What is employee retention? Check out this guide to understanding what employee retention is and why your business can’t thrive without it.

What is Employee Retention?

In it’s simplest definition, employee retention is the number of employees you keep after hiring them. Most equations used to measure employee retention includes a fixed period of time as the baseline.

Employees who aren’t vested, or with the company for a certain amount of time, aren’t typically included. For example, if you have employees who didn’t make it through the training process.

Losing these new employees isn’t due to a retention problem. Why is keeping employees so important?

In some industries, the competition for good talent is fierce. If you’re constantly losing employees to competitors, there’s a good chance there’s a major problem with how you’re running your business.

Getting to the heart of employee retention strategies helps you narrow down what’s going wrong.

Finding the Right Employee Retention Strategy

There’s no such thing as a perfect workplace. All companies are dynamic and have to deal with problems in real-time.

You won’t be able to address every employee’s concern simply by increasing pay or allowing more time off. Some problems stem from poor company culture.

Toxic company culture can lead to poor policymaking or a lack of enforcement of policies in place. This leads to job insecurity. If employees don’t feel secure in their positions, they’ll leave for something better at the first opportunity.

Retraining new staff is expensive and time-consuming. You can avoid this loss in productivity time by trying out a few employee retention strategies.

Pay More

Do market research to make sure your pay rates are comparable to competitors. Employees with a solid set of skills will have their pick of top paid positions in your industry.

If you want to retain them, make sure you’re compensation packages are on par with everyone else. This doesn’t necessarily mean you have to pay a higher salary to remain competitive.

You might need a better benefits package. Simply offering a second or third week of vacation time could be enough to keep their attention.

Healthcare is a must if you work in a field where talent is scarce. Look at ways to make your benefits packages look more attractive so your employees appreciate your offer over any others they receive.

Rewards

Another way to keep the attention of employees is to reward good behavior. Many employees feel that recognition at work is lacking.

Make sure your team feels appreciated by offering bonuses, awards and other recognition efforts. A company party or retreat to a desirable location goes a long way.

Make sure anything you offer increases each year. You expect employees to bring more sales and productivity in each year.

You should follow suit by increasing their rewards relative to what they produce.

Better Company Culture

Things like hazing and toxic competition get you nowhere. Some employers think that competitive employees earn them more for their money since everyone is trying to perform at their top level.

But it’s bad for teamwork and fosters an environment where trust is impossible. You won’t get exponential benefits when you pair two talented teammates together to tackle a client problem.

You’ll get bickering and sabotage that can cost you money. If you’re not encouraging a positive work environment, you’re wasting money on talent.

You won’t ever know what your team could accomplish if they gave their best ideas to a project without fear of backstabbing. Hold regular workshops on teamwork and trust-building.

Reward employees who collaborate and demote those who don’t. You’re setting the tone that you won’t tolerate toxic behavior that distracts employees from their performance.

Good Mental Health

You’ll only retain a certain type of a person if your work environment is toxic. Toxic work cultures include no work-life balance.

Employees sleeping at work or having to take calls over the weekend might seem ok for a while. But in time, they’ll lose the desire to be married to work.

You want to foster good mental health in your workplace. Give employees vacation time they can actually take.

Find ways to help employees who seem stressed by sending them to mental health professionals who can provide productive ways to cope. At the close of a busy quarter, implement a half-day so employees can focus on self-care.

Hire a massage therapist to come on-site and help your team relieve much-needed stress. These are all gestures that express your gratitude and attention to their wellbeing.

Coaching

Many employees join an organization for the promise of being able to move up in a certain amount of time. They’ll need mentors and opportunities presented so they can prove themselves.

Make sure your leadership is open to coaching employees who want to improve their performance. Ambition can be a healthy addition to your team when you use it the right way.

Add training sessions that are mandatory to keep everyone’s performance on a certain level. Include leadership development as an option, too.

The Road to Employee Retention

What is employee retention? It’s the process of keeping employees in place so you can focus on innovation.

