Gennaro Cuofano's Blog, page 269

10 Free Udemy Courses to win at Digital Marketing Now!

The digital marketing arena has become extremely competitive. Therefore, to be on top of the game, you have to be learning on a daily basis. Learning doesn’t necessarily imply you have to spend a conspicuous amount of money. Quite the opposite. You can find free resources on the web, which can help you out in growing your knowledge base and becoming a better online marketer.

Among the most critical skills in online marketing, there are sales, SEO, email marketing, social media, blogging, content marketing, teaching, PR and so on. Based on that I selected ten courses that can help you improve all the above skills. It’s your turn now!

How to Become a Solopreneur in Three Easy Steps

HubSpot Academy Inbound Marketing Certification Course

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How To Make A WordPress Website 2017 | Divi Theme Tutorial

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SEO Training Course by Moz

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Business Mastery | Five Must-Read Business Books in 2017

Internet Marketing Course – An Intro to Website Marketing

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Online Course Crash Course: Win at Teaching Online Courses
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Kindle Marketing: Ninja Tactics To Explode Your Amazon Sales

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Three Key Lessons of Entrepreneurship from Marcus Aurelius

HubSpot Academy Inbound Sales Certification Course

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Three Key Lessons of Entrepreneurship from Marcus Aurelius

Growth Hacking: Free Tools For Small Business Owners

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Email Marketing Made Easy For Beginners

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LinkedIn Training Course

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The post 10 Free Udemy Courses to win at Digital Marketing Now! appeared first on The Four-Week MBA.

Mindset, Tactics, Skills, Tools and Resources to Grow Your Business in the era of Growth Hacking

All the tools and resources mentioned in this article are not affiliated links. I do not earn any money from the resources I share. 

January 2015 Sean and his team at GrowthHackers.com were experiencing a stagnating growth. Although they grew at about 90,000 unique monthly visitors in a year they were mainly growing on the back of Twitter. Time to change strategy. They decided to implement an Hith Tempo Testing Program. That is how growth picked up and accelerated,

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Source: GrowthHachers.com 

Growth Hacking is one of the most exciting subjects today. Not only in the marketing arena but in any other conceivable area. I’m not trying to emphasize when I tell you that growth hacking can make you become the next President of France. If you don’t believe me probably you didn’t notice that hacking growth has become the secret weapon of one of the screwiest politician alive, the new elected France’s President Macron, which used Growth Hacking to win the election (Growth Hacker Raffaele Gaito passed me this news).

What is Growth Hacking and what is not

As the story goes in 2007 Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia couldn’t afford the rent on their San Francisco apartment that is why they decided to transform their loft in a lodging space. Yet instead of relying on Craiglist, they built their own site, which they called Airbed & Breakfast and hacked Craigslist to drive users back to their site,

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Source: GrowthHachers.com 

Long story short that is how they grew from a loft to a company worth $30billion, which we all know by the name of Airbnb. Yet that is only part of the story. In fact, Airbnb didn’t grow in a multi-billion business from a day to the next with a single magic trick. Instead, they had to undertake several experiments before seeing their listings grow.

In fact, experimentation is the key ingredient of growth hacking. Yet in order for it to work, you have to experiment through a rigorous process that mixes high-speed and cross-functional experimentation. That is what Sean Ellis called growth hacking.

In short, growth hacking overturned the traditional founders’ myth. In which, one very smart individual has a genial idea that makes the company go from a garage to a palace. Therefore, it isn’t anymore about a person but the team. It isn’t anymore about one genial idea but a process generating ideas. There’s no such thing as a growth hacker, but only a growth hacking team driven by the same mindset.

The Growth Hacking Mindset

The first step in hacking growth is to acquire the growth mindset. In fact, there is no tool, skill or strategy you can use, master or implement if you don’t develop the right mindset first. That mindset starts from the way you learn.

From Personal to Incremental: Two Approaches to Learning

The key to pursuing excellence is to embrace an organic, long-term learning process, and not to live in a shell of static, safe mediocrity.

By Josh Waitzkin from The Art of Learning

In a world that becomes increasingly competitive the most important skill to master is “The Art of Learning.” In his homonymous book, chess player, martial arts competitor and author Josh Waitzkin explains the two modes of learning: entity vs. incremental theories of learning. 

The entity theory treats intelligence as fixed and stable. The incremental theory of intelligence instead thinks of it as something malleable, fluid and changeable. In other words, if you believe in the former you will identify yourself with the activity/experiment you’re undertaking. Therefore each failure will be unbearable and a demonstration of your lack of intelligence and skills. Instead, with the latter approach, you will stop identifying with the learning process and start to see each failure as an opportunity to learn something new.

