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Electronic Signatures

Electronic signatures, also known as e-signatures, have become normal for a lot of people. They are essentially a product of the digital revolution that we’re experiencing – but do they hold the same weight as conventional signatures?

Although this is a question probably best answered by your local commercial lawyer, our team has rallied to provide some simple insights into the issue. As always, the following shouldn’t be seen as legal advice, but as simple informational content.

What is an e-signature?

Basically, an electronic signature is exactly what is sounds like – a signature that has been created via some sort of digital device. They come in a variety of forms, but are increasingly common as part of our everyday lives.

A lot of companies will make you sign electronically for things. For example, if you want to pick up a registered parcel from Australia Post, you will have to sign for it – on a digital device.

Are electronic signatures legal?

In Australia electronic signatures are seen as a rapid, streamlined way to work, reducing the need for paper copies of every document and increasing efficiency. In general, electronic signatures are completely legal in Australia, and they usually carry the same weight as conventional signatures.

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7 Steps To Choosing The Best VPS Hosting Service For Your Website

For any business owner who does not have an unlimited budget, but who still wants the most reliable web hosting service available, an excellent option is to choose virtual private server hosting (VPS). VPS hosting provides an upgrade from shared hosting and thus many of the pitfalls that shared hosting has, such as limited resources and potential slow page load speeds, are all but eliminated.

This does mean that VPS hosting costs more than shared hosting, but the increased investment is more than worth it and is an extremely cost-effective way of securing reliable web hosting for your business’s website. If you have decided that VPS hosting is the right choice for your business here are 7 steps that will help you make the best choice of VPS web hosting service.

#1 Assess What Resources And Services You Require: The first step in choosing a VPS hosting service is to determine whether they can provide the resources and services that you require. Resources refer to the amount of server storage and server speeds as well as operating systems if this is important for the website you plan to host there. You also want to check what additional services are included and which cost extra.

#2 Check Their Reviews And Testimonials: As with purchasing any service for your business, you must research the web hosting company you are considering. This will include online reviews which you will find on their website, on social media and on independent review sites such as Trustpilot. Further research amongst business associates might identify one of their current clients where you can find out firsthand what their service is like.

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3 SEO Mistakes

If you are a business owner then hopefully you have had the good sense to employ a professional commercial cleaning company to clean your offices and other parts of your business premises. This presents you with many benefits, not least the fact that you can leave the planning and implementation of the cleaning schedule to them.

However, the cleanliness of your offices is not 100% their responsibility. On a day to day basis, you and your staff can contribute to how clean and healthy your offices are by taking some responsibility for keeping them clean such as tidying up any mess they create, wiping up spills when they happen, and so on.

For this to be achieved you do not necessarily have to give your staff comprehensive cleaning training, even though that would be beneficial, but you can at least make them aware of the need for cleanliness. In addition, you can also pass on to them some office cleaning hacks such as the fifteen below.

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The Pros And Cons Of Using Professional Removalists To Relocate Your Office

Whenever an office relocation is going to take place, numerous decisions and choices that have to be made. The first one is deciding that your business is going to move to new premises. Thereafter, whether the location of the new premises will be nearby, interstate or overseas. As you plan for an office relocation there is a further decision to be made, and that is what, if any, office removalists company you are going to hire. If your business decides to move interstate, interstate removalists will be a reliable option.

We say, “if any”, because hiring office removalists is not compulsory, and it could be that you have other contacts and resources that will help you with your office relocation. You may also be toying with whether or not paying for office removalists going to be the best use of your relocation budget.

If you are still unsure as to whether office removalists would be the best choice, we want to help you move closer to a decision. We hope to do so by outlining the pros and the cons of office removals helping to move your business to new premises. Hopefully, once you read through these you will be in a position to make your final decision, so let us get started with downsides first.

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With drug testing often being included in an employee’s contract of employment, there is the possibility that one day the test comes back positive, which means their employer has a very important decision to make. The options that are available to the employer range from termination, with the possibility of taking legal action against the individual, through to supporting them wholeheartedly which may even include them offering to pay for their employee’s drug rehab program.

If you own or run a business and have never had to face the reality of finding out a member of your staff is taking drugs, then if it does happen you might be shocked, and this runs the risk of you making a decision in haste. Instead, it is preferable that you are prepared in advance for this situation, and that means understanding what your options are, and what the consequences of each of them are.

The first thing you should focus on is checking whether or not the terms and conditions of the contracts which your employees have signed cover the misuse of drugs and what might happen if they fail a drug test. Regardless of how lenient or how severe you might wish any action that you could take against the individual to be, you are walking into a legal minefield if there are no policies regarding drug use specified in their terms and conditions.

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Design-Mistakes

There is lots of advice and information out there relating to SEO that tells you what you should do. However, it is every bit as important to know what you should not do in order to protect your rankings and your website.

