Tips

10 Email Signature Tips to Look Professional at Work

In a world where tweets and blog posts are all the rage, communicating via email is still as popular as ever. In fact, in the business world, emails are still one of if not the primary form of communication online.

And if you send lots of emails for work, you probably want to create an email signature that ends all of the emails that you send in a professional manner. 

Well, there are a ton of email signature tips to keep in mind when creating your very own email signature. And once you know what to do, and what not to do, you’ll see that creating the perfect email signature isn’t as hard as you may believe!

In this article, we’ll give you 10 email signature tips and tricks that you need to know in order to create the most professional and effective email signature. Now then, let’s get started!

1. Remember: Simple and Sweet

If there’s one word you should have in mind when crafting your email signature, it’s simplicity. Doing too much is almost a guarantee that you’re going to create a signature that turns people off.

Less truly is more, to say the least.

2. Limit Yourself to 3 or 4 Lines of Text

A great way to ensure that you keep your signature simple and sweet is to limit yourself to 3 or 4 lines of text. Anything more than that is going to be overwhelming, or too much to read, which isn’t what you want.

3. Design with Mobile Users in Mind

It’s the year 2020. Odds are, you send and receive the majority of your emails from a mobile device. It’s also safe to assume you’re not the only person who does this, meaning you need to create a signature with mobile users in mind.

Making something that is mobile-friendly is easy, as long as you limit yourself to how much content you include. Also, check to see how your signature looks on your mobile devices to confirm nothing looks off before sending too many emails. 

4. Consider Using a Picture

Regardless of your brand or business, you likely have a picture that you feel represents what you’re all about. Whether it’s a headshot or a company logo, consider including that picture in your email signature.

Don’t be afraid to go with a bit of color, too, as it’s a great way to stand out in someone’s email inbox. 

5. Balance Your Content Evenly

If you do decide to go with a picture, make sure you format your signature so that everything looks balanced. In other words, make sure your text and your picture flow together smoothly.

A good rule of thumb? Position your picture on the left side of your signature with your text on the right. Combined, your text should be the exact same size of your picture, meaning no words drop below the picture itself.

6. Don’t Include Your Email Address

There’s absolutely no reason to have your email in your signature. People already know who is emailing them, making that bit of information redundant.

Including your email address makes you look a bit amateurish, which of course, isn’t what you want.

7. Leave “Sent From My iPhone” On

We’ve all see that “Sent from my iPhone” tag at the end of an email. And while it may appear to be unprofessional at first glance, it’s actually not the worst idea to leave that feature enabled, if you have an iPhone.

Letting someone know you sent an email from a mobile device leads to them being more forgiving of any spelling or grammatical errors. And of course, spelling and grammatical errors are much more common when typing on mobile devices.

8. Link Your Social Media Accounts

While linking to your email address isn’t necessary, linking to your social media accounts is. Doing so can make it much easier for clients and customers to contact you, which of course, can be quite helpful.

Just make sure that you’re social media accounts are also professional, as someone is likely going to click on them eventually. 

9. End With a “Call to Action”

Ending your email signature with a call to action, or a CTA, should be near the top of your to-do list. Also, don’t overthink your CTA, as that’s a great way to set yourself up for failure. 

Something as simple as your social media links, or a link to your portfolio, works well. 

10. Browse For Examples in Your Inbox

If you’re still not sure how to format your email signature, consider copying someone in your email inbox. Odds are, you have quite a few examples to browse, and if you see something you like, try to mimic it and make it your own.

Also, you can make a digital signature online in just a few minutes, using an email signature maker tool.

10 Email Signature Tips and Tricks

Well, there you have it! Those are 10 email signature tips and tricks that you can use to create the perfect, most-professional email signature!

Remember, above all else, keep it simple. Don’t feel like you need to tell everyone every single thing about you in a few lines. Only include the most important details, as less is always more.

If you’re not sure exactly what you want to include, take a second to browse your email inbox for some examples. And if you find something you like, but aren’t sure how to recreate, use an online email signature maker to bring your signature to life.

Looking for more ways to stand out in the business world? Check out our blog!

5 Top Tips When You Buy and Sell Antiques

If you’re the type that likes to buy and sell antiques, then you’re in the right place.

If you’re in the antique industry you know that this isn’t an easy market. There’s a very specific type of population that purchases antiques, and operating a profitable business requires a real depth of industry knowledge.

For solid antique buying and selling tips, look no further than these five.

1. Get Your Antiques Appraised

The first thing that you should do when buying or selling an antique item is to get it appraised. Unless you have a very significant amount of experience valuing antiques, chances are that you won’t be able to assign it a value with just a single glance.

Remember that the money that you invest in a professional appraisal will come back to you in the form of you knowing how much to charge for it. Make sure that you only get a USPAP appraisal done.

2. Consult With Other Buyers and Sellers

You don’t have to do buying and selling antiques alone! You should focus on building your network in this industry. One of the best ways to do that is by consulting with other buyers and sellers whenever you need some advice on how to price, sell, or buy an item.

