What are fatal mistakes that first time business owners make and can easily avoid? If you want to start a business, read through the following list of business mistakes and take them to heart. Any one of them could sabotage your new business venture and turn it into a failure rather than a success.

These are the big mistakes to avoid when you're starting out:

1) Not doing a business plan.

If I had even just fifty cents for every time someone asked me “Is this a good business idea?” over the years, I’d be a wealthy woman.

The problem is, unless I write a business plan, I have no idea — and you won’t, either. That’s the main purpose of a business plan. There are other good reasons, too; see 5 Reasons for Writing a Business Plan to learn more.

Yes, it’s time-consuming and demands a lot of research, but investing time now will save you so much time and money later.

2) Doing what you love.

In my opinion, the person who first said “Do what you love” should be shot. Or at least forced to eat seven bad restaurant meals in a row.

It sounds fine in theory, but the reality is there are a whole lot of people out there who love things they’re not good at. My official advice? Don’t do what you love; do what you’re good at and what people will pay you (well) for. It’s not as catchy, but it’s a whole lot more profitable — and isn't making a profit the reason you're opening a business?

3) Not doing any market research.

I see increasing numbers of people starting businesses without bothering to do any of this — and then being heartbroken when their new business, which they’ve invested so much time and money in, collapses.

Test your products and service first before you start a business. If you don’t, you have no idea if people are even going to want to buy them. You may think you make the tastiest pierogi in all the world. But will anyone else? Learn who to Do Your Own Market Research.

4) Ignoring the competition.

Ignoring the competition is another potentially fatal business mistake.

Simple question #1: If you’re selling your thingamabobs for $10 apiece and Vera down the street is selling her thingamabobs for $6 apiece, how many thingamabobs are you going to sell?

And what if Vera’s thingamabobs look/smell/feel/taste better than yours? 6 Ways to Find Out What the Competition is Up To will show you how to keep tabs on the competition that matters.

Another aspect of competition you need to understand is market saturation. The pie is only so big, so to speak, for every product or service. So, for instance, if you want to open a dog grooming business, there may not be any “room” left in your local area to do so because of the number of dog grooming businesses that already exist.

5) Not taking into account your own strengths and weaknesses.

We all have them. Unfortunately, sometimes our strengths or weaknesses don’t fit well with the business model we want to use, leading to disastrous results. For example, if you’re not a friendly, outgoing type of person with good people skills, retail is not for you.

It doesn’t matter how many years you’ve dreamed of opening that ice cream parlour or book store, it’s not for you.

That doesn’t mean you can’t buy such a business or start one yourself, but for it to succeed, you need to be aware that working behind the counter is not something you should be doing; you’ll need to hire staff right away. (Here’s what you need to know about Hiring Employees in Canada.)

6) Not understanding what you’re actually selling.

Helena Rubinstein, the first self-made female millionaire, didn’t become rich selling face cream; she became rich selling beauty. ("There are no ugly women,” she used to say, “only lazy ones”.) If your new business is going to be successful, you need to know what you’re actually selling and craft your Unique Selling Propositionaccordingly.

7) Not making sure you have enough money.

Ninety-five percent of businesses will not make money when they first open and a large proportion of new businesses will not make significant money for years. (The exception, the five percent that make money when they first open, is for businesses that are actually just “carry-overs”, employees who become contractors, a fairly common practice in industries such as IT.)

Which means you (and your family) have to have enough money to live on while your new business is getting established, as well as enough money for the business to survive and grow. Not getting the money to do this lined up before you start your small business is a serious mistake.

Small business financing of some kind is the most obvious way to do this, eitherthrough a traditional lender or through a non-traditional alternative. (See 5 Creative Ways to Fund Your New Business.) Perhaps you can qualify for a start up grant.

How to Get Your New Small Business to Make Money includes some other ways you can bring in bucks while starting up.

8) Not investing in marketing.

Following the common advice “Build it and they will come” is another serious business mistake. Come where? Why? Or even when? No one will know without some effective marketing. (How to Create an Effective Sales and Marketing Strategyexplains the basics.

Far too many small businesses are reluctant to spend any money on marketing, let alone a significant amount. Free marketing can be excellent — but most free marketing strategies take a significant amount of time before they become effective. (Referrals and social media marketing are examples.)

Create a marketing plan, set up some marketing campaigns, and keep doing it if you want your business to be successful.

My best tip? Market your business before you open it. There’s no rule that says you have to wait until your physical or virtual doors are actually open.

9) Not bothering with any online marketing.

One way or another, your small business has to be online. You may or may notneed a website (many individuals who provide services use other “homes” on the web, such as Facebook or LinkedIn pages) but your business needs to be able to be found by and promoted to the ever increasing number of people who use the web to find the products and services they want.

If you’re not going to do anything else, establish some sort of home base for your business online and be sure that your small business is listed in various online directories. Actively marketing your small business online is even better and will give it a far better chance of reaching your customers.

One possibility is to engage customers through social media. Learn How to Create a Social Media Plan.

10) Trying to do everything yourself.

You can’t. It’s that simple and that aggravating. Running a small business, even if it’s a one person business, involves so many different tasks that no one person can do them all well. Even if each of us was perfect and had all the skills to do an outstanding job at whatever we set our hands to, each of us is still constrained by time. Most days, I predict, you’ll be lucky if you even get done what you planned to get done when your day started.

