It’s tough, because we have our own expectations by which we measure others. We focus so much on whether the other person is meeting our standards that we forget to love them for being uniquely flawed and evolving, just like ourselves –- perhaps at a...

Why the world needs deep generalists, not specialists You should hire a polymath but you probably won’t find one. It was a meeting of the minds — three of the world’s most unconventional thinkers in a delightfully conventional setting. The glow of...

Real-time data. Actionable insights. 360 customer views. Personalized engagement strategies. Omnichannel campaigns. They may be buzzwords, but they’re also critical to effective marketing and business growth. And database marketing is the key to all of...

Understand your users, develop a market segmentation plan, position your product, and create a value proposition Marketing helps you understand your user, focus your product on your user needs and take the product to market. This post is set up to mimic...

Why your business needs to stop removing reviews 1) People can tell your business is filtering the reviews. 68% of consumers trust reviews more when they see both good and bad scores (Econsultancy, 2012). Customers are more review savvy and can spot when things look...

In the table below, U.S. Ranking, % U.S. Traffic and Average Monthly U.S. Traffic (unique visitors) data are sourced from Alexa. Businesses should strive to get business reviews on business review websites that are going concerns, review sites that people know about...

Search Engine Optimization—or SEO—is a term that may sound scary at first, but is simple when you break it down. It’s the process of optimizing your online content (website, blog or otherwise) for search engine algorithms like Google’s. Search engine algorithms are...

Telling a small business owner to “assume the perspective of your customer” is one of those classic easier said than doneproblems. It’s not for lack of trying, but owning a small business isn’t just a job, it’s a lifestyle. And when you put that level of passion and...

A business’s reputation used to be what they said about themselves in their advertising and the reach their customers had via word of mouth. Now, consumers are pushing out a company’s reputation and image collectively by providing real-time feedback online through...

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is a term you’ve most likely heard before. As digital marketing continues to rise, so does the contest for web visibility. If potential customers can’t find you online, you’re missing out on a huge demographic. That’s why we’ve...

Websites are important for every business. In today’s digital age, having accessible online information is crucial for success. Just having a website isn’t enough, though. What matters is what’s on your website. Website content needs to be geared toward making the...

Amazing customer service may seem like a lot of extra work on a short-term basis, but it does improve your brand image and goodwill, which means a lot in the long run. No matter how big or small your business is, you must focus on making your customers happy. There...

The advertising world is full of jargon, and new phrases are always popping up. One you may have heard in the past couple of years is “programmatic advertising.” So what is it, and why does it sound so technical? Take my hand and come with me to the world of...

Gone are the days of a “form over function” internet. Where once the simple novelty of seeing a business online, in any fashion, was often enough. Now, today’s more savvy audiences simply want to get where they are going. So with the priorities of today’s business...

So, you’ve got your Facebook Business page setup and you’re posting regularly. You’ve even got some likes and shares. That’s great! But why stop there? With over 1.79 billion users active on the platform every day, there’s a lot of real estate to cover, and your...

In the heyday of traditional marketing, attracting and retaining customers was an intimidating task for local business owners to accomplish, especially when the inflated budgets of larger businesses made it difficult to compete. Today, there are many different avenues...

Customer service is about solving the problems of your customers. Now, companies have to manage customer service across multiple channels. When people have a negative experience online, they blame the company. Not responding to customers on review sites and social...

On the surface boosting content on Facebook seems like a pretty straight forward transaction. The more dollars you spend, the more eyes see your message. While that’s certainly true, to get the most value out of your dollar it’s worth knowing the basic nuances of how...

Since the early 2000s, social media platforms have revolutionized the way people connect with one another. Today, there are 2.3 billion active users of social media worldwide. Business owners who take advantage of the ocean-sized lead pool created by social media...

What makes for good social posting, anyway? In order to craft the perfect social post, we need to take a look at why people follow businesses in the first place. Interest in services and promotions: People love sales! Don’t get TOO excited though. Over posting this...

Businesses don’t always know what they’re getting into with social posting. Most turn to outsourcing because they don’t have the time to get to know the process and learn to navigate social media. They may as well be holding up a big SOS beacon. You need to be an...

You may not be aware of it now, but it’s likely that your business has suffered at the hands of incorrect business listings. And as a customer I’m sure you know from experience the impact it can have. To put it bluntly, when someone is trying to buy a product or...

We’ve compiled five easy tips that businesses can use to climb search rankings with speed. We aren’t saying that you’ll appear at the top of the search results in a couple days, but we do guarantee that using these tips will help a business climb search rankings on...

