How to Attract Entry-Level Employees to Your Dallas Small Business

Finding great employees for your small business is hard enough. When you live in a busy metroplex like Dallas, it can be even harder. As wonderful of a place as Dallas is, employees aren’t always eager to deal with the difficult morning and afternoon commutes. So how can you, as a small business owner, attract entry-level employees to your business?  Try using the following advice to help you find the staff you need.  

Improve Your Outreach

If people down the road haven’t heard of your business, you can’t expect workers in nearby cities to be familiar with it. Improving your company’s marketing can make it easier to attract both customers and employees. Ensure your company has a website and social media presence so potential employees can learn about the business, and consider other ways to increase your marketing. 

One way to boost outreach is through marketing, and Oevae Marketing Consultants can help you determine how to make this work for your business. Additionally, think of ways to enhance your social media or website so that your search for new staff is front and center. You can easily do this yourself by using an online banner creator. The ideal tool offers an array of banner templates, as well as other design assets to punch up your design. 

Know Where to Advertise

Advertising job postings in the right place are essential for reaching your target audience. That means you can’t just stick an ad on Craigslist and call it a day. FitsSmallBusiness.com walks you through the differences between popular online job boards, but there’s no reason to limit yourself to online postings. You can find qualified applicants by attending job fairs and career events, letting nearby university career centers know you’re hiring, and connecting with nonprofits that help people find employment.

Offer Competitive Wages

Dallas has a relatively high cost of living compared to other big Texas cities, so it’s important that your wages match up with the local average in order to be competitive. If you’re not quite sure what to pay, research the average cost of pay for your industry and the job you plan to offer, as well as what similar wages are in the Dallas area. Ideally, you should have a range that’s a comfortable fit for your budget, and that allows you to adjust your offer based on an applicant’s skills and background. 

Provide On-the-Job Training

Not all incentives have to come in the form of cash. You can make your business a more attractive employer by offering benefits that other companies lack. A common complaint from entry-level employees is that companies want experienced workers but aren’t willing to train on the job. While it’s true that internal training does cost money in the form of your own valuable time, it’s a good strategy for recruiting staff even when cash flow is tight. On-the-job training also improves employee retention and reduces mistakes because workers are trained to your company’s specifications.

Permit Flexible Hours

Commuting by public transportation can mean long travel times, especially at peak hours. If an open position doesn’t require a set 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. schedule, consider offering flexible working hours so your employees can avoid transit at rush hour. While not all employers are comfortable letting staff work from home initially, offering remote work as a future option can add to the incentive for entry-level hires. If you are worried about your employees managing their time wisely, you could use time-tracking software. Well-chosen software allows your employees to work from wherever they are, providing them with more job satisfaction, and peace of mind.

Create Opportunities for Growth

Employees are more likely to go out of their way for a company that offers long-term potential. Make it clear to prospective employees what opportunities for growth they’ll find in your company. Depending on your business structure, that could be promoted to a higher position, increased responsibility and pay at the same position, experience in horizontal roles within the company, or opportunities for external professional development.

As the job market fluctuates, it’s getting harder for many businesses to attract and retain quality employees. In order to find the best help for your small business, it’s necessary to stand apart from the competition. By targeting your search and offering the benefits that workers are looking for, you can find the talent your business needs to succeed.

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6 SEO TECHNIQUES THAT WIN CUSTOMERS, FOR REAL!

So finally, you have launched your new website, and you are eager to expand your business online. The website is highly responsive, attention-grabbing, user-friendly, and looks fabulous. But how are you so sure that your target audience will actually find it? Will you ever get the desired results if your website does not appear in Google for your potential client's keyword searches? 

SEO (search engine optimization) helps enhance your business’s online presence and reach your target audience. With time and effort, your visibility grows gradually and increases your brand awareness. But search engine optimization is not a quick and easy task. It is an intricate process that requires technical knowledge, as well as understanding the dynamics of the Google algorithm. 

But the best part is that once you implement the techniques well, there's no looking back. With improvements in traffic, your lead generation will be enhanced, and as a result, you will experience higher sales. This is a given since referrals from keyword searches capture qualified customers already in the buying cycle, honing in on your specific product or service. 