Don’t think of your network as competition for your business. Instead, think of them as potential buyers and sellers that you might want to deal with. Given that perspective, you’ll be able to sell your antiques for them at a margin and vice versa.

3. Stage Your Antiques

Just like with home staging, antique staging is crucial to get your stuff sold as soon as possible. By staging your antiques in the right setting, you can help prospective buyers envision how they would use the item or decorate their home with it.

And any time that you can do that, you bring a whole new level of a personal touch to your shop. Before you know it, you’ll be selling more antiques than ever before. 

4. Operate in Bulk

When you operate in bulk, it doesn’t matter if you have low margins. You’ll still be able to make very decent money because of the volume that you buy and sell.

By transitioning your antique business to a volume-based one, you can buy and sell your merchandise faster. Even though you won’t make as good of a deal on each one, the sales will add up to a significant profit margin for you in the long run.

5. Be Willing to Walk Away from a Deal

Last but not least, be willing to walk away from a deal. Whenever you go into a negotiation, whether you’re buying or selling you need to have a number in mind that you won’t go below or above. 

If the other party can’t agree on that number, then walk away. It’s not worth sacrificing your margin.

Buy and Sell Antiques the Right Way

There you have it — how to buy and sell antiques the right way. 

For more business advice, be sure to check out the rest of the articles on the website!

Save Money on Prescriptions With These 5 Tips

Are you struggling to pay for your prescriptions? 

It’s no secret that prescription drugs are costly, and drug prices keep increasing over time. These costs are especially hard if you have chronic conditions that require consistent medication. 

When you can barely afford your medication, you might feel stressed out and hopeless. While it’s hard to feel the financial burden of prescriptions, there are some things you can do to make your necessary prescription drugs a little cheaper. 

Keep reading to learn some of our best tips to help you save money on prescriptions today. 

How to Save Money on Prescriptions 

Drug prices are a lot for the average American, but there are ways to keep costs down and avoid going into debt to take care of yourself and your family. 

If you’re feeling lost and unsure if you can handle your next pharmacy trip, here are five tips that will help you save as much money as possible on your prescriptions:

1. Always Check for Coupons 

Just like other food items you buy every day, drug manufacturers do offer coupons and other discounts on their prescriptions.

Before you get any prescription filled, make sure you check online or ask the pharmacist if there are any coupons you are eligible to use. These coupons could make your medicine much more affordable, especially if you don’t have insurance. 

2. Shop Local 

Now could be the time to ditch your national-chain pharmacy like CVS or Walgreens. Local pharmacies tend to offer lower prices than large, big-box pharmacies. Another benefit to this option is that you will be supporting small businesses. 

3. Don’t Be Afraid to Shop Around

A lot of us become a creature of habit when it comes to getting our medications. We often go to the pharmacy that’s closest to us or the one that we’ve been using for years.

However, this might not be the best option, especially if you’re trying to save money. Don’t be afraid to call around to other pharmacies in your area to see if they offer the drug at a lower price. A short drive to a new pharmacy will be well worth saving money on your prescriptions. 

The website PharmacyChecker is a great tool that will help you do the same thing. 

4. Use Online Tools 

Besides PharmacyChecker, there are plenty of other online tools available that will help you find the cheapest options for the specific drug that you need. 

Blink Health, for example, helps you negotiate prices with pharmacies, and after you find the best price point, you purchase your medication directly through their platform. 

5. Switch to a Generic Drug

Generic drugs are typically much cheaper than their name-brand counterparts. At your next doctor’s appointment, make sure you ask if you are taking the generic drug. If not, ask if you are eligible to switch to save more money. 

Learn More About Saving Money on Healthcare 

While it’s helpful to save money on prescriptions, medications are usually just one small expense in your overall healthcare needs. Make sure you check out the rest of our website to learn more about how you can save money on all of your necessary healthcare services. 

5 Secret Tips on Selling Silver This Year

Selling silver is a trade older than many professions today, but it’s showing no signs of slowing down any time soon. With millions of buyers, billions of valuable pieces, and dozens of great markets and resources, this is a robust industry.

But what are the best ways to sell silver? Is there a right way to do it, or a wrong? Join us, today, as we break down five invaluable tips for selling your next silver piece!

1. Separate Your Silver into Different Types

Before you can start down the road to selling your silverware for amazing money, you need to get organized. And that means separating the silver you already have into coins and collectibles, sterling, scrap, and junk silver. And be honest with yourself about what is scrap or junk. You’ll save yourself awkward appraisals down the road, so it’s best to go into this knowing what you do have.

Finding out what kind of silver you have on-hand helps to define your sales strategy. Silver is most found in bullion, collectibles, rare coins, rounds and bars, sterling and junk. Junk silver refers to any silver coin issued before 1965, but the coin must be made of 90% silver. Separating them into specific types of silver will help you to find each seller, as needed.

As an extra note, bullion coin is most suited to investments. But rare coins work best as parts of a collection or on a hobbyist’s mantle. The Morgan silver dollar, for instance, can fetch up to $175 for the right coin and the right buyer.