I love to automate. Automate as many things as possible. One truth that it’s really hard to wrap our head around is the fact that our mental resources are severely limited. Each day, you have a limited supply of: Attention Willpower Decision-making ability...

Time is Fixed, Energy is Variable You only have so much energy in a day. I don’t just mean physical energy, I mean mental energy. It doesn’t matter how much time you allocate to an important task, if you can’t effectively focus your mental energy or if...

Digital advertising is the process of using internet technology to deliver promotional advertising to consumers. Digital advertising encompasses promotional ads and messages that are delivered through social media, email, search engine ads, mobile banner ads,...

A strong social media presence is one of the best ways to be heard, and businesses are no exception to this rule. Forget the doorstep; there’s a whole world of potential customers and fans at your fingertips who are actively looking for brands that they can identify...

How hashtags can help you reach the out-crowd and engage the in-crowd The facts are in: if you are not using hashtags, you are missing out! With a tweet with hashtags being 33% more likely to get retweeted, these handy hashtags can make the difference between...

With the online world being dominated by images, what do you need to know as a business owner when it comes to copyright laws? Sharing Images on Social Visuals are huge in the social media world, particularly for businesses. Here’s a quick run-down. On average,...

The importance of responding to customers online could not be more prevalent as reviews continue to grow more than ever before. Aside from the fact that reviews from customers help others decide whether they should visit a business or not, reviews are now more...

Search engines strive to create the best user experience possible, providing the most relevant, useful information based on the user’s search terms. If they didn’t, users would no longer rely on them for information. This is good news: the more relevant, informative...

Digital advertising comes in many different varieties, including display advertising (those web banners next to your favorite Youtube videos), sponsored ads (such as those on Google and Facebook), and of course, search ads—just to name a few! So where do you start?...

300 million—the number of people on Instagram every single day. Businesses are taking advantage of Instagram by using it as a resource to gain popularity and increase their customer base. In fact, top brands like Nike and National Geographic have over 60...

Welcome to the most comprehensive collection of design, functionality and content stats for websites. Imagine a world where a single, gigantic shopping mall hosted a store for every business across the globe. It’s easy to imagine that any business that doesn’t have a...

Data aggregators run the world. The world of local search, any way. Data aggregators supply information to major search engines like Google, which means that having good business listing info on data aggregators can help it get right on Google. These aggregators have...

So, your business has decided to take the leap into the blogosphere. Great! There’s no shortage of reasons why blogging can benefit your business. However, the world of business blogging may still feel like uncharted territory. What should your blog discuss? How many...

SEO is the key to conquering the internet, and as the digital climate becomes increasingly saturated, it is becoming more important than ever to make sure that you are making every effort to get seen on the web. One of the easiest ways to give your sites a little...

Is your social media falling flat? Don’t sweat it; many hours have gone into perfecting the use of this not-so-secret weapon. Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram strategies are outlined in detail below. Once you understand how they all work and which...

Everyone can recall a time when they’ve received excellent customer service. Whether it was the clerk who was extra helpful or the hotel staff who went above and beyond, we’ve all experienced it. Unfortunately though, the bad customer service is almost always recalled...

Intro to Social Media Monitoring Have you ever been at a party and caught a person or a group glancing at you while whispering covertly? What’s up with that? Is your fly open? Does someone have a crush on you? Does someone want to throw a drink in your face? You’d...

Listings for local SEO If you want to rank well in local search, you need consistent NAP data, website, hours, and more across all major listing directories. This is essential for search engines to validate you as a credible local business. The more accurate and...

While the world of online marketing has expanded far beyond paid advertising, advertising still plays a very important role in generating revenue and business. Digital advertising is the top of the “new advertising stack,” and it’s what can create brand awareness,...

What is Page Speed? Page speed is the amount of time it takes for the content on a website’s page to fully load. In a world where people have come to expect instantaneous results, faster is better. In fact, nearly half of web users expect a site to load in 2 seconds...

Instagram has entered the territory of “must” rather than “nice-to-have” when it comes to social marketing for businesses. There are a few key reasons why every business should have an Instagram account, and why you’re going to be pretty left out if you don’t get on...

Businesses on page 2 of the SERP might as well not exist. It sounds harsh but it’s simply the reality that we all need to accept. You know the drill—you want pizza so you get on your phone and do a search. Google presents its top 3 local options in the “Snack Pack”...

How does online advertising help a local business grow? Digital advertising increases awareness—it’s that simple. Digital advertising consists of a range of services, all of which work to promote a business online. More and more businesses are increasing the amount...

