Your Next Pitch: 5 Pitch Deck Slides To Hook Potential Investors [INFOGRAPHIC]

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Facebook’s New Podcast

It seems Facebook has its hands in a little bit of everything lately. From Facebook Portal, the Amazon Alexa enabled communication device to their new channel Facebook Watch, which houses videos from channels users follow as well as original content, there seems to be quite a move for Facebook to stay prominent in every channel, now including, podcasting.

A brand new podcast series focusing on entrepreneurship is the second podcast series to be released by the social media giant, and the first to be released in the US. The content is no surprise given the volume of businesses that use the platform (more than 90 million currently).

Called ‘Three And A Half Degrees: The Power of Connection,’ this show plays off of how technology has made it more convenient to connect (No longer six degrees of separation, but more like three and a half with the advances we have made).

Podcast host and VP of Business and Marketing Partnerships David Fischer says the podcast falls in line with the platform’s mission of helping businesses learn from one another.

Episode one includes an interview with Blake Mycoskie, the creator of TOMS shoes, and founders of fellow charitable business Two Blind Brothers, Bryan and Bradford Manning, and focuses on brands that prioritize a social mission over their growth or profit.

Season one will be seven episodes with fourteen guests, including Gary Vaynerchuck, Chris Kempczinski, Beth Comstock and more.

You can find episode one of ‘Three And A Half Degrees: The Power of Connection’ on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, TuneIn, and Stitcher.

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TED Talks for Sales Professionals

TED Talks are a great way to cultivate skills and knowledge from sources that you may have not had access to otherwise. Sales, however,  is a broad category, with sales professionals needing a range of emotional and intellectual intelligence and forethought into the future in order to really succeed. These speakers are insightful and interesting, and by implementing a few of their points, you could be on your way to improving your sales goals and strategies.

Eddie Obeng: Smart Failure for a Fast-Changing World

Ernesto Sirolli: Want to Help Someone? Shut Up and Listen!

Dan Pink: The Puzzle of Motivation

Shonda Rhimes: My Year of Saying Yes to Everything

Lera Boroditsky: How Language Shapes the Way We Think

Kelly McGonigal: How to Make Stress Your Friend

Sheena Iyengar: How to Make Choosing Easier

John Doerr: Why The Secret to Success is Setting the Right Goals

Leticia Gasca: Don’t Fail Fast– Fail Mindfully

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Bitcoin, Ethereum and More. An Introduction to Cryptocurrency

In 2008 a new currency was revealed to the world. Satoshi Nakamoto published a research paper that outlined a design for a digital currency called Bitcoin. The revelation solved one of the internet’s biggest questions, how to create digital money. Recently you may have seen that Bitcoin values are rising and falling at amazing rates, but why? And how do you take advantage of the madness and hype around cryptocurrency?

Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrency first and foremost are not the same as traditional currency, and perhaps the main difference is that it is not controlled by any central authority (banks, governments, etc.) Cryptocurrencies are “mined” by miners using computers and hardware to monitor and process transactions and the network the currency is based on. Miners receive the correlated digital currency in exchange for their work. Bitcoin maybe be one of the most well known of the available cryptocurrency types, but it isn’t the only one available, or the only one making the news. Litecoin, Ethereum, and Zcash are just some of the major contenders and each has its own privacy and trading capacities.

The buzz around cryptocurrency and specifically Bitcoin reached new heights last month as the price per “coin” surged to $19,500 USD. This made headlines as investors and other individuals raced to put money into the coins hoping to strike gold. However, last week, there was a sudden drop, with coins trading down to $9,200 USD (as of today the current value of one coin is $10,542.92 USD).  The drop was sudden and rattled those that had recently sunk money into the volatile market.

When the price surge occurred, Bitcoin’s electricity consumption hit a record high of 42.1 terawatt-hours. Energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions are a point of contention for many, as the rate of emissions rivals that of the entire country of New Zealand (roughly 20 million metric tons per year).