A good customer retention strategy saves you money keeping your eyes on the prize and not drama in the workplace. Do your part to ensure you have a work environment where employees can thrive.

For more information and tips, visit our blog for updates.

An electrician is a skilled tradesperson. They specialize in the design, installation, maintenance, and repair of electrical systems. But not every electrician alike! Let’s take a look closer look at the different types of electricians.

Different Types of Electricians

There are types of electricians, depending on their level of qualification. We can first split them into two initial categories:

• Linesmen – Linesmen are also known as outdoor electricians. They specialize in managing high voltage lines for commercial, residential, and industrial facilities.
• Wiremen – Wiremen are also known as indoor electricians. They specialize in working with the lower voltages you find inside buildings. Wiremen work with residential, commercial, and industrial systems.

Electricians are then further broken down depending on their level of qualification.

Apprentice Electrician

An apprentice electrician is beginning to start working in the field. You need a high school diploma (or equivalent) to apply. Apprentices will have usually completed a few hundred classroom hours before starting work. They work under the guidance of a journeyman electrician.

Journeyman Electrician

After their apprenticeship is complete, electricians take the test to become a journeyman electrician. A Journeymen linesmen would need a qualification as a level 2 electrician. They are recognized by the licensing bodies for the electrical trade.

A journeyman electrician can work alone but usually works under a master electrician. They can carry out emergency repair work on electrical systems. They are also responsible for installing new systems and training apprentices.

Master Electrician

The master electrician is the highest qualified. They must have At least seven years’ experience in their field. They’re the highest paid in the field and will be in charge of all other electricians at a job site.

They can work on any kind of electrical project unsupervised. They can also train journeyman electricians up to their level.

Electrical Specialties

Electricians are then further broken down into their area of specialization. Each specific field requires its own set of qualifications and training. The different fields include:

• Industrial Electricians – Industrial electricians work in factories, processing plants, and power plants. They work with complex machinery, but will also work on security and lighting systems.
• Commercial Electricians – Commercial electricians work in offices and other workplaces. They design and install electrical systems when new buildings are being built.
• Residential Electricians – Residential electricians work in homes. They are responsible for installing, maintaining, and troubleshooting domestic electrical systems. They also repair household appliances.
• Maintenance Electricians – A maintenance electrician works across all three sectors. They are responsible for maintaining, repairing, and upgrading electrical equipment.
• Auto Electricians – An auto electrician specializes in the electrical systems found in cars and other vehicles.

Electrical Safety

We need different types of electricians to ensure electrical safety across all sectors. This guide should provide you with everything you need to know about the levels of electricians and their fields of specialty.

Take a look at the rest of our blogs for more business and technology information and news.

Are your ads working as hard as they could, or should they be working smarter instead?

As the world becomes ever more digitized, we relinquish more control to machines. Why? Because they’re more efficient than we are and they can do all those menial tasks that take up a lot of our time.

If you’re looking to maximize your online ad performance, this method could be the very thing your business needs. So, what is programmatic advertising?
This article will show you what programmatic advertising is, how it works, and how it can benefit your business.

What is programmatic advertising?

Buying ads can be quite involved, taking up more of your precious time that could be spent elsewhere. Negotiating, requesting quotes and proposals, and other manual work can all be automated with programmatic advertising.

Put simply, it is the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning that does all the hard work in buying your digital ads. It means you no longer have to deal with other humans for pricing, placement, and optimization of your ads.

How Does Programmatic Advertising Work?

After inputting your campaign information and performance indicators, the software algorithms get to work. It will then launch your ad campaign, track your ad spend, and determine how to use it in areas that need improvement.

As someone views a web page with programmatic ads, the bidding begins automatically. The ad space is listed on the publisher’s supply-side platform (SSP) with the relevant information for advertisers to bid on the space.

Cookie analysis shows the user’s demographics, location, and other information, which is reviewed by the demand-side platform (DSP). This then selects an appropriate ad space to meet the budget and target criteria and makes a bid accordingly.

