It might be hard sometimes to get the right vision on all these online features, especially when it comes to adapting your website to modern trends. That is when eWeb comes in handy. In spite of you being a beginner or an advanced user, you have to keep an eye on new things to be competitive on the market. eWeb provides you with the TOP solutions on how to create your own website and optimize it for your mobile users.
Mobile Internet
Mobile internet usage for the first time went over the computer internet in 2016. People now are shifting more towards mobile screens for internet purposes. With the rise in the use of the mobile web, it is also essential for the webmasters to have a shift in their priorities. The following ten elements are necessary for you to make sure that the mobile version of your website is performing optimally.
1. Make your website more responsive
The site must be responsive and contain all the necessary informati
2. Make your information easily available
The information present on the website must be easy to find on the web screen. If the data is not easy to find, this brutally affects the response rat
3. Throw out Flash
It is essential to know that Flash is now out of equations. Android and iOS do not support flash now.
4. Turn Autocorrect on for Forms
It must be made sure that there are no spelling mistakes in the content of the website, and every link is alive.
5. Large Buttons
The press button must be large enough so that it is easily pressed on the mobile screens. Otherwise, this creates a sense of irritation when the press buttons are not large enough.
6. Compress images
The resolution of mobile phones is smaller than that of PCs. Hence, you need to compress your images.
7. Larger font size
The content of the website must be easily readable for the users. For this, you need to go for larger font sizes.
8. Allowance for Desktop view
There may be some users who prefer a desktop view even on mobile phones. For such users, you must incorporate the option of desktop view as well in the website you are creating.
9. Making Viewport Meta Tag a part of the website
The Viewport Meta Tag can be used to significantly enhance the outlook of your website. Including this aspect can prove to be helpful for the interactivity level of your website.
10. Mobile testing
Mobile testing is an easy way to ensure that the visitors of your website are getting the experience you want them to have.
The mobile phone version of any website is essential to increase the number of visitors one may get. However, several complications may come as a part of it. By using the services of platforms like eWeb, you can significantly enhance the overall quality level of mobile phone websites.
Ten Tips for Adapting your Business Website to Mobile Devices was last modified: March 4th, 2020 by Demian San
According to the recent survey
conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, workplace productivity is constantly
declining since 2007. As modern-day smartphones become increasingly popular, entrepreneurs
are wondering if today’s technology can actually help or hinder employees to become
more productive. From applying for quick business loans
to organizing team building activities, employers are doing everything they can
to improve productivity.
Many employers believe that banning
technology can improve focus and boost productivity. However, they fail to
realize that the right technology can simplify and streamline tasks. Here are
five different ways you can use technology to boost
workplace productivity.
1. Cloud-Based Management Software
Cloud-Based management software enables you to access all your projects, assets, and milestones anytime, anywhere. Since all the important documents are easily accessible, the convenience can significantly improve team performance and boost your company’s competitive advantage. In fact, most (if not all) companies run 79% of their workloads in cloud-based software.
With that said, regardless of the size of your business or the industry you belong to, great cloud-based management software can greatly enhance your team’s productivity.
2. Online Meetings
Providing an avenue for online
meetings is one of the best tools created for small businesses. While
teleconferencing isn’t new, today’s virtual meeting tools have advanced capabilities
that can result in improved productivity. While it’s beneficial to physically
meet occasionally, virtual meetings are more flexible, especially if some of
your employees live in different states or countries.
By holding your meetings online, you won’t have to deal with traffic, you can record the meetings, and you can host a meeting anytime, anywhere. There are different tools you can choose from, such as Zoom. This app allows you to share documents while the meeting is going on.
You can Screen Record Facetime. There are two ways for you to do so. One with in-app audio and the other without in-app audio. Note: some states require all participants to accept the recording.
Other virtual meeting applications are Skype, and Zoho. The best type of software depends on your business’ needs and preferences. Make sure to find one that works well for your business.
3. Communication Software
Aside from your regular meetings,
constant and effective communication is critical for team productivity.
However, some companies are hesitant to invest time and money into
communication software. Studies show that companies with approximately 100
employees waste an average of $420,000 annually just because of
miscommunication.
Thanks to technological
advancement, there are many advance communication solutions for businesses in
all shapes and sizes. There are team messaging apps, video calling apps, and
other communication-centric software that can significantly improve internal
communication and in turn, increase team productivity. Some of the messaging
apps most companies use are Slack, Workplace by Facebook, Zinc, and Crew. Most
of the communication apps in the market offer more than just messaging, so make
sure to look for one that’s suitable for you.
4. Time-Tracking Software
One of the best ways to
measure improvements
in productivity is through using a time-tracking device. Before you can
increase your productivity, you need to analyze your work clock. What distracts
you the most during work hours? What time of day are you most productive? How
much time do you waste on said distractions? How can you contribute to your
company’s progress? By using time-tracking tools like Toggl, Hubstaff, Tick,
and Time Doctor, you can make the most out of your working hours and become
more productive.
5. Total Automation
Change is uncomfortable; but if you’re still using pen and paper while everybody else is going online, you might want to reconsider. Going online or automating your workplace not only improves company performance, but it also helps your employees with their daily repetitive tasks. You can automate different types of business operations, such as task management, email management, and more. This frees up time for your employees, allowing them to focus on more important tasks.
For example, you can automate
time tracking so you’d know how your employees spend their time while working.
Additionally, you can streamline certain tasks like social media posting, email
replies, and other manual tasks.
Boost Productivity in the Workplace with the Help of Quick Business Loans
With the right technology, you’ll
be able to maximize workplace productivity and set your business up for
success. Think of these tools as an investment for your company. Most of these
applications don’t require a huge investment, but if you’re in need of
additional working capital to try out different apps, you can apply for a quick
business loan.
Aside from improving
productivity, the funds from small business loans can be used for almost any
other business purpose.
5 Brilliant Ways to Use Technology to Boost Workplace Productivity was last modified: December 4th, 2023 by Ramona
Every Boomer got spanked today by the stock market. Part of
me cries when I see years of good investment ideas wiped out in a day. My
sadness turns to worry about what this means for my business market. I need a
crystal ball to help my planning.
Little known fact; my college degree is in Fine Art. My specialty in College was 14th Century Italian Art which can be subtitled – frescos from Black Death. The Bubonic Plague hit Italy in 1348. Prior to that time was almost the Renaissance, with frescos showing a worldly and secular culture. Shortly after the plague the frescoes take a dark and mystical turn. This early specialty has turned into a lifelong interest in how regular people lived in medieval times. The plague set the stage for the Renaissance and Enlightenment. Darkness is followed by light.
CompanionLink is 33 years old. We made it through the Dot-Com crash, the 2008 crash, and 7 Presidents. Hare are a few things that I have found help when times get tough.
Keep a High-Level Perspective
For all that happens today, it is still a wonderful day. Dogs and children will play in the sunshine today, so take time to join them. We have been through worse and came out stronger, and this will happen again. There is a difference between worry and strategic planning. Take time to plan. When planning is done give a moment of gratitude for what has gone before, and patience for what will be ahead.
