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lakelandseo · 2 years ago

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Alternative Search Engines: Why They Matter and How to Rank on Them

12 billion, 3 billion, 1 billion. That’s the number of searches made in some of the top alternative search engines monthly.

While Google still holds more than 80% of the market share, ignoring search engines such as Bing, Yahoo, and DuckDuckGo can make you lose out on relevant traffic. So don’t limit yourself to Google’s algorithm as you plan the next year’s SEO strategy.

In order to grow in the digital economy, we have to diversify our efforts. What better way to do that than by making sure that you rank on all the top search engines relevant for your audience?

Generally, there’s two reasons why your audience would choose an alternative search engine over Google: geopolitical reasons and/or privacy concerns.

As such, I’ve categorized the search engines below by global market share and by data privacy.

Top alternative search engines by global market share

When analyzing the global desktop market share of search engines throughout the last decade, there are a few small but mighty search engines that stand out. These are:

1) Bing

2) Yahoo

3) Yandex

4) DuckDuckGo

5) Baidu

These are the engines you want to give extra consideration if you intend to expand internationally. They all have their own unique search algorithms that are in many ways as complex and developed as Google’s.

Why they matter and how to rank on them

If you’re like me a few years ago, a die-hard Apple fan remarkably repulsed by Microsoft’s products (I’ve now converted to the seamless team of PC), you might think prioritizing resources to optimize content for Bing or other engines is a waste of time. What I failed to consider then, and what you might be overlooking, is geographic segmentation.

Do you want to reach the American audience using voice search? Consider Bing.

Are you expanding into China? Check out Baidu. Each search engine matters because of its unique user types. Regardless of how small that market share might look on a global scale, if there’s regional search volume from your target audience, it’s worth the optimization.

Let’s go through them one by one.

Bing and Yahoo

Since 2018, Yahoo is exclusively powered by Bing Search. So as long as you rank in Bing, you’ll rank in Yahoo.

Bing Search, in combination with Yahoo, is without a doubt the strongest player after Google. Together, they have more than 10% of the global market share for desktop.

Now, some say that Bing’s market share will increase due to mergers and acquisitions, while others argue for its decline due to the death of Internet Explorer.

Still, all Microsoft browsers, such as Microsoft Edge Legacy and Chromium-based Microsoft Edge, have Bing as the default search engine, making Bing Search the natural choice for Microsoft product users. Yahoo, which is powered by Bing Search, is the default search engine for Mozilla’s browser Firefox, adding billions of impressions to Bing’s search results each year.

If we look at the United States alone, Microsoft sites own over 18% of the market share.

This is much due to their partnership with Amazon, where all voice-activated searches on Amazon Echo and Alexa are made with Bing Search.

Microsoft also pushes Bing further by offering easy rewards for searches and more advanced image search capabilities than Google.

Although the algorithms differ, optimizing for Bing search results is not much different than optimizing for Google. With a bit of fine tuning, it’s more than possible to come up with a strategy that allows for high rankings on both.

To rank on Bing, and thus Yahoo, make sure to do the following:

1. List your business on Bing Places

Bing Places is the equivalent of Google My Business and is the fastest way to get your business ranking for local seo. Many even consider Bing Places to favor small business owners as Bing puts their information more prominently on display.

2. Upload an XML Sitemap using Bing’s Webmaster Tools

While the debate on how much sitemaps really do matter for Google SEO continues, uploading one with Bing’s Webmaster Tool for XML Sitemaps allows the algorithm to better categorize and manage your content, making it more visible and relevant to the search audience.

3. Match keywords in your content

Check that the exact keyword match can be found in your page titles, meta descriptions and overall content. It’s known that the impact of on-page tactics as a ranking factor is much greater in Bing than Google.

4. Keep your social media profiles up to date

Go social! Bing considers your social media presence more than any other search engine. The Webmaster Guidelines specifically states that Bing considers social signals from third-party platforms to rank your content. Bing might even extract certain information directly from your Facebook company page to your Bing Places display.

5. Use high-quality images to enhance your content

Bing’s image search is much more advanced than Google’s. If you want your landing page to rank, add high-quality design assets to showcase your offerings. If you want your blog to rank, attach too-long-to-read infographics to highlight your points. Like the one above.

Yandex

Second to Bing is Yandex, having a total of 1.5% of the market share in global desktop search.

While it looks a lot like Google, its algorithm is different in many ways. Most prominent is the way Yandex indexes pages. Unlike Google’s almost continuous indexation, Yandex indexes pages sporadically. That means that you might have to wait around for a while before your site shows up on Yandex.

Despite this, it is still possible to rank on Yandex. You just need to have a bit more patience.

While waiting for your site to be indexed, take a look at the following:

1. Focus on tags over internal site structure

According to The Ultimate Guide to Yandex SEO, your header tag, title tag and slug are way more important than your internal site structure. In fact, it was only recently that Yandex started to support hreflang tags. Before that, Yandex only allowed the <head> hreflang implementation.

2. Consider search intent to rank

Some argue that Yandex meets search intent better than Google. The modern ICS score, which replaced the Thematic Index Citation, is determined by how relevant a site is to the query. Yandex uses its own version of expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness (E-A-T) test to determine relevance.

3. Eliminate toxic links

Many do not know this, but Yandex was actually the first search engine to roll out a link-based algorithm. Already in 2005, 7 years before Google’s Penguin algorithm, Yandex introduced the Nepot filter, which specifically looked at the impact of toxic link exchanges and spam links.

Baidu

With over 3 billion searches daily, Baidu is the Google of China. If you want to do business in China, it’s the place to be.

While the site is available worldwide, the site predominantly favors simplified Chinese. So before taking any other steps, hire a native speaker to help you along the way. To win at global, you have to ditch translations.

Here’s a few steps to get your content ranking.

1. Localize your keywords and content appropriately

As with all multilingual SEO, you need to work with a native language expert to ensure proper keyword localization and content optimization. If your site experiences high bounce rates, Baidu will tank your rankings immediately. As with any search experience, localization matters.

2. Position relevant content and keywords to the top of the page

Baidu favors a completely opposite layout than the Westernized one. The sooner you get to the point the better. Therefore, it is important to position your keywords as early as possible in the text and introduce all relevant content already in the top of the page to rank.

3. Obtain a verification level and get certified

By registering and paying a small fee you can obtain a verification level to improve your domain authority and rankings on Baidu. If you want to secure top ratings, you can get certified and obtain an ICP license, which is much more difficult than getting verified.

Top alternative search engines by data privacy

While most of the search engines mentioned above are tied to big corporations or political forces, global initiatives are setting the stage for more privacy-focused search engines. Among these is DuckDuckGo, the forefront runner with over 130 billion searches processed since launch.

Why they matter and how to rank on them

In many ways, the movement is a response to Google’s invasiveness on privacy. Many are fed up with how they are capitalizing on personal data and controlling the narrative with targeted search.

On a macro scale, the European Union continues to protect data privacy with strict GDPR regulations and the California Consumer Privacy Act indicates similar trends for Americans.

From a micro perspective, documentaries such as The Great Hack shine a light on how global companies monetize on personal data. As a result, privacy-safe search engines continue to rise.

If you’re working for an innovative SaaS startup, there’s a high chance your ideal customer persona is using one of these search engines.

Let’s go through how you rank on DuckDuckGo and two alternative equivalents.

DuckDuckGo

Screenshot of duckduckgo.com, November 2022

DuckDuckGo aims to make your search experience as simple and true to its cause as possible, i.e. no tracking for personalized search results and filter bubbles. Instead it uses semantic search to determine search intent for your queries from over 400 sources.

Consequently, this attracts tech-savvy experts with a lower bounce rate. Once they commit to a search, they stay.

Here’s how to optimize for it:

1. Sharpen Your User Experience

UX continues to make an impact on SEO, not to mention for DuckDuckGo. Make your content easily scannable and stay away from intrusive pop ups that harm your users’ experience and ease of navigation.

2. Focus on High-Quality Backlinks

As with any SEO, high-quality backlinks play a huge role for ranking. If you already have a solid backlink profile from your Google strategy, you should be good to go. If your backlink profile has a high level of toxicity, do some cleansing.

3. Rethink Local SEO

Since there’s no location tracking available for searches, location-specific searches such as “services near me” don't work. If you like to rank for these types of searches, include a specific location in your keyword strategy. Otherwise, you won’t be able to optimize for local seo.

Startpage

Startpage could be my personal favorite among the alternative search engines. It basically is Google without the tracking.

And while many consider DuckDuckGo to be the forefront runner of the privacy-focused search movement, many forget how Startpage ‘blazed the trail in 2006’. Offering a search experience without IP recording or tracking back when it was more or less unheard of. Now, it is the common denominator among all privacy-safe search engines.

So, how do you rank in Startpage? Simple. You rank in Google.

SwissCows

There are many more privacy-safe alternatives to search engines than the two mentioned above. Perhaps one without equal is SwissCows - a search engine that prides itself on being the only family-friendly, privacy-safe semantic search engine available on the web.

This means that any intrusive search results, like adult entertainment or offensive content, is naturally censored from the search results. At the same time, they never store any data nor track user specific information.

SwissCows SERPs bring up organic results and paid ads directly from Bing so in order to rank in SwissCows, you need to rank in Bing. Just make sure to omit any content that’s not PG-13.

What do they all have in common?

In the end, none of these alternative search engines can replace Google. As an SEO, I’ll never advise starting out with anything other than a Google strategy.

But when you are ready to branch out and extend your reach, give these alternatives a try. Analyze where your target audience hangs out and optimize thereafter.

Many of the privacy-focused search engines require little optimization as they pull their search results directly from other sources anyways. Simply do a quick check to see how you rank on each one.

And who knows, perhaps Microsoft will continue to steal more of the global search landscape. If that happens, you’ll be there — ranking in first position, ready to reap the rewards of your diversified efforts in an ever-changing search landscape.

0 notes

bfxenon · 2 years ago

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Alternative Search Engines: Why They Matter and How to Rank on Them

12 billion, 3 billion, 1 billion. That’s the number of searches made in some of the top alternative search engines monthly.

In order to grow in the digital economy, we have to diversify our efforts. What better way to do that than by making sure that you rank on all the top search engines relevant for your audience?

Generally, there’s two reasons why your audience would choose an alternative search engine over Google: geopolitical reasons and/or privacy concerns.

As such, I’ve categorized the search engines below by global market share and by data privacy.

Top alternative search engines by global market share

When analyzing the global desktop market share of search engines throughout the last decade, there are a few small but mighty search engines that stand out. These are:

1) Bing

2) Yahoo

3) Yandex

4) DuckDuckGo

5) Baidu

Why they matter and how to rank on them

Do you want to reach the American audience using voice search? Consider Bing.

Let’s go through them one by one.

Bing and Yahoo

Since 2018, Yahoo is exclusively powered by Bing Search. So as long as you rank in Bing, you’ll rank in Yahoo.

Bing Search, in combination with Yahoo, is without a doubt the strongest player after Google. Together, they have more than 10% of the global market share for desktop.

Now, some say that Bing’s market share will increase due to mergers and acquisitions, while others argue for its decline due to the death of Internet Explorer.

If we look at the United States alone, Microsoft sites own over 18% of the market share.

This is much due to their partnership with Amazon, where all voice-activated searches on Amazon Echo and Alexa are made with Bing Search.

Microsoft also pushes Bing further by offering easy rewards for searches and more advanced image search capabilities than Google.

To rank on Bing, and thus Yahoo, make sure to do the following:

1. List your business on Bing Places

2. Upload an XML Sitemap using Bing’s Webmaster Tools

3. Match keywords in your content

4. Keep your social media profiles up to date

5. Use high-quality images to enhance your content

Yandex

Second to Bing is Yandex, having a total of 1.5% of the market share in global desktop search.

Despite this, it is still possible to rank on Yandex. You just need to have a bit more patience.

While waiting for your site to be indexed, take a look at the following:

1. Focus on tags over internal site structure

2. Consider search intent to rank

3. Eliminate toxic links

Baidu

With over 3 billion searches daily, Baidu is the Google of China. If you want to do business in China, it’s the place to be.

Here’s a few steps to get your content ranking.

1. Localize your keywords and content appropriately

2. Position relevant content and keywords to the top of the page

3. Obtain a verification level and get certified

Top alternative search engines by data privacy

Why they matter and how to rank on them

In many ways, the movement is a response to Google’s invasiveness on privacy. Many are fed up with how they are capitalizing on personal data and controlling the narrative with targeted search.

On a macro scale, the European Union continues to protect data privacy with strict GDPR regulations and the California Consumer Privacy Act indicates similar trends for Americans.

From a micro perspective, documentaries such as The Great Hack shine a light on how global companies monetize on personal data. As a result, privacy-safe search engines continue to rise.

If you’re working for an innovative SaaS startup, there’s a high chance your ideal customer persona is using one of these search engines.

Let’s go through how you rank on DuckDuckGo and two alternative equivalents.

DuckDuckGo

Screenshot of duckduckgo.com, November 2022

Consequently, this attracts tech-savvy experts with a lower bounce rate. Once they commit to a search, they stay.