So sidestep the mistake of trying to do it all and increase the chance of your new business succeeding by getting the help you need from the get-go. Learn How to Delegate, hire and outsource to make the most of your skills and benefit from outside expertise. For example, do you really need to do your own accounting?Accountants have a lot more financial and tax knowledge than you have, more than likely, and can save you a bundle of time (and even money!) at tax-time.

(Speaking of outside expertise, have you thought about Creating an Advisory Board for your small business? It can give you a real management advantage.)

Who Doesn’t Want to Succeed?

I’ve yet to meet a person who wants to start a business that’s quickly going to go under.

If starting a business is in your future, understand that starting a business is a process, not an event. If you take the time to do the thinking and the research and avoid the business mistakes discussed above, you’ll hugely increase the likelihood of your new business succeeding.

Chris Corey

CMO Markethive Inc

By Susan Ward

Updated August 16, 2016

Alan Zibluk Markethive Founding Member

Markethive

5 Mistakes to Avoid When Starting Your First Business

September 10, 2016

5 Mistakes to Avoid When Starting Your First Business

Mistakes you can avoid with your first business. When I opened my first business, a fitness center, unfounded confidence flowed through my veins. Visions of fast success and weekends off with the family seemed as close as the next sell.

A few months later, the bravado gave way to fear and insecurity. That dream about weekends away vanished, and my 5 a.m.-to-9 p.m. schedule began taking its toll. I have been fortunate ever since to avoid similar mistakes in my more recent businesses. But I continue to review those mistakes, lest I repeat them:

1. Allowing belief to override the business plan

Owning a business is not for the weak in spirit. You need a strong mind and heart to face the day-in and day-out work. In the early days of the dream, it’s easy to be so excited and enamored with the idea of "your" business that you fail to grind out a proper business model.

When I approached my bank with my business plan in a thick three-ringed binder, I thought the president might just hand me a briefcase of cash. No kidding. Then came reality: Within two minutes the bank president asked me several questions my plan couldn’t answer. Still, that didn’t faze me. I lifted my chin and stated with conviction, “This will work.” I left without the briefcase of cash. Belief overrode the business plan, and I exited penniless.

2. Listening to customers instead of spreadsheets

“Famous Health Club just went out of business,” my soon-to-be business partner Mike said. “They left all the equipment," he told me excitedly. "We can go in and start quickly and not have to buy everything. However, they scammed their people, and no one wants to sign a contract.”

No problem. We won’t do contracts, I thought. And we didn’t. But we should have. Because, six months later, a giant fitness chain came to town and told members they could sign up for two years and pay via automatic draft. And people signed up in droves. Our “we won’t sign a contract” people left for newer pastures.

The lesson is, you’ll be tempted to set up your business in the way your customers say they want. And, sometimes that will be fine if it fits your model. Otherwise, trust your spreadsheets. Make sure the math works before giving in on every demand in hopes of making the sale.

3. Risking a family member’s retirement fund

Remember my empty briefcase? I gave up on the bank and instead went to my grandfather and asked for the money. I needed only $20,000. That’s it. It never crossed my mind that Daddy B might consider what I requested to be a big sum, considering that during his career, he'd been a lowly paid high school principal. And, as if that weren't enough, he told me he believed only in safe investments and had put most of his own money into interest-bearing certificates of deposit earning a massive 2 percent interest.

Being young and arrogant, I took my grandfather back to the same bank. Together, we got a secured loan and I was on my way. So, I was able to move forward. But unless your family members have the money to lose, don’t borrow against their retirement or savings. They may love you and want you to succeed, but losing their money will haunt you.

4. Miscalculating the time needed to launch

Since those former fitness club tenants had left their equipment, Mike and I figured that we could open quickly. It was already December and we believed we could open by January 1. Just in time for the New Year’s "resolution" crowd. Timing-wise, we thought we'd won the lottery.

But, three days prior to opening, we knew we were in trouble. I still can’t remember if we slept those last three days. We pushed hard to open the doors. And they opened, but not without our first suffering stress, tears, fears, panic, anxiety and delusions of the greatest business failure ever known to man.

So, set your own grand opening inside a buffer zone. Plan to be ready 10 days ahead of “the” day and you just might open on time, without dread and anxiety.

5. Equating personal experience with business expertise

I began working out at age 12. I was competing in powerlifting and body-building competitions by age 18. In addition to that, I was a personal trainer at a local gym. Certainly all that experience would translate into running a fitness center of my own, right?

Not even close. I knew how to train people, but not retain people for the purpose of growing a membership-based business. You might be a great cook, mechanic, web designer or artist, but that doesn’t automatically translate into business acumen. So grab some study courses from Entrepreneur.com and arm yourself for this battle called business.

A couple of years later, Mike and I sold that fitness center. Our buyer was a guy who wanted the space for his karate school. We barely paid off our business loans with the sales proceeds. It could have been so much more had we avoided the mistakes we made starting our first business.

