The number of Americans working from home is on the rise

Steve Cichon left a radio job to start his own company and work from home. He’s at his computer by 5:15 a.m

At 7:30 on a sunny weekday morning, as commuters begin to fill the Thruway on their way to the office, Steve Cichon pours himself a cup of coffee and takes a seat at his dining room table. The longtime Buffalo media man recently walked away from the grind of the office and joined a growing number of people opting to work from home.
Indeed, a report by Global Workplace Analytics found that more than 3.1 million Americans work from home.
Cichon is taking it a step further He left his post as news director of radio station WBEN-930 to start his own company, Buffalo Stories LLC. He said he now faces the challenges and opportunities that confront every former office dweller.
“For me, I feel like I’m still new to this and still getting settled in (to working from home). But right now, the challenge is getting into a routine and a flow,” he said.
Don’t be fooled by the image of him sipping coffee and playing with his dog Willow — who he jokes is his office manager and has her own LinkedIn page. Cichon is up and at his computer most mornngs by 5:15 and said he often works into the night.
One of the knocks against working from home is the potential for a drop in productivity. But he and others say it’s not true. The freedom and flexibility that come from working outside a traditional office are driving forces that lead to greater productivity, they say.
“At 5 o’clock, you shut down your computer, lock your office and go home for the day,” he said. “For me, I have that flexibility working at home, but that also means there are nights that it is 10 o’clock and I’m still working.”
For Cichon, being a business owner provides plenty of motivation — after all, he needs to generate business if he wants to continue eating and paying his mortgage. But what about employees whose boss works in a brick-and-mortar office while they telecommute from home?
John Cimperman is a principal at Cenergy, an East Aurora marketing business in which five of his 32 employees work remotely. So how difficult is it to motivate an employee living 1,500 miles away in Denver?
“With our employees, motivation is never an issue, but connectivity is,” he said. “We are in the business of generating ideas, and ideas are generated in brainstorming sessions around a white board, around the water cooler, at a happy hour. So for remote employees, we need to work harder to make sure they remain connected.”
Remote employees of Cenergy have home-based offices, he said, and in his field it makes sense, given that most are out on the road and meeting with clients every day. The company currently has remote employees in Boston, Atlanta, Denver and Chicago, he said.
“There are two reasons why we have folks work remotely,” he said. “Most importantly, we put account managers in the places where our clients are located. The other reason is, in the case of our event manager, he is probably on the road 200 days a year, so where he lives isn’t as relevant.”
Recruitment has a major impact on the decision to have remote employees.
“If we can’t find someone in this market that has the experience and talent that we need, then we will go find those people with national experience, wherever they may live,” Cimperman said. “And the fact is, there is more of the specific type of talent we need in those larger markets.”
Once seen as a non-traditional perk for employees, working from home has evolved into a strategy that many employers utilize to control office-related costs and other expenses.
But even with happy employees and a stronger bottom line, are there potential legal pitfalls to having employees working from home?
Yes, according to Michael Schiavone, an employment attorney and partner in Lipsitz Green Scime Cambria. He said the risks must be carefully weighed before an employer decides to let someone work remotely.
“The first concern that comes to mind (for the employer) is, how do you deal with the nuances of employment law in an ever-changing climate where technology may be outpacing the laws dealing with this issue,” he said.
He advises employers to have a strong policy set in advance.
“It is obviously easy today for many employees to work from home,” Schiavone said. “But employers need to be concerned about the criteria they set for eligibility.”
He has seen numerous cases in which an employee request is granted without the employer stopping to consider the pitfalls involved in setting a precedent.
“Do you wind up having different standards based on who it is that does what for the company? And once you permit people to work from home, how do you regulate what is going on in comparison to what you could do if the employee were physically present in the office?” he said.
Schiavone said another example where an employer could run afoul of the law is in dealing with the Fair Labor Standards Act, which governs employee hours and wages.
“Assuming that a workweek is 40 hours, how do you know that an employee isn’t working more than 40 hours from home?” he said. “What if the employee then makes a claim down the road that he has been working more than 40 hours and hasn’t been properly compensated?”
He said he doesn’t discourage clients from offering telecommuting as an employee option, but he does suggest that businesses of all sizes do their homework.
Example: If an employee slips and falls in the office and is injured, it is a clear-cut workers’ compensation claim. But what happens when an employee working from home slips on the kitchen floor on the way from the bathroom to his home office during so-called work hours?
“Well, (employers) need to talk with their insurance people who provide their workers’ comp policy to see where people are covered,” the attorney said. “Whether or not a workers’ comp policy would extend to the worker’s home is probably an endorsement that would need to be applied for by the individual employer.”
According to Schiavone, larger companies are typically well-versed in such rules and nuances, but there’s concern when it comes to smaller organizations in which the decision to allow telecommuting is more informal. “Small companies that may view this as a way to save on office space or other related expenses and elect to have people start working from home, (they) need to start thinking about the ramifications of those decisions,” he said. “And they need to consider whether they have the proper policies in place to protect the company.”