Here’s how to optimize for it:

1. Sharpen Your User Experience

2. Focus on High-Quality Backlinks

3. Rethink Local SEO

Startpage

Startpage could be my personal favorite among the alternative search engines. It basically is Google without the tracking.

So, how do you rank in Startpage? Simple. You rank in Google.

SwissCows

SwissCows SERPs bring up organic results and paid ads directly from Bing so in order to rank in SwissCows, you need to rank in Bing. Just make sure to omit any content that’s not PG-13.

What do they all have in common?

In the end, none of these alternative search engines can replace Google. As an SEO, I’ll never advise starting out with anything other than a Google strategy.

But when you are ready to branch out and extend your reach, give these alternatives a try. Analyze where your target audience hangs out and optimize thereafter.

Many of the privacy-focused search engines require little optimization as they pull their search results directly from other sources anyways. Simply do a quick check to see how you rank on each one.

0 notes

obviouslygenuinely · 4 years ago

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Free Resources For Writers & Creators

This is a quick post of free resources that may help fandom creators (or creators in general). I’m sure many of these have been shared before. However, it doesn’t hurt to spread the word. A few quick points:

As a professional writer, I think this post will cater mostly towards writers.

I’m also a freelance photographer, so digital photography/editing/art sources are included, too.

I chose not to use any affiliate links in my post. I don’t want to profit from this, and I’m not sure that’s allowed on Tumblr anyways.

If I’ve listed a resource I haven’t used myself, I’ve made sure to state it.

Masterlists and/or huge resource compilations are marked with asterisks.

Alright, here we go! I hope you all find this post helpful. Happy writing/creating!

Research

All of these are free resources for research. I use most of them for my writing jobs because they are extremely credible. These are great for making accurate references in your fics/creations.

1. ***Research Resources For Writers***

Writer’s Write has an enormous database of research resources for writers. They are divided into 20+ categories such as:

careers

historical research

crimes and forensics

religion

Each category contains 10+ resources like websites, articles, tips, databases, and so much more. It’s the most comprehensive and organized free research tool I use.

2. PubMed

My go-to source for citing medical studies. You’ll find 30 million citations related to numerous physical and mental health issues.

3. BioMed Central

I don’t use this website as often, but I keep it in my bookmarks. It’s similar to PubMed - great for discovering current and former medical research.

4. Drugs.com

If you need to name a medication and/or refer to medication side effects, Drugs.com is a straightforward resource. It’s easy to navigate and understand.

It also has a tool that lists potential medication interactions. This is really useful for accurate descriptions of med combinations.

5. Merck Manuals Consumer Version

Merck Manuals started out in 1899 as a medical reference guide for professionals. This consumer version is really comprehensive and updated regularly. It includes definitions, studies, and more.

6. FindLaw

If you’re writing about legal topics, FindLaw is useful for learning about laws/procedures in reader-friendly language. Categories include:

accidents/injuries

criminal law

family law (divorce, custody, etc.)

Keep in mind that laws vary based on location! You’ll often find additional links to state-related laws within articles. I do recommend double-checking state/location-based legal resources for accuracy.

7. APA Dictionary of Psychology

This psychology dictionary is provided by the American Psychological Association. It covers 90+ areas of psychology and 25,000+ terms/definitions.

You’ll also find links to additional psychology databases, resources, and so on. The website is updated frequently to provide updated information.

8. U.S. Bureau Of Labor Statistics

If you’re writing about a character’s job/career in the United States, this is a great source for accuracy. For any job sector, you’ll find details about

education requirements

positions in the sector

average salary for positions

what the positions entail

I imagine there are alternatives for other countries, too!

9. Investopedia Financial Term Dictionary

My area of expertise is personal finance; all of my writing published under my name is in this niche. I still refer to Investopedia’s dictionary for help. It’s excellent for understanding/explaining financial terms in a way that your reader can understand.

10. MedTerms Medical Dictionary

This is the medical version of Investopedia’s dictionary. I use this source less frequently, but I find that it’s accurate and helpful. There are many similar references online if you search for “medical glossaries” or “medical dictionaries”.

11. Domain Authority Checker

I’m not sure if this one is too helpful for fic writers, but it’s one of my most used tools. Domain authority “a search engine ranking score developed by Moz that predicts how likely a website is to rank on search engine result pages (SERPs)”.

The Wikipedia page for domain authority (DA) explains it clearly and simply. To sum it up, websites with good DA scores are considered reliable and accurate. If I cite sources in my work. I always link to sources with good DA scores.

Writing/Editing

This section is the most thorough one. All of these are completely free tools for writing and editing any type of content. I currently use or have used all of these at some point in my career.

1. ***List Of Free And Open-Source Software Packages***

This Wikipedia page applies to multiple categories in my post. It’s a masterpost of free and open-source software for anything and everything. Software is divided up into categories and sub-categories. Some relevant examples include:

media

networking/Internet

image editing

file management

There are hundreds of free software links on the page, so you’ll need to do a bit of browsing. Start with the categories above to find software geared towards writers/creators.

2. OpenOffice

This is a free alternative to Microsoft Office. I’ve used it for nine years and love it. OpenOffice software includes free applications for:

text documents

spreadsheets

presentations

drawing

templates

There are many more tools with OpenOffice that I haven’t used. If you write offline, I cannot recommend it enough. Tutorials are readily available online, and the software is pretty user-friendly.

3. Evernote

I briefly used Evernote and found that it’s very user-friendly and helpful. Most of my colleagues use Evernote and recommend it for taking notes/staying organized.

(I’m personally not a fan of note-taking software or apps. My method is messy text documents with bullet point lists.)

4. Google Drive

This might seem like an obvious one, but Google Drive/Docs is my writing haven. It has the tools included with Microsoft Office and OpenOffice and then some. It’s great for collaborative writing/sharing documents, too.

5. Grammarly

I use the Premium (paid) version of Grammarly, but I also used the free version for years. It’s helpful for detecting simple spelling, style, and grammatical errors.

There are numerous ways to use it - desktop, copy/paste documents, and so on. I’m not a huge fan of how well it works with Google Docs, but they’re improving it/it’s moved out of beta mode.

If you’re interested in the paid version - which I highly recommend - wait to buy until a holiday pops up. They offer a major discount on the software for almost every holiday/special occasion.

6. Plagiarism Detector

This website is handy for scanning for plagiarism. You can scan your own work to ensure uniqueness, too. My clients are big fans of this tool.

(I no longer use this resource; I use a paid tool called Copyscape Premium. The low cost has a big return on investment for me.)

7. TitleCase

The name says it all. It’s free and simple! I’ll be honest - I’m terrible with proper title case. You’d think after a decade of writing I’d nail it. However, I use this tool pretty often.

8. Hemingway Editor

Hemingway Editor is an online and desktop editor. It’s excellent for scanning your writing to check for:

readability (a grade-level score is listed)

adverb usage

passive voice usage

complex phrase usage

estimated reading time

This tool is color-coded to make editing easy. For example, adverbs are highlighted in blue. I don’t use this as often as I used to, but it was essential for my early writing career.

9. Polish My Writing

This tool is very straightforward. You paste your writing into the text box. Spelling errors, grammar suggestions, and style suggestions are highlighted in red, blue, and green.

It’s great for double-checking your work alongside Grammarly or Hemingway. When using free editors, I recommend using at least two for higher accuracy.

10. OneLook Reverse Dictionary And Thesaurus

I’m going to use the definition directly from the website:

“This tool lets you describe a concept and get back a list of words and phrases related to that concept. Your description can be anything at all: a single word, a few words, or even a whole sentence. Type in your description and hit Enter (or select a word that shows up in the autocomplete preview) to see the related words.”

To put it simply, you can use the reverse dictionary/thesaurus to find those words/thoughts that are on the tip of your tongue. Use the tool to:

find a word based on the word’s definition (i.e. search for “inability to feel pain”)

find synonyms and related concepts

generate a list of category-specific words (i.e. search for “cat breeds”)

answer basic questions (i.e. search for “what is the capital of France?”)

The results can be hit or miss, but I usually find the information I’m looking for. It’s a solid resource any writer regardless of genre.

11. Word Frequency Counter + Phrase Frequency Counter

I cannot emphasize how much I love these tools. Repetition is the bane of a writer’s existence; it’s simply inevitable at times.

These two tools count the number of times you use a single word or phrase in a text document. Just copy/paste your document, hit submit, and you’re all set!

For the phrase frequency counter, you can scan for two-word to ten-word phrases.

12. Thesaurus.com

This is another tool that might seem painfully obvious. Combined with the word frequency counter, it’s such an essential resource for me.

It’s especially useful if you’re writing about the same topic multiple times (i.e. love, getting drunk, sex, etc.). I always use this combo of tools to ensure uniqueness.

13. Lists Of Colors

Are you stumped when trying to come up with unique shades of blue? Is describing your character’s hair or skin color difficult? This Wikipedia page has you covered. It contains:

lists of colors (alphabetically)

lists of colors by shade

lists of Crayola crayon colors

lists of color palettes

I typically use this resource for product descriptions, but I also used it for creative writing many times. It’s a lifesaver for all things color-related.

Free Photos/Images

Tons of creators need free photos/images for numerous reasons. All of these sources provide 100% free photos, illustrations, etc. that have a Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license. This means there’s no copyright whatsoever on them.

You can edit the images however you’d like, too. All of the images in my post are from the first source listed below. I made them black and white and added text.

(A lot of these sites have donate buttons for contributors. Donating a dollar here and there goes a long way!)

1. Unsplash

Unsplash is my personal favorite for high-resolution photos. It’s easy to navigate and has over 2,000,000 free images. Downloading an image is a one-click process, and you don’t need to create an account.

2. Pixabay

Pixabay is my go-to site for illustrations and vector graphics (they have photos, too). There are 1.9 million free images to choose from. You don’t need an account to download images, but I recommend creating one. It’s free and with an account:

you don’t have to complete a CAPTCHA every time you download an image

you can access higher-quality/larger/etc. versions of images

I often use graphics from Pixabay to create overlays and masks for mixed media art pieces.

3. PxHere

I’ve never used PxHere, but one of my writing clients recommends it. It seems very similar to Pixabay, and the interface is user-friendly.

4. Pexels

In my limited experience, Pexels seems to focus on “artsy” stock images/content. I found great high-quality images the few times I’ve used it.

5. Burst by Shopify

I haven’t used Burst, but it’s another free image site that a writing client recommended to me. It seems a little limited compared to the other sites, but it never hurts to add it to your toolbox!

Digital Art/Photo Editing/Etc.

This section seems brief, but the tools listed are pretty comprehensive and diverse. They are geared towards many creative needs/projects like:

Creating manips of people/etc.

Adding text to images.

Creating collages.

Digital illustration.

Advanced photo editing.

There’s something for everyone. In my experience, finding your favorites among these will take some trial and error.

1. Pixlr X and Pixlr E (app available)

Pixlr X and Pixlr E are both versatile free editing tools. Pixlr X is ideal for less experienced creators. Pixlr E is comparable to Adobe PhotoShop.

I’ve used both software formats for personal and professional art projects.

The Pixlr app is handy for making collages, adding filters/overlays, adding text, and so on. I’ve used it for creating fanfiction collages and similar projects. It’s super easy to use.

2. Remove Background by Pixlr

This is one of the easiest/fastest tools I’ve found for removing backgrounds from images. It’s perfect for creators who make manips using photos of people.

It takes literal seconds to use. The tool automatically removes the background. If you spot any mistakes, you can refine the results with brush/erase tools. Then you download the cutout and you’re all set!

Unfortunately, this feature isn’t available on the Pixlr app. There are a lot of smartphone apps for removing photo backgrounds.

3. GIMP

If you need a full-fledged Photoshop alternative, GIMP is excellent software. It’s not an online tool like most I’ve suggested; you’ll need to download it to your computer.

There’s quite a learning curve for it, unless you’re familiar with Photoshop already. Fortunately, the free video/text GIMP tutorials online are endless. I no longer use/need GIMP, but it’s a personal favorite of mine.

4. Paint.NET

Admittedly, I haven’t used Paint.NET, but my art/photography colleagues commonly mention it. It’s comparable to Photoshop and GIMP. It’s a web-based tool, and a quick Google search returns several tutorials for it.

5. Photopea

This is more or less a Photoshop clone, but it’s free and web-based. If you watch Photoshop tutorials, you can usually follow the same steps in PhotoPea.

I’ve only used it a few times; I have Photoshop so I don’t need it. Still, it’s very impressive - especially for a free tool.

6. PicsArt (app available)

PicsArt is a photo editing website and app; the app is much easier to use in my opinion. It’s a “fun” editing tool for photo manips, collages, and fan art in general. A lot of users post their art in the app, and I’ve noticed tons of cool fandom edits.

Some of the features are Premium (AKA cost money), but I don’t think they’re worth the extra cost. PicsArt also has a digital drawing app. I haven’t personally used it but it may be worth checking out!

7. Adobe Photoshop Express (app available)

(I’ll preface this by saying I have an Adobe subscription, so I have access to the “locked” features. I’ve used the free versions, but my memory of it is a bit hazy.)