So, remember them, and learn

Chris Corey

CMO Markethive Inc

PAUL EVANS

CONTRIBUTOR

Alan Zibluk Markethive Founding Member

Markethive

Top 5 Reasons Why You Should Not Post About Politics On Facebook

September 10, 2016

Top 5 Reasons Why You Should Not Post About Politics On Facebook

Why you should not post politic filled content on you Facebook account. I see a lot of things I disagree with on social media. It’s hard to keep our personal beliefs to ourselves when we see things online that we take issue with. Let’s take the subject of politics on Facebook.

For me personally, I have many friends and clients on Facebook who are on both sides of the fence politically. From time to time I have posted something politically charged, only to go back a little bit later and remove it after I’ve thought about the possible repercussions. I am now fully committed to never doing it again.

So, I’ve come up with some reasons why you shouldn’t post about politics on Facebook. Here you go…

1. You could lose a friend. Friends should be able to discuss political issues calmly and diplomatically…in person! Most people hide behind their computers and post things they would never say face to face.

2. You could lose a client. It’s not business, it’s personal…right? Bull crap! If a client feels strongly about a political issue and I go on Facebook and post something totally derogatory or counter to what they believe, they might take a different view of me personally and professionally. I want my clients to like me. People do business with people they know, like and trust. Period.

3. It’s a waste of time. You’re not going to change someone’s political beliefs on Facebook. You can debate and debate, but you’re just wasting your time. People are different and believe different things. Accept it, agree to disagree and move on. Life’s too short. Let your vote be your voice.

4. It’s the wrong platform. If you’re bound and determined to spend time arguing over political issues online, go to a political blog or a news site and do so. Don’t ruin everyone’s experience on Facebook with your rants. You may have a specific list of friends on FB that you only share political information with, but you never know what someone else might share.

5. There’s enough politics in the media. One of the reasons I use Facebook is to laugh, have fun and converse with my friends and family. I don’t use it to get worked up or stressed out over something I see that I disagree with. There’s enough political coverage in the mainstream media. More than enough. Keep it there and leave the politics to the pundits.

If you’re marketing your business on Facebook, you absolutely NEVER want to go down this road on your Facebook business page.

Now, I know there are a lot of people who are going to disagree with me. And that’s fine. You have every right to disagree. This is America. But, can we agree to disagree and keep it off Facebook?

What do you think?

Chris Corey

CMO Markethive Inc.

By: Scott Dickson

Alan Zibluk Markethive Founding Member

Markethive

Make your Savings work For you

September 9, 2016

Record low interest rates in the UK is causing a headache for savers. Keeping money in the bank with a paltry return is questionable, yes your money is secure but it will produce little growth.

You could of course take a risk and invest in stocks and shares, which despite the Britexit are still performing well but are you prepared to risk you hard earned savings.

I am something of an entrepreneur and in the last few months have been experimenting by using some of my savings and purchasing a diet product online and then reselling it at a profit on the likes of Ebay

Unlike most MLM products this one is priced at a level the market can bear and allows for a small profit after taking into account packing, posting and delivery cost. I purchase the product for $500 and for every $500 I spend I make $65 or 0.13% which compares favourably with the 0.01% I would receive from my bank.

Many people, myself included, are wary of joining an MLM which have a bad reputation due to high costs and the real possibility that the products are too expensive and are difficult to sell to even friends or family.

The company has a great compensation plan and in the first month I received $100 bonus.

The weight loss Coffee also produces results for its customers

My first exposure to this coffee was about three months ago. Before I had never heard of such a product but apparently there have been other attempts from other companies that didn’t do so well.

A good indication that a weight loss product is not effective is when you are encouraged to eat and exercise differently. Not that there is anything wrong with that advice but you will lose weight anyway doing that.

So when I found out this coffee had no extra suggestions for its use other than drink it everyday I must say I was intrigued. So I tried it and I found it to be very effective at assisting you to lose weight. I say assisting because this product doesn’t contain any unknown magical ingredients it’s just formulated very well.

The main ingredient that gets results in the coffee is garcinia Cambogia. A supplement derived from a fruit called tamarind. It effectively kills your appetite especially if you have it first thing before eating anything else.

So my results went like this. I lost weight on average every week for four weeks at about 5 lbs per week. I plateaued at 185 in about six weeks and began to think the ride was over. But I think maybe because I do some exercise (I attend Krav Maga classes once a week) I may have been gaining muscle mass while I was slimming down. I also noticed my waist shrunk down about three inches.

You will find in testimonials that different people will have different results. I think the body has its set point where it just won’t lose weight anymore and me being 5’9 perhaps healthy for me is around 185 lbs. The point is my waist is smaller and I don’t mind being in public with my shirt off now because I shed most of the fat that made me feel uncomfortable.

So I still use this coffee daily just to maintain my current weight and it is very effective. I have seen testimonials of people losing up to 55 lbs! My guess is they were pretty obese. I was not terribly overweight I just needed something to keep me comfortable.
Chuck Reynolds

Marketing

Now many people know very little about marketing, however if you would like to join me at business level (Ruby) you will receive your own marketing site (called Markethive). It is the most powerful Inbound Marketing platform similar to HubSpot and Pardot. However, it also is a Social Network and geared towards entrepreneurs and marketers. The entire system is free and uses advertising to build revenue and pays out up to 50% on advertising purchases to you*. When you join Valentus with us at the Ruby level (Remember there is no risk) we give you the top of the line Affiliate position. It is called Alpha Entrepreneur and normally sells for $5000 and delivers over $10,000 in advertising credits. Another win win for everyone.

