How to produce link-building content

If we were to split the creative process into three sections — content, design, and outreach strategy — how are we able to engineer our own successes and failures to provide us with a framework for future campaigns? From the amount of data used and visualized to the importance of effective headline storytelling, the insight is a way of both rationalizing and reshaping our approach to content production.

1. Insufficient data:

Behind every great piece of content is (usually) a unique or noteworthy set of data. Both static and interactive content enables us to display limitless amounts of research which provide the origins of the stories we try to communicate. However many figures or metrics you choose to visualize, there is always a point where a journalist or reader switches off.

2. Powerful data visualizations:

Regardless of how saturated the content marketing industry becomes, we are graced every year with new and innovative ways of visualizing data. The balancing act between originality in your design and an unnecessarily complex data-visualization is often the point on which success and failure can pivot. As is the case with data, overloading a piece of content with an amass of multi-faceted graphs and charts is a surefire way of alienating your users, leaving them either bored or confused.

3. Pandering to the press:

Competition means that press contacts are looking for something extra special to warrant your content’s publication. While ingenuity is required in every area of content marketing, it’s equally important to recognize the importance of getting the basics right.

Source: SearchEngineWatch

Eye Tracking - A Closer Look [Infographic]

 How do our eyes move? Have you track it? Have you analyzed how and why it works in different way while looking at things.

The world of eye tracking may seem complicated but hopefully with the help of this entertaining (and slightly educational) eye tracking infographic you'll learn a thing or two about what we can learn from analyzing the eyes and how it can be adapted in human behavior research.

Source: iMotion

Using Google My Business (GMB) To Generate Leads

Google My Business (GMB) is a free and very useful tool that allows you to manage how your business is getting listed on Google. This lists on Google Search and Maps.  Google hols currently the 78 percent majority in the search engine market and it offers a massive platform to gain potential leads with a number of benefits. You can use GMB to manage the details such as your business name, address, contact details, hours and location, as well as monitor reviews, add photos and gain insight on how people are searching for your business.  You can also post on your GMB page and even download the app to manage your listing wherever you are. You can also set up messaging so that your customers can always stay in touch with your business. 

Generate Leads With GMB

Once you create your business listing on GMB, you will increase your business’ exposure online. Please consider the below steps to ensure you get more qualified leads-

1. Connect your GMB with Google Analytics
2. Track your leads through GMB Insights
3. Optimize a listing for lead capture

When you use Google Analytics, you can accurately track how many leads you receive from your GMB listing. You can also use Insights to track customer actions, like reservation requests, directions, and more. You can keep an eye on the trends and see how customers reach your website by looking at how they interact with a listing.

GMB is a great platform to promote your blog content, product specials, webinars and more; you can also add specials and coupons for customers to benefit from. This is why you should think of your GMB listing as a ‘mini-website’ of sorts, that will need regular content and updates to stay relevant and be published in front of potential customers. 

Always make sure to make regular updates to your listing to allow your business to stand out as much as possible and to show on search engine results.

How to Set Up Google My Business

If you are ready to list your business on GMB, here are the steps to follow:

Step 1: Log into your Google Account (or the one you want to associate with your business). If you don’t already have a Google Account, create one.

Step 2: Go to google.com/business and click on ‘Start now’ in the top right corner.

Step 3: Enter your business name.

Step 4: Enter your business address.

Step 5: If you deliver to your customers instead of them coming to you, check the box “I deliver goods and services to my customers”. You can also choose ‘Hide my address (it’s not a store) if you are working from home and don’t want your address shown. Finally, select your delivery area. 

Step 6: Choose a suitable category for your business. Try to be as accurate as possible as you are basically telling Google which type of customers you want your business listing displayed to.

Step 7: Add your business website or phone number.

Step 8: Select the type of verification option you want to use. You can also choose to do this later by clicking “Try a different method" - "Later”.

How to Ask For A Raise To Your Boss [Infographic]

If you’re new to the workforce or if you've never had to ask for a raise before, you may feel a bit apprehensive about salary negotiation conversations with your boss. If this sounds like you, you're not alone. According to a recent survey, 70% of people who ask for a raise receive one, yet only 37% of workers even ask.