2. Check out Your Own Merchandise

Next is some more preliminary work before we can move on to the sale itself. Once you have your silverware sorted and ready, you’ll need to ascertain the quality of your silver product to understand its actual value.

First, let’s dispel a pretty common rumor among silverware collectors. A lot of silver jewelry will have the word “silver” printed on it in one location or another. This does indicate the item is made from silver but doesn’t indicate purity or quality in the metal itself. 

A major factor in the value of your silverware is whether or not it is pure, sterling, or silver plated. That third one is especially important, as many pieces are actually silver plated and that makes them essentially worthless in a sale. Silver plating means that the item in question is actually made from a different metal altogether. This can be done in a range of different ways, from electroplating to various liquid treatments, but the result is always the same. A thin layer of silver applied to an item made from a much less valuable metal underneath. 

On the bright side, this silver-plated “silverware” is labeled, far more often than not. Look for an engraving that reads “silver plate”, “EP” (for “electroplated”), or the initials “EPNS”, for silver plated nickel. There’s no guaranteeing whoever plated the item would have marked it but, if you can’t find a mark, it could be a sign that the silver you’re working with is real.

Manufacturers of sterling silver items are expected to mark them as such. So, if you can’t find the word “sterling”, “silver”, or “925” anywhere on it, you might very well be working with a silver plate. Because of regulations, it is rare to find pure silver items out in the world that aren’t inscribed like this.

Lastly, we have to restate: silver plate is of little-to-no value. If you try to sell silver jewelry that has been plated, know that the items have a low resale value. Items you may have inherited could very well be worth nothing much at all if they’re not marked as “sterling”. 

3. Polishing: To Be Avoided at All Costs

It’s only natural, when you come into possession of a lot of gorgeous, older silver, to want to make it look its best. Maybe you’re a genuine enthusiast. Maybe you’re trying to boost your chances of a sale by making the items look better.

Either way, those tarnishes won’t do, and so out you run to the store for a bottle of silver polish.

Stop. Put down your keys, and keep reading. Because, it turns out, polishing your silverware can damage it in ways you didn’t even expect. Chemical polishes, for example, are not formulated for your silverware’s exact age and conditioning. They may be too harsh, ruining the finish and stripping the item of its luster, minimizing its value.

DIY tips for cleaning can be just as damaging. These often use items around the house and will assure you that a simple recipe will do wonders. The truth is, these could end up causing more discoloration and tarnishing than there was in the first place.

The most you should do on your own is to invest in a fine polishing cloth for jewelry if you need to stop or cover up discoloration.

4. Valuate Your Items

Now that the opening acts are out of the way, it’s time to start the main event: selling your item. Well, almost. First, you’ll need to spend some time determining the actual value of your silver.

After all, without some halfway decent research, you and your buyer would both be guessing at its value, and that’s no way to do business. 

Begin by checking online and in stores for the current price of silver, in general. This value changes constantly, and that will factor into when you want to sell. Wait for the sale until the silver price comes down, for instance, and you’re going to get less for each item you sell.

Next, you’ll want to factor in any personalizations on the silverware itself.

Has someone monogrammed it? A short inscription on the inside of a sugar spoon that reads: “To my darling Jessica”? These are nice touches to put on something when you gift it to someone for an anniversary, but they actually lower the value of the silver. And trying to have them removed can be even worse, in some cases. But, as we’ve said already, it’s important to know what you’re working with before you start the sale.

Next, did you know that silverware comes in a limited range of patterns? It does, and this means that certain patterns are worth more than others. Maybe they’re older. Maybe they were once favored by the Royal Family.

Whatever the case, do some research to figure out which pattern of silver you have on your hands. Depending on its age or rarity, you’ll be able to find collectors who are willing to pay a much higher premium for the item. This applies to special mints or limited editions of various coins and a whole host of other silver products, all valued for their designs.

Last on our list: different silver products are valued differently. A specialty item, whether it be a specialty carving set or a cocktail fork, is going to fetch a better price from buyers than something more common. Additionally, having a complete set rather than a few items from the set is also going to bring in more money.

Collectors are going to be interested in unique pieces, but who doesn’t want the complete set of their favorite thing in the world?

5. Appraise Then Sell

By this point, you’ll have come about as far as you can under your own steam. You’ve researched, categorized, cleaned, and given your items a value you think is fair. You’ve done a lot, but there’s more to do, and you should let a professional handle it.

New sellers should evaluate their silverware before a sale, especially if you think you’ve got something good. After all, you may have a hot deal on your hands. A professional appraiser can help you figure out any potential pitfalls and shortcomings in your plan.

You can find an individual to handle the appraisal. This might take time and cost a little more, but you can rely on individual service and be able to conduct your business in private. Alternatively, you might visit an antique store and ask for an appraisal right there on the spot.

This is simpler, but you’ll have to keep your wits about you, as someone may try to strongarm you into selling early. Or, you may reach out online for a rough assessment, instead of an official rating. The benefit here is in the convenience, but also in getting to learn about your item from someone who doesn’t have a vested interest in buying it from you.

