What are social signals and how to use them for SEO? Read this

What are social signals? I hear you ask!

Well, within the SEO fraternity we all are aware that we might some time go overboard with abbreviations and tech terms which are simply incomprehensible to the mass. (including this mortal in most occasions). So when I got asked this question earlier today while discussing a campaigns with a prospect, I did a little research to see if someone has described it better than me and found this lovely article from our good friends at Zadroweb.

 

 

Move over SEO. Social media is fast becoming the optimal way for businesses to rank at the top of search engine results through customer feedback known as social signals. This new process has become a major factor in the success (or failure) of a company in ways that can’t compare to traditional ranking methods.

Social Signals Defined.

Social signals are the likes, shares, votes, pins, or views people place on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or other social media sites that filter out to the various search engines.

Social signals indicate that your brand is being talked about by consumers, and this improves your SERP ranking because search engines view social signals as trusted “recommendations”.

“Traditional” SEO Vs. Social Signals.

For years, traditional SEO strategies were the definitive way to ensure a high search engine ranking for a site. The right anchor text links, backlinks and keywords were a vital part of a mathematical formula that determined SERP rankings. However, after Google’s many Panda and Penguin updates, the focus began to shift more toward the value of a site’s content, and today it has shifted again to add people’s feedback into the mix with social signals.

What Can Social Signals Do?

The right social signals reduce bounce rates and create more repeat site visits.
Social signals from one page can actually impact other pages within a domain to improve ranking criteria.
Voting for or liking web pages may potentially begin to replace backlinks, and the improved brand visibility that social signals creates can generate new inbound links and produce a “tag team” effect to move a site higher in the SERPs.
Why Have Social Signals Taken Hold?

The increasing use of social media sites to share information or just keep in touch has changed how we communicate, and social signals are the natural outcome of this communication shift.

Research shows that people now choose to visit particular websites not because of a high search engine rank, but because friends have recommended the site either directly or through social signals. In addition, socially linked websites have improved conversion rates along with better brand loyalty and brand awareness, leading to more positive reviews through social signals.

As social media continues to grow, consumers will look to social signals to help them make the best product and service choices.

What You Should Be Doing.

If your company has not yet created a social media presence, it’s time to act. Set up accounts and publish content about your business on social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest, and YouTube. If you’re confused or unsure on how to proceed, there are professional social media management companies that can help get you started.

Once you’ve created your sites, don’t let them stagnate. Regularly update your social sites with diverse content like posts, bookmarks, votes, re-shares and comments — these are just a few actions that Google uses to help determine a site’s ranking.

Remember that although social media now plays a significant role in SERP rankings, your focus should still be on your customer first and foremost. Don’t just publish content for the sake of publishing content; share content that your customers will find truly valuable. Engage with your customers through lively discussions and commenting, videos, images, contests, polls, and anything else that elicits positive feedback. The more value a customer perceives from your brand’s social sites, the more likely they are to like, share and recommend your brand to others.

Social media is now the strategy of choice to keep your brand in front of your customers, and to keep your customers engaged in your brand in ways that traditional SEO only can not accomplish.

The post What are social signals and how to use them for SEO? Read this appeared first on mojo media.

source https://www.mojomedia.pro/what-are-social-signals/

What are social signals and how to use them for SEO? Read this

What are social signals? I hear you ask!

Well, within the SEO fraternity we all are aware that we might some time go overboard with abbreviations and tech terms which are simply incomprehensible to the mass. (including this mortal in most occasions). So when I got asked this question earlier today while discussing a campaigns with a prospect, I did a little research to see if someone has described it better than me and found this lovely article from our good friends at Zadroweb.

 

 

Move over SEO. Social media is fast becoming the optimal way for businesses to rank at the top of search engine results through customer feedback known as social signals. This new process has become a major factor in the success (or failure) of a company in ways that can’t compare to traditional ranking methods.

Social Signals Defined.

Social signals are the likes, shares, votes, pins, or views people place on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or other social media sites that filter out to the various search engines.

Social signals indicate that your brand is being talked about by consumers, and this improves your SERP ranking because search engines view social signals as trusted “recommendations”.

“Traditional” SEO Vs. Social Signals.

For years, traditional SEO strategies were the definitive way to ensure a high search engine ranking for a site. The right anchor text links, backlinks and keywords were a vital part of a mathematical formula that determined SERP rankings. However, after Google’s many Panda and Penguin updates, the focus began to shift more toward the value of a site’s content, and today it has shifted again to add people’s feedback into the mix with social signals.

What Can Social Signals Do?

The right social signals reduce bounce rates and create more repeat site visits.
Social signals from one page can actually impact other pages within a domain to improve ranking criteria.
Voting for or liking web pages may potentially begin to replace backlinks, and the improved brand visibility that social signals creates can generate new inbound links and produce a “tag team” effect to move a site higher in the SERPs.
Why Have Social Signals Taken Hold?

The increasing use of social media sites to share information or just keep in touch has changed how we communicate, and social signals are the natural outcome of this communication shift.

Research shows that people now choose to visit particular websites not because of a high search engine rank, but because friends have recommended the site either directly or through social signals. In addition, socially linked websites have improved conversion rates along with better brand loyalty and brand awareness, leading to more positive reviews through social signals.

As social media continues to grow, consumers will look to social signals to help them make the best product and service choices.