In short, to develop a successful growth hacking mindset you must remove your ego from the learning process and use an incremental learning approach. That is how you develop a growth mindset.

The Power of Yet: The Growth Mindset

Mindset change is not about picking up a few pointers here and there. It’s about seeing things in a new way. When people…change to a growth mindset, they change from a judge-and-be-judged framework to a learn-and-help-learn framework. Their commitment is to growth, and growth take plenty of time, effort, and mutual support. 

by Carol S. Dweck from Mindset: The New Psychology of Success

If the growth mindset is not about you; it is about the process. How can you make sure to change the way you learn, while also making sure your team is on the same page? Use the power of yet:

praise the process and make sure your team knows the process is what matters
reward effort, strategy, and process not individual intelligence
learn and teach to push outside the comfort-zone so that failure becomes a normal aspect of the growth process

Once acquired the incremental learning method and the growth mindset, there’s a third non-trivial aspect of growth hacking, the scientific mindset.

It Got to Be Data-Driven: The Feynman Approach

It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong.

by Richard Feynman

If you want to build a growth hacking team you got to have a scientific mindset. The method to follow is pretty simple. Identify a problem, do some research, form a hypothesis, do an experiment, analyze your data, and draw conclusions.

It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is if it doesn’t match the data then it is wrong! In short, every decision has to be data-driven and based on the actions of the users rather than on the beliefs of the founders.

The Method

Sean Ellis in Hacking Growth shows the how as it follows,

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The process is simple yet powerful. From data analysis to testing and back to dat analysis, the loop of growth must be followed consistently.

The Skills: Multidisciplinarity is the rule of thumb

As Davis Jones, author of the Udemy Bestselling course Growth Hacking Masterclass in Digital Marketing multidisciplinarity is the rule. SEO, email marketing, social media, copywriting and online advertising are the basic skills to acquire to thrive in the digital marketing world.

Growth Hacking is about the whole funnel

Growth hacking isn’t anymore about MRR or acquisition but it involves the whole funnel. From awareness to purchase the funnel accelerates at the speed of light,

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Source: tomtunguz.com

In this scenario, there are a plethora of tools out there yet quite a few able to help you achieve success. Let’s see some of them.

The Top 20 Tools

Now that you got the right mindset it is time to start using some tools. GrowHack.com drafted an incredible spreadsheet about all the tools used by the greatest growth hackers for each funnel stage, which you can get from here.

Below I analyzed the data and extracted a list of the top 20 software used by top growth hackers independently from the funnel stage,

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You can find a more comprehensive analysis done by GrowHack.com on the SaaS marketing stack per funnel stage.

Suggested Reading

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Online Course

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Websites to read

startup-marketing.com

growthack.com

growthachers.com

quicksprout.com

okdork.com

neilpatel.com

andrewchen.co

People to Follow on Twitter (source stuck study from GrowHack.com)

Amber Van Moessner

Anand Sanwal

Aubrey Arcangel

Cezary Pietrzak

Conrad Wadowski

Dave Gerhardt

Guillaume Cabane

Jamie Quint

Kevan Lee

Massimo Chieruzzi

Matthew Barby

Michael Taylor

Morgan Brown

Nick Christman

Noah Kagan

Peter Borden

Ryan Deiss

Sean Ellis

Zach Grove

Zack Onisko

Case studies

Growthackers

LinkedIn

Slack

Videos

The Growth Mindset

The Scientific Method

 

The post Mindset, Tactics, Skills, Tools and Resources to Grow Your Business in the era of Growth Hacking appeared first on The Four-Week MBA.

Why Fake News Is a Fake News

Rome, year 175 AD:

Emperor Marcus Aurelius is dead!

Shouted a man in the streets of Rome. The news resonated at the speed of light. It eventually landed in Avidius Cassius’ ears. Avidius was an opportunistic Roman general. He seized the moment to organize a coup.

Yet Emperor Marcus Aurelius was not dead. While fighting to defend the northern borders of the Empire, he got very sick. Soon he managed to recover. That is how a fake news became a civil war.

Only the blood flowing of thousands of people put an end to the civil war. Marcus Aurelius managed to reconquer his power, while Avidius Cassius was fiercely defeated.

Why Fake News Is Only in Part a Fake News

Fake news isn’t new. Today like yesterday it spreads. At times fake news only creates harmless urban legends which persist for decades. Other times it has the potential to destabilize our society.

Three factors might play a vital role in “the fake news framework,”

1. Why it spreads
2. How it spreads
3. The source

While those three factors are the same today as they were yesterday; There are some subtle differences in the fake news framework.