Whichever way you go, this step will help you set the value of your item so that you know you’re not letting it go for far less than it’s worth. In addition, with some research and a lot of vetting, you could find a service, ask them to “sell my silver” and let them take care of everything. In terms of the best way to sell silver, it all comes down to how much control you want to have over the process.

Once the evaluation is all clear, you’re free to go out and find the best seller for your item. In terms of where to sell silver, online sales work very well for this kind of transaction. Individual collectors are a great find if you have a rare or valuable item.

On the flip side, if you’re selling something with low value, you could go direct and sell it at a pawn or jewelry shop.

Selling Silver: A Finely Tuned Process

When it comes to selling silver, the more prepared you are the better. Hopefully, today’s tips for selling this lustrous, valuable metal will help set you on the path to big sales in the near future.

Interested in more great content, driven by data-centric analytics? Check out the rest of our awesome blog content, today!

Learn How to Chill Out! 10 Tips for Creating a Stress Management Plan

Is stress starting to take a toll on your life? Whether you’re dealing with stress at work or stress at home, it can have a profound impact on you.

Surveys have shown that about 77% of people admit to living with physical symptoms associated with stress. They’ve also revealed that almost 50% of people lay in bed awake at night as a result of their stress.

Coming up with a stress management plan is one great way to get a grip on stress and stop it from ruining your life. Here are ten tips that will help you do it.

1. Figure out What’s Causing Your Stress Levels to Skyrocket

Before you can start ironing out the details of a stress management plan, it’s important for you to identify what’s causing you to suffer from so much stress. Is your stress caused by:

• Your job?
• Your finances?
• Your house?
• Your relationship with your spouse?
• Your political beliefs?

If you don’t know why you’re always feeling so stressed out, it’s going to be almost impossible to manage your stress levels.

2. Eliminate Things from Your Life That Lead to Stress

Once you know why you’re so stressed out, you can start to get rid of some of the things in your life that are causing stress. You can do it by:

• Looking for a new job
• Making a stronger effort to pay down debt and get your finances in order
• Moving to a house that doesn’t require so much maintenance
• Going to marriage counseling with your significant other
• Avoiding political arguments with family members and friends

You’ll be amazed by how much less stressed out you feel when you cut out some of these things from your life.

3. Find Ways to Manage Your Time More Effectively

Everyone gets 24 hours each day to do everything that they need to do. But not everyone uses those 24 hours in the same way.

Are you using your time to the best of your ability? If you’re not managing your time well, that could lead to you dealing with more stress than you should have to.

Invest in a daily, weekly, and monthly planner and start taking back control of your schedule. By managing your time better, you’ll start to feel some of your stress melt away.

4. Work More Exercise into Your Daily Schedule

About 80% of Americans don’t get enough exercise each week. This has led to a dramatic increase in the country’s obesity rate.

There is also a direct correlation between America’s lack of exercise and the increase in the country’s collective stress levels. So many people could benefit from exercising more as far as beating stress is concerned.

Start jogging, lifting weights, or playing recreational sports more often. You’ll feel less stressed out when you make exercise a bigger priority in your life.

5. Make Sure You’re Eating Healthy Meals Every Day

In addition to getting more exercise, you should also eat healthier meals to combat weight gain and defeat stress. If you’re constantly stuffing yourself with unhealthy fast foods, it’s going to impact your physical and mental health before long.

You may also want to start taking supplements and even consider using the best CBD oil as part of your diet. When used properly, CBD oil has been shown to help those battling stress.

6. Get More Than Enough Sleep Each Night

A lack of sleep can impact you in so many different ways. It can cause you to gain weight, make you very forgetful, and even put you at an increased risk for cancer.

You’re also going to notice that you have a hard time working your way through stressful situations when you’re sleep-deprived. It’s why any good stress management plan should include lots of sleep.

7. Take Time to Take Part in Hobbies

Do you spend your days dealing with one stressful situation after another? It’s no wonder why you’re so stressed out all the time!

Rather than trying to keep up with this routine, take time out of your busy days to take part in hobbies and any activities that make you happy.

Some people enjoy putting together puzzles or doing crosswords. Others enjoy skydiving or flying planes.

Whatever you like to do, do more of it! It’ll be very beneficial to you if you suffer from stress.

8. Avoid Using Alcohol and Drugs to Battle Stress

Far too often, people turn to alcohol and/or drugs as a means of coping with stress. These things help them escape their stress for a few hours and make them feel good about their lives.

The problem, of course, is that alcohol and drugs eventually wear off and send stress running right back in your direction. This will force you to decide what to do next:

• Deal with the sources of your stress head-on
• Use more alcohol and/or drugs to get rid of stress for a little while longer

Sadly, many people go with the second option since it’s the easiest way to handle stress. That sometimes leads to substance abuse issues and addiction.