This is sent to the SSP along with other bids to determine the winner. The SSP displays this ad to the user in real-time, thus streamlining the whole process in a matter of milliseconds.

Programmatic Advertising Channels

Programmatic ads can run through various formats. Here’s a list of some of the most popular channels that may give you a good idea of where you could benefit.

Display ads – Google is normally the go-to for these as they’re easy to place on any website and generate income through clicks and impressions.

Social ads – as social media platforms collect a ton of user data, it can be really useful for displaying highly targeted ads.

Video ads – these can run in-stream (within the media player), out-stream (within content), or in-display (in search results).

Native ads – these match the content of the page they’re on and come in various forms, including in-feed, in-article, recommendations, and sponsored content.

Taking Advantage of Programmatic Advertising

Hopefully, this brief outline will help answer your question of, “What is programmatic advertising?” It should give you a good idea about what’s involved and how it can benefit your business and make your life a little easier.

Of course, there’s still a lot more to it than what’s detailed here. But if you want to free up some of your time spent on ads, it could be a very effective method to adopt.

Nowadays, more and more business owners are taking advantage of programmatic advertising. Perhaps you should give it a try too!

While it is difficult to say for sure how much the industry is worth due to its diversity, one recent study claimed that the marketing business was worth a total of $1.7 trillion worldwide.

Nowadays, a lot of the industry is taken up by online marketing tools like SEO and social media. While these can be highly effective, they’re not the only way to sell a product.

Print marketing is still a crucial part of the industry. While not the most technologically advanced medium, it has a number of important functions.

Read on to learn more about print marketing and how it might give your business a boost.

What Is Print Marketing?

Print marketing is any kind of advertising or branding that physically appears on something, rather than as an image on a screen. There are many different ways in which you can use print marketing.

If you need help with any aspect of print marketing, get in touch with Team Concepts Printing.

Brochures & Catalogs

A brochure is a fundamental piece of print marketing content. No matter what kind of organization you’re marketing for, you can usually fit all the relevant details on a brochure.

Business Cards

These are one of the simplest print marketing media around. They generally contain no more than a name, brand, and contact details. However, they can add huge prestige for a brand or professional.

Vehicles

Maintenance of vehicles can be a huge business expense. However, print marketing offers you a way to get better value from this money.

By putting your brand and contact details on all your company vehicles, you’re ensuring that everyone in your area will start to recognize your company. The more vehicles you have, the better this will work.

If your vehicles are eco-friendly, that’s a bonus!

Benefits of Print Marketing

Despite the popularity of the internet among modern marketers, there remain some important benefits to print marketing. Below are two of the most significant.

Cost-Effectiveness

The expenses associated with printing have fallen drastically over the last few decades. It’s now relatively cheap to create brand recognition with things like business cards and brochures. Despite this, however, people still associate these things with high-value businesses.

Versatility

There are many different ways to use print to further your reach. The best marketers will capitalize on a few different print marketing methods to maximize brand awareness.

Leveraging Print Marketing to Maximize Your Reach in 2020

As technology improves, the ways in which businesses can leverage print marketing increase in number. The more platforms upon which you can advertise your brand, the more awareness people will have of your business and the more they will trust what you offer.

For this reason, it’s important to look past the internet when you’re deciding on a marketing strategy, even in 2020.

Did you find this article useful? If so, you’d probably like some of our other content as well. Subscribe to our newsletter and social media sites to make sure you don’t miss out on anything important.

Are you looking for an employment domain that ensures progression and stability? If yes, then a career in accounting is your call. Did you know that the accounting jobs are likely to grow 10 percent by the year 2026? Most people have a very general idea when it comes to an accountant’s role in an organization. Here is a piece of breaking news for you that all accountants do not perform the same tasks in the same environments. Once you obtain a degree in accounting, you will have several different career paths, and you can pick from them.

