by Mark Bloom | Aug 10, 2020 | Announcement
Take the Risk out of Working for Yourself
More and more Americans have started working for themselves as part of the gig economy. The actual number may be as high as 40 percent of the workforce, and it continues to expand. Check out these game-changing gig economy statistics. The gig economy doesn’t necessarily involve starting new companies or opening storefronts. It includes, for the most part, people working for an app service or web service to generate either primary or secondary income.
On the face of it, app-based gig work — working as a contractor through a service — is a great way to earn extra money. The hours are flexible, the pay is acceptable, and it’s usually easy to get started. The downside, however, applies as much as the upside:
- Like all hourly jobs, you don’t get paid if you decide not to work.
- Gig economy work is perfect for part-time work, since your pay depends on how much you work in a given week. If you switch to working your gig economy job as your main source of income, however, you soon learn how undependable your paycheck becomes week to week.
- When you work a gig-economy job, it’s not just difficult to save money while living hand to mouth, but it’s also almost impossible to get protection for your health.
Take the Risk out of Working for Yourself
Things are starting to change. This year, 2020, gig workers were allowed to collect unemployment for lost time due to the coronavirus pandemic. That was a first. What could be next? A safety net for gig economy workers? Affordable health coverage?
As a matter of fact, yes. These things and more are starting to roll out for gig economy workers across the country. It’s a testament to the sheer number of gig workers and the economic power they’re beginning to develop. Taking the risk out of working for yourself means making your gig economy job as viable, acceptable, and safe as a job for any brick-and-mortar business.
Take the Risk out of Working for Yourself
Imagine these benefits for gig economy workers (especially if you happen to drive for an app service):
- 80 percent of your normal weekly pay while your car is being repaired after an accident
- 80 percent of your normal weekly pay if you’re hospitalized due to an accident
- 80 percent of your normal weekly income if you’re temporarily let go by the app business.
- Legal representation in the form of a letter written on your behalf
- A complementary Hurdlr Premier account to track your mileage for business
- Sick leave, based on borrowing from future earnings
- Access to a remote healthcare professional, anytime, for you and your immediate family
This concept feels important and new enough to hype a little. And as Ray Access works within the gig economy framework — we hire freelance writers — it made sense to get involved in making this announcement. It has the potential to help many gig economy workers. And you heard it here first, on rayaccess.com.
Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or discuss your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original. And yes, Ray Access received compensation for posting this article, but we never do something just for the money. This actually sounds like a good fit for gig economy workers.
by Mark Bloom | Jun 29, 2020 | Announcement
Showcasing New Website Content with a Purpose
Ray Access — an online content development firm based in Asheville, NC, but with an international footprint — has launched an updated, mobile-friendly website. This marks the second time in its short history that Ray Access has updated its site. This time, however, there’s a purpose behind the redesign beyond making use of the latest technology.
While the design and implementation are new, the real difference in the site is its updated content. It’s meant to showcase how new website content can make a difference in visitor retention and engagement. For the first time, Ray Access has created a site similar to the ones it produces for its clients: full of useful information and light on promotional material.
A New Website? Yawn
It’s common for businesses to update their websites from time to time. Nothing says “I don’t care” like a website that looks as if it were cobbled together from spare code back in the mid-1990s. An updated site has become a business necessity, so your business will be taken seriously. The recommended period for a relaunch is about every five years because that’s about how long it takes for technology to change significantly.
But new sites need more than a pretty design and an attractive combination of colors. It needs more than fancy graphics and flashy photography. Websites have a business purpose: to attract and retain customers. Does your website do that? If not, consider an update, whether or not the design seems out-of-date.
Why New Website Content Matters
In the past, the Ray Access site provided lots of information about our services and our value proposition — i.e., why a business should hire us instead of our competition. It’s a common approach for many businesses online. After all, isn’t that the point of a website?
No, as we’re all learning. The internet is evolving with how people use it. We could write about the evolution of keyword use, but that’s boring. Instead, think about how people, regular people, use the internet. They search for information, often asking full-sentence questions into their phone. If they find your website, what value can you give them?
That’s the value of good content. The best design in the world can’t hold a visitor for long. (No offense to designers; see above for our love of modern designs.) Visitors reach your website because they want something. They may be shopping for what you provide, or they may be researching something about your industry. Either way, your site has to impart useful information without giving away the farm.
How a New Website Earns Customers
As with the new Ray Access website, it’s the new website content that makes or breaks a site. No matter what your business, no matter what your industry, seek to add value to your community and the world at large. Provide free, useful information. If it’s good enough, you’ll gain an audience. Deliver that information in a clear, easy-to-comprehend format, and you’ll gain at least one fan: Ray Access.
