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Making Your Blog More Professional

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Appearances aren’t everything, but they are pretty darned important. Making a good first impression, either in person or online, is the key to being successful. Having a professional looking blog will draw in more readers, and ultimately lead to you getting more clients (if your blog is business related). Simply plugging in a pre-made WordPress theme and using comic sans just isn’t cutting it anymore. For tips on how to streamline your blog and make it even more professional, check out this post by Em at Mascara Warrior:

-Add a custom favicon

-Remove the Navbar

-Purchase and install a custom domain

-Install Google Analytics

-Add a Pin It hover button

Photo Credit: Danny Sullivan 

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Need A Job In College? Here Are Some Ideas

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… That you don’t have to leave your dorm to do. Some people think that the work-from-home world is solely for stay-at-home moms, or for people who live in rural areas that telecommute to a major company. However, that is simply not true! There are all kinds of work-from-home jobs out there, for people from all walks of life. Work-from-home jobs are especially great for college students. It’s a great way to earn extra cash, without taking out valuable studying time to commute. If you are in college and looking for some work opportunities, check out this post at Freebie Finding Mom for some ideas:

-Become a tutor and work through your college, or out of your own home.

-Dog sit or Babysit

-Freelancer- Are you an English major? Into graphic design? Studying a foreign language? There are all kinds of freelancing jobs out there. Freelancing is an option for many industries including finances, graphic design, IT, copywriting, translating, and administrative tasks. Depending on your industry, there are specific websites you’ll want to check out. For example,99designs.com is great for graphic designers and artists. You may also want to look into www.elance.com.

Photo Credit: Audio-Luci-Store 

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Social Media Blunders That Could Cost You

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There are plenty of social media tips floating around there for real estate professionals and other self employed contractors. Usually, these tips cover what you SHOULD do on social media, and how to use it to benefit yourself. But, using the internet wisely is also knowing what NOT to do. Check out this post by Katie Lance at Inman for some faux pas to avoid on Facebook and Twitter; it’s written specifically for real estate agents, but I think that bloggers and others working from home will find them useful as well: 

-Don’t outsource your social media: write it all yourself. 

-Don’t automate it- it makes you look spammy

-Don’t sync your Facebook and Twitter- it looks lazy: create separate posts for both.

-Don’t just post your listings- get creative! Take photos and videos

-Don’t be a broken record- be sure to come up with new content

Photo Credit: Mikogo 

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How Much Should A Domain Name Be?

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Having a good domain name is crucial if you conduct any business online. Sure, some professionals strictly stick to just social media for marketing, but every legitimate business owner has more of an online presence than just a Facebook. Your domain name communicates exactly who you are, what kind of service you provide, and should hook customers and make them interested in your brand. It’s like a book title! But sometimes, the domain name you want is taken. Sometimes, the current owner will be willing to sell. But how much is too much? This post by Kathleen Daniels at Active Rain shares her recent experience with trying to buy a domain name from someone who was selling it:

What the heck I thought, I’ll complete the form just to see what they are asking. I’d pretty much determined it would be for sale at a high premium.  But, I had nothing to lose. Meanwhile, I continued to search for a domain name.  

I later came up with a different domain name, that was available for around $100.

Today, I received a response to my inquiry to purchase the two-word domain name which is available for sale. They were asking for $14,000.00 … definitely too much for me to pay!

Photo Credit: UTC Library 

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Ways To Give Your Iphone More Battery

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For any professional, especially those working from home and dealing with clients, your smartphone is your lifeline. If you’re out and about, a dead phone is one of the worst things that can happen to you for your business- especially if you depend on it for calling, texting, emailing, and GPS. It can be avoided by planning ahead, but sometimes the battery life just seems to drain away extremely fast. This post by Alan White at Buzzfeed shows the most common battery killers in Iphones:

-Limit your location services- apps that are constantly using your GPS feature to update your location are really bad for your battery. Go to Privacy > Location Services > Off.

-Close the apps you’re not using- double tap the main button, and swipe up to close them. Delete apps you don’t want anymore by holding down and pressing the X.