9. Spend More Time with Family Members and Friends

The simple act of socializing more with other people is enough to bring your stress levels back to earth. After spending a few minutes on the phone with your mom or hanging out with friends for an afternoon, you’ll almost always feel better.

Find time to pal around with your family members and friends more often. You’ll be blown away by how much better it makes you feel.

10. Adopt a More Positive Approach to Living Your Life

Many people who have dealt with stress for a long time don’t know how to live without it. They are so used to being stressed out that they’ve pretty much tricked their brains into thinking that there’s no other way for things to be.

Breaking this cycle is difficult to do. But you can do it by taking a more positive approach to life.

By smiling more and thinking positive thoughts, you can put up a heck of a fight against stress. It might take a while to see your stress disappear completely, but it’ll happen over time.

Use Your Stress Management Plan to Stop Feeling so Stressed out

It’s going to be almost impossible to live a long, fulfilling life when you always have stress hanging over your head. Stress will literally kill you before it’s your time to go if you don’t do something about it.

Use the tips found here to create a stress management plan for yourself. Stick with it and see first-hand how beneficial it can be to live a stress-free existence.

Check out our blog for more helpful articles relating to stress.

Starting a Publishing Business? Here Are 7 Tips for Success

In 2017, it was estimated that the revenue in the U.S. for the publishing industry was $26.2 billion. 

The publishing industry just keeps growing, so if you wanted to get into the industry, now is the time. 

However, starting a publishing company has never been so easy. Discover the best tips for starting a publishing company.

1. Know Why You Want to Publish

First off, you should decide why you even want to get into publishing in the first place. 

It takes a lot of work to start a publishing company, so you need to make sure you really want to commit all that time and money into it. 

You may have gotten into publishing by writing and self-publishing some of your own work. It could be a great way to offer the same opportunities to others who may want to publish and share their work. 

You should also figure out what types of books you want to publish. Do you want to publish nonfiction? Poetry? Self-help books? Young adult? Narrowing down the type of books you want to publish will help you sell books to your audience and also get submissions from authors. 

2. Set a Budget

Once you’ve really decided on starting your own publishing company, you should set a budget.

As we said, it can be really expensive to be an independent publisher. 

You will have to pay for things like designing, editing, and printing books. You will also have to pay for shipping and marketing. Another cost added to that is having to buy ISBNs for all the books you plan to publish. 

However, while you are spending money on all of this, you should also be figuring out how you can sell books so that you can earn all your money back. 

Before you can start selling all these books, you may need to put some of the money upfront. That is why it’s important to make a budget; you don’t want to overspend and be bankrupt before you can sell your first set of books. 

3. Consider Printing on Demand

Once you’ve set a budget, you should also figure out how you are going to distribute the books that you do publish. Publishers normally print several hundred copies of a book and hope that all of them sell.

However, with printing on demand, you can order the number of copies that you know will sell. That way you don’t have to store unsold copies anywhere and you save money by printing exactly how many books you need.

4. Put Quality Ahead of Quantity

When it comes to publishing books, you want to make sure that you’re publishing ones that have quality. It is better to have high-quality books rather than a lot of bad books. 

With digital publishing, poorly written content is even more available. 

When publishing books, you want to make sure that you are giving your audience the very best that is out there. This will really help your publishing company succeed because your audience will appreciate the quality. 

5. Start Marketing Your Books

Once you have printed a few copies of a book, you should make sure that you have a plan to market them. If no one knows about the books that you’re about to sell, chances are that they won’t end up buying them. 

Regardless of whether they’re books that you wrote or someone else wrote, you need to make sure that you do some marketing. If your company is small, you could do this on your own, but in the long run, you probably want to hire a marketing expert.

A marketing specialist will know just how to create ads and how to get them to your target audience. 

Marketing doesn’t have to cost that much though. Many readers are active on social media, so you can start by publishing your book on there.

There are all different types of advertising options that you could use to help promote your books. 

6. Network

Another tip that will help your publishing company is to make sure that you network.

Having connections and contact is never a bad thing, and you never know when you might need someone to help. 

You should have all kinds of contacts in your back pocket. This could be someone who specializes in marketing, authors, editors, and even people who work at competing publishing companies.

Seeing how other publishing companies run and operate can be a really helpful way to expand your company. For example, you could check out this printing service. 

7. Follow Your Passion

The last piece of advice is to follow your passion.

If you really love the world of publishing, just go for it. If owning and running a publishing company is a passion of yours, the rest of the logistics will work out. As long as you have a passion for it, then it may not feel so much like a chore. 

In fact, you may even be excited about it.

You could have a passion for finding good books from authors and connecting them with readers around the world. You could want an outlet to publish your own books as well. 

This enthusiasm will help you get over a lot of obstacles in the process of starting the company. 

Learn More About Starting a Publishing Company 

Starting a publishing company can have its challenges, but as we said, if you’re passionate about it, it will work out in the end.

If this is your dream, make sure that you don’t give up.

To help you with any challenges that might arise, make sure that you check out some of our other articles about publishing!

