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According to a 2023 study, nine in 10 consumers consider online reviews when they make a purchase decision. Think about the last time you spent more than $100 on an online purchase. Did you use a recommendation from a friend? Did you buy the first listing you saw on Amazon, or did you read through the reviews first? When it comes to office equipment, having to submit expense reports or prove the value of a purchase makes it so that you are even more conscious of the product you are buying. View the full article

Key takeaways Navigating the complex climate of project management with tight timelines and limited resources is tricky, and with the demands of the process, effective leadership becomes crucial for success. Leadership in project management is more than just assigning tasks. It also involves creating a vision, inspiring and motivating the team, making informed decisions, and… The post Leadership in Project Management: Why It Is an Essential Skill appeared first on project-management.com. View the full article

Google’s Search Engine Results Page (SERP) offers more than just a list of links. Its layout can change based on what you’re searching for, presenting various SERP features tailored to your needs. You might see different elements like featured snippets, shopping options, or local listings and also AI Overviews. Understanding these can help you navigate the results more effectively. This guide will help you identify and differentiate between the paid and organic results you encounter. Table of contents What are SERP features? A new SERP feature: Google AI Overviews It depends on what you’re searching for Browsing through the result page Sponsored results and ads Organic results Snippets Other elements on the SERPs Knowledge Graph panel People also ask Featured snippets Local 3-pack Image pack Top stories Conclusion about SERP features What are SERP features? Search features are elements on a search engine results page (SERP) that provide information beyond the standard list of links. They include things like featured snippets, image packs, and knowledge panels. These features make it easier for users to quickly find answers and relevant information in search results. Google Search is really rich with information these days A new SERP feature: Google AI Overviews AI Overviews are a new feature in Google’s search results. They use artificial intelligence to create concise summaries that answer user queries quickly. These summaries appear at the top of search pages, providing immediate information without the user needing to click through links, although links are provided. This feature helps users find the information they need faster and increases the visibility of diverse websites. Google AI Overview provide a new way of accessing information from search It depends on what you’re searching for What the result page looks like largely depends on what you are searching for. If you’re searching for a product you can buy, Google will show shop results on the SERP. For example, when we searched for hockey equipment for an eight-year-old, Google showed us this: An example of a product search on Google This results page starts with shopping results, with images on top. On the left-hand side, you will see all kinds of filters to fine-tune your product search as well. To enter the Sponsored section, you must pay Google – note the word ‘sponsored’ in the upper left corner. After those results, the first is an ad, which is another paid result. And then the organic results start. However, if you’re searching for information about the planet Neptune – because your son is writing an essay about that – you’ll encounter a different-looking SERP: Different searches show different SERP features on Google These search results do not show any paid or sponsored results. At the top, you’ll see an AI Overview for the topic, and on the right, you’ll notice a knowledge graph with lots of information about the planet Neptune. There’s even an interactive diagram to learn more about what Neptune looks like. Read on: What is search intent? » Browsing through the result page The default page of Google’s search result is a page on which different results appear. Google decides which results fit your search query best. That could be ‘normal’ results, but also news results, shopping results or images. If you’re searching for information, a knowledge graph could turn up. When you’re searching to buy something online, you’ll probably get lots of shopping results on the default result page. Google Search has many options than just regular search You can apply some filters on the search results yourself if you want to. You can, for instance, click on ‘images’ if you’re searching for an image. This allows you to browse through images only. You can also choose ‘shopping’, ‘maps’, ‘forums’, ‘videos’, ‘news’ and ‘more’. Keep on reading: How to get your Shopify store on Google » Sponsored results and ads Google shows both paid results and organic results. It can be pretty hard to notice the difference between the two. The ads usually appear on top of the search results. Sometimes it’s only one ad, but Google can show more ads as well. This depends on how many people search for a certain search term and who wants to pay for it. There are many sponsored listings in Google You’ll recognize the paid result by the word Sponsored shown in front of the link to the website. The shopping results in Google are also paid results: a company pays Google to appear in the shopping results. If you want to advertise on Google, you should check out Google Adwords. Organic results Google’s organic results are all non-paid results. According to Google’s algorithm, the organic results shown first are the best fit for the user’s search query. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) improves the chances of ranking in organic search results. Snippets The search result page consists of a number of snippets. A snippet is a result Google shows to the user in the search results. A ‘normal’ snippet usually looks like this: A regular Google snippet Google shows the title in blue, the URL in grey, and a description of the page. You’ll also encounter rich snippets on the SERP. A rich snippet shows extra information between the URL and the description. A rich snippet looks like this: A rich result as shown in Google search In this snippet, a picture of the ice cream is added. You can see the recipe’s rating and the time it takes to prepare this type of ice cream. A rich snippet contains much more information than a normal snippet does. Read more: What are rich snippets? » Other elements on the SERPs Besides snippets, images, videos, news results, shopping results and maps, Google also shows some other elements on the SERPs. Knowledge Graph panel The Knowledge Graph Panel appears on the right side of the search results. According to Google, this information is retrieved from many sources, including the CIA World Factbook and Wikipedia. Information from the Knowledge Graph is used to answer spoken questions in Google Assistant and Google Home voice queries. An example of a knowledge graph panel Google search feature People also ask This box appears somewhere between the organic search results. It’ll suggest questions related to the search query you typed in. You’ll encounter these related questions in the organic search results if you’re searching for Minecraft. Clicking on one of the suggestions will directly answer the specific question. Google’s People also ask search feature Featured snippets A featured snippet, aka answer box, is a highlighted search box that answers the question you type in the Google search bar. This featured snippet box is situated above the regular organic search results. Featured snippets often appear as a paragraph or a bulleted list, accompanied by an image. Featured highlight answers directly at the top of the Google search results Keep reading: How to get featured snippets » Local 3-pack When you search from something locally, the Local 3-pack can show up to highlight three related local businesses. It’s a Google search feature that provides information such as business names, addresses, phone numbers, and customer reviews. This feature is often integrated with Google Maps. It helps users find directions and learn more about local businesses. This search feature shows three local result based on the query Image pack The image pack search feature shows a collection of images related to a search. Typically shown in a grid or carousel format, they allow users to quickly browse visual content without leaving the search page. For some searches, images are a better fit than just regular links or other SERP features. An example of an image pack in Google’s search results Top stories Top stories is a search feature on Google that displays the most recent and relevant news articles. This section typically appears near the top of the search results, highlighting breaking news and timely updates. It includes headlines, publication names, and often images to quickly inform users about current events. Google’re Top stories feature shows the most important news Conclusion about SERP features Google’s search engine results pages can show various elements: the search results (so-called snippets), AI Overviews, a knowledge graph, a featured snippet, an answer box, images, shopping results, and more. Some of these elements will show up depending on the type of query and the data Google finds. You can add structured data to your page so Google can show a ‘rich’ snippet, providing more information about your product or recipe, for instance. You can pay Google to make the snippet of your page end up high on the search results page as an ad. Or, you can optimize your pages for the search engines – and users! – so it will rank high organically. That’s SEO, and that’s what we write about! Read on: Yoast SEO: how to make your site stand out in the search results » The post Features of the Google Search Engine Results Page (SERP) appeared first on Yoast. View the full article