The process of grouping Bitcoin transactions and mining the transactions is to blame for the high use of electricity. Vox writer Umair Irfan says, “this process is like finding solutions to complicated math problems that become progressively more difficult. It’s a competitive process, with one miner receiving the award, currently 12.5 bitcoins, roughly every 10 minutes, so there’s a strong incentive to throw as much processor power — and thereby electricity — at the mining effort.” Or as Alex Hern of the Guardian says, the process is,  “a competition to waste the most electricity possible by doing pointless arithmetic quintillions of times a second.”

You do not have to mine your own cryptocurrency as it is relatively easy to purchase online, but buyer beware: the value does fluctuate, as discussed previously.  To get started investing in Bitcoin or Ethereum simply download the Coinbase app and create an account. Add an account to make payments from and tap ”Buy”. There are weekly purchasing limits based upon the type of payment account you set up, but you are now ready to start investing.

Once you purchase your chosen cryptocurrency you can either save it or spend it. Some of the things bitcoin is spent on include food delivery, socks, gaming, as well as being used as ante when placing online bets. The world of cryptocurrency is becoming much more accessible to the general public, and will thusly stay newsworthy as the interest in diversified finance and the community of cryptocurrency investors grows.

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Hacks For a More Productive 2018

Unlock your full potential today by using some of these productivity tricks. Put these hacks to good use so you can write more, learn more, and do more to succeed.

1. Pomodoro Technique

The Pomodoro technique was developed in the 1980s and uses a timer to break up your workday into 25-minute intervals (called Pomodoros), followed by a short break. After four Pomodoros you then take a longer break. There are apps, websites and even browser extensions that can help you track the process. This might not work for everyone, and creatives especially could struggle with the constant breaks in the creative process, but it could be worth a try to find a technique that works for you.

2. The two-minute rule

The two-minute rule is based on the mindset that if something takes two minutes or less to complete you should do it right away. This helps alleviate procrastination on small tasks and helps to prevent things from stacking up to become more of a chore.

3. Task batching

Rather than falling prey to multitasking, you can use task batching to focus your energy on specific tasks. This means allotting time for each type of work you have. For example, setting aside 15-minute increments for email, an hour for writing, 30 minutes for social media, whatever will work for you and your workday.

4.Two pizza rule

Jeff Bezos is credited with this next idea, the two pizza rule. This is a guideline that helps set limits on the number of attendees allowed in a meeting, with the idea that the number of attendees should not exceed the number of people that could eat two pizzas. This keeps the meeting focused on the task at hand.

5. Utilize your calendar

Your calendar can be the best tool for making the most of a day, simply because you can visualize everything that has to get done. You can use a calendar to schedule task batching, or simply plan and set aside days that will be meeting free and focused on doing the work you have to do uninterrupted.

6.Turn off alerts

It may not be possible to turn your phone completely off during the times you need to focus, but you can cut down on distractions by silencing it, or by completely disabling notifications. By doing this you are silencing outside “noise” so you can make finishing what you are working on your main priority.

7. Use tools to streamline your work

Hootsuite, Mailchimp, Trello, Buffer, the list goes on and on. There are tons of free and paid tools available online that can help streamline your workflow, focusing on everything from project management to digital marketing and social media.

8.Don’t drown in the shallow end

It’s easy to get bogged down stressing out about all the small things you have to do, and this can cause you to be distracted from the big meaningful items on your to-do list. Setting your priorities can make the small tasks seem less daunting, and therefore less stressful.

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Reclaim Your Time

Many organizations are now putting an emphasis on work-life balance. But sometimes that balance isn’t easily found, and your time becomes difficult to manage. You may find yourself missing out on doing the things that truly matter to you, sacrificing exercise, family, goals you have set for yourself or other activities you wish you had time for. In 2017 Maxine Waters made reclaiming her timethe main focus of her life. This is how you can do the same, and focus on the things you want to do.