Photoshop Express is a free web-based tool and smartphone app. The app is very user-friendly and can be used for detailed editing, adding filters, adding text, and so on.

I’m less familiar with the browser version; I only use it for the cutout tool when I’m feeling lazy. It seems to be a good fit for quick edits - filters, cropping, and so on.

8. Make PNG Transparent by Online PNG Tools

This tool is awesome for removing solid colored backgrounds. I use it to create graphics for mixed media art pieces. Here’s how it works:

upload an image

type the color your want to remove (name or hex code)

type the percentage of similar color tones you want to match (for example, 25% will remove your chosen color plus similar warm/cool tones)

the removed color is replaced with transparent pixels

If you want to make a JPG transparent, start with the website’s JPG to PNG Converter. There are a ton of useful free tools offered, but I haven’t tried out most of the others.

Wrap Up

That’s all I’ve got for now! If I think of additional free tools, I’ll add them to this post. Feel free to reblog with your own recommendations or message me if you’d like me to add anything.

I hope my fellow creatives find these too

#writer resources #writing #writblr #fanfiction #fanfic #creative writing #writing reference #writing resources #writer reference #obviouslygenuinely #creators #artists on tumblr #fandom #fan art

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nickcifonie · 3 years ago

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In 2021, Anyone Can Make $ Playing Video Games!

I grew up playing games like Risk, Monopoly, a little Chess... and still remember buying my first computer somewhere around 1986 solely to play a computer game on. It was an Apple IIc, and that first game was some type of Pirate Adventure. I wish I remembered the name. It wasn’t all that good, but still, I was hooked!

Since that first adventure, I’ve spent thousands of hours as well as dollars playing just about every type of digital game that has followed! PC games, Atari, Wii, mobile games... you name it, I play it! I’d always generalize the cost (to myself at least) thinking “some guys play golf 3 days a week at $100 a round... I play computer games”.

That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it! However, the story has changed...

“Pay to Play” has become “Play to Earn”!

If you would be to search terms like “crypto games”, “blockchain games”, “make money playing video games”, and others, you’d find some really incredible statements. Today, quotes like the ones below are becoming more and more common!

“I made $400 last week playing a computer game” “I just sold my RPG character for $200 profit”

“I was offered $1k for a skin for my laser rifle of doom” (I made up the “laser rifle of doom” part)

“I bred my pet thingamajig yesterday and sold the baby!” (it’s digital, for those of you wincing)

In 2021, thanks to the blockchain, there’s a growing community of gamers who are making real dollars daily, mining, fighting, shooting, jumping... all while playing the same type of mobile and PC games that you had to PAY to play just a short while ago...

...but let’s start at the beginning.

You paid $172,000 for a what!?

Yes... all the way back in 2018 a CryptoKitty named “Dragon” was sold for an incredible $172,000. (300 ETH) Don’t be too surprised, it’s justified! It’s an adorable digital image, or “NFT” of a cat, after all.

It’s a lot of money, but for NFTs and blockchain gaming, flipping a Kitty today may as well be considered the stone ages. It’s still a record, but while you can still get started collecting these digital felines for as low as a couple of dollars, big-dollar trades still happen daily.

On the flip side of mortgaging your home to buy a digital picture of a CryptoKitty, Bored Ape, or CryptoPunk, you may feel better if you begin your adventure into making crypto (it’s real money, dear!) by playing a video game where you can “make money” instead of spending it.

I’m not saying owning a CryptoKitty or any of a plethora of “Avatar NFTs” we see popping up on various exchanges isn’t one way to do it... I’m saying to me at least, as a life-long gamer I’d much prefer playing a mobile, console, or PC game to collecting pictures in a digital wallet.

So what the heck is an NFT?

I could go into a long explanation... but since this article is about gaming and not cryptocurrency, I’ll tell you an NFT is a “non-fungible token”, and leave you google it if you really want to dig in deep. I do want to share more, so I’ll ‘splain it as simple as I can for you Lucy!

A CryptoKitty, as stated above, is a type of image called an NFT. (the collection is called “CryptoKitties) It’s a digital picture of a cartoon cat. There are thousands of different ones that have different shapes, colors, expressions and traits. (kind of like a real cat, but eats less)

The difference, is only one of each design is actually a legitimate “CryptoKitty”. (or a legitimate whatever type of image it happens to be) To be clearer... each NFT is a “one of a kind”, so if you’re thinking “but can’t I just make a copy?”, nope you can’t.

I mean... you “can” make a copy of it if you really dig the design and want it on your desktop, but it would only be a copy of that particular NFT, not the real McCoy! Ok... so what makes one real, and the rest fakes? The blockchain.

Now, I’m going to be true to my word and keep my promise of not making this an article about crypto or the blockchain, so just know this: the difference between an image that is an actual NFT, and a copy of one, is there is an underlying digital code that designates the real thing.

So real in fact, that artists are creating or importing their paintings and creations to the web as NFTs, numbering them as they would a lithograph, and selling their entire collections. So if you are an art fan, check with your favorite creators... you may be surprised to find all of their “works of art” on an online marketplace!

NFTs are viewed on certain marketplace websites and digital wallets where the copies cannot be displayed, so that is how we know one is real, and the others are not! Having said that, sure, there’s more to it, but just know that there’s a 100% secure way of knowing an image is a real NFT.

In addition, there can be more than one NFT with the same identical image. However, each has a unique underlying code, so even if they look exactly the same, they are not! Look at it like the playing cards or comic books of old... there may be 1,000 created (or “minted” as it’s called in NFT land) but they will each be numbered 1 to 1,000.

And guess which is more valuable.....? I knew you’d get it!

And these NFT’s make money how?

You’re getting warmer! There are a lot of different types of games coming out these days where you can make money playing. There are RPG’s, MOBA’s, Shooters, games in first person and in third, dungeon crawls... you name it!

If you’re thinking “how did I not know this!”, I was the same until recently! I have been gaming almost daily since I stepped into Ultima Online back in 1997, and I can’t even begin to tally how many hours and/or dollars I’ve invested into gaming.

Now, our hobby pays!

After 30-something years, my wife still thinks I’m bonkers... but I got a totally different look from her a few days ago when I told her I sold my game character for well over $200. Legit. I sold two more yesterday, and another this afternoon.

Some of these only cost me $10 or $15, some much more. Some are free. I sold another NFT character last week for $1,950, and it was sold on the game’s website, not on the black market.

So not only can an NFT be a picture of an Ape, Vegetable, Duck, or Stripper on a pole (we’ll leave it at that) but it can be a character in a game, a weapon, a mount, armor, or more.

One game is giving away free pet turtles with each character. For the uneducated on “pets” in computer games, it’s not the kind you keep in a bowl in your bedroom. It’s a companion that fights with you in an online game and may shoot fire from its eyes, heal you, or similar.

Soon after being handed out for free, they’re now selling for around $60 each.

So an NFT can be an image, a video, music, a meme... or even a shirt or shoes! But we’ll leave the NFT clothing explanation to another article. ;)

Remember that rare skin you paid out the nose for a year ago in Apex? Or the L33T character you built up in Fortnite or Warcraft? If you’re no longer playing that game, it’s money under the bridge. And you don’t own the bridge!

In this new breed of blockchain games, you could have LEGALLY sold that character, skin, weapon, land, house, mount, or whatever it was when you tired of the game. For a profit. Maybe for a LARGE profit.

Yes, in the past we were able to find ways to get around the system and dump our pixels from time to time. We’d sell the account on the black market, or cut a deal with someone like a drug dealer on a Chicago Street corner. Then we’d over who went first...

“You give me the account and weapon first!” “No you give me the money first”. Sometimes the deals even went through. Others well... let’s just say half of the parties walked away happy.

I made good money when after 4 years of daily playing I sold my Ultima Online account for somewhere around $2,000, but I needed to find a trustworthy “go-between” to broker the deal. Even then, I was sweating it!

With today’s crypto games, not only do the games provide the platform to buy, sell, or trade your character and items, but it’s encouraged, and done with good old U.S dollars! I’ve made $ playing 4 or 5 different games already this week, as well as flipping (buying low and selling higher) NFT characters!

How else can I make money playing games?

The way you earn varies from game to game, but each week seems to reveal another new strategy, platform, or idea. Many are new strategies, and while some have “triple A” 3D animation and graphics, others are simpler and use basic one-dimensional graphics for the gameplay.

Some of these games are actually tied to a token on the blockchain. The game developer creates their own token, not too unlike Bitcoin or Ethereum, and it can be bought or sold on the open market as well as used in the game as currency.

Could you imagine if back in League of Legends, Guild Wars or Final Fantasy, when you were ready to move to a new game, you could sell or easily convert your gold to cash? Some of today’s blockchain games encourage it!

Not only can you now buy and sell characters and weapons, the gold in the game can be traded, bought, sold, or saved like real currency, stocks, crypto, or collectables. Never have I been as excited about PC and mobile gaming as I am today!

As an example, I am doing some work for a new game that will launch soon called Pepper Attack. Pepper Attack has its own token or coin... called MYTE. It can be used in the game as currency, but also be traded like Bitcoin. A lot of today’s blockchain games offer this same benefit.

Hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to mine I go!

Just by owning an NFT from the game, you can login on a daily basis and click “mine” earning real-value tokens passively. Your Pepper goes to work like one of the 7 Dwarves mining MYTE, and later on you can convert it to other tokens or cold, hard cash.

There's more to do in this particular game as well. Like any good RPG or MMORPG, each pepper has a unique combination or skills like attack, defense, evade, hit points, and more. As an example of the possibilities, if you have a high attack score, other characters will be able to pay you in MYTE to “train” them, raising their score as well.

In addition, these NFTs have unique physical traits, some are common and some are very rare. This game in particular have toons that look more like anime-ish elves with weapons and a stem... I have to admit the artwork is really spicey! (see what I did there?) Other games are of course totally different.

Some people will simply collect these NFTs/characters as an investment, like playing cards or comics. Others will use them in the game, and still others will do both. Either way, they can be held, or sold for a profit!

Unlike the games of the past, when you’re ready to move on you don’t walk away and lose all the $ you have spent for characters, skins, weapons, potions, and other items. When you’re done, you’ll be able to sell your character and items... possibly for a profit... maybe a lot of profit... and move on.

These are not your father’s computer games!

As we move ahead in the genre, we are seeing AAA studios coming out with big-dollar productions, like Blankos, Mist, Illuvium, Ember Sword and others. Some of these games actually let you buy the land you build on!

Did you have your own house in Ultima Online, Star Wars Galaxies, or Archeage? What if you could have used It as a shop and been paid in dollars for your wares, rented it to another player, or sold it for cold hard cash at a huge profit down the road?

In many of today’s games, not only is it common, but extremely hard to come by, and quite expensive. Not only are people paying thousands of dollars for a plot in some of the games that have land, but they’re paying it many months before the game is even released.

They do it, because in many cases they know that they can easily 2X, 10X, or even 50X their investment a short piece down the road. Seriously? Seriously... and the early bird catches the worm!

Other games with lesser budgets are more graphic-based, but have super earnings potential as well, and are just as fun to play. These include Splinterlands, (a card game like Magic!) Crypto Blades, Axie Infinity and more.

Regardless of if the new blockchain game of your choice is a RPG, MOBA, a card game or racing game... the fact that you can put some coin into your pocket playing adds a whole new element. It’s heckafun making money playing a game!

The early nerd catches the worm!

In many cases, if you can catch a game before it releases, the land, characters, weapons, and other items... in most cases all NFTs... can be grabbed at a tiny fraction of the future value.

Of course, always check out the game details and team first, and be confident it’s a good place to put your money. Not all games are made the same.

If you’re lucky enough to find out about and partake in an early sale, for example, like grabbing a character NFT or two in “Pepper Attack” before the late September launch date, you may be in for a real treat!

There are plenty of new titles coming down the pipe that look to be fun, have great communities, and offer earning opportunities. A web search will find services and websites that will keep you on your toes and alert you of upcoming blockchain game releases, marketplace opening, and more.

As we look forward, the future of gaming on the blockchain is really, really exciting! Not only are the games getting better and more fun, but they’re getting better at making the economics work more smoothly as well.

The games are not without challenges, as they need to be made to sustain themselves economically over the long haul. In addition, they need to have higher levels of security (thanks blockchain!) and of course, work without becoming “pay to win”. Thankfully, the new breed of developers have risen to the challenge!

The next time you look for a new game to add to your phone or desktop, or just want a change of pace, look to a game that pays to play! Your wallet might thank you.

Another perk, is your husband or wife will appreciate it as well! Instead of hearing “are you going to play that stupid game all night again?”, you may start to hear things like “I’ll put the kids to bed tonight sweetheart, so you can get online and play”.

One can only hope...

Author - Nick Cifonie

Nick is a lifelong gamer, who cut his teeth at the local Chicago arcade playing Tetris as a teen. Better known as Znick or Deacon Z, Nick became a Game Master in Ultima Online in 1997, ran a large multi-game guild for 15 years, and now spends his time in the “play to earn” arena. Professionally, Nick is a writer and 4-decade marketer working with the Pepper Attack team, as well as others. Nick is also a Catholic Deacon.