Most accountants start their careers in similar positions, but the career paths will vary over time based on your experience and education. Accounting jobs can fall into four main types: management accounting, internal audit accounting, government account, and public accounting. As you decide on a degree in accounting, you should have a clear idea of the different accounting jobs available in the market. Here are the seven employment opportunities that you can avail with a degree in accounting:

Cost accountant

For increasing the profits and reducing the financial waste of a company, a cost accountant is necessary. If you are into collecting and studying data, the cost accountant position should be your choice. Cost accountants are the problem solvers of the company. The cost accountant job description includes determining the costs of providing a service or manufacturing, preparing the company budget, analyzing profitability, and scrutinizing the company expenses. Although it is an entry-level position but with experience, you can advance to becoming internal auditing managers, budget directors, chief financial officers, and in some cases, a corporate president.

Auditor

With an accounting degree, you can land a job as the company’s auditor who inspects the financial records and checks for reliability and accuracy. Your role as an auditor will vary depending on the type of auditor or the company. The responsibilities will vary based on an internal or external, government, or forensic auditor. Your responsibilities will include properly filed taxes, examining and organizing financial statements, and making recommendations to the management.

Chief Financial Officer (CFO)

A chief financial officer’s responsibilities vary from company to company, but CFO should excel in business strategy, performance, financial management, and risk management. As a CFO, you will need to act as a cross-functional leader and help the business make informed financial decisions. CFOs also implement revenue strategies for the company.

Forensic Accountant

If you have a knack for details, a Forensic Accountant is a career for you. It is the fastest-growing job when it comes to law enforcement. You get to investigate fraud by using auditing skills. You provide an expert opinion regarding legal matters in a court. Details will matter the most as the reports prepared will be scrutinized in court by attorneys, judges, and juries.

Managerial Accountant

Another option as a stable career in accounting is the position of Managerial Accountant. You will plan and prepare financial reports and help the high-level executives to make financially responsible and informed decisions. Some of the career tasks include forecasting, cost-based planning, incremental costing, overseeing the product process, and enterprise optimization.

Financial Analyst

If you are looking for a relatively flexible job in the accounting field, the Financial Analyst will be the best choice for you. As a financial analyst, you need to assess a company’s financial health and help them make investment decisions. This job’s duties can vary based on the company but is usually very flexible compared to other accounting jobs. If you have a knack for financial modeling, data gathering, developing investment theses, spreadsheet maintenance, forecasting, and communication with management and investors, a career as a Financial Analyst will work like a charm for you.

Information and Technology Accountant

With advancements in information and technology, you can now opt for an Information and Technology Accountant career. As an information and technology accountant, you will be responsible for the system incorporated into a company to organize and report financial data. This role requires you to have a knack of information technology as well. It would be best to identify technology solutions for the company and be a natural problem solver.

Wrapping up:

Here is a bonus for you if you opt for an accounting career before wrapping up the opportunities. You can be a Financial Advisor to the stars! Being a financial advisor to a star, you will be in the loop in decision making regarding their investments in action comics or maybe a Piccaso. Your hard work as a financial advisor will make you walk the red carpet soon from unexpected expenditures such as buying a pet shark to estate planning. So clear your mind, focus, and decide one accountant job, which you think can help you achieve your dreams along with paying your bills.

 

 

Did you know it’s forecasted that by the end of 2020, U.S. consumers will have spent approximately $709 billion on eCommerce?

The percentage of eCommerce sales continues to grow each year, and it doesn’t appear to be slowing down any time soon.

However, in such a fast-paced industry, it can be difficult to keep up. How can you stay up to date on the future of eCommerce?

We’re here to help you out! Check out our guide below for some of the eCommerce trends that are on the rise.

SMS Marketing and Follow-Up

We’re all familiar with order confirmation emails, but how many of those actually are opened by consumers?

Multiple sources have reported that open and response rates for emails only meet a high of 20 percent, while the same rates for SMS are as high as 98 percent.  SMS marketing campaigns are a cheap and easy way to keep customers engaged and relay information quickly.

No matter your industry—whether you’re searching for logistics trends or the newest food industry trends—SMS marketing can’t be ignored. The future of eCommerce relies on customer engagement, and SMS marketing is key to interacting with consumers.

