7 Tools, freedom of the Digital World
Who’s Striving for Balance
As a changemaker, innovator or creative thinker when it comes to tasks, working remotely is not so different from traditional working. If all functions of the job are performed digitally, then the possibility of remotely working is available to you. However, understanding the right digital skills is fundamental to being successfully hired remotely. Whether you are a writer, digital marketer, blogger, podcaster, web developer, programmer the same principles apply.
Working remotely needs a different set of skills to communicate and work in a team both efficiently and effectively. Having the right skills will increases productivity and reduces downtime. This in turn creates more personal time, achieving the work-life balance that every innovator, entrepreneur or influencer desires. The right skills help create a fulfilled professional and private life. These digital skills will be explored in the following sections to help you work remotely more successfully.
1. Creating a Professional Online Presence
If you want to successfully pursue a career remotely there are many types of lucrative and colorful professions available. You could be a marketer, web developer, influencer, online consultant, coder, networker, designer, whatever tickles your fancy! It is paramount to make sure that your social media presence reflects who you are as a professional. By building a notable online presence, you can boost employability and create the right impression with employers. You can achieve this by building a captivating website, developing great social media profiles and creating a strong, clear, and visually enticing social media strategy aligned with your business goals. In parallel these should strengthen your online presence and be complemented, driven and maximized for affect form behind the scene with your meta data and search engine optimization (see section “optimize the hell out of your WordPress SEO”)
Some of the critical skills that fall into professional on-line presence are –
a) Privacy and security settings – Being a remote worker means that you will likely use a lot of different apps and make quite a few online transactions. Therefore, it is advisable to take precaution by protecting your personal data and privacy
b) The effect of how things you post on social media impact your audience. Remember potential employers can easily already be in your audience before employing you. They need to know you are not going to hurt their brand and image, so it’s imperative to keep your professional reputation online. So, protecting your reputation can protect your future. The reputation can carry you a million miles regardless of whether you are an influencer, designer, online trainer, digital creative or innovator. You can effectively harness the benefits from a likeable but dynamic and professional presence which can be published on multiple social media spheres. A great ethical reputation speaks volumes. It could carry you to places you never thought possible and vastly increase the likelihood of paid remote employment.
2. Digital Marketing
Whether it is as a B2 marketer on LinkedIn, marketing on Pinterest, optimising emails or an entrepreneurial influencer selling how to analyse marketing performance or create a digital online strategy, marketing skills make you highly employable remotely.
Whether you want to become a virtual assistant, writer, programmer, online consultant or intend to teach courses on marketing social media, lead generation, or visual communication, digital marketing skills are essential and crucial for every change-maker and thinker. Technology is continuously evolving, prompting marketers and entrepreneurs to dive into digital marketing to increase brand awareness, reach their target market, and ultimately drive sales and profit.
Digital marketing skills can be learned with patience, hard work, and determination. You can train yourself to acquire the unique skills needed to launch effective digital marketing campaigns for your brand. This marketing campaign will prove invaluable as you push through the growth cycle.
3. Learning to Code for the Web
Coding is believed to be the language of the future, Recognising the role that coding languages such as JavaScript, CSS, and HTML, play in developing websites can allow you to find a niche within which to become a specialist in paid remote employment. Whether as a full-time web developer or to increase your own digital skills, understand coding unlocks the ability to manipulate information in other ways. Learning how to code, even at the minimum level is an essential digital skill to have as a remote worker
4. Customer Service for the Digital World
More and more organisations have moved their customer service in the digital world. This means employers are tending to increasingly hire from the freelance remote working realm, both removing overhead costs, such as office rent while also taking advantage of a much more significant talent pool that the online freelancers provide. By improving your customer service skills, including learning how to serve customers using social media platforms or perfecting the way you build customer loyalty, one can quickly boost employability as a remote worker. Exceptional satisfaction quickly triggers significant follow up orders and a significant portion of your business will be flowing from returning customers. …..Once you have them, keep them with your dazzling product and service!
Customer services is an area that embraces multiple niches, ranging from learning how to manage a customer service team to successfully influencing conversations in the right direction with challenging customers while avoiding conflict. So it’s a good idea to focus on specific areas and master them one by one to be able to demonstrate a greater degree of experience to potential clients looking for the differentiating factor.
5. Taking the Creative Approach
Web-based design can be a very productive niche for remote workers, particularly if you are a creative thinker. From WordPress theme design to graphic design, there are a world of different categories from which you can choose, each requiring a different skill. Master your craft by taking advantage of the extensive, both, free and paid resources out there to learn the skills required to become a better designer.
Apart from designing actual websites, the world is your oyster with opportunities in designing iOS or Android apps. The world of smart phone opens these app opportunities to an exponential audience. ….. or focus on learning Photoshop for UX design. The possibilities are almost infinite, and if you get the innovative juices flowing and step into your creator mode, it wouldn’t be too challenging to learn the necessary digital skills required to advance a career and earn a healthy living remotely.
6. Learning How to Sell
Understanding how to make sales is an essential skill to have, both in remote and traditional work environments. From creating the perfect sales pitch to being able to recognise sales growth opportunities, there are lots of niches for you to focus on that will increase your skills, capability and employability as a digital marketer or entrepreneur.
Whether you want to learn how to manage the sales process to start an online venture or improve sales negotiation skills to serve clients or employers better, being an excellent salesperson is an integral part of the digital skill in the new era. Also, these skills will allow you to better market yourself as an influencer, networker, designer, entrepreneur or digital nomad.
I hope this was helpful on your journey with a successful career working remotely whether you’re in your 20s or 60s and are looking to move into remote working or make a career switch that requires executing effectively within the realms of freelance work from the comfort of working wherever in the world you choose.
No matter what your interests are, boosting your skills set is an excellent way to expand your opportunities that would otherwise be outside of your reach.
Live your life the way you dream and remove the restraints that you have had around you for so long.
7. A little Splash of the tech
We touched on SEO above so it would not be fair not to cast even a little light on the subject. This field alone is a great branch form a digital entrepreneur to earn a living, so mastering the topic early is a valuable tool to add to your portfolio.
- Optimising Meta tags, including title, keywords and descriptions
- perform keyword (search query) analysis
- Install and configure the All-in-one, Yoast, or other preference you have for a plug-ins
- SEO plugin configure the social meta tags, for improved social media interaction.
- Optimise these tags for all relevant pages based on the content of each page/post
- Install accelerated mobile pages (AMP) stay in line with Google’s latest recommendations
- Improve your image tags
- Add schema markup (Structured Data) for your logo, general business information, phone number (if appropriate) etc.
- Ensure your H1, H2 and H3 tags are being used effectively
- Setup and configure a sitemap.xml file, and submit it to Google
- If appropriate, configure Google to maximise your search results for a particular country or geographic region.
- Ensure any robots.txt file is configured correctly (most WordPress sites do not have optimal settings)
- Make sure your URLs are search engine friendly (and human readable)
- Ensure your social network profiles are linked too
Now ideas are flowing, sit by the pool, relax and set your strategy, good luck my friends!
