The Future of Work

Google Penalties are impacting websites offering "Guest Posting" schemes. Google is coming down with the spam 🔨 Find out why these link building schemes are no longer sustainable, will impact your website in the Google ecosystem, and lead to negative results in this video.

Ranking a site is a process that is always in motion. You’re either moving forward or falling behind. There is no standing still. Find out more about how this can impact your rankings.

Shopify collection pages outperform product detail pages in the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). Find out what I have been telling my ecommerce clients to do to capture the maximum traffic opportunity from Google SEO. Your SEO could be at risk if you make this common mistake. Hit ▶️ to learn more.

It’s been 327 days since we launched our Shopify marketing accelerator. We have worked with over 200 Shopify stores in dozens of industries. This brought us to create our new “I will set up your Shopify SEO” gig on Fiverr Pro. With over 22 fiver sta reviews, we’re excited to share it here on LinkedIn. If you want to learn more, the link is in the comments below. Learn More ➡️ https://zima.media/fiverr-shopify-seo

Bing still has millions of searches a day until you figure out how to change your default search engine to Google. Microsoft made something pretty that makes it a pleasure to set it up once and probably never look at it again. Find out more in my latest video.

Succeeding online comes down to communication. This is a breakdown of where prospects consume content before deciding to buy. ℹ️  Directly through vendor website — 70% 🔎  Internet search — 67% 👤  Social media  — 53% 📧  Sent to me via email — 41% 🙌  Word of mouth — 33% Are you achieving the minimum communication necessary to satisfy the intent of your prospects?

We just wrapped a client call, and we always have clients asking us what they can do to push the campaign forward. The critical takeaway committing to the minimum internally and scale the efforts over one year. Watch this video to find out how to activate your communication, SEO, and social media frequency.

Have you thought about LinkedIn Advertising? Here's a gig video from one of our popular Fiverr Pro services. We do all the hard work to setup or optimize a campaign without the hefty management fee other agencies charge for. Just come and go when you need us. Learn more: https://zima.media/fiverr

Google Search Console introduces Review & Rating Markup testing tools.   Troubleshooting a website that comes up on Google is critical to increasing clicks and standing out in search results.   Find out why errors can pause or even prevent your ad campaigns from running.

This news is groundbreaking because our industry has focused on content length to rank against competitors on Google Search. Is your content long enough to rank on Google? Find out what this means for your SEO in this video.

New features are coming to Google Shopping on March 4th during a wide-rollout. Make sure to opt-in your Shopping campaigns into the Display Network to activate these features. Go inside your Network section in your Shopping campaign settings to enable them. Reporting is still lacking and will be aggregated inside the Display Network report. Try segmenting Shopping campaigns by the network to monitor performance and ad spending.

Here's a promo I did for our latest Fiverr Pro gig. Here's the content writing gig if you want to check it out. https://zima.media/fiverr-pro-content-writing This service is going to fuel our next 1000 reviews! We have aggressively expanded into managing SEO Content for our clients as we see the best ROI in an SEO campaign around building communication that speaks to users in Google.

Over the last 3-years, I have made over 3K+ videos, and many of these are private personalized client videos. Video has helped us grow from a solopreneur to a partnership and now almost ten people! If the sun is shining and you have a phone in your pocket. Start making videos because you will reach new customers a lot faster than you think.

Google is phasing out all 3rd party cookies by 2022. The new development from this week requires tracking scripts to be compliant with new security requirements. The market for 3rd party cookies is drying up, and this will lead to better privacy for individual users. User data is going to be much more one-to-one relationships, and that’s how it really should be in the long term.

This is a hot new Google ad feature that’s been in beta since 2018. Discovery campaigns support carousel and single image ads like the ones advertisers may already be running on Facebook. We are expecting this to come out of beta soon. This means the CPC will be lower, and it will allow advertisers to tap into hundreds of millions of users every day.

This fiverr pro gig we created will bring us our next 1K reviews. Find out how we innovated Google Ads with this incredible service that's only available on Fiverr Pro.

This week I flipped out on Slack (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻ I deleted it from my main computer to eliminate distractions from the always-on culture to try something new. Find out how the diet is going and what I want to accomplish.

Today I’m going to explain to you how to choose a digital marketing agency in just 10 easy steps.