Assess your calendar

Look at your calendar and the things you have planned for the future. Decide what things are important to you, and re-prioritize those that aren’t. Breaking plans you are not enthused by isn’t the worst thing in the world, and can make you feel more in control of your schedule. While looking through, be sure to schedule time for yourself, sometimes it’s as easy as giving your free time a name and assigned date and/or time.

Disconnect

Find time to remove yourself from the constant distractions on the internet or on your phone. Eliminate as many of these unnecessary distractions as possible, whether that means turning notifications off on your phone or computer, turning off your internet connection, or downloading an app or browser extension that blocks certain functions and capabilities so you can focus on what you have to do.

Rethink routines

If you are stuck in your routine take a break to make a change. Wake up earlier to eat a healthy breakfast or go to the gym before work, take a new route to work, or instead of running errands every day, commit one day to getting everything done to save time, gas and money.

Say no

Save the limited amounts of time you have for the things that you are excited about. Saying no is hard for many people, but can save you the stress of feeling overextended and disinterested in the plans you make.

Eat the frog

This piece of advice has been floating around for a while now, but for good reason. Procrastination is an easy trap to fall into, but an easy way to increase your productivity and feel more accomplished is to “eat the frog” or to complete the most dreaded part of your day right away, rather than just leaving it and letting it become more of a mental block in your day.

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Marketing Trend: Expiring Content

Have you ever opened an email telling you that there is a “limited time only” sale, then went on to click that ad to shop even if you haven’t purchased anything from that store in years? Placing a hard and fast deadline on a sale or promotion is nothing new in marketing and sales, but with the growth of content marketing, there is now an influx of content only available for a limited time, otherwise known as “Expiring Content”.

One Day Only! Defining Expiring Content:

Moz.com defines expiring content  as “content on a website that is only relevant for a limited period of time.” The easiest examples of widespread expiring content are Snapchat and Instagram Stories. Posts expire 24 hours after being published. In a world where mobile marketing strategy is becoming more and more prevalent, expiring content is perfect for breaking through the clutter of too much available content.

Why use expiring content?

Exclusivity

If the idea of expiring content seems foolish, now is the time to reconsider. Psychologically, the human brain often desires things that are exclusive or rare. This is due to the Scarcity Principle, a psychological phenomenon that can cause consumers to purchase items or, in the case of expiring content, view posts because they are seen as more valuable because of limited availability.

Relevance

Using expiring content ensures that your content only exists for as long as it is relevant. With this mindset, you can post promotional materials, events, and contests and let the posts filter out on their own after the window of opportunity for your audience has passed.

Improved Social Reach

Snapchat and Instagram aren’t the only platforms where you can have expiring content. Facebook has a feature that allows you to set your posts to expire and you can set up blog posts on WordPress to phase out over time as well.  Some studies have shown that having expiring content can improve your social reach due to your own irrelevant older content phasing out to clear the pathways for new content to be seen.

With more proven benefits, improved reach and SEO, expiring content is making its mark on the marketing world. Will you try expiring content in your next marketing strategy?

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Why Email Marketing Shouldn’t Be Forgotten

Since the beginning of the internet, email has been one of the top ways we communicate. Regardless of the inception of chat apps, texting, and social media, email usage consistently grows each year. Despite these statistics, email marketing isn’t the main focus of many businesses, which is a shame for many reasons. With email marketing you can grow your business easily. Not convinced? Check out these reasons why email marketing should be a part of your marketing and sales strategies.

Mobile

Email can be accessed in a number of ways, and with at least half of US cellphone users accessing their email on their phones along with the ability for email to be accessed on tablets and other mobile devices, email can reach customers on a much larger scale that incurs less cost than SMS marketing.

Coupons and Bargain Hunters

Sending special offers and coupons to customers through email can cause a hesitant buyer to go through with a purchase. Driving engagement with customers is one of the most effective ways that email drives sales. Free shipping, and “buy one, get one” offers are shown to be the most attractive to customers, and with these offers you can increase conversion even within time constraints.

Versatility

Because email marketing is such a customizable marketing tool, it is extremely easy to not only use it for multiple purposes but also to combine it with the rest of your marketing tactics. Creating an integrated marketing strategy with email is one of the easiest ways to maintain the strength of your marketing efforts.

