3 Tips for Targeting the Right Audience on Your Small Business Blog

Successful small businesses understand the importance of establishing a digital footprint. The reality is that now, more than ever, consumers are using their computers, tablets, and smartphones to find and analyze information before making a purchasing decision.

In fact, 27 percent of consumers reported looking online daily for information about local businesses – more than double what it was in 2017. For small businesses to thrive within the competitive landscape of local markets, they need to prioritize their digital marketing efforts.

While there is certainly value in building a digital footprint on external platforms like Google My Business, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social channels, one of the best investments is to start blogging on your small business website.

What are the benefits of blogging for small businesses?

There are many benefits to investing in your small business blog. For one, it can help you position your business as a thought-leader within your industry. Additionally, your blog is open 24/7 and can continue to attract and convert customers long after you publish the content. Finally, it’s been statically proven that businesses with blogs perform better than businesses without blogs.

Below are some of the stats that support blogging for small businesses.

-Small businesses that blog generate 126 percent more leads than those that do not blog.
-81 percent of consumers in the United States trust information from blogs.
-Businesses that blog have 97 percent more inbound links and 434 percent more indexed pages.
In other words, your small business needs to publish content on its blog consistently.

However, before you start aimlessly publishing content to your blog, you need first to find and define your target audience.

Understanding your target audience is a critical component of an effective blogging strategy. Here are 3 tips for targeting the right audience on your small business blog.

Ask Yourself Some Questions

The goal of the blog is to attract visitors that could potentially benefit from your products or services. Therefore, the target audience of your blog typically mirrors the target audience of your business. You should be able to start defining your target audience by answer a few questions like:

What does your current client base look like? A great place to start with defining your target audience is to look at your current client makeup. While you might think you know your audience, if you analyze your current consumers, you will be able to craft your target audience based on concrete data.

What consumer problems does my business solve? If you can understand the issues that your clients face, it can help you publish articles that speak to those concerns and problems. Moreover, this can reveal your unique value proposition – which should be integrated into all your marketing messages, not just on the blog.

What action do you want this audience to take? Defining your audience is important, but you also should start to think about what action you want them to take once they land on your blog. Knowing the audience and their problems are critical, but you also need to think about what motivates them to act – after all, one of the main goals of your blog is to generate business.

Monitor Your Direct and Indirect Competition

When it comes to target market research, you can accomplish a lot by looking internally and analyzing your own customers – but, there is a wealth of information readily available from your direct and indirect competition.

Start by looking at your direct competition (similar businesses in your industry and market). If they have a blog, look at the topics of their content and the categories on their blog.

What posts get the most comments or social interactions? Keep track of the posts and themes that generate the most engagement, as those might be topics that you’ll want to prioritize.

You can also review their social media channels and look for trends in their followers and the types of content or topics that are the most popular. You might find that your competition gets a lot of engagement on Facebook, but not much on Twitter – this could indicate what social platform is most important to your target audience.

Don’t stop with your direct competition; monitor your indirect competition. When you are blogging, you’re not just competing for business; you’re competing for attention. Therefore, your indirect competition could include YouTube channels, podcasts, or other blogs that are taking the attention of your audience away from you.

Assessing your indirect competition can provide a completely new vantage point into the interest and activities of your target audience. You might discover a new way to engage your consumers that none of your direct competition has tried.

Use Primary Data to Understand Your Audience

Moving back to internal analysis, we can use primary research to pull information about your audience on a micro or macro level. If you haven’t yet, you need to set up Google Analytics on your website and business blog. This is a freemium tool from Google that provides comprehensive data about your website and its visitors.

Google Analytics is a powerful resource for researching your blog’s target audience. You can assess the age, gender, interest, and location of the visitors to your website and blog. You can also see what pages are frequented the most and other onsite engagement factors that can help you define your audience’s interests as it relates to your blog and business.

Other platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter have audience insight tools that allow you to see demographic and interest data on your followers and those who engage with your brand on the respective platform. You can also collect audience data through a survey, questionnaire, or contest.

In other words, there is no shortage of opportunity to collect primary data about your target audience – it just takes time and effort.

What Comes After Defining the Target Audience

Defining the target audience for your small business blog is incredibly important – but, there’s no right or wrong way to do it. The goal of this exercise of defining your target audience is meant to help you think critically about who you want and expect to see your blog content.

With those personas in mind, you will now need to start mapping out the rest of the blog strategy – the layout and theme, content topics, content execution process, and promotional tactics among other things.