Other perks include receiving leads, receiving traffic from major press releases and receiving enrolments from massive marketing campaigns conducted by the group via Markethive.

David Ogden

Contributor

Alan Zibluk Markethive Founding Member

Markethive

What is The Perfect Keyword Density?

September 8, 2016

What is The Perfect Keyword Density?

The short answer to this is – no. There is no one-size-fits-all keyword density, no optimal percentage guaranteed to rank any page at number 1. However, I do know you can keyword stuff a page and trip a spam filter.

Most web optimisation professionals agree there is no ideal percent of keywords in a text to get a page to number 1 in Google. Search engines are not that easy to fool, although the key to success in many fields doing simple things well (or, at least, better than the competition).

I write natural page copy where possible always focused on the key terms — I never calculate density to identify the best % — there are way too many other things to work on. I have looked into this. If it looks natural, it’s ok with me. I aim to include related terms, long-tail variants and synonyms in Primary Content — at least ONCE, as that is all some pages need. Optimal keyword density is a myth, although there are many who would argue otherwise.

‘Things, Not Strings’

Google is better at working out what a page is about, and what it should be about to satisfy the intent of a searcher, and it isn’t relying only on keyword phrases on a page to do that anymore.

Google has a Knowledge Graph populated with NAMED ENTITIES and in certain circumstances, Google relies on such information to create SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages)..

Google has plenty of options when rewriting the query in a contextual way, based on what you searched for previously, who you are, how you searched and where you are at the time of the search.

Can I Just Write Naturally and Rank High in Google?

Yes, you must write naturally (and succinctly) in 2016, but if you have no idea the keywords you are targeting, and no expertise in the topic, you will be left behind those that can access this experience.

You can just ‘write naturally’ and still rank, albeit for fewer keywords than you would have if you optimised the page.

There are too many competing pages targeting the top spots not to optimise your content.

Naturally, how much text you need to write, how much you need to work into it, and where you ultimately rank, is going to depend on the domain reputation of the site you are publishing the article on.

Do You Need Lots of Text To Rank Pages In Google?

User search intent is a way marketers describe what a user wants to accomplish when they perform a Google search.

SEOs have understood user search intent to fall broadly into the following categories and there is an excellent post on Moz about this.

Transactional — The user wants to do something like buy, signup, register to complete a task they have in mind.
Informational – The user wishes to learn something
Navigational – The user knows where they are going

The Google human quality rater guidelines modify these to simpler constructs:

Do
Know
Go

As long as you meet the user’s primary intent, you can do this with as few words as it takes to do so.

You do NOT need lots of text to rank in Google.

Optimise For User Intent & Satisfaction

When it comes to writing SEO-friendly text for Google, we must optimise for user intent, not simply what a user typed into Google.

Google will send people looking for information on a topic to the highest quality, relevant pages it has in its database, often BEFORE it relies on how Google ‘used‘ to work e.g. relying on finding near or exact match instances of a keyword phrase on any one page.

Google is constantly evolving to better understand the context and intent of user behaviour, and it doesn’t mind rewriting the query used to serve high-quality pages to users that comprehensively deliver on user satisfaction e.g. explore topics and concepts in a unique and satisfying way.

Of course, optimising for user intent, even in this fashion, is something a lot of marketers had been doing long before query rewriting and Google Hummingbird came along.

Optimising For ‘The Long Click’

When it comes to rating user satisfaction, there are a few theories doing the rounds at the moment that I think are sensible. Google could be tracking user satisfaction by proxy. When a user uses Google to search for something, user behaviour from that point on can be a proxy of the relevance and relative quality of the actual SERP.

What is a Long Click?

A user clicks a result and spends time on it, sometimes terminating the search.

What is a Short Click?

A user clicks a result and bounces back to the SERP, pogo-sticking between other results until a long click is observed. Google has this information if it wants to use it as a proxy for query satisfaction.

For more on this, I recommend this article on the time to long click.

Optimise Supplementary Content on the Page

Once you have the content, you need to think about supplementary content and secondary links that help users on their journey of discovery.

That content CAN be on links to your own content on other pages, but if you are really helping a user understand a topic — you should be LINKING OUT to other helpful resources e.g. other websites.A website that does not link out to ANY other website could be interpreted accurately to be at least, self-serving. I can’t think of a website that is the true end-point of the web.

A website that does not link out to ANY other website could be interpreted accurately to be at least, self-serving. I can’t think of a website that is the true end-point of the web.

TASK — On informational pages, LINK OUT to related pages on other sites AND on other pages on your own website where RELEVANT
TASK — For e-commerce pages, ADD RELATED PRODUCTS.
TASK — Create In-depth Content Pieces
TASK — Keep Content Up to Date, Minimise Ads, Maximise Conversion, Monitor For broken, or redirected links
TASK — Assign in-depth content to an author with some online authority, or someone with displayable expertise on the subject
TASK — If running a blog, first, clean it up. To avoid creating pages that might be considered thin content in 6 months, consider planning a wider content strategy. If you publish 30 ‘thinner’ pages about various aspects of a topic, you can then fold all this together in a single topic page centred page helping a user to understand something related to what you sell.