Investment

A recent study found that 85% of US retailers consider email marketing one of the most effective ways to reach customers. With the ability to reach gigantic numbers of customers for a very low price, matched with the effectiveness of this tactic, it’s no wonder that businesses feel that email marketing is worth so much. If doing email blitzes on your own sounds daunting, there are many tools that you can use to develop a highly effective email campaign. These are some of the top resources on the market.

1. MailChimp
2. Constant Contact
3. HubSpot

How have you used email marketing to grow your business? Do you have tools to make it easier? Let me know in comments!

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Adding Entrepreneurial Aspects To Your Business

Entrepreneurs are business owners that are not tied to their service or product, but rather, innovation in and of itself. If you are a business owner that is looking for a breakthrough in your business here are some entrepreneurial traits to add to your roster.

Experiment 
Arguably the most important characteristic for an entrepreneur is innovation. Being able to take calculated risks, and being willing to work through the consequences with positive outcomes as well as setbacks is a cornerstone for progress.

Equal Footing
One of the best ways to foster inclusion and a positive company culture is through a simple and easy to maneuver company structure. A looser organization style encourages independence and builds clout between seniority levels. Forgo the rigid company hierarchy for a system that allows employees to feel important, valued and well supported.

Subtle Selling
Everyone is a salesperson. All employees from top to bottom should be so deeply committed to the business’ products or services and be singing its praises if and when given the opportunity. It’s essentially free commercials and endorsements.  

Give Equity
Ownership adds a new layer of participation for employees that is often overlooked by many business owners. Giving equity incentives is an amazing way to create clout and trust, adding a deeper sense of responsibility and investment.

Trust
Properly trained employees by virtue should have the ability to make decisions regarding their work. Micromanagement and lack of trust can very quickly deteriorate relationships in the workplace. Set your employees for success and then give them the opportunities to grow and learn at their own pace.

Communication
Open door policies are one of the pillars of successful entrepreneurial endeavors. Set an example for giving and receiving feedback with positive communication styles.

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MONEY MISTAKES TO AVOID PART 2

Like we mentioned in part one, learning now to navigate the pitfalls of money management can be difficult. Here is the second part of money mistakes to avoid to secure your financial future!

EMERGENCY FUND.

According to CNN Money, 60% of Americans don’t have enough in savings to cover a surprise bill of $500 to $1000.  This is a bit alarming. Emergency funds make your life better by keeping you prepared and giving peace of mind. They also keep you out of the credit-debt payoff-rack up credit again-spin cycle.  Emergency funds make you feel more secure and financially empowered. Get an emergency fund. Even if it is just $1k to start, it will go a long way.

CREDIT CARDS DEBT

Even if you have a small emergency fund, it can be hard to resist the siren call of lucrative credit card reward points, travel points, and cash back. Many begin trying to leverage these cards without really knowing how to use them effectively. Only a handful of Americans have never battled credit card debt, which can be scary given that many also contend with many other types of debt especially student loans. Common habits are overspending, going on luxurious vacations, or using the card to fund an emergency. Research your cards, talk to a financial advisor and if nothing else, make sure to make all payments on time.

LIFESTYLE INFLATION

The hardest battle to fight is lifestyle inflation. You shouldn’t have to eat cereal and steal toilet paper from work forever. But it gets very exciting, very quickly when your standard of living goes up. Don’t give in too much. Lest you could wind up living paycheck to paycheck. Create a budget and try to live within your means.

EMOTIONAL MONEY DECISIONS

Of all the mistakes on the list, this is arguably one of the hardest to avoid because money is inherently emotional. And even if you’re normally great with money, nobody is perfect. Whether you move in with someone you won’t wind up with for the long haul, follow a significant other to a new city, go back to school, take a job that pays less because you think it will land you someplace better: these are all emotional money decisions. Risks. Sometimes these payoff, and sometimes they don’t. But these emotional money decisions are often the ones that teach us most about who we are, where we want to go, and what kind of life we want to lead. This in and of itself can be really beautiful, so live prudently when you can, but also go with your heart sometimes. Money be damned.