The internet is an inconsistent place. Search engines help, but sometimes, the site you end up on is a garbled mess. If all you want to do is find the answer to a question, you’ll move on quickly to the next website on the search engine results page.
Keep visitors on your site longer. Statistics show that the longer a visitor is on your site, the more likely he is to becoming a customer. So if your new website content is clear, to-the-point and accurate, you stand a better-than-average chance of gaining a new customer.
Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or discuss your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.
by Elle Ray | Jun 15, 2020 | Announcement
Look for the Blessings as Restrictions Loosen
As restrictions loosen throughout the country this month, it may behoove you to take a beat and consider just what your new normal will look like. The shutdown in response to the COVID-19 pandemic created a hole in time during which you actually were given a gift: time to consider your priorities, your purpose and your goals.
Many people found new interests, from gardening to cooking. Others either relished or regretted the extra forced time they spent with their families and roommates. Some shut down their companies, moved to a work-at-home environment or put business on hold.
Reports abound about people who started meditating, journaling or convening with nature. Memes fill social media with tales of woe from those who gained weight and turned into couch spuds. Hopefully, you found some lessons during the shutdown that will drive your decisions into a future closer to your design. Hopefully, you haven’t filled up on frustration and pent up anger at those things you can’t control right now.
A Revised Bucket List
Now is a good time to review your goals and take a revised bucket list into your new normal when restrictions loosen up even more. Consider your own personal takeaways that may include:
- Deciding to go into full-time work-at-home mode
- Allowing more of your employees to work remotely
- Cultivating new-found skills
- Taking a class or earning a degree
- Writing a book, short stories or poetry (or all three!)
- Joining a church or other spiritual practice group
- Retiring early
- Meeting a new fitness goal
- Closing your business
- Opening a new company
- Switching careers
- Pursuing your passion
- Getting married or divorced
The list can go on and on, but you get the idea. As restrictions loosen and you head back to the office, the gym, school and social gatherings, don’t forget the lessons that seemed so glaring when you had nothing else to do. Instead of rushing out to return to your old normal, take this challenge:
Figure out what new insights you learned about yourself.
Write down the lessons you learned.
Create a plan for your personal new normal.
Restrictions Loosen to a New Normal
The world is a different place today and will be for a while. We’re required to wear face masks as part of our regular public dress. We can’t shake hands or hug just anyone outside of our home. We won’t be going to concerts, sporting events or crowded churches in the near future. And who even knows how long small business owners can keep their doors open before another round of shutdowns comes?
Rather than rushing out to try to resume your personal and professional life as it was pre-coronavirus, as restrictions loosen, listen to your heart, review your insights and take the lessons you learned as a guide to:
- A better work/home balance
- A more rewarding career
- A smarter business plan
- New friends and relationships
- Healthier eating and exercising routines
- More productive personal and professional initiatives
Find the silver lining from these past few months. Don’t let it go to waste or just to your waist. Sometimes, we need a good hard slap in the face to snap us out of a rut, to redirect our energy and to get us to the great life we are meant to have. Consider the COVID-19 shutdown as that slap in the face to snap out of it, refreshed with new vigor, imagination and anticipation.
Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or discuss your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.
by Mark Bloom | Apr 7, 2020 | Announcement
How to Improve Your Odds against the Virus
Ray Access may not be healthcare professionals, but we specialize in writing website content for a variety of medical practices. Our writers and editors research the latest developments in the medical field for our clients. We find up-to-date medical information sometimes before they’re in the mainstream. So this advice constitutes the best and latest news available, which you’re encouraged to confirm.
Doctors now know the coronavirus is a respiratory virus that settles in your lungs. It either causes or enables pneumonia, which may be fatal for virus sufferers. The virus creates thick mucus, which then solidifies. Narrower walls in your respiratory passages block the airways to your lungs and eventually impairs the lungs themselves.
10 Ways to Protect Yourself from the Coronavirus
Here’s a list of 10 things you can do to protect yourself from the virus or keep it from getting worse:
- Drink warm or hot liquids, such as coffee, teas, soups and warm water. Sip warm water every 20 minutes during the day. This washes the virus, if present, from your mouth into your stomach, where the acids neutralize it. Also, avoid eating or drinking cold things whenever possible.
- Wash your hands every half hour. Yes, every 30 minutes. Use soap that foams with water. Scrub for at least 20 seconds — or the time it takes you to sing the Happy Birthday song.
