list or purchasing a product or service. In order to get such results, your messages should be consistent throughout your marketing campaign. This would mean using consistent language, tone, and style for writing social media posts, blogs, web content, and other marketing materials.

 

If you’re selling a specific type of service, a detailed workflow can help enhance your brand-building efforts. That’s because clients want to know more about your process and see if it’s any better than what your competitors have. Other than that, presenting a well-structured workflow will motivate potential clients to sign up for your service even before making initial contact. 

 

It’s not enough for your client to know the kind of products or services you offer. You need to show them why your brand is capable of delivering the best benefits. No doubt, the best way for your potential clients to know you’re the right company to consider is to show you’re an active player in your field. Taking part in events related to your industry, for one, enhances your credibility and lets you build valuable connections. Potential customers will eventually take notice.

 

If you want your brand to be well-known, you will have to expand your reach using social media. According to an article on Search Engine Journal, “Messaging across social platforms allows us to talk about what’s most important to our customers, and lets us train them to keep our brands at the top of their mind when those important buying decisions need to happen.” In other words, sharing relevant content to your audience nurtures your brand’s online presence. Blogs and graphics can help drive your business’ visibility and allows you to attract the right buyers for your product or service.

 

Among the many brand-building strategies on the table, coming up with a name for your business seems like the easiest to pull off. Actually, it’s a process that takes a lot of time and deals with potential trademarking issues that could lead to lengthy and costly legal disputes if you’re not careful enough. Even if you get around the legalities, you also have to create a brand name that’s both memorable to your audience and relevant to your industry. Simplicity is the key, so you might as well come up with a catchy one-word name that’s inspired by everyday objects or a combination of two different words. 

It takes a lot of time and expertise to develop an effective brand for your business. Other than creative resources and skills, technical proficiencies are also required to get your brand’s message across all marketing channels. 

If you need help with your branding, look for a reliable provider of virtual assistant services that can give your brand a much-needed boost. 

In 2015, spending on e-commerce reached $4.7 billion with a year-on-year increase of 15%. This year, the value of the e-commerce market in the United States has grown to $340 billion. 

 

These numbers prove that e-commerce is the future of business. To compete for a larger share of their markets, entrepreneurs will need to set up e-commerce platforms for their products and services.

Still, building a great website where people can shop for the products they need isn’t as easy as you think. A successful e-commerce platform should have all the right elements in place.

On that note, here are a few tips for building an e-commerce site that guarantees more sales.

 

When building an e-commerce site, you would want to consider creating a distinct identity. Setting up a domain name for your e-commerce website makes it easier to attract repeat customers. You just have to choose a good domain registrar for this. 

 

The design of your e-commerce site is integral to keeping potential customers engaged. Your design has to be optimized for growing your online sales, so opt for a straightforward theme and avoid cluttering up your website with unnecessary graphics and images. Otherwise, it becomes difficult to retain interested customers and attract those who might want to make another purchase.

 

Since customers can’t get a closer look at the products you’re selling, they rely on the images on your e-commerce website to determine whether to buy or not. High-quality photos can motivate customers to make a purchase and boost your brand presence. That said, make sure you use proper lighting and composition to take quality photos of your products.

 

Common among e-commerce websites with high conversion rates is well-written content. Copywriting is more than just putting words together. It’s a process that involves picking the right keywords and crafting content that educates customers about your business and encourages them to purchase an offer. In addition to this, clear, concise, and compelling descriptions and web content can help drive sales and build a loyal customer base.

 

Customers want to engage businesses they can readily trust. With social proof, your e-commerce website can generate more visits and secure more sales. The most common types of social proof you can include in your website are testimonials and reviews from previous and existing clients. These will put your business in a better position to attract new customers.

 

An e-commerce site lets you acquire a higher sales volume. Building one, however, requires knowledge and expertise. You can access these by hiring virtual assistants who are experienced in web development and design.

Contact us today to get started.