http://www.bizjournals.com/buffalo/blog/buffalo-law-journal/2013/08/the-number-of-americans-working-from.html?page=4

4 Ways to Optimize Your Referral Traffic

Between SEO, social media, email marketing, blogger outreach and paid media, getting people to your site isn't just a balancing act — it's a lesson in time management and attention to detail.
But spreading yourself — and your budget — thin on platforms that aren't actually converting is a waste of time. You need to know where your best customers are coming from and then spend dollars to earn more eyeballs on these sites where you know you already have fans.
"If you are serious about your online marketing, you have to know your referring traffic sources so you can identify where your audience is hanging out," says Maciej Fita, SEO director at Brandignity.com.

 

Analyzing and optimizing your referral traffic is how you'll squeeze the most out of your marketing strategy and ad dollars, build a dedicated fan base and find partners that will help develop your audience. We spoke with a handful of marketers who've mastered referral optimization to boost their bottom line; below, they let you in on how it was done.

1. Understand the Different Kinds of Referrers

There are two types of referrals in a referrals report — referring domains and individual referrals — and both are important. You'll want to analyze both metrics to get a complete understanding of your referral sources.

"Referring domains focus on which websites in aggregate are sending you visitors, and is useful for informing things like paid advertising efforts

"Referring domains focus on which websites in aggregate are sending you visitors, and is useful for informing things like paid advertising efforts," says Christopher Penn, vice president of marketing technology at SHIFT Communications. "If you see, for example, Mashable.com sending lots of traffic to you already, you may want to take out a campaign to advertise on Mashable to take advantage of an audience that is already interested in you." On the flipside, individual referrers point out what specific pages are driving traffic. "It's a useful way of measuring things like public relations efforts to see if an article that references your brand is bringing you a new audience," says Penn.

Referral reports are "the first place we look when we encounter unexpected spikes in traffic, as they allows us to quickly identify the source and the context for the spike," says Cathy Gribble, associate director of digital strategy at Team One. With that knowledge in hand, you can optimize traffic and continue to grow that audience.

2. Track Everything

Measuring your referrals isn't just about setting up campaigns, watching the numbers roll in, then deciding where to spend money to gain a bigger audience. You need to do some grunt work, or else your data might be vague and you won't know where to invest for your next campaign.
"There is often a measurement 'blind spot' when tracing the saliency of your digital paid media and your website," says Tony Clement, strategy director and head of data and analytics at Big Spaceship. Whether there's a lack of measurement planning or the tracking tags are stripped from the assets, there are several causes for cloudy referral information. "Not being able to identify which paid digital executions are working hardest from click-to-site conversion (vs. click-thru only) is potential revenue gone astray. Making sure that tracking codes are in place, and are firing under live testing is not a glamorous task, but well worth it."

3. Optimize for Social

The numbers are out and, unfortunately for most online retailers, social media isn't a huge driver of sales. But while social media isn't likely to convert customers, it still offers great value for brands.
Social media is an excellent way to increase quality visits, develop brand affinity and stay top of mind, which can eventually lead to conversion. That might seem like a lot of work and delayed gratification to get that one user to your end goal, but the payoff is well worth it. And in the meantime, you can optimize the channels that are most effective.
 