Original post: 3 Tips for Targeting the Right Audience on Your Small Business Blog

This post is courtesy of: https://www.dailyblogtips.com

7 Ways to Instantly Increase Your Authority Online

It’s frustrating, isn’t it?

You’ve spent dozens of hours to bring people back to your website… just to see them go away. And never come back.

The number of comments, social shares and returning visitors? Embarrassing.

How many subscribers? Too little.

How about sales and fans? It’s just disappointing.

It feels like people don’t care about your message and the value you bring to them.

How is this even possible?

And more important…

Can you change all of that?

Maybe if people start seeing you as an authority, you can change that. If you become an authority, people will listen to you.

And with people listening to you… subscribers, sales and fans will be just a part of your daily routine.

So…

How do you become an authority?

Let me show you a few tricks…

1. Upload the right photos

I see too many website owners who underestimate the power of a picture. Someone said that “a picture is worth a thousand words”.

Just a single picture can have a huge impact on the way people perceive you.

The idea here is to use your pictures to boost your authority.

How?

You have many ways to do that…

The specifics depend on your niche, the pictures you have and the ones you can make.

Here’s an interesting example by Kulwant Nagi from Blogging Cage.

You can see him with Neil Patel in the picture… and if you’re interested in internet marketing, the chances are that you already know who Neil Patel is.

By showing a picture with a big authority in the field, Kulwant is basically communicating that he is an authority too.

But that is not the only way to harness the power of pictures. Here’s another example by Donna Moritz:

You can see that she is speaking in front of an audience. That is conveying authority.

If people gather to a place and pay to listen to you, it means you have something valuable to share.

Don’t limit yourself, you have so many options when it comes to using pictures to increase your authority:

• Do you teach dance on your blog? Post a picture where you are at the center of the stage for an exhibition.
• Are you a nutritionist? Upload a picture of you in a coat.
• Are you a life coach? Show a glimpse of your cool lifestyle.

2. Write a case study

Case studies are very powerful: you basically show people that you know how to get results – either for yourself or for someone else.

And a person who can get results is considered an authority.

Now, there’s a good and wrong way to write a case study.

The wrong way is to have just a mass of text with no proof.

The right way is to insert visual proof of anything that you can think about.

For example, you can take a look at my blog post “1700% Traffic Increase with a Simple Digital Marketing Strategy“.

You’ll notice lots of screenshots. Not only did I insert screenshots that prove my results, but I also placed a ton of images to show the process that I am teaching: this shows that I really know the topic.

Other than showing your own results, you can write about your clients’ ones.

A perfect example comes from this LeadQuizzes’s case studies.

I love what they did there.

They created a page with all their case studies and made it super-prominent – it’s in the menu near their logo, you just can’t miss it.

3. Get some testimonials

Testimonials work perfectly but are hard to get…

… unless you use a simple Jedi trick.

If your website provides value to people, you’ll get an email from a person who wants to thank you –  at least once in a while.

That’s the perfect moment to collect your testimonial: just ask the person if you can show his/her message on your website. The chances are that he/she is going to say yes.

By the way, this works also if you get a tweet, a message on Facebook or a comment on Instagram.

Notice that you can do this even without clients. A reader who thanks you is good enough.

And let me tell you that this is also retroactive: as long as you don’t delete your emails or messages, you can still capture your screenshot.

Once you have your testimonials, use them wildly.

Do you know how many testimonials Ramit Sethi has on one of his sales pages?

25!

That’s a ton of testimonials.

Your home page, sidebar, about page, emails, and sales pages are all perfect places for your testimonials.

4. Get associated with other authorities

The human mind, unconsciously, judges a person based on who he or she surrounds himself/herself with.

So, if you have interactions with other experts in your field, you’ll be associated with them – thus people will perceive you as an authority too.

Now, hanging out with authorities in your niche may be quite hard…

… but you don’t need to!

You just have to show that you can interact with them.

The simplest way is to interview some authorities.

The interview route has been taken by some very famous bloggers. For example Pat Flynn.

Most of the time experts will say yes to an interview – it’s free publicity for them.

And it will take you just a few hours between contacting, recording and editing!

And if you are shy or don’t like to talk in front of a recorder, you can always make a written interview.

The result is the same though – people will associate you with the authority you interview.

Another chance is to publish a round-up post.

You’ll have to work harder, but you’ll be associated with more experts in one shot.

5. Show your certifications

There’s a strange phenomenon that I still can’t explain.