#nftart #nft marketplace #nftdrop #nftgallery #nftnews #nftcrypto #cryptoart #nftcommunity #nftartist #crypto #blockchain #nonfungibletokens #nft games #nft

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winterhawkwonderland · 4 years ago

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FAQs 2020 Edition

Hey there, Wonderland Participants! As promised, here is your 2020 edition of Questions We Have Received. Some of these are repeats from blog asks or that we have previously answered, but this way it’s all in once place!

First though, a quick review of the dates and rules:

Dates: (as you can see, we are right on schedule!)

Monday 05 October: Signups open

Sunday 01 November: Signups close

Sunday 08 November: Assignments will be emailed - these will arrive in the email inbox you provided when you signed up so if you did not receive a confirmation email from us we do not have a means to contact you with your assignment - please message the blog ASAP

Sunday 22 November: Check-In #1

Sunday 06 December Check-In #2; Posting Date Signups

December 15-25: Gifts Posted

Friday 15 Jan: Round-Up Posted

Rules:

This exchange is for good-hearted fun! Remember that you’re getting a gift, not ordering a commission.

Don’t be a dick.

Works submitted for this event have to be original works that haven’t yet been posted elsewhere in the fandom. Everybody deserves a new, unique gift!

Remember to keep your recipient a secret until your gift is posted.

This event doesn’t allow any works involving the Big AO3 Four (Character Death, Underage, Rape/Non-con, Extreme Violence). Just… this isn’t the place for it.

This event is open to all ages — with the caveat that participants under the age of 18 will not be allowed to create or receive sexual content.

This year we are allowing art and writing.

Fanart: Final pieces should be digitally consumable. This can include fanart, moodboards, and the like.

Fanfic: Absolute minimum 1000 words; no maximum; expectation between 1K-3K.

All works need to be complete before posting — this includes multi-chapter work.

Now, onto the questions we’ve received so far!

If we write a story best formatted as multiple chapters and finished by the deadline, can we post just chapter one on the day the story is due and each chapter on a new day thereafter or does an entire multi-chaptered work have to go up all at once?

The multi-chapter work must be complete by your posting date and must be completely posted by the end of posting. Basically, posting runs December 15-25th (dates overlap both Christmas and Hanukkah) - dates will be assigned on a first-come, first-served basis by google form sign-up, and your entire work must be completely posted by December 25th. If you have many chapters, we recommend that you choose an earlier posting date so that you can post a chapter each day until complete and still be done by final posting date.

Will I get assigned to make either art or fic or do I get the prompts and choose which to make?

You will receive three prompts from your gift recipient and you may fulfill the request in whatever fashion you like as long as it respects the recipients DNWs. If you can make all three prompts into one art piece or one fic, go for it. You can focus on only one prompt. You can mash up two of the three! Whatever inspires you, we encourage you to get creative!

Are we allowed to combine our gift with a bingo fill if we can fit a bingo event prompt into the gift exchange prompt?

We are okay with this as long as the following conditions are met:

The work produced must prioritize the recipient’s request. If you can make werewolf den mothering and canon-compliant mission AU match up in a way that makes sense and that meets the recipient’s requests and DNWs, go for it.

The Bingo event is okay with prompts doing double-duty for our event and theirs.

The work created must meet the cumulative requirement for BOTH events. For example we are asking for 1-3k at minimum. If the Bingo requires 500 words, you would need to produce at least 1500 words to meet the guidelines for both events. It is hard to give an example of how that would apply to art, but the general idea is that you are creating a body of work which cumulatively meets the requirements for both events. Mood boards might need 6-8 images instead of 4, for example, or art might have a detailed background or full shading rather than a black and white sketch.Please use your good judgment with the idea that you are creating a gift for someone to enjoy in addition to filling a Bingo prompt rather than filling a Bingo prompt that you happen to gift someone.

Are threesome ships allowed for the exchange? As long as Clint and Bucky are prominently included? Can we put that as a request?

You can request an OT3 as part of your requests, but as this is a Winterhawk event your creator is under no obligation to fulfill any poly ships that are not Winterhawk. Additionally, the focus should definitely be on the Winterhawk aspect of the relationship.

When we will receive our matches?

On or before November 8th, depending on whether the mods can dig themselves out of the emotional black hole we’re all currently in to get it done early. We are working on matches every day!

How are matches made?

Matches are made through a very sophisticated system of: first we match up sensitive topic requests, such as ace/aro, trans, etc. with creators who are comfortable with those subjects and will treat them respectfully. Then we ensure that unusual DNWs (things that don't fall under the Big 4 or that aren't what most would consider 'common' DNWs such as abuse) are not matched with people who might accidentally include that DNW in a gift. For example, if you put werewolves on your DNW list, we aren't going to match you with someone who has submitted three werewolf prompts. That person likes werewolves, and you don't! It's not a good match! Finally, we pray over the spreadsheet to the Random Number Generator Gods, and they spit out divinely reveal Random Numbers for us to match. Entry number 1 gets matched to holy Russian Roulette entry number 25! Unless one of those already has been matched, that's the pairing that gets emailed out! This is the fairest way we have come up with to do the matchmaking, but if you receive a prompt you absolutely feel you cannot create for, please reach out to us and we will see what we can do about resolving the situation, whether that means we make a matching change, or we ask the gift recipient for new prompts.

How do posting dates work?

After the second check in, a Google Form will be emailed out to all participants - you will be able to choose a date on the form that you would like to post on, running the entire length of the posting period (December 15-25th). There will be a limited number of slots per day (4-5 spots) and they will be filled on a first-come, first-served basis. Again, we recommend that if you have a multi-chapter work and would like to post a chapter per day/every other day that you sign up for an early posting date so that your work is completely posted before the event ends December 25.

What are the Check-Ins?

Just a way for the Mod Team to check in with participants to ensure things are running smoothly. We will ask you how your gift is coming along, if you’re having any trouble we can help with, and if you have any concerns you would like to voice.

The second check-in is going to ask you to be a little more specific about your progress towards completion, and it will give us as mods an opportunity to offer you help if you need it - cheerleading, beta readers, etc.

What if I need to drop out?

Please, please, please let us know as soon as possible. We have pinch-hitters on standby, very willing to step in if needed - we understand that things happen! We will not even ask you why you need to drop out, we will just say thank you for letting us know and then we will pass your recipients prompts on to a pinch hitter. No drama at all, and nothing to feel anxious about. No one will even know that you dropped out unless you tell them. Gifts are kept anonymous until posting day, and your recipient will still receive a gift regardless of whether you are able to provide it or not.

#winterhawk #winterhawk wonderland #FAQs

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mdmaayon · 4 years ago

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10 Digital Marketing Tips and Tricks from Top Brands

There is no doubt that digital marketing or online marketing is crucial when it comes to the success of any business no matter what industry you are in. Unlike the past where businesses used traditional advertising, today, they are not as effective as online advertising and this has pushed many businesses to adopt online advertising to reach customers. Online marketing is the way to go if you want to reach and create a connection with customers.

Gone are the days when it was difficult to understand what customers want. Today, with the increase in tools such as analytics and digital marketing software, it is far easier to guess — nay, estimate — customer behavior… and cater to it! Online marketing has enabled businesses to gain treasured insights to customers’ minds.

When implemented in the right way, digital marketing will enable your business to target and reach its customers, classify new ones, increase sales, and experience lasting growth.

These digital marketing approaches will make your business visible to your existing customers online and connect you with new ones.

What is Digital Marketing Today?

Digital marketing is the use of the internet and electronic devices to make your business known to your existing and new customers both locally and internationally. It is a means of advertising done through digital platforms like social media, email, mobile apps, websites and search engines.

It today’s digital world, marketing is about connecting with your prospective customers in the right place and at the desired time, selling them with goods and service they need at the right time. This means that you need to target them where they spend most of their time and in this case, it is the internet. Digital marketing encompasses a range of marketing activities such as content marketing, email marketing, search engine optimization, mobile marketing and more.

That being said, below, we’ve compiled a list of the digital marketing tricks used by all the famous business brands in the world.

1. Combine SEO and Content Marketing

SEO used to be a function of coding. Today, most of the metrics included in Google’s algorithm have to do with content and the engagement you win through the distribution of great content. Using various types of content (visual, text, video, infographics, audio, etc) does much better than using a single type of content.

More content – As more businesses embrace content marketing, competition continues to get tougher. Everything you do online is drowned in noise and information overload. If it’s SEO many businesses are doing it. If it’s posting good and original content, many are doing it. So, to beat them, you need to publish better and more content. According to HubSpot data, publishing at least once a week is critical for ROI and ROI drops pretty precipitously when you publish less frequently. However, it’s not about quantity or quality, but an ideal mix of both.

Valuable content – Content should be entertaining, informative, or make the reader feel something. Valuable content encourages subscription to your email, sharing, comments, and other actions that contribute to ROI.

Original content – Content can be audio, video or text but when you decide to use one or all of these digital content, ensure it is good and original. If you can’t create unique, compelling and good content by yourself, you can hire an expert to create content for your website and social media platforms. This is where you will need a powerful content marketing plan like never before.

Appropriate content – As you can see from this infographic from Occam’s Razor, you need to produce content that’s right for each stage in the conversion process (and your metrics need to match your goal with each piece of content).

Knowing where a visitor is in the conversion process isn’t always easy, but, if you’ve done a good job of coding content (applying tracking codes so you know what type of content drove them to visit your site) and use tools that let you track where visitors have been before, you can make an educated guess as to what content they need. By delivering the right content at the right time, you’re more likely to convert visitors.

Reach is important. The more visitors you bring to your site, all things being equal, the higher your ROI. This is one of the reasons it’s important to have several social platforms and have links on your content so visitors can easily share your content. You should share your content once it’s published and here’s a schedule recommended by Kissmetrics:

In addition to sharing your own content, you should share content created by other great companies/ experts. Many experts recommend you share 20% your promotional content and 80% other valuable content you find.

2. Have a Visible Presence on Relevant Social Media Platforms

Being seen online is the key to success for every business, especially in today’s world where almost all businesses have gone digital. It is one of the ways to stand out from the crowd. For this reason, you need to build your online presence on social media networks of relevance. Note that there are plenty of social networks available but you need to identify where your customers spend most of their time and target them there. Pick those that are relevant to your business and prospects and build your online presence there.

3. Optimize Your Website for Mobile-First Browsing

To ensure your content is mobile friendly, your website and social media networks are accessible on desktops and mobile devices. Customers are currently using smartphones and tablets to access the web. So, it is crucial to make your website and content accessible to users on all screen sizes.

4. Use the Right Tools

Digital marketing is an amalgamation of different strategies aimed at a plethora of channels, like SEO, PPC, social media, and so on. In order to ensure that you have an integrated marketing mix, you need the right digital marketing tools to help you run effective campaigns. You also need to develop expertise in using them and applying the insights in the right context.

5. Be Awesome at Design

Design underpins much of what makes digital marketing success. Whether you’re designing a website, a landing page or creating an image for your website, ad, or infographic, you need to have good design skills. Not all of us are whiz kids when it comes to design, but there are some tools to help.

Canva – is a great tool for creating social media images whether you need them for your profile or as images to include in posts. One aspect of Canva I really like is the templates that help design great looking images even if you know nothing about layout or what fonts go together. They’re constantly adding new images and tools, such as infographic templates, to help you out.

Photoshop – granted it’s expensive, but Photoshop is a great design tool. Luckily, you can now get the entire creative cloud from Adobe for as low as $29/ month if you’re in school and a little more to use for business. It used to be more difficult to use Photoshop, but now there are tons of tutorials on YouTube and Photoshop now includes little mini tutorials if you hover over the buttons.

Kuler – If mixing colors isn’t your forte, then Adobe Color is for you. It lets you import an image and get the colors used or you can choose a color to get colors that coordinate well with it.

6. Create an Email List

This should be done from the beginning of your business. If you are on the startup phase, you need to make an email list when planning. Ensure to gather people’s emails where you will be sending them any updates and progress of your business. Send them useful information but avoid spamming them.

7. Spend on Digital Advertising

Online advertising, including PPC (pay per click) campaigns such as Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, social media advertising on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter, and mobile ads are great to support digital marketing success.

8. Use Infographics

People love infographics because they are attractive. Note that our brains can process pictures must quicker than text. A picture is worth a thousand words, and people will share them more often than texts.

Here are some examples of the best content infographics that awesome marketers have created and used to resonate with their audience.

9. Closely Watch Your Analytics

Almost the other end of the spectrum from creativity is analytics, but that’s exactly the combination you need for digital marketing success. Google Analytics is perfect for understanding critical elements of your website and how visitors navigate through it. If you’re trying to learn how to gain insights from Google Analytics, you can use the Google Data Studio to give it a test drive using data from Google’s e-commerce site.

For analytics outside of Google Analytics, a number of great tools exist. You can use individual analytics from each social network (ie. Facebook, Pinterest, etc), you can bring them all to one place by using a dashboard program such as Cognos (from IBM), or you can pay for a more powerful tool to gain more insights.