What You Should Be Doing.

If your company has not yet created a social media presence, it’s time to act. Set up accounts and publish content about your business on social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest, and YouTube. If you’re confused or unsure on how to proceed, there are professional social media management companies that can help get you started.

Once you’ve created your sites, don’t let them stagnate. Regularly update your social sites with diverse content like posts, bookmarks, votes, re-shares and comments — these are just a few actions that Google uses to help determine a site’s ranking.

Remember that although social media now plays a significant role in SERP rankings, your focus should still be on your customer first and foremost. Don’t just publish content for the sake of publishing content; share content that your customers will find truly valuable. Engage with your customers through lively discussions and commenting, videos, images, contests, polls, and anything else that elicits positive feedback. The more value a customer perceives from your brand’s social sites, the more likely they are to like, share and recommend your brand to others.

Social media is now the strategy of choice to keep your brand in front of your customers, and to keep your customers engaged in your brand in ways that traditional SEO only can not accomplish.

The post What are social signals and how to use them for SEO? Read this appeared first on mojo media.

source http://www.mojomedia.pro/what-are-social-signals/

How Google aims to bring TV advertising into the 21st century

Catalonia plots digital government in exile in bid for independence

Is this the future where tech meets politics??? Saw this article and thought you guys will like it
Photo credit: David Ramos/Getty Images

As Spain threatens to suspend the region’s autonomy, Catalan activists are making plans to take their government online.

Catalan activists are preparing to create a digital government-in-exile if Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy follows through on his threat to suspend the region’s autonomy in a bid to prevent it declaring independence.

“If the Spanish government does restrict Catalan autonomy – especially if it bans Catalan political parties – we will probably have a clandestine government,” says Simona Levi, founder of digital rights non-profit platform Xnet. “The internet would be an important part of that.”

Although details of the plan are unclear Thomas Harrington, professor of Hispanic studies at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, suggests “a country in the east of Europe which had itself gone through the process of declaring its independence from the former Soviet Union not all that long ago,” – believed to mean the Estonian government – might be Catalonia’s blueprint.

Estonia – already the world’s most digitally advanced society – plans eight data embassies that will each store copies of the government’s critical data to reboot in the case of physical or cyber attack. The first embassy, based in a cage in a high-security data centre in Betzdorf, Luxembourg, comes online at the start of 2018.

“When the Russians invaded the Ukraine we asked, ‘Can we survive as a nation even if we don’t own our territory?’” explains Taavi Kotka, Estonia’s former chief information officer who spearheaded the scheme. “If you can have everything online, you become location independent. We built data embassies in the way Lord Voldemort placed his soul in different vessels – if one goes down you boot up another for digital continuity.”

The Catalan government and pro-independence activists have already survived an online game of cat and mouse with the Spanish state, according to Xnet analysis. On September 13, the Spanish government used a court order to shut down the referendum.cat web page – prompting the Catalan government to open new sites and a Valencia-based user called GrenderG to publish the site’s content on Github.

Clone sites proliferated and over the following ten days the Spanish government blocked more than 140 websites, forced Google Play to remove an app with voter information and blocked the domain gateway.ipfs.io, which used the peer-to-peer Inter Planetary File System protocol to store referendum information across a wide network of servers. Guardia Civil officers raided the headquarters of the .cat registry on September 20, seizing computers and arresting the company’s CTO Pep Masoliver – who was later charged with sedition.

“The Spanish government is using an anti-phishing technical infrastructure to stop people going to those websites,” says John Graham-Cumming, CTO of web security company Cloudflare. “In Togo or Gabon or Tunisia or Syria with maybe one large telco that’s probably state owned it’s relatively easy to shut the internet down. Inside Spain, they’re redirecting those domain names to their own servers where there’s a page from the Guardia Civil saying the page is shut by court order.”

“This is not something that you normally see in a modern democracy – it’s the kind of thing you see in Turkey, Egypt, China and Iran,” says security consultant Troy Hunt.

In response, activists set up channels through encrypted messaging apps such as Telegram, guiding internet users to access the affected sites using Virtual Private Networks and proxy services. During the October 1 referendum and resulting police crackdown, polling station volunteers communicated through clandestine data networks created by routing smartphones through VPNs to operate without access to the open internet. In the streets, activists and referendum officials chanted “airplane mode”, urging voters to preserve network bandwidth for people working inside the polling stations.

“What we are seeing playing out in Catalonia is the strategic use of secrecy via technology to imagine and enact a different kind of politics,” says Dr Clare Birchall, senior lecturer in contemporary culture at Kings College London who writes on secrecy and surveillance argues this represents a new, radical form of secrecy.

“We could say that the Spanish government feels as threatened by this appropriation of secrecy and opacity as it does by the possibility of Catalan independence. From arcana imperii to covert surveillance and operations by intelligence services, secrecy has largely always been the preserve of the state. This could herald the rise of a ‘radical secrecy’ – an attempt by activist groups to establish secret networks to rival those of the state.”

Catalan premier Carles Puigdemont is expected to declare independence on Tuesday at a session of the Catalan parliament already declared illegal by Rajoy. In a Sunday interview with Spain’s El País newspaper, Mr Rajoy insisted “the government will ensure that any declaration of independence will lead to nothing.” Asked whether he was prepared to invoke the Spanish constitution’s Article 155, allowing the national parliament to run the autonomous region, Mr Rajoy added: “I don’t rule out absolutely anything that is within the law.”