The Future of eCommerce Through Social Media

Social media platforms have become more than just digital advertising channels. They are now funnels through which online shoppers can buy products.

With the addition of product tags on websites like Instagram, it’s never been easier to list products on social media. Product tags allow viewers to learn product descriptions, prices, and more before visiting your site.

You no longer have to pin a URL in your caption and hope that viewers will click it before scrolling away. They can simply click on the product, which will take them directly to the listing and checkout page.

Striving Towards Environmentally-Friendly eCommerce

As the world continues to change and adapt, we’re seeing a shift towards more responsibly-sourced and eco-friendly products.

You’ll see an increase in recyclable packaging, reusable products, and sustainable producers. If you’ve hit a marketing plateau, a green campaign is a great way to shake things up.

The Importance of Personalization

Personalization is considered the next big hurdle that eCommerce must tackle. With the assistance of AI technologies, it’s become easier to personalize eCommerce experiences.

Of course, there’s a fine line between infringing on a customer’s privacy and personalizing their shopping experience. In fact, 87 percent of consumers think it’s important that companies safeguard data privacy. That’s what makes personalization in the eCommerce field challenging.

However, it’s a challenge worth taking on because 80 percent of consumers are more likely to do business with a company if they offer personalized experiences. In order to best connect with consumers, brands have to jump aboard the personalization trend.

Moving Forward

The future of eCommerce looks bright—for both consumers and businesses. The ease of access is something that can’t be overlooked, and the trends above will help you create an even more streamlined eCommerce approach.

For more articles on business and technology trends, check out the rest of our website!

Does your mind go blank when you start looking at your business bank account? You aren’t alone.

An estimated 60% of small business owners feel like they don’t have enough experience with accounting. The good news is that bookkeeping for small business owners doesn’t have to be hard. Keep reading to learn five small business bookkeeping mistakes that you can’t afford to make.

1. Poor Recordkeeping

A lot of people believe they can just wing their finances. They take one look at their bank account and base all their decisions on the money in the bank. Doing this is a recipe for disaster.

You need to keep proper records if you want to make reliable business decisions. Keep track of every transaction and hold on to every receipt. The more insight you have into your income and expenses, the better decisions you can make.

If you need help, invest in a small business bookkeeping app. These products will track everything for you automatically, so you don’t have to do the work yourself.

2. Missing Quarterly Taxes

If you don’t have business experience, you’re probably used to filing your taxes once per year. Your regular employer handles all the hard work of taking out what you owe to the government. Things are different when you run things yourself.

Businesses are required to pay their taxes quarterly. You do this by estimating your profit for each quarter and paying an amount based on that. If you fail to do this, you can face penalties at the end of the year.

3. Mixing Personal and Business Transactions

Starting a business is an exciting time. You might be tempted to speed things up by handling your business finances with your personal bank account. While this might work short-term, it will cause problems in the future.

You need to separate your personal and business transactions for tax-time. If you co-mingle your finances, you’re going to spend more time than necessary classifying your transactions. You also have more to prove when you want to take deductions from business expenses.

4. Skipping Backups

It only takes one disaster for all your hard work to go out of the window. If you store all your data in one place, you have no protection for when this happens.

A backup will protect you in these situations. Sign up for a cloud provider that will automatically backup your financial documents. If you suffer from data loss, you can recover your files with a few clicks on a website.

5. Not Getting an Expert Opinion

There is a lot to bookkeeping that ordinary people might not understand. You can’t just throw all your transactions into a spreadsheet and call it a day. You have regulations to follow and paperwork to file.

If you want to get things right, it pays to hire a bookkeeper to take a second look. They will examine your finances to find issues, so you don’t face problems in the future.

You Can’t Afford to Get Small Business Bookkeeping Wrong

Small businesses have a hard enough time staying afloat when they don’t have money issues. It’s much worse when you can’t trust the numbers in your books. Make sure to avoid the small business bookkeeping mistakes above so you can keep your business above water.

If you want more small business tips that will help you grow your company, head back to our blog. Our latest posts cover the latest tips and tricks that will help you get more business.