The word “virtual assistant” has come to define a new breed of freelancers providing a range of skills that businesses need to scale. In this day and age when digital transformation is inevitable, businesses will need to hire VAs who can add value to their operations and enable them to compete within their respective markets.  

VAs can handle a wide range of tasks for the companies they work with, but there are five core areas that VAs can work on to achieve specific business goals:

 

On average, companies were able to allocate “42% of their budget to online marketing and this rate is expected to grow to 45% by 2020,” according to this article from The Medium. With video and social media marketing becoming even more pervasive, businesses will need to acquire the right skills and resources to make their brands stand out. VAs with expertise in video editing and content creation are the most sought out as video marketing, blogging, and email newsletter campaigns offer immense benefits to the bottom line. 

 

Office assistants are an asset to business leaders who have to deal with plenty of tedious tasks on a daily basis. As the business grows, these tasks become even more complex. However, hiring additional staff locally can take too much time as you will need to create and distribute job ads and train new employees in using unfamiliar tools. This won’t be the case with hiring an administrative VA who is already equipped with the right skills in database management, calendar management, online research, and transcription.

 

It’s no secret that successful businesses outsource their customer service activities to offshore call centers. Billing, debt collections, and telemarketing are entrusted to voice-based agents who focus solely on making outbound and inbound calls.  In contrast, dedicated VAs are capable of using a wide range of channels to reach out to the targeted audience segments of a single client. In a way, your VA could function as an all-in-one “contact center” that allows you to engage customers by phone, SMS, chat, and email. In this sense, hiring VAs becomes a more practical solution than forging a partnership with a typical offshore call center.

 

If your company relies heavily on its online presence to generate new customers, then it’s integral that you don’t get inexperienced web design teams to work on your website. VAs who are already proficient in handling search engine optimization activities, tracking site performance, and using content management systems will make all the difference in building websites that will impact your bottom line.

 

Aside from handling your core operations, a VA can also aid in planning out specific activities that are crucial to your business’ growth. This will prove to be beneficial as your business begins to grow its customer base. With the support of a business development VA, it becomes easier to make the right decisions and avoid risks that could offset your business’ gains. 

Are you interested in having a VA help you out with these essential areas in your business? Contact us today and we’ll help you get started in scaling your business.

If a small business doesn’t have its own website, then it’s missing out on plenty of opportunities to scale and improve its profitability.

For a business to grow, it needs to establish and grow its online presence through a well-designed website. It’s not an easy task that anyone can handle as it requires the right expertise and resources to pull off. This is why startups in the United States and Canada are outsourcing their web development projects in a bid to gain access to the skills and tools they can’t acquire on their own.

Sure enough, the Philippines remains to be a top destination for outsourced web development services considering that it has secured the right conditions to become a global hub for information technology-business process outsourcing (IT-BPO).

 

Driving the Philippines’ competitiveness in the digital services sector is a highly-skilled workforce capable of competing with other outsourcing centers in Asia.

The local BPO sector has to prepare itself for the emergence of “game-changing” technologies such as artificial intelligence, augmented reality, and automation. These disruptions will highlight the need to learn new skills as the country shifts closer to high-opportunity markets for non-voiced services.

In the Future of Skills 2019 Report by LinkedIn, web development is among the most crucial skills Filipinos will have to learn as they enter a new phase of digital transformation.

Sure enough, the country has already upgraded its educational system to focus more on developing in-demand skills. Under the K-12 system, students from Grades 11 to 12 can go through the Information and Communications Technology Strand which seeks to develop talents in the IT-BPO sector, especially along the lines of web programming and web design. 

 

Focusing on specialization will prepare the country’s future IT-BPO workforce for highly lucrative service markets. Of course, this will not be possible without a clear investment strategy that engages key strengths. 

The country’s IT-BPO industry relies heavily on public-private initiatives that aim to nurture local talents and transform the country beyond voice-based service areas.

