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These are the 100 most cited domains, along with their number of mentions. The top domains cited in AI Mode are Wikipedia, YouTube, Google’s blog, Reddit, and Google itself. With so many mentions of YouTube, their own blog, and themselves,…Read more ›View the full article

The modern workplace is in constant flux, driven by the need for greater efficiency, collaboration, and adaptability. Hybrid work models have become increasingly prevalent, demanding that physical meeting spaces evolve to seamlessly connect on-site and remote participants. At the forefront of this transformation is the rise of the ‘smart’ meeting room, powered by the transformative capabilities of Artificial Intelligence (AI). This isn't just about better video and audio; it's about creating intelligent environments that anticipate needs, enhance engagement, and optimize resource utilization. View the full article

The Freelancers Union and Freelancers Hub are proud to once again present our Freelancers Hub art show, this time highlighting work focused on Cityscapes and Architecture. Join us for the Opening Reception on September 10 to celebrate the incredible work created by the members of our community. RSVP today. All events at the Freelancers Hub are made possible thanks to the support of NYC Mayors office of Media and Entertainment. Featured Artists Alex KorolkovasSee more of their art Bio: Alex Korolkovas was born and raised in São Paulo, Brazil, and considers himself an artist first, photographer second. Moving to Los Angeles in 1992, he refined his craft at the Art Center College of Design and worked as a master printer before dedicating himself to photography full-time. His work blends reality and fantasy, capturing human stories through powerful expressions and emotions. With a background in both art and fashion, Alex has collaborated with world-class magazines such as Harper’s Bazaar, Elle, Glamour, and Cosmopolitan, as well as celebrities and athletes on campaigns across the US, Brazilian, and Asian markets. Artist Statement: New York Upside Down is my first photographic series created in New York, approached with the curiosity of an outsider and the rhythm of my Brazilian roots. Drawn to the city’s grafismo, its bold lines, contrasts, and layered geometry. I crafted each image entirely in-camera using double exposures: the first frame as it is, the second with the camera turned completely upside down. This inversion transforms familiar streetscapes into abstract compositions where architecture collides with itself and reflections merge with shadows. Robert A. RippsSee more of their art Bio: Born and raised in New York City, Robert A. Ripps personal work explores the interaction and intersection of nature and the man-made world, both visually, as well as technically. He received his BFA in photography from Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), and has studied at the Center for Creative Imaging (CCI), and Maine Media Workshops. Robert has won numerous awards, including being named one of the 200best digital artists (2023) by Lürzer’s Archive, inclusion in American Photography 36 and 39 Annual Award books, Honorable Mention in the 2021 IPA Int’l Photography Awards, multiple honors from Photo District News (PDN), as well as having his work be a part of the Polaroid collection. In 2020, he was included in the exhibit #ICPConcerned, a selection of photographs collected from the ICP Concerned hashtag on Instagram, and displayed at the International Center of Photography (ICP) in New York. Robert’s most recent solo exhibition, Negativityness Abounds, was at the Christine Frechard Gallery in Pittsburgh. Artist Statement: This ongoing project started as a response to the political climate in the country the past several years- everything seems to be about negativity, about division, about what is truth (and what is inarguably false, yet touted as truth), how the surface of things can be 180 degrees opposite from what is underneath. It is about falsehoods and unseen influence. What was familiar and perhaps mundane has now taken on a sense of surrealism and unfamiliarity, which leaves us feeling unsure, confused and helpless, powerless to have control in events affecting our daily lives. Viewers are encouraged to enjoy the beauty of the images, while also acknowledging the incongruity and surrealism that they present, which hopefully encourages them to look deeper into things they experience, challenging what is presented to them, as what is presented in the media or social media, and now the government, is often not reality and rarely objective. Cat WilletSee more of their art Bio: Cat Willett is a Brooklyn-based artist. She has written, illustrated, and published two full-length books, as well as two mantra card decks. She is currently working on her third book, Unconditional, a collection of comic interviews with women about the special bonds they have with animals, coming out in 2026 through Princeton Architectural Press (Chronicle Books). Cat holds her MFA from the Fashion Institute of Technology in Illustration. She received her BFA from the University at Buffalo with a minor in Art History and also studied at the Scuola Lorenzo de’Medici in Florence, Italy. Artist Statement: My ongoing illustrated postcard series reflects an effort to capture some of the charm and wonder of my home, New York City. Inspired by vintage postcards and a nostalgic love of snail mail, I made these pieces in hopes of reminding collectors of the colors, creatures, and feelings that only NYC can offer. I am also the author and illustrator of three published books, and I make illustrated comics about parenting, motherhood, gender, and animals, and am a regular contributor to the Washington Post and Vox. Linda ByrneSee more of their art Bio: Linda Byrne, a visual artist, was born and raised in New York City where she continues her practice. Her many exhibitions include “Current/Undercurrent” at UMass Amherst, “Altered States” at Marymount Hewitt Gallery, and “Brimming On The Edge” produced by The West Harlem Art Fund. Linda collaborated with the poet and sound artist, Maggie Dubris, on two installations about our disappearing natural world, with their “Vanishing Oceans Project” shown in the international traveling exhibition “The Universal Sea: Pure or Plastic”. Linda has received several artist residencies, and a Jerome Foundation Grant and chashama Grant. Artist Statement: The 59th Street Bridge is part of a series of bridge paintings using the wood panel as an element, with the camouflage shapes of the grain becoming sky or water against the bold linear quality of the subject. My work is about place and our connections and the NY bridges have always held connection for me. From growing up in Queens with Manhattan roots and Brooklyn relatives to living for years on the Lower East Side, they are still an ever present part of my life. Paul O'MalleySee more of their art Bio: Paul O’Malley is an award-winning street photographer whose images have appeared in 19 exhibitions over the past year, including four solo shows in New York City. His latest series, Shizukesa, finds moments of calm and grace in the everyday bustle of Japanese life. Artist Statement: Paul’s work merges abstraction and documentary, drawing on the surrounding environment to create layered compositions that explore a dual search for belonging and solitude. Dat NguyenSee more of their art Bio: New York-based digital artist specializing in illustration-style art based on city life. Artist Statement: This piece is based on an interpretation of New York City, but isn't a replica. I've included many landmarks both famous and not, capturing the energy of individual neighborhoods. As an urban planning enthusiast, I've done all to make sure this can be a functioning community, from schools to hospitals to parks to transit and water treatment. Gaspar MarquezSee more of their art Bio: Gaspar Marquez was born in Mexico. He's a self taught photographer, but took plenty of classes at prestigious schools such as the School of The International Center of Photography and The School of Visual Arts in New York city, not to mention he's got a BA in Business Administration in Mexico. He’s been influenced over the years by the great masters of the medium like Man Ray, Nick Knight and Helmut Newton besides amazing painters like Picasso, Jackson Pollock and Urban Art. He’s working as a Freelance photographer/videographer doing Fine Art, Portraits, Fashion & Lifestyle. He loves music, traveling, nature, animals, and great documentaries. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, but would love to retire and live in a cool and safe beach on the Sea of Cortez or in a cool cabin by The Grand Canyon. Artist Statement: This is a graphic interpretation of a meditation of what it is like to observe/watch silently an urban escapade, in this case, happens to be Times Square in New York city. Nicky ContiSee more of their art Bio: Nicolette (Nicky) Conti is a Maltese-born fine art street photographer based in New York City. Since 2018, she has explored the urban landscape through a painterly lens, using natural light and shadow to transform fleeting moments into striking visual compositions. A travel enthusiast, Nicky challenges herself to capture the essence of the cities she visits through the landscape of their streets. Nicky is also the concept creator of Embodied Moments NYC - a limited-edition project that reimagines her street photography as wearable couture. Her journey along this project can be followed on Instagram: @embodiedmoments.nyc Artist Statement: This photograph strips Paris to its essence and rebuilds it with three elements that make it instantly identifiable: the Eiffel Tower, a passerby and a pigeon. In their alignment, the city reveals itself anew; monumental yet human, captured in an everyday moment of chance. Eric MarchSee more of their art Bio: Eric March is a painter and draftsman whose work explores the formal possibilities of realism with themes of urban life, urban environments, and narrative-often through dense multi-figural compositions. Eric earned his BFA at Indiana University and continued his studies in New York City with Andy Reiss and at the Art Students League. He has had solo shows in New York City and New Haven, CT. His paintings are featured in a permanent exhibitions at Yale New Haven Hospital at 150 Sargent Drive, Cornell Scott Hill Health Center and Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, CT. You can also see his public outdoor murals in downtown New Haven at the State Street Station and in Temple Plaza. Honors include a the 2025 CT Artist Fellowship, New Haven Arts Council Grant, Queens Council on the Arts Individual Artist Grant, the Provincetown Dune Shack Residency and the Hudson River Fellowship. Eric served as the Department Head of the Painting and Drawing Department at the National Academy School in NY in 2014-15. He currently teaches at the Art Students League (NYC) and Creative Arts Workshop (New Haven). He lives in New Haven, CT with his wife and two boys and has a studio in Erector Square. Artist Statement: My cityscapes of New York, created between 2005 and 2014, were a way for me to discover and celebrate a city that I had newly moved to in 2001. Painting, mainly plein-air paintings and drawings done on the street, was a way to create a record of a city that was always changing. This painting, for example, was started when the Vinegar Hill power plant had four smoke stacks-and by the end of the painting it had only one. Christina JoySee more of their art Bio: Christina Joy is a multidisciplinary visual artist born, and raised, in New York City. The artist works with photography, collage and digital media to capture intimate scenes and details within, both, natural and urban landscapes. To her, fleeting moments are intriguing. As are the extraordinary items that hide in plain sight. She finds beauty and complexity in flickers of light, dark shadows, billowing storm clouds, wilted petals and physical structures in states of glory or decline. Her aim is to document and memorialize the uniquity and impermanence of moments, places and things. After receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree, Joy honed her design skills and artistic style at venerable advertising agencies DDB Worldwide, N.W. Ayer and TBWA Worldwide. During her agency tenure she was entrusted with an array of creative responsibilities that ranged from designing corporate identities and brand communications to producing and styling photo and video shoots. Craving independence, she eventually founded an interdisciplinary creative consultancy that utilizes an integrative approach for crafting compelling visual expressions and communications. Joy believes that her artwork benefits from her creative experience with the applied arts. She finds that a certain synergy can be achieved with an eclectic blend of concepts, elements and techniques from both practices. View the full article

The Freelancers Union and Freelancers Hub are proud to once again present our Freelancers Hub art show, this time highlighting work focused on Cityscapes and Architecture. Join us for the Opening Reception on September 10 to celebrate the incredible work created by the members of our community. RSVP today. All events at the Freelancers Hub are made possible thanks to the support of NYC Mayors office of Media and Entertainment. Featured Artists Alex KorolkovasSee more of their art Bio: Alex Korolkovas was born and raised in São Paulo, Brazil, and considers himself an artist first, photographer second. Moving to Los Angeles in 1992, he refined his craft at the Art Center College of Design and worked as a master printer before dedicating himself to photography full-time. His work blends reality and fantasy, capturing human stories through powerful expressions and emotions. With a background in both art and fashion, Alex has collaborated with world-class magazines such as Harper’s Bazaar, Elle, Glamour, and Cosmopolitan, as well as celebrities and athletes on campaigns across the US, Brazilian, and Asian markets. Artist Statement: New York Upside Down is my first photographic series created in New York, approached with the curiosity of an outsider and the rhythm of my Brazilian roots. Drawn to the city’s grafismo, its bold lines, contrasts, and layered geometry. I crafted each image entirely in-camera using double exposures: the first frame as it is, the second with the camera turned completely upside down. This inversion transforms familiar streetscapes into abstract compositions where architecture collides with itself and reflections merge with shadows. Robert A. RippsSee more of their art Bio: Born and raised in New York City, Robert A. Ripps personal work explores the interaction and intersection of nature and the man-made world, both visually, as well as technically. He received his BFA in photography from Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), and has studied at the Center for Creative Imaging (CCI), and Maine Media Workshops. Robert has won numerous awards, including being named one of the 200best digital artists (2023) by Lürzer’s Archive, inclusion in American Photography 36 and 39 Annual Award books, Honorable Mention in the 2021 IPA Int’l Photography Awards, multiple honors from Photo District News (PDN), as well as having his work be a part of the Polaroid collection. In 2020, he was included in the exhibit #ICPConcerned, a selection of photographs collected from the ICP Concerned hashtag on Instagram, and displayed at the International Center of Photography (ICP) in New York. Robert’s most recent solo exhibition, Negativityness Abounds, was at the Christine Frechard Gallery in Pittsburgh. Artist Statement: This ongoing project started as a response to the political climate in the country the past several years- everything seems to be about negativity, about division, about what is truth (and what is inarguably false, yet touted as truth), how the surface of things can be 180 degrees opposite from what is underneath. It is about falsehoods and unseen influence. What was familiar and perhaps mundane has now taken on a sense of surrealism and unfamiliarity, which leaves us feeling unsure, confused and helpless, powerless to have control in events affecting our daily lives. Viewers are encouraged to