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20 Inspiring Quotes For Entrepreneurs

“Do what you can, where you are, with what you have.” Teddy Roosevelt

“Winners never quit and quitters never win.” Vince Lombardi

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” Thomas Edison

“Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do, so throw off the bowlines, sail away from safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore, Dream, Discover.” Mark Twain

“The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.”  Walt Disney

“For all of the most important things, the timing always sucks. Waiting for a good time to quit your job? The stars will never align and the traffic lights of life will never all be green at the same time. The universe doesn’t conspire against you, but it doesn’t go out of its way to line up the pins either. Conditions are never perfect. “Someday” is a disease that will take your dreams to the grave with you. Pro and con lists are just as bad. If it’s important to you and you want to do it “eventually,” just do it and correct course along the way.” Tim Ferriss

“Today I will do what others won’t, so tomorrow I can accomplish what others can’t.” Jerry Rice

“Everyone has ideas. They may be too busy or lack the confidence or technical ability to carry them out. But I want to carry them out. It is a matter of getting up and doing it.” James Dyson

It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that you’ll do things differently.” Warren Buffett

“Do or do not. There is no try.” Yoda [Star Wars]

“Done is better than perfect.” Sheryl Sandberg

“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” Chinese proverb

“When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.” Henry Ford

“The biggest risk is not taking any risk… In a world that’s changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.” Mark Zuckerberg

“When you first start off trying to solve a problem, the first solutions you come up with are very complex, and most people stop there. But if you keep going, and live with the problem and peel more layers of the onion off, you can often times arrive at some very elegant and simple solutions. Most people just don’t put in the time or energy to get there.” Steve Jobs

“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” Alice Walker

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Maya Angelou

“What’s money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do.” Bob Dylan

“If people like you, they’ll listen to you, but if they trust you, they’ll do business with you.” Zig Ziglar

“Whatever you do, be different—that was the advice my mother gave me, and I can’t think of better advice for an entrepreneur. If you’re different, you will stand out.” Anita Roddick

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7 Tips For Time Management

Time management: The ability to use one’s time effectively or productively, especially at work.
We might all know what time management means by definition, but still can’t seem to implement it in our day to day lives. These seven tips give you concrete advice on how to manage your time like a pro!

Declutter
Make a plan. Start small. Take breaks. Decluttering doesn’t have to be done all at once. Feel free to take your time and work your way up. Take it a desk drawer, or shoebox at a time.

Stay Organized
This is a two-pronged approach. Getting organized and then staying organized. Always easier said than done, but it can be done. Recognize that it’s an ongoing continuum and keep at it.

Prioritize
List out all tasks and obligations and rank them. Be it by time restrictions, career demands, or personal goals, knowing what and when things need to be done is key. Create a calendar and work your way through tasks in order of priority.

Plan
Plan. Plan. Stick with the plan. Having a plan doesn’t mean you have to stick to it on every detail. Having a plan gives you the ability to break down your time in segments, allowing you to track the things that are done, in progress and yet to be completed. It gives you to opportunity properly prepare for things down the pipeline and gives the small victory of being able to check things off as they are completed.

Be Effective
Life and work aren’t a race. Being the most efficient is overrated, strive for being the most effective. It’s not about how many singular tasks get finished, although that is important, it’s about how much progress has been made to meet goals you’ve set for yourself. Quality over quantity, but quantity is still important.

Stop Procrastinating
We have all fallen victim to putting things off, especially those things we deem difficult or time-consuming. Avoid this trap at all costs. Start tasks as soon as you need to. Consult your plan, make sure to stick with it, taking breaks if you need to. Just start!

Finish The Job
Starting and never finishing tasks is a killer of great time management. Unfinished tasks can quickly pile up, and sometimes even impede the process of other tasks and projects. All started tasks need to be completed unless canceled altogether.