Between this newsletter, my podcast, my books, and my New Yorker journalism, I offer a lot of advice and propose a lot of ideas about how the modern digital environment impacts our lives, both professionally and personally, and how we should respond. This techno-pontification covers everything from the nitty gritty details of producing good work in an office saturated with emails and Zoom, to heady decisions about shaping a meaningful life amid the nihilistic abstraction of an increasingly networked existence. With the end of year rapidly approaching, and people finding themselves with some spare thinking time as work winds down for the holidays, I thought it might be fun to try to summarize essentially every major idea I discuss in one short primer. So that’s what I’m attempting below! I’m sure I’m missing some key points, but this should nevertheless provide a useful road map to my esoteric mental wanderings. Knowledge Work Treat cognitive context shifts as “productivity poison.” The more you switch your attention from one target (say, a report you’re writing) to another (say, an inbox check), the more exhausted and dumber you become. The biggest source of context shifts is digital communication. Move as much collaboration as possible out of chains of ad hoc, back and forth messaging and into something more structured. The second biggest source of context shifts is caused by working on too many tasks at the same time. Do fewer things at once. You’ll finish each task faster (and better) and therefore accomplish more over time. Focus is like a super power in most knowledge work jobs. Train this ability. Protect deep work on your calendar. Support these sessions through special rituals and spaces. You need specific systems to track all of your commitments. You need specific system to manage your time and attention. The pace and volume of modern knowledge work is too intense for you to casually handle it all in your head. Remote work requires more structure surrounding workload management and communication than regular office work. It’s not enough to simply give remote workers a Zoom account and a Slack handle and hope their efforts unfold as before. Sources: Deep Work, A World Without Email, Slow Productivity, “Why Remote Work is So Hard–And How it Can Be Fixed”, “Why Do We Work Too Much?”, “Was Email a Mistake?”, “How to Have a More Productive Year” Personal Technology Use Your phone should be used as a tool, not a constant companion. To accomplish this: (1) keep your phone plugged into the same spot when at home (instead of having it with you); and (2) remove all apps from your phone where someone makes more money the more you use it. Most people don’t need to use social media. If you really need to use it — e.g., for professional purposes — use it on a web browser on your laptop, and spend at most an hour a week logged in, as that’s enough for 99% of legitimate uses. There are better ways to be entertained, find news, and connect with people. Digital communication can be great, but be wary of communicating with people you’ve never actually met in person before. (That is, texting a friend is good. Arguing with a random Twitter user about presidential politics is not.) Fixing your relationship with digital tools requires that you fix your analog life first. It’s not enough to stop using problematic apps and devices, you must also aggressively pursue alternative activities to fill the voids this digital abstention will create: read books, join communities, develop hard hobbies, get in shape, hatch plans to transform your career for the better. Without deeper purpose, the shallow siren song of your phone will become impossible to ignore. Kids under the age of 16 shouldn’t have unrestricted access to the internet. Their brains aren’t ready for it. Sources: Digital Minimalism, “Quit Social Media”, “Steve Jobs Never Wanted Us to Use Our iPhones Like This”, “Cal Newport on Kids and Smartphones” The Deep Life In building a meaningful and fulfilling life, it’s usually better to work backwards from a broad vision of your ideal lifestyle than it is to work forward toward a singular grand goal (e.g., a “dream job” or radical location change) that you hope will make everything better. The best way to improve your professional life is to get good at something the market unambiguously values, and then use this “career capital” as leverage to shape your work in ways that resonate. No one owes you a great a job. You have to get great first before you demand it. Succeeding with big changes in your life requires that you first get your act together. Get comfortable with discipline (doing things that are hard in the moment but important in the long term), get organized, and reclaim your brain from constant digital distraction. Only then should initiate your ambitious plans. Sources: So Good They Can’t Ignore You, “The Most Important Piece of Career Advice You Probably Never Heard”, “The Deep Life: Some Notes”, “Deep Life Stack 2.0” The Internet and Future Technology When it comes to the internet, small is usually better than big. Niche online communities are more meaningful and less harmful (in terms of both content and addictive properties) than massive social platforms. Independent content formats, like podcasts and newsletters, are much better for creatives (in terms of stability, income, and autonomy) than attempting to become an influencer on a major platform. And so on. The age of massive social network monopolies is already coming to an end. We just don’t realize it yet. Generative AI won’t really change our daily lives in a massive way until it leaves the chatbot format and becomes more integrated into specific tools. The biggest technology story everyone is ignoring is the end of screens. Within the next decade, AR glasses will replace essentially every screen currently in our lives — phones, laptops, tablets, computer monitors, and televisions. The ramifications on the worldwide technology sector will be absolutely massive. It will also be the end of a fully differentiated analog reality as we know it. Sources: “The Rise of the Internet’s Creative Middle Class”, “TikTok and the Fall of the Social Media Giants”, “Can an AI Make Plans”, “The End of Screens?” ##### Speaking of books, my latest, Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment without Burnout, was named a best book of 2024 by The Economist, NPR, and Amazon. It’s also currently heavily discounted for Cyber Monday. Consider it as a great gift for yourself or someone else you know who could benefit from slowing down! (The photo used for this article was taken by Greg Kahn for a recent profile of me published in El Pais.) The post The Tao of Cal appeared first on Cal Newport. View the full article

Between this newsletter, my podcast, my books, and my New Yorker journalism, I offer a lot of advice and propose a lot of ideas about how the modern digital environment impacts our lives, both professionally and personally, and how we should respond. This techno-pontification covers everything from the nitty gritty details of producing good work in an office saturated with emails and Zoom, to heady decisions about shaping a meaningful life amid the nihilistic abstraction of an increasingly networked existence. With the end of year rapidly approaching, and people finding themselves with some spare thinking time as work winds down for the holidays, I thought it might be fun to try to summarize essentially every major idea I discuss in one short primer. So that’s what I’m attempting below! I’m sure I’m missing some key points, but this should nevertheless provide a useful road map to my esoteric mental wanderings. Knowledge Work Treat cognitive context shifts as “productivity poison.” The more you switch your attention from one target (say, a report you’re writing) to another (say, an inbox check), the more exhausted and dumber you become. The biggest source of context shifts is digital communication. Move as much collaboration as possible out of chains of ad hoc, back and forth messaging and into something more structured. The second biggest source of context shifts is caused by working on too many tasks at the same time. Do fewer things at once. You’ll finish each task faster (and better) and therefore accomplish more over time. Focus is like a super power in most knowledge work jobs. Train this ability. Protect deep work on your calendar. Support these sessions through special rituals and spaces. You need specific systems to track all of your commitments. You need specific system to manage your time and attention. The pace and volume of modern knowledge work is too intense for you to casually handle it all in your head. Remote work requires more structure surrounding workload management and communication than regular office work. It’s not enough to simply give remote workers a Zoom account and a Slack handle and hope their efforts unfold as before. Sources: Deep Work, A World Without Email, Slow Productivity, “Why Remote Work is So Hard–And How it Can Be Fixed”, “Why Do We Work Too Much?”, “Was Email a Mistake?”, “How to Have a More Productive Year” Personal Technology Use Your phone should be used as a tool, not a constant companion. To accomplish this: (1) keep your phone plugged into the same spot when at home (instead of having it with you); and (2) remove all apps from your phone where someone makes more money the more you use it. Most people don’t need to use social media. If you really need to use it — e.g., for professional purposes — use it on a web browser on your laptop, and spend at most an hour a week logged in, as that’s enough for 99% of legitimate uses. There are better ways to be entertained, find news, and connect with people. Digital communication can be great, but be wary of communicating with people you’ve never actually met in person before. (That is, texting a friend is good. Arguing with a random Twitter user about presidential politics is not.) Fixing your relationship with digital tools requires that you fix your analog life first. It’s not enough to stop using problematic apps and devices, you must also aggressively pursue alternative activities to fill the voids this digital abstention will create: read books, join communities, develop hard hobbies, get in shape, hatch plans to transform your career for the better. Without deeper purpose, the shallow siren song of your phone will become impossible to ignore. Kids under the age of 16 shouldn’t have unrestricted access to the internet. Their brains aren’t ready for it. Sources: Digital Minimalism, “Quit Social Media”, “Steve Jobs Never Wanted Us to Use Our iPhones Like This”, “Cal Newport on Kids and Smartphones” The Deep Life In building a meaningful and fulfilling life, it’s usually better to work backwards from a broad vision of your ideal lifestyle than it is to work forward toward a singular grand goal (e.g., a “dream job” or radical location change) that you hope will make everything better. The best way to improve your professional life is to get good at something the market unambiguously values, and then use this “career capital” as leverage to shape your work in ways that resonate. No one owes you a great a job. You have to get great first before you demand it. Succeeding with big changes in your life requires that you first get your act together. Get comfortable with discipline (doing things that are hard in the moment but important in the long term), get organized, and reclaim your brain from constant digital distraction. Only then should initiate your ambitious plans. Sources: So Good They Can’t Ignore You, “The Most Important Piece of Career Advice You Probably Never Heard”, “The Deep Life: Some Notes”, “Deep Life Stack 2.0” The Internet and Future Technology When it comes to the internet, small is usually better than big. Niche online communities are more meaningful and less harmful (in terms of both content and addictive properties) than massive social platforms. Independent content formats, like podcasts and newsletters, are much better for creatives (in terms of stability, income, and autonomy) than attempting to become an influencer on a major platform. And so on. The age of massive social network monopolies is already coming to an end. We just don’t realize it yet. Generative AI won’t really change our daily lives in a massive way until it leaves the chatbot format and becomes more integrated into specific tools. The biggest technology story everyone is ignoring is the end of screens. Within the next decade, AR glasses will replace essentially every screen currently in our lives — phones, laptops, tablets, computer monitors, and televisions. The ramifications on the worldwide technology sector will be absolutely massive. It will also be the end of a fully differentiated analog reality as we know it. Sources: “The Rise of the Internet’s Creative Middle Class”, “TikTok and the Fall of the Social Media Giants”, “Can an AI Make Plans”, “The End of Screens?” ##### Speaking of books, my latest, Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment without Burnout, was named a best book of 2024 by The Economist, NPR, and Amazon. It’s also currently heavily discounted for Cyber Monday. Consider it as a great gift for yourself or someone else you know who could benefit from slowing down! (The photo used for this article was taken by Greg Kahn for a recent profile of me published in El Pais.) The post The Tao of Cal appeared first on Cal Newport. View the full article