enjoy the beauty of the images, while also acknowledging the incongruity and surrealism that they present, which hopefully encourages them to look deeper into things they experience, challenging what is presented to them, as what is presented in the media or social media, and now the government, is often not reality and rarely objective. Cat WilletSee more of their art Bio: Cat Willett is a Brooklyn-based artist. She has written, illustrated, and published two full-length books, as well as two mantra card decks. She is currently working on her third book, Unconditional, a collection of comic interviews with women about the special bonds they have with animals, coming out in 2026 through Princeton Architectural Press (Chronicle Books). Cat holds her MFA from the Fashion Institute of Technology in Illustration. She received her BFA from the University at Buffalo with a minor in Art History and also studied at the Scuola Lorenzo de’Medici in Florence, Italy. Artist Statement: My ongoing illustrated postcard series reflects an effort to capture some of the charm and wonder of my home, New York City. Inspired by vintage postcards and a nostalgic love of snail mail, I made these pieces in hopes of reminding collectors of the colors, creatures, and feelings that only NYC can offer. I am also the author and illustrator of three published books, and I make illustrated comics about parenting, motherhood, gender, and animals, and am a regular contributor to the Washington Post and Vox. Linda ByrneSee more of their art Bio: Linda Byrne, a visual artist, was born and raised in New York City where she continues her practice. Her many exhibitions include “Current/Undercurrent” at UMass Amherst, “Altered States” at Marymount Hewitt Gallery, and “Brimming On The Edge” produced by The West Harlem Art Fund. Linda collaborated with the poet and sound artist, Maggie Dubris, on two installations about our disappearing natural world, with their “Vanishing Oceans Project” shown in the international traveling exhibition “The Universal Sea: Pure or Plastic”. Linda has received several artist residencies, and a Jerome Foundation Grant and chashama Grant. Artist Statement: The 59th Street Bridge is part of a series of bridge paintings using the wood panel as an element, with the camouflage shapes of the grain becoming sky or water against the bold linear quality of the subject. My work is about place and our connections and the NY bridges have always held connection for me. From growing up in Queens with Manhattan roots and Brooklyn relatives to living for years on the Lower East Side, they are still an ever present part of my life. Paul O'MalleySee more of their art Bio: Paul O’Malley is an award-winning street photographer whose images have appeared in 19 exhibitions over the past year, including four solo shows in New York City. His latest series, Shizukesa, finds moments of calm and grace in the everyday bustle of Japanese life. Artist Statement: Paul’s work merges abstraction and documentary, drawing on the surrounding environment to create layered compositions that explore a dual search for belonging and solitude. Dat NguyenSee more of their art Bio: New York-based digital artist specializing in illustration-style art based on city life. Artist Statement: This piece is based on an interpretation of New York City, but isn't a replica. I've included many landmarks both famous and not, capturing the energy of individual neighborhoods. As an urban planning enthusiast, I've done all to make sure this can be a functioning community, from schools to hospitals to parks to transit and water treatment. Gaspar MarquezSee more of their art Bio: Gaspar Marquez was born in Mexico. He's a self taught photographer, but took plenty of classes at prestigious schools such as the School of The International Center of Photography and The School of Visual Arts in New York city, not to mention he's got a BA in Business Administration in Mexico. He’s been influenced over the years by the great masters of the medium like Man Ray, Nick Knight and Helmut Newton besides amazing painters like Picasso, Jackson Pollock and Urban Art. He’s working as a Freelance photographer/videographer doing Fine Art, Portraits, Fashion & Lifestyle. He loves music, traveling, nature, animals, and great documentaries. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, but would love to retire and live in a cool and safe beach on the Sea of Cortez or in a cool cabin by The Grand Canyon. Artist Statement: This is a graphic interpretation of a meditation of what it is like to observe/watch silently an urban escapade, in this case, happens to be Times Square in New York city. Nicky ContiSee more of their art Bio: Nicolette (Nicky) Conti is a Maltese-born fine art street photographer based in New York City. Since 2018, she has explored the urban landscape through a painterly lens, using natural light and shadow to transform fleeting moments into striking visual compositions. A travel enthusiast, Nicky challenges herself to capture the essence of the cities she visits through the landscape of their streets. Nicky is also the concept creator of Embodied Moments NYC - a limited-edition project that reimagines her street photography as wearable couture. Her journey along this project can be followed on Instagram: @embodiedmoments.nyc Artist Statement: This photograph strips Paris to its essence and rebuilds it with three elements that make it instantly identifiable: the Eiffel Tower, a passerby and a pigeon. In their alignment, the city reveals itself anew; monumental yet human, captured in an everyday moment of chance. Eric MarchSee more of their art Bio: Eric March is a painter and draftsman whose work explores the formal possibilities of realism with themes of urban life, urban environments, and narrative-often through dense multi-figural compositions. Eric earned his BFA at Indiana University and continued his studies in New York City with Andy Reiss and at the Art Students League. He has had solo shows in New York City and New Haven, CT. His paintings are featured in a permanent exhibitions at Yale New Haven Hospital at 150 Sargent Drive, Cornell Scott Hill Health Center and Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, CT. You can also see his public outdoor murals in downtown New Haven at the State Street Station and in Temple Plaza. Honors include a the 2025 CT Artist Fellowship, New Haven Arts Council Grant, Queens Council on the Arts Individual Artist Grant, the Provincetown Dune Shack Residency and the Hudson River Fellowship. Eric served as the Department Head of the Painting and Drawing Department at the National Academy School in NY in 2014-15. He currently teaches at the Art Students League (NYC) and Creative Arts Workshop (New Haven). He lives in New Haven, CT with his wife and two boys and has a studio in Erector Square. Artist Statement: My cityscapes of New York, created between 2005 and 2014, were a way for me to discover and celebrate a city that I had newly moved to in 2001. Painting, mainly plein-air paintings and drawings done on the street, was a way to create a record of a city that was always changing. This painting, for example, was started when the Vinegar Hill power plant had four smoke stacks-and by the end of the painting it had only one. Christina JoySee more of their art Bio: Christina Joy is a multidisciplinary visual artist born, and raised, in New York City. The artist works with photography, collage and digital media to capture intimate scenes and details within, both, natural and urban landscapes. To her, fleeting moments are intriguing. As are the extraordinary items that hide in plain sight. She finds beauty and complexity in flickers of light, dark shadows, billowing storm clouds, wilted petals and physical structures in states of glory or decline. Her aim is to document and memorialize the uniquity and impermanence of moments, places and things. After receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree, Joy honed her design skills and artistic style at venerable advertising agencies DDB Worldwide, N.W. Ayer and TBWA Worldwide. During her agency tenure she was entrusted with an array of creative responsibilities that ranged from designing corporate identities and brand communications to producing and styling photo and video shoots. Craving independence, she eventually founded an interdisciplinary creative consultancy that utilizes an integrative approach for crafting compelling visual expressions and communications. Joy believes that her artwork benefits from her creative experience with the applied arts. She finds that a certain synergy can be achieved with an eclectic blend of concepts, elements and techniques from both practices. View the full article