Plan without Panic
The news media thrives on hype and it is difficult not to
get caught up in it. Avoid the headline and seek the facts buried in the lede. Business
success comes from anticipating how markets change. If meetings and travel
raise fear, then re-arrange your business to teleconference. If schools and
public events are canceled, work to connect with your customers as their
schedules adjust. Flexibility is an enduring trait.
Anticipate Supply Chain Disruptions
We live in a consumer driven culture with goods supplied
over great distances by people who are paid very little. If public events are
canceled, what danger is felt by the clerk at the cash register? Work on your
corporate supply chain and purchase ahead any supplies that are critical for
your business. Then work on your customer’s supply chain to see what you can
fill in.
Know the difference between Fixed Expense and Variable
Expense
Manage your budget items to avoid fixed expenses based on
scale; things like Rent, Utilities and Monthly Services. Shift as many costs as
you can to an as-needed basis. If business is slow and you furlough staff, are
you still paying full price for Cloud Services? Are your service fees budgeted
according to your best sales month, or your worst sales month? If you can pull
expenses in line with income, as income fluctuates, you will be better able to
weather any storm.
Focus on your Friends – Core Business, Core Customers, Core
Staff
Years in small business have taught me that our core
customers will work hard for us when we work together. I have to give and be
generous. I get rewarded by people who work with my team. Delivering solid
value to people who know us well is the best way to survive.
Calamity creates Opportunity
Your competitors are facing the same obstacles that you
encounter. Not all of them will survive. Keep an eye out for ways to pick up
the pieces left when other companies are disrupted. You know your products
better than anyone else. If another vendor drops the ball, step right in to
pick it up.
Stay Optimistic
Like a parent, we want to wrap our arms around our world,
and tell it everything will be OK. Like a director, we want to tell the
obstacles that they are wrong. Like a 100 year storm, our society can meet the
challenges before us. The 1918 flu was followed by the Roaring 20s. With
careful planning and persistence there will be new opportunities for business
success.
Small Business in the time of Virus – Turn Anxiety into Survival was last modified: February 28th, 2020 by Wayland Bruns
Today, a wide range of photo editing tools are available online that have made background removal easier for everyone. Background removal is a common concern for most people handling photo projects. Background removal is a type of photo editing. There can be various reasons why you need to remove the background of a photo. Maybe you need a blur or plain background for a logo or a product photo, or you may want to cut out the subject of an image, or the image background might not be appropriate for a social media post.
Whatever the reason may be, you should have an efficient background remover that enables you to remove the photo background on the go.
This post elaborates on inPixio’s Remove Background Tool,
which allows you to erase the background for free. It is available online and
has gained popularity since its release last year because it is time-saving and
easy to use. It enables you to remove image backgrounds in just a few clicks.
How to Use inPixio
The best thing about this background tool is that it is
totally a web-based
application, and you don’t need to install it on your device. The interface
is simple, self-explanatory, and easy to navigate. No need to sign up for using
this online application. Follow this three-step guide to achieve a perfect
background edit.
1. Select an Image:
This online photo editing tool provides a few options for
importing a photo for background removal. You can browse files from your
computer or phone to upload the image, enter an image URL, or drag and drop an
image. You can also import additional images at the editing stage in this Remove
Background tool. This way, you can edit multiple photos at the same
time.
2. Remove the Background:
The process to erase the background is very simple in inPixio. You can use the markers to mark the areas you want to keep and erase. Use the red brush to mark the area that you wish to erase. Use the green brush to highlight the area that you want to keep. Finally, click the “apply” button to get your desired result. If you have highlighted the wrong area while editing, use the erase tool to correct your markings. A useful tip here is to zoom the image to mark the areas precisely. The slider enables you to amend the feathering around the image.
This post elaborates on inPixio’s Remove Background Tool, which allows you to erase the background for free. It is available online and has gained popularity since its release last year because it is time-saving and easy to use. It enables you to remove image backgrounds in just a few clicks. Another good option is the Freepik Background Remover tool, an easy-to-use, free tool that removes any background in 1 click.
3. Download the Image:
Keep marking the image until you achieve a perfect cutout.
Once you are done and satisfied with the result, click the “Save my photo”
button to download your edited photo in .jpg format.
Photos that Work Best with Background Erasers:
There is a huge variety of photos that can be edited with
this background removing tool. Try to select the images having contrasting
colors of the background and the image subject. This makes it easier for this
application to do the background erasing job, and you won’t have to put much
effort into the editing process. Many eBay and Amazon merchants use this app to
create product images. This application is also useful for web developers and
product marketers for editing various images for marketing.
Bottom Line
Many photo editing tools are expensive to buy and difficult to use. Background removal is a basic editing task that can be best done using a free background removal tool. Therefore, inPixio Background Remove is a simple tool, yet it delivers quality results. This application gives you control over what you want to remove and keep, enabling you to cut out the background with the help of markers precisely.
Easy Way to Remove Photo Background for Social Media Posts was last modified: April 30th, 2024 by Austin Dease
From ‘tech neck’ to ‘texter’s thumb,’ to carpal tunnel and eye strain, injuries incurred while on our devices are on the rise. With the pervasiveness of devices dominating our daily lives and careers, today’s work-related injuries often look a lot different than they did in the past.
However, tech-related injuries are no less serious than any other type of repetitive stress injury. The good news is that there are a host of products to protect your vulnerable joints and digits as you spend your day interfacing across multiple devices. From wrist braces to finger covers, there is no shortage of healthcare supplies designed to help us stay in the game.
The best method of avoiding a tech injury is, of course, prevention. While that can be difficult in the digital age, keep in mind that easy exercises such as standing, stretching, and taking regular breaks are powerful protectors against strain.
Joint pain and repetitive stress injuries may need some topical solutions like MSM products. Using the right natural healthy MSM cream can make a big difference in your attitude and relaxation level.
Another quick fix is to adjust the brightness of your screens to a level that’s easy on the eyes. If your body is still feeling taxed despite your best efforts, it’s a good idea to seek professional advice with your healthcare provider.
In addition to tech injuries, you should also be mindful of any injuries that are exposed to tech. Minor injuries as simple as paper cuts or splinters should be treated immediately and protected from contact with keyboards and smart screens, which have the unfortunate reputation of being among the least sanitary daily items that we come into contact with.
A fast bit of first aid on any open wound likely to touch a keyboard or touch screen will save you from exposure to a world of nasty bacteria. It is also advisable to sanitize all devices that you come into contact with
Health Tips for Mobile Professionals was last modified: December 23rd, 2022 by Lucas Arlo
Translation is the transfer of knowledge from one language to another. Human translation is the correspondence of a message from a source language to an end language, performed by a medium proficient in the two tongues, giving it that human touch.
How Does it Work?
Things being what they are, what does an interpreter do? An expert interpreter peruses and comprehends both the source and target dialects of a translation. Yet, more significantly, a capable interpreter conveys social ideas, not simply composed words. An interpreter changes over both the words and the significance of a message, utilizing exact punctuation and linguistic structure, into whatever target language (s) you require.