I do a live demonstration that defines the resources and actions required to build your brand. #digitalmarketing #seotrends #marketing #advertising #seo #ppc #googlenews #socialmediamarketer #growthhack #backlinks #ppcadvertising #garyveechallenge #searchengines #twittermarketing #socialmediatrends #seostrategy #bing #search #facebooknews #growthhacking #sem

I am looking for feedback from my network on this video I made. Here's a preview of our updated SEO Management gig on Fiverr Pro. With over 100 five star reviews, we are looking forward to what 2020 has in store! If you want to check out the gig it’s right here. https://zima.media/fiverr-pro-seo-management

What does that mean for advertisers? A whole lot of pain because there are no clear insights on how this will pan out to share conversion tracking data to advertising. What we do know is Google Chrome will work towards methods to secure privacy for users and expose conversions data without giving up personal data. Are you following intelligent tracking prevention (ITP) trends?

Here are the winners and losers to put your marketing dollars to work. Traditional Media 📈 TV will see a 1.9% increase to $65.5 billion, making it the largest category for offline spending. 📉 Magazine ad spending is anticipated to decrease by 9.7% to $9.8 BN. 📉 Newspaper advertising similarly declining by 9.1% to $11.8 BN. 📉 Radio is expected to see a slight decline, falling 1.7% to $13.6 BN. Digital Media 📈 Online advertising is predicted to grow across all categories again in 2020, increasing 14.5% to $166.4 billion. 📈 Influencer marketing is predicted to see the highest percentage of growth, with Winterberry Group predicting a 32.4% jump to $3.4 billion. 📈 Between influencer marketing and paid social, which is expected to jump 17% to $42.3 billion 📈 Social media marketing is poised to comprise nearly 25% of digital spending 📈Search remains the largest category, predicted to grow 11.2% to $60.9 billion.

Instagram Control + Z the IGTV button from the application. Is this an indictor IGTV is faltering? With only seven million installs of IGTV in 18-months, it's a drop in the over billion IG users. Most users are consuming IGTV from their regular IG feed. So why is it stagnating? Likely because long-form videos are expensive to make, and there's no transparent revenue model for publishers to jump on board.

We earned over 1K reviews by using this technique on Fiverr. It's straightforward. I call it the anchor product/gig/service. You need an anchor product to grow on amazon. Platforms like amazon are a closed vacuum. 🔑 Learn the keys to optimizing on a platform or marketplace. 🔬Create dozens if not hundreds of iterations based on market research and customer feedback. ⚓ Turn your most successful product into a hub for a much larger strategy. Having one win on a marketplace is how you replicate lightning striking over and over. Anyone have success in a marketplace like Amazon?

What is Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)? If you have sent an email campaign and did A/B split testing, that’s CRO. This is where testing ideas and theory is a practical skill to develop as a marketer. How do you do CRO? This is the Scientific Method from back in High School. Create the hypnosis, implement the theory, observe and record results, and come to a conclusion. What do you use for CRO? Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Google Optimize, Google Data Studio are all in our technology stack to do conversion rate optimization for Shopify. All of these tools are free, and you can learn the basics of CRO inside a few intense Googling sessions. Do you need it? No, you are paying for testing ideas. The opportunity cost to test your measurement theory can be very high, and the impact isn’t a silver bullet.

Try this growth hack to reduce the digital clutter holding you back. In 2020, I New Year Resolution was not to make another Document or Spreadsheet. In this video, I am going to show you how we applied the theory of the notebook.

What do you need to know? Google is holding the course of applying more sophisticated procedures that will produce better search results for users on Google Search. Expertise in your communication is critical for Google to understand the context of your website. Do you see any stellar results from the update?

California is killing freelance work. A new ban is starting with the passing of Assembly Bill 5. It's designed to curb companies that opt-out of hiring full-time employees with benefits. There are 64 million freelancers in the US, and it's slated to grow to 90 million by 2028. The future of work does not look good for Californians.

Take a moment out of your day to unplug and clear your head. These mental checkpoints can help you forecast your burnout better. But they can even reduce the pressure of a demanding schedule. Does anyone meditate or workout?