This step by step guide explains how to use an Impact Effort Matrix to prioritize tasks based on impact and effort. Learn how project managers can identify quick wins, focus on high value work, improve team alignment, and boost productivity. Includes real life examples, practical tips, and common mistakes to avoid for better decision making. The post How to Build an Impact Effort Matrix (A Step-by-Step Guide) appeared first on The Digital Project Manager. View the full article

The One Big Beautiful Bill has introduced a series of tax reforms designed to simplify the filing process and provide targeted relief to key taxpayer demographics. One of the most notable changes is the significant increase in the standard deduction for seniors—those aged 65 and older. This adjustment has the potential to make a meaningful difference for retirees and older adults living on fixed incomes, offering a straightforward way to reduce taxable income without the need for the itemization of each deduction. Under previous tax law, seniors received a modest increase in their standard deduction compared to younger taxpayers. While helpful, the bump was relatively small and often failed to keep pace with inflation or the rising cost of living. The One Big Beautiful Bill addresses this gap by substantially increasing the standard deduction for seniors this way: Individuals aged sixty-five or older will receive an additional $3,000 on top of the standard deduction.Married couples where both spouses are sixty-five or older will receive a combined $6,000 increase.This increase is automatic—no need to itemize or fill out additional forms.For example, if the standard deduction for a single filer is $13,850, a senior would now be eligible for a $16,850 deduction. For married couples filing jointly, the deduction could rise from $27,700 to $33,700 if both spouses qualify. How the Increased Standard Deduction for Seniors May Benefit You Many seniors rely on fixed incomes from Social Security, pensions, and retirement savings. These sources are often modest and do not always keep up with inflation, healthcare costs, or housing expenses. By increasing the standard deduction, the bill helps seniors retain more income and reduces the likelihood that they will owe federal taxes. This change also simplifies the tax filing process. Seniors who previously itemized deductions to maximize their tax savings may now find that the increased standard deduction offers greater benefits with less paperwork. Who Qualifies for the Increased Senior Taxpayer Standard Deduction? To be eligible for the increased deduction, taxpayers must be sixty-five or older by the end of the tax year. The provision applies to both single filers and married couples, and it is available regardless of income level. There are no additional requirements or restrictions—just a straightforward age-based qualification. Practical Implications The increased standard deduction can lead to real financial relief. For instance, a senior with $20,000 in annual income may now have only $3,150 in taxable income after applying the new deduction. Depending on other credits and exemptions, this could result in little to no federal tax liability. Here is what seniors should consider: Review your filing status: Make sure you are claiming the correct deduction based on age and marital status.Avoid unnecessary itemization: The new standard deduction may exceed the value of itemized deductions but be sure to check on the best strategy with a qualified tax professional.Consult a tax advisor to review your entire tax situation. Especially if you have multiple income sources or complex retirement accounts.The standard deduction increase for seniors is more than a technical adjustment—it is a recognition of the financial realities facing older Americans. As healthcare costs rise and retirement savings stretch thinner, this provision represents a simple, effective way to potentially reduce senior citizens’ tax burdens. However, like most tax matters, having the guidance of a tax professional will ensure you optimize your unique tax situation. View the full article

The One Big Beautiful Bill has introduced a series of tax reforms designed to simplify the filing process and provide targeted relief to key taxpayer demographics. One of the most notable changes is the significant increase in the standard deduction for seniors—those aged 65 and older. This adjustment has the potential to make a meaningful difference for retirees and older adults living on fixed incomes, offering a straightforward way to reduce taxable income without the need for the itemization of each deduction. Under previous tax law, seniors received a modest increase in their standard deduction compared to younger taxpayers. While helpful, the bump was relatively small and often failed to keep pace with inflation or the rising cost of living. The One Big Beautiful Bill addresses this gap by substantially increasing the standard deduction for seniors this way: Individuals aged sixty-five or older will receive an additional $3,000 on top of the standard deduction.Married couples where both spouses are sixty-five or older will receive a combined $6,000 increase.This increase is automatic—no need to itemize or fill out additional forms.For example, if the standard deduction for a single filer is $13,850, a senior would now be eligible for a $16,850 deduction. For married couples filing jointly, the deduction could rise from $27,700 to $33,700 if both spouses qualify. How the Increased Standard Deduction for Seniors May Benefit You Many seniors rely on fixed incomes from Social Security, pensions, and retirement savings. These sources are often modest and do not always keep up with inflation, healthcare costs, or housing expenses. By increasing the standard deduction, the bill helps seniors retain more income and reduces the likelihood that they will owe federal taxes. This change also simplifies the tax filing process. Seniors who previously itemized deductions to maximize their tax savings may now find that the increased standard deduction offers greater benefits with less paperwork. Who Qualifies for the Increased Senior Taxpayer Standard Deduction? To be eligible for the increased deduction, taxpayers must be sixty-five or older by the end of the tax year. The provision applies to both single filers and married couples, and it is available regardless of income level. There are no additional requirements or restrictions—just a straightforward age-based qualification. Practical Implications The increased standard deduction can lead to real financial relief. For instance, a senior with $20,000 in annual income may now have only $3,150 in taxable income after applying the new deduction. Depending on other credits and exemptions, this could result in little to no federal tax liability. Here is what seniors should consider: Review your filing status: Make sure you are claiming the correct deduction based on age and marital status.Avoid unnecessary itemization: The new standard deduction may exceed the value of itemized deductions but be sure to check on the best strategy with a qualified tax professional.Consult a tax advisor to review your entire tax situation. Especially if you have multiple income sources or complex retirement accounts.The standard deduction increase for seniors is more than a technical adjustment—it is a recognition of the financial realities facing older Americans. As healthcare costs rise and retirement savings stretch thinner, this provision represents a simple, effective way to potentially reduce senior citizens’ tax burdens. However, like most tax matters, having the guidance of a tax professional will ensure you optimize your unique tax situation. View the full article