The world of SEO keeps evolving and changing, which is why it’s important to keep developing your own skills. An excellent way to do this is via hands-on experimentation. In this post, I’ll share three valuable lessons I’ve learned from my previous ventures. Note that this blog post was inspired from my talk at BrightonSEO in October 2024. Where it all started A bit of background information: I started experimenting with SEO in 1999 without realizing it, when I created a South Park fan website. This was done via my early foray into the fundamentals of HTML and having fun with the site through different experiments. I discovered that by manipulating meta keywords, I could influence search rankings. Nowadays, that tactic wouldn’t fly, but it’s still incredible that I learned about SEO this way rather than the more predictable entry through my first professional jobs! It didn’t stop there, though. I kept learning by starting my own businesses and creating my own websites and plugins, which gave me invaluable insight into customer behavior, product development, and marketing. Plus, I gained a deeper understanding of website structures and functionalities, which we all know is invaluable for technical SEO. Tip 1: Embrace experimentation It’s unsurprising, then, that my first piece of advice is: embrace experimentation. That’s how I learned most of what I know. Simply start by experimenting on your own personal website or create a new site to work with. If you use tools like LocalWP, you can freely experiment without impacting live websites. And don’t shy away from getting your hands dirty with code! Writing code might seem daunting at first, but I promise you it pays off. I taught myself coding in PHP around 2002 and figured it out quite quickly, approaching code like a puzzle I needed to solve. If I could figure it out on my own during my teenage years (when the technology was in a much earlier stage), then you can too. Explore new technologies and platforms We all know WordPress is great. I think so too. It’s a truly unique and amazing platform to get started with, because it allows you to extend and experiment with plugins, as well as being able to create custom websites to your heart’s desire. In recent years, more CMSs (content management systems) have launched as well as really upping their game to the wider market. Whilst a lot can be good for simpler needs, my preference always naturally returns to WordPress as my experiments and scaling attempts will always eventually hit a wall with other CMSs out there. Create that website for someone else After you’ve experimented and gained an understanding of websites and SEO, people you know may start to ask you to build one for them, or help out with one they have already. Whilst this may sometimes seem annoying at the time, it’s a great opportunity to experiment with someone live on the web so you can create a use case for your work. Working with different people and businesses will make sure you encounter different challenges and opportunities to develop new skills. This will ultimately enhance your SEO capabilities. Tip 2: The importance of a customer-centric mindset One venture I learned many lessons from is from when I owned a bar with my wife. Whilst this was far from SEO, it taught me many lessons, some of which I apply in my job today. It’s the same with any business, online or physical. If you understand who your customer is, you can create content and products that resonate with them. This will make them much more likely to become your customers. With a physical business, it’s easier to engage directly with the customer, but in the digital world this can be more challenging. You can learn a lot by engaging with individual customers or end-users directly through a video call or meeting them in real life—try to do this for your clients or the company you work for. Build a strong (online) community An interesting story of brand loyalty: one day the bar received a one-star review on TripAdvisor. The reviewer said they were happy with their visit in general – with great service and wine – but there was a dog in the bar, which seemed unfair considering that the dog was 3 tables away from the customer and that it’s a dog-friendly bar (as most are in the suburbs). However, this does happen to businesses from time to time and we replied to the review. Back at the bar, some regular customers noticed the review and decided to add their own—all 5 stars. Three days later, the review was removed. This brought our average rating up as a result, which also improved our ranking within TripAdvisor. This really brought home that not only can a disproportionately negative review have real consequences for a business and its owners, but also showed how brand loyalty counts for so much. By nurturing and maintaining a relationship with your audience, people will talk about you online and offline. Tip 3: Be mindful of niche trends Remember NFTs? Non-Fungible Tokens are a form of digital asset all powered by the blockchain and were extremely popular during 2020-2022. You may have seen a couple of them, including Bored Ape Yacht Club—a generative NFT collection—or a single NFT by Beeple sold for $69.3m. During its increased popularity, I co-founded an NFT marketing agency. One SEO tactic I used was to utilize my existing agency and create a landing page there to sell the service, using the site’s existing relevance and authority. As a result we began ranking quicker than any other agency was attempting to, whilst also using our newly built site to do the same. Building something from the ground up is a long process but is still worth it, as even the new agency’s site ranked independently and earned its own authority. Avoid putting all your eggs in one trendy basket Whilst the NFT marketing agency gave me a lot of invaluable experience and garnered new connections, the trend—and therefore the business—didn’t last. This experience highlighted the limitations of niche trends for me. It was a great learning experience, but it taught me that trends are usually not a solid foundation for any long-term goals you might have. Whilst it’s great to go “all in” on a new venture, ensure that your current one is supported enough or balance both until one gets to a position you make yourself redundant in the other. Get experimenting! I hope this post helps nudge you to explore beyond business as usual. After all, the best way to enhance your SEO and other professional skills is by experimenting! The post Enhance your SEO skills through experimentation appeared first on Yoast. View the full article

Your customer service department is at their wits’ end. They’re small and not capable of providing the same proactive customer service as larger teams. It feels like they’re losing a battle against their own software – firefighting technical issues, but never able to see past the smoke. You know there’s got to be a better […] The post 3 Tips for Successfully Implementing Predictive Customer Service appeared first on Groove Blog. View the full article