We get tons of clients bootstrapping it and working with us on one-off projects all the time. Some of them leave after 30-days. What do new brands all have in common? They struggle in the first year to market their business, waste a lot of marketing dollars, and the needle moves slightly. I would advise spending $0 in the first 12-months as on Shopify. Growth hacking isn't hard, and here are three guides I created to help indie brands grow in 2020. Shopify SEO: https://zima.media/shopify-seo-tutorial Building SEO Backlinks: https://zima.media/google-ads-ppc Google Ads Branded PPC: https://zima.media/diy-backlink-building

Google Ads is killing messaging extension. Here’s what you need to know. 💬 Message Extensions are shutting down January 27 📞 It’s time to expand into other extensions 🏢 Could be a push to remove the call/assistant cannibalization from Google business 📝 Forms are a significant advantage to use on Google ads as a new mobile strategy in 2020

What if digital marketing collapses in 2020? Simon Poulton shared a fascinating insight into the future of digital marketing. Digital Marketing will never go away, but the transformation is happening now. What if you can't track your marketing dollars anymore? What if your email list is not authentic, and it becomes illegal to send? How are you staying current on these new marketing trends? Legislation from around the world and soon the United Nations will make the job of a digital marketer even harder in 2020. GDPR look like a walk in the park today.

Check out this growth hack before you sign up for another SaaS, save your business thousands if not ten’s of thousands of dollars this year. A simple spreadsheet is how to bootstrap your business. The marketing will always tell us it’s an easy win, but the reality is it comes with a lot of headaches, costs, and adoption leaks. That’s why going manual will teach business owners what they need before they sink another subscription. 1. Find a tool that solves your illicit problem. 2. Start a trial 3. Document all the features, cells, and columns into a Google Sheet 4. Finalize a new sheet that can manually store your records 5. Manually learn your business needs before jumping on a trendy SaaS tool

Starting year 2 of the #garyveechallenge In 2020, I am going to start open-sourcing advertising & marketing to enable internal and external teams to excel at growing their business. #digitalmarketing #marketing #advertising #ppc #seo #growthhacking

Make sure in the New Year you're taking advantage of video for your business.

Here’s an update to my career biography. This is my Spiderman issue #1 origin story. #mikezima #zimamedia #garyveechallenge

A former client asked to look at his Google Analytics, and I found fake website traffic. Even going into 2020, we see fake marketing tactics. Avoid these at all costs to save your marketing dollars on real results. 🤖 Fake website traffic. Let's start by saying you will not have 100K unique visitors to your site for $50. This is a scam that I fell for when I was 18. 🔗 Fake backlinks. Crummy SEO agencies often build backlinks to improve the visibility of websites on Google. Doing PR to earn focused links and mentions will do more to your brand then wasting marketing dollars on phony link building strategies. 🗿 Fake followers. You are telling me that for $10, I will have 1K extra followers. Save the money and do not buy fake followers that will never engage with your posts. 👍 Fake engagement. Nobody is going to like your photos because it will require building a community. This is where I am starting the next leg of the #garyveechallenge after focusing on creating content for the last 12-months. Don't waste your time to prop up vanity metrics. Measure your actions by what you do and at what frequency.

This motivational Monday post stresses the importance of branded ads campaigns. Find out what three experts in my network had to say about PPC branded campaign this holiday season. “The biggest mistake I have seen is clients wanting to turn the campaign off due to their assumption that organic would make up the lost leads. I’ve conducted several studies and, at best, organic traffic makes up for 23% of the lost leads when you pause your branded PPC campaign. We need to remember that people are lazy and if a competitor is bidding on your name, they’re not going to scroll down to find you; they’re going to jump to the closest (in the SERP) next option.” Ameet Khabra “I speak with many clients and others that simply will not run branded ads for their brand or their competitors. While I agree that it’s not cool to have to pay for your brand name, it is the reality that we live in. Don’t fight it! Instead, embrace it! Every client that does not run branded ads is losing customers to there competition right now!” Drew Johnson “The biggest mistake I have ever made was not using negative keywords in my branded PPC campaign. Due to the short length of my company name, and the multiple companies who have similar names/products, my ads were showing on completely irrelevant search queries. This depleted my budget fast, my bounce-rate was through the roof, and I got absolutely no conversions whatsoever.” Andreas Wendelboe Which tip resonates with you?

It’s not Christmas, yet, we’ve already received a very witty present 😉 Welcome the new addition to our team, Daniela Gonzalez, Marketing Consultant from Mexico. Now, Zima Media’s team is stronger and ready to accomplish even bigger goals in 2020.