Subscribe to Work LifeGet stories like this in your inbox Subscribe 5-second summary Divergent thinking is a creative process that generates new ideas through free-flowing, unstructured brainstorming. It encourages exploring any and all possibilities, rather than taking the fastest, straightest path to one answer. Divergent thinking is most effective when the people doing it feel safe, have the time and space to get inspired, collaborate with others, set expectations as a group, and warm up first. Using divergent thinking exercises can help you get started by providing a little structure and inspiration to a purposely unstructured process. If you’ve ever come up with a name for a child, pet, or even a beloved plant or car, you’ve already engaged in divergent thinking. As you were thinking of names, you let your mind wander, imagining all the possibilities. You might have compared ideas with a loved one too. Perhaps one person was thinking of popular names like Emma and Ava, while the other wanted a more unique moniker like Eowyn or Aurelia. Eventually, you converged on a name for your bundle of joy – something perfectly unique, yet easy to say and spell – but only after you diverged and brainstormed without boundaries. That’s the power of divergent thinking. What is divergent thinking? Introduced by psychologist J.P. Guilford in 1956, divergent thinking is a creative thought process used to generate new ideas through free-flowing, unstructured brainstorming. In a typical problem-solving or brainstorming session, people are often trying to find the most direct path to one “right” solution, often channeling “convergent” or “lateral” thinking. Divergent thinking, on the other hand, is unrestricted, judgment-free, and takes a meandering path to explore all viable (and some not-so-viable) options. There’s no right way to do it, and there are no wrong answers. This approach offers a number of advantages: It allows you to see a problem or concept from many perspectives and angles. It produces more ideas to choose from. It encourages creativity and open-mindedness, which often lead to even better solutions. Paving the way for creative collaboration Divergent thinking unlocks new ideas and even better solutions at work – but only if the team and environment support it. These tips can help prepare your group for a successful session. Foster a sense of psychological safety Related Article What does psychological safety mean, anyway? By Katie Taylor In Teamwork Psychological safety, a term coined by Harvard researcher Amy Edmondson, is a shared belief held by members of a team that it’s safe to take risks. When people feel psychologically safe and know it’s ok to make mistakes, they’re more comfortable, more open to exploring new ideas, and more inclined to work together to find the best solution. Set aside time and a new space It can be hard for teams to be strategic and creative when they’re busy with day-to-day execution. Reserving a designated time for divergent thinking and changing up the environment – another conference room or even an off-site location – helps everyone get in the right mental and physical space to think differently. Include 5 – 7 diverse collaborators Approaching your attendee list like Goldilocks will help make sure the group isn’t too big or too small, but rather, juuuuust right. Research shows brainstorming sessions are most efficient when they include five to seven people: big enough to generate enough ideas, but not so big that it becomes unwieldy. Inviting people with diverse perspectives can also help ward off groupthink, when people abandon their own beliefs to conform with the group. Diversity could be represented in the form of different disciplines (e.g., design or development), departments (e.g., Sales or Product), critical thinking perspectives (e.g., front-line, functional expertise, or creative/innovator), identities (e.g., culture or gender), etc. Related Article How team agreements help you navigate the brave new world of hybrid work By Sarah Goff-Dupont In Teamwork Set expectations for the team with mutual agreements Divergent thinking is most effective when participants are focused, open, and collaborative. Creating mutual team agreements and expectations (e.g., put devices aside, share all ideas that come to mind, suspend judgment, and build on others’ suggestions) can support the group in being efficient and effective. Start with a warmup Like warming up your body before exercising, warming up your mind before brainstorming gets you in the right headspace and primes your brain for creativity. Warmups can be more structured, like these icebreaker activities, or more free-form, like listening to music or drawing. where does ai fit in? To maximize the benefits of divergent thinking, start without AI, so those initial ideas are truly yours – unanchored, a little weird, and definitively human. By keeping this early divergence tool-free, you’ll avoid bringing in model bias or sensitive info; build creative confidence; and keep everyone in “quantity over quality” mode when it really counts. Then, when you’re ready to narrow, call on AI to group similar ideas, identify recurring themes, spot duplicates or gaps, write a short recap of what you explored, and draft a first-pass plan of action. 6 divergent thinking exercises for brilliant brainstorming Now that the team feels safe, focused, and warmed up, it’s time to let their creativity loose! Here are a few exercises to help get started. We’ll use the following example to see how each divergent thinking exercise would be applied in a problem-solving brainstorm. Problem statement: “Registrations for our new grocery shopping app have plateaued. We want to increase registrations by 25% within one year.” 1. Freewriting Freewriting is the ultimate free-association activity – you simply write words, phrases, sentences, diagrams, doodles, whatever without stopping, and without worrying about spelling, mechanics, drawing skills, or the feasibility of an idea. There are no wrong answers and no constraints (aside from time, if you choose to set a timer). If your team works best with a bit more structure, you can try 6-3-5 Brainwriting, where six people each write three ideas on a sheet of paper as many times as they can during a five-minute round. Then, they pass their sheets to the next teammate, who spends the next five minutes adding to the other person’s ideas. Freewriting in action: Each team member starts with the word “registration” and writes any words that come to mind, such as: Sign upHappinessSmilesSignsSurprisesRewardsLooking upExcitementIncentivesOptimismDelightPositive reinforcement The team could then expand on certain ideas or themes for more specific solutions, such as ways you can add delight to the registration process or rewards you could offer for signing up. Learn more and try it! 2. Mind mapping A mind map builds new ideas off one central concept or subject. After writing down the primary concept, teams brainstorm supporting ideas, tasks, and questions around it. Then, they repeat the process for each of the secondary concepts, then the tertiary concepts, etc. The result is an organized diagram that shows lots of new ideas and how all of them are linked. Mind mapping in action: With all of these ideas mapped out, the group could then converge and narrow down which ones should be prioritized based on the impact they could have on registrations vs. the effort they would take to implement. Learn more and try it! 3. Disruptive brainstorming Disruptive brainstorming reveals new solutions by introducing hypothetical constraints. After brainstorming one set of ideas, teams use Disrupt Cards to look at the same problem or question from a new perspective. After diverging, each group converges on the ideas that are most achievable, supportable, and relevant, then assigns owners to investigate how to bring each one to life. Disruptive brainstorming in action: The team brainstorms one set of ideas for increasing registrations. Then, they pick the “Scarcity” Disrupt Card and brainstorm how they might apply scarcity to boost registrations even