One mistake with your SEO can literally mean the end of your website as far as Google is concerned with regards to ranking it. To help ensure it never happens to you, here are 3 mistakes you definitely want to avoid.

Publishing Sub-Standard Content

This still remains the number one mistake made by website owners. They spend their time focussing on backlinks, and the design of their website, and then post content that is useless at best, and damaging at worst.

Google places an extremely high premium on quality content, and so should you. It is the key to many things that affect your rankings, so do not be tempted into thinking you can get away with posting poor content.

Poor Onsite Navigation

Another common mistake is for website owners to invest a huge amount of time and energy trying to obtain backlinks from other websites but forgetting to set them up on their own website.

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Digital Marketing Tactics

The modern world of online business is extremely competitive. It can be very hard to gain an advantage if you’re not at the top of your game, which is why it’s so important to take advantage of a range of digital marketing techniques.

However, it’s not enough to simply get out there and say that you’re going to do some digital marketing. You need to understand what you’re doing, and work towards developing a clear strategy that will work for you and your business.

To help you do this, I’ve put together a list of my top six digital marketing tactics. Feel free to include them in your strategy, but make sure that you do your own research as well.

  1. Use A/B Testing

It doesn’t matter what marketing stream your targeting – it could be search engine marketing, social media marketing, Google Ads, or something else altogether – A/B testing remains essential.

Basically, A/B testing refers to the act of creating two (or more) different ad campaigns, running them concurrently, and determining which works better. Logically, you will then use the better performing campaign for the majority of your marketing efforts.

  1. SEO Blogging

If you’re willing to put a bit of time and money into blogging, you will be able to leverage both SEO and content marketing to your advantage. Think about creating high-quality, SEO optimised blogs for your website which answer common questions that your potential customers will be asking. Then, share these blogs to your social media profiles, and anywhere else possible, to encourage people to visit your site.

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Facebook Ads

If you run a small landscaping business, you’re probably always looking for new ways to gain more clients and grow your workforce. The modern world is very digitally oriented, which means that you need to build a strong digital strategy. Your digital strategy should include things like Facebook and other social media marketing.

When it comes to Facebook ads marketing, it can be hard to get a decent return on investment, especially when you’re trying to sell something like landscaping services. However, there are a lot of different things that you can do to optimise the performance of your Facebook ads, including:

Making sure your ads are properly targeted:

High quality targeting is arguably the most important part of running a successful Facebook ads campaign. One of the best things about advertising on Facebook is the customizability that you have when it comes to choosing your audience. You can target your ads by a wide range of things, including age, gender, physical location and interests.

As a small, presumably localised landscaping business, you need to target your ads by location. You may also want to set age and interest parameters, but you will have to work these out for yourself. Ultimately, you want to be presenting your ads to people who are likely to use your services.

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Content Marketing

If you’ve recently built a new WordPress website or have website designers creating one for you, then you might be wondering how to go about promoting it and building a larger audience. A few google searches might have revealed terms like ‘search engine marketing’, ‘search engine optimisation’ or ‘pay per click marketing’. However, there’s one often overlooked long-term strategy that all website owners should be using: content marketing.

Content marketing is a relatively broad term, and it involves the use of different types of web content – such as blogs, videos or graphics – to promote your website. When used right, content marketing can drive new visitors to your WordPress website well into the future, so it’s important to make it a focus for your new site.

Here are five reasons why you should focus on content marketing for your new WordPress website:

  1. Content Marketing Will Improve Your SEO Score

Creating high quality written and visual content will help boost your website up the search engine results pages, especially if you focus on including relevant keywords. If you manage to rank highly for a high traffic keyword, then this could benefit your site for years into the future.

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Best Social Media Platform For Landscapers

Social media is without a doubt an extremely important part of digital marketing for landscapers. However, there are many, many different social media platforms out there, and it can be hard to decide which ones are the most effective and best to use.

Ultimately, landscaping is a predominantly visual art. You want to be using a social media platform which allows you to showcase your work using pictures and videos, and which delivers these to your followers fast and efficiently. Although a Facebook page is essential for your business, Instagram offers an easier way to share visual content.

What are the benefits of using Instagram for my landscaping business?

The benefits of using Instagram are numerous. You will be able to engage with more people, you will be able to build a large client base and you will be able to complete your weekly social media marketing tasks quickly and efficiently. Some of the other benefits of using Instagram to showcase your landscaping work include:

  • A huge percentage of the world’s population now uses Instagram. The number people using the platform recently passed one billion, which means that there’s huge potential to find new clients by using it.
  • Instagram lets you share photos and videos quickly and efficiently without having to worry about spending time creating written content.
  • Ultimately, people are more likely to react to visual content than to written content anyway, which makes it more important than ever to use a platform like Instagram to showcase your landscaping work.

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