10. Integrate Strategies and Campaigns Across Channels

Integrating across these tactics can be really challenging, especially in a larger firm where different teams may manage different platforms or where different ad agencies handle different aspects of marketing, such as content marketing, paid, and social. But, integrate you must to achieve true digital marketing success.

#digital marketing #internet marketing #digital marketing tips

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evalenz11847483-blog · 5 years ago

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Google Images

Have to convert files with out downloading software? 2 Choose "WAV" from the drop-down checklist of "Convert information to:" underneath "Audio Codecs". Awesome device for www.audio-transcoder.com Music Lovers: Convert any audio from video or MP4 to WAV audio file from internet & convert it into any audio format. We've got developed a instrument that can do that conversion routinely and convert all incorrect audio recordsdata in your 3CX Installation. Click on on the blue button Convert Now" to begin the conversion. After the progress bar is 100%, remember to attend until the loop circling around the iPhone icon stops. Then, you will discover the WAV audio file in each the folder you beforehand set and in the video App in your iPhone. Often occasions the notions of codec and format are used as interchangeable. Especially when a format all the time makes use of a single codec. However, it's needed to understand the difference between a format and a codec. In easy phrases, a format may be in comparison with a container during which a sound or a video sign can be stored using a specific codec.

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smartbitcoin-blog · 6 years ago

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Where You Can Buy Bitcoin In Dubai

Now that you have an idea of what Bitcoin is, let’s get back to our main agenda – how you can acquire this cryptocurrency while in Dubai, UAE and the greater Middle East. There are many options, but we will take you through the most accessible routes. There are three main exchanges you can use to purchase Bitcoin in the Middle East. These are:

Regal Assets (read more) – Precious metals firm specializing in cryptoassets

LocalBitcoins (read more) – Buy and sell Bitcoin with local merchants

BitOasis (read more) – Tested cryptocurrency exchange

More Options

Note: Remember that each of these exchanges has their Pros and Cons, which we will look at, so weigh your options depending on your needs.

Buying Bitcoin Through Regal Assets

Regal Assets is a prominent precious metals custodian and dealer that is well known among investors for its customer service and state of the art security. Investors can invest in Alternative Assets like cryptocurrency & precious metals which are stored in ultra-secure offshore vaults located in a crypto-friendly jurisdiction. Regal is insured by the Lloyd’s of London.

Regal Assets is the world’s first government licensed and insured cryptoasset investment company in Dubai and the surrounding Saudi Arabian peninsula.

Within Regal Assets, they have two main programs for investing in Alternative Assets. The Regal IRA gives investors access to invest in precious metals such as Gold, Silver, Platinum and Palladium in large quantities along with cryptoassets. Regal Cryptos is available for international investors to safely invest in alternative assets with cash such as Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Litecoin (LTC), Ripple (XRP), Ethereum (ETH), Ethereum Classic (ETC), Stellar Lumens (XLM) and privacy cryptoassets Monero (XMR), Zcash (ZEC) and Dash.

Currently, they are the only company in the world to offer an Alternative Assets IRA with both precious metals and cryptocurrency (Regal IRA). Together these combine to make the company a great resource for those who want a balanced portfolio and diversification within their Alternative Investment.

Since this platform offers a unique way to purchase Bitcoin, it boasts many benefits for investors. One of the most striking things about Regal Assets is the cold storage and offline wallet that they offer. When you purchase Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, your private keys are stored in a cold wallet securely located away from any natural disaster, emergency or government confiscation.

The company is responsible for safe keeping including transportation and vault security. Regal works directly with the government of Dubai and the Dubai Multi Commodities Centre (DMCC).

Investment Programs

The Regal IRA program is the world’s first Alternative Assets IRA that gives investors the power to invest in both hard assets (precious metals) and digital assets (cryptocurrencies).

The Regal Cryptos grants international investors the ability to make cash investments in the cryptocurrency of their choosing (minimum $5,000) and store the private keys within secure vaults.

How To Make An Investment With Regal Assets:

Investing in Bitcoin with the company is simple.

Step 1: Create an account. Visit the company’s official website and sign up, ensuring that you fill out all of your details correctly. There are three steps in the account creation: (1) Account holder information, (2) Birth information, and (3) Source of funds.

Step 2: Once you are given access, fill out the provided form, and your account will be reviewed and set up within 24 hours.

Step 3: The next step is to fund your account, which is a simple process.

Step 4: Once complete, the job is on the company’s side to process and deliver your investment. They will load your account and proceed to put the funds in cold storage for the utmost security.

Step 5: At any time, feel free to call your personal company representative for updates on your account.

Summary: Remember to always do your due diligence as an investor, however, it seems that Regal Assets has developed a virtually flawless platform for long-term Bitcoin investments. Regal Cryptos is available for international investors to safely invest in alternative assets with cash such as Bitcoin (BTC), Ripple (XRP), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Stellar Lumens (XLM), and privacy cryptoassets, Monero (XMR), Zcash (ZEC) and Dash among others. Through the Regal IRA, investors have the power to invest in cryptoassets and precious metals including Gold, Silver, Platinum and Palladium.

Get Started Now Learn More

If you would like to visit the company in person while in Dubai, here is their company information:

Regal Assets Company Information:

Address: Almas Tower, Suite 36-F Jumeirah Lake Towers Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Phone: 001-833-863-2020

International Investors: www.regalcryptos.com

Home: www.regalassets.com

Years in Business: 9 Years

Regal Assets is a proud member of the BBB and BCA and holds the highest rating a company can obtain from the BBB and BCA. Regal Assets has been a featured member of the BCA due to their high level of customer service. With a 5 star out of 5-star customer service review and over 711 reviews, Regal Assets has earned a preferred membership status with TrustLink. Inc. Magazine has ranked Regal Assets No. 20 in the United States for financial services landing Regal Assets on the Inc. Magazine 500 List, an exclusive ranking of the nation’s fastest-growing private companies. As an industry leader, Regal Assets has attracted the support and business of prominent figures and celebrities including Alan Thicke, Dennis Miller, Laura Ingraham, Jerry Doyle, Lars Larson, and Alan Colmes. Regal Assets has been featured in Smart Money, Forbes, Market Watch, Reuters, The Street, And the Hollywood Reporter.

Disclosure: The owners of this website may be paid for sales or leads generated from recommendations or links to various investment opportunities. We strongly recommend seeking the advice of your financial adviser before making any investment.

“Bitcoin is the beginning of something great: a currency without a government, something necessary and imperative. But I am not familiar with the specific product to assert whether it is the best potential setup. And we need a long time to establish confidence.” – Nassim Taleb, New York Times Best Selling Author

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Bitcoin In Dubai

Buying Bitcoin Through Regal Assets

Buying Bitcoins Using LocalBitcoins

Buying Bitcoins Using BitOasis

Buying Bitcoins Using LocalBitcoins

LocalBitcoins is a person-to-person Bitcoin trading platform with over 1,000,000+ active users in which local buyers and sellers can meet up and exchange Bitcoin (P2P). They serve 248 countries worldwide. Not only can you purchase Bitcoin in the UAE on LocalBitcoins, but also the rest of the Middle East including Bahrain, Cyprus, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, and Yemen.

CEO:Nicholas Kangas

Headquarters:Helsinki, Finland

Founders:Nicholas Kangas, Jeremias Kangas

Founded:2012

Customer service:

Contact Support

LocalBitcoins serves as a marketplace where you can buy Bitcoin from local sellers and have the ability to haggle for a favorable price. The platform is unique in that it has a reputation and feedback system for buyers and sellers along with an escrow and conflict resolution service. The platform is simple to use and fun to navigate. It is easy for a registered trader in just about any city or country around the world to locate and find a nearby Bitcoin merchant.

Registering, buying and selling Bitcoin on LocalBitcoins is completely free and getting verified is fast and only requires (1) E-mail, (2) Phone number or (3) Identity verification. Every Bitcoin seller has a rating, so when it comes to performing a transaction your choices are flexible and can be instant. There are hundreds of options for payment including cash, credit card, cashier’s check, gift card, postal mail, MoneyGram, PayPal, Western Union, Venmo, Square Cash, Walmart 2 Walmart, QIWI, Payoneer, Payza, Xoom, MobilePay, Chase QuickPay, Google Wallet, WebMoney, Vanilla and various cryptocurrencies. Users who create advertisements are charged a 1% fee for every completed trade.

Each account can be secured with Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) which can be enabled within the Google Authenticator app or with a paper code. Getting in touch with customer support is easily accessible and response times are fast.

The best aspect of the marketplace is that every user has their own web wallet.

How To Get Started On LocalBitcoins:

Step 1: Sign up on the site and use a secure password. The website shows Bitcoin sellers within your city or region regardless of whether or not you have an account. It is recommended that you list yourself to enjoy the escrow services that the platform offers.

Step 2: Once you have signed in, go ahead and search for local Bitcoin sellers in the ‘Buy’ section. You will likely see many offers with different payment options. Now, your job is just to hit Buy, ensuring that the user you select has a favorable rating (preferably more than 90%), for a swift trade.

LocalBitcoins Sellers in UAE

Step 3: When you click Buy*, you will go to a page with details about the terms of trade (created by the seller), information on trade limits, payment methods, and some fields, where you need to enter either the number of Bitcoins you wish to purchase or the amount of money in AED. There’s also a chat section where you can add more information. When you complete filling these fields, hit, “Send trade request.’

*Alternatively, you can directly message the seller to schedule a time and place to meet up.

Step 4: The Bitcoin seller will now receive a notification of your request, and the number of Bitcoins you intend to buy will credit from their account to LocalBitcoin’s escrow service. They will also respond on the chat section, asking you to send the payment. Don’t worry about anything – go ahead and make the payment. Once you finish, click on the confirmation on the bottom right of the page.

Step 5: Once the seller confirms payment, the Bitcoins will release and reflect in your account. LocalBitcoins saves the chats for some time should you return with a complaint about the transaction.

You now have Bitcoin in your possession or within your web wallet.

Conclusion: LocalBitcoins is an excellent option for those who want to perform a same-day trade with a local seller in Dubai or anywhere in the world. Not only does LocalBitcoins have an easily navigable site, but also their user management system makes it easy to vet and review other buyers & sellers. Overall, LocalBitcoins has no fees and is an effective platform for purchasing Bitcoin from nearby merchants using just about any payment method out there. If you want to learn more about LocalBitcoins feel free to read our full review here.

“At its core, bitcoin is a smart currency, designed by very forward-thinking engineers. It eliminates the need for banks, gets rid of credit card fees, currency exchange fees, money transfer fees, and reduces the need for lawyers in transitions… all good things.” – Peter Diamandis, CEO of the X PRIZE Foundation

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Bitcoin In Dubai

Buying Bitcoin Through Regal Assets

Buying Bitcoins Using LocalBitcoins

Buying Bitcoins Using BitOasis

BitOasis is a bitcoin consumer wallet and instant exchange focused on cash-based emerging markets in the Middle East & North Africa. The multi-signature BitOasis Wallet (available on Android and iOS) also provides the highest level of security. It is the first platform to offer cryptocurrency buying, selling and trading services in the Middle East serving the entire Gulf region including the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia.

CEO:Ola Doudin

Headquarters:Dubai, UAE

Founders:Ola Doudin, Daniel Robenek

Founded:2015

Customer service:

Frequently Asked Questions

Another attractive alternative to LocalBitcoins if you are in the Dubai region is BitOasis. Albeit it does not feature nearby merchants, BitOasis is an excellent trading exchange for instantly buying, selling and trading Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies once registered and verified on the platform.

With BitOasis one can easily get started with buying Bitcoin in UAE Dirham (AED). When you sign up to BitOasis, you will instantly gain access to your BitOasis wallet, which allows you to buy and sell Bitcoin securely. All other digital assets can be stored on the Trading Platform only. Local and international deposits have a minimum amount of 300 AED. All other questions can be answered from within the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page.

Not only does BitOasis have a clean and relaxed interface, but also their iOS and Android apps help to make the exchange a fun and accessible experience. On BitOasis, you can buy, sell and trade Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Bitcoin Cash ABC (BCH), Bitcoin Cash SV (BSV), Ripple (XMR), Litecoin (LTC), ZCash (ZEC), Monero (XMR), Ethereum Classic (ETC), and Stellar (XLM). The BitOasis wallet helps to make the process of purchasing and holding cryptocurrency as enjoyable as possible.

BitOasis is a great option for quickly and efficiently purchasing BTC on the go. If you are in the Middle East and/or North Africa we recommend getting started with BitOasis as it is the premier bitcoin asset exchange in the region, and will continue to grow for the foreseeable future. The withdrawal feature is available for BitOasis traders in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Bahrain only. Those located in Dubai will find BitOasis easily accessible to meet their needs.

How To Get Started On BitOasis:

Step 1: Sign up on the platform, and ensure you use a secure password.

Step 2: In order to proceed with the purchase, you will have to create a voucher so that you can exchange it for the number of bitcoins you want. To do this, you will need to make a payment via credit card or bank transfer. The credit card takes less time and is the most recommended method. Bank transfer is cheaper but will for some time before confirmation.