Chuck Reynolds
Contributor

Alan Zibluk Markethive Founding Member

Markethive

7 SEO Tips For 2016

September 8, 2016

Follow these SEO trends for better rankings in 2016

SEO is a very volatile industry because of the many changes that take place in the Google algorithm within a period. The algorithm set in place this month may not be the same the next. It is an always evolving algorithm that encourages SEO specialists to stay on their toes and keep abreast with updates.

As we pass the years half way point and start to look towards 2017, it has become more important for specialists to look out for trends that can affect search rankings for their keywords in this new year.

Newly updated, this comprehensive resource is a practical guide for marketing managers to increase the contribution of SEO to their business. It covers the activities they and their agencies need to work on to improve their ranking in the organic search results of Google.

Considering the changes that took place in SEO this 2016, below are trends that you as an SEO specialist must look out for to improve your site performance on search results in 2016-17.

Optimize for Rich Answers

Although aiming for the top positions in Google search for your target keywords is still important, it's now time to optimize for other Rich Answers too. These are results that appear towards the top organic search results.

According to Stone Temple Consulting, rich answers appear on 19.45% of Google search results out of the 850,000 keyword queries used to trigger these.

The percentage may not be as high at the moment — most of the rich answers appear on search queries for song lyrics. However, there is good cause to believe that its number will only increase in the future. Since Google has made its intention of providing value to its users clear, rich answers provide the most relevant information based on the search query.

How to rank for rich answers: Northcutt Consulting Group has broken down the most relevant factors for ranking on rich answers.

The first point is important. Optimizing for rich answers requires you to optimizing for your target keyword as well. Getting your page to rank on the first page of search engines will increase your chances of getting into the rich answers box.

The post at Northcutt is not the definitive way to rank for the rich answer box since we are dealing with Google algorithm here, after all. Its algorithm can never be reduced to an exact science consider of how unstable it is. However, the post should give you a good idea of how you can increase your chances of getting your page on topthe top of search results.

Review Google's other featured content

Keep an eye on the Mozcast Google Feature review for other types of content that features within Google results. Rich Answers are referenced here as 'featured snippets'. A similar feature is 'Related questions', showing how our articles should try to cover these questions. Images and videos are other better known ways of gaining cut-through in the SERPs for some search terms — check which are important for your industry.

Improve user engagement

Ever since, marketers have always speculated user engagement as a possible ranking factor. This covers the average time on site, bounce rate, pogo sticking, and others.

For conversion, it is a proven factor that determines the effectiveness of page elements that contribute to the chances of visitors committing to your call to action.

However, what makes this factors difficult to measure in search engines is the lack of data supporting it.

User engagement is too indirect an influence on search rankings. Nonetheless, it is something that all website owners need to optimize if they are serious about getting more out of their SEO efforts.

“User engagement is just as important as any other on-site element in this day and age,” says Matt Banner ofOnBlastBlog.com. “If a visitor enjoys your website, they'll stay on your site longer, visit more pages, help contribute to a lower bounce rate for your site overall, and most likely become a returning visitor.

“All of these positive elements factored together combine for a type of website that Google wants to rank highly in the search engines. If the user finds the website beneficial, you can bet Google will as well.”

How to rank with the help of user engagement: To help improve your site performance, in the long run, using user engagement as a factor, you may need to use tools to gain insight on how much interaction your site pages is getting from visitors.

Heatmapping quickly comes to mind when thinking of user engagement. The idea here is that the more clicks a page accumulates from its links, the more interaction it has with users.

Tools like SumoMe Heat Maps and CrazyEgg are great ways to break down the number of clicks made by users on your tracked site pages. From here, you can see which links are clicked the most and least. You can then optimize your site by improving your CTA links and buttons based on the accumulated data.

To analyze visitor engagement with your site pages, the SumoMe Content Analytics is an extremely helpful tool in looking how many of your site visitors scroll down until the very end of the page. From the data, you can also find out which part of your page where 50% of your visitors leave. Determine which elements of your site pages serve as obstacles that prevent visitors from scrolling down your page and optimize your site as you see fit.

Mobile App Optimization

The mobile market is big. So big, in fact, that Google is still figuring out how to provide mobile users with a better search experience.

The so-called 'Mobilegeddon' or more accurately Google's Mobile-friendly update is a step towards this direction, as site owners are encouraged to develop mobile or responsive designs to increase the site’s loading speed on mobile devices. A faster loading site means more chances to retain visitors.

While there is also interest in spending on mobile ads as the figures from eMarketer show, Google will soon take a more crucial role in delivering content to mobile users, starting with app store optimization.

"ASO (App Store Optimization) will be the next gen SEO in 2016,” says Rob Lons of performance SEO services RankPay. “If you look at the rise of mobile use and how much paid ad dollars are being spent each year, you can see the huge demand and rush to reach people on their mobile devices.”

More importantly, the App Indexing is the latest development in search results that can make an impact in how your site pages will rank for your target keywords.

Originally, apps are indexed on App Store and Google Play, not on Google search. This made it much more complicated for Google to streamline its search capabilities — marketers will have to optimize on both app stores instead of just on Google organic.

Through App Index, apps are now indexed on Google search. The search ranking of apps falls under the App Pack or Deep Link category.

