If you operate a small or medium-sized enterprise, you may be concerned about how well protected your business might be online. Ultimately most companies have to have an online presence, and with that comes eventual security beaches.

Gone are the days when we knew every type of malicious attacks such as malware, phishing, or virus that would occur.

Technology has evolved, so too has the level of malware, viruses, breaches, and other harmful online security threats.

Since these threats can no longer be handled manually, you have to use advanced software that uses machine learning to stop the threats in their tracks.

The good news is that you can get peace of mind by using Advanced Threat Protection.

Therefore, we’ve included our review of the VIPRE Advanced Threat Protection software to help you protect your business.

Let’s start by looking at the software in more detail below.

What is VIPRE Advanced Threat Protection?

VIPRE Advanced Threat protection applies a multi-pronged approach to cyber threats offering you full network protection. This is so important for security operators of companies to quickly detect, analyze, and control potential hazards to your organization. All in all, the aim is to ensure that when anything is detected, it can quickly be remedied.

This helps bring back the system to normal functioning.

This option is an advanced one for businesses that know how powerful cybersecurity software can leverage machine learning. Ultimately this capability is shown by offering the threat analyzer sandbox, cloud-based intelligence in the form of ThreatIQ, and support to help you manage it.

If this is your first encounter with VIPRE, it’s so important to know that the company has been around since 1994, serving the titans of industry with an extensive suite of business protection options.

Let’s consider more detailed information about the software and how you can leverage it effectively in your business.

Features and benefits

ThreatAnalyzer

ThreatAnalyzer is a dynamic malware analysis tool. This works like a sandbox and helps you safely unpack the impact of malware on your organization. This means you are more prepared when there is a real threat.

This works well in that we will often see security risks disguised as files we know, such as PDFs, MS Office documents, and more. We easily click the links, and that’s when it can lead to malicious sites, and that can quickly negatively impact your business. Using the ThreatAnalyzer, you have a powerful weapon against future attacks.

ThreatAnalyzer has an extremely customizable environment. Therefore, you can recreate your virtual and native application stack. This will show you exactly how the malware behaves across your systems.

More than that, you will be able to identify your network shortcomings quickly. This is done by looking at the malware and typical patterns that help it exploit all your environments.

Finally, the behavioral detection engine looks at unknown malware and looks for signals that it might be a threat. It will consider how to fight this attack.

This can be used on the cloud, where it’s housed, or directly on your company server. It’s a matter of which option for the best method for you.

How it works:

• It will analyze and win against almost any cyber attack.
• Using this tool, you can quickly review suspicious attacks and reroute them.
• You can use the tool to curb ransomware, zero-day threats, which can be moved to a sandbox, where it is detonated and then used as a model to fight future attacks.
• A great benefit is that you can learn more about future attacks without compromising your current system.
• This can be used anywhere, even for the most sensitive organizations like government security.
• You can then run the executable files and URLs in the monitored space, and then it will do the work to identify those threats
• Once you detonate the malware samples, you’ll also know which systems need work since they can easily be affected.

Let’s now look at the second part of the protection.

ThreatIQ

ThreatIQ gives you real-time information to prevent and strengthen your security online. This can also help you stop any attacks before they even start. We know how sophisticated cyber threats have become, using drive-by websites, ransomware, and other attacks like phishing emails.

The good news is that ThreatIQ is cloud-based threat intelligence. This is done by using dynamic behavioral analysis reports. The malware samples are then sent to VIPRE labs, where they send back analysis in detail of the challenges.

Additionally, there are online border patrol reports, which means that any suspicious or malicious domains, subdomains, and IPs are checked.

Also, you will have access to a variety of malware traffic reports. This includes network captures files that have potentially harmful samples.

How it works:

• The software provides you with current data. This includes real-time information from across the globe to give you an idea of where attacks may originate.
• This helps you focus your cybersecurity effectively.
• The lab can then support you to quarantine these attacks.
• In that way, it doesn’t just stop one attack vector but a variety of them using ThreatIQ, so you are always covered for every type of infiltration.
• It also works on a flexible set of REST API’s to make it so easy to operate.

Pros

These are some of the advantages of using VIPRE Advanced Threat Protection:

• Comprehensive threat protection that uses machine learning and sophisticated software to stop malware in its tracks.
• Easy to set up and use.
• Support labs offered by VIPRE to help identify potential risks.
• Provides rigorous reports on threats to your company and also helps you plan for future threats.

Challenges

These are some of the challenges of Advanced Threat Protection:

• It does consume a lot of space upon the first installation, so that may slow down your computer.
• It may involve a learning curve if you are new to the software, so allow for this.

Final Thoughts on VIPRE Security Solutions

VIPRE Advanced Threat Protection is a cybersecurity software that uses advanced tools to help you keep your company’s network safe from malware, hacks, and phishing.

It always stays ahead of the curve by offering two parts.

The first being the ThreatAnalyzer, which will help you review any suspicious activity on your company network, isolate it, and effectively deal with it.

Additionally, you can also take it a step further by using the ThreatIQ part of the software, which intelligently works to give you real-time information about online threats and learning more about potential malware.

Understanding both parts will be helpful when choosing to use this software. We recommend reviewing your company’s security needs and VIPRE Advanced Threat Protection’s features and benefits before making the final decision.

If you enjoyed reading this post on VIPRE Advanced Threat Protection, please feel free to check out more information on their website here.

The road can be a dangerous and unpredictable place. And for businesses whose operations rely on driving and transportation, poor road and weather conditions are unavoidable realities that they just have to accept.

But if you add reckless drivers and a culture that is more than just a little litigious in the mix, then the financial risks for the company can quickly escalate.

It is for this reason that it’s essential to have a robust and strong risk assessment and management strategy when it comes to vehicle use for business purposes. And this means getting the right commercial automobile insurance.

It’s also important to note that such coverage can apply to individuals, employees, sub-contractors and companies in many different ways. After running through for practical tips on how you can choose the right coverage for your business, we’ll also cover how such insurance issues have been discussed and managed by ride-sharing companies like Amazon, Uber and Lyft.