more, such as limiting signups to 100 per day and displaying the number available in real time next to the “Register” button. Once the brainstorming session comes to a close, they cut the ideas that aren’t doable or aligned with the product strategy, and assign owners to the rest to begin the planning process. Learn more and try it! 4. Alternate Uses Designed by J.P. Guilford in the 1960s, the Alternative Uses Test is a way to generate creative ideas and solutions from a single concept or piece of information. This approach can help look at something familiar from a new perspective. Alternative Uses Test in action: What might be alternative ways to learn about our grocery shopping app and sign up for it? (Wacky ideas welcome!) Sample answers: Scanning a QR code in the grocery store Mail a welcome kit to new parents with a promo code to try the app App mascot hands out flyers outside dorms during college move-in days Guerilla marketing campaign where we put stickers on grocery store doors that say, ”We could have saved you this trip.” Professional skydivers spell out the app name above the Super Bowl (we meant what we said: no bad ideas) Then, the team could either build on a few of the most promising ideas or filter some of the more granular concepts that might be more feasible. 5. Collaborative drawing and storytelling Collaborative drawing and storytelling (also known as a “one-word story”) expand on others’ ideas spontaneously. One person writes one word or starts a drawing. Then they pass it to another person, who adds the first word or drawing that comes to mind, and so on. The team repeats this process until there are enough potentially viable ideas to begin narrowing down and planning next steps for the best concepts. Collaborative storytelling in action: We could increase registrations by… Person 1’s answersharing Person 2’s answer3DPerson 3’s answervideoPerson 4’s answerwalkthroughsPerson 5’s answeronPerson 6’s answerTikTok (Sounds silly, but hey, we’ve seen stranger things go viral!) Even if the team ends up moving forward with a scaled-down concept or alternative plan, going through the exercise is a great way to uncover outside-the-box ideas. Learn more and try it! 6. Yes, and… A core tenet of improv comedy, “Yes, and…” encourages open-mindedness and exploration by accepting any scenario that is presented, then adding to it. When one person shares an idea, another person immediately embraces it and adds something that takes it to the next level. “Yes, and…” in action: Person #1: “We could show the average time the whole process takes on the first screen so users see it’s fast.” Person #2: “Yes, and we could put a completion tracker at the top of each registration screen so they see where they are in the process.” Person #3: “Yes, and we remove any unnecessary steps from each screen to make the process even faster.” Learn more and try it! From naming babies with your partner at home to developing new ideas and solutions with your team at work, divergent thinking is a powerful way to stimulate creativity and uncover new possibilities. Like any new thought process or method, your team may feel a bit unsure about how to do it or where to begin. But just because divergent thinking is free-form doesn’t mean it’s a free-for-all. With a little preparation and a few exercises to get the momentum going, you can add just enough structure to a purposely unstructured process and set your team up for a brilliant brainstorm. Ready to try it? Yes, and…let’s get started! Subscribe to Work LifeGet stories like this in your inbox Subscribe The post Use divergent thinking to generate fresh ideas in your next brainstorm appeared first on Work Life by Atlassian. View the full article

Subscribe to Work LifeGet stories like this in your inbox Subscribe 5-second summary Divergent thinking is a creative process that generates new ideas through free-flowing, unstructured brainstorming. It encourages exploring any and all possibilities, rather than taking the fastest, straightest path to one answer. Divergent thinking is most effective when the people doing it feel safe, have the time and space to get inspired, collaborate with others, set expectations as a group, and warm up first. Using divergent thinking exercises can help you get started by providing a little structure and inspiration to a purposely unstructured process. If you’ve ever come up with a name for a child, pet, or even a beloved plant or car, you’ve already engaged in divergent thinking. As you were thinking of names, you let your mind wander, imagining all the possibilities. You might have compared ideas with a loved one too. Perhaps one person was thinking of popular names like Emma and Ava, while the other wanted a more unique moniker like Eowyn or Aurelia. Eventually, you converged on a name for your bundle of joy – something perfectly unique, yet easy to say and spell – but only after you diverged and brainstormed without boundaries. That’s the power of divergent thinking. What is divergent thinking? Introduced by psychologist J.P. Guilford in 1956, divergent thinking is a creative thought process used to generate new ideas through free-flowing, unstructured brainstorming. In a typical problem-solving or brainstorming session, people are often trying to find the most direct path to one “right” solution, often channeling “convergent” or “lateral” thinking. Divergent thinking, on the other hand, is unrestricted, judgment-free, and takes a meandering path to explore all viable (and some not-so-viable) options. There’s no right way to do it, and there are no wrong answers. This approach offers a number of advantages: It allows you to see a problem or concept from many perspectives and angles. It produces more ideas to choose from. It encourages creativity and open-mindedness, which often lead to even better solutions. Paving the way for creative collaboration Divergent thinking unlocks new ideas and even better solutions at work – but only if the team and environment support it. These tips can help prepare your group for a successful session. Foster a sense of psychological safety Related Article What does psychological safety mean, anyway? By Katie Taylor In Teamwork Psychological safety, a term coined by Harvard researcher Amy Edmondson, is a shared belief held by members of a team that it’s safe to take risks. When people feel psychologically safe and know it’s ok to make mistakes, they’re more comfortable, more open to exploring new ideas, and more inclined to work together to find the best solution. Set aside time and a new space It can be hard for teams to be strategic and creative when they’re busy with day-to-day execution. Reserving a designated time for divergent thinking and changing up the environment – another conference room or even an off-site location – helps everyone get in the right mental and physical space to think differently. Include 5 – 7 diverse collaborators Approaching your attendee list like Goldilocks will help make sure the group isn’t too big or too small, but rather, juuuuust right. Research shows brainstorming sessions are most efficient when they include five to seven people: big enough to generate enough ideas, but not so big that it becomes unwieldy. Inviting people with diverse perspectives can also help ward off groupthink, when people abandon their own beliefs to conform with the group. Diversity could be represented in the form of different disciplines (e.g., design or development), departments (e.g., Sales or Product), critical thinking perspectives (e.g., front-line, functional expertise, or creative/innovator), identities (e.g., culture or gender), etc. Related Article How team agreements help you navigate the brave new world of hybrid work By Sarah Goff-Dupont In Teamwork Set expectations for the team with mutual agreements Divergent thinking is most effective when participants are focused, open, and collaborative. Creating mutual team agreements and expectations (e.g., put devices aside, share all ideas that come to mind, suspend judgment, and build on others’ suggestions) can support the group in being efficient and effective. Start with a warmup Like warming up your body before exercising, warming up your mind before brainstorming gets you in the right headspace and primes your brain for creativity. Warmups can be more structured, like these icebreaker activities, or more free-form, like listening to music or drawing. where does ai fit in? To maximize the benefits of divergent thinking, start without AI, so those initial ideas are truly yours – unanchored, a little weird, and definitively human. By keeping this early divergence tool-free, you’ll avoid bringing in model bias or sensitive info; build creative confidence; and keep everyone in “quantity over quality” mode when it really counts. Then, when you’re ready to narrow, call on AI to group similar ideas, identify recurring themes, spot duplicates or gaps, write a short recap of what you explored, and draft a first-pass plan of action. 