-Turn the brightness down- Go to settings > Wallpaper and Brightness, then turn it down just enough to where you can still read it.

-Turn on airplane mode when you’re not going to be using your phone for a while- it’ll do wonders for your battery life.

-Turn off automatic downloads- go to Settings > Itunes and App Store > Automatic Downloads – then swipe it to “Off”.

Photo Credit: Ged Carroll 

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How to Build Coworker Relationships While Working from Home

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Working from home has a ton of perks, but one drawback (or extra perk, if you’re a hermit) is the lack of face to face communication. Sure, you e-mail, talk on the phone, or even use video calls- but none of this compares to having meaningful in-person relationships with coworkers. This can be problematic, especially if you are trying to network and make even more professional connections. Luckily, Kerry Schofield at co.exist has some tips for creating more significant work relationships while telecommuting:

The research of Dunbar and his colleagues indicates that virtual relationships may require more effort, patience, and TLC than in-person ones to make them work. In short, emails and text messages are simply not as satisfying to most humans as a chat over coffee.

So with all our amazing high tech options for virtual conferencing these days, what does research suggest is best–video calls, text-based approaches (such as email or IM), or a good old-fashioned phone call? Well, none of them are likely to be as satisfying or influential as an in-person meeting.

Of the virtual options, video conferencing emerged as the most effective for emotionally impactful, meaningful interactions, probably because video conferencing–unlike text or audio-only media–allows us to process non-verbal communication such as facial expression and gestures.

Photo Credit: Nan Palmero 

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Texting for Professionals 101

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Even though the word “texting” is not even recognized by online spellcheckers as a word yet, it is here to stay. One of the fastest forms of modern communication, texting allows the brevity of phone calls combined with the convenience of emails: it’s like the best of both worlds. And with the advent of texting comes an entire new language of abbreviations, emoticons, and memes. While using this language can be fun with friends, it’s important to remember that you need to maintain a professional attitude with professional contacts. Laura Monroe at Inman News gives the top 5 texting mistakes and how to avoid them:

A text is NOT an email. Email is not text.  Although it IS possible to send videos, files, photos and copy/paste links, emails, etc., into a text message, it doesn’t always mean you should. –

be empathetic to any possible scenarios the receiver may have, and keep it efficient.

Typos DO matter in business.

You don’t have a signature on your mobile email account. Get professional. Add a text signature. A short one.

You assume I have you in my contact list on my phone.  If it’s a first-time text, send your contact information.

You forgot what a salutation is. “Hi.” “Hello.” “Good morning.”  Show a person you care by addressing them, and by personalizing your salutation.

Photo Credit: Jhaymesisvip 

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5 Tips for Telecommuting

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Working from home is great, especially for introverts who dislike dealing with people on a daily basis. Unfortunately, most of us will have to telecommute at some time or another (every day for some of you) or collaborate on a project. Yes, telecommuting is still much better than putting on pants and driving to work every day, but it still has its difficulties. Ritika Trikha at CareerBliss shares several tips to make your telecommuting experience easier:

1. Send Files Securely: Unsecured broadband or wireless networks (public Wi-Fi hotspots) can be risky. Be careful! There are tools more secure than others. For instance, “ShareFile is as easy-to-use as consumer-grade file-sharing tools and its security is IT-department-approved,” 

2. Switch Documents to Cloud-Based Apps: There’s nothing more annoying than to search thousands of emails to find that one document. And, of course, you forgot its file name. And what if your email crashes? Thank goodness for the Cloud!

3. Consistency is Key — Avoid Email Chains You can’t avoid emailing — but you should avoid massive chains.

4. Opt for Video Conferencing Vs Telephone “The ability to both hear and see a colleague can help facilitate that bond of trust in a way that a phone call can’t,” says Michael Woodward, an organizational psychologist and author of The YOU Plan.

5. Rid Yourself of ‘Email Armor’ “Email armor” is when you have a tendency to be more aggressive about critiques than you normally would be if you were speaking to them directly.

Photo Credit: Garfield Anderssen 

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