"With social media budgets increasing and more pressure to increase 'earned' value, understanding what type of social activity is acting as a traffic source can [help you] find opportunities for innovation

"With social media budgets increasing and more pressure to increase 'earned' value, understanding what type of social activity is acting as a traffic source can [help you] find opportunities for innovation," says Clement. "And through re-allocating small amounts of budget from your least effective source, you can enrich the social content that intentionally delivers quality visits."

At female-focused content site PureWow, a hefty spike in Pinterest referrals informed modifications to the editorial and design strategy, as well as long-term goals for the site.
"We pay close attention to referring domains. Like many women’s lifestyle publishers, Pinterest has vaulted in the last two years from a top-20 traffic source to a top-5 traffic source. But, unlike some other lifestyle publishers, PureWow sees incredible visitor quality from Pinterest, in terms of depth of visit, engagement and consistently low bounce rates," says Alexis Anderson, PureWow's director of marketing and partnerships. To cater to the Pinterest audience, PureWow has redesigned image specs to be more Pinterest-friendly ("balanced, squarish images over very tall and narrow") and placed "Pin It" buttons on every image or idea that might be shared.

4. Discover Partner Opportunities

Tracking your referrals doesn't just provide insight to your core audience and valuable ad spending channels, it can also help to discover potential partners who are aligned with your mission and overall goals.
"Cross-checking site referrals can be a worthwhile exercise, especially during campaign periods. You may be surprised by not only the type of sites that are referring traffic, but also the page context in which your site is referenced," says Clement. "This data can be useful to management, especially if you are looking for prospects for potential partnerships for media placements, sponsorships, events or even SEO authority."
Over time, as new platforms emerge, your referrals are bound to change. Monitoring these new referrers and amplifying them on your own channels can help your site traffic, brand awareness and conversion rates stay strong.
"We look at changes in referrers as we watch for new sources of traffic that we may want to leverage, such as an increase in referrers from a blog that has a positive posting about our products," says Gribble. "We would want to help boost that blog to amplify the positive references."
In all, keeping tabs on your referrals, both big and small, will point you in the right direction when it comes to efficient ad spend and time management as you cultivate an engaged digital audience and convert them into customers.

http://mashable.com/2013/11/27/referrals-metrics/

Boomers with Home-Based Businesses Learn to Prioritize Tasks

Just ask any Baby Boomer running a home-based business – after a while, one of the most difficult aspects is to decide “What to do next?” Everyday presents new challenges. Hence, it is imperative to also maintain a prioritized list of tasks that will directly benefit your business. This is how home-based businesses survive and grow.
I like to keep a spreadsheet list for each of my businesses, one that can be easily sorted by priority. Since I’m at an age where if I don’t write down my ”brilliant” insights, they quickly vanish, I carry a notebook at all times. There, I jot down tasks, thoughts and actions that pop into my mind and then transpose them to my spreadsheet lists.
My priorities are totally subjective. Sure, there are normal business activities that must be accomplished, such as shipping products to customers or completing a consulting report to meet a deadline. These bring in money and pay the bills. And of course they typically have the highest priority.
Then there are the “fun” things. In this category, I include items that are creative or strategic in nature. For instance:

• Reviewing my website to enhance search engine optimization.
• Exploring adjacent markets for my products and services.
• Figuring out how to grow sales 20 percent this year.
• Thinking of ways to make my business run smoother.
• Determining who can I talk to get ideas for my business or to be a sounding board.

