Data Use, Phone Bills, Wi-Fi and Broadband Confusion, Clarified

Are you wondering why your data is being drained and your phone bill is higher than your savings each month?

Ads are draining your data on your phone and your Apps are draining your data on your phone. Control them. Buy AdBlock for all your devices. 

Read reviews on the Apps. Ad-Blocker Brower with ChromeCast Support on iPhone for Google, AdBlock Browser, AdBlock PRO ($1.99), there are others for Safari etc. 

The money is worth it but please, please read reviews, research the developer, visit their website, send an e-mail with all your questions before downloading any app to your phones.

1. Buy AdBlock 

Block the ads with a wonderful little app for phones and computer software that can turn off all the ads and block them. 

Buy the pure AdBlock and don't allow any ads through via the softer version which is called AdBlock Light.

You should NOT see ads and don't be a softie and allow Ad Light version. You'll pay for the ads that play on your phone. 

2. Turn OFF Data for Apps

You must either turn off data for every single App on your phone that you are NOT using or YOUR data plan will pay for them. iPhone and Androids sold at phone companies aren't telling you to turn this junk off. You shouldn't have all your apps on all the time unless you have money to throw away.

It takes only a moment to turn off all the apps that are pulling from and draining your data. If you don't turn them off you're going to get charged for that. 

Go to Settings and turn each one off. When you need to use the App, turn it on. 

Your new phone comes with settings whereby allllll Apps are on and draining your data. Even the apps you didn't download. Even the apps that came with the phone that you never touch. 

Every time you Google something, that's an APP. It uses data. You pay for all of it and this doesn't need to happen. 

Turn ON Wi-Fi--IF at Home and Wi-Fi is Secure

If you have home broadband, you can turn on the Wi-Fi on your phone and pull from that for a flat rate. Your Wi-Fi, not that provided for free from the apartment or building you live in. Secure, paid for Wi-Fi from a local "cable" company, mobile broadband jet pack from a phone service. 

Free Wi-Fi = Can Be Very Bad

Free Wi-Fi at a hotel, in a coffee shop, in a public place is a nightmare waiting to be unleashed on your cherished

phone, mobile device or laptop. Hackers are standing by...sometimes offering their own free Wi-Fi so that you'll logon and get into your private banking, e-mails and passwords. 

Think you're getting over on some neighbor? Think again.

This means that when you leave your home, you'll need to turn OFF Wi-Fi so that your phone or laptop or mobile device doesn't pick up random Wi-Fi. Or triple check your device's Wi-Fi to be sure it makes YOU choose and LOGIN to secure Wi-Fi. Turn it off to be sure.

If you keep Wi-Fi on and allow your phone to search and connect to anything, you're leaving your phone/laptop/mobile device (iPad, tablet) and all its private information wide open to hackers. 

What Can You Do Safely?

Use a secure broadband home or mobile jetpack for data to use your Apps. Don't use random, non-secure (translation: if you don't have a password that is specific to that Wi-Fi source which should be BROADBAND and SECURE as told to you by the provider). 

You can turn Wi-Fi on and keep Data OFF (including Roaming Data OFF) and use your phone reasonably well. Turning on the apps and data as needed. 

The average person may not want to turn on and off...but then you'll be charged for that.

Let's talk about Wi-Fi which for many people is a very very insecure option because you may not have any antivirus or security software installed and paid for on your mobile device. 

If you are going to a public place that doesn't have a password protected, secure and regularly changed password, you're using very unsecure Wi-Fi: Hackers can't wait for you to show them your stored passwords, banking and other personal information. They're probably sitting next to you in the location. 

This is when broadband is needed and worth having. Mobile broadband that you can turn on and off and that only you have the password for. 

1. Make sure that the source is secure (broadband at home, not +Starbucks Coffee  +McDonald's

2. Use broadband and turn off data: +Verizon Wireless Customer Support +T-Mobile and +AT&T should tell all clients this information, but they don't. You buy a phone and they make you come back for LESSONS which you skip.

3. Wi-Fi....if you use a +Verizon FiOS or another brand of Mobile Broadband unit, you have to turn it off and on to save your data. 

That Old Fashioned Home Internet Package

Still glad you got rid of your home Internet package? For about $65 to $150 month you can get unlimited lightening and titanium and all the other terms used to describe super fast and secure broadband for your phone, TV, and other home devices. 