To this end, here are some practical tips that should help you obtain the best coverage for your business and ensure its financial stability.

1. Choose the right company

The quality of the desired coverage is usually determined by the chosen company. So before making a financial commitment, it’s well worth exploring all of your options and checking what clients – both past and existing – have to say first. Create a shortlist of all potentially viable options if you can. It may sound like a lot of work that many would undoubtedly prefer to be without. However, putting in the leg work now will help you find a reputable and reliable company. And, in turn, help you secure the right commercial car insurance in minutes from Next Insurance.

2. More is never less

Many inexperienced business owners usually try to get only the minimum coverage requirements to keep their fixed costs low. And while this may be true, you could potentially spend a lot more in the event of an accident or a problem by doing so. As such, it’s always good standard practice to secure more coverage if possible. Not only will you keep your business better protected and insulated in this way. But you’ll have peace of mind that you’re financially covered if a problem arises. 

3. Always explore your options

Cost is always a concern when it comes to business expenses. And while the sheer number of insurance providers might make it more than just a little tricky to choose the right company, it also presents us with a unique opportunity to keep our expenditure low without compromising on commercial auto insurance coverage. So before you decide, make sure that you shop around and carefully compare each and every one. After all, you’re far less likely to find a favorable deal if you don’t actively look for it.

4. Understand what you need

The right commercial auto insurance coverage is ultimately determined by the needs of the company. After all, you won’t know what kind of coverage to opt for if you don’t understand what the needs of your business are. As such, it’s important that you start by assessing the needs of your business first before you start shopping for commercial auto insurance. It will save you time.

Different Types of Car Insurance Available

In addition to the importance of simply having auto insurance for your business, it’s also important to understand the different types of coverage plans available. This is especially true in the world of ridesharing and for any companies that focus on person or product delivery.

For businesses and brands that rely on independent contractors or part-time employees to deliver people or products, having the right insurance coaverage is an absolute must! And as covered on Ridester, the three insurance types that individuals working for such companies need to be aware of are:

1. Gap Insurance
2. Extended Coverage
3. Coverage Replacement

With ride sharing becoming more popular everyday, having the right auto insurance and coverage in place for all of their drivers is now more important than ever before. It’s not only a recommended from services like Uber and Lyft, it’s a full requirement.

To learn more about how auto insurance plays a role in ride sharing for both drivers, employers and ride sharing companies, take a look at the questions below and then refer to Ridester for the answers to each.

• Once I have rideshare insurance, will Uber and Lyft continue to provide any coverage?
• Do Lyft or Uber provide any perks if I purchase rideshare insurance?
• Do I need rideshare insurance if I have a commercial insurance policy?

How to Secure the Right Commercial Auto Insurance

Securing commercial auto insurance can be a daunting task, but it doesn’t always have to be this way. And by keeping all of the tips mentioned in this article in mind, you’ll be able to get the coverage that you need at a price that you’ll be more than happy to pay.

Scheduling is an integral part of your business. No matter what type of business you own, whether you are a doctor or dentist, party supply store, or writer, you need to have a system for scheduling new clients. That’s how you keep your business growing.

If you find it hard to get new people scheduled regularly, perhaps you need a little help from a friend. This also ties into how well you use your time management at the office or when working from home.

Scheduling software is a great tool to help busy business owners to create their appointments in real time while they are busy doing something else.

What is a scheduling software?

Scheduling software is a specific type of software that allows you to use AI and automation technology to schedule appointments in real time.

Scheduling software works by allowing people to sign up for an appointment or schedule a time to see you that is convenient for both you and the customer or prospective client.

The way it works is that you create a schedule of available slots that you can take client appointments and leave the slots open for new people that you can allow so that they will be able to choose the best time for them.

Other types of software focus more on scheduling employee shifts. This can prove effective in saving money, as well as time and increasing your results.

How Scheduling Software Helps You

You can save both time and money if you use scheduling software to schedule your appointments on automation. You save money because, when you have this kind of tool in place, it runs 25/7. Such platforms can work with both desktop and mobile scheduling, which makes it a perfect fit for all audiences and workplaces. You get notified when someone makes an appointment, and you do not have to worry about hiring people to call leads to make appointments over the phone.

Businesses love the convenience of letting this automation work for them while they busy themselves with other tasks of running their businesses.

Popular Scheduling Applications

There are several different scheduling solutions available for business owners who want to use this method of scheduling meetings and appointments.

1. Deputy

Deputy is a new online employee scheduling software that allows you to schedule shifts or periods that employees with work throughout your work week. You can easily log in and make changes, and you may even be able to replace the traditional “time card” check-in system with this application.

Monitor attendance and breaks. Check up on the exact time that an employee worked, and more. This nifty application improves your workflow, too by holding people accountable for customizing pay rates and keeping careful track of exact work times. Deputy is also easily integrated into your workflow and HR system so that you can incorporate it into your payroll systems.

2. 7 Shifts

This is a restaurant shift scheduling software that allows restaurant owners to schedule shifts among their employees quickly and easily online.

It can easily be changed and altered to meet the needs of your business or unexpected changes that are needed due to a conflict in the schedule of your employees and staff.

It’s compatible with both desktop and mobile devices.

3. Appointlet

Appointlet is a helpful application that is more focused on scheduling appointments with clients. You can keep it on your main website, and customers can schedule the best time to meet with you based on your available time slots.

You will get reminders and notifications, and you can take breaks between bookings so that you don’t have to go from one meeting to another and you have plenty of time to get ready for your next appointment.

4. Squareup

Square Up is another appointment solution that you can use on your website or blog to allow visitors to schedule an appointment with you. Offer time slots that are convenient for you and your staff, change an appointment if something comes up, and manage your customers all in one place.

This application also has a cloud-based calendar and customer management aspects built right into the program. So you can also use it as a customer organization tool. SquareUp is a popular app with busy business managers and owners because it also sends friendly customer reminders to clients you have an appointment with so there will be fewer forgotten or missed meetings and appointments.