 

We found this article on this link below:

http://www.wired.co.uk/article/catalan-government-independence-internet-spain

The post Catalonia plots digital government in exile in bid for independence appeared first on mojo media.

source http://www.mojomedia.pro/catalonia-plots-digital-government-exile-bid-independence/

UK crowdfunding platform Seedrs hits £50m valuation following £6m raise

I actually have worked with seeds team before and can say they deserve every penny of this. They are an amazing platform and has a brilliant track record of helping start ups to grow.

 

Yessi Bello Perez from UK TECH NEWS reports.

 

Seedrs is now valued at £50m following a £6m crowdfunding campaign ran on its own platform.

The company, which raised £4m from Woodford Investment Management last month, received the funds from more than 2,000 of its customers.

According to Seedrs, the average individual investment amount was £3,200, with the biggest individual investment hitting £800,000. Most investors, it said, came from the UK, Germany, Portugal, France and Italy.

Jeff Kelisky, chief executive officer of Seedrs, said he was delighted with the news. “It was highly important to us that we could open up as much as possible for our existing investor base, and this sum, combined with Woodford’s investment of £4m earlier this month takes us to £10m.

“This round is yet more evidence of the market’s conviction that Seedrs is on the right path to delivering shareholder value by opening venture capital opportunities to retail investors for fast growth companies – and without Seedrs having pioneered regulated equity investment, these opportunities would have remained closed to them,” he added.

British tennis star Andy Murray backed the company: “It is with great pride that I have made this investment into Seedrs latest funding round. As an active investor into early-stage businesses through the Seedrs platform, it was important for me to take up my pre-emption rights.”

“I have made a substantial follow on investment into this round to show my support for all that Seedrs has achieved since the last raise in 2015. The team has done some great work in supporting European startups and I’m looking forward to seeing how the business will continue to grow with this additional investment,” Murray added.

Seedrs will use the funds to launch new product capabilities, to boost sales and marketing efforts and launch a series of strategic partnerships.

The company is also looking to scale its campaign executing through the use of automation, machine learning and AI.

The post UK crowdfunding platform Seedrs hits £50m valuation following £6m raise appeared first on mojo media.

source http://www.mojomedia.pro/uk-crowdfunding-platform-seedrs-hits-50m-valuation-following-6m-raise/

What Phil had to say about us :-)

This is what makes what we do worth doing.

We have been working with Phil at Pathway Cleaning for a while now. After only 3 months, we were able to rank them for the key words they were after. We even out ranked brands in their market that has historically been there for ages and has a bigger war chest.

Makes me Happy

Shan and Mojo Media team has been working with us to grow the cleaning business and he has done a fab job with advice, guidance and then the delivery of the our site. Thanks Shan for your patience and support.

Phil Egginton

Pathway Cleaning Ltd.

 

The post What Phil had to say about us :-) appeared first on mojo media.

source http://www.mojomedia.pro/phil-say-us/

Twitter Trials 280 Characters: Good, Bad or just Ugly

Well, what I really liked about twitter is that, with the constraint of limited word count one had to really be to the point without hiding behind long winded posts. However , see the post below by Jonathan Davies, editor, Digital Marketing Magazine.

 

Twitter has announced it is trialling a 280-character limit on its tweets for some users.

Twitter founder Jack Dorsey was the first to trial the doubled character limit, explaining that it is “a small change, but a big move for us”. He said the social media giant was addressing a “real problem people have when trying to tweet”.

The change will be tested in all languages aside from Chinese, Japanese and Korean – three languages which convey more in a single character than their international counterparts.

In a blog post, Twitter product manager Aliza Rosen, said: “Trying to cram your thoughts into a Tweet – we’ve all been there, and it’s a pain.”

“We understand since many of you have been Tweeting for years, there may be an emotional attachment to 140 characters – we felt it, too.

“But we tried this, saw the power of what it will do, and fell in love with this new, still brief, constraint,” she said.

 

 

The post Twitter Trials 280 Characters: Good, Bad or just Ugly appeared first on mojo media.

source http://www.mojomedia.pro/twitter-trials-280-characters-good-bad-just-ugly/

10 SOCIAL MEDIA FACTS TO BLOW YOUR MIND.

This lovely little one was designed by Kathryn Wheeler and brought to you by MainStreetHost.  Interesting way to visualise the data I must say.

The post 10 SOCIAL MEDIA FACTS TO BLOW YOUR MIND. appeared first on mojo media.

source http://www.mojomedia.pro/10-social-media-facts-blow-mind/

Google Campus: LONDON – Planning Your Growth: Scaling Your Team

Just saw this event happening at the Google campus in London. Sound quite interesting. As one of the biggest challenge for any startup these days is to have a clear vision of how to scale and grow your business properly.  I have seen many fail at this stage by trying to grow too quickly without planning or being to naive about the need for steady growth and gets eaten up by a competition. 

I might actually go on this one.. If you want to come and network with me – Let me know, it will be fun. 

Here is the Link for the event page: 

When start-ups are founded, the talent is probably the biggest asset it has and as time goes by that won’t change: Attracting, retaining and nurturing the right talent in your scale-up is crucial for its success.

But growing a team isn’t easy – when is the right time to hire? Which roles should you hire for first? How much should you pay? How do you find the best talent? And how do you attract it to your scale-up?