Phone Apps for Small Business
To expand their business potential, some need to conquer the boundaries of language. In case you’re going for business, interpretation applications are turning into a well-known approach to impart. Consider these applications and pick the best ones to assist you with conveying the desired information:
Waygo Translator
The iVoice Translator Pro
Quest Visual’s Word Lens App
Google Translate
iStone Travel
Small Business Productivity
Translation services give you a chance to express what is on your mind to a global crowd. Also, with human translation services, you can step up your worldwide reach in manners your business has never experienced. Human interpreters read something other than the words on the page. Human interpreters get to aim, manner of speaking, and need. We accept that each correspondence originates from the heart: the core of a human, the core of a business. We additionally accept that human-controlled translations are the best way to keep up that heart in every translation.
Running in correspondence with the expanding interest in translation services and the accessibility of particular ICT for interpreters, different authoritative advancements have had, and are proceeding to have, a significant effect on the translation services division. For instance, numerous in-house translation divisions have shut as enormous business associations have thought that it was essential to scale back and center around center capabilities so as to decrease costs (Fraser and Gold, 2000, p. 3; Locke, 2005, p. 19). Because of this divestment, associations presently will, in general, re-appropriate more translation assignments to independent interpreters. Open-part associations have received a comparative approach and now will in general, depend on the services of specialists related to a central collection of in-house interpreters. Because of these improvements, a considerable extent of interpreters in the UK and somewhere else presently take a shot at an independent premise (Holland et al., 2004, p. 254; Locke, 2005, p. 19).
Translation Company
Inside the language services industry, the expressions “company” and “organization” are regularly utilized reciprocally. Along these lines, a company that gives translation services to other companies may be alluded to by its customers and contractual workers as either a “translation company” or a “translation office.” In certain unique circumstances, in any case, the expression “organization” has certain derisive meanings. At the point when independent interpreters get together and talk about the general benefits of working for direct customers rather than “offices,” the view is here and there communicated that organizations find a good pace huge lump of the cash paid out by the customer, regardless of increasing the value of the completed item.
The suggestion is that the office has no in-house capacities that are legitimately applicable to keeping up or improving the quality and precision of the translation (for example, no in-house translation, checking or altering ability) and is along these lines, simply exchanging on its entrance to gifted specialists.
A further ramification is that such offices do not have a top to bottom comprehension of the complexities of the translation procedure and are probably going to compromise (for instance, by holding back on the checking or altering forms) so as to amplify income.
This likely could be a legitimate analysis of certain organizations. In any case, there are various other language service suppliers (Honyaku Plus included) whose staff remembers full-time house interpreters who complete a critical extent of the translation extends that the company embraces for its customers. This sort of company will probably still redistribute some division of the work that it does to consultants—either in light of the fact that its in-house interpreters are completely involved or on the grounds that the current task requires an interpreter with a specific specialization. Given this certain differentiation between the two words, we at Honyaku Plus consistently like to be portrayed as a “translation company” as opposed to a “translation organization,” as we do utilize in-house interpreters and take huge consideration in guaranteeing that the work which we convey has been altogether checked and altered.
Site Translation
Site translation is otherwise called “Site Globalization”. To really “make an interpretation of” a site into different dialects, you may require both Internationalization (I18n) and Localization (L10n) services.
Best Translation Apps for Small Business Travelers was last modified: October 13th, 2022 by Alex Jack
This week we are releasing changes to DejaOffice PC CRM. A focus of these changes are to lower the number of keystrokes needed to create Calendar Events and Tasks, and to better utilize space on the Contact View Screen.
This set of changes is dubbed “2020”. For all of these changes you can revert to the 2019 screens by going to Settings, and then selecting Contacts, Calendar or Tasks, and choosing the option to use 2019 screen formats.
Calendar Edit
When creating an event, we have moved location higher, and condensed some of the options for private and complete. Most notably we have added “quick select” buttons for most common appointment times.
If you choose to make an appointment for a future day, for instance choose “T” for Tuesday – the appointment will automatically slot to your next available time on Tuesday. If there is no slot, a message will show for the Conflict. The system is always trying to slot you for the future. If you click “T” on Tuesday, it will be for the following week on Tuesday. If you click on “Today” it will be for later today.
Task Edit
The Task Edit screen largely follows the changes on Calendar Edit
Contact View
Our goal With Contact View is to get more info into the available screens space. For our Palm Desktop customers, this has not been an issue, because the screen can easily display Contact info, Phone Numbers, Custom Fields and Notes. For our CRM Customers, however, the view area is both crowded and also forced you to scroll to see important information. There was no way to view History, Notes, and Custom Fields without scrolling up and down.
Our solution is to reset the field display if you give it enough width:
Normal Contact ViewExpanded (two column) Contact View
If you make the View Panel wider, it will automatically reset to a two-column format. This allows notes to show beside the Histories, and allows addresses to appear side-by-side.
For our CRM users, we recommend you keep the screen expanded as much as possible, and this will reduce the need to scroll.
Unique Capability
With the expanded view – DejaOffice offers something unique in the CRM world – the ability to see both your notes and your history at the same time. Nearly all competing products use tabs, so you can see notes or history, but not both.
New Edit Modes for Contact Screen
We have added context sensitive editing. So if you click on an Address, it will go to the Address Edit view. If you click on the Custom Fields, it will go to the custom fields edit. If you click on the Notes Header it will go to the larger note edit screen, while clicking on the Notes Body will let you edit in the existing view frame.
Connecting personally relevant
information to people in an easy way is key to success in business. But the
pursuit of information connectivity can hit a wall when it reaches language
barriers. Happily, the latest generation of translation apps bridges the gaps
which previously separated businesses from worldwide customers. We’ll consider
how you can use an online language translator — software app, bot or online
translation services — to increase connections and improve communications with
global audiences.
Globalizing your customer communications with professional translation services
Globalization is a megatrend that
has transformed our world. The physical borders that previously separated us
have been replaced with cloud communications and devices which connect us with
everyone else. One main barrier remains language. And even here, thanks to the
latest batch of apps, the walls are tumbling down.
Who can provide translation
services? If you have the budget, it makes sense to turn to a translation agency that can provide an expert human translation. But for those
businesses that want to save money and cut some corners, we’ll outline
cost-saving alternatives to certified translation services. The economic benefits are already built-in:
the cost of localizing content is a fraction of the expense to create new,
original content. Reach a new country or region that expands your market and
your revenues. So it’s an investment with potentially rapid payoffs.
Localization services go beyond mere translation. They involve the adaptation of measurement units and currency to the target location. They sometimes require changing dates and number formats. And, ideally, they involve knowing something about the cultural preferences of your target market, adapting language and graphics accordingly. We’ll focus on the top translation apps, both for mobile devices and on the desktop, hitting the leading business translators among them and identifying the best features of each.
A localization company also involves many technical adaptations to get your website and software localized, but that goes beyond the scope of this post.
Translation apps to close language gaps
What are the best translation apps?
There’s no one best translation app that does everything better than all
others.
The most common language service that businesses require is translating a document. What is the best app to translate English to Spanish documents? It should come as no surprise that Google Translate is the winner. Whether you translate English to Spanish or Spanish to English, choose between copy and paste or choose document mode to produce a translated document. The interface is fast and easy, on desktop and mobile devices.