Even though the discussion may seem daunting, the benefits you’ll enjoy both now and in the future make it thoroughly worth it. With an increased annual income you can enjoy more vacations, pay off debt faster, or save more aggressively towards retirement or a down-payment on a house.

You may be surprised that there are several other factors you can leverage besides just work experience to help maximize your salary. Confidence, professionalism, and a little bit of research before your meeting will go a long way. This above infographic from Self Lender gives you the tools you need to successfully negotiate your salary — no matter your age or experience.

How To Optimize Your Instagram Account For Search Engines

Instagram has been a very powerful visual platform for digital marketers to take advantage of its various features. In case, you are taking part in multichannel marketing strategy then you should understand that the efforts to market your Instagram profile should extend beyond Instagram itself. But the main issue is that the Instagram accounts are actually notoriously difficult to index and display in the search results.

So, it is not that much tough to optimize your Instagram account for search engines. Below are the quick tips to make your Instagram profile more visible in search engines.

1. Make sure your profile is set to public
2. Set up social profile schema for Instagram
3. Include your most important keyword in your Instagram name
4. Include a specific and keyword-rich bio
   
   It’s a good idea to get at least a few words in your bio that aren’t just hashtags, however, in order to give the search engines a bit more semantic meat to work with.

 

 

 

9 bad habits at work and how to fix them [Infographic]

No matter if you’re a new professional or an experienced business owner, bad habits can get in the way of you doing your best work. If you feel like projects can quickly get out of hand and you struggle to stay motivated, there are likely some unconscious routines that are weighing you down.

The trick to defeating your bad habits is not setting out to eliminate them, but to change them. If you check your email too often to see what tasks are on your plate, replace that habit by creating a schedule at the beginning of your day. This way, you get everything you need to done, but you're not preoccupied with checking your email.

You can practice this trick on anything from snoozing your alarm to paying for new business expenses out of pocket. It’s essential that you don’t try to end all your bad habits at one time. This can result in frustration because total routine overhauls are difficult.

It's important to devote energy to improving your bad habits because boosting your work can also increase your your quality of life overall. When you’re less stressed, more productive, and more professional, you’ll come home in a better mood and with more to be proud of. Additionally, improving your habits can improve your business and health.

Keep scrolling to see the infographic we compiled with a list of 9 bad habits at work that make you unproductive, miserable, or unprofessional, and how to fix them:

Source: Fundera

Best practices to overcome barriers to DevOps

Companies in all industries are embracing DevOps for superior productivity, but a lot of organizations struggle to overcome barriers that prevent them from translating these programs into improved business results.

 DevOps organizations generally start from a common vision -- namely that the primary focus of DevOps should be driving business value. But that common vision often leads organizations to ask two questions:

1.     How do you know if you are driving value?

2.     How do you measure DevOps success?

A lot of companies aren't clear on their answer to either. In fact, few online resources reveal that organizations struggle with alignment and linking DevOps practices to business outcomes.

This is a common issue for large organizations which are often plagued with manual processes and organizational silos. I've created the below infographic that shows the causes of those obstacles and best practices for overcoming them.

DevOps is a collaborative way of developing and deploying software. DevOps solutions help organizations to align with goals, rapidly and reliably, by producing high-quality software-based products and services. Therefore, automation is a critical element of DevOps.  I'd love to hear your thoughts on other barriers and the solutions for them. Feel free to leave a comment below.

Worried about Google tracking? Tips to protect your privacy

We all love Google, sure their results are awesome, however if you're concerned about privacy follow this post to know how you can modify the data of yourself that Google already has. Google is the number one search engine in the world now. Yes, it is and Google can snoop into your lives, build a huge profile over your connections and sell them. That's how it has amassed a fortune of making Google a top MNC in the world. Literally, Google is almost owning the internet. 

They read/scan your emails, have built a profile based on you by tracking your web usage activities and advertising preferences of yours linked to a unique advertising id and sells them to the highest bidder at a great price. But unknowingly we take risk on losing our important data, ignoring how should we protect sensitive data from loss or theft.