🚧 Start with the content on your website 1. Professional website 2. High-quality content 3. Active social profiles Remember to have professional graphic design, consistency when posting, and feature your high-quality content. 🥅 Set a brand goal 1. Brand ≠ sales 2. Research on Google websites that feature expert content on your industry 3. Build a media list of content Remember that brand and sales have different outcomes — social media followers vs. a customer. 🧰 Tools Start with email and explore LinkedIn tools, cold email pitching, and submitting inquiries through social media and other points of entry. 📫 Tactics Do not be too pushy. Have a small list of outreach to focus on instead of a “spam” level list. 🏆 Results 1-2 mentions of your business in the media is an incredible result.

Google limits political ads, now putting pressure on Facebook to break the silence. Late last night, Google took the position to limit political advertising following a trend to reduce misuse during political campaigns. Political advertisers and non-profits (Super PACs) will no longer have access to "Customer Match" features to build targeted ads. All eyes are on Facebook to see what they do next.

Google made a couple of updates in the last couple of days. Now Google Reviews appear in a carousel inside of Google Search results. Make sure to stack up on outstanding reviews or your click-through rate could plummet. Google BERT was featured in an earlier video on 10/28, and now, in December, Google has confirmed the rollout to 70 more languages. What this means is sophisticated computer processing is going to understand a deeper meaning in your keyword search. So much so, this update is going to impact the result for Local businesses. It's coming down to Google figuring out if you mean Notre Dame football or Notre Dame in Paris. We'll have to wait for the data to roll in to learn more.

Ecosia is proving a search engine with a mission to plant trees makes cents! The search engine earns $0.25 for every 45 searches to plant a tree. This is a cool trend we need to see more of in tech. Bing tramples the Google BERT parade. Bing said they had applied the BERT machine learning algorithms to 100% of all of their searches where Google is only 10% of English. They did this with massive computer power, which makes sense since Bing is about less 2% of the market share of search. Facebook is delivering ads that are dynamically tailored to each user. No need to Site Catalyst! Personalization is the growing trend, and Facebook is allowing for multiple ads, text optimizations, and features to drive deeper connections with ads.

Do not be afraid to experiment “If you assume that because people are searching for your brand that you don’t have to consider what kind of message to have in your ad, you’d be sorely mistaken. You have to consider the search terms people use the most when looking for your brand. Are they searching for a specific service you offer? Maybe they want to browse your certain product category. Make sure you have ad text to match their query to improve your CTR and chances of conversions.“ Tonya Davis, Marketing Manager at ThoughtLab Be careful with common keywords “The biggest mistake you can make while running branded PPC campaigns is to make an assumption about common keywords in specific geographic locations. For example, one of our branded campaigns for an HVAC company kept getting conversions for energy-related queries, and we believed this was because people were looking for energy-efficient air conditioning. In reality, they were looking for the local energy company, and our client was wasting a lot of time redirecting calls. While a high conversion rate is important and does look good on your campaign, it doesn’t mean anything if it’s not resulting in a good ROI.” Aaron Watters, CEO of Leadhub Make your brand campaign appealing “Instead of just trying to get clicks to try to make your campaign memorable. Go for something aesthetically appealing, not as an effort solely to get clicks, but to stick in people’s minds so that they’ll remember your brand and venture to your site organically.” Chane Steiner, CEO of Crediful

Your website has to make an excellent first impression. With so many choices, online customers are used to apple, facebook, and the Netflix experience. Things to look for on your website. . Modern design . A clear call to actions . Speed . Tracking . Text, images, and videos Where are you generating revenue from today? Get better at one marketing channel and expand outward from there. SEO is a great place to start if you are starting and cannot set a budget aside for ads. The budget you spend is essential. Anything less than $1,000 a month means it will take longer to see results. Instead of overextending your marketing budget, focus on making your budget work hard. Do you have the budget for SEO and ads? Case studies do not happen in 30-day, and working at your marketing is imperative. Marketing is like building a resume; you don’t get promoted to CEO unless you show go up to the first interview. How long are you planning on staying in business? Marketing is a marathon and not a sprint up to the top of Google. Set aside a budget for 3-12 months, evaluate results, and optimize your budget and invest in what is working for your business.