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Why it Spreads: Make It Juicy, and It’ll Go Viral

Let’s go back in time again, for a few seconds. Imagine you are one of the men in Marcus Aurelius’ camp. You see Marcus Aurelius getting sicker and sicker. The rumor of his death starts to spread. To avoid political instability; the generals ask to keep it secret. As soon as the news got deemed secret, it spreads outside the camp, until it reaches the heart of the empire in no time.

British anthropologist, Robin Dunbar, thought of language as a way to allow humans to build, foster and maintain relationships. He called it Gossip Hypothesis. There is no better way to foster a relationship than giving a fellow human a secretive news.

In short, the news was so juicy to make it go viral. This is the same logic of contagion. Yet while in the past news went viral based on human psychology. Nowadays algorithms play a key role.

Think of a FaceBook post which carries news that has the potential for contagion. As soon as the post gets its first likes and shares, the algorithm accelerates the spread of that news.

While the juicy factor, in the past, was mainly about human psychology. Today algorithms exasperate human psychology by catalyzing the spread of fake news.

What about its vehicle? Is there anything new about it?

How it spreads: It Isn’t Anymore About the Vehicle

Going back to Marcus Aurelius’ camp the news spread through word of mouth. There is one problem with that though. When information spreads from brain to brain, it changes of shape. In short, spoken words are not an accurate means of communication.

Think of a man whispering the news in another man’s ear. Repeat that for thousands of times, and you get the spreading of the news. Yet we can assume the news was, “Marcus Aurelius is very sick.” But when it passed from ear to ear, it got edited at each step of the chain. Until it became “Marcus Aurelius is dead!”

In the past, this kind of news manipulation was pretty standard. Nowadays the means that convey information are much more reliable. When you post on FaceBook, the set of zeroes and ones that make your text seen on the screen get passed on with a hundred percent accuracy.

Thus, on the one hand, we removed the accuracy problem we had with word of mouth and gossiping. But, we introduced a new form of bias, the so-called algorithmic bias.

Once the algorithm gives the green light, the news spreads with a hundred percent accuracy. This though raises up some questions. If the news gets spread with a hundred percent accuracy; does it mean the news was fake since the beginning? If so; this means nowadays is an issue of fact-checking. How do we solve this dilemma?

The source: The Fact-Checking Dilemma

In the previous paragraph, I assumed Marcus Aurelius’ death wasn’t a fake news. But it became so due to the means through which it got conveyed.

We also saw how this is not possible due to the hundred percent accuracy of modern media. If the issue is not about the vehicle, then it must be the source of information.

In short, it’s all about fact-checking. Easy said than done. Fact-checking is controversial since the dawn of time. A fact is a truth. The fact is something proved. The definition might seem simple, but it is not. Philosophers have debated the meaning of truth for thousand of years. Think about Marcus Aurelius’ death. When can we call someone dead?

The concept of death for how trivial it might sound it is controversial. There is no single definition of mortality. You’ll find death as a concept that assumes several shapes. According to the culture, legal system and field of study.

A lawyer will believe someone’s death only after seeing the death certificate. A neuroscientist will find someone’s death when the brain stops sending electrical signals.

If we cannot have a lawyer and a neuroscientist agree on what’s death; Are we sure fact-checking is a solvable issue after all?

If not what’s the solution?

The Solution: If It survives It Will Be Worth Knowing

My opinion is that reading or giving too much attention to the news is by itself useless. If the news is worth remembering, it will find its way toward you. Therefore it makes sense to adopt a skeptical approach to any news and always take them with a pinch of salt!

That is only my opinion. What’s yours?

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The post Why Fake News Is a Fake News appeared first on The Four-Week MBA.

How to Build a Habit-Forming Product Ethically: The Drug Dealer Test!

As a member of a newly born start-up, there is one dilemma that strikes me the most. Heading toward an era in which screens are anywhere. Our attention gets drawn in several directions. Although I used to believe I was the owner of my consciousness which I could deliberately drive. I realized how flawed my thinking was.

Indeed, as I dive into the startup world, I find out about a staggering truth. It isn’t a fight about power, prestige or money. Instead, another currency that, as we progress, becomes more and more scarce is at the center of this battle. It is all about people’s attention. That attention gets triggered and channeled by a set of hooks, that make the users wanting more. In this fight over people’s attention. The boundary between product development and people’s manipulation is thin. Thus, my dilemma is how to make sure we’re building a product that is ethical? Before finding the answer let me give you a quick introduction to the Hook Model.