5. Roomzilla

Roomzilla is a bit different because it only focuses on scheduling meetings rooms for meetings that you need to hold for your company. It is a cloud-based application that connects to the available meeting rooms you have in your company buildings and allows you to book rooms for specific purposes such as sales meetings, brainstorming, and budgeting, for example.

How to Use Scheduling Software to Save Time and Money

As you can see, there are many different types of scheduling software programs available for business owners. Many business owners like using the appointment setting software to set up a business or B2B appointments. This saves time in having office staff make calls or sending out emails to them to remind them of their appointments.

Other business owners use employee scheduling software so that they can schedule shifts with ease and make changes anytime they need to.

How to Use Scheduling Software to Increase Your ROI

An even more efficient use of scheduling software is to use it to increase your ROI (return on investment). Many business owners are using this convenient method to

keep a closer eye on the time employees work, break times, and efficiency. By studying the results of data tracking and scheduling within the application, you can make better use of your employment dollars by putting people in places and time slots where they can improve the results and level of productivity you get.

Pricing

Prices vary depending on what you are using it for, but you can find most scheduling software in the range of $25 per month or less.

However you use scheduling and project management software, it can definitely save you money and time and can help you increase the return you get on your investment. This is just another example of how AI and automation software can save you money and time and raise the level of your return.

Check out any of the links we’ve provided above and see which one you might like to try out first. It could make a big difference in your bottom line!

Affiliate marketing is one of the most lucrative business models of the 21st-century. Despite its incredible scalability and ability to get started with limited startup costs, affiliate marketing is not easy. It requires a tremendous amount of work and a wide range of skill sets, while also integrating with different platforms, freelancers, and experts around you. Without these tools and partners in place, it would be hard to compete in this saturated online market.

At some point in your affiliate marketing career, you are probably going to need to outsource certain tasks. You can try using a platform like Fiverr, but the results are usually hit or miss. At the same time, when going for the cheapest solutions or freelancers around, you are likely going to get hurt in the long run. If you need the assistance of qualified contractors, it is better to turn to a platform that is better known for consistently delivering high-quality services.

Use Lorem for your affiliate marketing contracting needs

One such example of an online platform and solution for connecting with other industry experts and freelancers is Lorem. Not only with their site allow you to connect with trusted and proven experts within the industry, it’s also ideal for hiring and managing qualified freelancers as well.

In a never-ending effort to always provide my readers with the latest options and method for growing their businesses and scaling in size, today we are going to look at the many features and benefits of using a solution like Lorem for your growing affiliate marketing business.

You will only work with highly skilled service providers

As an affiliate, you can’t afford to work with contractors that do a shoddy job. Whether you need to create a new landing page, write fresh content or build a list of keywords for your AdWords campaign, it is essential to make sure the task is completed to your specifications.

Contractors on Fiverr, UpWork, and other freelancing sites often lack the skillsets and professionalism to do the job to your satisfaction. You don’t need to worry about that when you purchase services through Lorem, as they heavily vet and approve all of their experts on the site.

Lorem carefully screens every professional that joins their network. They only accept three out of every 100 applicants. When you purchase services through this platform, you know that you are working with the very best.

Choose from a large pool of professionals with a wide array of specialties

You need a lot of different skills to create a thriving affiliate marketing business. There are experts at Lorem that can help you with any of the tasks you will need to complete. Here are some services that you can purchase through Lorem.

Website and landing page design

Carefully designing your website and optimizing your landing pages is key to succeeding as an affiliate marketer. If you don’t have much expertise as a web designer or simply don’t have the time to build your site and landing pages on your own, then you can turn to the experts at Lorem for support.

Google Analytics and tracking setup and support

Affiliate marketers need to depend on one or more analytics and tracking tools. Google Analytics is commonly used by affiliates that rely on organic traffic that is driven to their own website. Affiliates that run paid search, Facebook ads, PPV or other types of paid traffic will also need to use tracking tools such as CPVLab or Prosper202.

Setting them up can be a huge pain. If you don’t do it right, your data may be incomplete or unreliable when you are trying to optimize your campaigns. The good news is that you shouldn’t have any trouble finding an analytics or tracking expert on Lorem to assist you.

Generating marketing creatives

You are probably going to need a variety of creatives to promote affiliate marketing offers. While you can always try testing the banners provided by the advertiser, it is often better to test your own custom creatives, especially if you have a specialized type of traffic that requires pre-selling.

There are a lot of design experts on Lorem that can help you develop custom creatives.

Developing the right layout for your email newsletter

Building an email list is an important part of many affiliate marketing funnels. Unfortunately, building an email list alone is not going to guarantee that you will have profitable campaigns. You need to make sure that your emails are carefully optimized to your audience.

There are experts at Lorem that can help you develop the right layout for your email newsletter. This will keep people from unsubscribing and make sure they stay engaged, which is essential to the profitability of your email funnel.

Installing and updating WordPress plugins

Using the right WordPress plugins can make your life much easier. However, keeping up with the newest plugins is not easy. Making sure that all of the plug-ins you have already installed have an updated is also a chore.

The WordPress experts at Lorem can help you:

• Choose the right plugins for your site
• Deal with any troubleshooting if they aren’t working properly
• Go through the list of installed plugins and update them when necessary
• Remove any plugins that are no longer operational and find suitable replacements
• Find out whether any plugins are interfering with each other or the functionality of your site and find replacements my needed

You can have trouble with this if you aren’t a seasoned WordPress developer, so it is good to have a team of WordPress experts from Lorem at your side.

Getting started with Lorem

Lorem is a very easy platform to use and install. Here are the steps that you will need to take:

1. Install the Chrome extension. This extension is necessary to start projects and make payments after they are completed. You will need to give the extension permission to read and alter data as necessary before can be installed.
2. Begin a chat session to discuss your first project. Before you launch your first project, a Lorem customer service provider will need to connect you with the right expert. You will need to open the chat window and spend a few minutes discussing the specifications first. At the conclusion of the chat, you will be paired with the most qualified expert.
3. Provide the details and oversee the work. You will work closely with a professional that you are assigned. You can provide detailed feedback throughout the process. You will not need to make a payment until the work is completed to your satisfaction.
4. Make the payment. Once you are happy with the work, you will make a payment and conclude the project.