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7 Hacks To Becoming Instagram Famous

Instagram is undeniably one of the largest social media platforms in the world. With some of the highest returns on engagement and reach,  having a strong Instagram page can be a game changer for brands and businesses. Here are a few hacks on how to get an influential account.

Develop A Unique Instagram Style

One of the biggest difficulties is being to find your specific niche. Standing out on in a sea of Starbucks unicorn frappuccinos and scenic sunsets isn’t the easiest, but try. Be fresh, be fun, be you!

Descriptive Captions

Long detailed and well written captions highly increase engagement. Storytelling is an art, and coupled with great photos it has given brands like @NatGeo and @HumansOfNY a cutting edge. This won’t work for all brands but for those with a strong and definitive voice this could be the added boost.

Creative Hashtagging

Twitter might have popularized hashtags but Instagram has taken it to the next level. Each picture should have a mix of both broad and specific hashtags to generate the most reach. Take those specific hashtags created for you or your business and promote them as you would your tagline. Have hashtags on your website, social media bio etc, make them a part of your brand.

Bio URL

Instagram has only ONE coveted direct link on its entire page and it can be found in the bio. Where do you want your followers and potential customers to go? What do you want them to do? Feel free to change the link often to see what works best and to add variety.

Participate in Relevant Conversations

You don’t have to keep up with all the new dance moves and new unicorn trends, but keeping up with industry specific news is important. Keeping up with trends can get a bit exhausting, but a little extra snooping can lead to free PR by riding the coattails of a viral new trend!

Get Local

Making a big splash is easiest in small ponds. Reach out to local businesses, creatives, and markets. Networking with local industry professionals is great for marketing, making connections and gaining clout!

Influencer Marketing

Last but not least let’s not forget the latest and biggest marketing trend, influencer marketing. It’s one of the easiest and most targeted ways to reach your audience. Find Instagramers that have influence in specific demographics you’re looking to reach and let them do the work for you!

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How To Make Money Using Social Media

Having a social media presence is no longer something used just to connect with friends and family. In fact, many people are using social media to make money, both as individuals and for business purposes. This post contains ideas that can help you get started making the most of your social media profiles.

Sponsorships

A sponsorship is when a brand pays you for the association of their product or service with you. Generally sponsored posts will be coming from social media influencers, so seeing the Kardashians posting on Instagram about beauty products, or golfer Jordan Spieth posting about products from Under Armour (Spieth has a 10-year long contract with the brand) is not uncommon, nor is it an out of reach goal for other influencers.

Advertisements

Different from a sponsorship, advertisements are a similar promotion of a product or service on your profile, but are generally not a main focus for your post. These appear as either video ads or as banner ads, on YouTube and other video platforms, and can even be embedded into your website. There are rarely long term relationships between where the ads come from and the influencer.

Product Promotions

If you’re a business you can use social media as a platform to sell your products or to garner interest and grow a following that will reroute traffic to your website or store  to purchase your products. This can also work for promoting services, a useful tactic for hair stylists, makeup artists, interior designers and more. Show your chops to your followers and start to see appointment times fill up.

YouTube Partner Program

The YouTube Partner Program pairs channels with advertisers to put video and banner ads on the video. All content creators can apply to join the program, but in order to qualify for review your channel must reach 10,000 public views. See more guidelines here.

Amazon Affiliate Program

Partner for free with giant online retailer Amazon and advertise products on your website without needing third party approvals. You can then earn up to 10%in advertising fees on qualifying purchases. Learn more here.

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Insider Secrets For Great SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the most used tools for anyone in marketing, but how many marketers actually understand it? Or go back and learn how to adapt to changes made in search behavior? The last few years have brought up some major changes to the way SEO works, and how to use it to its full potential. The changes made to Google’s algorithm, more use of anchor text within posts and increased security measures are all things that need to be taken into consideration for anyone looking to up their searchability, increase organic traffic, or even just have a better ranking on Google.  Here’s what you need to know to become an SEO expert.