To support these initiatives, the IT-BPM Roadmap 2022 is  molding the country into a potential investment destination in the wake of “rapid innovations in the areas of digital transformation, artificial intelligence, big data and analytics, and evolving delivery models.”

As a collaborative initiative between the newly created Department of Information and Communications Technology and its private sector partners, the Roadmap provides a clear path for the development of needed skills and infrastructure across five different subsectors, namely:

• Contact Center and BPO
• Information Technology and Software Development
• Animation and Game Development
• Health Information Management 
• Global In-House Centers

Under the Roadmap, technical working groups were created to oversee crucial growth drivers such as human capital. In effect, this will nurture a globally-competitive workforce that companies in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom can rely on.

Web development is one of many subsectors in the IT-BPO industry that Filipino professionals are capable of handling. With the right conditions already there, the country is well on its way towards becoming an attractive destination for web development outsourcing.

Want to build an excellent website for your business? Outsource your web development to the right service provider based in the Philippines. Get started by clicking on this link.

Although it’s an essential part of an online marketing strategy, a successful business website takes a lot of time and effort to build. Not only that, but it also requires the right resources and skills to establish a brand’s online presence. It’s no wonder why businesses spend a bulk of their resources on web development.

 

Then again, even if you build an effective website for your brand, you would still encounter several issues that will keep you from reaching your online marketing goals. You will need to solve these issues first in order to get the best possible results. 

That said, let us take a look at five common web development problems and how to resolve them.

This remains a common issue among small businesses seeking to establish their brands online. Achieving a higher web traffic volume will depend primarily on how much you spend for equipping your website with all the right features. The cost of web development can vary depending on the complexity of the project. A customizable web template, for instance, will cost you extra along with the needed widgets for an e-commerce website. 

Small businesses will have to utilize whatever resources they have in building websites that provide added value. You definitely need to set a realistic budget and spend only for tools and widgets that align with the objectives of your online marketing strategy. By focusing on your specific goals, you will find it easier to manage your finances and avoid spending on the widgets and features you don’t need.

 

Launching your website is crucial to the success of your online efforts. Without adequate preparation, however, your website will not be able to get the exposure it needs to attract initial visitors.

The best way to get around this problem is to test your website first. You should be able to resolve bugs and make improvements to your website’s functionality before launching. It also helps if you simplify the design to make online navigation easier for your clients. 

 

People will want to gain access to your website and try to steal crucial information about you and your business. There are those who resort to damaging your website altogether. Cybercrime has cost millions of dollars in damages over the years, making it a serious problem that businesses shouldn’t ignore.

You should be able to back up your website and install the right online security plugins. Other than that, you need to secure your website’s coding and avoid exposing critical information about your business.

 

The design of your website is crucial for retaining visitors who might want to purchase a product or service. Without a compelling design, you would give potential customers enough reason to leave your site and look for the products and services they need elsewhere.

As soon as you know that your website is suffering from a design problem, you will have to get rid of specific elements or overhauling your website’s appearance. From there, you can identify the right color schemes and graphics that will engage your audience.

 

Now that you’ve got the website’s foundation up, you will need to make continuous improvements. Often, the issue here is the use of analytics for supporting your main goals online. This could be addressed by identifying the metrics you need to track so you can continually optimize your website’s performance.

When you plan for a website, you will need to determine your key performance indicators. Will you be focusing more on getting as much traffic as possible, or on closing as many e-commerce sales as possible? It becomes easier for you to maintain your website when you have the right numbers in mind.

 

Web development has its hurdles, but you can easily overcome them when you’re already aware of the issues affecting the success of your business’ website.

Another approach is to hire a web development team that offers cost-effective solutions to establishing and maintaining your online presence.

Contact us today and see how we can help you with your web development problems.

You should know by now that the key ingredients to a successful website include an intuitive design and an effective SEO strategy. However, there is one important component in your online marketing strategy you wouldn’t want to overlook as it defines how you’re going to compete with other businesses online.