How and where your data hides?

 Go to https://myaccount.google.com and you will find the shit you have done over the internet. You can delete them and disable all the things.

If you actively use Gmail, Google Drive, Google Assistant and what not? They are free because they aren't selling you the product. It's we the consumers who are the victims or so-called products.

In fact, they are making billions out of your crush's romantic messages, your cute kids pictures or even some of the weird and wild imaginary things your searched for on their website. Google maintains huge archives with a mammoth amount of data.

There have been several instances recently based on racial profiling and discriminatory hiring practices. For this, Google has been warned by several privacy and security agencies for alleged snooping into everything out their on the internet as if they own it! European Union has alleged Google a lot of times.

How to prevent security & privacy breach?

Even if you are a great Google lover, there are few steps that can be followed to be safe while using email/search/cloud services over internet by controlling or avoiding few Google products.

· Opt out of advertising based on your preferences.

· Stop using Gmail and switch to Protonmail/Tutanota.

· Avoid Google Drive and instead use Tresorit/SpiderOak. Else use BoxCryptor or other services to pre encrypt your files before uploading to Google Drive etc.

· If you're concerned about privacy switch to DuckDuckGo/StartPage/Qwant immediately.

· In case, you want an alternate safe search engine then switch to Privado (It doesn't store search history or IPs).

· Undoubtedly chrome is a great browser. Install extensions like Ublock origin, HTTPS Everywhere, Privacy Badger and Disconnect. If not switch to Firefox!

· If you're using an android device do this as soon as possible: Navigate to Settings >Google>Ads and opt out of personalization and reset your advertising id every month.

· Try avoiding apps called Allo/Duo.

Along with the above steps, open the URL https://myaccount.google.com/activitycontrols and make sure you are signed in to your Google account. Then, make sure all the slider/toggles are to the left ("paused"). If a confirmation box pops up asking you to confirm that you want to pause an activity, confirm it by clicking "Pause". Toggle to pause for Location history, Voice & Audio Activity, YouTube Search & Watch History. Additionally, under "Web & App Activity", uncheck "Include Chrome browsing history and activity from websites and apps that use Google services."

There are aspects of Google, both good and bad, that this article hasn't covered because the company is simply too big, and too complicated to comprehend. I'm not anti Google, however being concerned about how our data is used, who uses it and what pros and cons it holds is a consumer right. I am writing this post and sharing my opinion on the basis I learnt and experienced while using several popular products of Google.

Just remember one thing, if you're not paying for the product, you are the product! There is no such thing as a free lunch. I’m not sure how many people are aware of this. But the next time while you’re browsing the internet for finding some information or enjoying a video on YouTube, always remember that Google is watching your every move; because that’s the price you pay for that free service.

I would love to hear from you more on this.

Google Home Vs Amazon Echo [Infographic]

Amazon Echo has been on the market for some time. However, Google Home is also gaining some ground. They are both two of the most popular Wi-Fi connected speakers out there. But how do you cut through the hypes and find the better Wi-Fi connected speaker suitable to your need?

The folks at HalfPrice.co.au has done a great job with this easy-to-understand infographic to help anyone shopping for a new smart speaker shopper makes an informed decision.

Wallmart - The King OF Retail [Infographic]

The number of Walmart customers is growing and, currently, it’s at 260 M per week. To realize the extent of the world’s largest retailer, we’ll mention the fact that if Walmart were a country, it would be the 28th largest economy in the world.

Since it’s not a country, Walmart stays one of the pillars of the US economy with a net worth of over $275 billion. Take a look at the infographic below to learn everything about the retail giant.

How Blockchain Work [Infographic]

Blockchain is a type of data structure that identifies and tracks transactions digitally and shares this information across a distributed network of computers, creating in a sense a distributed trust network. The distributed ledger technology offered by blockchain provides a transparent and secure means for tracking the ownership and transfer.

 Below is a simple flow diagram that shows how blockchain works.