When people apply for a job, they craft a marvelous curriculum full of all kinds of certifications, accomplishments, titles, etc…

… but when they craft a website, they forget altogether about these!

It is not like a degree doesn’t count on the web.

You probably spent dozens/hundreds of hours to get a certification – of any kind. Use it!

Do you have a relevant degree?

Take a picture of it and slam it on your about page.

Are you a certified yoga teacher?

Don’t limit yourself to writing about it, show it!

Here’s an example by Lindsay Kirsch:

Even if you don’t know anything about DigitalMarketer, ActiveCampaign and Lean Six Sigma, you’ll have a better first impression of Lindsay thanks to these logos.

Certifications will simply increase your authority. The more you have, the better.

6. Share interesting stories

I am flabbergasted by the number of people who don’t leverage stories in their online business.

An interesting story is a very powerful tool to convey authority and bond with readers at the same time.

Stories are so effective, that I am using one in the first couple of emails of my autoresponder sequence.

Of course, not every story is good.

First things first: your story has to convey your expertise.

Then, it’s better to show some kind of transformation – so that readers can identify themselves with you.

And finally, be sure that everyone reads your story.

Once I believed that everyone would read my about page… so I put my story only there. Then I discovered that almost no one was reading it!

Now I take any chance to share my story – including my sales page:

One of the best decisions of my life!

It increased my sales by a lot.

7. Talk about a weakness

Everyone has weaknesses.

But few people talk about them.

Why?

It requires confidence to do it.

By sharing a weakness you have, you show confidence and you can bond with your readers.

Take for example this amazing post by Jon Morrow:

It’s one of his most popular blog posts – it counts 261 comments at the moment.

Nice!

So… can you talk about any weakness?

No, some of them are better than others.

First of all, you want to share a weakness that has been an obstacle in your field.  Among them, you want to pick a weakness that you have overcome.

In this way, you’ll show that you both are human and have experience in your field.

Think about it…

Let’s suppose that you want to lose weight. There are two personal trainers close to you: one has always been in great shape, the other was previously overweight and then lost a ton of fat.

Which one would you prefer hiring?

I’m pretty sure that the second one will resonate more with you and will seem more experienced than the first one.

Conclusion

Now it’s your time.

You can decide to be ignored or you can get to work and be the authority you want to be.

Imagine how it will feel when loads of people will come to you for your advice…

… how will it feel when you have lots of clients and raving fans?

Does it feel good?

Well, then it’s time to accomplish all of that.

Guest author: Andrew Morrison is a digital marketing strategist who helps bloggers, marketers, and entrepreneurs turn their websites into fine-tuned businesses. He has been an online business owner since 2011, but he didn’t get to work on a tropical beach yet because his girlfriend loves winter! Follow his blog for practical digital marketing tips.

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Tech Content Marketers Talk Content Creation Challenges, Tools, and Trends [New Research]

Sixty-eighty percent of tech content marketers named creating content that appeals to multiple roles as their top challenge. Find out what else they had to say in Technology Content Marketing 2019: Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends. Continue reading →

The post Tech Content Marketers Talk Content Creation Challenges, Tools, and Trends [New Research] appeared first on Content Marketing Institute.

Tips from Corporate Video Producers: How to Conduct Excellent On-Camera Interviews

Corporate video testimonial is perhaps the best way to tell believable and genuine stories about anyone or anything related to the business world. Knowing how to carry out proper corporate video editing is a great way to highlight a business. In this article, you will learn 10 amazing corporate video editing tips to make a marketing video stand out.

Tips to take into consideration when making a corporate video testimonial

Prepare your questions ahead of time
Do not rush your questions. It is important to take your time and write them ahead of time. When choosing the right questions, it’s always a good idea to pick those that will make the interview flow. Do not use a lot of close-ended questions that lead to yes or no answers. Instead, begin questions with: who, what, when, where, why and how.

Choose the right interviewee
When telling a good story, a lot of it falls under the jurisdiction of the storyteller. To achieve great storytelling, the interviewee must be brilliant! Even if he is a successful CEO, that doesn’t mean that he is the best person to be telling the story. It is a good thing to pick those persons with whom you can related and empathize without hurting your own feelings.

Don’t force someone to get an interview
Always remember, if you want to excel at corporate video editing, you can’t force people to be interviewed. You need to avoid answers like “I don’t even want to do this”, or “Let’s get this over with”. A great video expresses energy and success. So, the key here is to make sure the person feels passionate when telling his or her story. It must feel genuine. Audiences love genuine conversation. Therefore, take your time when selecting a candidate.