 

Web analytics lets you measure the performance of your website, identify issues that keep it from producing the results you want, and make the desired changes which will add value to your online marketing activities.

Other than that, using data from web analytics can also help you understand your audience better in terms of how they behave and interact with the content you produce. 

Being an important source of marketing intelligence, web analytics can provide you with insights that will help improve your online presence and engagement with your audience. You only have to focus on the metrics that are crucial towards enhancing your online marketing activities:

 

Bounce Rate

When people visit your website, they expect to find value in what they see and read. For sure, visitors who don’t have a good experience with your website tend to “bounce” away. You will know if your website is performing poorly in retaining potential customers if the bounce rate is too high. 

In this sense, it becomes easier to identify what’s wrong with your website by tracking the bounce rate on a weekly basis. Possibly, the loading time has to be sped up or the content has to be revised and made more relevant and valuable to your audience. 

 

Traffic sources

 

This metric tells you how your visitors are able to engage your website. People could enter via organic search, direct search, referrals, or through social media. These sources will guide you on how you can get not just visitors, but clients who are actively looking for your products or services. 

If a large chunk of your web traffic comes from organic searches, then you probably have an effective SEO strategy in place. This should prompt you to improve your SEO efforts further so you can get more qualified clients.

 

Unique visits

You know your business gets plenty of exposure if it attracts unique visitors every day. While the number of returning visitors indicates brand loyalty, the chances of getting more sales closes will depend mostly on how much new traffic your website is able to generate. This could mean that your SEO activities are paying off. 

On the other hand, you might want to improve your online promotional activities or improve your keyword strategy if the number of unique visits is lower than the number of returning visits.

 

Conversion rate

Of course, visitors will only scout your website for information that matters to them. However, if you’re aiming to produce customers through your website, you will have to optimize it for conversions. This is where the conversion rate comes in. This metric allows you to measure your website’s capacity to get people to take a specific action, whether it’s to purchase a product or subscribe to a mailing list. 

A high conversion rate means that your website is generating the right results. If the number falls below 40% on average, then you might want to update the text content of your webpages or consider a major redesign when necessary. 

 

Web traffic

This has to be the most basic and yet the most important metric that businesses should keep track of. A healthy website has to generate a constant stream of web traffic. The more visits you get, the higher your chances are of closing a sale. Web traffic is also a good indicator of the effectiveness of your online engagement activities. 

These metrics are crucial to the success of your online marketing efforts. Still, you may need the expertise of an outsourced web development team to interpret these numbers and help you improve your online presence.

 

OneVirtual Solutions is here to provide you with full-stack web development services so you would be better equipped to unlock more opportunities online. 

Contact us today!

If you haven’t created a website for your small business yet, then you’re missing out on plenty of opportunities to expand before the year ends!

Despite the fact that 46% of small businesses in 2018 didn’t have an online presence, websites remain an important ingredient for success in any market. This comes as more and more people rely on websites to decide on purchasing a product or service. 

Websites will become even more prevalent to business in the coming years. NASDAQ predicts that about 95% of all consumer purchases would be made online by 2040.

You’re probably thinking of building a website for your small business right now. Surely, you’re not too late to develop your online presence.

For the second half of 2019, focus on getting these essentials that will make your brand’s web presence stand out.

 

People are using their mobile devices to learn about and purchase the products they want. Sure enough, at least 72% of internet users are more likely to engage websites that could be viewed through a tablet or smartphone. If your website looks good on both devices, then first-time users are likely to return and finalize their purchases.

 

In recent years, Google’s search algorithm has become even more rigid as it puts more focus on the need for quality content that users would find helpful. For your business to outrank the competition, it’s crucial to invest time and resources on creating engaging blog posts, videos, and other online marketing material aimed at addressing specific needs. This should go along with a search engine optimization strategy that uses longtail keywords and improves your website’s quality score.