Today’s business climate is a competitive one and you need all the help you can get to beat the competition. Many companies live and die by generating leads. You need as many qualified leads as possible, but how can you get them?

We’ll examine various lead generation tactics and what you can do to bring in leads to your business. Don’t let the competition win just because they learned the top lead generation tactics.

We’ve compiled this quick guide to help you find leads that you can nurture along the buyer’s journey and end up with increased revenue and conversions.

1. Lead Generation Tactics Include Video Brochures

Today’s customer wants to feel special. They don’t just want to be a number in your digital marketing plan. They expect personalized service from beginning to end.

One of the most innovative ways to reach customers is with personalized video brochures. They’re unique and provide an experience your customers crave. It’s imperative to stand out in today’s marketing world and video brochures can be one of the best lead generation tactics.

2. Email Marketing is Tried and True

As long as there has been email addresses, there has been email marketing. It’s still one of the best returns on investment methods of b2b lead generation tactics available. You can use numerous ways to get potential customer email addresses, from newsletter signups to gated content.

You create email newsletters and sales emails that are designed to keep their interest and your company at the top of their mind. There are several email programs available and each provide unique features and analytics to make more personalized content.

3. SEO Is King for Search Marketing

When someone wants to look up information about a business or a problem they’re having, they Google it. If you want to get traffic to your site, then you need to be on the top page of Google search results for various search query keywords.

The key is to create amazing content that helps educate and inform your potential customers. You need to answer their questions and help them understand why your company is the best to help them. This is the cornerstone of search engine optimization.

4. Paid Advertising and Landing Pages

When you want guaranteed qualified traffic to your website, one of the most effective lead generation tactics to use paid advertising. Google Ads is one of the most robust providers with search ads above search engine results, video ads on YouTube, shopping ads for your products and display ads on websites.

You’ll also find paid advertising options on many social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. You need to develop your paid advertising campaign and create specific landing pages for ads designed to drive people to the next step in their buyer’s journey.

5. Social Media Marketing Engages Leads

As we said before, customers want to feel special and that companies notice them as individuals. One of the best ways to do this is with social media marketing. You can interact directly with your customers through posts and tweets.

You can comment on their responses to your posts and they’ll feel like they’re getting personalized treatment. It helps you gain trust and engagement, which turns into more traffic and leads.

Develop Your Lead Generation Strategies

Leads need to be found and nurtured from the beginning until they hit that buy button. These are lead generation tactics, but once they’ve made contact you need to proactive in helping them through the buying process.

If you want to learn more about lead generation, then please explore our website.

As an online business, you have probably lost customers because the shipping costs were high. Even though you were tempted to lower the prices, you probably couldn’t do so, because you needed to protect your profit margin.

Ecommerce is not easy, and almost every online entrepreneur has faced a similar issue. But don’t worry; you can effectively reduce the prices to satisfy your clients while maintaining the profitability of your business.

Keep reading to learn more.

1. Consider Zone Shipping

Zone shipping is an affordable technique for transporting goods to the same zone. The carrier collects different individual items whose destination is the same.

Upon arrival at the common destination, the items are sorted, grouped individually, and then shipped to the individual destinations.

For instance, if the goods’ source is Ohio and the destination zone is Florida, you will accumulate all Florida items to be shipped together.

From there, they can be transported to the various parts of Florida depending on the buyers’ locations. There is only one trip for this technique, and this means that you can save on the back and forth costs for the initial shipping.

However, this method can only work for the less urgent goods that you can store for an extended period as you accumulate the others.

2. Utilize the Best Packing Practices

Packing is a key determinant of your shipping costs. Unless you want an experience-based packing, you can reduce your overall shipping costs using a few smart packing practices.

The first smart idea is to utilize the packaging services provided by your carrier. When you pack on your own, you will exceed the dimensions and your carrier might charge you more.

The carriers’ packaging is tailored to reduce costs, and you can save substantial amounts by utilizing the service.

