Verizon Softcard: Tips to Activate It and Use It Part One

The American Express Serve Card
The American Express Serve Card

I thought it would be easy to start using the Verizon Softcard as a smartphone wallet, but nooooooooooooo, sometimes easy things are very complicated.

Here’s what I did to finally get Softcard working.

1. If you have a Verizon Galaxy S5, you most likely already have the Verizon NFC SE sim card installed. If you are not sure, don’t waste time, get yourself down to the Verizon store and get them to install one. It is FREE!

2. With the phone app, sign up for the American Express Serve card. If you are not at Chase or Wells Fargo, you’ll want to do this. For me, I did not want to link my own credit card or checking account until I really knew how this thing worked. I did not want to wake up one morning with my business checking or personal checking drained. So I took the conservative approach and got the free American Express Serve card. If you connect your credit card – know that cash moved to your Serve card is like getting a cash advance. Make sure you know your interest rate for a cash advance as it could be really high.

3. Make sure to set up an online account on your desktop for your American Express Serve card; just a way to very quickly manage your account. Use the app on the go and the desktop app for tracking, reports, and quick access to customer service.

4. Know that American Express will send you a plastic Serve card for your real wallet and that the number on it is not the same number as the one in your phone, but they are linked. The phone card has a different number for security. Very Smart! Thanks for looking out for me American Express and Softcard.

5. Add money to your Serve card at 7-11 or CSV store for free – no fees. I put cash on mine and by the time I got back to my car, my phone showed my new balance.

6. Snap a picture of a check made out to you to add money to your Serve card on your phone. It took five days for my deposit to show up. 7-11 is faster! But the pic is fast and easy if you don’t need the cash super fast.

Check back on Wednesday for more on using Softcard tied to an American Express Serve card and then watch my Try It Friday video this week to see it all in action.

AdWords Conversions Move to the Mobile Space

Beautiful young woman talking on mobile phone
Smartphones are no longer a luxury but a necessity.

I manage a large number of AdWords accounts for clients in a wide and diverse sector of businesses. In the last two months I have seen very marked trend – that is the importance of mobile for lead conversions.

Of specific note is that for some clients, mobile has become their sole avenue for lead generation. For some, no longer do people take time to complete the contact form on their website, it is all click to call and with nearly all leads coming in via mobile activity.

Specifically, I see this activity on accounts that have a very strong location specificity; such as accounts for doctors, dentists, lawyers, and heating and air conditioning service providers. If the product you sell is relatively expensive, typically the desktop and tablet arena is still where most of your leads will come from, but for many mobile is REALLY ramping up.

What I’ve found is by installing website call tracking from AdWords on a website, we are getting a fuller view of how clients are using AdWords and how the client is getting lead conversions. I am finding that AdWords is driving a huge amount of call traffic for clients that we previously could not track. With this information, we are also finding out that a call versus an email conversion is now your consumers action preference.

I find that the way people use AdWords, perform research, and how leads are now generated has changed, and significantly so. Make sure that your website and your AdWords account is set up properly to take advantage of this strong emerging trend that is mobile driven. This is the future for AdWords not just a short term trend.

If you need a savvy AdWords account manager, who just also happens to be a Google Partner to help you ramp up your conversion activity, you’ll want to look over our service offerings today.

How Does Your Website Stack Up in the Mobile Space – Test It!

Screen Shot Showing the Results of the Google Mobile Friendly Testing Tool
Screen Shot Showing the Results of the Google Mobile Friendly Testing Tool

Google continues to push and refine its message as to the importance all websites having a mobile friendly website. Just this past week on the mobile version of Google I started to see tags in front of search listings as to if the site was mobile friendly or not.

Truthfully, I believe the next step is for Google to filter out and not supply sites at all in the mobile search results that have not stepped up to create the proper mobile experience. I expect to see this happen within the next six months.