Consider Pre-Interviews
Pre-interviews are what is known as short conversations to test different people. Usually these are 10-15 minutes long and you carry them out with different people until you find the best person for the job. You can do this in-person or over the phone. It is better to do this in-person since you can also watch for body language and charisma. A good storyteller is someone who catch your attention and makes you want to hear more. That is why, companies should always use their strongest players for corporate video testimonial.

Create a warm atmosphere
When you are preparing the interview, make sure to sit down with your guest and chit-chat for a few minutes. Inform him about the order of events, and how you are going to conduct the interview. Some coaching is always appreciated. Try to remind them that their answers will be edited and that their “umms” or “ahhs” will be eliminated. Always let them know that do-overs are okay! In the end, just remind them to smile and enjoy the interview.

Make the conversation flow
It is really important that you listen to your guest’s responses and continue to ask new questions. If your interview turns into a conversation that you lead, you have got a gem in your possession. Once the conversation has run its course and you feel ready to move into another direction, just go back to your original line of questioning.

Choose a very quiet room
Audio quality is important during corporate video editing. Even the slightest noise can be a problem during the testimonial. Therefore, it is vital that whenever you are interviewing a client, make sure that the room is quiet.

Do not give out specific questions in advance
You cannot give the questions to the interview before the video! This only leads to a have a robot on the set! No matter what, you cannot surrender something as precious as the questions for the interview. If the interviewee insists on having the questions beforehand, just give them the general line of questioning, nothing specific.

Consider scenery changes
If you are filming multiple testimonial in one day, a change of scenery is always a good idea. This is not so simple of course since you may need to keep the same background for every testimonial. However, give yourself some time to allow for scene or framing changes. In the end, this will give each interviewee a unique look that will differentiate the storytellers.

Position your interviewee’s eye-line
Last but not least, you have to position yourself near to or very close to the videographer in a way that your interviewee looks at you and not directly at the camera. This interesting camera set-up will create a visually elegant interview. An interview directed at camera can still be appropriate but the end result will be different. So, make sure you’ve selected the eye-line decision prior to the shoot. Also, you may encounter some individuals that will look at you, then at the camera, then back at you. This is a common mistake! When this happens, pause the shoot and remind your guest to look at you at all times.

Follow these 10 tips and you will excel at corporate video editing in a matter of time!

Robart Det has over five years of experience in the field of Video editing. He specializes writing articles on video production topics on his blog. He is presently working at  viddedit, a reputable presence in the video industry.

Original post: Tips from Corporate Video Producers: How to Conduct Excellent On-Camera Interviews

This post is courtesy of: https://www.dailyblogtips.com

How User Intent Affects Your SEO Performance: Intent-Based Keyword Research

At the beginning of the century, keyword research was quite a simple thing – webmasters could collect a wide range of all the words somehow connected with your content, and it would rank high. Search engines’ algorithms were mechanical and robotic, so, looking for the pages relevant to queries, they relied on the number of similar keywords.

Modern technologies of machine learning allow search engines to provide users with high-quality and relevant results based on their intent, not just on the words they use. That’s why building your SEO strategy around high-volume keywords doesn’t work anymore. Today there are loads of factors which matter for your website ranking and for traffic it drives. And user intent is one that matters significantly.

In this post, I’ll tell you what user intent is, and how it should affect your keyword research. Understanding it, you’ll develop your SEO and improve your content strategy.

Understanding user intent

Well, what actually is user intent?

It’s the reason why a person types his or her query into the search field. If I enter ‘how to fix a zipper’, Google will understand I need instruction, not a link to an online shop with garment accessories. That’s why to implement an intent-based SEO strategy, first of all, you should know what types of intent experts usually distinguish.

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Although search engine algorithms have improved significantly, sometimes it’s still challenging for search robots to understand what people mean when typing specific queries. If I enter ‘doctor’ into the search field, Google won’t be sure what I want to see, so it’ll provide the following results:

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You can see Google selected all the possible results people could expect conducting such a query. When users don’t denote their intent, the search engine will provide them with several types of search results.

Why intent-based SEO is important

Knowing what your potential customers want to find on your website is the key to success. You should identify who your target audience is if you want to drive conversion.

For instance, I run a travel blog and create a post called ‘Around the world in 80 days,’ which is the name of both a popular film and a book. Although the volume of this key phrase is pretty high, if I manage to rank for the query, the huge traffic driving to my website won’t bring me that many subscribers. Why? Because, in 99% of cases, their intent will be to watch the film or read the book.