5 Must Know Shopify SEO Tips That Can Boost Your Sales

Everyone wants more traffic to their Shopify store. After all, more traffic is one of the best ways to get more sales. If you’re looking to increase your traffic long term, look no further than SEO.

It’s hard to ignore SEO if you own an eCommerce store. Reports show that organic search traffic accounted for 39% of all visitors to online stores.

But SEO is a tricky subject. Google doesn’t give you an exact roadmap for what you need to do. This post will help you get started.

Below are five Shopify SEO tips that you need to know.

1. Work on Your Site Structure

If you want to be successful at SEO, then you need to structure your site well. A poor site structure confuses not only your visitors but also Google.

A clear structure makes it easy for your visitors to find what they need. This means that they will spend more time on site instead of running off to your competitor. Google will be able to see this and will rank you higher for giving people the information they were trying to find.

2. Optimize for Mobile

No Shopify marketing strategy would be complete without considering mobile users. Mobile internet use is commonplace these days. If your site doesn’t cater to these people, then Google will devalue your website and rank your competitors that do.

Your website should be responsive to mobile devices and show them a layout that works with their screen size. Doing this will allow you to provide them with the information they need to make their purchase.

3. Optimize Your Product Pages

When someone lands directly on your product pages, they are ready to buy. This makes it vital that you provide them with all the information they need to make their purchase.

If your products don’t have the information that they’re looking for, then you run the risk of visitors leaving and buying elsewhere. Clear descriptions also help your product rank in search engines when buyers are looking for specific product features.

4. Remove Duplicate Content

You don’t always plan on duplicate content appearing on your site. But it does happen if you aren’t careful. Stores have this problem even worse because of all the category and search pages that need to be managed.

Run an audit on your site to find and remove any duplicate content on there.

5. Start a Blog

You can only do so much work on the pages you already have. If you want to bring more SEO traffic to your site, then you need content. Adding a blog will allow you to show your expertise in an industry and rank for more keywords in the process.

You can learn what to blog about by looking at your competition to see what they talk about. Use your competitor’s blog topics to brainstorm ideas and develop your own take on the topics.

Keep These Shopify SEO Tips in Mind

SEO is a long process. If you don’t do things right the first time, then it can take some time before you realize something is wrong. Make sure to keep the Shopify SEO tips above in mind so that you can get started on your store’s SEO the right way.

Once you have SEO out of the way, you can start to focus on other digital marketing channels. Keep browsing our blog to learn what those are.

3 Little-Known Law Firm Marketing Tips to Promote Your Practice’s Website

A recent report found that 99% of businesses plan to increase their online marketing spend in 2019.

If you own a law firm, this statistic might apply to you, and you may be on the lookout for methods that’ll bring some attention to your firm.  

But with so many options on offer, which one should you go for? Should you spend money on AdWords? Maybe you should work with a web development company? 

This post will highlight three marketing tips that’ll help raise the profile of your law firm. If you want your law firm to be a market leader, these suggestions should help you reach that goal. 

Let’s begin!

1. AdWords

AdWords is a common marketing method used by many law firms, and this is because the approach works well, and it works quickly.

Essentially, AdWords allows you to promote your law firm, whenever someone types a particular keyword into Google.

When selecting a keyword, it’s a good idea to be as precise as possible.

So, you want to avoid generic keywords such as ‘law firm.’ Rather, you want to target specific keywords such as ‘personal injury lawyer in Colorado.’ 

By targeting specific keywords, you ensure that your ads are shown to the right people. This then improves the ROI of your campaigns and helps limit wasted ad spend. 

2. Facebook Advertising

Facebook advertising is different from AdWords, in that you’re not targeting people based on Google searches.

Instead, you’re just defining an audience and then displaying ads to this audience when they’re visiting Facebook.

For instance, you might create an ad campaign that allows you to target business owners that are 35 years old, and live in New York. This campaign might then promote some kind of legal service designed for business owners.

3. Give Your Website an Upgrade

Your website will play a significant role when it comes to your overall marketing strategy. After all, if someone comes across one of your ads, they’ll probably check out your website, before they give you a call.

If your website looks outdated, you should think about giving it a new look, and you can do this by hiring a web development agency.

Before working with an agency, it can be a good idea to find websites that appeal to you. The agency can then use these websites to inspire the design of your site. 

Ideally, you want to find websites that are related to your niche.

So, if you’re personal injury lawyer, search for websites that belong to other personal injury lawyers. Taking this step will make it easier for the agency to create something suitable for your law firm.

Will You Use These Marketing Tips?

The marketing tips covered in this post have the power to transform your law firm.

That said, if you don’t know much about marketing, acting on them can be a challenge. Because of this, you might want to hire a marketing agency to help you implement the tactics we’ve covered.  

If you can, find an agency that caters specifically to law firms. In doing so, you should be able to achieve faster results, as the agency will already know how to deal with your industry. 

Did you like this post? If you did, please read some of the other posts on the site!

10 Local Business Advertising Tips to Increase Revenue for Your Small Business

There’s a big difference when you’re trying to market a local business and a national business. It’s not like you have a social media video go viral in Canada and you have a ton of customers.