Source: Bitcoin: A Peer-To-Peer Electronic Cash Systems

7 Dirty Secret Of Google That You Should Know [Infographic]

Google is the giant single entity is the search engine world and most popular in almost all the countries around the world. It is very common that people do use Google.com in case they are in some trouble and try to find out the solutions or seeking information for anything and everything. Here is why Google has made a special place in all of the internet users' hearts.

Google knows everything about us when we use the credentials of Google account while on internet. Do we really know everything about it? Here are some of google’s dirtiest, darkest secrets that you should know.

Source:TechProbeX

How To Avoid Digital Eyestrain

Digital devices like smartphones, laptops, tablets and computers produce harmful radiations, violet rays that can have a negative impact on our eyesight and your health and cause digital eyestrain on it's first instance. The eyestrain is scientifically known as Computer Vision Syndrome. Digital eyestrain can cause dry eyes, blurred vision, itchiy eyes, headache, fatigue etc.

Here are some common causes of digital eyestrain:

• Constant staring at computer, laptop or smartphone screens for long
• Keeping screen brightness very high or very low
• Glare causes squinting which can cause stress and headaches
• Constant starring at screen minimises the blink and as a result it develops eye fatigue, dryness, itching or a burning sensation
• Keeping smartphone close to your eye can cause irritation or blurred vision
• Excessive or less lighting while using digital devices, especially while working on computer or laptop, can also spoil your eyes

Yes, it is true that you can't avoid the use of digital devices in this digital transformation era, however, you can limit the use. Here are some quick tips to protect your eyes from digital devices.

Keep distance

Sitting away from your computer may not be possible but at least keep a proper distance from the computer. Your computer monitor should be at least 20 to 26 inches away from your eyes and should also be below your eye level. Better you sit on an adjustable chair so that you can adjust the chair and keep the screen below your eye level.

20-20-20 rule

Doctor recommended technique, to reduce digital eyestrain, is 20-20-20 rule. The 20-20-20 rule says that every 20 minutes, take a break and look away from the computer for 20 seconds and view anything that is 20 feet away from your eyes. It’s better to look at nature with lots of greeneries because it will make you feel refreshed.

Computer anti glare glasses

In case, you are not having a spec with anti glare then you can opt for computer glasses that will efficiently protect your eyes from the harmful light emitted from digital devices. Computer glasses help to eliminate the glare and filter the blue light that reduces the harmful effect. You can get the lens coating with anti glare.

Hope you have loved the tips explained in the above article. Follow them and share your valuable feedback in comment section.

Top Search Engines of 2017

A lot of people don't need hundreds of search engines, especially people who are less tech savvy. All of the internet users want a single search engine that delivers below features:

• More relevant and accurate results
• Uncluttered, easy to read interface and view
• Helpful options to broaden or tighten a search

Let us see how these below search engines serve the best to the internet users who are searching for information over web.

1. Google Search:

Google is obviously the king of search engines, and is the single most used search engine in the world. Without any doubt, Google is fast, relevant, and the largest single catalogue of web pages available since few years now.

2. Google Scholar Search:

Google Scholar is a very special version of Google. This search engine is useful for the people who are preparing and taking part in debates. Google Scholar focuses on scientific and hard-research academic material that has been subjected to scrutiny by scientists and scholars.

3. Yahoo! Search:

Yahoo! is not only a search engine but it has some other features also like; news aggregator, a shopping center, an email service provider, a travel directory, a horoscope and games center, and several other features.

4. Bing Search:

Bing is Microsoft's product competing with Google, and considered as the second-most-popular search engine today. Bing used to be MSN search until it was updated in summer of 2009. Bing is growing and integrated a lot of search features.

5. DuckDuck Go Search:

Initially, DuckDuckGo.com used to look like Google. But there are a lot of things that make this  search engine different.

DuckDuckGo has some salient features, like 'zero-click' information. It means all of your searched answers are found on the first results page. DuckDuckgo offers disambiguation prompts that helps to clarify what question you are really asking. Additionally, the ad spam is much less than other search engines. It doesn't keep any private search results data into their servers as it is very much concerned about the privacy and security of internet users.