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The Hook Model

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Instead of relying on expensive marketing, habit-forming companies link their services to the users’ daily routines and emotions. ― Nir Eyal, Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products

habit-forming companies link their services to the users’ daily routines and emotions. ― Nir Eyal,…
Click To Tweet

For anyone running a startup, the Hook Model is one of those frameworks you must keep on top of your mind. A four-step framework, from the trigger to investment and back to trigger. The user builds an habit that makes her wanting more and more of that product.

A trigger is “the spark plug in the Hook Model.” Usually, an external trigger (e.g., a push notification from your phone) connects with an internal trigger (boredom) to bridge the gap between the user and the product. Once triggered into the model the user is incentivized to act (open your phone when seeing the push notification from Facebook). The core to make a product habit-forming is its variable reward. In short, our brain expects a reward, and it prepares for it. Yet after meeting the expected reward if the user finds an additional unexpected reward it gets almost hooked. Before the user leaves though it is time to ask for an investment regarding time, data, effort, social capital or money.

Big companies all over the world; from Facebook to LinkedIn, hooked us and we can’t live without their services. Therefore the model is so powerful that it brings up a few questions on what is the proper way of using it. Indeed, with such a robust framework how do we make sure to use it for good?

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Ethics: A Problem as Old as Humankind

Bad people…are in conflict with themselves; they desire one thing and will another, like the incontinent who choose harmful pleasures instead of what they themselves believe to be good. ― Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics

Ethics is not an easy issue. Deriving from the Greek ἦθος, meaning habit, custom. Ethics is an attempt to discern between good and evil, right or wrong. In other words, to define what are the absolute human values that should be part of anyone’s life. Per se, this approach is utopian and doomed to failure. In fact, things are often shaded. They’re neither right or wrong on their own. Rather, based on context, perspective, and cultural norms most of the human behaviors are goal-driven.

Also, ethics is the byproduct of human cultural evolution. What was right in the past it is considered as unjust nowadays. We have reasons to believe that what we deem right today will be regarded as wrong tomorrow. How do we solve this impasse? Rather than focusing on theoretical differences and definitions, we could use a much simpler approach.

For instance, in the startup world, we could define ethics as a process. That process leverages on unconscious clues and hooks. But it also should bring towards conscious behaviors. The final aim is to improve the user mental well-being. In short, those manipulations should be ethical. In this respect, Nir Eyal proposes an interesting framework.

Ethical Manipulation: The Drug Dealer Test

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Source: NirandFar.com

As Nir Eyal explains the first rule of drug dealing is “never get high on your own supply.” If you want to build an ethical product you have to break this rule! 

Indeed, the Manipulation Matrix is a two questions quadrant to assess whether the product you’re building is ethnically manipulative. The first question “Do you believe that the product or service you’re working on is materially improving people’s lives?” The answer is either Yes or No. Yes classifies you as a peddler. No, classifies you as a dealer. The second question “am I the user?” Yes puts you in the facilitator quadrant. No makes you as the entertainer. According to Nir Eyal, the companies that are successful at building ethical habit-forming product are those which founders turned out to be also facilitators. From Google to Facebook, Slack or Whatsapp. Are you a dealer or a facilitator?

Suggested Reading:
Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products 

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12 Best Google Chrome Extensions for Business Professionals, Online Marketers and Digital Entrepreneurs

If you work in the business world, the web is part of your daily life. With 3.7bln users, 127bln of emails sent and 2.9bln of Google‘s Search at the time of this post. For sure the web is the place you have to be. A few common denominators are shared by business professionals, online marketers, and digital entrepreneurs. Those are potential clients, partners, and relationships!

It doesn’t matter in what business you’re in. If that is on or offline, you need leads, prospects and ultimately customers to make your business going. Based on that this post will provide 12 tools, which are available as Google Extension to help you fire up your online business, or to use online strategies to boost your business offline. I don’t get any affiliate earnings from the following list. The tools I suggest are the ones I started to use after this research. With no further ado…

Never Make a Grammar Mistake Again with Grammarly

We write dozens of emails per day, most of them get written when we rush, are tired or not paying full attention. Others write content to build their online following and build a sales funnel that converts. Yet the difference between being an amateur to being a professional is to have your grammar in check. However, none of us is an English teacher. How do you solve this impasse? The Grammarly Extension is the answer!

Grammarly will show you the mistakes you’re making when writing and then allows you to check them all when finished. In this way, you can write with no effort and quickly without worrying about Grammar, just like I’m doing right now!

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Who cares? I’m writing so fast that I’m making spelling mistakes yet with Grammarly I can quickly check and correct them once finished writing!