- Gargle an antiseptic liquid in warm water every day. You can find oral antiseptics in over-the-counter strength at your local pharmacy. They’re not expensive. Or try lemon juice, salt water or vinegar.
- Wash yourself and your clothes often. Soap and detergent neutralize the virus; you don’t need bleach. The virus apparently attaches easily to hair and clothes, as well as skin. If possible, take a shower or bath, using soap, immediately whenever you come in from outside. Do not sit down, do not throw your clothes on the bed or carpet. Wash your clothes every day, especially after leaving the house. If you can’t do that, keep the clothes worn outside separate from the other clothes you wash.
- Clean metallic surfaces every day. The virus has been known to survive on these surfaces for up to nine days. That includes door handles, countertops and the surfaces of cars, walls, desks … any metal surface you may touch. Keep them clean and wipe them down often, even daily. When you’re out of the house, avoid touching these surfaces directly or wear gloves.
- Don’t smoke. Anything that impacts your respiratory system makes you more susceptible to a viral infection. And if you can go without cigarettes for the duration of the coronavirus outbreak, you may be able to quit permanently, which makes you less susceptible in the future, as well.
- Eat lots of fruit and vegetables. Usually, promoting a healthful diet is good advice any time. Now, during the coronavirus pandemic, eating fresh fruit and vegetables increases your zinc levels, which strengthens your immune system.
- Be aggressive in treating a sore throat. The virus most often enters your body via your throat. Your sore throat may be caused by the virus. It can remain there for three or four days before making its way to your lungs.
- Maintain social distancing. The virus spreads through person-to-person contact (even if you’re less than six feet apart, since the virus hangs in the air for several hours), by hovering in the air and through contact with an infected surface. Besides washing your hands often, don’t touch your face.
- Stay at home except for trips you need to make: for food, exercise and medical necessities. The less interaction you have with others, the better your chances of avoiding COVID-19. Stay safe!
Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business to succeed. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters, and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.
by Elle Ray | Mar 21, 2020 | Announcement
Remaining Sane and Healthy in Crazy Times
It’s difficult to impossible to write a normal blog post when the world may be coming to an end — at least according to some people. In the age of community journalism, it’s difficult to separate the truth from the rumors and flat-out misinformation.
Is the population being culled so only the strong survive? Did the government plant this little bug on societies around the world to show us who’s the boss? Do politicians have even bigger secrets than we ever imagined? And is social distancing really a thing?
Boiling It Down
Just a few weeks ago, we were told that we’re becoming a society of isolationists, what with our social media addictions and reliance on technology. Mental illness and mass shootings were being blamed on people not being hugged enough and for listening too long to internet trolls.
Today, we’re told not to touch, to go online for any human interaction and to rely on social media for our personal interactions. Meanwhile, many pundits and politicians are taking advantage of the coronavirus plague to boost themselves as saviors with golden tickets and lifesaving cures.
The only sane step for those of us who believe we still have free will and an ability to think critically is to find the kernels of truth to believe, while trusting our instincts to survive. In fact, many of the measures we’re asked to take are just good practices for any day of any year, such as:
- Wash your hands after being in public
- Don’t kiss strangers
- Stay away from contagious sick people
- Boost your immunity with healthy foods
- Exercise and get plenty of rest to stay in tip-top health
How to Get Right-Sided
When you live in an upside-down world, all the blood rushes to your head, threatening to make you dizzy at the very least — or make your head explode at the very worst. In these dystopian times when we’re told not to trust anyone, to only visit friends and family online, and to stay home alone to obsess over the latest news and statistics, it’s important to find your true north.
To maintain your sanity and your good health, we recommend that you just take a beat, breathe deeply and relax. There’s lots of good advice for how to weather the upside downiness of it all:
- Clean your closets and your computer files
- Work in the yard to plant flowers or tidy up
- Join exercise classes online and Zoom in with your besties
But it may take a bit more to ride this thing out to its final destination when the world turns back on its own right-sided axis. Until that happens, perhaps one of these ideas can keep you from tipping over so far that it may be hard to get right again:
- Respect everyone’s right to choose. As if there isn’t enough on TV to get all worked up about, don’t add to your stress by freaking out about how others, including your loved ones, choose to react. Know that everyone responds to disaster differently. Some may feel the need to shelter in place, while others prefer to be out where they’re still able to go. Take care of yourself and your family as best as you know how and allow your friends, families, neighbors and colleagues to do the same without sending your stress levels through the ceiling.