Below is a comparison of app rankings on mobile search. The image is taken from this extensive article about App Indexing at Search Engine Land.

App Indexing brings in millions of additional search results for search queries on Google mobile search. This means that webpages ranking for their target keyword will have to fight of million of app pages that are optimized for their keyword as well. As if the competition is not stiff enough!

How to rank for mobile search results after App Indexing: Instead of fending off app results for your target keyword, why not consider developing an app for your business?

If you do not have an app for your site yet, consider building one to take advantage of the benefits App Indexing brings, in particular, its deep links.

Choosing the best mobile app development services is just half the battle. The other half involves developing a solid foundation for your mobile app and the goal you wish to achieve in developing it. Identifying both should provide you a more strategic approach with your mobile app in line with meeting your online goals.

Once you have a mobile app in place, you can begin implementing the steps on how to get your deep app screen indexed on search results by referring to this straightforward documentation from Google. The process can be arduous for non-developers, so you may want to ask for help from an expert regarding this.

Google’s new search quality guidelines

Google released their latest 160-page search quality guidelines. The last previous published was the abridged version two years ago that was a reaction to the leaked versions from 2008, 2011, and 2012 (notwithstanding the 2014 version) for the purpose of transparency.

As expected, the published document is far from the finished product.

"This is not the final version of our rater guidelines,” says Google Senior Program Manager and Search Growth & Analysis Mimi Underwood in this post. “ The guidelines will continue to evolve as search, and how people use it, changes. We won’t be updating the public document with every change, but we will try to publish big changes to the guidelines periodically."

You can download your copy of the search quality guidelines from the link above.

Below are some key takeaways from the guidelines:

High-quality standards are set on Your Money or Your Life (YMYL) pages – These pages include shopping transaction pages, financial information pages, medical information pages, legal information pages, and similar sites. The reason for the placing high-quality standards on these pages is how these can affect "the future happiness, health, or wealth of users." Low-quality YMYL pages can negatively impact one's happiness and health, so it is important to build useful pages under this umbrella term.
The value placed on Expertise/Authoritativeness/Trustworthiness (E-A-T) –high-quality content must come from E-A-T sources. E-A-T is built by acquiring accreditation if necessary. For instance, medical information found online must come from accredited medical persons or organizations. Corollary, first-hand experience counts as a form of expertise. For example, a user sharing how he survived cancer is a form of expertise.
Needs Met guidelines cater to mobile usability – Web pages are gauged by how they are optimized for mobile viewing and the satisfaction they provide to users about the search query. The guidelines are loosely divided into five ratings (from Fully Meets to Fails to Meet) — a website can fall between the assigned ratings if needed be.

What to make out of these quality guidelines: All signs point to improving the mobile usability of your site (as already mentioned above), as well as establishing yourself as an influence within your niche. By building your expertise and knowledge in your industry, you can establish your authority as a subject matter expert, thus earning the trust of your audience.

You can start by launching an influencer marketing campaign to establish your online visibility. From there, you can slowly build yourself as an authority based on different factors such as your site's Domain Authority, social proof (testimonials from customers and social media shares), and blog comments, among other factors.

Update: Notified by Google after this post was written — they have new guidelines which require no more pop-ups on mobile pages (e.g. responsive pages). Essential to act on before 2017 when this change comes into affect.

Chris Corey CMO Markethive Inc.

Written by: Christopher Jan Benitez

Alan Zibluk Markethive Founding Member

Markethive

Virtual World Part 10: Harnessing collective knowledge

September 6, 2016

Harnessing collective knowledge

Markethive's social collaboration can bring collective knowledge to bear on a problem the company is trying to solve, or to satisfy customer needs. A multinational petrochemical company needed to be able to accurately answer very technical questions about how to set up production lines for a wide range of complex intermediary products that are crucial in the production of a particular end-user product.

The ability to answer those questions, therefore, is critical to the sale of thousands of tons of the product for one of Ferrazzi Greenlight’s clients. Multiply that need over literally thousands of products, and your enterprise faces a serious complexity challenge.

Our client chose one of the best ways to handle such complexity: By establishing internal wikis (purpose-built websites containing content that can be collaboratively edited and updated) that could be constantly updated by a small army of expert volunteers within the company who document everything required to support internal and customer questions about production.

While it takes time to establish a comprehensive set of wikis — and a culture of contributing to them — companies that succeed in doing so often see internal subject matter experts vying with each other to provide the best/most complete expert information.

This is competition focused on excellence in results — a win/ win if ever there was one.

Other companies use social collaboration very effectively to tap outside experts to deliver high-quality, just-in-time services. A great example is Specialists On Call (SOC), an agency with facilities in Virginia and California that contracts with 270 hospitals nationwide.

For example, when one of the participating hospitals has a patient arrive in emergency and the doctors determine he needs to see a cardiologist, the hospital contacts Specialists On Call, and an experienced cardiologist not only speaks with the patient through video-conferencing almost immediately, she’s able to do a “virtual examination” by directing the attending clinical staff or physician to perform a number of diagnostic procedures while the cardiologist observes.

SOC claims it can cost 40 percent less than the cost of locally based on-call specialists, increase caseload capacity, empower local specialists by relieving on-call burdens, and even result in lower malpractice premiums due to its round the-clock availability and adherence to best practice protocols.