If these questions are of interest to you, then you should come to our event on 28 September. The event is free, and you will hear:

– Bill Boorman, recruitment tech guru, giving a talk on the recruitment technology industry and startups and scaleups can benefit from it

– Hung Lee from Workshape, Alex van Klaveren from Kandidate and Alex Charradaudea from Linkedin, talking about considerations when growing your team, particularly with regards to new technologies which exist

 

Event location

Main Event Space

Event language

English

•  A COMMUNITY-RUN EVENT

The post Google Campus: LONDON – Planning Your Growth: Scaling Your Team appeared first on mojo media.

source http://www.mojomedia.pro/google-campus-london-planning-growth-scaling-team/

When Facebook goes shopping. 65 Facebook Acquisitions – The Complete List (2017)! [INFOGRAPHIC]

Good people of TechWyse – produced this infographic last year. Its a few month old but still so much relevant as Facebooks race for word domination keeps getting stronger.

 

Facebook or should we say, “The Facebook,” was created by Mark Zuckerberg in February 2004. Initially created solely for college students attending specific schools, Facebook reached one million users in just 10 short months after its inception. Eleven years later in 2016, Facebook has nearly 1.7 billion users! And this doesn’t include its other properties like WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook Messenger just to name a few.

During this wave of extreme growth, Mark Zuckerberg has acquired 68 companies till date. Facebook’s largest acquisition so far has been WhatsApp Messenger, which they purchased at $19 billion in February 2015. Other notable acquisitions include Instagram ($1 billion in April 2012) and Oculus Virtual Reality ($2 billion in March 2014).

Some of Facebook’s smaller purchases include the domain fb.com, which it bought for $8.5 million in November 2010 and the hosting and sharing platform Drop.io, which it bought for $10 million in October 2010. Just a few million dollars each, no big deal for Facebook, whose IPO started out at $38 per share (in May 2012), which sits at roughly $93 per share in mid/late-August 2015.

This infographic contains the complete list of companies acquired by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg from August 2005 till date.

A big thanks to the TechWyse Team who helped to design and manage this infographic. Well done guys!

 

 

 

• AboutFace, August 2005 – $200 K
• Parakey, July 19 2007
• ConnectU, June 23 2008 – $31 Million
• FriendFeed, August 10 2009 – $47.5 Million
• Octazen, February 19 2010
• Divvyshot, March 2 2010
• Friendster, May 13 2010 – $40 Million
• ShareGrove, May 26 2010
• Nextstop, July 8 2010 – $2.5 Million
• Chai Labs, August 15 2010 – $10 Million
• Hot Potato, August 20 2010 – $10 Million
• Drop.io, October 29 2010 – $10 Million
• FB.com domain name, November 15 2010 – $8.5 Million
• Rel8tion, January 25 2011 – Undisclosed
• BELUGA, March 2 2011 – Undisclosed
• snaptu, March 20 2011 – $70 Million
• RecRec, March 24 2011 – Undisclosed
• DayTum, April 27 2011
• Sofa, June 9 2011
• MailRank, June 9 2011
• Push Pop Press, August 2 2011 – Undisclosed
• Friend.ly, October 10 2011 – Undisclosed
• Strobe, November 8 2011 – Undisclosed
• Gowalla, December 2 2011
• Instagram, April 9 2012 – $1 Billion
• Tagtile, April 13 2012 – Undisclosed
• Glancee, May 5 2012 – Undisclosed
• Lightbox.com, May 15 2012 – Undisclosed
• Karma, May 21 2012 – Undisclosed
• Face.com, June 18 2012 – $100 Million
• Spool, July 14 2012 – Undisclosed
• Acrylic Software, July 20 2012 – Undisclosed
• Threadsy, August 24 2012 – Undisclosed
• Atlas, February 28 2013 – Less than $100 Million
• Osmeta, March 2013
• Hot Studio, March 14 2013
• Spaceport, April 23 2013
• Parse, April 25 2013 – $85 Million
• Monoidics, July 18 2013
• Jibbigo, August 12 2013
• Onavo, October 13 2013
• SportStream, December 17 2013
• Little Eye Labs, January 8 2014 – $15 Million
• Branch, January 13 2014 – $15 Million
• WhatsApp, February 19 2014 – $19 Billion
• Oculus VR, March 25 2014 – $2 Billion
• Ascenta, March 27 2014 – $20 Million
• Liverail, August 14, 2014 – $500 Million
• ProtoGeo Oy, April 24 2014 – Undisclosed
• Pryte, June, 2014 – Undisclosed
• PrivateCore, August 7 2014 – Undisclosed
• WaveGroup Sound, August 26 2014 – Undisclosed
• Wit.ai, January 6 2015 – Undisclosed
• Quickfire, January 8 2015 – Undisclosed
• TheFind, March 14 2015 – Undisclosed
• Surreal Vision, May 26 2015 – Undisclosed
• Pebbles, July 16 2015 – $60 Million
• Masquerade, March 9 2016 – Undisclosed
• Two Big Ears, March 23, 2016 – Undisclosed
• Nascent Objects, September 19 2016 – Undisclosed

The total cost of Facebook’s acquisitions to date is $ 23,124,700, 000. And that’s just from the acquisition costs they disclosed!