 

Getting an SSL certificate shouldn’t be an afterthought, especially when you’re building an e-commerce website that uses a payment portal. Customers need to know whether you’re a verified company or not, so an SSL certificate lets them know that you comply with internet security standards and that their identity is safe from phishing attacks and theft.

 

Web design has come a long way. In the past, businesses opted to put as much information as they can on their webpages. Nowadays, less is better. Today’s websites are carefully thought-out with more emphasis on navigability and effective website copy. Another factor is site speed. Websites that take more than three seconds to load are less effective in terms of converting the right people. By reducing your HTTP requests and compressing your images, you will be able to manage websites that attract more leads and help you get more conversions.

With these elements in place, you will be able to run a website that helps you with realizing your overall business goals.

You only need to hire a reliable and experienced web development team that will provide the expertise needed to support your online presence.

Contact us today and we’ll make sure your website is fully equipped in generating more sales!

Happy Independence Day! 

To celebrate the Fourth of July, here are seven famous quotes about freedom and how it can be nurtured to help you with your business goals. 

 

If you were perfect in almost everything you did, you wouldn’t have anything else to aim for.

After all, being human means making mistakes, and being able to learn from that and improve.

 

Have you taken the time to think about the kind of business you want to build? Brands undergo several transformations before they settle with an authentic identity. So, once you are able to make good use of your time and resources, you will be able to provide value to your customers and grow your influence. 

 

Of course, it’s not enough that you know why you’re in business in the first place. This should have you looking inward and discovering the improvements you will have to make for your business to keep pushing forward.

 

Freedom doesn’t mean you’re entirely free of responsibility. At the same time, you can’t have freedom if you’re not willing to admit your mistakes and come up with a possible solution for it. As a leader, you will have to face every challenge that comes your way, especially if it means pushing an organization forward.

 

In order to have freedom, you must be able to earn it in the first place. Much like managing a small business, you can never reap any reward if you always expect a free lunch. Hard work and determination matters more than simply being ambitious.

 

Fortune favors the bold…or so it’s been said. In business, you’ve got to step up in order to rise up. You will have to be bold enough to take risks. After all, your success could very well be found outside your comfort zone.

 

At times, you might want to give your employees enough freedom to come up with new processes all on their own. The modern workplace thrives on creativity and innovation, so give everyone at the office enough space to develop ideas that could drive your business forward.

As we celebrate Independence Day, let us take the time to value the creativity and passion that resulted from our love of freedom!

 

Artificial intelligence has become an important modern innovation, especially in crucial sectors such as engineering and healthcare. The uptick in the demand for automated systems and tools in these sectors will likely cause the global market for AI-driven software solutions to reach $118.6 billion by 2025, according to Statista.

Not everyone welcomes this as a positive development though. While businesses begin to realize the value automation brings to the bottom line, some experts paint a bleaker future, particularly for the local business process outsourcing industry in the Philippines.

Much of the criticism against AI technology is anchored on the notion that it would significantly reduce employment. On a global scale, automation could lead to the replacement of close to “40% of the world’s jobs,” according to this Fortune article. In addition, AI could also “disrupt entire communities and disproportionately affect low-income workers” as machines begin to assume the roles of chauffeurs, chefs, and telemarketers.  

Writing for Iot for All, Leverage.com’s Calum McClelland mentions how the transition to a more automated society “might be a painful one,”, especially for many blue-collar and white-collar workers who will need to adapt to a more digitally-driven environment. Workers in the BPO sector, in particular, will have to face a future where much of their tasks are better off handled by AI.  

According to Asian Institute of Management professor Christopher Monterola, over 800,000 workers in the Philippines are on the brink of losing their jobs as AI technology begins to gain ground in the local business landscape. Worse, the Department of Information and Communications Technology expects AI to affect about “48% of employees in the Philippines.”

These observations prove how much of a threat AI has become to workers with specialist skills. And while it’s almost impossible to divert businesses away from automating their activities, several ways could help address this inescapable threat.