Lorem structured process to make sure it is as easy as possible. You shouldn’t have any trouble getting started.

Lorem makes running an affiliate marketing business easier than ever!

Handling everything on your own as an affiliate marketer isn’t going to be easy. As your business grows, you are going to need to lean on other experts to assist you. The good news is that there is a large pool of talented contractors at Lorem.

Getting started is easier, so feel free to download their Chrome extension and create your first project! Sign up and mention ZAC10 to get 10% off your first project on AskLorem.com!

The cloud is benefiting online brands in amazing ways. Organizations are investing in cloud platforms to improve the cost-effectiveness of data storage, scale online resources in unprecedented ways and minimize disruptions while pursuing customers internationally.

However, with so many users, brands and businesses relying on the cloud, costs can quickly add up if you are relying too much on it. Even with hosting costs being quite competitive and low cost, it’s still an extra added cost that some might not be able to absorb. The good news is that there are more options out there than ever before — not just for cloud hosting, but also for saving money in the process.

One such solution is Skysilk, a top cloud-based solution for evolving brands. To learn more about the service and what they have to offer, here are some of the ways SkySilk is changing the hosting industry and how users and brands store data in the cloud.

Highly affordable and Versatile VPS

SkySilk has a new VPS that is currently in beta. While it is still awaiting its hard launch, users can sign up for the beta version of the VPS for free. All plans are freely available under the temporary beta program, except for the premium subscription.

Here are some of the primary benefits that the free version of the SkySilk VPS (which will still be available after the beta period ends) offers:

• You have access to free lamp stack.
• You can store up to 25 GB of SSD memory.
• You have access to 512 MB of RAM.
• You can have bandwidth speeds of 12 MB per second.
• You can take advantage of WordPress and over 40 other Linux-based apps.
• You will have access to triple replicated backups.
• You can earn rewards with the loyalty program.

SkySilk offers some of the most generous features of any affordable VPS on the market. It is even more impressive that they are free during the current beta period.

The biggest limitation of the free plan is that it only allows you to create one VPS per user. This is an issue for bloggers that want to manage multiple domains and plan to scale their traffic with a VPS. Though the option is always there to upgrade and find the necessary resources and growth plan for your individual or business needs.

If you want to purchase a standard plan, you will be able to get an unlimited number of VPSs for every user. This is one of the most compelling benefits of their plan. You will also have a bandwidth limit of 200 MB/s, instead of the 12 MB/s that is available under the free plan.

You can purchase the standard plan for only $5 a month. It is a great deal if the extra bandwidth and unlimited VPS configurations can help. However, you may want to stick to the free version if you are running a single blog at the beginning with limited traffic.

You also will be able to take manual backups and snapshots of your VPS data at any time. The free version doesn’t currently allow any backup or snapshots at all.

Highly Intuitive Interface

According to reviews by users that previously had little or no experience with VPS systems, SkySilk was very intuitive and easy to set up. Users that have never created a VPS environment before were able to complete the process in under 15 minutes.

If you want to choose one of their premium plans, you can easily use the custom configuration to choose the scope of the services that you were looking for. You will receive a quote in real time and can adjust your configuration to your budget.

Keep in mind that the service is currently free, except for the highest tier premium plan. However, this doesn’t mean that the quoted price is irrelevant. The platform will eventually go out of beta mode and you will need to pay a monthly fee for the configuration unless you choose the free plan option. It is a good idea to choose a configuration that will be compatible with your future budget, so you don’t get used to using features that will no longer be available to you.

Since the free VPS will still be available after the beta period has ended, you may want to test this version of the plan if you don’t intend to pay a fee for your future VPS services. However, it may be worth testing a slightly higher tier plan that you will be willing to pay for.

Customer Support

Every VPS customer needs a strong support team because you never know what issues you encounter will be. So, how does the SkySilk customer support team stack up against their competitors?

There aren’t any comprehensive reviews that compare the SkySilk support team to their competitors. However, based on anecdotes from other users, their support team appears to be very dependable and timely. They also have a detailed support section on their site that covers most of the frequently asked questions that users have, along with a community support forums for anyone that can’t find answers on the site. The option is also there to submit a support ticket through their site as well.

Users that created an account with SkySilk said that they received replies from the support team within minutes of sending a request.

Emphasis on security

With the growing number of data breaches that occur every year, digital security is a priority for every online business. Don’t worry – Skysilk takes security extremely seriously.

Here are some of the measures they have taken to ensure your security is protected.

– Minimizing staff access to your data

Many security breaches occur because employees are negligent or willingly choose to engage in fraud. Limiting employee access to data is important. Skysilk recognizes this, so they make sure their staff doesn’t have access to backend hypervisors. This means the technical support team can’t control or manipulate virtual server data, containers or images on any of the cloud-based storage systems under their control. Only the Skysilk engineering team can access any of the backend servers and will do so only when necessary.

– Carefully encrypting credit card data

Credit card fraud is another serious concern. You want to make sure that any VPS service that you use takes it seriously.

Skysilk uses Authorize.net for all payment processing. These transactions are conducted through encrypted HTTPs connections, thereby significantly limiting the risk of fraud.

– 24/7 physical onsite security

The security team at Skysilk monitors the premises 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They constantly monitor for any known risks and take all necessary precautions.

Skysilk is an excellent VPS for bloggers on a tight budget

If you are looking for an affordable VPS, Skysilk is a great option to consider. They offer reasonable bandwidth, exceptional security and dependable support that rivals any other low-cost VPS provider.  It is a good idea to try it out during the beta period, since you won’t be charged a fee for the standard plan that will soon cost $5 a month.

It happens to all new bloggers and site owners at some stage in their career. They work very hard to build a steady stream of traffic to their website. Then they get incredibly frustrated that 70% of their visitors will leave and never return. It is even harder knowing that many of their visitors will convert.

With this in mind, it’s important to realize that you only have one shot to make a great first impression, while also grabbing the email address of your site visitors in the process. This is simply one of the most effective ways to increase repeat traffic to your site, while also building a powerful mailing list in the process.