Subscribe to Work LifeGet stories like this in your inbox Subscribe Your colleague has been experimenting with a new automation tool and insists your team should use it to speed up some of your workflows. Everybody has reservations – this person has only used this tool a few times and there are complexities in these workflows that are difficult to automate – but your team member isn’t willing to listen to the naysayers. Confident, eager, and excited, your overly optimistic coworker charges ahead with rolling out the tool. It isn’t long before your workflows are a tangled knot and your team member is grappling with how things went so wrong when they swore they were an expert. Been there? It’s tempting to write off your colleague as misguided, stubborn, and even arrogant. But in reality, they defaulted to a common cognitive bias: the Dunning-Kruger effect. The Dunning-Kruger effect: What it is and why it happens Related Article The Johari window: a fresh take on self-reflection By Kat Boogaard In Teamwork The Dunning-Kruger effect is a cognitive bias that occurs when someone overestimates their knowledge and abilities. It was first coined by David Dunning and Justin Kruger, both psychologists at Cornell University, in their 1999 paper. The psychologists conducted four different studies that each tested participants on humor, grammar, and logic. Participants weren’t just evaluated – they were also asked to predict their own performance. The participants who scored in the bottom quartile of the tests had grossly overestimated their own abilities. Their actual performance, on average, put them in the 12th percentile, despite the fact they self-estimated they’d be closer to the 62nd percentile. That disconnect lives at the heart of the Dunning-Kruger effect. The typical “sitcom dad” is one trope where you’ll see this particular bias pop up. He refuses to ask for directions on a road trip and gets his family hopelessly lost. He insists he can complete a basic home repair only for chaos (and property damage) to ensue. He’s confident he can cook a family meal, then the frying pan starts on fire. But that tired comedy device implies that the Dunning-Kruger effect relates to basic intelligence and only happens to the most bumbling and inept among us. In reality, the Dunning-Kruger effect can happen to all of us – including you. What is a cognitive bias? The Dunning-Kruger effect is one of many cognitive biases our brains can fall victim to. A cognitive bias is when you allow your personal preferences and beliefs to influence your decisions – even if other information threatens or disproves those preconceived notions. Think of it as a brain shortcut that helps you process the overload of information you take in daily. It’s not a perfect system, but one our brains seem intent on sticking with, because it’s our system (that’s called modal bias, by the way). Why does the Dunning-Kruger effect happen? But why do some of us tend to be so optimistic about our abilities, especially in areas where we should readily recognize that we have limited knowledge and skills? In their paper, Dunning and Kruger described it as a “dual burden.” We charge ahead while overestimating our talents, but we also lack the awareness (something Dunning and Kruger called “metacognitive abilities”) to recognize that we’re falling short in the first place. Basically, you don’t know what you don’t know. Because you’re inexperienced in a particular area, you don’t have the basic information you need to distinguish between a good performance and a bad performance. Think of it like this: If you’re not into wine, you probably can’t tell the difference between a $10 bottle and a $100 bottle. Another reason we tend to aggrandize our own skills and talents is that it can feel shameful to admit that we don’t know something – hence why “fake it ‘til you make it” is such a popular slogan. What are the four stages of the Dunning-Kruger effect? The four stages of competence model is often talked about in conjunction with the Dunning-Kruger effect. This model shows how learning progresses through four distinct phases. These stages are: Unconscious incompetence: You are completely unaware of a gap in your skills or knowledge Conscious incompetence: You are aware of the skill or knowledge you lack and are eager to acquire it Conscious competence: You are able to perform the new skill, but with a lot of focus and effort Unconscious competence: You are able to perform the skill so naturally and easily, you can do it without much conscious thought It’s in the first stage – or the transition between the first two stages – when the Dunning-Kruger effect most commonly comes into play. What’s the harm in the Dunning-Kruger effect? We all over-inflate our abilities occasionally. But even so, most of us still have a somewhat realistic grasp on what we’re capable of – you probably aren’t volunteering when somebody on a plane asks for a doctor simply because you’ve watched a few medical dramas. So is this cognitive bias really all that bad? What’s the harm? Dunning-Kruger does have some potential for fallout, including: Poor decision-making: Whether it’s pursuing a career that ultimately isn’t a match for your abilities or volunteering for a project you can’t realistically pull off, that dual burden can trigger some poor decisions. Mistrust among team members: If your overconfidence becomes a pattern, your co-workers could start to doubt your ability to perform at a high level in any area. A tendency to overpromise and underdeliver erodes teammates’ trust. Potential danger: Overestimating your skills could pose a danger to yourself and others, particularly in hazardous and high-risk careers. The Dunning-Kruger effect isn’t all bad, though. A little extra optimism and self-assuredness could be what’s needed for people to achieve stretch goals that might’ve seemed completely unreasonable to others. Dunning-Kruger vs. imposter syndrome The Dunning-Kruger effect seems to be in direct conflict with one of its better-known relatives: imposter syndrome, which occurs when we underestimate our own talents and worry (without reason) that we’ll be exposed as frauds. The two are indeed opposites, but it’s possible to experience both types of blind spots. Dunning-Kruger tends to show up in areas where we lack expertise but assume we’re proficient. In contrast, imposter syndrome happens when we really are experts but distrust our own intelligence anyway. Is the Dunning-Kruger effect even real? Like any other theory or finding, the Dunning-Kruger effect has been the focus of criticism – with some skeptics pointing toward regression to the mean or even random occurrence to explain the original study’s findings, rather than a real defect in our self-insight. But beyond the scholarly hole-poking, perhaps the biggest problem with the way we talk about this bias lies in the undercurrent of shame. Academic explanations are riddled with words like “incompetent,” “ignorant,” and “poor performer,” terms that can understandably trigger some self-consciousness and humiliation. As a result, identifying the Dunning-Kruger effect as the cause of someone’s bias can feel like a personal attack, even though it’s a universal experience – something that can (and will) happen to all of us. How to overcome the Dunning-Kruger effect While it’s bound to still creep in from time to time, awareness is the best antidote to the Dunning-Kruger effect. Here are a few strategies you can use to fuel reflection and recognition, for yourself and your team. Overcoming the Dunning-Kruger effect yourself Most of us like to think of ourselves as self-aware, but one study found that only 10-15% of people fit the criteria. Here’s how you can get a more realistic grasp on yourself and your capabilities: Solicit feedback from various sources: 360-degree feedback offers a well-rounded perspective of your performance, capabilities, and what you’re like to work with. While some companies make this a formalized process, you can solicit feedback from the people you work with on a steady basis (such as during 1-on-1 meetings, at the end of big projects, or during performance review cycles) to keep your self-perception in check. Reflect on your past experiences: History is a great teacher, especially when it comes to boosting your self-awareness. Look back on previous projects or challenges. When have you struggled? When have tasks felt effortless? What are you consistently praised for? What work fulfills you? What drains you? This can clue you in on where your capabilities are best utilized. Overcoming the Dunning-Kruger effect on your team Related Article What does psychological safety mean, anyway? By Katie Taylor In Teamwork If you’re leading a team, there are a few other steps you can take together to minimize this bias and root everybody in reality: Prioritize psychological safety: A high degree of psychological safety means people feel more comfortable admitting they don’t have the necessary know-how to do something, rather than feeling like they need to put on a front. Value and celebrate diverse skills: As a manager, it’s tempting to zone in on patching up weaknesses on your team. But classic research from Gallup found that a strengths-based culture, as opposed to one that fixates only on growth areas, increases employee engagement. Plus, people will feel valued for their unique attributes rather than pushing beyond their capabilities to get your recognition and approval. Complete a self-reflection exercise: The Johari window is a personality assessment that improves your understanding of yourself. You’ll select five or six terms that best describe you and your colleagues will also select descriptors they think fit you best. You’ll plot the qualities on a matrix to see how your self-perception compares to the way your colleagues view you. Fuel a growth mindset: A team that has embraced a growth mindset is hungry to learn and improve and views failures and mistakes as learning opportunities. You can feed this mindset by providing plenty of resources – like mentorship, seminars, books, courses, and other professional development opportunities – for team members to explore and refine their skills. Give thoughtful and honest feedback: Constructive criticism is hard to hear and sometimes even harder to deliver. But if you keep your lips zipped and let your low performers continue to assume they’re knocking it out of the park, they’ll stay on that same path, blissfully unaware that they’re falling short. Aim for awareness, not apprehension It’s off-putting to know your brain is basically hardwired to trick you into an inflated self-assessment. But the goal here isn’t to inspire doubt or hesitation. Rather, understanding the Dunning-Kruger effect and how it might show up in your work and your life will help you build your self-awareness. When you have a more pragmatic sense of your actual strengths and weaknesses, you’re able to seek out roles, projects, and situations where you (and the other people on your team) can shine – not struggle. Subscribe to Work LifeGet stories like this in your inbox Subscribe The post The Dunning-Kruger effect: why and how we overestimate our own abilities appeared first on Work Life by Atlassian. View the full article

