Posts

Making the Changes Your Business Needs to Succeed

/in /by

StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article | Entrepreneurship | Making the Changes Your Business Needs to Succeed | Business SuccessBusinesses need to evolve over time, whether you want them to or not. The need for change could be due to a number of reasons, from the demands of keeping up with the latest trends to trying to save money to wanting to reach new goals in terms of growth. Whatever the reason, these changes will not happen overnight. For change to be successful, a lot of hard work will be required. However, what changes do you need to make, and how can you implement them? This guide explores more.

Getting more traffic to your website

You might have built a website and found little to no success since its launch. It might be that, currently, your website is not designed as well as it could be. A poorly designed website can deter people from sticking around. Another problem you might be facing is that you are struggling to get the traffic to your website in the first place. If this is the case, then you need to implement an SEO strategy right away. However, it could be that the content you are trying to produce every month on your blog isn’t achieving the results that you want. This is likely because you are not making the most of the keywords that should be used within the content. If you are experiencing any of the above points, you should get in touch with an expert such as Cocoonfxmedia, who will be able to get you started on a tailored business plan for how you can start getting the traffic you need to your website.

Keeping regular customers

Do you have a high turnover of existing customers because you are focused so much on trying to find new ones? This can happen to many businesses when they are trying to implement a growth management strategy. However, having a steady flow of regular customers is crucial to growth management. Not to mention that trying to find new customers is much more costly than trying to retain them.

So, if you have found yourself struggling to keep your regular customers and find new ones at the same time, then you will need to address what is going wrong. Are you losing touch too quickly? Are you giving your existing customers a good enough reason to continue using your services? Common ways to keep existing customers include:

  • Offering a discount
  • Finding something that makes your business unique
  • Focusing on customer service – you need to listen to what your customers want

Bringing onboard new services/products

Are you facing a bit of a cash flow problem? Or are you struggling to make as many sales as you did the previous year? This is a common occurrence for many businesses that have been around for a long time and have almost become complacent with what they are offering. When this happens, it is time to look at making a considerable change within the business itself. You need to have a complete refresh in terms of the products and/or services you are offering your customers. Alert them to the new products that you are introducing via a newsletter or on social media; you could even offer new customers a discount.

Best Online Trading Platforms for Option Trading

/in /by

StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article | Best Online Trading Platforms for Option Trading

Options trading isn’t just for anyone; it’s got high-risk involved because everything is dependent on fluctuations in the market prices, how much you can afford to pay for the option and whether you should make the call to either sell or buy certain securities at its set price based on future dates — you’ve got to be experienced and knowledgeable about how brokerage systems work or you’ll end up with losses. If you’re looking for a particular online options broker to start or continue your investment journey, we highly recommend you to check out this article about the best options brokers on business24-7. We’ve compiled some of the best online platforms for Options trading, just read on to find out which is the perfect one for you!

1. TD Ameritrade

Across all the trading platforms, this is the best one overall; it has got a fair pricing system, a very resourceful database for beginners and an efficient trading platform for all veterans and experts alike. It doesn’t matter how experienced you are because you’ll be sure to benefit trading on this platform that provides for all users.

Each contract costs $0.75 cents while the trade is priced at $6.95 each; the good thing is that there is no minimum for your account and the site even offers a promotion of commission-free equity, option trades, and ETF for 60 days with just a deposit of at least $3,000. You’ll also get additional bonuses if you’ve got opening deposits of a larger amount.

2. Robinhood

Even though some expert traders aren’t too pleased with the way Robinhood processes and handle their trades, Robinhood nevertheless stands at the top of the list for having no commission price. Investors get to sell and buy options without having to risk anything above their initial investments — they really mean it when they say that there’s no trading fee.

If you’re looking at Robinhood solely as a platform, it would be a great trading avenue. It’s especially for traders who’ve already read up enough on trading, so beginners won’t find many educational materials here. Aside from that, traders trade with ETFs, stock trades, some cryptocurrencies and American Depository Receipts on both the website and the mobile application — all at zero commission fee.

3. TradeStation

Initially starting up as a software trading company, it grew to become an advanced options trading platform. They’ve got rapid-speed trading and exclusive data suited for professionals, making it the ideal platform for the more experienced group of traders.

You’ll be charged $5 each trade and $0.50 cents each contract, but they’ve also got some unbundled and per-contract prices up for offer; for the more veteran and active traders, a common choice is to opt for the flat-rate pricing of $1 each contact rather than the usual base price and individual contract fee. The tools here are so superb that you can find them being sold at other brokers, so if you’re keen on joining TradeStation as a member, you’re in for a good time.

4. Gatsby

Gatsby is most suited for the retail investors, the traders who are new to options trading, social traders and the millennial bunch — if either of these sounds like you, this might be the platform that best suits your needs. Gatsby is an all-inclusive trading platform that ensures you, as a beginner, would be informed of the most common trade lingo and the most up-to-date trade news — they’re all for making sure you get the resources and expertise you’ll need to optimize your trading strategies. Once you’ve signed up, you can begin trading instantly and earn your passive income when you trade for ETFs and companies — or, you can even trade against companies if that’s what interests you.

StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article | Best Online Trading Platforms for Option Trading

5. IQ Option

IQ Option is reputable for being a low-costing brokerage, offering low trade prices at $0.95 each, $0.65 for each contract and no minimum account amount. As of now, depending on the amount you’re willing to deposit, they’ve got a promotion that allows you to earn up to $3,500 bonus cash. This would be quintessential for traders who like to start with low investment amounts; with IQ Option, you can start small while reaping the other benefits of using its powerful online trading platform, informative charts and analytics to help you build your trading strategy — at no minimums and low costs, here’s a great place to begin your investment journey. You can find a more detailed review of IQ Option here.

6. Interactive Brokers

Should you be a more active trader that prefers small and quick trades, this may be the platform that fits the bill. When you trade at Interactive Brokers, you won’t need to worry about pre-trade fees and every option commission is priced at $0.70 each. The high-volume traders can enjoy the lower pricing of just $0.15 each contract with the qualification criteria of at least 100,000 contracts every month. There’s also the requirement of having a minimum account balance of $100,00 per month or risk incurring a $10 commission fee, if not you’ll need to deal with an activity fee — this definitely isn’t for those with a smaller trade appetite, but if you’re up for a thriving and excitable trading experience, don’t hesitate to give Interactive Brokers a try.

7. Lightspeed

Like Interactive brokers, Lightspeed also caters to the experienced and active trading community. They charge $0 each trade and $0.60 cents per contract with a minimum of $1 per trade. Their tiered pricing system starts at 500 contracts every month; it depends on your trading volume, but the discounted rates can range from $0.50 cents from 500 to 2,000 contracts each month or even go as low as $0.20 cents with 100,000 contracts a month. Not to mention that they’ve also got the most professional trading tools you need, such as analysis tools, an integrated order executor, personalized layouts and older data analytics that you might find useful for predictions — whatever you want, they’ve got it all.

8. ETrade

Last but not least, ETrade is one of the oldest online trading platforms that boasts of a rich trader history. They’ve got a multitude of research tools and data available, even including the ones you’ll need to build your very own advanced trading options chain and ladders. The only downside is that the commissions aren’t the cheapest you’ll find around; the trades and contracts cost $6.95 and $0.75 respectively. However, you will find some discounts available if you would like to trade in high volumes. The Index and Equity options will be as affordable as $4.95 and the contracts will be priced at just $0.50 each. For new accounts that manage to have a balance of $10,000 and more, these users can get an outstanding $600 in free trades plus 60 days of trades that are commission-free — ETrade gives you the epic premium trading experience you never knew you needed.

StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article | Best Online Trading Platforms for Option Trading

That’s all we have for the best options trading platforms for 2019, but we promise you won’t be disappointed with any of these. Before you start investing in any of these platforms, ensure to do sufficient additional research just to be sure that you’ve found just the right online trading platform that best suits your needs; options trading may be a high-risk investment but it definitely is worth the effort, all you need is to understand how it all works and you’ll have the relevant expertise to make the right call.

Do Team-Building Activities At Work Have To Be Boring?

/in , /by

StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article | Entrepreneurship | Talent Management | Do Team-Building Activities At Work Have To Be Boring?It’s a new year and it’s time for another long hard look at your employees. What did they do that you liked or hated last year? Were there arguments among managers? Were junior employees left without leadership? Were there petty squabbles among employees that set deadlines back? Now is the perfect time of year to bring more cohesion to your workforce. From top to bottom, your employees need to forget about last year’s fights and look forward to the future together. It’s vital that your workforce remains a solid team so you can grow even larger and more successful than the previous decade. Yet, you may not have the time or the budget to take employees out on a day of team-building activities. It’s still possible to have them indoors at your office?

A personal piece

Inform your employees that you’re going to be holding a show and tell activity tomorrow. Instruct them to bring something along that matters to them a great deal, or has had a huge impact on them. Employees will sit in a circle and you’ll go around the room asking each person to show that special item. This is to evoke an image of who an employee is outside of work. Sharing something personal about yourself with colleagues will help you to understand why they are the type of person they are. It allows colleagues to feel more connected with the people they work with for 8 hours a day. The aim is to increase the bond between employees and therefore increase cooperation and productivity.

Futuristic racing

Move all the desks and chairs out of the way and call in TLC to set up their team drone racing challenge. They set up neon glowing bars that have been intricately shaped differently to present a gateway challenge. Entering the gates with a drone will be like reaching a checkpoint. You need to complete a set amount of laps in the first place to be declared the winning team. It’s fun, building friendships and isn’t dangerous at all. The courses can be set up within the size of a medium-sized room, so clearing a whole floor will be more than enough room. Employees have to work together as it’s two versus two affairs. You have to avoid bumping into each other while trying to block the other team’s drones on the circuit.