Another common business
usage for translation apps is one-to-many
speech translation. This is useful when you have a conference call and not
all audience members understand the language of the speaker. Here Microsoft
Translator really shines. Each member of the audience is given a unique code that embeds their linguistic
preference. The speaker’s speech is automatically translated into the preferred
language in real-time, just like a simultaneous human interpreter.
Google Translate is good
at one-to-one voice translation. A
voice-to-text algorithm translates your words as you speak. Press another
button and the app voice-translates into the language of your interlocutor. It
takes a few rounds for both sides to get comfortable with the back and forth in
a business or traveling context, but the process soon becomes natural and
fluent.
Another feature of value
is camera translation. Several
translation apps have this capability. Point your phone camera at a foreign
language menu or sign or marketing brochure and a translation in your preferred
language overlays the original text. It’s an implementation of augmented
reality. It’s of great use when dealing with unfamiliar texts while on the go,
for ordering at restaurants or making sense of images online or in the physical
world. Both Microsoft Translator and Google Translate have this feature: judge
for yourself which is the more intuitive.
Some apps perform better in some
languages than others. While Google and Microsoft do well in Western languages,
try Baidu or Gengo for Asian languages, especially Chinese.
Working with freelance translation services to finish the job
Mobile apps can take you a long way,
but in terms of translation quality, they still cannot match a quality human
translator. You’ll want one of those on your side if you’re producing
translated materials for publication. There the cost of an embarrassing mistake
is too high to trust only machine translation. Find a translator specializing
in the language pair, direction, and who knows your target industry (Software
in Spanish, for example) on freelance marketplaces like Upwork or
Freelancer.com.
Just sign up there as a client and
briefly describe your project. You’ll likely get a flood of applicants. Compare
their profiles, rating, rates, and reviews. A freelance translator – and you
should insist on a mother-tongue speaker of your target language — will
certainly cost less than an agency. how much do translation services cost? The
range is wide, from $0.01 to $0.20 per word. Bear in mind, too, that you will
need to invest personal time in selecting and managing your resources. Time is
money. Freelancers can be a cost-effective investment if you wisely. Often it
makes sense to do most of the work by machine translation, using your
freelancer as a proofreader and auditor, or as a watchdog on an agency. This
should give you a level of quality control and keep you safe from embarrassment
When translation and localization online services are needed
While our focus here is on budget translation solutions, there are times when you will want to pay a premium to have a translation company or content localization services to assist you. This is the case if you want to create a multilingual website, mobile app, or any other software. There are also ways to integrate automatic processes to expedite localization, and there are dedicated software apps for this. But this kind of project requires technical expertise beyond what most business people, or freelancers, possess. For these more complex projects, email a few translation and localization companies to get a free quote and some free strategic advice to get started. You can always leverage machine translation after a localization/globalization framework is in place.
For now, at least, you have some starting points for getting “found in translation”. Good luck on the fast track to going global!
About Ofer Tirosh
Ofer Tirosh is the part-time editor at Study clerk, CEO and the founder of Tomedes, a professional language service agency specializing in localization and translations services, supporting more than 100 languages and over 1000 language pairs.
The Best Translation Apps and Localization Services for Your Business was last modified: October 30th, 2024 by Ofer Tirosh
There is actually
quite a bit of understandable confusion regarding what defines the broad term “small
business.” Technically, it could essentially mean anything from a two-man
company that handles the local need for handyman work, to small scale
production facilities with complicated processes at every step.
What we are going to
discuss here will mostly be targeted towards small businesses with a decent
workforce and at least some scale. However, some of the lean management tips
will be applicable to any small business owner, even if they are the sole
proprietor and employee of their company right now.
Decide on a Lean Management Strategy
and Commit to It
There is no shortage of lean methods these days, as a combination of modern software tools and ancient wisdom has apparently come together in the best way possible. However, the important part is to find a lean strategy that would be the best suited for your business, and stick to it, instead of trying out too many principles at once.
Let’s for example,
take hoshin planning, or what is actually known as hoshin kanri. Hoshin
planning is a lean management technique based on two primary ideas:
Finding and confirming the right direction
Managing that direction with maximum efficiency
As one might guess,
hoshin planning is introduced and implemented on an administrative level, meant
for people with executive decision-making power. The many steps of hoshin kanri
can be divided into the following broad categories:
Determining
and finalizing an organization’s vision & direction
Setting small
goals for breaking down the process effectively
Setting
down, deploying and implementing yearly objectives
Monthly
reviews and annual reviews.
If you want to know
more, take a look at this guide for hoshin planning by Kanbanize, which provides
a comprehensive introduction and step-by-step guidance for implementing the
seven steps of hoshin kanri successfully. In fact, Kanbanize takes it one step
further by mapping the metrics of hoshin kanri on a Kanban board, simplifying
and visualizing the entire lean strategy.
Task Automation
Automation is actually
not a new concept, because it has been around for decades now, but thanks to
the recent improvements in machine learning, the usefulness of automation in
lean management has now become more valid than ever before.
Although the exact
details of automation tools applicable and useful in streamlining the processes
in your business will vary in accordance with the concerned industry, take a
look at the list below to take note of the most useful utilizations of
automation for lean production and management:
Automatic
lead generation and client assignment
Sales
pipeline updates and management
Sales &
client management, follow-ups and service
Payroll
management, automatic vendor payments and payment reminders
Help your
accountant with automation tools developed for accountancy
Automated
delivery route optimization via AI-assisted GPS with real time updates
Minimizing
the need for data entry via the use of portable barcode scanners
Minimizing
general data entry work such as form filling as much as possible with automated
processes
The principle idea
behind any lean management principle is to shed unnecessary steps, processes
and measures from the business to boost productivity and profits.
The principle of
automation is also quite similar, as it aims to minimize human effort and
error, replacing it with mechanized efficiency, accuracy and productive
capacity, wherever possible. This is the reason why automation and lean are so
closely linked with each other, and in this modern age of business, they are
often indistinguishable and mutually inclusive for streamlining production and
administration.
Simplify Everything
Businesses often make
the mistake of thinking that streamlining is a complicated affair, but in
truth, it’s actually quite the opposite. It may seem overly complicated in the
beginning, but the end goal of every step involved in streamlining a business
is simplification. To implement the same in your own business with efficiency,
consider the following few tips:
Outsource, instead of increasing the number of people under your direct payroll
Hire temps to handle seasonal rushes or particularly big orders/projects
Keep the list of services & tools you use concise by only keeping the ones necessary
Pay bills on time and according to your financial settings
Pay the smaller bills as soon as possible
Set aside tax money after every payment
Only have meetings in person when necessary, and keep them short
Trim down the chain of command by removing unnecessary authentication requirements
With fewer processes to
handle, the business automatically becomes more productive, streamlined and
profitable, which is exactly what lean manufacturing and management is all
about. The steps need not all be implemented at once of course, but initiation
is still important. Take your time, but get started as soon as possible. The
leaner your company becomes, the easier it will be for the establishment to grow sustainably
Streamlining a Small Business: 3 Effective Tips for Leaner, Better Management was last modified: December 5th, 2023 by Sehar Ali
I’ve been managing offshore teams since 2002, that’s when I founded Optics for Hire in the US and partnered with a team of optical engineers in Lviv, Ukraine.