There are several tools and solutions out there for accomplishing this, but some are clearly better than others. Gone are the days when you simply have a pop-up or subscription form on your site, now it’s all about customization, split-testing and being able to improve your results over time. One such solution that is focusing their efforts on exactly this, is MailOptin, which is a powerful WordPress plugin that allows site owners and bloggers to build a subscriber list and start boosting your email conversions.

With so many different tools and methods for growing a mailing list on the internet today, let’s take a look at what makes MailOptin stand out from the crowd.

Use MailOptin to Grow Your List

MailOptin can be managed directly through your WordPress dashboard. You can create your own custom optin page to build your subscriber list.

One great thing about MailOptin is that it has plenty of premade sign-up forms. You can easily tweak them to your liking. Some features that you can modify include:

• Popup lightboxes
• Sidebar widgets
• Call-to-action buttons

You can alter the colors and sizes to maximize conversions. It is a good idea to run a split-test to see which styles have the best conversion rates.

In addition to using a carefully optimized email opt-in form, you must also make sure your landing page copy matches what your visitors are looking for. If you are offering a free e-book to entice visitors to join your email list, your landing page needs to clearly outline the benefits, as well as any long-term benefits of signing up to your list.

When you are testing different landing page styles and forms, it is a good idea to use this split testing tool. It will tell you when a specific MailOptin landing page outperforms another to varying degrees of statistical significance. It is a good idea to start with two entirely different landing pages before testing less important elements, such as different colors for your call to action buttons.

Integrate MailOptin with your favorite email marketing automation tool

MailOptin isn’t a standalone email marketing automation platform. You are going to need to use it in conjunction with another email automation service.

This tool will sync with your marketing automation platform whenever a predefined event is triggered. You can also use it to automatically send an email message. One of the most common uses of MailOptin Is to email your subscriber list each time a new post is published.

Create beautifully designed custom emails

You can build a list of thousands of subscribers. It won’t do any good if your emails suck. You need a well-designed layout that will appeal to your readers.

MailOptin has a number of email templates to choose from. You can choose different styles for newsletter emails, sales emails or any other conversion goal.

Excellent analytics features

Other marketing automation tools lack decent analytics features. Fortunately, MailOptin has you covered.

The dashboard keeps detailed data on your visitors and conversions. You can easily figure out which forms and landing pages convert the best. You won’t have any trouble optimizing your campaign with MailOptin. All of this data can be accessed directly from your WordPress browser, unlike most other email marketing optimization tools.

Setting up MailOptin

Setting up MailOptin is a quick and easy process. You simply need to take the following steps:

1. Download MailOptin and install it on your WordPress plug-in page. From there, you can easily activate it to start using it.
2. You will see a new menu item for MailOptin in the sidebar of your WordPress dashboard. If you hover over it, you will see links to the settings and features for the plug-in.
3. Click the Connections tab and enter your API to sync with your email marketing automation service.
4. Click “New Optin” on the Optin Campaigns tab. You will see a number of different types of forms that you can use for your subscriber page. You just need to click the desired form to get started.
5. Browse the form features and optimize form however you please.
6. Activate the form to start using it on your landing pages.

It is as simple as that.

Choosing the right subscription plan for MailOptin

There are three different subscriber plans that you can choose from:

• The lite plan, which is currently free.
• The standard plan, which is available for $69 a year.
• The pro plan, which is available for $199 a year.

Which plan is ideal for you? If you run a small blog with a single, unsegmented email list, then you may find that the free plan is the best. You can run up to three campaigns at a time and register up to 100 conversions every month. You can take advantage of most of the form features, such as lightbox pop-ups and sidebar forms. You will also have access to a free support service and email branding options.

As your blog grows, you may need to upgrade to the standard plan. It will allow you to manage an unlimited number of campaigns and record an unlimited number of conversions. You will also have access to a few extra form features, such as notification bars and slide-in boxes. You also have an advanced lead segmentation option. This is a great feature if you are generating subscribers from a variety of different landing pages with different angles.

The pro plan is great for power bloggers that run a lot of different websites. It has a few additional features that aren’t available on the free or standard plans. You can also take advantage of third-party app and WooCommerce integrations.

Get Started With MailOptin Today!

When it comes to turning site visitors into subscribers, it’s all about aggressive call to actions. Since roughly 70% of the visitors to your site are going to leave after their first visit, you might as well give them something to act upon.

MailOptin is one of the best email marketing optimization tools for accomplishing this. You can download the plugin, install it on your WordPress site and create your first form in less than ten minutes. Once you get started, you can start testing and creating some great forms that will grow your optins faster than you ever expected.

Be sure to try it out and see the many different lead generation and call to actions available through the software.

When you run your business on the Internet, any sort of business at all, it is absolutely paramount that you keep security front of mind. If you have a content-based website like a blog, you don’t want hackers to get into your backend and install all sorts of malicious code or compromise the security of your website visitors. If you have an online store or a site with user-generated content, you don’t want hackers stealing the personal data of your customers and members either. You also want to make sure that your site runs as quickly and as smoothly as possible. But how?

A Four-Pronged Approach

Offering a comprehensive suite of products and solutions, Incapsula by Imperva strives to “secure and accelerate your website” to deliver the best possible user experience while frustrating attackers and simplifying your operations.

There are four main product categories as part of the overall Incapsula solution. Depending on the nature of your website and your specific needs as an online business owner, you may be interested in one or more of these products. These include DDoS protection, website security, a content delivery network, and a load balancer. Let’s take a little bit of a closer look at each of these individually.

DDoS Protection

You may have heard of what is known as a distributed denial of service attack or a DDoS attack for short. There is a form of attack where multiple computers (and other devices connected to the Internet) bombard a server with HTTP requests and pings. This effectively overloads the server such that any content on it, like your website, is rendered inaccessible by everyone else. Incapsula offers DDoS protection for that.

In fact, Incapsula recognizes the immediacy of such a potential problem with several mentions on the website offering help if you are currently under a DDoS attack. They work so quickly that they guarantee to mitigate any DDoS attack in under ten seconds, regardless of its size. The all-inclusive DDoS protection protects your website, name server, and infrastructure.