Another smart packing idea is to use the smallest boxes possible so that the items can fill well. You might also consider the lightweight parcels which don’t add massive weight to the package.

Lastly, you can recycle your packaging materials to cut the costs of buying new bags every time. Recycling will not only help you cut costs but also reduce your garbage collection.

3. Ask Your Carrier for Discounts

You should have excellent negotiation skills for not only shipping but also for the other aspects of your business. When signing for a short term or long-term business deal with your carrier, ask them to reduce shipping costs for you.

Most carriers don’t have fixed costs. The fees are usually open for negotiations, and you can strike a great deal if you negotiate well.

In return, you may promise to become a loyal client and work with them for an extended period.

Before you negotiate, compare what other carriers offer so that you don’t demean your carrier’s services. Also, provide the right packaging basics, including weight, dimensions, and destinations.

4. Use Air Delivery in Urgent Situations Only

Air delivery is costlier when compared to ground delivery. To cut costs, you should only use it to transport perishable goods or items with urgent needs.

Otherwise, you will be wasting money by using air express to transport durable goods that are not urgent. Likewise, you may use FedEx or UPS ground services instead if zone 2 air express deliveries.

Always consult with the buyer before shipping. If they accept the ground delivery, then you will save a lot of money.

5. Use Third-Party Shipping Services

Third-party services can help you cut the shipping costs. They provide a wide array of shipping options, meaning that you can choose the fittest for your business.

Furthermore, since their work is to ship only, they have a rich knowledge of the shipping processes. They know many carrier firms too, and they can negotiate on your behalf for incredible rates.

The standard third party shipping services are aggregators that require you to sign on their platform before working together. You can track the delivery processes, and you can also get better deals if you become a regular client.

Note that many carrier service providers might require you to prepay to qualify for discounts. If you can, you should consider this offer mainly if you intend to transport similar items with the same weight.

6. Consider Flat Rate Shipping

The flat rate shipping plan provides a standard rate for all the deliveries you will make, irrespective of sizes or weight.

Besides helping you cut shipping costs, the flat rate tactic can win you more clients. The method is, therefore, crucial to new businesses that are still building their brand.

Your clients will be motivated to buy bulk goods because, after all, the shipping fee is the same. You can test this technique’s efficiency by identifying a common area where you ship your products more often.

7. Educate Your Customers

The last important method for reducing shipping costs is to educate your customers. If you inform your clients on the shipping costs to expect, they will make informed decisions, and probably, they will not abandon the cart at the last minute.

Only 22% of online merchants mention the shipping costs on the homepage. Remember that buyers hate hidden charges, and the last thing they would like to know is that they have to pay specific fees.

So, if you offer shipping charges, these tips can help you reduce the charging costs:

• Provide a shipping calculator
• Create pick up points for your goods to cut the transport costs and avoid inconveniencing your buyers

Be transparent with your customers on how to transport the goods. Discuss everything, too, so that you won’t have to incur extra shipping costs covering up for information you didn’t provide. In the long run, you will win your clients’ trust while still lowering the costs.

Reduce Your Shipping Costs Today!

As an online merchant, you should try the strategies which give you a competitive advantage. One effective strategy is to reduce the shipping costs to attract more clients without affecting your profitability.

So, follow the above tips and adopt others that promise lower shipping costs.

Find more informative guides like this one from my blog. Besides business, you will learn more tech and lifestyle tips to apply in your home or business. Please read them to know more.

User Experience or UX tries to identify how a user feels when they visit a site.

How do they respond to the content and structure? What are their goals and ambitions? Does their experience match their expectations? Is it better? Or worse.

UX is difficult to determine because it deals with emotions. But a bad experience is easy to spot as traffic drops, orders decline, and reviews get one star.

Every trick in the book is needed to get users to like a site enough to return and tell their friends. With that in mind, here are 5 hacks that can help to improve a website user experience.

They’ll not only help users enjoy their visit but can also improve search rankings in Google.

1. Mobile First

According to Google, 59% of shoppers think that being able to shop online on their mobile devices is important.