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Not only Grammarly helps me with my grammar mistakes, but it also suggests style adjustments to make it more readable. Although I like that feature too, I usually don’t make all the custom adjustments Grammarly suggests because I like to keep my style personal. Therefore, even though not 100% elegant I still prefer to keep it as it is!

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Reverse Engineer Your Competition with Similar Web

Time to hack your competitors. How? With the Similar Web Extension. If you’re not familiar with it Similar Web is a great tool to reverse engineer your competitors by looking at their main metrics. From traffic sources, to referrals and keywords, Similar Web is the ultimate tool for the growth marketer. There’s a warning though. Which one? Bare with me!

According to MOZ Estimated how accurate are those tools, I’m reporting the accuracy of Similar Web below

SimilarWeb – monthly visits

Avg. of Metric/Actual Traffic: 406.37%
% of Data within 70-130% of Actual Traffic: 22.00%
Spearman’s Correlation w/ Actual Traffic: 0.827
Standard Error: 0.0504
Data coverage: 87.41%

As you can see “% of Data within 70-130% of Actual Traffic: 22.00%.”

In other words, Similar Web was accurate in almost one fourth of the sites analyzed. Yet that accuracy swings between 70–130% of actual traffic. Therefore, let’s say Similar Web says traffic of a site is 100K monthly. Consider that more as a range (from 70–130K monthly visitors) rather than an actual number.

That means you want to look at the numbers coming from Similar Web as an estimate and a range rather than an absolute number. That is very useful for comparative analyses among your competitors.

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Make Your Web Navigation Smooth with Adblock

The Web got built upon ads. Google, which is the most used Search Engine in the world, has its business model based on ads earning. There are websites out there with millions of ads on their homepages,

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Even though ads made and make the web possible, they are often bothering and distracting. That is why to get the most out of your internet navigation you got to block them. How? By having the AdBlock Extension. That is how I see my Google Search before and after,

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Email Marketing on Steroids with Mixmax

Let me just tell you that when I saw this tool, I got ecstatic. Why? As online marketer emails are a vital part of building relationships with clients, colleagues and potential partners. Mixmax Extension is what put all together!

From email tracking, templates, and automation that is a fantastic tool for email marketers or for anyone that wants to be on top of his game.

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Prospecting Has Never Been So Easy with Hunter

Prospecting is not an easy job. It requires time and dedication. Therefore if that is any tool that makes it easy on you that is welcomed. Hunter Extension is an incredible tool to find anyone email contacts on the web. Let’s say I want to reach out to other online marketers, like Neil Patel? Ok, no problem, let’s have Hunter finds his contacts for us,

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From now on your online prospecting will be way more efficient!

Good news you can use the tool on other social media too. For instance, that is how your Hunter Extension will look like on LinkedIn. Independently from you having or not that person on your network you’ll be able to hunt his/her email with a certain threshold of confidence!

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Will Voice Search Bring an End to SEO?

Never Screw up Again Your Emails with Gmail Offline

Think of all those times in which you had an unreliable internet connection, and while writing an important email you’re interned dropped, and you lost it all! While screaming and shouting you then calmed down and started thinking how cool it would be to have a tool that allows you to write emails from offline. Well, stop imagining, because that tool is available now and that is Gmail Offline Extension!

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Take Notes Anywhere on the Web with Evernote

Each time you see anything cool on the Web, it makes sense to note it for later use. You can share it, use it as note for a piece you’ll write. Mention it to a client during a call. For this and much more Evernote, Web Clipper Extension is a great tool!

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Make Your Website SEO-Friendly with WooRank

SEO stands for search engine optimization. As you might know those are a set of tactics and strategies to make your content easier to understand, find and interpret by search engines. In this, way, those engines can bridge the gap between you and your audience, by letting you get found by the right people. Producing high-quality content is per se an SEO strategy. Yet there are some technicalities to take into account when building a website, such as the number of backlinks or how many keywords is the content ranking for and a few others. In fact, search engines like Google use over 200 factors to index and eventually rank your content. As you can imagine focusing on all those factors would be a waste of time. There are a few significant factors that play a greater role in your rankings. WooRank allows you to spot the major factors affecting your SEO strategy. That is why I suggest you check out the WooRank Extension!

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That is the score WooRank assigned to my website based on a few factors. Not bad after all, yet I set the goal to see this number improve in the future by implementing a backlinks strategy. How do I know my website is doing poorly when it comes to backlink score? WooRank told me,

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That is where I’ll be focusing my SEO effort in the coming months!

It’s Time to Break-Free from Those Dozens of Tabs with OneTab

Do you ever find yourself in such messy situation?

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If you’re like me, that should happen to you on a daily basis! At times you’re so enslaved to those open tabs that you won’t switch off the computer for days. With that notification that pops on the top right corner of the screen each day you let the updates accumulate for months if not years!