Too often, social-media collaboration is implemented in its own silo without strong business process connections.

Here’s how to maximize the impact of social-media tools on business results:

•Identify the processes that will most benefit, and pilot social media integration with those teams. Lead with these process improvement examples when you release your social media tool more broadly; that’s the main driver for the investment.

• Resist implementing social media as a stand-alone tool. Integrating it with your tools for communication, collaboration, and/or process flow ensures discussions are relevant to and can positively impact process and/or project participants.

• Explore tools that make exchanges in social media, email and other collaboration tools searchable, and filter automatically based on context. Separating social chit-chat from exchanges relevant to the project at each meeting or milestone creates a cohesive collaboration record and brings participants up to speed quickly.

Chris Corey

CMO Markethive Inc

Alan Zibluk Markethive Founding Member

Markethive

How To Set Up A Markethive Profile Page.

September 5, 2016

Alan Zibluk Markethive Founding Member

Markethive

Add Video Easily to your WordPress Blog

September 3, 2016

ADDING VIDEO TO YOUR WEBSITE

BY MINDUTOPIA • WORDPRESS TIPS

A lot of people ask us how they can add or upload videos to their WordPress site. It’s simpler than you think.

While WordPress does allow for the option to upload videos and other media, this can get messy and tricky as you deal with different browsers, operating systems and devices. Instead, we recommend that you embed videos from a different source — something like YouTube or Vimeo.

YouTube will allow you to reach a larger audience, while Vimeo will allow for more customization, and “white-labeling” if you upgrade to its Pro subscription.

Each service will allow you to Share or Embed, and will give you a URL or iFrame code to put directly into your editing window in WordPress. If you’re using an iFrame code, make sure you are on the Text/HTML tab of the editing window, not the Visual editor.

If you have Jetpack installed as a plugin, the process is even easier. You can simply add a shortcode in the Visual editor with the video URL. For example:

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1234567-A]

view raw Shortcode Youtube Embed hosted with by GitHub

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1234567-A&w=640&h=385]

view raw With Width and Height hosted with by GitHub

You can also customize the width and height using this method, by adding the query parameter for “w” ( width ) and “h” (height) &w= and &h= to the shortcode.

You can do the same with Vimeo and several other services. Want to see what’s supported?Click here to view the Jetpack Shortcode Embeds page.

Chris Corey

CMO Markethive Inc.

Alan Zibluk Markethive Founding Member

Markethive

Emerging Markets merge into record shattering success for seasoned entrepreneur

September 1, 2016

New Markets merge into record shattering success for seasoned entrepreneur

“With the advent of a real Market Network (Markethive) and a real emerging Customer Centric network marketing giant (Valentus) even I was surprised with the ease of building a new empire in this industry”. Explained Thomas Prendergast, Entrepreneur, Internet Innovator and CEO and founder of Markethive.

“I have been an advocate for ending the business practices of buying and selling leads. And calling for an end to spam email, spam faxes, telemarketing, ending popup ads, bill board ads, you know, the practice called outbound marketing”. He continued to explain. “It was heavily relied upon in the days before the Internet a long time ago and has suffered a long painful death since the Internet was released to the public in 1991, I know, I was there and have continued to ride this journey called the Internet.” Mr Prendergast emphasized.

10 years before the Internet Thomas Prendergast ran an Ad agency in the Silicon Valley and was very aware of tech and the emerging Internet. “Which is why I was on the Internet almost the moment it was available to the public in 1991” Mr. Prendergast revealed.

Within years of immersing himself into the Internet, he became aware of Network Marketing. He found it fascinating that anyone with some skill and determination could reasonably build a living income. This idea supported his empathetic support of struggling prodigies, up and coming entrepreneurs and anyone who had greater dreams than the typical job afforded them.

“Although I was aware of buying mailing lists for my ad agency in the 80s I was not aware of the pushing of buying names and phone numbers for MLMers to call on people supposedly interested in a business opportunity”, Thomas Prendergast said. As he become more aware of the MLM industry, he also found that most leaders who had working spheres of influence, would tell those they recruited into these pyramid schemes (the majority of these people did not have large spheres of influence) to buy these leads and cold call them.

Mr. Prendergast continued, “My instincts told me this was a bad idea and a serious mistake. But these “leaders” promoted this technique because they had no real option, ability or intentions on helping these people that just enrolled into one of their pyramid schemes “that really was just another “Hopes and Dreams” pitch, and that is another story”.

This became painfully clear when Thomas was witness to such a salesman, we will call him David, who had a talk show, had published many books, had a strong following, had joined a newly launched MLM deal, was conducting a teleconference call with all the people David had recently recruited into this new opportunity MLM. On that call, David told all the 1000s of listeners to go to his friend John and buy the leads they had allegedly pre interviewed at about $100 per 10 leads.

“This was mid-1990s. I bought 100 of them costing me $1000 and called them all (another article) and the results were 80% insults, 15% hang ups and the rest no answers. Not one was aware of any interview and the rejection level was as high as it gets. This was a process that would eliminate anyone new to the MLM process from continuing on in any business. Rejection is a process only boiler room telemarketers and well-seasoned sales people can withstand. It is death to the average Mom and Pop trying their hand at MLM”, Mr. Prendergast revealed.