Getting a social media post to go viral is great, except that you’re not reaching your target audience. That’s the people who live in your service area who have a very specific problem.

How can you use local business advertising to boost your visibility and sales? Keep reading to find out.

1. Fill Out Local Directory Listings

The first thing that local businesses need to do is to fill out your local directory listings on Google and Bing. This is the first step in reaching people who are looking for your services online will use a search engine.

If you don’t have a directory listing filled out, search engines will have no idea that you serve that area. When you do fill out the listing, make sure that it’s complete and you have high-quality pictures that make people want to know more about your business.

2. Understand Your Audience

Local business advertising comes down to reaching the right person with the right message at the right time. It sounds easy, but so many businesses get this wrong because they don’t truly understand their customers.

You might be a plumber who wants to attract anyone in a 30-mile radius who needs plumbing services. Who are these people? Are they DIY people? Are they the type that will just throw money at a problem? What is the emotional issue underneath?

This is how you understand your audience. The more you truly understand them, the better equipped you are to create marketing messages that show that you relate to them and their problems.

3. Leverage “Near Me” Searches

People will search for restaurants, products, and services on their phone. They want something, they want it now, and they want to find a solution nearby.

They’ll use the term “near me” in the searches. For example, Italian restaurants near me, auto repair near me, and bicycle store near me are all local searches.

You want to make sure that your business is positioned to capture these searches. That’s one reason why directory listings are so important. You tell search engines where you’re located and the search engines will list your business as long as it’s near the person searching.

4. Work With Local Influencers

Who are the influencers in your local community?

Those are the people that you want to know. They don’t need to be YouTube or Instagram stars. They just need to be influential in their network.

They could be board members of big organizations or they could be people who have a wide reach. You want to connect with them and build relationships with them. After a while, ask them to spread the word about your company.

5. Get Out in the Community

Being visible in your local community is a great way to build your brand and generate your business. You can become a member of your local chamber of commerce.

You can also sponsor local events like a 5K or have a booth at a trade show. Attending industry networking events is another great way to get out in the community.

Make it a habit to follow up with people you meet with handwritten notes after the event. No one does this anymore and these types of notes have become a lost art. This personal touch will make a huge impression with potential prospects.

You can use rubber stamps to save time writing your return address and signature over and over again. Check out this page for more information.

6. Be a Content Producing Machine

When Google produces search results for users, it tends to weight businesses that are near the searcher near the top of search results.

Having a blog on your website will get your business in front of prospects early on in the buying process. That give you time to show off your expertise and build trust with prospects before they’re ready to buy. When they are ready to make a purchase, your business will be front and center.

7. Get to Know the Local Press

In order to get your business name out in the community, you need a little help from the local media. It helps to establish relationships with news editors and business beat writers well before you issue your first press release.

8. Use Pay Per Click Ads

When you have your messaging down and you know your audience responds well to it, put gasoline on the fire.

You can use pay per click ads to generate more web traffic to your site and more business. This will supercharge your local business advertising efforts and take your business to the next level.

9. Get More Reviews

One of the factors that is used to determine if you’ll rank well in search engines is reviews. It’s also a big influencing factor for potential customers.

You want to make sure that you follow up with your customers and encourage them to leave positive reviews of their experience with your business.

10. Collect Leads Everywhere You Go

The more often you can get your local business in front of your customers and potential customers, the better. You’ll want to make sure that you use your website as a lead generation tool to encourage site visitors to sign up to your newsletter.

You’ll be able to connect with them with specials, events, and general information about your business.

Local Business Advertising Tips to Grow Your Business

Not all of the marketing trends and buzzwords apply to your business. As a local business, you require a different kind of visibility.

These local business advertising tips are geared to helping you reach the right people in your local service area. There are countless ways to reach them. You want to make sure that you use digital marketing and offline marketing strategies for the biggest impact.

Do you want more great marketing tips? Check out this blog regularly for articles about digital marketing and writing better content.

7 of the Best Tips on How to Help Someone Battling Addiction

There are few experiences more difficult or heartbreaking than watching someone you love struggle with addiction. When someone you love is being controlled by their addiction you’re often left feeling helpless and powerless. It seems like there’s nothing you can do to help them.

Even if you feel like there’s nothing you can do to help someone who’s battling addiction, there are some ways you can be helpful. Wondering what you can do? Here are a few suggestions.

1. Educate Yourself 

There are a lot of persistent misconceptions about addiction that make it really hard to understand.

For example, many people still believe that addiction is a choice. They believe that if the addict tried hard enough to quit or wanted to quit enough that they would be able to quit. This belief is based on the misconception that addicts are people with weak willpower, who cannot “just say no.”

In reality, addiction is a disease of both the body and the mind. The disease of the body manifests as the physical addiction to the addict’s substance of choice. Addiction is also a mental illness that manifests as an obsession with consuming the addict’s substance of choice, often to escape co-existing mental illnesses like depression and anxiety.