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After using OneTab Extension, you’ll stop feeling enslaved by those tabs!

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Find the Perfect Gif at Any Time with Giphy

Content marketers are increasingly using interactive materials. From audio, video, pictures and GIF; making your content captivating isn’t anymore about words but more and more about images. In this scenario, finding the right GIF is like finding goldmine!

Well, now finding your goldmine at any time has never been so easy with Giphy Extension. That is how I found and added the GIF above in a few seconds!

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Make Your Gmail Account More Social with Rapportive

Email marketing is a great way to grow your business and nurture your professional relationships. Yet if you want those relationships to be successful ou have to get out from the email tab and get into the social profiles of your prospects, partners, and customers. How? Rapportive Extension is what bridges the gap between the Gmail account and your potential partners, prospects or clients by showing you rich cards of your contacts social media right into your Gmail account!

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That is how you will make the most of your relationships in no time!

Make Your Website SEO-Proof with Moz Bar

We saw what SEO is for (in WooRank Extension) and why it makes sense to focus on it. For anyone that is in the SEO industry Moz is one of those tools that you must have if you want to make your SEO strategy more effective. That is why it makes sense to use the Moz Bar Extension.

The Moz Bar will give you the Page Authority and Domain Authority of a page/website. In other words, those are scores that predict how a page/website will rank in Google’s SERP (Search Engine Research Page). As you can imagine the higher the better. Now you can use Moz Bar to have a quick glance at any website or page of a website.

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Conclusions

I took the time to test those tools because I wanted to be a better online marketer. Yet those are only tools. What comes first is the right mindset. A mindset that makes you experiment, test and try new things, not for the sake of them but because they can help you build, nurture and foster relationships. Your turn!

Get the clickable list!

A Whole New Science About Emotional Intelligence and Why Emotions Are Made, Not Triggered

Emotions fingerprints is a myth

The classic view of emotions wants them to be a fixed state, always the same across the human and animal kingdom and from culture to culture. How much is that true? Probably none of it,

There isn’t a particular part connected to emotions but rather a set of processes

We believed our brain was like a machine with independent pieces, each of which with specific functions. Almost like a separate layer built one on top of the other. It turns out that is false. Emotions are constructed by the whole brain. Therefore rather than think about fear as a byproduct of a single brain’s piece, such as the amygdala, we have to look at it as the fruit of several parts of the brain interacting thru several billion neurons that can form networks in a billion different ways,

The logic of one-to-many

Emotions are constructed in your whole brain. For instance, for decades we have believed that fear resided in the amygdala. Is that true? Apparently not so. Each of our brain’s parts and networks function according to the logic of one-to-many. In short, “a single brain system contributes to many mental events,”

From physiological feeling to the making of an emotion

By making sense of our physiological states, we add a few our past experiences to make an emotion. The way the brain manufactures that emotion is more like a guess that it goes according to the context around it. In other words, the instance of emotions that we feel from time to time is not as immutable as we might think. That is how a stomach ache gets interpreted by your brain, and it suddenly becomes an emotion,

Degeneracy, the many-to-one principle

There isn’t such a thing as one expression per each emotion we experience. Instead, there are as many ways to express something for as many expressions we have on our face. That is degeneracy in action. There are many opportunities for our brain to manufacture an emotional instance,

Beware of fake scientific news

Your BS alarm should ring each time you hear the news that either talk of brain parts as separate and distinct from each other, or brain parts that can be switched on and off. Or when you hear about how we use 10% of our brains. All of those are myths, and you better stop paying attention to them,

10 Epic TED Talks to Listen If You Want to Become a Better Business Person and Entrepreneur

If you’re an entrepreneur in today’s world there are few subjects you have to master; from accounting to human resource; from marketing to sales, a great entrepreneur has also to become a great generalist. On the other hand, there’s also another crucial aspect. The foundation to be an incredible entrepreneur gets based on the right mindset.

In fact, to be always on top of your game in an increasingly competitive world it is crucial to have a mindset that allows you to be successful in the meagerest situations. In fact, success here is not to intend classically, as achieving external things.

Rather success means being able to keep doing what you like even when things get tough. Based on that there are ten Epic TED Talks you must watch to build a healthy mindset that can help you navigate through rough waters.

Why do societies collapse?