Subscribe to Work LifeGet stories like this in your inbox Subscribe Your colleague has been experimenting with a new automation tool and insists your team should use it to speed up some of your workflows. Everybody has reservations – this person has only used this tool a few times and there are complexities in these workflows that are difficult to automate – but your team member isn’t willing to listen to the naysayers. Confident, eager, and excited, your overly optimistic coworker charges ahead with rolling out the tool. It isn’t long before your workflows are a tangled knot and your team member is grappling with how things went so wrong when they swore they were an expert. Been there? It’s tempting to write off your colleague as misguided, stubborn, and even arrogant. But in reality, they defaulted to a common cognitive bias: the Dunning-Kruger effect. The Dunning-Kruger effect: What it is and why it happens Related Article The Johari window: a fresh take on self-reflection By Kat Boogaard In Teamwork The Dunning-Kruger effect is a cognitive bias that occurs when someone overestimates their knowledge and abilities. It was first coined by David Dunning and Justin Kruger, both psychologists at Cornell University, in their 1999 paper. The psychologists conducted four different studies that each tested participants on humor, grammar, and logic. Participants weren’t just evaluated – they were also asked to predict their own performance. The participants who scored in the bottom quartile of the tests had grossly overestimated their own abilities. Their actual performance, on average, put them in the 12th percentile, despite the fact they self-estimated they’d be closer to the 62nd percentile. That disconnect lives at the heart of the Dunning-Kruger effect. The typical “sitcom dad” is one trope where you’ll see this particular bias pop up. He refuses to ask for directions on a road trip and gets his family hopelessly lost. He insists he can complete a basic home repair only for chaos (and property damage) to ensue. He’s confident he can cook a family meal, then the frying pan starts on fire. But that tired comedy device implies that the Dunning-Kruger effect relates to basic intelligence and only happens to the most bumbling and inept among us. In reality, the Dunning-Kruger effect can happen to all of us – including you. What is a cognitive bias? The Dunning-Kruger effect is one of many cognitive biases our brains can fall victim to. A cognitive bias is when you allow your personal preferences and beliefs to influence your decisions – even if other information threatens or disproves those preconceived notions. Think of it as a brain shortcut that helps you process the overload of information you take in daily. It’s not a perfect system, but one our brains seem intent on sticking with, because it’s our system (that’s called modal bias, by the way). Why does the Dunning-Kruger effect happen? But why do some of us tend to be so optimistic about our abilities, especially in areas where we should readily recognize that we have limited knowledge and skills? In their paper, Dunning and Kruger described it as a “dual burden.” We charge ahead while overestimating our talents, but we also lack the awareness (something Dunning and Kruger called “metacognitive abilities”) to recognize that we’re falling short in the first place. Basically, you don’t know what you don’t know. Because you’re inexperienced in a particular area, you don’t have the basic information you need to distinguish between a good performance and a bad performance. Think of it like this: If you’re not into wine, you probably can’t tell the difference between a $10 bottle and a $100 bottle. Another reason we tend to aggrandize our own skills and talents is that it can feel shameful to admit that we don’t know something – hence why “fake it ‘til you make it” is such a popular slogan. What are the four stages of the Dunning-Kruger effect? The four stages of competence model is often talked about in conjunction with the Dunning-Kruger effect. This model shows how learning progresses through four distinct phases. These stages are: Unconscious incompetence: You are completely unaware of a gap in your skills or knowledge Conscious incompetence: You are aware of the skill or knowledge you lack and are eager to acquire it Conscious competence: You are able to perform the new skill, but with a lot of focus and effort Unconscious competence: You are able to perform the skill so naturally and easily, you can do it without much conscious thought It’s in the first stage – or the transition between the first two stages – when the Dunning-Kruger effect most commonly comes into play. What’s the harm in the Dunning-Kruger effect? We all over-inflate our abilities occasionally. But even so, most of us still have a somewhat realistic grasp on what we’re capable of – you probably aren’t volunteering when somebody on a plane asks for a doctor simply because you’ve watched a few medical dramas. So is this cognitive bias really all that bad? What’s the harm? Dunning-Kruger does have some potential for fallout, including: Poor decision-making: Whether it’s pursuing a career that ultimately isn’t a match for your abilities or volunteering for a project you can’t realistically pull off, that dual burden can trigger some poor decisions. Mistrust among team members: If your overconfidence becomes a pattern, your co-workers could start to doubt your ability to perform at a high level in any area. A tendency to overpromise and underdeliver erodes teammates’ trust. Potential danger: Overestimating your skills could pose a danger to yourself and others, particularly in hazardous and high-risk careers. The Dunning-Kruger effect isn’t all bad, though. A little extra optimism and self-assuredness could be what’s needed for people to achieve stretch goals that might’ve seemed completely unreasonable to others. Dunning-Kruger vs. imposter syndrome The Dunning-Kruger effect seems to be in direct conflict with one of its better-known relatives: imposter syndrome, which occurs when we underestimate our own talents and worry (without reason) that we’ll be exposed as frauds. The two are indeed opposites, but it’s possible to experience both types of blind spots. Dunning-Kruger tends to show up in areas where we lack expertise but assume we’re proficient. In contrast, imposter syndrome happens when we really are experts but distrust our own intelligence anyway. Is the Dunning-Kruger effect even real? Like any other theory or finding, the Dunning-Kruger effect has been the focus of criticism – with some skeptics pointing toward regression to the mean or even random occurrence to explain the original study’s findings, rather than a real defect in our self-insight. But beyond the scholarly hole-poking, perhaps the biggest problem with the way we talk about this bias lies in the undercurrent of shame. Academic explanations are riddled with words like “incompetent,” “ignorant,” and “poor performer,” terms that can understandably trigger some self-consciousness and humiliation. As a result, identifying the Dunning-Kruger effect as the cause of someone’s bias can feel like a personal attack, even though it’s a universal experience – something that can (and will) happen to all of us. How to overcome the Dunning-Kruger effect While it’s bound to still creep in from time to time, awareness is the best antidote to the Dunning-Kruger effect. Here are a few strategies you can use to fuel reflection and recognition, for yourself and your team. Overcoming the Dunning-Kruger effect yourself Most of us like to think of ourselves as self-aware, but one study found that only 10-15% of people fit the criteria. Here’s how you can get a more realistic grasp on yourself and your capabilities: Solicit feedback from various sources: 360-degree feedback offers a well-rounded perspective of your performance, capabilities, and what you’re like to work with. While some companies make this a formalized process, you can solicit feedback from the people you work with on a steady basis (such as during 1-on-1 meetings, at the end of big projects, or during performance review cycles) to keep your self-perception in check. Reflect on your past experiences: History is a great teacher, especially when it comes to boosting your self-awareness. Look back on previous projects or challenges. When have you struggled? When have tasks felt effortless? What are you consistently praised for? What work fulfills you? What drains you? This can clue you in on where your capabilities are best utilized. Overcoming the Dunning-Kruger effect on your team Related Article What does psychological safety mean, anyway? By Katie Taylor In Teamwork If you’re leading a team, there are a few other steps you can take together to minimize this bias and root everybody in reality: Prioritize psychological safety: A high degree of psychological safety means people feel more comfortable admitting they don’t have the necessary know-how to do something, rather than feeling like they need to put on a front. Value and celebrate diverse skills: As a manager, it’s tempting to zone in on patching up weaknesses on your team. But classic research from Gallup found that a strengths-based culture, as opposed to one that fixates only on growth areas, increases employee engagement. Plus, people will feel valued for their unique attributes rather than pushing beyond their capabilities to get your recognition and approval. Complete a self-reflection exercise: The Johari window is a personality assessment that improves your understanding of yourself. You’ll select five or six terms that best describe you and your colleagues will also select descriptors they think fit you best. You’ll plot the qualities on a matrix to see how your self-perception compares to the way your colleagues view you. Fuel a growth mindset: A team that has embraced a growth mindset is hungry to learn and improve and views failures and mistakes as learning opportunities. You can feed this mindset by providing plenty of resources – like mentorship, seminars, books, courses, and other professional development opportunities – for team members to explore and refine their skills. Give thoughtful and honest feedback: Constructive criticism is hard to hear and sometimes even harder to deliver. But if you keep your lips zipped and let your low performers continue to assume they’re knocking it out of the park, they’ll stay on that same path, blissfully unaware that they’re falling short. Aim for awareness, not apprehension It’s off-putting to know your brain is basically hardwired to trick you into an inflated self-assessment. But the goal here isn’t to inspire doubt or hesitation. Rather, understanding the Dunning-Kruger effect and how it might show up in your work and your life will help you build your self-awareness. When you have a more pragmatic sense of your actual strengths and weaknesses, you’re able to seek out roles, projects, and situations where you (and the other people on your team) can shine – not struggle. Subscribe to Work LifeGet stories like this in your inbox Subscribe The post The Dunning-Kruger effect: why and how we overestimate our own abilities appeared first on Work Life by Atlassian. View the full article