 

 

The post When Facebook goes shopping. 65 Facebook Acquisitions – The Complete List (2017)! [INFOGRAPHIC] appeared first on mojo media.

source http://www.mojomedia.pro/facebook-goes-shopping-65-facebook-acquisitions-complete-list-2017-infographic/

How to find really cool icons and similar images for FREE!

Ok folks, when I posted that other post about how to find free stock photos one of my clients called me up and he had an interesting question.

He asked “all good about typical stock photos but where can I find some really cool icons.” I obviously told him where to find them but also thought you lot could also benefit from it.

There are two places where I usually go hunting for icons. Both has paid and FREE options. If you are using the free option make sure you always cite the actual author / designer.  Its just good Karma people.

Oh by the way – I am NOT an affiliate of either! haha

Iconfinder

Flaticons

Have fun!

The post How to find really cool icons and similar images for FREE! appeared first on mojo media.

source http://www.mojomedia.pro/find-really-cool-icons-similar-images-free/

21 Amazing Sites With Breathtaking Free Stock Photos

Ok, it has been a while since my last post. Been otherwise engaged in another project that has been taking a lot of my time. However, fret not, I promise to be a bit more regular from now on. 

Yesterday, Schnell, a of colleague of mine asked me if I knew any sites where she can get a few nice images for free. She is actually working on a pitch deck. So I can only understand why she wants it to look nice. So, I looked around a little and found this amazing post at Snappa. I hope it helps any one who is also looking for the same. 

 

Photography has always been an integral part of design. Unfortunately, we’ve grown accustomed to seeing crappy stock images of people in suits shaking hands. Not only are a lot of these stock photos tacky, but they cost a lot of money!

Thankfully, there’s been a growing number of websites with beautiful stock photography popping up all over the web. Best of all, they’re free!

In this post, we’ve curated a list of awesome websites for free stock photos.

Quick Note About Licenses

Many of these photographs are free from copyright restrictions or licensed under creative commons public domain dedication. This means you can copy, modify, distribute and perform the work, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission.

However, some photos may require attribution. We’ve done our best to identify which license they fall under but we still advise you to do your own research and determine how these images can be used.

With that out of the way, let’s dive into our top picks for free stock photos.

 

StockSnap.io

StockSnap.io has a large selection of beautiful free stock photos and high resolution images. The site also has a very handy search feature making it easy to browse through the thousands of images available. In addition, the site tracks views and downloads so you can find the most popular photos available.

StockSnap adds hundreds of images on a daily basis and all photos are released under creative commons public domain – no attribution required.

Unsplash

Unsplash offers a large collection of free high-resolution photos and has become one of the best sources for stock images. The Unsplash team combs through new submissions and features the very best photos on their homepage. All photos are released for free under the Unsplash license.

Burst (by Shopify)

Burst is a resource from Shopify that provides free stock photos for entrepreneurs. All photos are licensed under Creative Commons CC0 and can be used as you see fit.

Burst was launched to help entrepreneurs make better products, websites, and marketing campaigns. Most of the pictures are original photos that were taken in-house and are themed around trending business niches — everything from DIY beard oil to Aliexpress LED sneakers. You can also find more general photographs as well.

FoodiesFeed

FoodiesFeed offers thousands of beautiful realistic free food pictures in high resolution. It’s the perfect stock photo site for food bloggers.

Gratisography

Gratisography offers free high-resolution pictures you can use on your personal and commercial projects. New awesome pictures are added weekly and are free of copyright restrictions. All pictures are captured by Ryan McGuire of Bells Design.

Negative Space

Negative Space provides 20 new photos every week released under Creative Commons CC0. The photos are searchable and can be sorted by category, copy space and color.

Freestocks.org

Freestock offers a wide range of high quality photos all released under Creative Commons CC0.

Picography

Picography contains beautiful free stock photos submitted by Dave Meier and various other photographers. All photos are released under Creative Commons CC0.

MMT STock

MMT Stock is a collection of high resolution photos provided by Jeffrey Betts. Jeffrey likes to share photos of computers and workspaces as well as flowers and nature. All photos are released under Creative Commons CC0.

SkitterPhoto

SkitterPhoto offers a wide variety of free stock photos and are released under Creative Commons CC0. All pictures are authentic and created by Skitterphoto’s owners.

Life of Pix

Life of Pix is a resource created by the LEEROY creative agency offering free high-resolution photos with no copyright restrictions. New pictures are added weekly.

Little Visuals

This mention comes with a bit of sad news. The owner of the site Nic passed away but his photos remain in his memory. All photos that have been posted were released under the creative commons license public domain dedication.

Death to Stock Photos

Every month a photo pack of 10 photos within a certain category will be delivered to your inbox. The goal of Death to Stock Photos is to bring you a variety of options in which to use for your mockups, blog posts or social media.

Death to stock photo uses their own license which you can read on their webpage.

Picjumbo

Picjumbo is a collection of totally free photos for your commercial & personal works. New photos are added daily from a wide variety of categories including abstract, fashion, nature, technology and much more.

IM Free

Photo by Kevin N. Murphy

A curated collection of free resources, all for commercial use. Since the photos are curated from various sources, some photos may require attribution.

New Old Stock

Vintage photos from the public archives free of known copyright restrictions.

Pixabay

Pixabay offers a large collection of free stock photos, vectors and art illustrations. All photos are released under Creative Commons CC0.