Our Team in 2003.
The work we do involves helping companies design and manufacture lenses and optical systems. We’ve worked with some great engineers at leading companies like Amazon, GE, Mattel, Netgear, and many others.
Having engineers in Ukraine and customers in the United States leads to a number of potential failure points for project management. Issues we have to manage include time zone differences, language differences, different cultural expectations, jargon differences and more. Managing these risks has been critical to our success.
As our business grew and platforms like Elance launched, we expanded our use of remote teams, including hiring from India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Belarus for marketing, web development and many other skill sets.
In the years since 2002, thanks to new communication tools and software platforms, it has become easier to succeed in managing offshore teams.
When we started we used only email (this was pre-Skype, and phoning was expensive). This made talking about complicated technical subjects difficult.
Here are five key lessons learned in the last 18 years:
1. Use Pictures, Screen Shares, and Voice Talk as Much as Possible
Don’t expect to be successful with email alone.
Chat is better than emails, voice is better than chat, voice with a screen share plus video is best of all. It can be too easy to send a quick email to communicate, but if you haven’t been clear your partner could waste a full workday halfway across the world working on the wrong thing.
Don’t let that happen.
2. Always Explain Your Assumptions
A word like ‘expensive’ can mean different things in different cultures and in different contexts. Maybe when making a prototype expensive doesn’t matter to you but in production, it matters a great deal. Maybe expensive to us means more than $1,000 and to your partner, it means more than $100.
One way to make sure you understand everyone’s assumptions is to use ‘open-ended’ questions like “what do you mean by that?”
3. Make Sure You Communicate Not Just What You ‘Want’ But Also What You Really Need
Clearly explain your end goal and be open to listening to feedback to see if your partner has a different approach. The reason you hire someone is usually that they have a skill set you don’t. Make sure you respect that skill.
It can be easy to pressure an offshore employee into doing a job a certain way, but they probably know a lot better than you do about how to do their job. Listen and learn from them and you will get better results.
We use Basecamp, Appointlet, Uberconference, Skype, nimbus screenshot and Tickspot on a daily basis. Developers are always launching new tools that make our jobs easier.
In fact, as we’ve grown we’ve even started building our own tools, including a tool to search machine vision and CCTV lenses, as well as this free automatic graph digitizer Using these tools saves us engineering time and benefits our community.
Don’t get stagnate. If you aren’t trying new and better ways to communicate and manage projects you and your customers will be worse off.
5. Understand Vacations and Holiday Schedules
It’s no fun to find out just before a deadline that your team isn’t going to be working because of a three day Holiday you never heard of. So ask ( often ) about time-lines, working days and make sure you each understand when you and they will and will not be available
Working with offshore teams has been fun and profitable for our organization and our customers, we’ve made our share of missteps but I’ve never regretted the path we took. I wish you luck on your engineering projects and please connect with me if I can be of help you can find me here.
The 5 Lessons I Learned From Managing an Off Shore Engineering Team was last modified: February 11th, 2020 by John Ellis
If we started naming all marketing options that a small
business has, we’d end up with a pretty long list.
There is one thing that connects all these practices: content.
Great content will drive traffic to your website. It’s what makes the difference in clicks, likes,
conversions, and everything else that defines the results of your campaign.
Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest are among the most popular channels currently. Businesses also need websites, and most have blogs, too. Email marketing is still quite common. Many small businesses engage in local marketing practices. They make brochures, advertise their products on radio commercials, and receive brand exposure through billboards..
In Keap’s 2020 Small Business Marketing Trends Report, only 13% of the respondents said that distributing content was an
important goal when using social media to market their business. At the same
time, 43.6% of the respondents said that they didn’t know if their marketing
efforts were effective.
Maybe that’s the trick. Small business owners need to
focus more on distributing content, so they would see better results from their
promotional efforts.
Guide on Content Writing for Small Businesses in 2020
1. Know What You Already Have
Chances are, you already have some content out there by
the time you’re reading this article. What kind of content is it? Start by
doing a thorough evaluation, so you can take steps towards improvement.
These are the questions to answer:
Are your blog posts, social media posts, and all other
publications written in the voice of your brand?
Are they written for a particular target audience?
Are you already getting good results from a particular
type of content?
How many likes, shares, and comments does an average post
get? How many would you want to get?
Are your posts unique when you compare them to the
content that your competitors publish?
Do they offer practical solutions to particular issues
that your audience faces?
When you analyze your published content through these
questions, you’ll figure out what it misses and what aspects you should keep.
2. Make a Content Marketing Plan
After evaluating your published content, it’s time to
plan the new steps.
Remember the main rules of content writing:
Your posts must convey the brand’s voice
They should be focused towards a target reader
They must be unique
They must deliver solutions and value
If you analyze a competitor who’s successful with their
content marketing, you’ll see how they meet all those standards.
When planning your content calendar, you want to achieve
the same goal, but you’ll do it through unique content. You can look through school essay topics ideas to get new ideas.
A blog post is not much different from an essay. It needs a thesis statement in
the beginning, arguments that prove that thesis, and a conclusion with a
solution.
3. Hire Writers
How many blog posts, landing pages, guest posts, and social media posts do you publish per week? If you want to share different types of content, you’ll have to write something every single day or ask to write my paper cheap or do it by yourself..
Can you cope with such a challenge?
Let’s face it: when you run a small business, you can’t afford to spend at least two hours writing every day. Do you know what successful business owners do? They get dissertation help from professional writers. Writing agencies will pair you with a writer educated in the niche of your business. They will take your content marketing calendar, and they will develop content based on it.
You can also
consult your writers when developing the content calendar. They can help with audience analysis.
4. Measure the Results
You are not measuring the number of posts you publish on
a weekly or monthly basis. You’re not measuring likes, shares and comments for
the sake of reaching higher numbers. What you need to measure is the return of investment.
You can evaluate the success of your marketing campaign
when you pay attention to the leads, sales, onsite engagement, web traffic, and
social media engagement factors.
It’s not easy, so most small business owners hire
marketing agencies to help them with this aspect. But hey; you can make an
attempt and rest assured that you’ll be getting better with practice.
Deliver What Your Audience Wants
Essentially, that’s the main rule for successful content
marketing.
You won’t write content just for the sake of publishing
something. You’ll do it because your target audience needs solutions that you
can provide.
Everything will seem complicated at first. After the
first report, you’ll realize that you know what you’re doing. The experience
will teach you.
Content Writing Guide for Small Businesses in 2020 was last modified: February 9th, 2023 by Bobbi Sanchez
SEO
practices have a real impact for websites and their importance should not be
neglected. Individuals who are new to SEO and who would like to take this huge
burden off their shoulders should resort to professional services. What is the
point of trying to improve your website’s ranking if you lack the expertise and
the tools to do so? There are professionals that can help you with this and
that will make a huge difference as far as the success of your website is concerned.
What
to Expect from Professional SEO Services?