A great entrepreneur must be able to understand how society works at its fundamental levels. In fact, besides the technical skills to learn a successful entrepreneur has to be like an anthropologist. In this inspiring and educative talk polyglot, Jared Diamond explains to us what makes societies collapse,

Why you should define your fear instead of your goals

The business world is a competitive environment, where only a few intelligent individuals survive in the long-run. It is crucial to master a new philosophy of life, based on stoicism. Tim Ferris, the author of The 4-Hour Work Week, introduces us to an essential aspect of stoicism, how to get ready for the worst case scenario. At the end of it all, when you get prepared for the worst that is when you’re willing to act with determination,

What explains the rise of humans?

Usually, we think about humans as a species which is way more intelligent to any other animal on earth. Author and Historian Yuval Noah Harari explains why this view is misleading and what is that makes us unique as a species. After this talk, you will have a better understanding of humanity. Not to mention that this is one of former President Obama‘s favorite books,

A kindler, gentler philosophy of success

As an entrepreneur or business person from the way, you define success also depends on your long-term success of your venture. Author and philosopher Alain De Botton gives us a different, kinder perspective on success,

The surprising science of happiness

Being happy can mean all and nothing. In fact, most of it based on the perception we have about our current state. Author and psychologist Dan Gilbert gives us a new and fresh perspective on happiness,

The riddle of experience vs. memory

Even though you think of yourself as a uniform being, there are several you inside your head. That is even clearer when you compare the main two selves that influence your life and choice, the experiencing self vs. the remembering self. Daniel Kahneman, author, psychologist and Nobel Prize in economics explains superbly this intricate conflict between the two beings that “live in your head,”

Are we in control of our own decisions?

We didn’t evolve to live in a complex society, and yet we still take dozens of choices each day. It turns out that those decisions get influenced by invisible clues that we often do not notice which also depends by the way our environment was designed. To avoid to be tricked into bad decisions psychologist and author Dan Ariely guides us into the world with a fresher mindset for taking decisions,

How great leaders inspire action

If money is what fuels business; inspirations is what makes that business thrive in the long-run. Author Simon Sinek explains to us why you want always start with why,

How AI can bring on a second industrial revolution

If the steam engine propelled the first industrial revolution in the 18th century, AI is what will drive a second industrial revolution nowadays, according to Kevin Kelly. If you need an idea to start a business, then you might want to know how to use AI to get off the ground your next business venture!

Do you want more?

How to Use Wolfram Alpha for Finance Professionals to Boost Your Career

If you’re a finance professional having financial data at your fingertips is gold. There’s good news for you. From now on for your analyses, you can use Wolfram Alpha (WA). A Computational Knowledge Engine that allows you to do a multitude of things. What’s the difference between WA and a search engine, like Google?

A search engine is just a tool that matches your query with data that is linked and provided by other users. Instead, a computational knowledge engine, like Wolfram Alpha takes raw data and makes computation out of it. There’s a huge difference between the two. While a search engine might be useful for the finance professional; A computational engine can become a real powerhouse!

A computational engine can become a real powerhouse!
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How does Wolfram Alpha work? Let me show you a few things you can do with it that can boost your career right now!

Data Collection

I plugged into WA “Apple, ” and I got a set of useful financial data,

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If fundamentals and financials are not enough, you can get more historical and comparative data with the same query,

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Ok, not impressed yet? Let’s perform a comparative fundamental analysis in a few seconds!

Comparative fundamental analysis

I plugged into WA, “Apple vs Microsoft” and here’s the magic,

 

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If you draft many reports on a monthly basis, then you might also need some summary about those companies. Our new friend WA is providing that too,

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What else can we do? Bare with me

Historical Comparison and Forecasting

In the same query “Apple vs Microsoft” at the bottom of the page, you’ll also find the historical comparison, which is extremely useful.

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If that is not enough, if you scroll a bit more you’ll also find projections

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If you’re familiar with financial markets, you also know that they follow a random walk. Therefore, you can set the timeframe and have the projection take a “new random walk” as it follows,

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If you’re like me, after seeing this you should already be very excited. We deal with numbers, so we have to leave emotions aside and get our composure back. It’s time to use this tool to its maximum potential!

 

Computational Analysis of Stocks

Let’s do now a quick computational analysis. I want to know the Market Cap of Apple over Microsoft. With this simple query, “market cap Apple / Microsoft” WA does it for me,

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Yet we are still thinking at the microeconomic level. Let’s change perspective and let’s look at it from the macro level. I want to know how much the New York GDP contributes to the overall GDP of United States. Here you go the result and historical analysis,

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With this logic, you can compute anything. From macroeconomic values to comparative analyses of companies or currencies and commodities. It’s really up to you and the kind of financial analysis you are performing.