You get the idea.
Prioritized lists are key to organizing time and being productive during the hours devoted to a home-based business each day. They help Boomers accomplish more while freeing up time for “play” to enjoy golf, family and social time, trips, gardening or simply reading a good book.
Every morning, I review my lists and set an agenda for the day. Based on how much time I want to work today, I decide which items on my list to pursue. Now, they may not be items of highest priority. Some days, I just feel like doing lower-priority stuff that I enjoy, BUT at least I’m accomplishing something beneficial to my business.
I’m sure none of this is new to you. Boomers have been making lists for years. This is how we became successful during our employment years. Operating a home-based business, however, takes the art of prioritized lists to a new level.

http://www.boomerhomebizadvice.com/2013/11/boomers-with-home-base-businesses-learn-to-prioritize-tasks/

 

Managing Your Time at the Home Office

In my practice, I've discovered that a majority of the people coming to me these days are working remotely from a home base. The economy, the Internet and social media have changed the way we approach work. Many welcome the opportunity to work from home to cut commuting and to be able to spend extra time in their personal life. But while the new wave of employers may be saving on desk space, are you really garnishing more free time?
Ask yourself: When do I clock in and clock out of my workday? Chances are you probably never actually do either of those things. The convenience of tablets and smart phones has changed the way the business day is structured. That 9-5 job can easily turn into working around the clock, in your pajamas, with very little patience or time for family or anything else.

I am up against this myself as I split my business between my metaphysical center and a home office. When I am at my home base, I strive to balance my days by applying some rules to arrange my time so it works for me, while I work for my paycheck. Consider the following as a different way to look at your day.
1. Keep a time chart of when you intend to start and end your actual work day and respect it.
2. Be dressed and ready to work at your desk and treat it as you would any sacred space you work in. Make those family and friends aware of when you work and provide them with the best times for socializing with you.
3. Keep your personal day separate from your business day. If you use social media, focus on business tweeting and posting until after hours.
4. Be sure to take your lunchtimes and break times and do not skip them. Make sure they take you away from the computer screens and the work environment. Instead of looking at a virtual tree, get out and up and into nature, or open a window and gaze at the energy of the real one in front of you.
5. Once you clock out of your day, use your off time by actually being away from your computer. No matter whom you are with or where you are, it's important to actually focus on that person and that place.
By structuring your work day so that you are clocking in and out, you are opening yourself up to a more productive lifestyle and, ultimately, more free time to spend the way you wish.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/linda-lauren/working-at-home_b_4273714.html

Working from home with young children

More and more of us are working at home these days due to the restrictively high cost of childcare – and a need for more flexible hours.

Working from home is a great way to fit your career around looking after your kids, but it's a lot easier when your children are at school. So how can you manage things when they're really small?

Remember you are doing two jobs

You're working and being a mum – two important jobs – so schedule things accordingly. "If you have small children at home with you, things will take longer to complete, so set realistic deadlines to avoid disappointing your boss or letting down your team", advises Kristen Harding, childcare expert at Tinies, the UK's leading childcare company and nanny agency network.

Create a workspace

Even if you don't have a home office, set aside a corner of the room that you can use as 'your space', while still keeping an eye on what the children are up to. "Having your own space will help you feel more secure in your role, but being able to glance up frequently will help you feel more at ease," says Kristen.

Be organised

It's all about planning when you're a WAHM (Work At Home Mum). "Plan meals in advance, shop online and make it all as easy as you can" advises Personal Development Coach Cheryl Goldenberg of The Pickle Shed, who specialises in happy working mothers. "Plan the day, too – but be prepared to change the plan along the way! Think about what the kids will be doing while you're working and make sure everything they need is in the right place".

Have a working day

You might not be going to an office, but it's important to create a working day for yourself. "Dress for work so your brain knows what mode it's in", suggests Cheryl. "Then, when you're finished, leave your home office or workspace at 5pm and find a way to draw a line between work and home – get changed into 'home' clothes, go for a run, turn up the music...". Do whatever it takes to help you switch off!

Communicate with your partner

Talk to your other half and important people in your family such as grandparents. "Be open about how easy or hard you are finding it working from home", says Kristen. "Do you need help? What would help lighten the load? Remember only you know how you're managing: don't expect others to be able to read your mind."