If you want to learn more, the 2017 Forrester Wave DDoS Mitigation Solutions report is now available for download. Through this report, you are offered critical insights into DDoS mitigation, identify the solution for your company, look into different attack types, and so much more.

Website Security

Regardless of the kind of online property that you own or run, you should be especially careful about website security. This is not only to protect any confidential or personal data that may be stored but also to make sure that you are aren’t attacked or compromised by any number of suspected bots. You also want to make sure that your resources are not being accessed without your permission. Incapsula has a full range of website security features.

The Incapsula website goes into some technical detail about the types of attacks the solution can protect against, like SQL injection and cross-site request forgery, but most of us probably won’t completely understand what most of that means. What we can see is that the solution is very robust and takes care of multiple possible threats.

In particular, the “exclusive client classification technology” is able to identify and block malicious bots that may be trying to access your website, all while ensuring that legitimate bots (like search engine spiders) are able to get through without a hitch. Custom policies can be enacted to fit your specific situation.

Another feature that is well worth mentioning is backdoor shell protection. If your website was attacked at some point in the past before you added Incapsula to the mix, it’s quite possible that even if you think you cleaned out the problem, there’s still a “backdoor” vulnerability left behind. Incapsula can close that back door by quarantining the threat and helping you work toward removing it entirely.

Do you use two-factor authentication (2FA) with such sites and services as Google, Facebook, and Dropbox? You don’t need to be a mega-corporation to afford such a function for your own users. You can easily deploy 2FA in front of any page, subdomain or group of URLs. All it takes is one quick click.

Content Delivery Network

One of the greatest strengths of working on the internet is that you can overcome nearly any physical boundary. You might live in Oklahoma, but you could be doing business with someone from Oman. You could live in California, but your biggest readership might be based in Croatia. The thing is that your website content will naturally be delivered the fastest if the server is closest to the recipient. This is true even if you’re talking about someone in San Antonio trying to get to a website being served from Toronto.

This is where the accurately named content delivery network (CDN) comes into the picture. The Incapsula CDN is a global network with intelligent caching and cache control options. What this means is that your website performance is drastically improved with lower bandwidth costs and a better user experience. Incapsula says that websites that use their CDN are about 50% faster and use 70% less bandwidth.

Smart caching is a big part of this because it means that the same content doesn’t need to be retrieved over and over again. The proprietary machine learning technology can learn what dynamic content it should cache. And with servers all around the world, your users will get the best experience possible no matter where they are.

Load Balancer

If you are a larger organization with more complex needs, the Incapsula load balancer as a service (LBaaS) could be an important addition to your technology mix. The idea is that you get “continuous health monitoring” to ensure that traffic is automatically routed to a server that is available. If you’ve got your web content stored on multiple servers, it’s important that you don’t overrun one while underutilizing another.

The LBaaS is able to optimize this traffic distribution across servers, maximizing the resulting performance. This is especially key, for instance, where you might run mobile or web apps that are constantly pinging the server. We’ve seen many top-tier applications run into problems like this before and it’s certainly an issue you want to avoid if you want to provide the best user experience possible. There’s even a global server load balancer that looks into both geolocation and the best connection time.

How Much Does It All Cost?

Incapsula is offered in three main tiers, all of which are priced on a per site, per month basis. The $59 Pro plan is geared toward websites that value website security, getting protection against malicious bots, hacker, and other potential attacks. This also includes a number of performance upgrades like access to the content delivery network.

If you need application layer DDoS protection, you’ll need to step up to the Business plan, which costs $299 per site per month. This includes the 10-second mitigation guarantee. At this level, you also gain access to more advanced security solutions. The Enterprise plan, where you’ll need to request a rate quote for your particular circumstances, is how you can unlock the rest of the DDoS protection, like network layer protection and protection for DNS servers, as well as options for the load balancer and datacenter failover.

The setup process starts with signing up for an account and choosing a plan. After submitting your domain, you’ll receive instructions for changing your DNS records. It takes up to 48 hours before all traffic is routed through Incapsula.

If you want to build a successful blog, brand, or business on the internet today, you need to focus on a lot more than just your content and providing value to your audience. While content and value are always going to be important, let’s be real… we are in a fast-paced world where visual content is everything.

With that being said, if you don’t have the right images, illustrations or social media thumbnails and previews to grab the attention of your audience, they will likely skip past your content and move on with their day.

It’s also important to note that you no longer need to be a web designer or graphic designer to create great images for your site. This can be as simple as signing up to a royalty-free stock photo website like GLStock.com, grabbing an image and then using a program like Canva to customize it to your liking.

This method is currently being used not only by myself but also thousands of the top bloggers in the world today. With so much going on in the world of social media and endless emails with attention-grabbing headlines fighting for your attention, one of the best ways to not only keep users on your site longer but to also increase value and trust to your brand is to add high-quality images throughout your site content, social media and email marketing efforts.

Today we are going to be looking at GLStock.com, and why they have quickly become one of the top resources for royalty free images on the internet today.

Get Immediate Access to 1,000s of Image in ALL Sizes

When it comes to using royalty free stock images, I have no problem paying for premium content. Not only does this save me a lot of time and give me images that I know I will have no legal issues in using, it also makes the content creation process that much easier.

However, one thing that is a pain is when you join a royalty-free stock photo site is when you find out that they’re going to charge you not only for each image you use but also for each image size. If you were going to download an image, wouldn’t it make the most sense to get that image and as many sizes as possible?

The good news is, this isn’t just the way I feel, it’s the way GLStock.com feels as well. When you become a customer of their site, not only will you get access to the images on their site, you also won’t have to pay to download different sizes for each image you plan on using.

Not everyone is going to have the need for multiple image sizes, but it is something that’s great to have available. Images will vary in size depending on which you choose, but you will find that most are available in three sizes, ranging from about 700 x 466 pixels (at 72 dpi) on the small end, up to about 5,000 x 3,000 pixels (at 300 dpi) at the larger end.