Like many inventions before it, AI could be a tool that could help enrich the human workforce by introducing new specialist areas. In this sense, AI will not necessarily get rid of jobs altogether, but it will open up exciting vistas for the current and future labor force.

McClelland’s solution is for us to “invest in the education and infrastructure needed to support people as many current jobs are eliminated and we transition to this new future.”

Focus on tech-intensive fields such as computer science and software engineering should encourage upskilling as a viable strategy for reducing AI’s impact on local talent pools. The Philippine BPO sector, in this case, should prioritize upskilling as an important adaptive strategy.

Upgrading current skills and acquiring new ones is crucial to 49 percent of the country’s labor force, according to Monterola. BPO workers will have to acquire new skills to remain employable.

One thing’s for sure, there are still activities that are best handled by humans. Graphic design and other creative components of digital marketing are just some of the many career options that automation will not replace as these require human creativity.

We know for sure how AI is going to impact the BPO sector. Workers will just have to look for avenues where they can grow professionally and acquire the skills they need to survive the shift toward a more AI-driven world.

The world of BPO is fast-changing and workers in this sector shouldn’t get left behind in terms of skills. For this, look for a company that equips you with the relevant skills to help you in your career path.

In a Harvard Business Review article, entrepreneurs are more prone to burnout than most of us would assume. This is because “they tend to be extremely passionate about work and more socially isolated, have limited safety nets, and operate in high uncertainty.”

With the extra hours they put in for work, entrepreneurs experience high levels of stress as they struggle with maintaining a healthy balance between the home and the office.  

However, entrepreneurs will dedicate more time to work as their businesses grow. The effects of burnout worsen and the absence of safeguards can only amplify the physical and emotional toll they bring.

Burnout can derail your business, but with these tips in mind, you will be able to get back on the path to expansion.

Get Enough Sleep

Time is a precious resource. We get that, but should we really sacrifice ample sleep just so we can spare a few extra hours for work? Without adequate rest, you would fall victim to burnout. Other than that, an Inc.com article says that lack of sleep can ruin your charisma. You won’t be able to infuse your staff with the energy and passion they need to raise the business’ productivity. On the other hand, business leaders who are well-rested encourage a more positive atmosphere that allows employees to work vigorously.

Go on an uninterrupted retreat

If you let yourself be overwhelmed by stress, you will be abandoning your work while your business is growing. Don’t let it come to this. If you’re feeling the slightest hints of burnout, it’s time that you go on a well-deserved vacation – a real vacation where you don’t check your emails for anything related to work. Focus on pampering yourself during your “me” time and you would come back feeling rejuvenated.

Delegate Your Tasks

Some business leaders prefer to manage every little detail of their organizations. Though micromanaging has its benefits, it leaves you little room for rest. Then again, you can always keep your business running smoothly without causing burnout. You only need to let your secretaries, supervisors, or team leaders handle minor tasks. Doing so enables you to reduce your workload and avoid stressing yourself out.

Draw the Line Between the Office and Home

Entrepreneurs shouldn’t let work get in the way of spending quality time with the family. Pursuing an ideal work-life balance is still crucial to keeping business leaders motivated, so it’s best not to miss out on family activities like reunions or movie nights. After all, your growing business has allowed you to nurture a family you wouldn’t want to replace with anything else.

Outsource Your Most Complex Tasks

As your business grows, you will need to hire more people and adopt the tools you need to keep the momentum going. However, you still have to face issues such as finding the right talents and acquiring the right equipment. Instead of burning yourself out in dealing with these issues, you might as well go the easier route by hiring virtual assistants for your business. From digital marketing to web design, virtual assistant services provide you with an effective solution to meet the growing needs of your business.

Avoid Burnout with a Remote Team from OneVirtual Solutions!

Want to avoid burnout? OneVirtual Solutions provides virtual assistant services that cater to your specific needs. Get started by scheduling a consultation. Click here.