Google is serious about having a great experience for mobile users on their mobile search platform. If they do not, then users will migrate to other providers who show more relevant results. If they move, Google will lose big in the ad arena. So for Google showing the right mobile friendly results in mobile search directly equates with its own bottom-line. Miscalculate on how Google feels about mobile and you’ll be out of their index.

The great things is that Google moves slowly to make big changes like this, letting users know that they feel is important and provides tools to help site owners. Here is just one of the tools that Google has recently released: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/. It is an online tool to test just how friendly your website is.

Take the tool for a test drive to see just how your website stacks up. For now you have time to fix these problems, but you will not be able to wait forever. If you are using a legacy site, one that is not built with a responsive design and are not using a mobile rendering plugin or application to turn your old website into a mobile friendly one, you’ve just got to take action within the next six months to get there. We can help you get there. I invite you to review our responsive design options today to start on evaluating your options.

 

Try It Friday – The Pocket App for Reading on the Go

You’ve got to love Pocket! This is a great app that is a browser utility that allows you to then read things you mark as interesting on any device. Very cool, super easy, I use it all the time. View it at YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQs1-qLAXss&feature=youtu.be

Start first by installing pocket on your desktop or laptop by visiting http://getpocket.com/. You’ll be asked to set up an account and install a small app that will put the +Pocket app in your toolbar.

You’ll also want to download the app at iTunes and Google Play.

When you log in to your Pocket account on your devices, you will then be able to see content you’ve saved to read later across any device. I love this app use it to provide personalized content that I can read anywhere on the go.

Keeping the “Family” Out of the Family Business – Can You?

Grandparents posing with grandchildren
Employing Family Members in Your Small Business Can be a Joy or Challenge.

Small businesses were just feted last week on Small Business Saturday and many small businesses are family operations. So, how do you keep the “family” out of a family business?

As a small business owner and family business owner, I have found that it is sometimes hard to keep the drama, that happens sometimes in family relationships, out of the business.

Here are my tips to keeping your family business professional.

1. Make sure that even with family members you keep it professional. When deadlines are missed, you’ve got to take corrective action just as you would with a regular employee. When tensions rise, it may be better to separate from hiring a certain family member than to jeopardize a family relationship.

2. Be careful who you hire in your family. Not every family member may be suited for working in your business.

3. If you hire your kids, make sure you put gates up between work and family. Your children can grow to resent that you are always in work mode and that they may feel that they are simply becoming employees.

4. Make sure to pay fairly so that family members do not begrudge your success or feel resentful by thinking that you have built your business at their expense.

5. Do not be afraid to separate from family members who cause too much work stress or drama for you. At some point you do have to consider that poorly performing employees (although they may be a family member) may need to be let go and that action may be a blessing for them and you in the long run.

Running a small business and especially when you introduce your children into your world can be exciting and stimulating for both you and your kids, but make sure that you are ready to take on the additional nuances that employing family members brings into your work world.

 

Mobile Friendly Versus Responsive Website Design

Make sure you fully evaluate your options before buying a new website.
Make sure you fully evaluate your options before buying a new website.

As more and more clients try to understand what it takes to please Google and smartphone users there are some items that should be carefully reviewed by all website owners before they put down a deposit on a new website.

First, there is a difference between a mobile-friendly website and a responsive website.

Second, my personal preference is a responsive website.

The difference is…

Mobile friendly – typically means that the site content is being rendered for a smartphone. DudaMobile sites are a good example of this as as Wix websites. A separate website is created for the mobile audience. What is problematic is that if your webmaster does not add content updates to your mobile site or forgets to click refresh the site at DudaMobile, your mobile content may not reflect the changes to your regular website.

Responsive website – this is the preferential way to build your new website. Here a stylesheet takes one set of content and renders that same content in different ways for the device’s screen width. The only potential issue for using this approach is that you do not have content control for mobile only as you do with a mobile friendly site. That being said, more often than not, readers do want to see your full content not a stripped down mobile version that may lack the depth of content and information that your desktop site contains.