Surely all smartphones can browse websites? What’s that got to do with UX?

The real issue lies with how the phone’s web browser displays the pages.

Ever visit a page on your mobile to find you had to pinch and zoom to use it? The content was laid out for desktop monitors. Text was so tiny you needed a magnifying glass to read it.

A mobile-friendly site offers an alternative design that specifically caters to small screens.

This mobile-first approach is even commended by Google. The search engine giant even gives sites that offer a mobile-friendly experience a higher place in their results.

Mobile users find it easier to navigate and consume content if everything fits within reach of their thumb.

Yet, that doesn’t mean flooding the screen with all the bells and whistles of a desktop experience. The key to a good UX is a balance between whitespace and useful content.

To check if a web page is mobile-friendly, use this free tool by Google.

Google analyzes the content for different screen widths, usability checks, etc. and gives a green light if everything’s okay. If not, the site requires some adjusting to make it work on a smaller device.

2. Longtail Keywords in Headings

When a user Googles something the words or phrases that they enter are called keywords.

The best SEO services use those keywords within the content of each web page. And one of those essential elements is the heading tag.

A heading or header tag gives a brief summary of the content below it, just like in the traditional press.

It should entice viewers to continue reading yet should be accurate and not misleading. Users and search engines hate being lied to. And if Google spots a site trying to spam headings they could bar them from their results!

Unlike short one or two word phrases, longtail keywords include four or five words. And they’re key to getting the right traffic and a better experience for the visitor.

Instead of using a heading like ‘Car Insurance Premiums are Rising’ to tie with the short keywords ‘car insurance’, make it local.

Using the longtail keyword ‘car insurance in Los Angeles’ will produce a more relative heading. Visitors in that region see content that matches their local needs and Google responds by ranking it higher. That’s a win-win for everyone!

3. Make Contact Easy

Most sites include a contact form for users to submit their queries. But modern web browsers offer so much more to enhance the experience.

For example, WhatsApp offers several options for site owners to use their service directly from a web page.

Create a link with https://wa.me/yournumber and replace the last part with a WhatsApp registered phone number. When a mobile user clicks the link, WhatsApp opens with a blank message ready to send.

To link directly to an ordinary phone number, use the HTML anchor tag and add ‘tel:yournumber’ to the href attribute.

<a href=”tel:yournumber”>phone our site</a>

Pressing the link opens the phone app with the number ready to go. Site visitors will love how easy it is!

4. Lazy Loading Images

A common UX gripe is slow-loading websites, especially those with lots of images. A simple hack to speed things up is to incorporate lazy loading into the site design.

Lazy loading only loads images that the user can see. They may never scroll down to see the other 50 pictures so lazy loading excludes them.

Pages will zoom even on slow connections. Content gets cached or stored within the browser so the next time they visit the pages appear instantly.

Google rewards sites that have fast loading times.

You can use their free PageSpeed Insights tool to see if your site meets the mark. If Google thinks your site’s too slow it’s guaranteed that your visitors will too.

WordPress users don’t need to worry, though.

The current version of WordPress includes lazy loading as standard. Just update to release 5.5 and enable the feature and you’re all set.

5. Catch Missing Pages

If a user arrives at a missing page their browser presents them with an ugly ‘Page not found’ error.

Missing or incorrect URLs are an automatic turnoff to most but with a little tweak they can actually become useful.

The hack is to use a custom 404 page. The number relates to a web standard error for a missing page. But the good news is that site owners can create their own content.

For example, the website examines the missing page title then produces related results that do exist off those keywords. Some sites even make a joke of the problem by including witty cartoons saying they’re sorry.

How to improve a website user experience? Include fun and engaging 404 pages and let your mistakes work for you.

Improve User Experience and More at Action Life

Now you now 5 secret hacks to help improve user experience on a website. Combine them with SEO techniques and you’ll also rise up Google’s rankings.

If you’d like to learn more about how to improve website experiences then visit our technology section.

Articles range from integrating social media to photo editing. We also have great information on business and finance to help your eCommerce website improvements.

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