Can you believe the end of the year is almost here? The holidays can sneak up on all of us, but shopping for all the different people in your life can be simpler if you plan ahead and take the guesswork out with a curated guide of great gift ideas. View the full article

Happy Monday! Can you believe it? The first Monday of the final month of 2024 is already here. As we wind down the year, it’s the perfect time to reflect: What’s one thing you're especially grateful for in 2024? For me, it's that Remotive turned 10 this November (exact date still a mystery, ha!). A full decade of championing remote work. How amazing is that? Excited to hear what you’re grateful for! Vic Our Favorite Articles 💯How to Avoid Job Scams (Remotive)New article on the blog about job scams, with updated information, advice and real examples from users. ​Read on​. Amazon makes it harder for disabled employees to work from home (Seattle Times)Amazon's newly revealed disability policy is causing a stir among employees already upset about the five-day return-to-office mandate. ​Get the details​. Workers at Bethesda parent company strike over remote work policies (The Verge)ZeniMax Workers United is Microsoft's first union. They went on strike on November 13. ​Learn more​. Do You Really Need a Big Career Change? (HBR)Sometimes, the change we need isn’t in our career—it’s in ourselves. ​​Find out why​. This Week's Sponsor 🙌Nomad Insurance By SafetyWing. Global travel medical coverage for remote workers and nomads. Remotive Jobs 💼Is this job for you? 👉 ​Senior Next.js Developer at Proxify​ (CET +/- 3 HOURS) 👉 ​Senior DevOps Engineer (AWS) at Proxify​ (CET +/- 3 HOURS) Free Guides & Tools​Public Job Board​We curate 2,000 remote jobs so you don't have to! ​Find your remote job →​ ​Exclusive Webinar​3 Mistakes to Avoid When Looking For A Remote Startup Job (And What To Do Instead) ​Register for free →​ ​Job Search Tips​Looking for a remote job? Here are our tips to help you work remotely ​Check it out → Join the Remotive newsletter Subscribe to get our latest content by email. Success! Now check your email to confirm your subscription. There was an error submitting your subscription. Please try again. Email address Subscribe Powered by ConvertKit View the full article

Setting Goals for December: Reflect, Plan, and Achieve December is here—the month of twinkling lights, ambitious to-do lists, and the quiet reminder that another year is wrapping up. It’s easy to get swept up in the hustle, but pausing to reflect and plan is one of the best gifts you can give yourself this season. If The post Yes, Virginia, you can be productive in December appeared first on RescueTime Blog. View the full article

Not too long ago, I was able to spend 10 day in silence, training the practice of meditation with Buddhist monks. Though not easy by …View the full article

“Cancelled due to volcano.” “Cancelled due to volcano.” “Delayed due to volcano…” I stood in the Bali airport, staring in astonishment at the flight information …View the full article

When you apply for a remote job, the application process has some specific nuances compared to a traditional office-based role. Whether you’re a seasoned professional or someone new to remote work, understanding what to highlight in your resume and cover letter can make the difference in landing the job. In this post, I’ll walk you […] The post How to Write the Perfect Remote Job Application – Templates & Examples appeared first on Digital Nomad Soul. View the full article

When you apply for a remote job, the application process has some specific nuances compared to a traditional office-based role. Whether you’re a seasoned professional or someone new to remote work, understanding what to highlight in your resume and cover letter can make the difference in landing the job. In this post, I’ll walk you ... Read moreView the full article

Are you a support manager who wants to help your team improve their skills? If so, you’re in the right place! When most people think of support managers, what comes to mind is daily tasks like tracking the ticket queue, setting customer satisfaction goals, and analyzing feedback. But in reality, as I’m sure you know, […] The post How Support Managers Can Help Their Teams Level Up in the Industry appeared first on Groove Blog. View the full article

Discover the features and benefits of Zoho Projects software. Read our review to see if it's the right fit for your project management. The post Zoho Projects Software Review: Features, Pricing, Pros & Cons appeared first on project-management.com. View the full article

If you're considering Freshdesk, but also trying to evaluate alternatives for pricing and feature set - we've done the legwork for you. Check out this free evaluation with competition and ratings. The post 5 Freshdesk Alternatives for Small Online Businesses appeared first on Groove Blog. View the full article

You’re pretty happy with the quality of support your customer service team provides. They reply quickly to customers, get problems resolved ASAP, and offer empathetic support. And yet, you can’t help but feel like there’s something more they could be doing to leverage support for growth. Rather than just keeping things afloat, you’re wondering how […] The post The Fundamentals of Support Driven Growth appeared first on Groove Blog. View the full article