Emerging Markets, Paradigm Shifts, Trends and all the other annoying clichés.

There are two firmly entrenched trends that have been born in the Internet, because of the technology, the reach of technology and the emersion of the masses into the technology, primarily due to the Social Networks, that Customer Centricity and Inbound Marketing emerged. Think of them as brother and sister.

Customer Centricity (Think Amazon):

Thomas Prendergast has been advocating Customer Centricity for the Network Marketing industry for over 10 years now. Mr. Prendergast explained, “Less than 1% of said industry understands it, the rest uninterested, and continue to promote the failed process of selling “Hopes and Dreams” of thinly veiled pyramid schemes with over priced products that rarely accomplish what they claim they do”.

However there have been a few that moved towards the “customer centric”, but not fully; with one in particular, abandoning the entire concept, only to find that decision is destroying the company as we speak, with commissions being cut consistently for the past 3 years, causing a drastic end to growth and a company in disarray. The other company built a customer option with infomercials, as a reward for their peak performers to acquire said such infomercial leads, which has dwindled due to current trends away from traditional Cable TV and Dish TV. Those 2 companies are Trivita and Beach Body.

Here is the summary of Thomas Prendergast’s Customer Centric proposal for this industry.

First and foremost the company’s focus must be to “Serve the Needs of the Customer” not the distributors!
Products that cost the distributors less than they sell them for on the open markets (like Ebay auctions, Amazon stores, Craig’s list)
A virtual warehouse that supports the distributor allowing purchasing in bulk, at lower wholesale prices, keeping the inventory at the company, allowing for drop shipping.
Offering co-op Advertising partnerships, to the distributors, allowing distributors to receive smaller shares of that traffic, that being customers and distributors from the results of mass marketing on the Internet. This has been done by a few other companies to great success. In other words, it works.
Other mass marketing technology that now comes to full force are, 800 number platforms, self-replicated Amazon, Ebay, etc. accounts, shopping cart widgets for 3^rd level distributors domains, and Social Marketing aps allowing purchase within Social Markets.

Summary:

With the accelerated market place awash in innovation and technology, technology that puts the human element right into the center of the equation, you can understand why you see the MLM industry sluggish and many companies dying on the vine and others falling flat on their faces with their much heralded launches. Entrepreneurs (distributors) that once upon a time, a flashy video, a charming pitch man, and a compelling comp plan, worked to explode the next greatest MLM launch. Not anymore!

Not today.

It is only a matter of time a young bold, innovative entrepreneur launches the first true customer centric MLM similar to the framework Mr. Prendergast has discussed here. And when they do, the world will quake, the swamps will empty and the first multi trillion MLM enterprise will rise to stand head to toe with the great innovations today like Facebook, Google, PayPal etc.

Inbound Marketing:

Inbound Marketing is the most effective marketing method for doing business online. Inbound marketing focuses on creating quality content that pulls people toward your company and product, where they naturally want to be. By aligning the content you publish with your customer’s interests, you naturally attract inbound traffic that you can then convert, close, and delight quickly.

This is exactly what Markethive is but more. Markethive is the first newly discovered Market Network

What Is A Market Network?

“Marketplaces” provide transactions among multiple buyers and multiple sellers — like eBay, Etsy, Uber and LendingClub.

“Networks” provide profiles that project a person’s identity, then, lets them communicate in a 360-degree pattern with other people in the network. Think Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

What’s unique about market networks is that they:

Combine the main elements of both networks and marketplaces
Use SaaS workflow software to focus action around longer-term projects, not just a quick transaction
Promote the service provider as a differentiated individual, helping to build long-term relationships

Mr. Prendergast enthusiastically continued, “The amazing timing of this entire process is the emerging of the first Market Network; “Markethive” and my friend “David Jordan’s” company Valentus the first real Customer Centric Company”.

Thomas Prendergast summarizes it by saying, “Valentus is experiencing record growth and record time and by all indications is about to enter into “Momentum”. I credit all of this to the fact that Valentus has the foundational product that the markets support the retail priced organically where distributors buy the product well below the market retail”.

Thomas continued saying, “I know this all seems so complex, but in reality it is quite simple. Valentus’ explosive growth is because it is a real business based on Economics 101. Buy low sell High!”

Mr. Prendergast adds credit to the story saying, “With the fusion of these two huge trends found in Markethive and Valentus, I give credit to this phenomena as to my ease in exploding the growth of my little “distributorship” in Valentus, breaking records in the first month and the meteoric growth of this organization because Inbound Marketing (Markethive) has found Customer Centricity (Valentus) and the rest will be historic”.

If this article finds you the least bit excited, curious or at least amused, we invite you to find out yourself more about these two incredible trends and how they complement each other. Your curiosity will cost you nothing. Sign up for these two companies at the below addresses (If you have not already):

Markethive (sign up or let’s be friends):
http://markethive.com/stephenhodgkiss

Valentus:
http://www.ValentusTour.com/testimonials

Entering a phone number will assure that I will call you to enjoy a 5-10 minute chat with you. I look forward to that, BTW.

Stephen Hodgkiss
Chief Engineer Markethive Inc.

Alan Zibluk Markethive Founding Member