It
is definitely worth it to pay for professional SEO because
this delivers a measurable impact and it is successful even in today’s crowded
search landscape. You need digital marketing in order to stay ahead of your competition
and there are numerous advantages to hiring a SEO reseller:
Expertise; you will have access to a team of specialists that are aware of the latest advancements in the SEO field and that know exactly what needs to be done to create a successful digital marketing campaign for your business
Boost quality traffic; the purpose of SEO is not to attract just any visitors to your website; it is to attract the right visitors to your website;
Save time
Save money for you can resell the services you receive under your brand.
Offer more services to your customers, including search engine optimization
It is possible to provide a wide range of services to your customers in order to keep them happy and to maintain their loyalty. You can outsource the actual work to a specialized firm that has the skills and the tools to perform professional SEO services. People prefer working with an agency that provides various services such as website design, development, management and SEO. Furthermore, thanks to professional SEO you can be one step ahead of your competitors and thanks to SEO services you add value to your clients.
Becoming a SEO reseller is the smartest thing you can do for your business but the most difficult aspect is to find an agency that is trustworthy, one that delivers its services in a timely manner and that is up to date with the latest changes in SEO. Although there are companies that prefer to manage SEO in house, this requires a significant financial investment not to mention that the persons they hire for the task might not be familiar with the latest SEO trends.
How
to Keep up with SEO Trends
SEO changes all the time. According to searchenginejournal.com “Optimization techniques that worked years ago fall by the wayside, and SEO as a whole evolves into a more intelligent discipline that evolves beyond spamming Google with links and keywords”. It is difficult to master the most efficient strategies in this field and this is why it makes sense to resort to professional services. The most efficient techniques focus on the following aspects: on-page optimization, link building, content and technical SEO. These should be at the core of any search engine optimization campaign. Using the right keywords for your business has proved to be quite efficient as far as SEO is concerned but the problem with keywords is that they can become redundant and repetitive. Although keywords remain the foundation of a SEO strategy, nowadays specialists focus their attention on topics and entities such as people, places, thinks.
Ranking is influenced by content, links and rankbrain, and when you optimize your website you should make sure you do it for keywords, entities and topics. As far as content is concerned, we all know how vital it is for how your site performs and for its ranking. What most people do not know is how to create valuable and original content, content that will attract visitors and that will make a difference in the online environment. This is why you need professional SEO services USA that will deliver the content you need for your website after having performed industry research. It is important to know your competition, to see what it has to offer and you do not so that you can make the necessary modifications.
According to link-building-strategies.com “Every site owner should have an idea about what they want to get out of the web presence, but this is not always the right one. The needs of your business always come first and this is what you should focus on. If you want to boost your sales on a certain segment of the activity, you should focus your SEO process on how you can achieve this goal”. It is impossible to know what changes need to be made to your website if you do not audit it first and this is one of the professional services offered by specialized agencies.
Moving on, if you are determined to pay for SEO services like SEO for Lawyers you should know what to expect from them. You should be aware of the fact that changes will not occur over night and this process takes time. Nonetheless, SEO results are measurable and they will be visible provided you hire the right agency for the job. It is not enough to build a website and expect it to be successful. You have to invest in it, to optimize it constantly, to resort to professional SEO that will handle keyword optimization, topic optimization, link building and other services that are essential to the success of your website.
According to semrush.com: ”If you want search engines to offer your content in results, you need to do three things:
Ensure
these search engines understand who you are and what you offer.
Convince
them that you are the most credible option for their users.
Make
your content deliverable.”
This
is more complicated than most people imagine and this is why there is an
increased demand for professional services among website owners who understand that
they need the best SEO in order to build and maintain a powerful presence in
the online environment.
Why You Need the Best SEO Services to Be Successful in the Online World was last modified: June 14th, 2021 by Mihai Tudorache
Without a doubt, video production is getting cheaper these days, which makes it an affordable marketing tool even in the hands of small businesses. According to The State of Video Marketing in 2020 report by HubSpot, 92% of marketers who use video say that it’s an important part of their marketing strategy.
If you’re not going to broadcast your video ads across
national channels, but use social media, such as YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook,
Instagram, etc., to promote your products, it may be quite enough to have an
Android smartphone with a decent camera, plus a few video editing apps to produce
an engaging and appealing product review, or even a creative ad.
There are hundreds of amazing apps available for Android
that you can download and use to create videos. In this article we’re going to
give you an idea of what type of applications you may need when dealing with
video files on your smartphone.
In particular, we’ll cover apps needed to edit your video,
convert between different video file types (e.g. MP4, MOV, 3GP, etc.), store
your recorded footage and repair video files if anything goes wrong.
So, if you’re ready to create some video clips that will
help you promote your business, this list of Android applications is a great point
to get started.
Video Editing Apps for Android
Most of the modern Android smartphones have in-built cameras
which are capable of producing high-quality videos. However, your source
footage needs to be edited before going live.
With the video editing software, you can cut out unwanted
frames, merge different recordings into a continuous clip, add beautiful transition
effects, fine-tune color tones, add texts and a logo over the video, and
ultimately give your video enough polish to make it look professional.
Although most of the video editing apps for Android
devices lack advanced features that you can find in desktop software, mobile
apps have a low learning curve, meaning you can create killer, hassle-free
videos on the fly.
Here are a couple of video editing apps we’d recommend you to start with:
1. Adobe Premiere Rush
Adobe Premiere Rush is a mobile version of the professional video editing software – Adobe Premiere Pro. It has enough features to fine-tune your video clips while you’re on the go, and then instantly share the clips from the app to social channels like YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram.
Adobe Premiere Rush allows you to trim your clips and add
transitions, automatically color-correct, and then add music from the built-in
library. There are also hundreds of video, image and animation templates
available right in the app, or from the Adobe Stock. You can use the templates
to enrich your footage and make it look professional.
Adobe Premiere Rush is easy to use across all your
devices and can be linked with other Adobe software products, such as Premiere
Pro, for example.
Overall, with the price tag starting at $9,99/month, we highly recommend Adobe Premiere Rush for editing videos on you Android device when you’re on the go.
2. FilmoreGo
FilmoraGo
is a free video editing app designed for mobile devices. This app has a bare
minimum of video editing features, yet allows you to produce great-looking and
creative clips.
With FilmoraGo, you can trim, split, rotate, zoom, speed up, or slow down your video. It also allows you to seamlessly add sound effects and audio tracks sourced either from the app’s library, or from your own files. Of course, there are controls for adjusting brightness, contrast, saturation, temperature and applying pre-built filters. And with the library of stickers, overlays, preset intros, themes, transitions and animation effects, it’s easy to go creative with this app.
Video Repair Tools
One thing that is often overlooked by beginner
videographers is safety
and security of their footage. No matter how advanced technologies these
days are, there are always chances to lose your precious video due to some
glitch, or an accident.
Mistakenly deleted clips, formatted memory cards and
corrupted video files are just a few examples of how your recorded video may be
lost.
Simple file backups will save your work most of the time.
However, there are cases when the video file gets corrupted during the
recording process. You may realize this when trying to open or edit the video –
the file just won’t play.
If you’re recording video on your Android smartphone, it’s likely that the files are saved in either the MP4, or 3GP format. Now, there are video repair tools that can fix both 3GP and MP4 video files:
Restore.Media
Restore.Media is a video recovery app that works online, meaning you can use it on your Android smartphone via a web-browser. Restore.Media allows you to repair corrupted 3GP, MP4, MOV and MXF files. It also has a video recovery algorithm optimized of Android devices.