Step 3: Click on the Buy Bitcoin tab found on the left side of the page, input the amount (voucher amount) as well as the payment method, in this case, credit card, and then hit Next. The charges will be around 6%, so you will pay a processing fee of 300 AED for Bitcoins worth 500 AED. Check that the transaction details displayed on the voucher correctly reflect the number of Bitcoins you want to buy.

Step 4: Confirm the payments by clicking “Proceed With Payment,” and you will redirect to the platform’s payment gateway, where you will need to fill in your credit card details. Click on the “Pay Now” tab and wait for verification of the transaction. This could take anywhere from a few minutes to 15 minutes, depending on the number of requests.

Step 5: Done! After some time, you will see the Bitcoins in your BitOasis wallet.

Conclusion: Overall, the BitOasis interface is user-friendly and makes it simple for new visitors to navigate and purchase cryptocurrency quickly. The BitOasis Wallet works seamlessly with the exchange and is also available on the iOS app store, so you can check your funds anywhere you go.

“Every informed person needs to know about Bitcoin because it might be one of the world’s most important developments.” — Leon Luow, Nobel Peace Prize nominee

Other Options For Buying Bitcoins In Dubai And The United Arab Emirates

Regal Assets, LocalBitcoins and BitOasis are not the only exchanges where you can buy Bitcoins in Dubai and the rest of the UAE – they are just the most popular in the region. If you want to explore other options, you can also go on Paxful, Coinmama, and/or CEX.IO. If you are international, Coinbase is a great option too.

Purchasing Bitcoin in Dubai becomes easier with the use of various exchanges, including those that we have covered. And as with any other investment, make sure you secure yours by keeping all your information within a cold storage wallet. If you want to purchase Gold and other precious metals in addition to Bitcoin the Regal IRA is an excellent option.

Conclusion

For those in the UAE looking for a trusted Bitcoin seller in Dubai, you will want to do your proper research before making a purchase decision. Hopefully, this guide has offered a way for you to learn about your options and how you can invest in cryptocurrency while in Dubai, UAE.

If you go for LocalBitcoins (view site), be careful when dealing with sellers and only go for reputable ones. If you decide to go with BitOasis(view site), make sure that you use due diligence to verify your identity and set up your account. Lastly, if you want to store a high-volume of cryptocurrency with maximum security, seriously consider investing with Regal Assets (view site).

Our Top Recommendation

9.9REGAL ASSETS9.9/10

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#where you can buy bitcoin in dubai

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hub-pub-bub · 6 years ago

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For digital publishers, SEO is the process of getting more readers for their magazines, whether it is for the latest news or evergreen content. The prime goal is to improve the click-through rate on organic search engine results.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a sequence of improvements the online visibility of a website in a web search engine’s unpaid results (also called “natural”, “organic”, or “earned” results). In general, the higher your website is ranking on the search results page, the more people have a chance to see it.

Even if your website appears on the first page of search results, the click-through rate can continue to be low – CTR under 4% means that you get really small traffic, which is probably reflected on your business statistics and… revenues.

How to change it?

Forget about SEO you’ve known so far.

Yes, you read that right. Forget about clichéd golden SEO rules you’ve seen on the internet many times and focus on optimization techniques which will result in attracting better-targeted visitors to your website keeping the high position in SERPs.

If you want to know how to make your website visible and often-clicked, you’ve come to the right place.

Higher means better?

Well, not exactly.

The process of optimization is a game of getting the users’ attention, among thousands of different search results which they received. Online publishing businesses have to employ different tactics to increase their chances of being noticed in search results pages. It’s nothing else than the art of standing out from the crowd.

According to Ezoic research, SEO process understood as building high-quality traffic is the priority for publishers in 2019.

SEO is the priority for digital publishers in 2019.

In the question about the highest priorities for publishers in 2019, over 50% of the respondents selected “SEO” or “Audience growth and marketing”. It highlights how important the ability to increase the audience is. What’s more, the two above-mentioned issues will grow in popularity among publishers who also want to reduce reliance on exterior platforms for the majority of their traffic.

Stand out in the search results

Whenever you need something – information, a product, a review – what’s the first thing you usually do? You probably type your query into a search engine, right? Well, 93% of online experiences begin that way. After getting results, the next step is a click on one (or more) of them.

Let’s stay here a bit longer. What elements or circumstances determine your choice of a particular link?

In the further part of this article, we will identify the factors which we believe affect the click decision-making process. Our goal is to point out specific techniques which provide the publishers with a high position in SERPs and high CTR at the same time.

– What about paid search?

It will make your website visible at the top of search results as long as you pay for it. But organic search is more cost-effective in the long run and offers better value in search marketing. Natural traffic brings in highly-targeted, regular and more engaged visitors to your website, giving you higher credibility and a competitive edge.

SEO has ~20X more traffic opportunity than PPC on both mobile and desktop – it has been proved by Moz, the company providing inbound marketing and marketing analytics software subscriptions.

The difference in paid vs. organic CTR on mobile compared to desktop.

Activities leading to search position improvement can be divided into two categories:

optimizations which directly affect the position in SERPs,

changes influencing the behavior of people who see a list of search results.

Only combining one with the other brings valuable and long-term effects without spending money. What is more, such changes as title tags modification give immediate results.

Title tags first impression

It’s basically the result of a search – the first contact between the brand and the seekers. A title tag is a major part in the decision making the process, often determining whether people will click on your result or not, so it’s necessary to optimize it well – only then your website can rise to the top of the search engine results. It’s how the beginning of every relationship works – the first impression matters!

Title tags give a strong signal what the page is about, and provide better understanding of the website content, for both people and search engines bots. Making the tags catchy and distinctive leads to a high position in SERPs and improves the chance that people click on it.

Think about those title tags as direct messages dedicated to your ideal customers. To increase the number of clicks, create them in accordance with a few rules:

Title tags are the essence of your pages. They should include specific information about what people will find on the website after they click.

The sum of all characters including spaces should not exceed 90 characters. If your title is too long, search engines may cut it off.

Title tags have to include keywords – the more frontal their position, the better. However, overdoing them is unnecessary and counterproductive.

Why do I use the plural form – “title tags” – everywhere? It’s for a good reason.

Every page on your website is unique and your title tags should reflect that. Make sure you customize the title tags on each page of your website so that they accurately describe what’s on that specific page. Ryan Stewart from Webris recommends using a slightly different tactics in creating title tags for home and landing pages:

Home page: Brand Name + Primary Keyword + Secondary Keyword

Landing pages: Primary Keyword + Secondary Keyword + Brand Name

The pro tip to boost your visibility among the rest of the search results is to use special characters – # – & : % – which drastically help to break up the visual monotony of the SERPs. From a technical point of view, it won’t influence a position in a search engine but will provide distinction among the competitors.

In order to execute these tactics successfully, firstly you need to identify the keywords relevant to your brand, and the keywords people usually search for. The key is to understand the needs of the seekers, the language they use and the type of content they look for. Talk with your customers, take a look at forums or social media groups.

You can customize search engine campaigns starting your own keyword research with a tool called Keyword Planner by Google. It’s great for both paid and organic search and completely free to use. Then, you can test a different one, like Keyword Explorer created by SEO experts from Moz.

Hint: If you want to attract clicks from well-targeted visitors who know what they’re looking for, focus on long-tail keywords. They are more precise and will increase the number of customers who are deeper in the sales funnel.

How to find the right keywords in a few easy steps?

Publishers often ask themselves which keywords will help them with SEO optimization. The answer is closer than they might think, and I’ll prove it in a little while. The point is to have a little peek at the competition. And this is where Google Keyword Planner takes the first chair. Thanks to this tool you can see which keywords your competitors use for their web positioning strategy. The goal is to borrow their ideas, even for a while.

Let’s go.

Start Keyword Planner.

Click on “Find new keywords” and then type in the competitive website’s address.

To set an example, we’ll check how popular are search results related to Apple News on Apple website. That’s why we type the following URL into search toolbar: www.apple.com

Then, we click “get started” and receive the entire list of keywords ideas with a graphical representation of the current search trend, and the number of searches, which gives us an overview of the popularity of the phrase.

The list of phrases obtained in this way can be downloaded by clicking the “Download Keywords Ideas” button.

The downloaded .csv file can be imported into Excel where you can manage a list of keywords, e.g sort them by the number of searches.

Thanks to this quick and easy way, you can have an excellent anchor point to create a high-quality list of keywords for your business.

The main advantage of title tag changes is immediacy of its influence on website rankings – both declines and hikes. That’s why all modifications require tracking. It’s important to measure the impact of the title changes on your own site.

– Do meta-descriptions impact the position in SERPs too?

Meta descriptions are not factored into Google’s ranking algorithms, however, they have an impact on a page’s CTR which can increase the page’s ability to rank. As well as title tags, meta-descriptions also allow people and search engines to better understand the content of the page. This brief summary of a web page functions as an advertising copy and its goal is to encourage people to click.

Hint: Google and other search engines bold keywords in the meta-description when they match search queries. It can catch attention. Match your descriptions to search terms as closely as possible to maximize click-through rates on search engine result pages.

As with title tags, it’s important that meta descriptions on each of your pages are unique, and adjust to the page’s content. Adapt backlinks to content concerns as well.

Backlinks – clean them up

If many websites link to yours, the clear signal is sent to search engines:

“Hey, Google, look how many pages link to this website, it’s something valuable! Let’s put it higher.”

Backlinks from other websites have a huge influence on historical page ranks. If relevant websites link to your pages, your brand receives “special points” from Google. The result is that during the searching process your domain gets higher rankings.

– What does “relevant websites” mean?

Let’s assume that you run a sports magazine and you’ve got a lot of backlinks from websites dedicated to fashion. This is the moment when Google says:

“Something is wrong. I haven’t already trust you!”

And then it removes your website from the Google index or devalues your rankings.

When the algorithm finds that your website has a lot of backlinks from places which are unrelated to your topic, your page’s potential will be reduced. Backlinks which lead to your website from spammy or low-quality pages are called bad and hurt your domain. Links should always come from topically similar websites. For a sports magazine, a good backlink is from a website about football.

To get searches trust and, as a result, appear higher in SERPs, it’s necessary to find and remove bad backlinks linking to your website. You can do it thanks to Google Search Console. This tool is a free service that helps you monitor, maintain, and troubleshoot your site’s presence in Google Search results. After connecting it with Google Analytics, you will receive very important data about site search, phrases, keywords, positions, etc.

Google Search Console allows make your website look great in search results.

– Is it possible to be very high in SERPs without backlinks?

Yes, although it’s still related to links.

Building a strong structure of internal links increases a chance to be higher in search engines. The way it works is that subpages with strong content, searched by long-tail keywords are arranged in structures that go from the detailed to the general. Look at this table:

The idea is that every subpage type 1 collects value from many smaller, more detailed subpages (type 2 and 3). When subpage type 1 links to the home page, Google receives a signal that there are many interesting subpages about your topic that pass the value of the main page.

This website structure builds a trust connection between the search engine and your pages which become reliable and worthy of attention. There’s one more thing which can deepen it.

Brand awareness gets you higher

Imagine that you’re searching for some product. One of the results is a brand you know/heard about, another is a brand you don’t have any connection with. Which one would you click?

It doesn’t matter how familiar you are with the first brand – you will click it, because of some little piece of information about this brand in the back of your mind. Your role as a publisher is to make sure that people have this piece of information about your business in their minds.

When you create great content and run a readable magazine, the internet starts talking about you. Every positive opinion about your brand has a big influence on your search position.

How does it work?

The better opinions you have, the more people look for you and the higher Google puts your website. Building brand recognition thanks to social media such as Twitter or Facebook (depending on the target group) works in a similar way. People see a great, branded video on their newsfeed and then look for it in a search engine. Consequently, Google gets a strong signal that people look at this brand, so it can be something really important and valuable.

Double trust

A while ago, to stay on the market, the publishers had to build trust only in people. Today they should do it also with Google.

Optimizing title tags and meta-descriptions, taking care of backlinks’ quality and building appropriate website structure are ways to deal with the second issue. Stunning and long-term effects can be achieved when you improve both of them. There’s one magical, strong force which no algorithm update can change – having readers on your side.

#seo #Digital Publishing #marketing #magazine publishing #how to

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viktorbezic · 6 years ago

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Double Dribbble: Losing Out To Homogenous Design

I’m not deliberately trying to single out dribbble here. Dribbble is typically used as the poster child and a culprit for homogenous design. Not gonna lie. I wanted to use the title Double Dribbble, while also highlighting what happens when we all use the same sources of online inspiration. IE. The sea of sameness effect. After the demise of FFFFound where I’d uncover all sorts of new visuals, there were no platforms that provided serendipitous discovery until Are.na came along. But getting offline, going through old books, traveling, making trips to galleries, looking at things from different disciplines helps. If your only source of inspiration are the most popular Dribbble shots, or the top UI Pinterest boards, algorithmically served, of course, it’s very likely you’ll come up with something that looks just like the sum total of what you’ve consumed. Ideas come from different recombinations of existing ideas and knowledge. This is true of all creative disciplines. The more unique the combination, the higher the chance of leading to a significant breakthrough (1).