“The biggest mistake I’ve seen marketers make is lumping their metrics together for their brand campaign and their other campaigns. That’s a huge mistake, for a few reasons: * Brand campaigns typically have very high conversion rates, because they’re targeting people who are already highly familiar with your company. This can boost your overall campaign statistics, making your campaigns look far more successful at customer acquisition than they really are. * Brand campaigns fill a very different role than other PPC campaigns. Brand campaigns aren’t about new prospect/customer acquisition – they’re about defending the audience you’ve already got.” Adam Thompson, Director of Digital Marketing at ReliaSite “It’s not much of a mistake, but the one thing that I did not make the most of was the ad text. I originally started with generic sales-y type ad copy, which means it was not very engaging. PPC gives you the opportunity to be a little more creative with your headlines, unlike SEO, so make the most of it. This is a great time to showcase a new deal or product or even show your witty side.” Ryan Scollon, PPC Consultant “One of the best tips regarding branded PPC campaigns is to use custom audiences to limit who can see your branded search campaigns. For example, you may want users who have previously engaged with your brand to be served an ad via a branded search campaign but might want to exclude users who have already converted/become a customer. This can be done by setting up custom audiences in Google Analytics and excluded them in your branded campaign. By doing so, you can prioritize ad spend on prospects searching for your brand (vs. existing customers).” James Bowen, Founder & CEO, Ripen Digital

How to recover from the last Google update and why speed can give you an edge in 2020. If you have a high-speed site and you are struggling with rankings with your SEO campaigns, it's time to reflect on your marketing strategy. Why can't you beat your competitors with slower sites? We know there is no way to "fix" rankings, and you have to impress Google with expertise, authority, and trust (E-A-T). Mobile sites are getting slower by 24.1% YoY, and shifting your attention to your ads campaign will buffer the time needed to create an elaborate SEO campaign that will beat your competitors in the coming months. Strike at your competitors by going after their ads traffic and dominate by using your fast website to your advantage.

World Wide Web Foundation and founder of the internet, Tim Berners-Lee proposes “Contract For The Web.” Governments will… Ensure everyone can connect to the internet. Anyone can afford it Keep all of the internet available all of the time So that no one is denied their right to full internet access Respect and protect people’s fundamental online privacy and data rights. So everyone can use the internet freely, safely, and without fear Companies will… Make the internet affordable accessible to everyone So that no one is excluded from using and shaping the Web Respect and protect people’s privacy and personal data to build online trust So people are in control of their lives online, empowered with clear and meaningful choices around their data and privacy Develop technologies that support the best in humanity and challenge the worst So the Web really is a public good that puts people first Citizens will… Be creators and collaborators on the Web So the Web has rich and relevant content for everyone Build strong communities that respect civil discourse and human dignity So that everyone feels safe and welcome online Fight for the Web So the Web remains open and a global public resource for people everywhere, now and in the future #webwewant

What is a PPC Brand Campaign? Before we jump in to convince you why PPC brand campaigns are critical for your online business, let’s define what they are. Brand bidding is simply including your company’s brand name as a keyword in the paid search campaigns. So, when people Google the name of your company, you come first in search results as ads always show on top, and people are very likely to go to your site. Even if you combine your product/service with the brand name, it’s still considered PPC brand bidding. PPC brand awareness campaigns stir a lot of controversy among marketers. Yet, brand bidding has proven to bring positive results, enhance the account’s quality score, and increase brand loyalty. 8 Reasons Why PPC Brand Bidding Is a Must As promised, here are the reasons why AdWords brand campaigns are so valuable, and why you should strongly consider bidding on your brand keywords (if you haven’t done it yet.) 1. It’s cheap You’ve heard it. CHEAP. Even though advertising ain’t dirt cheap, PPC brand bidding is a rare case when you can actually save quite a few bucks. 2. You can control your brand message Unlike organic listings, paid advertising lets you decide what ad copy to use to attract your target audience. So, if you want your prospects to have the right idea about your brand, bid on it. 3. You might keep your brand away from competitors Let’s clear this out. If you aren’t bidding on your brand, then your competitors are most likely already doing it. 4. You might get hold of quality traffic You don’t need to be a paid advertising pro to understand that if someone is searching specifically for your brand, they already know something about it. 5. You can cut harmful content Whether you anticipate it or not, life happens. Becoming a target of negative press is not very pleasant, especially when it’s directed towards your brand. 6. You might win over your affiliates If you’re a B2C or B2B business, this problem of affiliates and distributors stealing your traffic is probably pretty familiar to you. 7. You can boost traffic to less popular products Are there some products or services that you wish were getting more traffic? Run a branded campaign emphasizing the less popular pages of your website. 8. You can make up for poor search results Organic search results directly depend on how much effort you put into your SEO strategy. However, we all know that you need time until the SEO kicks in and brings your traffic.