Scavenger hunt

Group your workers into pairs of four. One team will need to hide one item of each member’s workstation around the entire office. The other team will need to find these items. From a humble pencil holder to a keyboard, anything can be used as a prop. The team on the scavenger hunt is given a couple of minutes to find everything before returning to the starting point before the clock runs out. It takes cooperation and effective communication between colleagues, otherwise, they won’t be able to cover the most amount of ground in the shortest amount of time.

Team-building activities don’t have to be extravagant, they can be done right in the office. Futuristic drone racing is incredibly good fun and something employees won’t forget easily.

How to Develop a Successful SEO Strategy for Your Business

/in , /by

StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article, How to Develop a Successful SEO Strategy for your Business

The importance of SEO has surged in recent years, and if you’re looking to attract more customers to your website, you simply can’t afford to ignore it. When it comes to achieving the coveted first page positions in SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages), having a solid SEO strategy in place is essential. These days search engine results are more crowded than ever before, and winning your place in the rankings will require patience, hard work, and an understanding of how to properly optimize your website. With that in mind, below you will discover how to develop your very own successful SEO strategy.

Conduct a Full SEO Audit for your Website

When it comes to getting started with SEO, having solid foundations in place is an important first step to take. Without a strong platform, all other SEO efforts will essentially be wasted, and getting your website to rank highly in search results will be difficult. If you’re looking after a website with thousands of pages, then it might be worth considering an investment in website auditing software such as the industry-standard Screaming Frog or Deepcrawl to speed up this process. If you’re in any way unsure about how to carry out this process, it might be best to get in touch with professionals who are adept at creating and tailoring an SEO strategy to your business.

Start building links as soon as you can

One of the most important elements of any successful SEO strategy is link building, and this needs to be taken into account when trying to get more clicks from Google. Google’s ranking algorithms are complex and multi-faceted, but time and time again links have been proven to play a huge part in determining the position of a page in search results. There are, of course, many other factors to consider, but incorporating link building into your SEO strategy is a must.

Invest wisely in keyword research software

Taking the time to understand your user needs and learning what people are actually searching for is the bedrock of a good SEO strategy. Without in-depth knowledge and data on your customers, how else are you going to create valuable content that they can relate to? The Google search console provides an insight into which keywords are used to drive people to your site, and it’s completely free. Alternatively, sign up to SEMrush or Ahrefs for a more detailed picture of the search landscape.

Top tip: Be on the lookout for question keywords, as this can inform the content strategy of your blog pages.

Keep up to date with industry news and announcements

SEO changes faster than the weather, and in an industry as dynamic as SEO, it’s important to stay as up to date as possible. In 2019 alone, there were thousands of updates to Google’s ranking factors. Subscribe to newsletters, read blogs and be on the lookout for important news from Google about updates so you can ensure your SEO strategy is on-trend.

3 Ways to Benefit Your Business with VoIP

/in /by

When you’re trying to get your home business off the ground, one thing that is of the utmost importance is making sure you have effective ways to communicate with clients/customers, and other employees if you have them.

One of the best ways to do that is with a VoIP phone system. You can learn more about VoIP solutions at www.vtechsupport.com/services-solution/voip-solutions/. Simply put, VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) is a digital telephone service that allows you to make and receive calls through the Internet.

So, why not just use a traditional telephone to communicate with others connected to your business? Can VoIP make a difference? Let’s look at three ways this service can benefit your business, and why you might want to make the switch.

StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article | 3 Ways to Benefit Your Business with VoIP

1. It’s Cheaper

You want your business to continuously grow, right? Well, think about how many phone lines you might need in order to make that happen. Even if you only have a few, if you’re working on international business, the costs can start to add up quickly when it comes to calling times.

With VoIP, you only have to pay your Internet Service Provider – and you’re doing that already! It’s a good idea to have a solutions team at the ready in case you run into any issues with your VoIP, but the cost can still be less expensive than traditional phone lines, especially if you’re making long-distance calls to other countries.

2. It Makes Conference Calls Easier

If you have to have a conference call with several people at once, VoIP is the clear winner. Not only is the cost of conferencing usually built into the VoIP service you have (unlike most phone lines), but because the communication is through the Internet, you can enjoy additional benefits.

This includes things like video conferencing where you can share images and texts in real-time. It’s a great way to keep things organized and make sure everyone on the call is getting the correct information.

3. It’s Portable for Telecommuting

Remote work has become hugely popular in the U.S. and across the globe. As of 2019, about 4.7 million employees in the U.S. work from home at least half of the time.

When you use VoIP for your business, your remote employees can connect to it from any location, and they’ll have a specific phone number that won’t change no matter where they go. Not only does it allow them to access the phone to make calls, but they can also send faxes and access the other data services of your office.

VoIP isn’t necessarily anything new, but many businesses still aren’t taking advantage of it the way they could be. So, whether you’re a business owner with several remote workers or you just want to streamline your communication options with clients and customers, it’s worth looking into VoIP solutions and how they can save you money, time, and the headaches that can sometimes come from working with a traditional phone system.