Are you yearning to learn some effective SEO tips and techniques? We have curated a list of SEO techniques that promise to give your business a boost. Now let’s dive into those valuable ti

Top 6 SEO Tips and Tricks to Boost Your Website Visibility

1. Finding a niche

Search engines point their users to content that is relevant and authoritative. That's why, if you are an expert in a specific niche, your website should reflect that. Suppose you are a professional dancer and have launched a website for promoting your dance studio. Your content should be related to dance and not deviate from the topic. Keep the red velvet cake recipe for your social media as it won't do anything for your website or blog.

2. Keyword research and how to choose them: Keywords should be chosen carefully as they either make or break the deal. If you run an a la carte restaurant in Sydney, then your keywords should be “Restaurant Sydney” or maybe, "5-star restaurant in Surrey Hills, Sydney.” When your target visitor uses these keywords to search for specific services, your competitors’ websites will also appear in the search results. Therefore, you should use long-tail keywords that are more specific, detail-oriented, and can guide your potential clients to your website and specific niche. If you feel that keyword research is way too complicated and time-consuming, try hiring an SEO expert that will utilize their experience and knowledge to come up with the right set of keywords for your website content and blogs.

3. Content goals and optimizing on-page: You need to have a clear content strategy and adhere to it in order to meet your SEO goals. Content is what gives you the tools for on-page optimization. For instance, build out new content through your blog and focus on internal linking. Unlike backlinks, you can use internal linking to manage the flow of traffic to key pages in your website. 

"When you are publishing a new blog, add links to it from older posts to help Google’s crawlers find and index it."

4. Optimizing images: Image optimization enhances your SEO strategy by improving the website load speed. As a result, users won't leave your site, and thus image optimization also helps in enhancing the user experience. Another significant benefit is that it will keep the server memory safe and secure and also bring down the load on the server. Start by ensuring images are sized correctly and use a plugin to change them to new generation formats. 

5. User Experience and speed: If you are aware of the research by Google, you must know that more than 53% of mobile audiences leave a particular website if it takes more than three seconds to load. Use tools like Pingdom or Google's Test My Site to analyze the speed of your website. If it appears to be slow, then prioritize improving speed. Use the tools that help you with data-driven advice on how to improve your website. Also, when you focus on the overall user experience, you are actually catering to the needs of the searcher. This, in return, improves the performance of organic search marketing.

6. Optimizing the customer journey for conversions: Optimising your conversion rate will enhance your sales. Try to understand user behaviors, bring value to them by delivering simple user experiences. All you need to do is to cater to your customers at every stage of the conversion funnel.

Effective SEO techniques always render positive results. If you need better and swifter results or do not have enough time to devote to SEO tactics, hire renowned SEO experts like Oevae Marketing Consultants who will do the job for you. 

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Art Director Unboxed Cricut Explorer 3 Promotional Marketing Tool

The purpose of this post is to offer potential buyers a closer look into an artistic tool used to create promotional merchandise for small businesses and not so much for special crafts.

Although, those who regular Hobby Lobby and the like will still get a glimpse at the Cricut Explorer 3 and perhaps some new ideas.  This is not a video showing you how the Cricut works or giving you all the specs that are already found on the Cricut website.  Instead, you can watch this video to see the quality and what you get for your money. 

The package Cricut machine arrived in Dallas, Texas at the Oevae Marketing Consultants studio.  You'll notice the box appears to have experienced a brutal blow (gash) to the packaging.  

Let's hope the Cricut isn't shaken up too badly? 

Creating Promotional T-shirts

Most recently we've used the Cricut Explorer 3 to create promotional T-shirts with multiple colors and textured vinyl, and beverage Koozies for bachelorette and bridesmaid swag bags. 

We've learned the real strengths and creative opportunities Cricut brings to small business marketing ideas – more impressive concepts and mockups.  Ideas can be swiftly and professionally created for our clients rather than waiting weeks for proofs and approvals.

Conclusion: If you are looking for t-shirts for a family reunion, fraternity or sorority, team, or groomsman and bridesmaids, I would not recommend purchasing the machine because you will need a good grasp of computer graphics file formats, converting image types, splitting images into parts for multiple color projects, choosing the proper blade and then there's weeding the graphics of unwanted portions. 

Your time and money would be well spent hiring a company like Oevae to create your t-shirts and other merch. So, you avoid all the steps it takes to have professional-looking promotional products, and let the professionals do everything for you in less time and hassle-free. The machine does not come with special tools that help you finish your projects.

Oevae is a branding platform and launchpad for [growing] businesses. Visit oevae.com to learn more about our creative marketing solutions for your business.