⚠️ Google announces warning badges for slow sites ⚠️ It's time to take action to increase the speed of your website or run the risk of being demoted on Google. We have had enough advanced warning from Google to know this was coming. Find out how this will impact your site.

There are a lot of industries I can list off that are not an ideal fit for SEO. These three industries have something in common, and they are not heavy on text when it comes to their online presence. Did you know Google is powered by text and the keywords that are found on your website? The minimum is to earn reviews on Google Business will help you get more distinguished to win at SEO in your city. If you want to get a lot of traffic without having to pay for it, look into platforms that can showcase your work and, better yet, sell your work or services.

👟 Do not push yourself too much “We are humans, not robots. Some days, we smash it, some days, we’re not in the mood or need to rest, change our mind. I always try to work around 35 hours a week and don’t stick to the 9 to 5 schedule.” Caroline Hoffmann, Head of PR & Coms at MarketOrders 🕺 Sign up for a regular activity “If remote work is literally remote, it tends to get lonely. To get your life/work balance back, you need to see other people, mingle, chat. I’d suggest group functional training workouts or signing up for some other group activity that asks for your attendance at least twice a week.” Jovana Subic, Head of Running Content at RunRepeat 🎵 Track time with Spotify playlists “I’ve tried to use apps and timers in the past, but I find alarms are even more disconcerting than losing track of time. I now keep track of time using Spotify playlists with set lengths so I know when it’s time to take a break or switch tasks.” Nickolaus Hines, Freelancer Which one are you going to try this week?

Stop wasting time and try my 30-day time-blocking challenge. It's growth hack Thursday, and I am going to share how I deployed time-blocking techniques popularized by Bill Gates & Elon Musk. I spent 6-months tracking every single 10-minute increment, which allowed us to hack our growth to double in 2019. Nothing changed except our habits to focus on productivity and eliminate time sucks. In this video, we will walk through how to set up and start the time-blocking challenge. You will have to breakdown all of your tasks over one week. Let me know if you have questions to start documenting your time to hack your productivity. Next week we will prepare a weekly tracking Google Sheet, and I'm going to share my template.

Watch how I balance a 6-day workweek. Here is how I have a 6-day workweek and how I am trying to achieve a 7-day workweek by applying growth hacking techniques. The average commute in the US is almost 30 minutes, and that's 4 hours of productivity lost each week. 💻   Adopting remote work Drop the commute to increase the hours you have at your disposal in the workweek. 📅   Lean project management We spend many hours making sure we have the tools to do the work. Optimize and reduce to gain more precious time. 📞   Eliminate communication Unnecessary communication, meetings, and all the distractions that stop you from being productive. Auditing your time and applying these tactics will allow for personal and professional development, and reduce burnout. You cannot let the work dictate your life; you have to let your life dictate the work.

Facebook just announced a new logo to help consumers and regulators know Facebook owns Instagram and WhatsApp. Facebook is launching "Facebook News" in several markets from local media outlets, personalized news stories, and integration with paid subscriptions. Twitter is banning all political advertising on its platform. Its motives are messages should be earned and not bought as the driving force.

These remote workers share their Monday productivity hacks. 🔈 Create background noise to focus “Funny enough, when I work at home, having background noise really helps me concentrate. I will either play TV shows on Netflix/Amazon Prime or listen to music randomly generated on Pandora. A silent environment tends to make me lose focus.” Alex Tran, Digital Marketing Strategist at Hollingsworth ⚖️ Use Parkinson’s law “I use an app called Alinof timer on my MacBook. It is extremely powerful and enables me to time each task which I set a limit of 30 minutes and the timer alerts me when my time is up. This use of Parkinson’s law really helps me get more done.” James Dyble, Managing Director at Global Sound Group 🛑 Ignore the rules “I ignore all rules, hacks and tactics as much as possible. That includes things like ‘turnkey automation systems’ or ‘secrets to double something in x days’. As a remote worker, it’s so easy to chase marketers’ sales copy dreams or spend too much time as a consumer, not as a producer. After the first year online, there aren’t any secrets that you need to keep searching for.” Jason Lavis, Managing Director at Out of the Box Innovations Ltd Which one do you like the most?