Every business owner with a website is looking for ways to get noticed in the search results. There are loads of tactics to rank well as a local business, but unfortunately, there is no silver bullet. As with most things SEO, this is a combined effort. One of the ways to get noticed is by offering customers up-to-date information like opening hours and contact information. You can do this using Google Business Profile, formerly Google My Business. But what is it exactly, and why is it so important for local SEO? Table of contents What is Google My Business? How does it work? Ranking factors Optimize your Google Business Profile listing Ranking factors beyond your control Google Business Profile Insights Troubleshooting listing issues A tool to manage your reviews Structured data and Yoast Local SEO Local SEO is critical, even with Google Business Profile What is Google My Business? Before we start, it’s good to know that Google recently changed its name from Google My Business to Google Business Profile. But even with its new name, Google Business Profile is still your one-stop shop for managing your business information and how it will be presented in the search results. It is an essential tool to adjust how your business is shown in Google Maps, the Knowledge Graph, and organic search results. According to the most recent edition of Whitespark’s Local Search Ranking Factors Survey, Google My Business remains the biggest driver of local SEO success, with reviews coming in second place. You can manage your business listing by adding NAP details, opening hours, photos, etcetera. There are even unique options to show multiple ways to shop (delivery or curbside pickup). In addition, you get many other options, like managing the reviews your customers leave behind. As you might already know, reviews should be a critical part of your local SEO efforts. Want to learn more about local SEO and how to get higher rankings in the local search results? Our Local SEO training helps you improve your online presence and attract more online and offline visitors. How does it work? Getting started with Google Business Profile is easy; you make an account and claim your business. After filling in your details, you need to verify your business. You can choose between receiving an automated call or text with a verification code, or receiving a real-life postcard from Google at your specified address with the verification code. Some businesses may need to verify with a video. You may have to verify with more than one method. So, why does Google want you to verify your account? They want to ensure that you’re telling the truth and that you’re the business owner listed at the address. Google has a special page that helps you check your verification status. Once verified, you can fill in all the necessary details and check how your listing is doing. You can get regular insights to see how many impressions, clicks, and subscribers your listing got over time. It’s a great way of getting a feel for how Google and customers perceive your business. Keep in mind that Google My Business (or Google Business Profile) is not the catch-all tool for your local SEO. It has to work in tandem with your other off-page and on-page SEO efforts. You probably won’t climb the charts if your profile is inaccurate, but you won’t reach the top without a well-optimized site and localized content. These things go hand in hand. Ranking factors Google Business Profile uses many factors to determine rankings for businesses. We’ll highlight the three most important ones: Relevance Distance Prominence Relevance Relevance determines how well your business fits the search intent of the customer. Is your focus identical to what the customer needs, or are you a bit opaque about what your company does? Vagueness doesn’t rank or sell. Be as clear as you can be, and keep your focus. That way, Google knows what people can expect from you and will be more inclined to show your business in the search results. Tip: When setting up your profile, Google offers you common services that you can add to your category of business. It’s smart to include these, because they will help your business get found. We’ll talk about these in more detail later on. Proximity Proximity is a well-known factor for ranking local businesses. And quite logical when you think about it. You can’t rank in a local search for dentist in Philadelphia when you have located your company in Manhattan. However, the exact way Google determines which businesses to show in a local search is unknown, and it can be pretty hard to rank in a given area. Other factors play a significant role as well. It helps to say you are located in a particular area and show it by having local-oriented content around your business on your site. Google uses what’s known about the searcher’s location to present the most relevant local businesses. Prominence Prominence is all about the activity around your listing; this could be the number of reviews, events, local content, et cetera. It also helps to have loads of quality links to your site. It is somewhat hard to determine what prominence means exactly, but one thing is for sure: no one likes inactive profiles. You have to keep it updated with new photos and manage your reviews. As said before, this goes hand in hand with your site, so make sure both listings align and publish content focusing on your local area(s). It is vital that you keep your business listing accurate and up to date Optimize your Google Business Profile listing Any business with a bona fide brick-and-mortar location or an online outlet is eligible for a Google Business listing. But what if you operate your business out of your house and don’t want people to know your address? If you don’t operate a walk-up brick-and-mortar location but visit your customers in a particular geographic area, you’re called a “Service Business.” Service businesses include plumbers, carpet cleaners, and courier services. In this case, you’re still eligible for a listing. However, you’ll want to choose “Service business” when Google asks what kind of business you have. Google asks what kind of business you are operating Verifying your location Google tries to make sure that only legitimate businesses are represented in GMB. It requires anyone claiming a Listing to verify their association with the company. The easiest way to start the process is to perform a desktop search on Google for your business name (for example, “Kido Chicago”). You’ll see a link in the panel on the right-hand side of the page that asks, “Own this business?” Before you click that link to begin the verification process, make sure you are either not signed in to Google (you can create an account in the next step) or are signed into a Google account for your business instead of your personal Gmail. It’s not a requirement; however, sharing access to your listing with employees or other company agents from a business account will be much easier. Click on Claim this business to claim the profile of this business; if you are the owner Once you fill out the most basic information (see below for what these details are), if it can corroborate your address and phone number, Google will call and ask you to enter a PIN on the screen. If it hasn’t previously seen a business with the phone number and address you submitted, you’ll be mailed a postcard within a week with instructions on how to PIN verify. Verify with video Some businesses may need to verify with a video. If you own a physical store, you will need to record your location by showing street signs, your business exterior and interior, and you need to show that you’re authorized to represent this business. You will need to show all these requirements in one continuous recording, so no editing. If you own a service business, like a plumbing or landscaping business, you don’t have a physical store. That’s why you’ll need to show street signs or the surrounding area where your business is located, your business card or a branded vehicle or business tools, and finally a proof of address. Again, this needs to be done in one continuous recording. Primary business information Name, Address, and Phone This sounds simple, but it’s surprising how many business owners overthink these core attributes or try to “optimize” them. Your Name, Address, and Phone (NAP) are your thumbprint online. If they don’t reflect your business accurately in your Google Business Profile, Google—and your customers—lose trust that you are who you say you are. They will stop sending business your way. Do NOT stuff keywords in your business name. Represent yourself as you would answer the phone or welcome a customer into your store. You probably see spammers doing this and succeeding all the time, but it’ll come back to bite them at some point. Google is monitoring for these kinds of abuses all the time, and they’re getting better at blocking the abusers. Submit the same address you use on your website. If you’re a Yoast user, this should be the address you enter in the Yoast Local SEO plugin. Even if you’re a service-area business, you’ll have to submit a physical address, not a PO box or other mailing-only address. You’ll see a map displayed just alongside your address. Zoom in and double-check that the pin is in the correct place on your business. Google’s pin precision for U.S. addresses is typically pretty good, but it can be spotty in other countries. Don’t use a tracking phone number to segment customers coming from Google vs. other sources. There are ways to do this, but they’re pretty advanced. Implementing tracking numbers incorrectly can do tremendous damage to your local search rankings. Choose a category for your business From a rankings standpoint, the business category is the most important attribute you can optimize in your Google Business Profile. In our experience, it’s best to keep an eye on Google’s advice on categories. Remember that advice has changed frequently over the years and might change again. Start typing, and the categories magically appear. You can add more later on Google maintains a taxonomy of several thousand categories to describe local businesses. You’ll probably find a match pretty closely by typing in a few characters of a keyword that describes your business. Google suggests “using as few categories as possible,” as well as categories that are “as specific as possible.” And while it’s true that Google can and does “detect category information from your website and mentions about your business throughout the web,” our advice is to specify as many relevant categories as possible on your Google Business Profile listing. Google’s automated review system may remove one or two from your listing, but this is not spam—provided you select relevant categories. It helps you show up for as broad a range of searches as possible. Services businesses can add the specific services you offer Add your website In the process, there’s a field to add your website URL, but it doesn’t have to be your “website” per se. In particular, if you operate in more than one location, you may want to enter the page on your website corresponding to the location you’re submitting to Google—rather than your homepage. Opinions are mixed on whether listing your homepage, or a location page will help you rank better, so do what’s best for prospective customers. If you think your homepage will give them the best initial sense of your business, submit it as your “website”. If a location page—or even some other page—will give your audience a better sense, submit that instead. Add a business description Later on, you can add a business description to your profile. It’s essential to take a moment and find an excellent way to describe your business on Google. The business description field gives you a maximum of 750 characters to convince people to visit your business. This might be the first thing people read about your business, so make it unique and exciting. Describe what your business offers precisely and how you set yourself apart from your competitors. You can also talk about your history and anything else that’s helpful for customers. Keep the description short and sweet, and don’t try to push promotions or deals you have running. You also shouldn’t include URLs or HTML code. Give it a think, write a few descriptions and pick the best one! A unique business description can make you stand out from the rest More business information After entering the attributes above, you’re asked to verify your listing. But don’t stop there. There are a few other attributes that are well worth your time to add. Photos and images Photos may be the most neglected attribute in all local SEO. The success of Instagram, Pinterest, and any lesser-known apps indicates how visual our internet culture has become. Consumers often select—or reject!