6 divergent thinking exercises for brilliant brainstorming Now that the team feels safe, focused, and warmed up, it’s time to let their creativity loose! Here are a few exercises to help get started. We’ll use the following example to see how each divergent thinking exercise would be applied in a problem-solving brainstorm. Problem statement: “Registrations for our new grocery shopping app have plateaued. We want to increase registrations by 25% within one year.” 1. Freewriting Freewriting is the ultimate free-association activity – you simply write words, phrases, sentences, diagrams, doodles, whatever without stopping, and without worrying about spelling, mechanics, drawing skills, or the feasibility of an idea. There are no wrong answers and no constraints (aside from time, if you choose to set a timer). If your team works best with a bit more structure, you can try 6-3-5 Brainwriting, where six people each write three ideas on a sheet of paper as many times as they can during a five-minute round. Then, they pass their sheets to the next teammate, who spends the next five minutes adding to the other person’s ideas. Freewriting in action: Each team member starts with the word “registration” and writes any words that come to mind, such as: Sign upHappinessSmilesSignsSurprisesRewardsLooking upExcitementIncentivesOptimismDelightPositive reinforcement The team could then expand on certain ideas or themes for more specific solutions, such as ways you can add delight to the registration process or rewards you could offer for signing up. Learn more and try it! 2. Mind mapping A mind map builds new ideas off one central concept or subject. After writing down the primary concept, teams brainstorm supporting ideas, tasks, and questions around it. Then, they repeat the process for each of the secondary concepts, then the tertiary concepts, etc. The result is an organized diagram that shows lots of new ideas and how all of them are linked. Mind mapping in action: With all of these ideas mapped out, the group could then converge and narrow down which ones should be prioritized based on the impact they could have on registrations vs. the effort they would take to implement. Learn more and try it! 3. Disruptive brainstorming Disruptive brainstorming reveals new solutions by introducing hypothetical constraints. After brainstorming one set of ideas, teams use Disrupt Cards to look at the same problem or question from a new perspective. After diverging, each group converges on the ideas that are most achievable, supportable, and relevant, then assigns owners to investigate how to bring each one to life. Disruptive brainstorming in action: The team brainstorms one set of ideas for increasing registrations. Then, they pick the “Scarcity” Disrupt Card and brainstorm how they might apply scarcity to boost registrations even more, such as limiting signups to 100 per day and displaying the number available in real time next to the “Register” button. Once the brainstorming session comes to a close, they cut the ideas that aren’t doable or aligned with the product strategy, and assign owners to the rest to begin the planning process. Learn more and try it! 4. Alternate Uses Designed by J.P. Guilford in the 1960s, the Alternative Uses Test is a way to generate creative ideas and solutions from a single concept or piece of information. This approach can help look at something familiar from a new perspective. Alternative Uses Test in action: What might be alternative ways to learn about our grocery shopping app and sign up for it? (Wacky ideas welcome!) Sample answers: Scanning a QR code in the grocery store Mail a welcome kit to new parents with a promo code to try the app App mascot hands out flyers outside dorms during college move-in days Guerilla marketing campaign where we put stickers on grocery store doors that say, ”We could have saved you this trip.” Professional skydivers spell out the app name above the Super Bowl (we meant what we said: no bad ideas) Then, the team could either build on a few of the most promising ideas or filter some of the more granular concepts that might be more feasible. 5. Collaborative drawing and storytelling Collaborative drawing and storytelling (also known as a “one-word story”) expand on others’ ideas spontaneously. One person writes one word or starts a drawing. Then they pass it to another person, who adds the first word or drawing that comes to mind, and so on. The team repeats this process until there are enough potentially viable ideas to begin narrowing down and planning next steps for the best concepts. Collaborative storytelling in action: We could increase registrations by… Person 1’s answersharing Person 2’s answer3DPerson 3’s answervideoPerson 4’s answerwalkthroughsPerson 5’s answeronPerson 6’s answerTikTok (Sounds silly, but hey, we’ve seen stranger things go viral!) Even if the team ends up moving forward with a scaled-down concept or alternative plan, going through the exercise is a great way to uncover outside-the-box ideas. Learn more and try it! 6. Yes, and… A core tenet of improv comedy, “Yes, and…” encourages open-mindedness and exploration by accepting any scenario that is presented, then adding to it. When one person shares an idea, another person immediately embraces it and adds something that takes it to the next level. “Yes, and…” in action: Person #1: “We could show the average time the whole process takes on the first screen so users see it’s fast.” Person #2: “Yes, and we could put a completion tracker at the top of each registration screen so they see where they are in the process.” Person #3: “Yes, and we remove any unnecessary steps from each screen to make the process even faster.” Learn more and try it! From naming babies with your partner at home to developing new ideas and solutions with your team at work, divergent thinking is a powerful way to stimulate creativity and uncover new possibilities. Like any new thought process or method, your team may feel a bit unsure about how to do it or where to begin. But just because divergent thinking is free-form doesn’t mean it’s a free-for-all. With a little preparation and a few exercises to get the momentum going, you can add just enough structure to a purposely unstructured process and set your team up for a brilliant brainstorm. Ready to try it? Yes, and…let’s get started! Subscribe to Work LifeGet stories like this in your inbox Subscribe The post Use divergent thinking to generate fresh ideas in your next brainstorm appeared first on Work Life by Atlassian. View the full article

Today, we are excited to announce that the Meeting Owl 4+ has achieved Microsoft Teams certification. With this milestone, the Meeting Owl 4+ joins the Meeting Owl 3 and Owl Bar as peripherals that are certified for Microsoft Teams. With our full ecosystem now certified, Owl Labs provides IT professionals with a comprehensive suite of industry-leading hybrid collaboration solutions. View the full article