Jay Mantri

7 new photos released every Thursday under the Creative Commons CC0 license. Jay Mantri posts some really nice photos with a variety of different themes.

Kaboom Pics

Kaboom Pics offers a wide variety of high quality free stock photos including abstract, city/architecture, fashion, food, landscapes and more. Photos can be used for commercial purposes but cannot be sold or redistributed.

Epicantus

Epicantus contains free original photography by Daria. You can use these hi-res photos for your landing pages, blog posts & designs. All photos are released under creative commons CC0.

ShotStash

ShotStash offers a broad range of photos; they add new images every day under a free for commercial and personal use license.

StyledStock

StyleStock offers free feminine stock photography for every woman entrepreneur. The collection is totally free for your commercial & personal works.

 

Conclusion

As you can see, there’s a growing number of fantastic resources for stock photography. These websites have become a blessing for designers, marketers and bloggers. No need to rely on cheesy stock photos anymore!

The post 21 Amazing Sites With Breathtaking Free Stock Photos appeared first on mojo media.

source http://www.mojomedia.pro/21-amazing-sites-breathtaking-free-stock-photos/

12 SEO hacks I could not survive without!

Ok Folks found this old gem and had to share with you lot..

1. Ensure a killer user experience.

According to Neil Patel, user experience (UX) is often viewed as a separate discipline, but all of SEO is built on the foundation of user experience. SEO plays a crucial role in the process of UX, but UX serves SEO too.

You cannot have “good SEO” unless you have a good UX. Every aspect of SEO, no matter how technical, somehow gets back to producing a great UX. Patel lists why:

• To have “good SEO,” you must have great content (a beneficial user experience).
• To have “good SEO,” you must have a functional site (an error-free user experience).
• To have “good SEO,” you must have logical site navigation (an easy user experience).
• To have “good SEO,” you must have relevant keywords (a relevant user experience).
• To have “good SEO,” you must have quality backlinks (a trustworthy user experience).

Patel concluded that “when you improve user experience, from any vantage, you upgrade your SEO strategy to a whole new level of awesome, and that should all be underpinned by the fundamentals of strategy.”

2. Pay close attention to your page titles.

Most people do not even notice page titles, but in search engine results, title tags are very prominent as they are the most noticeable part of your page in the search engine results. Your page title does not show up on the page itself. In many programs, the page’s headline automatically becomes your title, but you can adjust it. Pam Neely lists the three important steps:

• Make sure every page on your site has a unique title tag.
• Make sure they accurately describe each page.
• Try to make them sound enticing.

3. Meta-page descriptions are ad copy. Write them with that in mind.

Meta description tags should be descriptive, but Neely urges you to make them attractive for your reader. Your pages are competing with ads in the search results, so write those page descriptions like they are ad copy rather than a robot’s notes.

4. Use ALT tags.

ALT tags let you add a text description to every image on your pages. They are an often overlooked, but easy way to optimize your pages, as most content-management systems make it very easy to add ALT tags. Neely advises you to sprinkle your keywords in as you write them, but to write them for humans instead of search engines.

Neely mentions that ALT tags are also important for social sharing. Some social platforms, like Pinterest, use the ALT-tag copy as the default description. Make sure the text people are sharing is the text you want that audience to see.

5. Reduce bounce rate with interactive content.

Neely explains that a “bounce” happens when someone comes to a page on your site and then leaves without clicking on anything. A bounce rate of less than 50% is great (and unusual); most blogs get about an 80% bounce rate.

There are many tactics to reduce bounce rates. Make your pages look easier to read and add interactive content. Interactive content includes a simple poll, a quiz, an embedded SlideShare or a video.

6. Link your webpages to each other.

Neely lists three basic kinds of links:

• Inbound links are links on other sites that point to your site.
• External links are links on your site that point out to other sites.
• Internal links are links that go from one page on your site to another page on your site.

It is good to add a couple of external links to the content-heavy pages on your site, if they are respected sites and relevant.

Internal links are part of SEO best practices now. Add links in blog posts, on your About-Us page, and on pages with much content.

Google has clearly said they frown on most link-building tactics, but Neely offers some safe ways to build inbound links:

• Create a piece of amazing content (infographic, eBook, video or otherwise) that others will want to link to.
• Do some unique research and publish it as a report.
• Guest post: publish unique, insightful articles on high authority sites.
• Get the type of traditional business listings that are expectable, on sites such as Yelp, your local Chamber of Commerce, and trade organizations.

7. Use keywords in filenames of documents and images.

Using keywords in filenames helps your readers understand what is in the file or image, and as shown above: a good UX is good SEO. Do not “keyword stuff” your filenames though; use one or two keywords. This way, you give the search-engine bots more information about what your content is about, and every little bit helps.

• A good file name: TranslationGuide.pdf
• A bad file name: TranslationGuide_BuyTranslations_TranslationServices.pdf

Neely has the great tip of avoiding using underscores to separate words; use hyphens instead. Search engines see hyphens as spacers and underscores as letters.

8. Upgrade your keyword research.

Keyword research is another old-school SEO tactic that needs an upgrade. Neely claims that search engines are sophisticated enough now that simply inserting the same exact keyword all over your pages is not going to work. You will look like you are trying to manipulate the search results, which you are.

Use the Google Keyword Planner to identify your core keywords and use those keywords where they make sense. Vary them: plural versus singular, difference verb tenses, different word order, synonyms. You know, make the use seem like that of a human being.