The most intelligent commentary came from Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin. "My one-sentence impression of recent quantum supremacy stuff so far is that it is to real quantum computing what hydrogen bombs are to nuclear fusion. Proof that a phenomenon and the capability to extract power from it exist, but still far from directed use toward useful things." Next, Google managed to beat some of the best 99.8% of humans at an online war simulation called StarCraft 2.

🔒 Lock yourself out of the computer “I activate Stretchly which locks me out of the computer at a certain time, after giving a warning. I love this particular app because it locks the screen but at the same time, flashes recommendations on what I should be doing instead, like go for a walk or drink a glass of water.” JadeMacRury, Founder at Live A Blissful Life ⏰ Build a habit stacking routine “I use ‘habit stacking‘ to be sure I complete my work, especially new or extremely important projects. Lastly, I try to wake up at 4 am, no matter where I am in the world and do as much work as possible in the quiet morning hours.” Franklin Antoian, Personal Trainer and Founder of iBodyFit ⏲️ Integrate Toggl with other apps “I like to use Toggl. Not only does it have it’s own apps and allows me to simply track time, start and stop tasks, and all of the other functionality you’d expect with time tracking software.” Jason David, CEO of Software Portal Which one would you try?

I am always being asked this question and made a video explaining how we hire remotely. 1. We funnel all the responses, testings, and processing into a Google form 2. Feed that into a project to screen out prospects 3. Post a text/image/video on LinkedIn announcing the position, use the right hashtags 3-5. Link to form in comments 4. Post the job on marketplaces to advertise it 5. Targeted Linkedin job posting. 6. Angel.co jobs The objective is to funnel all applicants through a single system quickly, quickly review ideal candidates, and find a job posting board that fits your budget. Project management infrastructure, training, and collaboration tools need to be dialed in before hiring your first remote employee. Can your business handle projects with someone in a different timezone, or somebody will rarely, if ever, visit the office?

Google Search went Sesame Street on us by announcing its latest Algorithm update last week. This update is going to impact 1 in 10 searches, and it is rolling out now. Why is it important? This is the second major update in five years since RankBrain. The emphasis on this update is on improving machine learning. Search results are being broken down to understand the deeper meaning that’s conveyed through natural language processing (NLP). How can I get to page one? Like many updates from Google, this is one of the hundreds of factors that evaluates a Search result. Google is mostly a text-based machine, and continuing to invest in your content will yield results for years to come. Where is Google going with this update? It’s hard to predict the future, but this is impacting “Rich Snippets” which map back to how voice searches work. If the results improve on text-based searches, the impact will be felt on voice searches in the near-term.

Here’s what I learned from 3 entrepreneurs. 🎯  Put family first “As a married individual with children, I know all too well the importance of establishing a healthy work-life balance. I decide how many hours I am going to put in each day, based upon the real-life schedule of my family for any particular day and I schedule my work around them, not the other way around.” Dave Hermansen– CEO at Store Coach 🛫  Do not work on a plane “No computer work on a plane (except for phone or conference calls), even if it is 25 hours of flying time. I reserve flying time for plotless movies, reading the paper, magazines, a book sometimes.” JJ Beh, COO at HackerNest ⏲️  Try using Harvest app “Hands down the app to stay organized with time tracking is Harvest. It lets you track clients, projects and time. You can create budgets, estimates and invoice all in one. It also integrates with popular project management apps. Lastly, the price point is affordable for anyone.” Kathy Heasley, Founder and President of HEASLEY&PARTNERS Do you have any tips to share? #entrepeneurship #remoteteams #growthhack #okrs #growthhacking #productivityhacks #onlinemarketing #businessquotes #growthstrategies #remotework

After a long hiatus 2019 is when I doubled down on video and created over 100 videos for social. Here are my main tips to get you on the same path. 1. Let it all hang out Creating videos is like going to the gym. The sound will be wrong, the video will be too dark, and it will be blurry. Each video is supposed to be an improvement, and the message is the consistency that you can control. Start by making videos with answers to customer questions. 2. Stay organized This is the hardest one, and there is no guidebook here. Organizing all of your video clips is vital for cataloging, labeling, and later revisiting clips to make new content. We use Google Drive + Airtable. 3. Repurpose your content Video can be transcribed to text, exported to podcasts, and posted into different formats depending on the social media channel. As long as you are making continuous improvements to your content and trying to retool it by creating updated videos, you are going to excel in producing social media content.