We highly recommend that you add this tool to your bookmarks, so that when you get a damaged, unplayable video file, you know how to fix it. Also, there are lots of useful articles on the Restore.Media’s blog on how to prevent your video from being lost. For example, here is a detailed guide on repairing damaged 3GP files.
Video Converter Apps for Android
Generally, Android phones record video in the MP4 or 3GP
format. 3GP is a video format that was specifically developed for fast
streaming of the video content via 3G networks. MP4 is the most widely spread
video format, thanks to its great compression/video quality ratio. If you’re
recording video with some 3rd-pary apps, the output files can also
be in the MOV or even MXF format.
Now, some of the social networks (e.g. YouTube, Vimeo,
Facebook, Instagram, etc.) have certain restrictions when it comes to file
formats. In particular, the MP4 format is the one that is supported by all of
the mentioned platforms, while 3GP and MXF are likely to be rejected.
This is where you may need a video converter for your Android device.
VidSoftLab – Video Converter
Video
Converter by VidSoftLab can convert for free virtually any video file to
the MP4 format. It supports AVI, MP4, MKV, MOV, FLV, 3GP, and other video file
types. What’s more, this tiny app allows you to merge, trim, cut, reverse,
stabilize, crop and rotate the converted file and then upload it to a social
network – all with just a few simple clicks.
No matter what your source video file format is, with this tiny app, you will be able to quickly re-encode it and upload to any social platform you want.
Cloud Storage for Your Video Files
If you shoot video files on a regular basis, your smartphone will quickly run low on storage. Hence, you will need a place to store tons of your recorded footage. A great solution to this could be uploading your files to a cloud storage account.
Google Drive
Google Drive
is a simple answer here. With the personal account you get 15 GB of storage for
free. If you need more, there are the following options: 100GB of storage for
$1.99, 200GB for $2.99, and 2TB for $9.99 per month.
So, these were the 5 applications we recommend when you
record and edit videos for your business on Android. Armed with these apps, you
will be able to make your clips stand out of the crowd and get it noticed by
your potential customers.
Essential Android Apps for Creating Business Video was last modified: February 4th, 2020 by Andy Campbell
A portable charging station with added features of an alarm clock, a radio or a media player is helpful to charge a mobile phone anywhere. It has a comprehensive list of features including no dependency on plugs, compact size, its easy to carry and you can control functionalities without using the device. Its also compatible with all of the latest versions of iPhone devices. Wireless charging devices will free the users from cables, and iPhone docks are one of the cool accessories.
It has a compact size and one of the stable and secure iPhone Dock which any user can buy for best use. It is made up of medical-grade silicone with stainless steel borders and available in back and silver color. It is 5-foot-long with a cable and compatible with all the iPhones and iPads and there is only one negative point about it that if the wire is broken then the entire piece needs to be purchased. It is available for S49.95 on major E-commerce platforms.
2. Rerii Bamboo Charge Stand with Aluminum Base:
It has a strong base for iPad and adjustable style to accommodate the device with a thick base. It has a wooden look made up of bamboo and a robust aluminum base. To protect the iOS devices from scratches, it supports with rubber padding. It is available for $25.99.
3. Apple Lightning iPhone Dock:
It is developed by Apple and it is of the docks on which you can play music while the phone is kept on charging. It is made up of aluminum and comes in various colors including black, gold, silver, rose gold and space grey. It can be connected to the system for synchronization and cable is not given with the unit, which is a shortcoming for this dock. It is available at $40.04.
4. Elevation Lab CordDock V2:
It has a unique feature that lets your phone charging even if it is docked or undocked. It has a removable lightning port and provides the freedom to keep it horizontally or hold it upright. It is a very fast charger and it is available at $29.95.
5. YoFeW Apple Charging Stand:
It can be used to put multiple devices on the stand, which can be used for Facetime calls on a 60-degree angle. Charging cables wires or USB chargers are not a part of the package and it is priced at $29.99.
6. Lamicall:
It comes in modern design and in black color, convenient cable wire and hole at the back help to handle the wire. Its design is suitable for video calls and robust stand with rubber pads to prevent scratches and it is available at the lowest cost of $9.99.
Some of them are
easy to use from far and handy operations can be done from the iPhone deck without
touching the mobile. The provided control panel helps the user to do the
required operations. iPhone docks are available in different sizes, finish and
price, users can choose from multiple options.
Best iPhone Docker for Easy Charging was last modified: February 3rd, 2020 by Sehar Ali
The Google Chrome Webstore houses tons of useful Chrome extensions for various activities like gaming, sports, web
design, freelancing and more. These extensions are very useful as they help freelancers,
solopreneurs and other small business owners work more efficiently, have fun
and stay productive. They help to keep all your productivity tools handy, so
you can easily access them when needed.
Unlike other on-premise software, extensions do
not require elaborate installation rituals and processes, neither do they
take-up sufficient ROM space. They’re like lite versions of your popular
software.
So, What are Google Chrome Extensions?
Google Chrome extensions help to customize user
browsing experience. They can be installed on to Chrome to modify browser
appearance, functionality, and behavior. They enable users to personalize their
browsing experience by tweaking Chrome a little here and a little there.
Google Chrome extensions can perform functions
like:
ad blocking
optimizing
memory usage for more efficiency,
password
management,
voice and
screen recording, e.t.c.
They are built on frameworks such as HTML,
JavaScript, and CSS which gives them versatility. They are functional across
devices, hence can be run from mobile as well as PC to provide seamless
operation.
How to Install Google Chrome Extensions
Whether you’re geeky or not, installing Google
Chrome extensions is easy, simple and straightforward.
Following are simple steps to install chrome
extensions:
1. Open
Chrome Web Store on your device (either your phone or your PC). You can also
search for the Google Chrome Webstore on Google
2. Search for and select the extension
you want.
You can also search by Features like
-Runs offline
-By Google
– Free
-Available for Android
-Works with Google Drive
3.
Click on “Add to Chrome.”
Some extensions require certain data or
permissions to install or run smoothly. You also have the choice to allow or
disallow an extension from making changes to your browser.
To (de)activate the extension, click the menu
icon to the right of the address bar as shown below.
Hover over “More tools”, a drop-down menu will
appear to your left. Click on “Extensions”. Here you can (de)activate or remove
an extension.
7 Top Google Chrome Extensions for Freelancers
1. Noisli Extension
With Noisli, you can block out annoying noises.
It works as a kind of active noise reduction/cancellation, which allows you
reduce or minimize unwanted sound by the introduction or addition of a second
sound, thus allowing you to create the right working environment as a
freelancer.
Some monotonous white noises help us stay
focused. Noisli has a host of noises to choose from and an option to customize
your own. With Noisli you can choose your own noise, time it, and adjust the
volume, all from within your web browser.
2. ColorZilla Extension
If you’re a freelance graphic designer, this
Chrome extension might just become your bestie. ColorZilla is a well-designed eyedropper
tool that reads colors in hexadecimal and RGB formats. With it, you can easily
and legally extract color data from any website, and that without having to
open another application.