- Share your good fortune. While it’s unhealthy to always compare ourselves to others to measure our own success, this may be the best time to practice a little comparison, because chances are you have it better than many others. And you’ll get by with one less roll of TP if it means your neighbor gets one roll from your stockpile. Just as the COVID-19 virus pays it forward by making people sick, so the world heals by paying forward the little things — one roll at a time.
- Follow your instincts. If it sounds crazy, it probably is. Getting worked up about conspiracies and doomsday predictions is worse for your health in the long — and short — run than any super-bug. When you hear so-called news that just doesn’t ring true for you, then make up your mind not to buy it. You can bet that one thing is not upside down right now — and that’s the fact that shysters and fear-mongers are in their glory, and they’re out in full force. Don’t believe everything you read and don’t get taken by scammers who use this fearful time to boost their own bank accounts.
- Go easy on yourself. If you happen to wake up one morning in the full grip of fear, know that it’s OK to spend the whole day under the covers crying. When a day goes by and you’ve done nothing but binge-watch Netflix, give yourself a break and let it be. If you turn to comfort food for a day and find yourself eating mashed potatoes and fried bread for dinner and consuming an entire half-gallon of ice cream for dessert, don’t beat yourself up. As long as your unhealthy habits are sporadic responses to stress for a day or two, it won’t hurt nearly as bad as the self-loathing that accompanies the splurges.
Balance, flexibility and moderation are the key principles that help get you through each day. And while you may stress out about three days: yesterday, today and tomorrow, we still have only one day to live at a time: this one. So live it to the best of your ability. Don’t worry about what happened yesterday and realize tomorrow will come soon enough.
Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business to succeed. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters, and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.
by Elle Ray | Jan 1, 2018 | Announcement
It Was the Best of Times … Well, in Some Ways
Ah, the great look-back. Everyone is doing it. You have your top news stories of 2017, the most popular movies, songs and books. Business stories, tech, banking and retail all have their own set of top 10 or 20 best stories looking back at 2017. And who can leave out politics from the year just passed? No one, that’s who.
Looking back at 2017, the staff at Ray Access experienced a range of emotions and experiences. From serious health scares to rampant writer turnover, the principals at this online writing firm wondered sometimes if they would survive the year intact.
But Big Business Ruled the Day
Health became the front-of-mind issue, as the partners had to pull together to make the business run. While the team recruited and trained a new set of (even better) writers, work at Ray Access not only exceeded expectations, it blew more than a few minds. Looking back at 2017, the highlights at Ray Access included:
- Gross receipts were nearly 10 times as much as 2014, the first year Ray Access was in business.
- Ray Access went international with two stunningly beautiful clients: a transcreation agency in Singapore and a drug rehabilitation facility outside Tel Aviv.
- Our proprietary Style Guide was completed, giving writers and editors succinct direction and solidifying the successful Ray Access style of writing.
- Substantial paychecks were written to freelance writers across the country for their excellent work.
- Relationships with a few national web development agencies were solidified.
- Planned more focused marketing directives to reach out to more marketing, SEO and web development agencies.
Who Knew?
As journalists, tech writers and book editors, we always knew that we brought a broad range of talents to bear at Ray Access. And looking back at 2017 only verifies that. Being able to research any topic has always been one of the hallmarks of the writing team — and something we felt proud to advertise.
But who knew, upon reflection while looking back at 2017, that we would actually become experts in such disparate industries as:
- Dental — one dentist told us he actually learned new things from the pages we created for his website!
- Super high tech for 2017 and way beyond, concerning the Internet of Things (IoT) industry
- Pet preferences, tea parties, yoga positions and much more
It’s Better in the Mountains
Not to toot our horn — well, maybe there’s a little tooting going on here — the Ray Access team keep on top of what’s trending the world over, all from the small mountain city of Asheville, North Carolina. This progressive, artsy community that we call home may someday fall to the lords of fashion and trendy living, but for the time being, it does its own thing. And we’re happily inspired to be here.
From this marvelous place, the muse is alive and well for the Ray Access leadership. And she keeps us tight with the trends too. Consider that looking back at 2017 brought these woodsy wordsmiths writing gigs on topics such as:
- The latest environmentally friendly way to collect and reuse rainwater
- Trendy fashion wear for the elite pooches of Manhattan
- What Chinese travelers value most from their hosts
- How reusing your own blood can cure many previously incurable conditions
- And of course, how a smile makeover can change your life
What will 2018 bring? We can’t say for certain, but like the mountains themselves, the future has us looking up. When you need help writing content for your website — whether you need complete content, several blog posts or merely editing services (which always make a big difference) — contact the experts at Ray Access.
Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or discuss your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.