6. Dogpile Search:

Dogpile was better than Google in early 90's because it was considered as the fast and efficient choice for web searching. Later on, a lot of things got changed in the late 1990's, Dogpile faded into obscurity, and Google became king.

7. Yippy Search: 

Yippy is a Deep Web engine that searches other search engines for you. Unlike the regular Web, which is indexed by robot spider programs, Deep Web pages are usually harder to locate by conventional search.

8. The Internet Archive Search:

The Internet Archive is the best loved search engine for longtime Web users. The Archive has been taking snapshots of the entire World Wide Web for years now, allowing you and me to travel back in time to see what a web page looked like in 1999, or what the news was in earlier times, the stories maybe 2 decades ago.

9. Webopedia Search:

Webopedia is one of the most useful websites on the web. Mostly people from technology background love this search engines as it serves a lot of the search purposes of those techies. Webopedia is an encyclopedic resource dedicated to searching technology terminology and computer definitions.

10. Baidu Search:

Baidu, a Chinese search engine, offers a lot of services for websites, videos, multimedia files, news, translations and other useful functions, as well as global mapping service Baidu Maps. Baidu was established in 2000 by Robin Li and Eric Xu. Both of the co-founders are Chinese nationals who studied in Peking University and worked overseas before returning to China. In December 2016, Baidu ranked 4th overall in the Alexa Internet rankings.

11. Yandex Search:

Yandex is a Russian-established web index. This has turned into an exceptionally well-known internet searcher in Russia and also popular in few of parts of Europe as well. This search engine has 55-65% market share of total Search market in Russia.

12. Wolfram Alpha Search:

Wolfram Alpha is essentially a computational learning motor that figures any information. But it  desn’t mean that this web crawler is fundamentally for math nerds.You can even get some information about any reality, and this will give you the appropriate response.  It has got an incredible processing feature that makes this web index additionally pulls your answer quickly.

13. Ixquick Search:

Ixquick is one of the the best search engines if you are looking at the privacy of users. With Ixquick neither of the points of interest of your list items put away and no cookies are utilized. You can even set inclinations. However, you have to reset that following 90 days as they will be erased after that on the off chance that you are dormant for this internet searcher.

14. Ask.com Search:

Ask.com was initially called as Ask Jeeves. This web search engine is still especially the main decision for some clients in the USA. It represents 3% of the aggregate. The prevalent of indexed lists are as yet not that sufficiently much to fulfill the searchers' needs.

Conclusion

If you are looking at overall featured search engine, Google would be the best search engine, but when you’re looking for its alternatives with higher privacy and security, then I would prefer DuckDuckGo. I personally like DuckDuckGo over other search engines. I'd like to know your thoughts on the search engines, in case I have missed mentioning anything here. Also leave your comments below.

SEO Features That eCommerce Platform Supports

In case you want to think of choosing an ecommerce platform to power your online store, it’s important to consider search engine optimization (SEO) features in your eCommerce selection process. It doesn't matter how experienced you are with SEO, you may or may not end up with ability to control elements of your site that are essential to your ranking success in search engines.

Now let’s see the following features that your ecommerce platform should have. This post will make it easier for you select a home for your merchandise that is capable of dominating search effectively.

Unique and Independent Title and URLs

It is very much needed to avoid issues with duplicate content and on the other hand, you have the best chance at ranking for certain keywords and phrases. So it’s best to make sure you can control these metadata elements at the page level. Few ecommerce platforms don’t allow you to have this control that means you have a generic title in every single page on your shop.

Blogging platform should be integrated

Because it’s the best way to publish rich, dynamic, link-worthy content on your domain, blogging is an integral part of ecommerce marketing today. Businesses that blog 11 or more times per month receive two to three times the traffic compared to those who blog less often or not at all.

Canonical URLs

Canonical URLs allow your content to be syndicated in various places online, while telling Google to pay attention to only one URL. It helps Google to determine the page you want rank, with syndicates using the tag to convey to search bots that you deserve all the SEO juice. This solution is also useful in cases where you want to use multiple URLs for the same product category.