There are many culprits from an over-reliance on data, a focus on utilitarianism, the re-use of the same frameworks, and designing templates without a feel for the content. Why am I writing about this? Hasn’t this piece been done before? Sure it has. But every now again I get bored to tears by digital and UI design and go on the hunt for folks who are pushing the boundary. It’s also a good exercise to re-ignite my own interest in a design discipline that I’ve been involved some, way shape or form over the past decade. I share a similar sentiment to Marc Kremers, “Too many sites are just exercises in good, generically appealing taste. Anyone can do that. It’s super boring.” (2)

I’ve reflected on how we got here not only to push myself but to also highlight some of the pieces I go back to and re-read. Disclaimer: I’ve been guilty of going the templated approach on side projects I’ve launched. I also use a bought template on Tumblr. I’m in the process of rolling my own. So I’m part of the problem as well.

How we got here.

Clean, workable, well-designed interfaces are the baseline. When you get to this point, you’re not finished. There’s still more to be done. I’ve re-read Yaaron Schoen’s piece “In Defense of Homogenous Design” and do agree with some of Schoen’s points. There are some learned behaviors and existing digital design paradigms. Examples include, pull to refresh, swipe to dismiss, underlined hyperlinks, etc. The argument as Schoen presents them go something like this: “This is great. We’re teaching people how to use digital products and if your digital product looks similar, all good. Jackets look the same, we know where the pockets are.” It makes sense, but my gut feeling is this line of thinking can stop us from really evolving a design (3). I know some restraint needs to be exercised so care needs to be taken as you select the right opportunities to level up on. There needs to be some expressive elements and a human touch. If all we did were the basics we wouldn’t need designers. All we would need are the UI frameworks to paint by numbers with.

We can’t always stick to existing paradigms.

There are instances when we can’t always stick to existing paradigms. One example was highlighted in a designer news thread by Renee P. that goes something like this: a decade ago people hadn’t heard of “pull to refresh” or “swipe to dismiss.” These new paradigms had to be invented (4). But with every new platform, the paradigms will need to be created or advance as the technology evolves. When I was working at a large holding company owned digital agency, I remember a VR commerce project we made for the high-end retailer. We’d demo it to our clients and teach them an entirely new paradigm for VR navigation (5). Staring at a diamond for a certain amount of time to advance the experience. Once folks learned it, it became second nature. I’m not big on VR but thought it was a good example from first-hand experience. There’s a host of new technologies we are still defining interfaces for. Some that have no UIs at all as with conversational interfaces and multiple dimensions when it comes to AR and mixed reality, etc. In the context of new platforms, screen-based interfaces may need to be recontextualized as people learn new behaviors and paradigms.

The other reason to break an existing paradigm is to infuse some sort of character into the product and put a unique spin on it. The question goes something like this, back to Schoen’s Jacket Principle, what if I don’t want to wear the same jacket as someone else, or design one like someone else? If I had a to design one, I might put extra pockets someplace else. Maybe there’s an act of discovery there. It’s about a point of view and bringing something unique to the table. As Alan Kay stated, “Point of View is worth 80 IQ points”. Which leads me to my next point.

An over-reliance on utilitarianism creates forgettable products.

Brett Bergeron, Creative Director at the digital product design studio This Also, presents an argument in his piece on “Good Enough Design” that we no longer have major constraints that bind us to just focusing on utilitarianism. And by not injecting personality into a digital product you fail to keep people’s attention. “More than ever, we are at a place in technology where interfaces can be utilitarian and emotionally expressive at the same time.” Bergeron uses This Also’s Google Dots case study as one of the examples. Injecting the search giant’s digital ecosystem with personality with the use of playful animations. Through an expressive logomark people understood when Google was doing something magical for them. He goes on to note that by not going beyond functional design a lot of products fall into the usable but forgettable category. A reason needs to be given to keep a product installed and opened again. As Bergeron notes, It’s worthwhile infusing the product with character so it’s differentiated. As a result, it protects the initial investment in building it (6).

Solely relying on web metrics discounts the team’s intuition and experience.

It’s been shown time an and again that a lot of digital metrics are bullshit. Especially with the increasing levels of bot traffic and fraudulent media buys. If you don’t have a core community of people using your product and you are heavily relying on media buys you may have a harder time trusting your metrics. Numerous studies are out with numbers showcasing billions of lost ad dollars to bots and click farms. The former CEO of Reddit came out confirming how bad the problem has become. Even Facebook isn’t able to identify genuine numbers.

You can’t do without metrics. We need them but it’s a single data point that needs to be paired with feedback from your community, user tests, research and any information to help set the appropriate context. Unfortunately, too many times I’ve seen clients afraid to make calls or provide their own point of view and instead fall back on metrics as a cover your ass tactic. “The numbers said so.” Also, let’s hypothetically say web metrics were accurate and bots didn’t exist. To use them exclusively to design anything results in sterile outcomes.

When folks do A/B or multivariate tests it’s typically done as a best effort approach. We question the design more than we do the science behind the testing and the reliability of the tests. It’s the combination of data (from multiple sources) and intuition together. Not taking the design team’s years of intuition and experience in coming up with a solution is a miss. Lastly, metrics are used to optimize for the local maximum. To make incremental improvements to an existing design. They can’t tell you whether or not you need a whole new design altogether.

Doing what you know will work.

There are many reasons why we fall into this trap. The independent digital designer and author Paul Jarvis attributes it to being victims of our own success. “Sometimes successful work can lead to less innovation, and then the real making stops. You become more like a factory production line than a meaningful creator.” We fall back on what works because it’s comfortable. Not only that, but we’d like to re-use as much work from the last time to get to the finish line faster. Do that enough you stunt your skills and growth, and start to lose touch. Boredom slowly sets in. This doesn’t mean we can’t leverage design patterns. It’s about determining how best to apply them (7).

Lack of diversity in thinking and experiences.

The digital artist and game designer, Morgane Santos not only points out that we are making more or less the same thing, but there’s also a cultural element here at play as well. IE. “The Designer Daves” of the world. Male, black wardrobe, 5-panel cap. The lack of people diversity in the digital design world produces one point of view. Diversity matters in producing work that’s different. Numerous studies show this. As Santos notes, “So, this whole designing with empathy thing? It literally cannot happen if all designers have the same background, the same look, the same style.” (8)

Marc Kremers echoed a similar sentiment and also related it back to the culture of being a designer, “I think designers naturally just want to fit in, have a nice, cute life, do nice, cute things. Work hard, be nice to people. Read Kinfolk. Raw denim. Beards. Flat Whites. Nice fonts, nice illustrations, nice design. Go with the flow. Just good, tasteful things, experiences, and activities. And before you know it, your life is an Instagram feed, literally indistinguishable to any other designer’s nice Instagram feed. You melted into the digital soup. I don’t know if this rant makes any sense, but I guess my awareness or fear of this singularity is just naturally percolating in my work. I’m a nice guy though.” (9)

This is an excellent reminder to collaborate with folks who aren’t exactly like you or at least to reach out for feedback and perspectives from more diverse groups. It takes effort. It’s way too easy to talk to folks that are just like you.

Disregarding Content

Another issue is not taking a holistic view of what we are designing for. Especially when it comes to content. I’ve listened to an Executive Creative Director once tell a team, “We’re great at making beautiful boxes without anything to put in them.” Very organized and thoughtful experience design without any regard for a greater concept, narrative or developing a paradigm that the best suits the content. Travis Gertz in ”Design Machines: How to Survive the Digital Apocalypse”, highlights the perils of not taking content and it’s unique needs to into consideration.

Gertz compares digital design to editorial design and highlights the emotive qualities editorial design historically has. The divergence between the disciplines is in the following areas: How systems are designed, How content is treated, and how we collaborate. In digital design, we nerd out on our CSS responsive grid frameworks, design systems and obsess over style guides and pattern libraries. The goal is typically to design for maximum template efficiency and component reuse. Unfortunately, this is where things end. In editorial design, the philosophy was slightly different. Editorial design systems are made for variation, not prescription.

Gertz also elaborates on how content is treated in the process. It’s not about content first or content last. It’s about the content’s connection to the design. In editorial design its standard practice for content creators and editors to work hand in hand while designing the system. Content development doesn’t come at a later stage to be plugged in once the design is done. It’s just as important as design and engineering. When digital products are built in an assembly line fashion and the boxes are built before the content exists we’ve missed an opportunity.

With the added complexity in digital design over editorial design, other design disciplines were created. User experience design was needed so that the flow of a site, application or product worked. As Gertz alludes to, this is another step in the assembly line where content isn’t carefully considered as there’s not enough collaboration between the creative disciplines. In digital design, a heavy emphasis is placed on dividing up roles by the stages of a project to gain efficiencies from each of the design disciplines. Unfortunately, this created more silos. As compared to editorial design. Where editorial designers knew the design stack from a system-level and how it laddered up to the expression of each piece of content.

Gertz boils down the problem to poor collaboration and a disregard for content. I know this type of tighter collaboration would be harder to scale, but a more editorial lens on things would help guide teams on what should be produced. There’s no need to create a component library of 30 components as a “just in case measure” if the current content only needs 5 of them (10).

Have a concept.

This is critical in other design disciplines. In digital design sometimes we can get away with not having a concept because if the thing works, no matter how basic or boring, you can check the box and tell everyone it works. Or you can fool yourself and everyone else with the cop-out that it’s an MVP (Minimum Viable Product). I remember being part of a large scale multi-brand platform redesign team. We had our very intelligent, engineering-minded UX team present the designs by nerding out on how flexible the components were and how great they looked across breakpoints. The clients were bored but did wind up asking some great questions, “How will our X product look in this thing?” and “What about X visuals that were unique to the brand? Will we have those?” Shame on me, shame on us. Making a site responsive or adding parallax scrolling isn’t a concept. A concept should give the team a guidepost when it comes to selecting grids, type, illustration and interaction paradigms. Developing a concept requires research and mining for an insight to ensure you’re in fact solving the right problem.

References

1. Batey, Mark. “How to Have Breakthrough Ideas.” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 20 July 2017, www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/working-creativity/201707/how-have-breakthrough-ideas.

2. “Exploring Digital Design | Marc Kremers, London.” Exploring Digital Design | Marc Kremers, London, Represent UK, digitaldesign.represent.uk.com/index.php/marc-kremers.

3. Schoen, Yaron. “In Defense of Homogeneous Design — Yaron Schoen — Medium.” Medium.com, Medium, 16 Mar. 2016, medium.com/@yarcom/in-defense-of-homogeneous-design-b27f79f4bb87.

4. Schiff, Eli. “In Defense of Homogeneous Design — Designer News.” Open Sans and Baskerville (Libre… — If You Had to Choose 1 Font Pair to Use for the Rest of Your Life –, Developer News, 21 Mar. 2016, www.designernews.co/stories/65889-in-defense-of-homogeneous-design.

5. Publicis Sapient North America. “‘The Apartment — Virtual Reality Retail Experience’ for Retail and E-Commerce (by Publicis Sapient North America).” The Best and Largest Global Advertising Agency Directory & Creative Library — AdForum, Adforum, www.adforum.com/agency/6644039/creative-work/34520718/the-apartment-virtual-reality-retail-experience/sapientnitro-retail-and-e-commerce.

6. Bergeron, Brett. “Good Enough Design — Brett Bergeron — Medium.” Medium.com, Medium, 20 Sept. 2016, medium.com/this-also/good-enough-design-29ab5132f3a3.

7. “Everything I Know.” Everything I Know, by Paul Jarvis, Paul Jarvis, 2013, p. 102.

8. Santos, Morgane. “The Unbearable Homogeneity of Design — Morgane Santos — Medium.” Medium.com, Medium, 10 Mar. 2016, medium.com/@morgane/the-unbearable-homogeneity-of-design-fe1a44d48f3d.

9. “Exploring Digital Design | Marc Kremers, London.” Exploring Digital Design | Marc Kremers, London, Represent UK, digitaldesign.represent.uk.com/index.php/marc-kremers.

10. Gertz, Travis. “Design Machines.” Louder Than Ten, 18 Sept. 2018, louderthanten.com/coax/design-machines.

#my writing #long reads #ux #uxdesign #ui #digital design

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bloomuwebdev-blog · 6 years ago

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Online Personal Security

Source: https://www.bioedge.org/bioethics/no-privacy-in-a-transhumanist-future-says-former-presidential-candidate/12759

Online security is one of, if not the biggest concern for a lot of internet users. Personal info is left scattered online, payment details, browsing history, chat logs, and much more. While there are things you can do to increase your security online, you never are truly 100% safe. Here are some general tips you can use to further increase your online security as well as how they get bypassed.

· Secure your personal network – Having an unsecure network at home is the equivalent of having your front door completely unlocked at night! A secure network provides protection to the traffic going through your router. Applying any protection is better than having no security at all. One of the most common encryptions used a few years back was WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy).