Among SEOs, this type of keyword flexibility is known as “latent-semantic indexing.” It is how search engines associate different terms. Increasingly more, search engines are using keywords like concepts or topics, so we should too.

9. Make your content easy to read.

As you need to write for humans rather than robots, your pages and content should be easy to read. To make your pages look easier to read, use these tricks that Neely offers:

• Write short paragraphs.
• Punctuate those short paragraphs with a one-sentence paragraph every so often.
• Use sub headers.
• Use bullet points like this list
• Add images every 350 words or so.
• Add quotes and call-outs.

10. Do not forget social media.

If you have read the first trend mentioned in this blog, you will not be surprised by this. Make your content easy to share and share it with your audience. Sharing gets your content more attention, which increases its chances of attracting links from other sites. Social signals are now also a ranking signal and Tweets are indexed. Finally, social-sharing buttons have become an important part of search-engine optimization.

11. Write more content

According to Patel, the content-marketing boom has produced an undesirable side effect: there is much lousy content out there. Because of all this low-quality content, many thought leaders have said, “We have a problem.”

Some call it “content shock” — the emerging marketing epoch defined when exponentially increasing volumes of content intersect with our limited human capacity to consume it. The premise of that statement is flawed, according to Patel: “Of course, individuals cannot consume all the content, nor is anyone asking them to.”

Patel agrees that low-quality content is a problem, but does not agree that more content is a problem. He has increased his output with success: “My SEO has skyrocketed, my traffic has exploded, and my marketing funnels are blowing up with fresh, qualified leads.”

More content is better as long as it is rock-solid, kickass content. Your audience will select the best content available. Your content can be the best. And the more of it, the better.

12. Register your website with Google and Bing webmaster tools

As Alex Chris says, not having your website registered with the webmaster tools is like driving with your eyes closed. He urges you to take advantage of the plethora of information given to you by both Google and Bing.

Apparently, some people believe that by not registering your website with Google, you can ‘hide’ things from them, slip under their radar, and reach the top of the search results. I personally do not see how hiding and getting the best results are linked…

Chris states that this “is not a ‘hide and seek’ game: good long-term rankings can only be achieved if you follow valid methods and techniques. For the record: Google already knows everything they need to know about your website with or without submitting it to webmaster tools.”

Which of these 12 SEO tips did you find the easiest and most helpful?

 

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Local Businesses websites: 53 Must-Have features

Every small local business has a website these days, even if that website means only some simple pages built with a basic site builder. Any small business must be present online as it’s well known that searches with local intent are leading to calls, store visits and sales in a very short period of time.

It’s easy to see that the framework for success with a local business website is related to simplicity. Essential information presented on the homepage, call options or email options – women tend to send emails, some content for rankings – a blog may be helpful, company images, testimonials and Videos and the website is done. Go beyond the idea that your website must have the coolest design – an ugly website with all the basics well-done won’t put off many customers.

Invest your time in the most important features.Our friends at WebAlive built a nice infographic about the features and key elements a local business website must have. Easy to read and understand, the infographic will pass you trough website architecture steps, UX and UI must-cover elements, some SEO advice and other features every website should have. Of course, everything is explained bellow the infographic on their page, I will leave here thethings you should avoid:

Don’t use flash elements
There was a time when flash was very popular, but websites these days tend to avoid it due to the fact that it’s difficult to work with and doesn’t convert well to mobile devices.

Automatic music in the background
No one wants to hear background music that plays automatically after opening a page. Unless you want to annoy your user, avoid this.

Do not upload video on the web server
If you want to add some videos to your site, use video uploading platforms like YouTube or Vimeo and then embed the videos into your site. This is a much better option than uploading the video directly to your web server.

Moving slider
Avoid moving sliders that display a series of images (or other contents). Though many websites use this, sliders are generally annoying or distracting.

Dead-end pages
There should be no page in your site from where you can’t navigate to other pages. Pages like this are called dead-end pages and they tend to annoy visitors.

 

Be sure your websites covers all these features, check your website health with eRanker and start monitoring your local rankings – if local searches find you, then clients will find your business and you can boost your sales.

 

BY

Sorin Diaconu

Sorin Diaconu, CMO of GeoRanker, is focused making a big impact in the digital marketing industry. Entrepreneurial spirit attached, areas of expertise include business development and data mining.

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The 25 Tools Every Entrepreneur Should Know About

Most entrepreneurs have a lot of responsibilities on their plate from day one of operation. Everything from hiring employees, managing teams, marketing the brand and dealing with finances can fall under a founder’s responsibilities. Juggling so many tasks can be daunting and lead to a lot of stress. If you’re an entrepreneur and you want to become more efficient, productive and successful, take a look at the list of tools below.

1. Due

Due is an online estimates, invoicing, and payments platform that can help an entrepreneur organize their time through a time-tracking tool plus automate numerous time-consuming tasks. The free platform offers estimate and invoicing templates, reports, database for client and project information, automated reminders and acknowledgements, integration with Basecamp, and multiple payment methods.

2. Asana 

Asana is a free project-management tool that allows teams to communicate without email, in one central location. Because many entrepreneurs work with virtual teams, this is a great tool to stay in touch.