Furthermore, not only organic SEO but also your PPC campaign can suffer from targeting the wrong intent. Do you remember PPC stands for ‘pay-per-click’? Not denoting clear intent can provide false expectations for users. If they click through your advertisements and then leave the page not seeing what they expected, you’ll spend loads of money in vain.

So, targeting the keywords which don’t fit your intent won’t improve your conversions and can even result in wasting money. That’s why conducting keyword research and creating content for your website, you should consider user intent.

User intent and keyword research

What does user-intent keyword research consist of?

Everyone who knows the basic SEO concepts will tell you about search volume, competitive analysis, and maybe even about the keyword difficulty level. But most of them will probably forget about such a crucial factor as user intent. Unfortunately, it’s not that easy to select only intent-based keywords (and there’s no need).

I’ve circled out best practices which will help you target the right intent for your website.

LSI keywords

Google algorithms not only see target keywords, but they also consider the whole content of the page. And LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) keywords are those which will help you answer users’ queries and create useful content.

These words provide high relevancy and let search robots better understand the content, meaning and synonymic context of the search query. For instance, if your text contains such words as ‘engine,’ ‘tires,’ ‘install new filter,’ etc., search engines will determine that you write about auto repairing and your site may rank for a ‘auto repair’ search question.

What if your new post’s main keyword is ‘friends’? How does Google understand whether you write about people you’ve got the platonic relationship with or your article is about the popular TV series?

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In this case, search robots indexing your page and seeing the phrases ‘episodes,’ ‘Lisa Kudrow,’ ‘David Crane’ will understand that the topic is about the TV series. The words ‘friendship,’ ‘relationship,’ ‘faithful’ will denote that, perhaps, the post contains tips on how to be a good friend.

The easiest way to collect such words is by typing your keyword into the Google search field and looking at the search suggestions the search engine provides.

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You should also pay attention to the ‘searches related to’ feature. If you scroll down the page with search results, you’ll see additional suggestions of the phrases you can add to your LSI keywords list:

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Choose phrases consisting of more than two words. Selecting long-tail keywords is also useful if you want to hit the top as soon as possible. Although they may have low or mid-volume, these phrases usually drive higher conversions, as people using long phrases often know what they’re looking for.

Competitor analysis

If you’re not sure whether you can select intent-based keywords, look at the most successful market players in the niche. What keywords do they rank for? To find out the answer, the first thing you should do is to identify your closest rivals.

If you’re opening a hair salon, and you’re not sure who your main competitors are, you can simply enter ‘hair salon [your city]’ in the search field. The top results provide you with the most popular hair salons in your city.

Now it’s time to discover which keywords they use. Checking it with a random keyword tool won’t be that convenient as most of the phrases will probably contain a brand name. But if you go either with Serpstat or Ahrefs, you can conduct the side-by-side comparison of your site with two or more competitors at once. It allows you to exclude brand mentions from the keyword list. I decided to use Serpstat, and here’s what I’ve got:

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Mind your snippets

Add your intent-based keywords to the metadata displayed in your snippets. Use your LSI words not only in the body of your article but also implement them into your metadata texts. It’s essential to make your page intent clear in your snippet, as this brief extract affects your click-through-rate and rankings significantly.

Why is it that important? Yes, metadata isn’t actually a ranking factor. But the impression it provides can cause great or bad user experience. If I type ‘iPhone’ into a search engine and I am willing to buy a new one and not denoting my intent in the search query, Google will provide me with the results with both informational and transactional intent. In this case, the snippets with ‘buy’ keywords will be the signals for me that there are online shops where I can purchase what I want. If some shop doesn’t denote its intent in the metadata and provides only such data as phone characteristics, I’ll think there’s some review on iPhone features and won’t click through the link. In this case, even high ranking won’t drive significant traffic.

Target buying intent but don’t underestimate informational intent

Last but not least. The conclusion you could have walked away is probably that you should separate informational and transactional intent and never mix them. But it’s not that simple. Having an eCommerce website, you shouldn’t dwell on transactional intent alone.

Even though people looking for ‘how to’ queries obviously have informational intent, they may well become your customers. For example, most SEO companies not only promote their service but also run blogs where they answer to most typical SEO questions and give tips. So, if you search for ‘keyword research’ half (or even more) of the posts in the search results will be written by SEO companies which strive to increase brand credibility and gain new customers.