Present Value, Future Value, and Interest Calculation

In the financial world, anyone is familiar with the concept of time value of money. Time value tells us that a dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow. What does that mean? It means that when you have a sum of money today. That amount could be invested to earn more money through interests. At the same time, that amount of money could also lose value due to inflation. Therefore, you need to strike a balance between the two to make sure that your money in the future will be worth more.

To know how much is worth today a sum of money invested in the future at a given rate of return, I have to compute its present value (PV).

There are a plethora of PV calculator out there. Yet WA is powerful because it is very dynamical and it allows you to see the historical comparisons and value. Keep in mind; you can ask WA any factual question that pops to mind,

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Macroeconomic and Socioeconomic data and Comparison

When doing a financial report, there are certain macroeconomic and socioeconomic data to take into account. In this respect, WA will make your life way easier. For instance, we can make a demographic comparison between US and Canada,

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Or better yet we can do a more in-depth macroeconomic and socioeconomic comparison by just plugging “US vs Canada,”

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There are endless possibilities in using this incredible tool. It is really up to you, the analysis you’re drafting and the creativity on how to perform it.

Summary and Conclusion

Wolfram Alpha is a powerhouse for finance professionals. You can use it in many ways. From data collection to macroeconomic and socioeconomic comparison. Wolfram Alpha is the tool you have to master to progress your career and make your analyses rock. It is really up to you to start using this tool and make the best of it to become a trusted financial professional.

Do Want more?

How to Use Wolfram Alpha as Personal Fitness Assistant to Improve Your Health

A search engine is just a tool that matches your query with data that is linked and provided by other users and sources. Instead, a computational knowledge engine, like Wolfram Alpha (WA) takes raw data and makes computation out of it. There’s a huge difference between the two. In fact, while a search engine might be useful, a computational engine can become your best ally to track, measure and improve your health!

Use it as personal coach

Let’s say I want to walk for 45 minutes at a four mile per hour speed. Let’s ask WA how much fat am I going to burn,

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Great, but I want to know more!

Measure your health and weight level

I plugged my value into WA, and it gave me right away all I needed to know,

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I would never think as myself overweight. Yet WA is telling me I have to lose about two kilograms. Not bad after all. Keeping in mind that the body mass index is a very general measure, I can still lose some weight. You know what? I’m going to eat a soup today, and I want to ask WA how healthy that is.

Let Wolfram Alpha measure your food intake

I’m going to have a soup of beans with a bit of onion and carrot. Let me ask WA if that is healthy,

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I plugged the value into it and got the results,

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That is great; I will have a nutrient meal with a few calories. That should bring me back to my optimal weight. What else?

I can do more to lose a bit of weight. Let me practice a bit of calisthenics

Measure your physical activity

Let’s ask Wolfram Alpha how much am I going to burn in 15 minutes of workout,

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In conclusion, Wolfram Alpha is a computational knowledge engine that based on the raw data you input gives you back valuable insights that you can use to improve your health and your life!

Constructive Paranoia: Why driving your car might be way more dangerous than you think!

How risky is to drive your car?

Of most of the things you do. Many seem harmless. On a daily basis, you drive, cross the street, go biking and so on. Although, each of those activities is not dangerous. In fact, it carries a low probability of having an accident. The question is how habitually you do that thing. For instance, even though there might be one chance over a thousand of getting injured when you drive. If you drive every day for the rest of your life, chances are sooner or later you’ll be involved in an accident. And the level of success you’ll have in surviving it will depend upon how cautious you’ve been. Imagine you ended up in a car crash at twenty miles per hour. Probably at the end of it (assuming the other car went at the same speed) then you’ll survive. Now imagine the same exact accident at forty miles per hour. Your chances of survival will be much less. And they will diminish exponentially the more you’ll press your foot on the pedal of your car.

Therefore, the only way to survive to life’s seemingly less risky activities but that you do on a daily basis is the so-called constructive paranoia. Jared Diamond defined it in the book The World Until Yesterday. He is also author of The Third Chimpanzee (1991), Guns, Germs, and Steel (1997), Collapse (2005)

When I learned about it, it made me realize how important this concept also is for business. Imagine you invested an amount of money in a financial instrument that carries a dismal risk of default. Imagine you have been relying on that financial instrument during your life. Take, a pension fund for instance. You save a bit each month and accumulate a reasonable amount of money. That pension fund’s probability of default is extremely low. Although, you keep investing in it the whole life. The longer you’ll invest in it the higher the risk of its default might increase. What should you do? Cover yourself from the risk of losing it all. How? For instance, by placing a stop loss!

We do many things on a daily basis. Many of them seem riskless. And in fact, they are. Yet if we do them repeatedly then we want to put more conscious effort to make sure to be ready when the worst case scenario materializes!