301 redirects

In case, you are using multiple domains, then you’re going to have to spend some time setting up canonical URLs or 301 redirects to forward users and search engines to the right place. If you don’t, you’ll detract from the user experience and risk losing ranking with the search engines because you’re sending traffic to broken links.


robots.txt files should be edited

Robots.txt file allows you to tell search bots which pages and directories to ignore when crawling your site to index it for the search engines.



Therefore, it will depend on what your budget is, and what your ecommerce products are and according to that you have to select your platform. You need a platform that is helpful for SEO. You have to get it ranking to bring in organic traffic.

How to choose an eCommerce platform?

Since last 10 years, E-commerce has been growing steadily in popularity. Online sales got hiked up nearly 15% last year across the board, and they’re predicted to only increase in the future. If you are going to start a business and selling products or services, an ecommerce site would be best suited in this online sales growth.

If you want to start a new business, that would be always challenging, but moving away from the traditional store outlet to an online space can be a little daunting; especially with so many options for you to start with. Because of various options, choosing an ecommerce platform is so difficult for many business owners. If you want to figure out what your store will need as you grow and keeping up with trends is a challenge, but it is much worth. You have to think and find ways ahead of time and that will help you choose a platform an easier process to achieve online success.

1. Payment:

The utmost consideration while searching for an ecommerce platform should be the price and payment. If you are a small business and a newly started or an already established physical outlet business moving online, you need to know exactly what you’ll be paying for the service.

2. SEO:

Ecommerce businesses are not benefited from working on their SEO. In fact, it can be highly beneficial to have your store rank high in search results. If you want your customers to find you when they’re searching for products that you offer, list your products and try to rank your page higher.

3. Scalability

Every business owner expects their business will grow in the future, but you may not know to what extent. So, it’s important to look for a platform that will scale along with your business.

4. Security

You will never want to enter your credit card information on any website, which is why security is becoming one of the biggest concerns among consumers.

5. Integrations

You should consider "integrations and plugins" when looking at ecommerce platforms. Almost all of the platforms, such as Shopify, will have plenty of tools for you to run your business.

6. Mobile Friendliness

Are you aware of the fact that nearly 60% of searches are done from mobile devices? Often those searches continue on to a purchase from a mobile device itself.

7. Customer Service

Biggest aspect of any business is its customer service. As the experience provided by traditional outlet businesses is based in a physical store, they typically have more control over how smoothly their business runs.

Here is a list of the most popular e-commerce platforms on the market today, along with why you might want to consider using each for your new e-commerce store. These are Miva, 3Dcart, Magento, Zoey Commerce, Nucleus, WooCommerce, OroCommerce, Shopify, Bigcommerce, & Volusion etc. This list is just a basic overview of some of the most popular e-commerce solutions out there. Leave your comments below or share your thoughts.

Common Confusing Words In English [Infographic]

Everyone knows the problem with spell-check: your word might be spelled right, but it may be the wrong word. English is full of confusing words that sound alike but are spelled differently. It’s also full of words that share similar (but not identical) meanings that are easy to misuse. Below are some of the most commonly confused and misused words in English.

Let's face it, English can be confusing. A lot of words are similar but with different meanings, as a result it is almost impossible to avoid making mistakes in English, but if you can get your head around these explanations in the below infographic, you might be able to avoid making these ones or at least recognize them when you see them.

Source: www.grammarcheck.net

20 Do's And Don'ts Of LinkedIn Etiquette [Infographic]

Has your fear of making mistakes on LinkedIn prevented you from taking full advantage of all that this business social network has to offer? Each day, it is seen people make mistakes on LinkedIn that not only wastes their time but damages their credibility. To ensure this doesn’t happen to you, it is essential that you understand and carefully utilize proper LinkedIn etiquette and best practices.

The biggest mistakes on social media come from the misconception that people care about what you have to say. That’s simply not the case. They care about finding solutions to their problems, that’s it. Remember WIIFM – they are always thinking “what’s in it for me”. In this article, you will discover very important Do’s and Don’ts of LinkedIn etiquette and the mistakes you absolutely must avoid making.

Source: topdogsocialmedia