The best tactics for an eCommerce website is to provide both informational and transactional intent. Once a user finds out the necessary data on your site, his or her next step may be becoming your client.

Guest author: Inna Yatsyna is a Brand and Community Developing Specialist at Serpstat, an all-in-one SEO platform. She likes writing useful posts and helping people. Also, Inna is a passionate lover of traveling, reading, and especially dogs.

The post How User Intent Affects Your SEO Performance: Intent-Based Keyword Research appeared first on Jeffbullas’s Blog.

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Branded Content, Native Ads, or Content Marketing?

Understanding the differences among content marketing, branded content, and native advertising can help you make a better business case for each and optimize your chance for success. Let the learning begin. Continue reading →

The post Branded Content, Native Ads, or Content Marketing? appeared first on Content Marketing Institute.

How bloggers and freelancers can manage a virtual team effectively

Businesses of all sizes often struggle to manage many aspects of their day-to-day operations, including blogging, design, and social media. Fortunately, technology is making it easier for businesses to access the skills they need without having to add permanent staff members to their payroll.

For this reason, many businesses are opting to outsource tasks and responsibilities to external agencies and freelance professionals. Bloggers and website owners are also going into this trend and outsourcing tasks related to their business. But how can they effectively manage a team that doesn’t share a workspace?

Define expectations
Employees will be more productive and are far more likely to succeed when given a clear set of guidelines and shared goals.

Providing detailed briefs that outline the expectations of the business, company etiquette, and establish clear standardized work processes will help remote workers feel like part of a team, rather than a group of individuals.

Utilize a range of communication solutions
When managing a virtual team, maintaining regular communication is vital. Assigning specific communication channels for different tasks can help define business processes and provide a sense of structure, which can often prove difficult in a virtual environment.

It’s important to use the appropriate platform of communication for the situation at hand. For example, sensitive interactions, such as performance reviews or disciplinary measures, should be handled via a face-to-face video call (or, when this is not possible, over a phone call) to maintain professionalism and give your team members the level of respect they deserve.

Use a virtual phone system

Deploying a virtual phone system is a simple way for small businesses to communicate with customers and colleagues without the worry and expense of installing a landline setup. This type of service can also be scaled up or down with the rate of the business.

There are many that include several other value-adding features such as hold music, voicemail transcription and ‘click to call’ buttons. Some providers also offer an automated receptionist solution, meaning each caller is greeted in a professional manner and handled with a consistent level of efficiency.

Video conferencing
Video conferencing can be a great way to connect virtual teams. Holding regular conference calls with all team members present helps keep everyone updated with each other’s progress. It also provides an opportunity for any questions to be raised, brainstorming exercises or sharing content ideas, so that everyone leaves the ‘meeting’ feeling energized and with a good understanding of the tasks at hand.

Create virtual coffee breaks
Humans are social creatures, but as part of a virtual team, members often miss out on all those daily interactions traditional office workers take for granted. Ensuring there is an informal company-wide chat platform in place can help maintain a feeling of social connection. If your team gets to know and trust each other on a personal level, they’ll be far more productive as a workforce.

Project management tools

When projects require the participation of several remote employees working in different locations, project management software can help streamline processes within the same project, so that all members have a clear timeline of completed and pending tasks.

Time tracking tools, such as Trello or Asana, provide a valuable overview of resources, giving key insight into how employees are spending their time, and highlighting areas where resources could be used more effectively. This can be particularly useful when several members are servicing one client.

Store it in the cloud

Manage documents in the cloud, so that team members can access and collaborate on files, at any time or place. This also avoids any potential for mistakes when team members are all working from different versions of the same document.

A shared cloud is an ideal space to keep a master plan or project overview. This should include important details such as the purpose of the project/main objectives, the core work hours of team members, and each member’s individual responsibilities. This enables all team members to understand their position and importance within the team as a whole.

Meritocracy is key

It can be easy to lose momentum when working as part of a remote team. Putting incentives in place will show your virtual team that you value them as much as an in-house employee and help them to feel less isolated.

Where possible, set goals, conduct performance reviews, and offer the same benefits that in-house staff receive.

As the world rapidly becomes increasingly interconnected, remote workforces are set to become commonplace. However, distance doesn’t have to be a barrier to success. With the right tools and management techniques, businesses can continue to enjoy the rewards of leading a productive and cohesive team, even when those team members are physically far apart.

Original post: How bloggers and freelancers can manage a virtual team effectively

This post is courtesy of: https://www.dailyblogtips.com