Create a back-up plan

What will happen if your work throws you a curve ball? "Have a back-up plan in place for when you have a last minute meeting, or an urgent deadline", suggests Kristen. "Things don't always run smoothly but if you prepare for worst case scenarios, then every day is a lot less bumpy! A childcare website like Emergency Childcare is an essential for your SOS contact list."

Look after yourself

You need to be on the best possible form – physically and emotionally – to manage working from home. "If you fall apart then everything around you does the same", warns Cheryl. "Work out what it takes to keep you feeling fresh and schedule it into your diary. Connect with other mums and dads working from home, as isolation saps confidence. And find new places to work in child-free moments to refresh creativity – your local library, a coffee shop etc."

Try and prioritise

It's vital to set aside quiet time for the tasks that need greater concentration. "This might mean arranging play dates with other working parents so that you can have a few hours of total quiet, or arranging your work around nap times", Kristen says. "And remember, letting your kids have quiet times and learn to play amongst themselves are important parts of growing up – so you don't have to entertain them all the time!"

Don't be hard on yourself

Just because you do your work at home, it doesn't make it any less important, so talk about what you do to your children and partner. "Show the family what 'Mummy's Work' means – to help them to understand what you're doing and why", suggests Cheryl.

And remember, it's never going to go smoothly all the time. "If you have a bad day, accept it and start again tomorrow!"

http://www.parentdish.co.uk/family/working-from-home-with-young-children/

Does What You Wear Matter When You Work From Home

Switching from working at an office to working from home is a pretty big change. When I made the switch, I particularly missed my coworkers, the 10-6 structure, and the soda machine, but the biggest difference was definitely my wardrobe. Does it matter what you wear when you're working from home?
At first glance it seems like the answer should be a resounding, “no.” With no one to see me, whatever clothes I put on were just for me, and whatever neighbor could see me through my home-office window. As far as I could tell, there was no practical reason to put on my office drag when nobody would see me. I could stay in my pajamas all day if I wanted.
But while idea of perfect, 24-hour comfort is appealing, what a person wears can affect the way they feel, which in turn can affect job performance. Maybe I really was going to have to wear smart shoes and an uncomfortable bra to successfully monitor Twitter and conduct Skype calls. The only way to know for sure was to play Goldilocks and try all my options to see which ones worked best.

Office ClothesMy experiment began with the full Office Lady outfit, which was a complete non-starter. I made it about 10 minutes before realizing high heels do not work at a standing desk and kicked them off. (That’s also right about when I realized that standing on my yoga mat made my standing desk experience much more pleasant.) Pantyhose and a pencil skirt always seemed perfectly comfortable at the office, but in my apartment they suddenly felt distractingly uncomfortable. That outfit was supposed to get a week of testing, but I gave it up after a day and a half.

PajamasWorking in pajamas was much more fun, but it did make me wish I had more sets of cute, matching pajamas like Zooey Deschanel on The New Girl. As long as I was clean and tidy, I did not notice an appreciable decrease in productivity between wearing pajamas and wearing my office garb. Personally, I think I was more productive because I wasn't fussing with tights or wandering skirts all day.
I didn't like wearing the pajamas I had slept in, though; that was just a step too far into sloppiness for me. Getting up and putting on a new set of pajamas for work was much better. I highly recommend it.

Casual ClothesBetween those two is the middle option of wearing comfortable, casual clothes like jeans and a comfy sweater. That was pretty much as comfortable and productive as wearing pajamas, with the added benefit of not being embarrassing on the rare occasions someone dropped by.
Having committed myself to wearing either regular house clothes or clean pajamas during work, I asked some other work-from-home types about their preferred options. I expected the answers to run the gamut, but of the eight home-office workers who responded, all but two said they wore pajamas or pajama-type clothes to work unless they expected to have to meet people. Of the two holdouts, one wore jeans and a hoodie, and the other said he started the day in pajamas and changed to jeans and a T-shirt around lunchtime. Nobody wore shoes.
When you do your job from home, do you find that what you wear makes a difference in your work?

http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/does-what-you-wear-matter-when-you-work-from-home-197194

Are Retargeting Ads the Future of Online Advertising.