3. Google Drive

Most people already know about this tool, but Chromebooks and ability to convert and edit Microsoft Office documents make Google Drive (and accompanying Docs and Sheets) a great way to collaborate and share documents with your clients, freelancers or employees.

4. SoundGecko

Translate online content — like news and blog posts — into an audio file. This allows you to “read” any content that can help you with your business — including articles on productivity, sales and branding — on the go.

5. AngelList

If you are seeking funding for you business, AngelList is a great social network that can help you seek funding and make connections with those in your community.

6. Fiverr 

If you need a logo, social-media cover photo, podcast intro, website content and more, be sure to check out Fiverr. Sure, the gigs start at $5 but that doesn’t mean they are sub par. Look at reviews and actual Fiverr gig samples before deciding on a contractor.

7. Elance

If you need a freelancer for a long-term project or something more extensive, try Elance, a platform that allows you to post projects and find freelancers that have what you are looking for.

8. Wix

Original websites are always a good thing, but if that is lacking in your budgets, Wix is a pretty and simple website builder that has modern templates that almost anyone can edit.

9. ShareDesk or DeskTime

If you need an office or just a place to work for the day, try ShareDesk or DeskTime to find a co-working office or open desk that allows you to have office space without paying for an entire office.

10. Google Now

If you are an Android user, connect your Google account to your phone and take advantage of Google Now, which can tell you when to leave for appointments that are on your calendar, whether or not your flight is delayed or even new articles from websites you frequent often. This “virtual personal assistant of sorts” can help you stay organized and on track, even if you have a lot of balls in the air, as most entrepreneurs do.

11. TripIt Pro

If you fly or travel to a lot for conferences, meeting with investors or clients, or other events, TripIt Pro (there’s also a free, less robust, version) can help you stay on top of flight changes, frequent flyer numbers and more.

12. NerdWallet  

Startup NerdWallet offers an array of airline credit cards, which can help you accrue points to fly where ever you need to build your business. Put all your business expenses on a single card — from Dropbox subscriptions to office supplies — and watch the points stack up.

13. Audible/Kindle Unlimited

Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited plan and Audible (also part of Amazon) allow you to listen and read several books from its service each month.  Just like SoundGecko, it’s another way to stay up-to-date with business, self improvement and more.

14. AllConferences, Lanyrd, ConferenceAlerts, and Confradar

One great way to build a good business is to meet other entrepreneurs and industry colleagues through conferences. There are several conference search engines available, but some work better in certain industries (and areas) than others. Make sure you check out a variety to see which one fits your needs.

15. Meetup

If you are looking to drum up business within your local community, try Meetup to find networking groups, industry meetings and speakers. EventBrite is also a great place to find tickets to smaller, local events as well.

16. Pinterest

Surprisingly, Pinterest can be a great place to find inspiration for new products and upcoming trends (so you can use them in your own projects), as well as a place to share your products and inspirations as a company. Power personal blender Nutribullet is a good example of a growing company that capitalizes on its audience’s interest in healthy living on Pinterest.

17. LinkedIn Content Platform

Once LinkedIn accepts your request to join its long-form content publishing platform, you have free reign to contribute content as much as you want. While the jury is still out among marketers whether or not Google will flag republished posts as duplicate content, it’s probably best to only post original content on LinkedIn. Because LinkedIn is already such a large platform, its content will get indexed faster and could potentially give you more visibility than your company’s blog.

18. Contently

LinkedIn content is just one way to build your brand through content. You should also set up profiles for your employees on Contently, which automatically creates a writing portfolio for them based on the websites they say they write for.

19. Talkwalker

Think of Talkwalker as Google Alerts, but better. It offers more comprehensive results and more options that allow you to check for mentions of your company online. This helps with public relations and the chance to interact with people who are discussing your brand online.

20. HARO

Help a Reporter Out is an email that goes out multiple times per day, with requests from reporters for sources for their stories. This can turn into free publicity for your company. Be sure to respond ASAP, as some requests can get competitive.

21. HelloSign or EchoSign

These are legally binding digital document signing services that allow you to get contracts, agreements, W2s and more signed quickly and over email. Be sure to check your state’s regulation on these documents, but they usually stand as legal in the majority of states.

22. Join.Me

Going back to working with a distributed workforce, Join.Me allows you to share your screen with another user quickly, for free. All you need is the free software, and the other user can see your screen from their browser. If both of you have the software, however, you can also cede control of your mouse to the other user, allow tutorials, customer service and how-to demonstrations easier than ever.

23. Jing

Jing is a free screencast (screen recording) and screenshot software that makes it easy to record product demos, illustrative how-tos for virtual assistants or screenshots for blog posts and product description pages.

24. PressPass and JustReachOut

If you are looking to reach out to journalists to cover your company, product launch or other news, these directories allow you to search for journalists by beat, industry or region.

25. BlogDash

Like PressPass and JustReachOut but for bloggers, BlogDash allows you to connect with bloggers in your specific niche to review products, sponsor blog giveaways or build relationships. Bloggers have a significant audience base and impact on trends, product sales and more, so it’s important to have a great relationship with them.

By :

Sujan Patel

Entrepreneur and Marketer, Co-founder of ContentMarketer.io

In his 13-plus years as a marketer and entrepreneur, Sujan Patel has helped hundreds of companies boost online traffic and sales and strengthen their online brand reputation. Patel is co-founder of ContentMarketer.io & Narrow.io.

 

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