Why Home Internet Seemed Slow

Home Internet may have been a nightmare with sketchy service, but that's only because the cable company or provider didn't tell you that you often need to rewire your home OR get a modem on every floor. 

Home broadband for multi-level homes needs to be able to be accessed. Thick walls, metal beams and corners are the enemy to broadband.

There's a limit to what broadband can do and will vary by your home structure. One modem, lightening broadband may be super slow if it's responsible for running 2-3 devices 24-7 through walls and floors. If you're a gamer, have kids with iPads, several laptops and desktops and TVs, you're looking at a big home broadband bill.

If you get a bigger, faster plan, you still have to find out how to keep that broadband at home streaming steadily through all walls and floors.You will likely need your home wired with the relevant number of wireless modems, wiring to keep the broadband streaming through all the walls and levels of your home. 

Shop Around 

Use your broadband on your device and shop around for home broadband. Call first and don't ever go into a phone store without knowing the competition's rates. When +Veri dropped the mandatory 2-year plan for phones last week, consumers received the opportunity to do what is needed for service. 

Don't Jump Deal to Deal

Be very wary of "special deals" for anything. Don't jump companies or change your Internet at home until a company is established. You may want +Century Link or +Comcast or +Bright House Networks or +TimeWarner or +Dish Network or +DIRECTV. But you'd better know that the company will survive the broadband battle for the next year or 2 years that you get locked into.

You Get What You Ask For

If you don't ask, you don't get. You get what you don't ask for!! Negotiate. Be willing to walk away and go to another service for the best deal for YOU. Don't be a sucker and go to see the newest phones and get sucked in. Go to +Best Buy and look at all the phones and all the plans. 

True, the staff may or may not know the differences exactly, but you have a phone, use it and call to find out. 

Go on +eBay or +Amazon.com  and buy a phone from a top seller. If the phone sucks when you get it, +eBay and +Amazon.com  have a buyer's protection and money back guarantee. 

Buy Company-Specific Phone Online

If you know your phone service and data company, be sure to buy an unlocked Verizon, or AT&T or T-Mobile phone from any online company. Skip +CraigsList which offers no guarantee.

Then, go into your phone service store of choice and sign up for $15 a month unlimited phone and text plan. Buy a data plan that you can live with and turn that thing OFF if you're not using it. You can turn it on as needed. 

Choose for Yourself

Everyone uses data differently. Don't get sucked in, tricked or trapped by broadband/data and phone services. Take 10 minutes to find out what deal you can get. Don't go to +Verizon Wireless Customer Support without first calling +AT&T and +T-Mobile.

Don't buy their phones at cost and pay more for a phone than you put away in savings each month and get locked into a plan for years that prevents you from getting what's new, latest and better!

These phones are complicated computers. You may feel like you can't live without them, but guess what?
Technology got to where it is today through face-to-face business deals. The phone companies know the technology available to you 12 months, two years from now, NOW, today. 

But they're siphoning it and handing it out little by little knowing you can't wait to pay for the next big thing. 

Cheers!

SEO Takes Time to Work & It's Expensive

Search engines want websites with new, better, different.

Hi, my name is Rebekah Brown and I'm CEO of The Marketing Square, a website and ad agency located in Winter Park, Florida and Madison Wisconsin. One of the top questions I receive from clients is when will my SEO start working?

Visit TheMarketingSquare YouTube channel and watch the video, "How Do You Know if Your SEO is Working?"

The simple answer is that it varies by client. There is a number of factors and I'm going to give you the top three.

How Long Has SEO Been Done?

Number one. How long have you been doing SEO? Or having someone do SEO for you? If it's been five months, six months, you need to wait a little bit longer because truthfully it will take about nine months before you receive steady traffic and continuous phone calls, e-mails and increased activity due to the website advertising via SEO that you've done.

Build Your Website in WordPress

Number two, what kind of website do you have? A website that is WordPress which is what we build in will

If search engines find your website interesting it will come up in search.

be more search engine friendly than a website that was built in some other platforms that we will not be discussing. We only work in WordPress. The reason we do that is that it's easy to use, it's very search engine friendly, it can be updated regularly with very simple changes.