Use web plugins “I use the StayFocusd Chrome plugin. That way, I don’t find myself browsing social media, Reddit, etc. You can create a list of websites you want to block as well as limit the time on certain sites. For instance, I only allow myself to check email twice a day for no more than 15 minutes. This helps a ton!” Tom Nathaniel, Founder of LushDollar Schedule everything “The main tip I have is to schedule everything on the calendar (including self-care like working out or reading or calling a friend). If it’s on my calendar, it is non-negotiable, and it will happen.” Amy Foley, Co-Founder at Inbound Back Office Cheat on Fridays once a month “Set aside a couple of hours on a Friday (if schedule permits) to do something you typically would never do if you had an office job…could be a movie, walking the city, or getting a massage.” Lisa Balter Saacks, Principal & Founder at KonnektWork

"Disconnect for real “As a full-time remote employee, it is so easy to lose track of time at home. One trick I use to ensure I am not overworking and am taking actual breaks (and unplugging from work during non-working hours) is to completely power down my computer. When the workday is over, I sign off and turn off my laptop and shut it closed. The physical act of doing this helps me to set boundaries and not fall into the temptation of working late in the evening.” Alexandra Bohigian, Marketing and Sales Director for Enola Labs Set screentime limits “As a writer, I actually find the time tracking apps stress me out! Something about the clock ticking gives me absolute mind-blank. Instead, I track the hours I spend on each client or each project with an Excel spreadsheet. Tuning out to the constant notifications on my phone whilst working is one of my biggest challenges. There’s an app called Forest which allows you to set a specific time period during which you don’t want to look at your phone and the plants and trees grow whilst you work. The longer you stay away from your screen the bigger your garden grows. It’s a bit childish but it does remind me to stay on track.” Sally Fox, Copywriter Track both your time and productivity “I use Toggl for tracking client work, and sometimes to track other tasks to see if I could be doing something quicker or spending less time on certain areas of my businesses. I also use the RescueTime browser extension, it shows me how productive I am and what websites/tools I’m spending my time on.” Tara Reid, The Introvert Coach"

🧭 Content marketing is not only about engagement and posting.  🧭 Make contextual content where you are posting your content.  🧭 SEO needs strong pillar content to rank well where you establish yourself as an authority  Repurpose content that is doing well to extend the reach.  It's not about the quantity of the content. It's about quality and posting frequency.

Today, I took a 3-minute break and mediated.   It's a great technique, and everyone can try it to reduce burnout.  🍃 Go somewhere private and quiet.  🧘 🚶 Experiment with positions, sitting, standing, walking.  🔌 This is a moment for your sanity, start unplugged, and take off wearables.

Running a business is a moonshot, and planning this quarter's goal should be done.  🎯 Make sure to define 2-4 Objectives this quarter.  🎯 Each Objective should have 2-5 Key Results tracked on a 100 point scale.  🎯 Without bias, do monthly checkups to update the percentages of Key Results complete.

Here are ten differences to consider when updating your marking for 2020.  🔍 SEO is where your message connects with qualified clicks.  🔍 SEO is technically free to start, and results do not last forever.  🔍 Treat SEO as communication that you are branding on Search with you as the expert or you as the business.  🔍 SEO is about solving a searcher's intent early in the buying process.  🔍 Answering top questions a qualified click has is critical - make sure to have the best content on your website.  📢 PPC captures the attention of qualified clicks that may be ready to buy.  📢 PPC is paid to a platform to bring clicks to your website.  📢 Clicks continue visiting your website until campaigns are turned off.  📢 PPC is fulfilling a searcher's intent midway to late in the buying cycle. The most qualified clicks are bulked into PPC.  📢 A budget is required to start.

SEO happens over time, and it's like watching paint dry sometimes.  📊  Google Search Console is critical.  📈  Google Analytics reporting is excellent to see what's happening on your website.  📋  Google Data Studio can distill down all the performance in one place.

The question you have to be asking is, can "we" get on page #1 together?    ⏳ It can take your domain about 100 days to rank   ⏳ Your domain rating needs to be at least 49/100   ⏳ Your content needs at least 25 referring domains linking to your web page.   SEO is about brand building.

This is the career biography of Michael Zima.