Source: https://www.wirelesshack.org/step-by-step-kali-linux-and-wireless-hacking-basics-wep-hacking-part-3.html

How it’s broken - Since then WEP has been proven to be vulnerable to attack, it isn’t recommended to use. It can be used in 64-bit strength and 128-bit strength. 256-bit has been introduced as well, but you hardly ever see it implemented, if ever. In 64-bit WEP it has a secret key of 40 bits and an initialization vector of 24 bits. In 128-bit WEP this increases to 104-bit secret key and the initialization vector is still the same at 24-bits. There are two methods to breaking WEP. We’re only going to cover one, the FMS attack. The attack is named after Fluhrer, Mantin, and Shamir. It’s based on a flaw of the RC4 encryption algorithm. The three discovered that since throughout the different sizes of WEP and the fact that they all used the same initialization vector this limits the possibility of initialization vectors to 16 million. Of all those combinations, 9000 of them were found to be weak. If one were to collect enough of these IV’s, you can recreate the key needed to connect to the network. You’re probably wondering how people collect these IV’s in the first place. This is where monitor mode comes in. This is a special mode that is available on all wireless cards, you just need software to tell your wireless card to go into this mode. Once it’s in monitor mode, you can use your wireless card to collect wireless packets that are transmitting between your computer and your router. After collecting 5 million packets or so (this takes about 10 minutes tops) you’ll have collected 3000 IV’s, roughly. These packets are then passed through a program that will calculate the first byte of the WEP key. The procedure is then repeated until the full key is discovered.

Is there another option? – Yes! WPA was passed as the standard later after WEP was proven to be broken. This as well was proven to be vulnerable to other forms of attack. This is when WPA2 was introduced. WPA2 is secure for the most part. It’s vulnerable to dictionary-based attack. This involves having a massive list of possible passwords and hammering the router with these passwords until you get lucky. Later on the in the lifespan of WPA2 there was a discovery in the WPS (Wi-Fi Protected Setup) feature in most routers. To be clear, this isn’t a fault in WPA2, this is a weakness in WPS.

How it’s broken, again – A WPS Pin is 8 digits long, the last digit is used as a checksum for the previous 7 digits. This means 107 = 10,000,000 million possible combinations. Surely, this is a ridiculous number of pins to test and go through, correct? When a pin is tested, it’s split in 2 parts, the first 4 digits are checked and if it passes, the following 4 digits (3 technically since the last digit is used as a checksum) are checked as well. 104 = 10,000 possible tests for the first half of the WPS pin. This is much more reasonable to brute-force and check. Once the first half is found, the following 3 digits are brute-forced which is again, 103 = 1000. Only a thousand combinations for the 2nd half of the pin. 11,000 total combinations to test and eventually connect to the network. 11,000 down from 10,000,000 million is much more possible. Let’s talk about mitigation. The WPS Pin attack has been around for a few years now and has been patched by most router manufacturers. After 3 attempts the router locks out the WPS feature and needs to be restarted to get more attempts at guessing. While this, doesn’t fix the problem, it makes the process of getting into a network take a much longer amount of time. The latest vulnerability in routers though, is a fault in WPA2 itself. It’s called KRACK. While this is the most interesting of the attacks, I will not be explaining the details as that would result in a paper on this subject alone. KRACK is short for Key Reinstallation AttaCK. To summarize, WPA2 uses a 4-way handshake to encrypt packets. By capturing and resending the 3rd message sent you can capture any network encrypted data and decrypt it. While this doesn’t give you the network passcode to connect to the router, it makes the content of whatever you’re doing very readable. Therefore, it is recommended to use “The S”. This is the S in HTTPS. The S stands for secure. It means whatever you’re doing on that webpage is encrypted from your pc to the other site you’re on. Making it much harder to do anything with anything captured through KRACK.

· Strong passwords/2 Step Verification – We all have those 2 emails we use for everything. A primary and a secondary. Without these, we’d be lost. Strong passwords are a common thing people struggle with. The most common password in 2017 was “123456” (http://fortune.com/2017/12/19/the-25-most-used-hackable-passwords-2017-star-wars-freedom/). People struggle with making secure passwords as well as using words in their passwords. A good place to check how long it would take a computer to guess your password is https://howsecureismypassword.net/ but this doesn’t stop dictionary attacks. Dictionary attacks are based off long word lists with numbers as well depending on how big the list is. Nowadays there are password managers that can generate and store passwords for you on the fly. This often assures that each password is unique and isn’t easily guessable. This can be a double-edged sword. You’re putting all your trust and personal details in someone else’s hands. LastPass is a password manager that is used by millions. They were hacked once in 2015 (https://lifehacker.com/lastpass-hacked-time-to-change-your-master-password-1711463571) and again in 2017 (https://www.cnet.com/forums/discussions/last-pass-hacked-again/) during both hacks, users were told to change their master passwords that decrypted their databases that stored every password they used. Another common additional step that users like to add as another measure of precaution is 2 Step Authentication. This is the process of using your phone to generate a token that is usually 6 numbers to prove you’re the owner of whatever account you’re trying to access. Another tip with passwords, change them often! Most of the time people never change passwords.

· Use the S – The S in HTTPS is a new standard that encrypts traffic of websites you browse and secures the payment info when you buy something online. Less than 60% of the internets most popular websites have secure implementation. Generally when you see a lock next to your URL. You’re using https and you’re safe. Back in 2014 there was a bug that affected OpenSSL. OpenSSL is a library that was used by many services to implement https on many sites. This bug was called Heartbleed. Some popular sites that were affected by said bug include, Instagram, Google, Yahoo, AWS(Amazon Web Services) (https://mashable.com/2014/04/09/heartbleed-bug-websites-affected/#K3TT49sSLaqm ). Those are just a few, most of the affected sites have issued patches to address the issue. Generally though, https is the ideal you want to use.

· Conclusion – Regardless of what tips there are to improve your online security, there are ways around many security measures. Bugs get discovered and patched. Online security is a extremely fast paced environment. Nothing you do online is 100% safe, but there are precautions you can take to improve the protection you have online.

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cracking_of_wireless_networks/

https://forbes.com/sites/nextavenue/2013/01/22/7-steps-to-protect-your-online-security/

http://heartbleed.com/

https://mashable.com/2014/04/09/heartbleed-bug-websites-affected/#K3TT49sSLaqm

- Mena

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jasminarora · 3 years ago

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What are the Best DASSM Certification Training Institutes in India?

Do you know out of 6,56,112 PMI members only 900 are DASSM certified!!

95% of respondents in the 14th State of Agile report conducted by Digital. Ai stated that their organization has adopted the Agile developments method and practice on that. So, looking at the numbers the jobs for DASSM certified will increase an upwards curve. There are 30,000 jobs posted for agile methodology in big companies like Infosys, IBM, Accenture, and many.

What is Discipline Agile?

Disciplined agile can be characterized as a process decision toolset that aids in the optimization of processes based on the individual needs of each project. It's a people-first agile framework that combines XP, Scrum, Kanban, and other disciplined agile delivery approaches.

Disciplined Agile is a methodology that helps individuals, teams, and organizations improve their processes. It lays the groundwork for corporate growth by demonstrating how different activities such as software development, IT operations, finance, procurement, portfolio management, and enterprise architecture can communicate and work together. It provides a wide range of customized, context-sensitive ideas and helps make better decisions.

What are the job roles after getting the DASSM course?

1. Product Owner

2. Team Leader

3. Architecture owner

4. Managers

5. Product Manager

6. Project Manager

7. Stakeholders

Benefits of DASSM training?

1. Understand the Disciplined Agile mindset and its underlying principles, such as pragmatism, the power of choice, and adapting to context.

2. Explore multiple leading lean and agile approaches like Scrum, SAFe®, Kanban, and more.

3. Learn about the fundamentals of agile and lean, and how to use both approaches effectively.

4. Understand how to put these strategies into action on your agile team and ensure effective implementation.

5. Learn how to apply the Disciplined Agile toolkit to discover the best way of working (WoW) for you and your agile team in your unique situation.

Which are the Best DASSM Certification Training Institutes?

There are many institutes in India that provide DASSM training, but I would suggest you to keeping few points in mind before enrolling in any institute.

• The institute is ATP of PMI and has its own REP ID, as it becomes very important to take DASSM training before applying for the PMI exam.

• The institute should have a recognized and knowledgeable instructor, as the course is new and many institute instructors are not much knowledgeable.

• The institute is offering proper Pre and Post training support, as it becomes important to get proper career counseling before training and support in filling the exam application form.

• Proper study material, mock exams, and other exam preparation techniques.

• Apart from all these pointers, you should check the reputation of the institute and its review on google.

I would suggest you check with ProThoughts Solution for DASSM certification in India as they have a good team of experts of Discipline agile and their course material is also great.

#DASSM #DASSM Certification #DASM #DASM Certification #Disciplined Agile #Disciplined Agile Certification #DASSM certified #DASSM certification in India

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review-saas · 3 years ago

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[✚] Killer Feature #4

See How Much Each Domain Is Really Worth BEFORE You Buy. Integrates Seamlessly With Estibot — The Leading Domain Valuer.

Having an accurate valuation can make sure you get the best bang for your buck.

And save costly mistakes –

Meaning you can predict accurately how much you’ll be able to sell each domain for, so you’ve an idea of how much money you will be pocketing before you even get started.

PR Rage GMB Edition’s Profit Predictor is your key to predictable safe profiting with your domains. (And let’s face it, right now, everyone needs a bit of predictability!)

The Pros

✔ Get All That Profitable Google Love — Get High Page Rank Domains That Google Loves For Pennies On The Dollar

✔ Profitable Search Features — Search By $Value Age, Traffic, Backlinks, Social Signals And Much More

✔ Get Instant Access To The Most Valuable Domains — Search Exclusively For Sub-6 Letter Domains To Get The Most Bang For Your Buck

✔ Get Instant Valuations — PR Rage GMB Edition Will Tell You Exactly What Each Domain Is Likely To Be Worth So You Can Always Get The Highest Grossing Domains For The Lowest Possible Price

✔ Business Ready — Find Out If A Domain Has A Valuable ‘Google My Business’ Listing

✔ Set & Forget — Get Alerted The Second Your Perfect (And Most Profitable) Domains Come Onto The Market

✔ Find & Flip Anyplace, Anywhere — Cloud Based. Nothing To Download

✔ Super Fast — 20 Hours Of Manual Research Done In Less Than 20 Seconds

✔ 6-Figure Training Included — Marketers Are Building 6-Figure A Month Businesses Using The Techniques That PR Rage GMB Edition Does For You

✔ Easy Shortlisting — Collect And Watch Your Favourite Domains

✔ Newbie Friendly — No Experience Or Technical Knowledge Required. PR Rage GMB Edition Does It All For You

✔ Claim Your Valuable Domains In One Click — One Click Purchase. Integrates Seamlessly With The Biggest Domain Markets On The Planet Inc. GoDaddy And Sedo

✔ They’ll Help You Get Started Profiting Right Away — Includes 3 Exclusive Training Videos

✔ 14 Day Money Back Guarantee Without Any Question Ask.

The Cons

❌ You need a good internet connection.

❌ The price will be increased soon.

So, I highly recommend you pick ‘PR Rage GMB Edition’ now at a massive early bird discount as soon as possible… before it’s gone!

Final Verdict / Is it worth buying?

PR Rage GMB Edition is a powerful system that helps you flip a $10 investment into a huge single sale of $500, $1,000 and even $10,000+ without any technical skills.

In just 3 easy steps you will start flipping & profiting from domains like a Pro.

With an increasing number of businesses needing names for websites, owners of in-demand site names (domains) are becoming millionaires overnight.

PR Rage GMB Edition is right now available at an unbelievably low one-time price. It’ll soon change into a much higher monthly recurring subscription model.

It would still help you make profits… but would require a lot more investment on your part.

A good investor is someone who knows a good opportunity when he sees one.

And I sincerely hope you are a good investor.

If you buy from my Affiliate Link then you will also get my MEGA Pack of Bonuses.

So, do not wait till the price starts rising… And you end up paying more. Hurry up & grab PR Rage GMB Edition as soon as possible.

The Price & Funnels

Front End : PR Rage GMB Edition ($47) (See Details)

OTO 1: PR Rage Domain Management System ($47) (See Details)

OTO 2: Rage PROTECT plugin for WordPress ($27) (See Details)

OTO 3: Rage CONTENT Artemis — Site Content ($47) (See Details)

OTO 4: PR Rage Reseller Agency Rights ($197) (See Details)

OTO 5: Monthly Account PR Rage Domain Hunting Software ($19.95/Month) (See Details)

Frequently Asked Questions

Q1. I Literally have no clue. What to buy, how to sell…. Will you help me?

A. Yes — Got you covered. In the first of the two webinar, they will be covering everything from start to finish.

Even if you have never thought of this before, you will have a solid path to head down.

Q2. When I get access to PR Rage GMB Edition today… how will I access it?

A. You’ll immediately be emailed your login details. Your access & domaining empire starts today!

Q3. I have never flipped a domain before. Would this work for me?

A. Absolutely. Using and profiting with PR Rage GMB Edition required no technical skills.

Q4. Alright, I am in. How do I get started?

A. Just click any link advertising this page. The simple to follow setting-up tutorials will help you get started in no time.

Conclusion : I hope that my PR Rage GMB Edition review can help you to make up your mind more accurately & quickly. If you’ve any questions then you can e-mail me to [email protected] without any second thoughts. Thank you for reading. Good luck to you!

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droneseco · 3 years ago

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