Understanding Image Copyrights and License Information

Knowing where and how you can use royalty free stock images is always something content creators and bloggers also need to deal with. Just because an image is available for you to download, you are likely still limited to where and how that image can be used.

This is often the case with many of the top image sites on the internet today. Not only might they be charging for individual image sizes, you can also be charged more depending on how you want to images.

GLStock has once again made the attempt to make this process as easy as possible for anyone using their site.

All photos available for download from GLStock are available in two different license formats. The standard license is what’s going to be more than perfect for most individuals and site owners. The use of images is fine as long as you are not using more than $10,000 in value through video usage or printing more than 250,000 copies of the image. If you feel you are going to surpass these numbers, you can always upgrade to the Unlimited license.

As mentioned earlier, I use royalty-free photos on nearly all of my sites. The reason why I do this is that not only do I avoid having any legal issues with where the image comes from, but I also don’t have to post copyright information or link back to an original source. The small investment to join a royalty-free stock photo site is well worth it in my opinion and saves me a lot of time in the process.

Taking a Look at the Images Available on GLStock

Royalty free stock photo sites are only as good as the images they can offer to their users. In the case of GLStock, there are literally millions of images, vectors, illustrations and clipart for users to choose through. No matter what you are searching for, you will likely find an image for it in their catalog.

Just like most other image sites, searching through their directory is pretty simple. All you need to do is fill in the search box with whatever category or search phrase (for an image) you are looking for and then click the search button. Once you find an image you like click on it for immediate download after selecting which image license you would like to use.

You’ll also notice that some images will cost more in credits than others. Standard license images can range from 1 to 35 credits per image. Unlimited license will cost around 75 credits each.

If you know you are going to need a wide range of images and will be continually downloading from the site, you are likely best off going with a credit plan which will allow you to save up to $200 off when purchasing credits in bulk.

For more information on this, take a look at the credits package page.

Whether you go with buying a small package of credits or going with a larger amount, it’s good to know the option is always there to purchase and use images at any time. Your credits also won’t expire, so there is no need to log in and download as many images as you can. Simply purchase credits and use them whenever they are needed.

Also, if you would like to save an instant 10% on your first purchase, just sign up for the GLStock mailing list and you’ll receive a coupon right in your inbox.

Create an Account. Login. Download. And Go!

With content creation and business marketing on the minds of all of us, the last thing we want is to figure out how to use a new website, download images and mess around with using a new platform. Again, GLStock doesn’t want to waste your time either.

The whole process is pretty straightforward and easy to use. Once you create an account and purchase some credits, all you need to do is search for an image, download it, and then go on your way.

All image downloads will also stay active on your account so you can download them at a later date should you misplace them.

When it comes to finding and using images on the internet today, you have a lot of options. However, not all of them are created equally or will keep you protected from copyright and legal issues. The option is also there to cash in if you are a photographer or graphic designer who would like to sell visual content through their site.

No matter which option you choose, I highly recommend you take time to join a royalty-free stock photo site and start investing not only in the content on your site but also your visitor’s user experience. High-quality images and illustrations are simply the best way to engage your audience while also breaking apart your text content and bringing your data to life.

Join GLStock today to see how easy it is to bring your content to life.

The incredible challenge of successful search engine optimization is two-fold. First, it can be difficult to keep up with all the latest techniques and tactics, not to mention all the latest changes to Google’s search engine algorithms. Second, if you are completely up to speed with what you should be doing, the actual act of SEO can be remarkably time-consuming if you try to tackle it yourself.

Providing a simple and affordable solution to this age-old problem is Overflow Cafe, a comprehensive service that aims to “make websites popular.” And better still, you can stand to earn some serious commissions as part of their affiliate program too.

What Is Overflow Cafe?

The primary goal of Overflow Cafe is to help your website rank for your targeted keywords and keyword phrases in Google. With more traffic, you stand to have a better shot at attracting more customers, which will in turn result in more sales and more profit for you. It’s win-win all around.

While some other search engine optimization services and tools adjust their practices based on the kind of niche you approach or even the type of website that you have, the main objective when you use Overflow Cafe is to attract customers and generate sales. That’s it. This is fantastic for solopreneurs, freelancers, and small to medium-sized businesses that may otherwise have a difficult time cracking Google’s code.

Of the tens of thousands of customers who use Overflow Cafe, an overwhelming 94% say that they love the service. Customers have seen significant increases in traffic, resulting in far more sales and profits. Best of all, the service is 100% risk-free. If you’re not happy, you can simply cancel at any time. No questions asked.

All-in-One SEO Solution

Another significant differentiating factor is that Overflow Cafe is offered only for a flat monthly fee of $29. You don’t have to worry about being upsold into “pro” or “premium” packages to unlock all the features and you won’t be nickel-and-dimed in order to get the service (and results) you desire.

When you log into your account, you are presented with an overview of your website’s performance over the past period. You can see when was the most recent website scan and you can see how many backlinks Overflow Cafe is currently building for you. After all, backlinks are at the heart of any successful SEO campaign. As you scroll down the page, you can see how your website compares to the competition, your ranking trend over the last 30 days, your overall ranking trend in the last 24 hours, the link building distribution, and your traffic distribution over the last three months.

Before you gain access to all that information, of course, you need to first define the keywords that you’d like to target in Google, Yahoo and Bing. There’s a keyword suggestion tool accessible via the main navigation near the top of the page. You’ll also notice that you can run a website audit report at any time and as many times as you’d like.

With the keyword report, you are provided with an excellent overview of how your website is performing across the keywords that you are targeting. How many are in the top 3, top 10, top 20, top 30, or top 100? How is your keyword visibility over time? What is your search engine ranking for each keyword across the three major search engines, not only currently, but also over time. How’s the competition?

What’s very important to note here is that the actual work involved in improving your SEO performance is automated. Overflow Cafe takes care of all of that for you, which is easily one of its biggest appeals. And this leads us to the affiliate program.

The Affiliate Program

Overflow Cafe also has an affiliate program where they reward partners for any new referrals they send to the platform. With nearly all websites and businesses needing SEO and growth to their sites, this is an opportunity that nearly all site owners and bloggers can start acting upon. You can learn more about their affiliate program here.