—a business because of its photos. Not only on the content of the photos, but consumers also judge the quality and professionalism of the photos. Photos are essential in the mobile ecosystem that Google Business Profile powers (including Google Maps), where they dominate a business’s representation in Google’s user interfaces. Try to add authentic photos instead of stock photos, and make sure the pictures reflect your business. As with all local media or social media sites, Google Business Profile has its image format requirements. Take some time to review them and make sure you have high-quality assets for each format. You can find more on improving your images in our image SEO guide. Business hours Selecting your opening hours is pretty straightforward. Google has dramatically improved its interface for telling customers when you’re open over the past several years. Hours will be front-and-center wherever customers interact with your business on Google, so they should be accurate. You can even daypart multiple times during the day and add specific hours for holidays and special events. While you can’t control it, you may be interested to know that Google now displays the busyness of your business in real time. This is based on aggregate location-tracking visitors with Android phones and iOS Google Maps users with location services enabled. See when a business opens and when the most popular times are Restaurants can add menus Specific categories of businesses will have the option to add their menu. Suppose you’re lucky enough to be in one of these categories. In that case, we highly recommend adding this, as it gives Google an additional set of keywords that your business should consider relevant. Accept messages for more leads By default, this feature is turned on. It will add a messaging feature to your Business Profile, and it can be a great way to generate more leads. Of course, you need to keep this chat feature in mind and check regularly for any messages. If you respond quickly and helpfully, you’ll probably turn visitors into customers. The chat function If you’re slow to respond to customers, however, Google might disable this feature for you. So, if you’re not sure you’ll be able to keep track of this feature, it might be better to turn it off. Share posts on your Business Profile The Posts feature is a very useful way to communicate with your customers from your profile. With posts, you can connect with existing and potential customers through your Business Profile on Google Search and Maps. You can create and share announcements, offers, new or popular items in stock, or event details directly with your customers. Use this to promote your sales, specials, events, news, and offers. You can even add videos and photos to posts to make them more interesting! Example of the post feature Many options Since Google Business Profile has grown quite a bit over the years, there are many more options to explore. You don’t need to use all of them, but some are valuable. For example, the Products feature to highlight your products in your listing is a great way to get people interested in what your offer. Another great option is the possibility of getting potential customers to ask questions that you can respond to. Keep in mind that others can also answer these questions, so keep an eye on this. When it works, it can be a real help in turning visitors into customers. And, as always, get reviews for your business! With a Business Profile, you can even respond to these reviews. It doesn’t have to be a message. Nowadays, you can also quickly respond with an emoji, like a heart or fire emoji. Ranking factors beyond your control There are two significant local search and local SEO ranking factors over which you have little control. They both have to do with the physical location of your business. The location of your potential customer The first is the proximity of your business to the location where your prospective customer is performing their search. All other things being equal, Google will display a company closer to the searcher than one farther away from them. In the early years of Google, its algorithm favored businesses close to the center of a given city or its “centroid.” This was partly because Google wasn’t as good at detecting the location of the searcher as they are now. It defaulted to showing businesses in the areas with the highest population density. Nowadays, this factor has declined in importance. Especially for mobile searches where Google has a precise idea of where you are. Google has also partially improved at detecting desktop searchers’ location information through surreptitious collection means. A physical store in the city of your customer’s search question The second factor is having an address in the city in which your customer is searching. If your customer is searching in Seattle, your Tacoma or Bellevue-based coffee shop won’t appear. This is simply because it’s irrelevant to the customer’s search. Short of opening additional locations to target areas where high concentrations of your customers are searching, there’s not much you can do to optimize for these ranking factors. Still, you should be aware of their importance. Google Business Profile Insights Google provides a free, lightweight analytics package as part of GBP. This gives you a basic sense of how customers and potential customers view and interact with your listing. Insights show how often your listing appears in plain old search vs. Google Maps. It also shows the number of clicks to your website, requests for driving directions, phone calls, and more. There’s also a breakdown of how many customers see your listing for direct searches (for your business specifically) vs. discovery searches (for businesses in your category). While no one outside of Google is entirely sure how they calculate the discovery number, it’s probably as good a barometer for the overall strength of your local SEO as any, mainly if you track it over time. Troubleshooting listing issues The most typical GMB troubleshooting issue continues to be duplicate listings for the same business. While it’s gotten harder to detect duplicate listings, it’s much easier to close them. The first step to identifying duplicates is to search for your business name on Google. If it looks like multiple listings refer to your business, select the one you’d like to report as a duplicate and click “Suggest an Edit.” Follow the suggestions to have the listing marked as duplicate. Google support staff are generally responsive to these reports within a reasonable time. If you continue to have trouble, ask multiple people—co-workers, friends, family members, or relatives—to report the same problem, and it’s more likely Google will look at it. If your issue seems particularly thorny, you’re most likely to get a response by tweeting @googlemybiz, the official Twitter support channel for Google Business Profile. A tool to manage your reviews Some time ago, Google added a new feature to the Google My Business dashboard. A feature that allows you to manage your reviews and report reviews for removal. You can also check the status of reviews you’ve already reported here. Keep in mind that Google will only remove reviews that violate their policies, such as irrelevant or offensive content. Structured data and Yoast Local SEO Google increasingly depends on structured data to determine what your site is about and which elements represent what. This is true for your business information, including the information that Google Business Profile uses. Make sure you add the correct structured data to your site. Enhance your NAP details, opening hours, reviews, product information, et cetera, with Schema.org data. This will make it much easier for Google to determine the validity of your listing. Several tools can help you with this, including our Yoast Local SEO plugin. Local SEO is critical, even with Google Business Profile So, you should activate and maintain your Google My Business account and make it awesome. But to get the most out of your listings and to get good rankings, you must have your site in order as well. Optimize every part of it. Create local content for your chosen keyword and business location and get quality local backlinks to build a solid link profile. Ask customers to review your business onsite or on My Business. Make sure your listing is active and attractive; as we said, inaccurate profiles are no good. Read more: The ultimate guide to small business SEO » The post Improve local SEO with Google My Business/Business Profile appeared first on Yoast. View the full article

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Agile and Waterfall are two popular project management methodologies. Learn the differences between Agile and Waterfall and which one is best for you. The post Agile vs Waterfall Methodology: Differences & How to Choose appeared first on project-management.com. View the full article

A kind remark from your colleague. Dazzling fall colors everywhere you look outside. Starting your day with a caffeine boost. When you start looking for them, you can find good things in your life almost anywhere. The approach of Thanksgiving is often a catalyst for grateful reflections. And while there’s never a bad time to The post Gratitude at work: Can a positive mindset improve your productivity? appeared first on RescueTime Blog. View the full article

As the workplace continues to evolve, technological innovation is never more than a half-step behind. With such a rapid pace of change in today's modern business environment, there is no shortage of new business challenges, either. View the full article