If you want to help someone struggling with addiction, you’ll need to understand how the disease of addiction works, how it manifests in their life, and how it can be treated. One of the best resources for learning about addiction is the book Alcoholics Anonymous, which is the basis of the 12-step program of the same name. 

Books published by Hazelden Publishing are also very helpful resources for understanding addiction.

If you’re going to turn to the Internet for your information about addiction, be sure to find reputable sources. Webpages that end in .org or .gov are more likely to have accurate information. 

Being well-informed about the disease of addiction and why addicts act the way they do will help you to talk to your loved one with compassion and empathy.

2. Let Them Know You Care 

Addiction is often called the disease of loneliness, and anyone who’s battling addiction can tell you why. Addiction isolates people from those they love because the addiction becomes more important than relationships. And many addicts end up ruining their close relationships because their behavior, driven their addiction, causes them to hurt those they love the most.

This leaves most addicts feeling like there isn’t anyone in the world who cares about them. So, if you do care about someone who is struggling with addiction, it’s important to let them know you still care.

Tell them how much you love them and how important they are to you. And tell them that you care about their health and what happens to them. 

Finding out that someone does, in fact, care about them and what happens to them will let the addict know that they are not as alone as they believe and that what they do to themselves does matter to someone else.

3. Tell Them the Truth 

While addicts do need to hear that people care about them, they also need to hear the difficult truths about how their behavior is impacting others. Many people who love addicts fear telling them the truth because they don’t want to upset the addict, who may lash out at them or use substances as a result of the uncomfortable conversation.

Though it’s hard to do, it’s very important to be honest with those you love who are struggling with addiction. They need to know that their behavior doesn’t impact just them. They need to know that their behavior is hurting you. They need to know that you worry about them all the time.

If they get angry at you and refuse to listen, accept that they aren’t yet ready to hear the truth. Try again later. But no matter what, keep being honest. Sugarcoating how you feel about their addiction won’t help them at all. 

4. Encourage Them to Get Help

To get and stay sober, addicts need to receive treatment for their disease. Anyone who truly has the disease of addiction will not be able to stop using substances without help. 

It’s incredibly important for you as the loved one of an addict to understand that you are not qualified to help your loved one get sober. Unless you’re a certified substance abuse counselor or a recovered addict yourself, then you don’t have the necessary training or experience to get them sober.

And even if you are a certified substance abuse counselor or a recovered addict yourself, you’re probably not the one that your loved one wants to receive treatment from. You’re too close to the situation to be truly helpful.

So, it’s very important to encourage your addicted loved one to seek professional treatment. Help them find an inpatient or outpatient opiate rehab and addiction treatment program. Or suggest that they attend a 12-step program. 

If they are resistant to getting treatment, continue to reinforce that addiction is a disease that requires treatment.

5. Let Them Know You Believe in Them 

Many addicts don’t seek treatment because they are convinced that it’s impossible for them to stop using substances. They’re so afraid of failing to get sober that they don’t even try. 

This is where you can provide the boost they need. You can assure them that you believe they are capable of getting and staying sober. Remind them that anyone can get sober if they are willing to seek treatment and commit to their recovery.

Letting them know that you believe in them may provide the confidence they need to attempt sobriety. And reminding them that you believe in them can provide the support they need to stay sober once they seek treatment. 

6. Give a Little Tough Love 

There’s a fine line between providing love and support to an addict and enabling an addict. Sometimes the actions you take that you think are helping the addict are actually helping them avoid the consequences of their addiction.

Addicts need to experience the consequences of their disease before they get sober. If they don’t understand that their disease is hurting them and others, they won’t see the need to get sober. 

One of the most painful things to do when you love an addict is to give them tough love. This may look like telling them that they can’t live with you anymore. Or it may look like cutting them off financially. It may even look like telling them that you can’t associate with them anymore because their behavior is so harmful to you.

As painful as it is to dish out this tough love, it’s necessary for the addict’s well-being. And more importantly, it’s necessary for your well-being.

7. Take Care of Yourself 

When you’re trying to be helpful to an addict, it’s essential to put your well-being first. Though they don’t intend to be, the disease of addiction makes addicts energetic vampires. They’ll suck you dry if you let them.

Addicts will also break your heart over and over if you let them. They don’t mean to, but they can’t help it. Their addiction rules their life and it makes them do things they would never do if they weren’t in the throes of their disease.

So, you need to take care of yourself when you’re helping an addict. If they’re hurting you, you need to stop trying to help. If your mental health is suffering from trying to help, you need to stop. If they’re taking advantage of you, you need to stop trying to help.

You cannot let an addict drag you down with them.

Helping Someone Battling Addiction

Helping someone who’s battling addiction is a difficult task. You can try these suggestions, but it’s important to remember that you have no control over the addict or their addiction. It’s possible that they may not get sober, no matter how much you try to help.

So, do what you can, but keep your expectations low. Try to help, but be willing to disengage if the addict is being harmful or you’re getting hurt. 

For more information about helping someone you love who is struggling with addiction, check out our blog post about what’s important in recovery.