When you log into your account, the same one as the one you use for the actual Overflow Cafe services, you’ll notice a navigation option near the top for the affiliate/partner dashboard. Clicking on this yields some basic information about the program, plus a contact email if you have any questions. Below that is your affiliate link, plus a modest selection of banners that you can use for promotion.

As far as the actual affiliate program itself goes, you can expect to be paid out for your commissions once a month on the 10th. By default, these payments are issued via PayPal. You can opt for a paper check if you prefer, but online payment is naturally much faster and more efficient. Should you get to the point where you start earning over $10,000 a month in commissions, you can request to switch over to bank wires instead.

The commission structure is such that you’ll earn $15 per sale on a recurring monthly basis. This is not a one-time payment. As long as your referral continues to be a customer with Overflow Cafe, you will continue to earn commissions in perpetuity. This is a very generous payout, considering that that base monthly fee is only $29, meaning that you are getting just a little over 50% commission! Get 200 sign-ups who stick around and you’ve got a healthy passive income stream of $3,000 a month!

More Money-Making Opportunities

Your affiliate links can easily be shared through a variety of different traffic channels, like via your email newsletter or on social media. To help you better track what traffic sources are generating the most commissions, you can add keywords to the end of your affiliate link. You might add “?twitter1” for your first Twitter campaign and “?email2” for your second email campaign, for instance. The performance of these tracking keywords can then be reviewed in your affiliate dashboard. It’ll show the keyword, clicks, leads, sales, and commissions for each.

Overflow Cafe is also a terrific opportunity for SEO professionals and SEO agencies. You can suitably use this service and apply it your own clients’ websites. If you’d like to provide them with the transparency of such a relationship, you can send them your affiliate link and they can sign up themselves. If you’d rather package in this service as part of a larger bundle (or if you’d rather them not know that you’re using Overflow Cafe), you can effectively sign up on their behalf. Just put your name and contact information, but their website URL and keywords. They’ll never even know you’re using the service.

Go ahead and sign up for an account with Overflow Cafe, either as a customer, as an affiliate, or both. With two referrals, your own service becomes effectively free!

Time is money. The more time you waste, the less you accomplish — it’s simple math. It’s pretty safe to say that the world of online business and marketing is one of the most distracting industries to be in. This is especially true if you are a blogger or someone working from home. Even if you are a salesperson or working within a company, being online all the time offers more distractions that anyone could possibly deal with. Throw social media and email into the mix, and it’s amazing any of us actually get anything done.

The art of spending your time wisely is something that many people just master over time. More often than anything else, it’s all about self-discipline and learning how to just get work done. However, there are some useful tools out there to help with both time management and automating solutions that would otherwise take up your time.

Today I’m going to share three of them with you. Be sure to try each of them out and see how much time you are actually working vs. doing other various things online.

1. Workflowmax Time Tracking

When it comes to making money in business, it’s all about how your time is being spent and what’s getting accomplished. This isn’t true for just entrepreneurs, employees, and brands — it applies equally to everyone but in different ways. For an entrepreneur who works for themselves, they simply need to be working all the time. For a business, they want their employees to be working at full productivity, otherwise, they are wasting money on hourly wages and salary. Even employees (getting paid hourly or on salary) should factor their own productivity into their own personal goals and work ethic as well.

With all of this in mind, the best way to track how much time is being spent on what is to actually track it! WorkflowMax has a time tracking software that can apply to each of the scenarios above, and even for outsourced team members as well. The more you know about your business team and employees, the better you can manage your costs and know who’s actually getting the most work done.

With technology taking over all components of our lives, gone are the days of taking a physical piece of paper to stamp your work time in, then check out when you leave. However, that same concept can be accomplished through the use of this software, which not only monitors time sheets, it can also provide quotes to outside contractors, enable start timers for team projects and also convert submit working times into billable invoices.

Workflow Max starts at just $15 per month and is available on both their web browser platform and mobile application.

2 – MeetEdgar Social Media Scheduling

With social media being a huge component of nearly every business and brand online, it can also be a huge time waster in the process. Sure, you’ve likely logged into Facebook and Twitter several times already today to check something or post a recent content update, but you likely ended up spending some additional time just looking around or getting lost in your friends latest social rants.

As time-consuming as social media can be, just from a management perspective, it can be a huge distraction at the same time. So essentially, the more time you spend away from social media, the more you can actually get done. But what about all of your social media marketing and branding efforts, you ask? Well… there are plenty of automation and scheduling tools out there to help with this process as well.

One such tool that I have been using for a while now is MeetEdgar. Instead of logging into each social network and posting my latest blog content, I can log into my MeetEdgar account and schedule updates to go out whenever I like. Not only is it an amazing platform for scheduling and automation, it also saves me hours of time every week, while also not requiring me to get distracted with more social media exposure than I need. Listen to my interview with Laura Roeder to learn more about the company and how it’s changing the way social media automation is done online.

MeetEdgar currently works with Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn and rates start at $49 per month.

3 – Remember the Milk Reminder Service

With so much going on in our daily lives and everything we are supposed to get done for our jobs or business… how are we supposed to remember everything? I personally have a notepad and paper next to my computer where I like to write everything down and cross them off as I get things done. I’m old school that way and like the physical interaction and writing down of what tasks I need to complete. Plus it also feels great to actually cross things out and it makes you feel like you are making progress.

While some people like to write things down, others will use their mobile devices and applications to have timers, checklists, and notifications to keep their productivity up throughout the day, while also reminding them of any important tasks they might need to accomplish.

Remember the Milk is a free tool that allows you to easily manage and track everything that you need to accomplish throughout the day — whether it’s for personal use or business. This tool is compatible with mobile devices, desktops, Gmail, outlook and more.

Get More Done by Staying Prepared

As with all things in life, the more prepared you are for anything, the better you will be in accomplishing your goals. The same holds true for your daily productivity and time management. Be sure to try each of the recommended tools above to improve not only your business performance and productivity but also your everyday life in the process.