Just Starting Out

If you are just beginning your journey into the world of SEO the task at hand can seem daunting.  Building a sitemap? Submitting a sitemap to Google? Where do you even begin? First things first, the sitemap is important to the general start of good SEO. You don’t necessarily have to update and resubmit your sitemap every time you publish new content, but it is a good measure if you ever put out any important updates or major changes.

The next change to think about is Mobile-First Indexing. In a mobile facing world, the importance of having a mobile friendly site is something you can’t ignore. Google prefers mobile responsive designs, so if you’re building out or re-designing your site, take that knowledge into consideration, especially due to the change that Google announced in November:  the search results index will be prioritizing mobile results first. This change is still being tested, but the update is likely to happen.  Another important thing to keep in mind is that AMP-enabled pages are treated as mobile pages as well, which will get them indexed first.

Once your site itself is optimized and submitted, you can start creating your content on the site. Anchor text, Some people argue that keywords are becoming less and less important, as in the very first days of SEO you could put as many keywords as you could possibly fit into a title or a post and still make it onto the front page of Google with that as your only SEO technique. That is a strategy unlikely to work today, as the technology has advanced far beyond where it once was. Now it is likely you will see top ranked pages all without targeted keywords anywhere in the content.

This is not to say that keywords are not important! Whether they are in a custom URL, in anchor text links, in a title of a post, or just located in your content anywhere, keywords can get your content to show up on a page that may or may not even be an exact match. Using a keyword research tool can help you find and utilize the most effective and relevant keywords for your content. But remember: top search terms only make up for about 30% of web searches, while unique searches that usually don’t contain popular keywords make up that remaining 70% of search traffic. Because of that large differential, it’s important that you use keywords from both ends of the spectrum, regardless of the diminished value of “Exact Match Domains” (EDMs). Branded keywords (keywords in the brand names of companies) can still be highly ranked even with the 2012 Google update against EMDs.

Sound Familiar?

If you’re already well versed in SEO you probably already know that keywords, backlinks, submitting your site to a search engine, and having a fully mobile responsive site are the first steps to higher ranking and increased traffic. What else can you do to keep ranking higher to a bigger audience? With every year and with every update to the parameters of the search, what can marketers do to continue the process of establishing great SEO? As of 2017, what will make a difference is going to be increased security measures, post content and user experience optimization.

Security and SEO

In a world full of online fraud and theft, Google gives a slightly better standing to those who use higher security settings on their pages, for example: using HTTPS versus HTTP links. When you obtain a certificate to verify the extra security of an HTTPS page, you become a “trusted third party”. Essentially, with this verification you get three types of security: encryption, data integrity and authentication. The process to switching from an HTTP address to an HTTPS address can be tricky for someone without an IT background, but this Ahrefs blog gives a great and simple explanation of how to get started, covers more SEO benefits and explains how to avoid any SEO concerns that may arise during a transition.

Post Content

The ideal content length used to be a short and sweet 500 words, but today, posts that are longer (around 2,000 to 2,500 words), and contain in-depth, comprehensive information are getting ranked higher and seeing increased traffic. The SEO trend Forbes says to watch for this year is dense content or posts that don’t have a specific optimized length, giving the most information in the smallest space needed, packing in the knowledge into a piece completely different than the small snippets or the huge novels of information we are familiar with. Remember also, as we shift into a mobile focused world that mobile content is usually shorter, and to be an authority on a topic does not always mean the need for long-form content. Consider using video and audio along with a transcript as a means to great SEO and mobile optimization.

User Experience

The amount of time a user spends on your site is a vital sign of your site’s engagement rate and can indicate to a search engine as to how highly the site should rank. Important factors in getting visitors to stay on and interact with your site are loading speed, appealing content, and, once again, mobile optimization. If there is no traffic to your site it may not matter how good the rest of your SEO is, so make sure to keep your audience in mind as you move forward.

Ideas of what the future of SEO will hold will continue to change as the world we live in changes. Be sure to keep checking in to learn about what you can do to ensure your business’ success.

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