A good or bad reputation can mean the difference between a business thriving and expanding, or closing their doors for good. In the digital age, a business’s reputation is controlled by consumers using online review platforms like Yelp, Google and Facebook to announce...

Believe it or not, the same premise applies to negative review response as it does to positive reviews. How you respond to a negative review impacts not only the reviewer, but all the sets of eyes that come afterward. Seeing a business handle a particularly...

As a business, how likely is it that potential customers will come through your door? The whole point of an online presence is to entice customers into your store, your leasing office or your showroom so you can convert them to paying customers rather than just...

Listings are an online summary of essential information for your business that serve as a powerful tool to help customers find you online and in real life. Here’s what you need to know: NAP+W No, we didn’t fall asleep on the keyboard. NAP+W is the acronym that...

Choosing the right digital advertising metrics to track and measure is crucial to your campaign’s success. If you aren’t tracking advertising efforts correctly, you’ll never know what’s working and what channels to focus your advertising dollars on. Determining your...

Every enterprise needs to innovate. It doesn’t matter whether you’re are a profit-seeking business, a nonprofit organization, or a government entity. The simple truth is that every business model fails eventually, because conditions change over time. We...

In a 2017 article titled “Definite Optimism as Human Capital,” writer Dan Wang made a compelling argument for why definite optimism — optimism with a goal in mind — is a vital component of “social capital” in the 21st century. We are an emotional species....

Productivity can usually be defined as Output divided by Time. Basically, how much can you produce in a given amount of time? To increase productivity, then, you have a few different options: 1.   Produce more in the same amount of time 2.  Produce the...

What makes a good decision? When I ask people that question, I often get answers like: “When the outcome is successful.” Why is it that we, as a society, romanticize outcomes? Only things and people that succeed are celebrated. Just look at all the...

“We hold the world hostage to our fragility and vulnerability — making female pain the inevitable cost of our comfort.” – Anonymous “I was very emotional last Thursday,” Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in the Wall Street Journal a few days before his...

Ludwig Wittgenstein was a genius like few others. Born into one of the wealthiest families of his time, he donated his fortune and instead went on to become one of the giants of 20th-century philosophy. He was commanding and passionate and, quite often, misunderstood....

“I know of no better life purpose than to perish in attempting the great and the impossible.” – Friedrich Nietzsche In 1900, one of the most profound thinkers of his day was buried in a small town in Germany. He had been sick for over a decade before his death as a...

In order to understand the many new varieties of business model being created and why they work, we have to study systems models. However, to understand these organic and natural systems, we have to move from a ‘mechanistic’ way of thinking, whereby we think of the...

If hard work is the key to success, most people would rather pick the lock. — Claude McDonald “Moving fast and breaking things” is at the heart of the startup philosophy of being scrappy. Facebook was a notable proponent and adorned every one of its offices with the...

I believe that intelligence manifests itself not through expression or formality, but through observation and genuine curiosity. Observing nature is always an awe-inspiring, spiritual experience for me; I could sit and watch waves crash for hours. The ocean, in...

In a world of rapid disruption, the idea of having a core competency–an intrinsic set of skills required to thrive in certain markets–is an outmoded principle. Apple, Nike, and Netflix have better ideas. Known for decades as a shoe company, Nike is undergoing a...

We live our lives on different clocks — biological, cultural, personal, and more. There are things we have to do and things we want to do, and often we don’t allow for enough qualitative time where we aren’t ticking off minutes but creating moments of experience....

The concept of an idea funnel isn’t new. It has its limitations. But I still find it a helpful visualization tool for outlining a high-level innovation process in search of good ideas. It’s also equally applicable to bootstrapping entrepreneurs and corporate...

When humanity encounters a shiny new piece of tech and senses its potential, we usually (glibly) assume that the world will instantaneously hop aboard and ride the resulting wave of change. Anyone who has experienced at least one of these waves knows what typically...

People: People are the best and worst thing that will happen to you. Some will help you go further, faster. Others will pull you down to their level and help you lose. Most are OK. Many are average. Some are excellent. A few people will change your life forever. Find...

A takeaway from Solve for Happy by Mo Gawdat: Control is what it seems most ambitious young man and woman suffer from. We want to control our time to be more efficient and more productive. We mostly want to control our career, our success, and achievement of our...

Life is meant to be a happy, to be a joy to appreciate the little things that hold the big things...To appreciate one another. To be givers. To be lovers of life. I say to you that if you’re driven by anything other than your love and your spirit and your desire to...