Good SEO is Expensive

Number three. How much are you paying for SEO? If you're paying two hundred dollars a month, eight hundred dollars a month, anything below a thousand dollars a month for SEO it's highly unlikely that you're going to be receiving quality SEO. Search engine optimization is expensive. A skilled and qualified, experienced person is going to charge you hourly at least 75 dollars an hour, you need at least one hour a day. So let's put the number out there at $3,000 a month. At three thousand a month, you can expect in return at least six thousand returned from the work that you put into the website or that you hire a firm to do that work for you.

Products will be found worldwide online if you pay for SEO.

Now six thousand dollars a month may not sound like a lot, but that's just the beginning of the SEO and the amount of work that's put into it. You have to continue that three thousand dollar fee per month continuously. You can't stop. You have to continuously put something into your website.

Websites Must Be Interesting

The reason that that is think of a website search engine. Google, Yahoo and Bing, their primary job, their only job is to provide the best search engine results to the users. So if I type in Winter Park bankruptcy attorney or Winter Park chef, I want to know who has the best, latest, newest and who's the most qualified chef or bankruptcy attorney. And that depends on how much somebody has put into their advertising. Did they care about their website enough to make it look good and if they haven't they're not going to show up in results because the search engines aren't going to be interested in them.

Get a Review, Find Out What It Will Take to Get New Business

Now it's a lot more complex than that and if you'd like to know a little bit more about how search engine optimization works give us a call at The Marketing Square.

Again, I'm Rebekah Brown I'm the CEO of The Marketing Square, we are a website and ad agency located in Winter Park, Florida and Madison, Wisconsin.

DIY Website Management May Work for You

Keeping up with the traffic-driving activities is not easy for clients who have new websites. What seems easy when the activities are carefully explained, it often becomes a chore.  New website owners who want to DIY (do-it-yourself) their websites suddenly get caught up in the business and slack off.

The Marketing Square has three kinds of clients:
1. DIY clients regularly blogging, using social media and online activity to drive website traffic
2. Clients who pay us to handle these activities for them
3. Clients who haven't touched websites since they were turned over to them

All clients are taught by The Marketing Square how to use their websites, social media and an array of online activities to keep traffic going. We tell all clients to blog at LEAST three times a week

Training Wheels Off: Some Make It, Others Wipe Out

But when the training wheels come off some ride off easily while others are completely overwhelmed by the prospect of blogging for the rest of the life of their website.

Then they get mad at us when they don't get traffic. But we clarify the responsibility and the fact that just like electricians, doctors, lawyers, babysitters we do not work for free.

While it would seem simple for us to throw a client a bone with free blogging, social media and other online activities, it's unrealistic.

We're not selfish, but like other businesses we must have revenue. We do have pro bono clients and work with charities to provide an array of services including:

• Free hosting
• Free e-mail
• Blogging
• Social media
• Marketing
• Repairs
• Event and fundraising consultation

This Marketing Square pro bono clients includes:

• Hollow Creek Farm Equine & Canine Rescue in Enoree, South Carolina
• Florida Opera Theatre Opera Productions in Orlando
• Rebuild Globally Earthquake recovery efforts in Haiti
• BASE Camp Children's Cancer Charity in Winter Park, Florida

It's Easy to Say, Tougher to Write and Do

When The Marketing Square provides clients with the keys to the website which is actually the password and user name. But more importantly we also provide team and owner training. We require clients to video or voice record sessions. This way clients may keep to watch later when key aspects of the online activities are forgotten.

We do this so that every client knows how to:

• Open the website
• Post a blog, press release or article
• Video
• Photos
• Use and post social media 
• Other online activities that will help drive website traffic
• Record and upload video to YouTube

Clients Learn to Post Photos, Video, Blog, Use Social Media

We show all clients how to post conveniently to their social media and always teach clients the premise that they must stay active online and that if they don't they will not receive website traffic.

We provide affordable prices and work with clients to achieve realistic goals within the budgets they provide. Website work is detail-oriented. Quality original content costs because it's written specifically to the clients' target audience using their voice, takes brand and service knowledge. Ditto on social media and other online activities.

If you're trapped in the grasp of a webmaster who won't show you how to open your own website or is holding you hostage or you would like to try managing your own site give us a call. We only work in WordPress because of its search-engine-friendly application and ease of use for owners.