Twitter made headlines in recent months after announcing that it’s going to support retargeting ads. Following Facebook’s lead, Twitter will experiment with using people’s behavior to tailor ads on their network. If the two biggest social networks are doing it, then retargeting ads must be the future of online advertising, right? They have been embraced by the marketing industry and many e-commerce websites, so retargeting ads seem to have a place in the future of online advertising. Here’s what you need to know about retargeting ads, and why you should consider them for your next campaign:
What are Retargeting Ads
Retargeting ads are banner ads on other sites, specifically shown to people who visited your site previously but didn’t buy. Only 2% of web visitors are ready to buy when they visit your site, so the idea is to remain fresh with the other 98% by tracking their behavior and presenting ads when they surf other websites so they’ll come back to your site when they are ready to make a purchase. Some companies have had great success with this strategy. Consumer-package goods company Kimberly-Clark reports that its retargeting ads have a conversion rate between 50-60 percent.
Unlike regular banner ads, retargeting ads are measured in two ways: click-through conversions and view-through conversions. Below are the definitions of both measurements, according to Moz.

• Click-through conversions are any conversions that happen as a direct result of someone clicking a retargeting ad they were served.
• View-through conversions are like assists. They are conversions that are attributed to another channel, like Google AdWords, but these people were at one point served a retargeting ad before that. Another example of this would be someone who saw the retargeting ad, but went back to the website on their own and made a purchase.

How Retargeting Ads Can Help Your Business
Retargeting ads are different from banner ads, and can be helpful to your business because of the better conversion rates. Although Kimberly-Clark is seeing 50-60 percent conversion rates on its retargeting ads, the average for them is .7%. It doesn’t seem like much, but the average conversion rate for a normal banner ad is just .07%, so retargeting ads have 10 times the conversion rate of a normal banner ad!
One reason why retargeting ads have a better conversion rate is because they can be tailored to the visitor, and even more specifically than just showing ads to people who have been on your site before.. For example, visitors can be segmented by what they were browsing. If you ran an online clothing store, people who looked at shirts could be shown different ads from those that looked at pants, so that the retargeting ads are much more relevant to the individual. This segmentation can also include a time factor, where someone searching for travel or concert tickets needs to be retargeted immediately, while someone looking for a new suit can be retargeted later.
Another reason why retargeting ads work better than display ads is because they are reaching people who have already had an experience with your brand, whether that experience is passive interest in your product, a strong intention to purchase a product in your category, or somewhere in between. In this case, retargeting ads can be used to move your visitors through the buying process and to get them closer to making the purchasing decision. Each stage would use a different message or piece of content in the retargeting ad. The person with a passive interest doesn’t want a coupon or a demo, while the person that already knows about your company and is strongly considering hiring you as a provider doesn’t need an ad explaining who you are and what you offer.
Don’t Rely on Retargeting Ads, However
The numbers show that retargeting ads work well for businesses, but they also shows that the idea of retargeting ads doesn’t sit well with consumers. Unless the consumer understands the marketing aspect of it, the process feels invasive as a brand suddenly follows them all over the Internet, showing them ads for the exact same items they browsed through on the company’s website. And it’s the brand that will pay the price for being persistent and pesky, not the third-party ad companies who serve the ads in the first place. The ads can be even more bothersome if the consumer didn’t even put anything in a shopping cart and just was window-shopping online. “Ad fatigue,” as this phenomenon is called, can sometimes be solved by limiting the number of ad impressions a visitor sees per day, but simply reducing their exposure might not be enough for some of the most sensitive consumers.
Overall, retargeting ads are a way to take your banner advertising to the next level of segmentation and specificity. They can reach people in a way that regular banner advertising can’t. When used appropriately, they can lead to a substantial increase in sales. They aren’t necessarily the future of online marketing for everyone, but for the right companies they could be an effective new addition to your marketing strategy.

http://www.business2community.com/online-marketing/retargeting-ads-future-online-advertising-0683163#BCsu8XJbLpEKOgOp.99