Now available for Chrome, ColorZilla is one of
the most popular Firefox developer extensions. You can join over 5 million
other people who have downloaded it and are using it to improve their work.
3. Boomerang for Gmail Extension
Being a digital nomad comes with its benefits,
but constantly being on the move makes it occasionally difficult to keep pace
with emails. The Boomerang extension solves this challenge by allowing users to
schedule emails for a future date.
This is very handy for when you are on the move,
e-mailing someone in another time zone, or catching up on emails late at night.
Boomerang also allows users to schedule emails to self. This can be used as
alarms or reminders for important tasks, meetings, deadlines, follow-ups, etc.
It also sends prompts that nudge you to respond to emails.
4. Web Developer Extension
Developers will love the Web Developer Chrome
extension. It adds a toolbar button to your Chrome browser which contains or
displays various web developer tools you can use, all in one place.
With this Web Developer extension, you can
quickly and easily view responsive layouts, disable styles, and outline
elements.
5. Taco Extension
Do not let the name fool you, this beautiful Chrome
extension is a powerful hub for productivity. On any given day most of us use
up to 20 different apps and tools from Trello to Salesforce, you just name it.
Taco collects and assembles all your incoming
tasks and notifications from various apps into a single place, giving you a
bird’s eye view of all you need to do at any point in time, so you don’t miss
important tasks or notifications.
.
6. Save to Pocket Extension
When you create a Pocket account, you can save
stuff for later, say an article you love but can’t read immediately. Whatever
you save here can be synced and made available across all your devices. This
cross-platform extension allows freelancers, nomads or busy persons to keep up
with essential information by saving it for later.
This extension is great for freelancers,
writers, designers, entrepreneurs and business owners, it reduces multitasking so
they can focus on the task at hand.
7. StayFocusd
Being a freelancer requires discipline, and
there are gazillion digital distractions when working on the web. We’ve all
been there, intend to take a break and spend five minutes on Facebook to catch
up, another five minutes to say hi on WhatsApp, but two hours later you’re on
Twitter or ranting about politics in some faraway forum.
Fortunately, StayFocusd helps us stay focused by blocking out websites that distract us. Its customized settings allow you to block access to entire sites, specific pages or certain content types such as images and videos.
Bonus Tool: Markup Hero
Markup Hero revolutionizes the way you capture, annotate, and share screenshots and images.
With Markup Hero, you can customize your images with arrows, shapes, text, and even emojis. Capture entire webpages with scrolling screenshots and easily sign .pdf files.
Are you a designer wrestling with intricate design concepts? Or an educator struggling to explain complex theories? Perhaps a developer needing to visualize code structures? No matter your profession, Markup Hero is your virtual whiteboard, enhancing the way you communicate visually, collaborate, and receive feedback.
Conclusion
These extensions are easy to install, easy to
use and will help you get more done in your freelance business.
Which (of these) extensions do you use as a
freelancer? Let us know in the comments section.
7 Google Chrome Extensions that Boost Freelancers Productivity was last modified: August 22nd, 2023 by Amos Onwukwe
Effective
communication can also help small businesses build relationships with customers
as well as clients and potential partners. Writing is one of the most common
and effective means of communication employed by businesses. Writing skills are
paramount for anyone with a small business with goals of growing the business
and building relationships. Estimates put 30% of business work being
accomplished through the use of writing communications. This makes the need for
tactful business writing very essential in the business world, and for
achieving the goals set by the business. Be it report writing, proverbs and quotes writing, appointment
confirmation emails, website publications, compare
and contrast essays, SEO article writing or copywriting, business writing
skills should be honed by the continued practice of writing skills. Small
businesses can also outsource their writing needs, to professionals to write
business communications for small businesses. Should the small business desire
to keep all business writing in-house, there are writing tools that can be used
to help tailor business writing to the desired language, the proper writing formats and
make edits that will polish grammar and sentence structure to give the piece of
writing a professional look and feel.
Grammarly
Grammarly is one of the most popular writing tools that exist and it’s a multipurpose tool meaning it offers you more than one solution for your writing needs. There are essentially two versions of Grammarly available for businesses; the free version which offers very basic writing solutions, and the premium version which has a variety of writing solutions that comes at a fee of about $140 per year. Grammarly is effective in assessing grammar and punctuation errors like comma splices, fragments, run-on sentences among others. It is also useful for checking every word in a piece of writing for spelling errors and offers what is considered “near-human” suggestions and tips on the writing style and sentence structure. It can also be used to scan a document and identify cases of plagiarism and similarities with other published works. Grammarly offers not more than just grammar and spelling mistake corrections, but also offers detailed writing enhancements that focus on the clarity, conciseness and the tone of the document and can be installed as an extension of web browsers and other writing tools like Microsoft Word free of charge. It is a very useful tool for small businesses that run a blog, for the business involved in content marketing and copywriting and for business tasks like drafting reports, narrative essays, presentations and business emails.
Microsoft Word
Microsoft
Word is essentially the most used office software that offers a variety of
writing tools for all purposes of writing needs. It is a sophisticated word
processing program that allows people to create documents with a variety of
fonts and offers a lot of formatting options. Microsoft Word is very useful
when one needs to write a long document with many sections. MS Word is part of
suite software and tools that are used by businesses like PowerPoint
presentations and Excel spreadsheets, with the full collection of the Microsoft
software being inclusive of a lot of writing and editing tools. Modern MS Word
is integrated with online features, which can allow for online storage of
documents and increased versatility with other related programs. MS Word
provides formatting options like APA
outlines for creating automatically formatted documents. Other formatting
options provided by MS Word include MLA and Chicago format outlines.
Canva
Canva is a useful tool for illustrating content pints, breaking up text walls and working as an image creation tool. Creating and placing images is important to business writing, especially for business blogs, copywriting and business presentations. Images help make business content attractive, and when someone looks at the content on a website, a wall of words without appealing images can be intimidating to readers. Canva allows you to select an image from a variety of options, and with hundreds of templates, presentation backgrounds, and icons, customize the image and the content to your liking.
Keyword Planner
The
keyword planner allows you to choose and insert the most applicable keywords in
a document. Keywords are important to content writing, especially for SEO
writing, as without them search engines will not know how to categorize a
website for SEO. If the business website or copywriting content is not indexed
well by search engines, then finding it will be difficult among all the content
that is available on the internet. Keyword Planner is a Google keyword research
tool that is applicable for website content or content for social media
campaigns. The tool allows you, as a business contracted to do social media
campaigns, to enter a topic, industry or website which will give you a
selection of keywords that are organized by subject, popularity, and level of
competition, and the most appropriate keyword for the particular business
writing needs to be chosen from the available selection.
Google Docs
Google
Docs is an online document processor that works well as a writing tool for
businesses. The tool has collaboration and organizational features that help
you as a small business owner or copywriter to draft a copy of your intended
content and share it with editors and friends for comments. The tool allows you
to store the documents on Google Drive, which allows you to access the content
anywhere for review and editing purposes. As a copywriter and small business
owner who has to stay on top of business projects, Google Docs can help in this
regard.
Useful Writing Tools for Small Businesses was last modified: July 14th, 2022 by Paul Bates