The Marketing Square is located in Madison, Wisconsin, and Winter Park, Florida, We will work with you wherever you are and provide screen shares, Skype or in-person lessons and meetings. We will come to you if you're in another state because concierge and face-to-face business is the best way to begin a partnership.

Free Websites? Maybe a Success Isn't in Your Future

You see the advertising for free websites on TV and because you're desperate for business you bite. You call and order it.

Mistake No. 1:
You're desperate because you need a business plan. If you're not selling or people aren't buying then something is wrong. Pay a consultant to figure it out. You can't do everything yourself.

You call and find out it's true after all: They ARE giving you a free website. It's only three months but you need business now. You'll figure the rest out later when you get some clients.

Mistake No. 2:
You haven't got a budget so this free website will work until all that new business from your free website comes rolling in. 

And we all know it's a great investment because it's FREE. You have nothing to lose but your image and all your future business. No one's advertising free websites that bring you clients and new business.

Mistake No. 3:
You have your image to lose because that cheap, tacky, free website is the first and last time a prospect will need to see before crossing you off their list of companies to work with.

Free is Good, But It's Not Great

You get free earphones from the airlines and those are AWESOME.
You get free toothpaste and toothbrush from the Dentist. OK, those usually are pretty good.
You get free sausage samples from the grocery store. But you never buy the sausage.

You get free soap in the hotel plus free shampoo and conditioner. But that stuff dries your skin and your hair.

Beyond that wonderful feeling that comes with freebies, when was the last time someone gave you something for free that in turn brought you money and new clients?

Never. Nothing worth having comes easily or for free.

But It Has to Be Good It's on TV!

You do know that commercials are paid for and that as long as the product functions, they don't have to submit to any further screening? Sure there's a Better Business Bureau that tries to monitor bad businesses. At the very least, if you're ready to hand over your business to strangers who promise you from your TV screen a free website to advertise your company look them up at the following locations online:

Step 1: Look the business up online and be sure to stop by http://RipOffReport.com to see what unhappy clients are saying about the non-delivered website promises.

Step 2: Look up the websites that they built that are in your business under their client section

Step 3: Call those clients. If they have no phone, no address and only an e-mail address, it may be a fake website setup for people checking out the free websites.

Step 4: Go to the Better Business Bureau and look the business up. You'll need a ZIP code to get started.

Step 5: Calculate the total monthly amount that you will have to spend after your trial FREE period online ends. It's going to be almost enough to spend to pay someone professional to write you a business plan.

Business Isn't For Everyone

If you don't have the money for a business plan, maybe a new business isn't the best plan for you in the first place. To be certain watch Shark Tank on Friday night. There you'll see people with starry eyes and fairly well thought out business plans submit themselves to five business gurus who will either tear them to shreds for their lack of planning or ask for a piece of their business because it's so good that they want in.

We're Expensive and We Don't Offer Discounts or Promotions

The Marketing Square works hard for clients who get results. That's what we advertise: proven web results. If you want to know about our work, call our clients. We build their websites to their specs--to an extent--but to our strategy. Our clients are good at what THEY do. They come to us because we're good at what WE do.

They want and need business results and they're willing to pay us because we work hard for them and they trust us to do so. Trust is everything. If you don't trust the person who is working on your website, you've got trouble ahead. Website work is grueling. It's a lot of work and it's time-consuming.

We don't work for free. We don't give discounts or specials or promotions. If you're looking for cheap, don't call us. We won't "work a deal" for you. Every website is a unique and customized build with original content, photos, social media, profiles, video. Best of all, we provide a marketing plan because your website has to be one of several streams of advertising. You can't rely only on a website for business if you're just starting out. You'll have to generate streams of revenue through the various services and products that you offer.

If you want that kind of information: a business map and streams of income and revenue, you'll have to pay us for it. We don't give that out for free and you won't see us advertising on TV. We don't need to advertise because we get clients from referrals from other clients.

That's the point where you want your business to be where you're rewarding existing clients for sending you referrals. That's when we give things away: we provide our clients extra services for their referrals to us. it's only fair. They make money from our work and they send us money for their success. That's the kind of relationship we build with our clients who rely on us to get their businesses revived or jump started.