HERE'S A LOOK at some of the best leadership books to be released in September 2025 curated just for you. Be sure to check out the other great titles being offered this month. The Collective Edge: Unlocking the Secret Power of Groups by Colin M. Fisher Why are groups so hard? From boring work meetings to dysfunctional families to warring nations, group dynamics shape every aspect of our lives. How can we avoid the common pitfalls of living and working together and get the most from our groups? The solution isn’t to change individuals—it’s to understand the world from a collective perspective. In The Collective Edge, Colin Fisher, one of the world’s foremost experts on group dynamics, distills decades of research into practical strategies to help groups function at their highest levels. The secret to getting the most from your groups is knowing how to work with the invisible forces of group dynamics instead of being mindlessly pushed around by them. Whether you’re a leader, team member, or simply interested in better understanding how groups work, The Collective Edge provides essential wisdom that will help your groups unlock their true potential. We Are Ambiverts Now by Karl Moore and Gabriele Hartshorne-Mehl Based on real-world evidence from senior executives and successful entrepreneurs, this book argues that an effective leader must act like an ambivert: an introvert at times and an extrovert at others. Thanks to landmark books such as How to Win Friends and Influence People, many professionals think that only extroverts can be standout leaders, but Karl Moore’s interviews with over 750 CEOs from around the world prove that introverts make excellent leaders too. These insights make clear that the optimal leadership style is ambivert, with senior leaders combining introversion―being excellent listeners and thinking before they speak―and extroversion―inspiring and connecting with their teams. This book teaches how introverts and extroverts work, manage, and lead effectively and how readers can be better leaders regardless of their natural communication style. It empowers leaders to celebrate the strengths of their personality type while being flexible and to understand when to incorporate the strengths of other types into their leadership approach to be more effective. Manage Yourself to Lead Others: Why Great Leadership Begins with Self-Understanding by Margaret C. Andrews What is the “best” way to lead others? The answer may surprise you. The basis for powerful, effective leadership comes from within—from understanding the people, ideas, and events that have shaped your worldview and how these influences express themselves in your leadership style. In Manage Yourself to Lead Others, leadership expert Margaret Andrews helps you understand yourself and translate this understanding into effectively managing yourself, leading others, working with your boss, and making better decisions. Andrews has taught thousands of executives in her professional development course at Harvard, and she shares her insights, practical tips, and questions for reflection here. This book will allow you to identify the kind of leader you want to be, the behavioral patterns that help get you there or stand in your way, and what it takes to develop new leadership capabilities. The Secure Leader: Discover the Hidden Forces that Shape Your Leadership Story—and How to Change Them by Jaime Goff Since 2020, global events have reshaped our expectations of work and leadership. Today's workforce seeks more than just a paycheck; they crave meaning, purpose, connection, and belonging. Traditional leadership models no longer suffice. In The Secure Leader, Dr. Jaime Goff offers a groundbreaking path forward. She argues that true leadership begins not with mastering techniques, but with understanding who you are and why you lead. Embark on a transformative journey of self-discovery and learn how to: • Deconstruct Your Story: Explore how your early experiences have shaped your worldview and leadership approach, often embedding hidden anxieties and insecurities. • Identify Key Themes: Recognize the constructive and destructive patterns that influence your interactions and decisions. • Re-author Your Narrative: Develop a new, empowering leadership story that honors your past, strengthens your present, and creates a foundation for a fulfilling future. In Praise of the Office: The Limits to Hybrid and Remote Work by Peter Cappelli and Ranya Nehmeh In their important new book, Wharton professor Peter Cappelli and workplace strategist Ranya Nehmeh deliver a balanced, research-based approach to navigating the complex landscape of remote and hybrid work. They provide a fresh perspective on why hybrid models often fail and what organizations must do differently to succeed in this new era―with takeaways that may not be welcome to all. In this timely book, discover: + Why remote work succeeded initially but has become increasingly problematic over time + What has been lost with the move away from in-office work, The hidden benefits of in-person work, How work dynamics post-pandemic have further influenced workplace culture and employee attitudes, How career advancement opportunities have changed, How new hires are faring, and How the changes have impacted home life. In Praise of the Office also reveals when in-office works best, when fully remote work works best, and what is required to make hybrid work. Plus, it identifies what aspects of hybrid can do the most damage to employers and employees. The Transformation Principles: How to Create Enduring Change by Hemant Taneja with Kevin Maney Capitalism has historically focused on profit generation, with positive impact left to non-profits. This system has fueled unprecedented growth, but has also generated unsustainable consequences—deepening inequality, widespread job displacement, and eroding social trust. It’s time for a new paradigm—one that recognizes the inextricable link between positive impact and returns. Long-term profitability depends on maintaining public trust, societal wellbeing, and operating legitimacy. This new reality necessitates a new set of principles—transformation principles—to guide our decision-making as we build for growth and for good. For bulk orders call 1-626-441-2024 * * * “You can't think well without writing well, and you can't write well without reading well. And I mean that last "well" in both senses. You have to be good at reading, and read good things.” — Paul Graham, Y Combinator co-founder * * * Follow us on Instagram and X for additional leadership and personal development ideas. View the full article

Here is a selection of Posts from August 2025 that you will want to check out: Feeling Blindsided? Try These Six Leadership Shifts by @TerriKlass Becoming Unoffendable by @KevinPaulScott The Best Teams in the World All Have These 3 Traits by @AlanSteinJr 3 Reasons Small Wins Crush Big Goals by Craig Groeschel Not All Feedback is Created Equal by @wallybock Why working in an office still matters via @FastCompany by Jim Misener How curiosity rewires your brain for change by @neuranne Anne-Laure Le Cunff 20 Ways to Get Mentally Tough by @JonGordon11 The Secret to Creative Fire? Gather the Fuel Before You Strike the Match by@wallybock The Breakthrough Question by @JeffHenderson Leaders Who Attention Bomb via @AdmiredLeaders 3 Reasons Leaders Must Care About the Details No One Else Sees by @BrianKDodd The Cult of the Rewatch: Why Nostalgia Is Eating Innovation via @LBBOnline In this climate - war, collapse, too many tabs open - people weren’t craving new ideas. They were craving control. Control felt like the past A Meretricious Meritocracy 1 of 5 by @jamesstrock This is the first of five posts relating to the modern American meritocracy A Meretricious Meritocracy 2 of 5 by @jamesstrock The bureaucratization of everything Five Ways To Finally Get Your Talent Noticed by @PhilCooke What A World (A few Stories) by @morganhousel Is Your Team a Committee in Disguise? Diagnose the Problem and Get Your Teamwork On Track by @SusanMazza The Leadership Drift: 7 Reasons Even Good Leaders Fail by @BrianKDodd The Irony of Leadership by @PhilCooke See more on Twitter. * * * Follow us on Instagram and X for additional leadership and personal development ideas. View the full article

Product pages. Ads. Emails. Headlines. Every word you publish either builds momentum or loses it. Great ecommerce copy does more than describe a product. It earns trust, sparks emotion, and clears doubt. Most importantly, it helps someone say yes with confidence. This guide includes 20 practical, proven tips to sharpen your copy across strategy, product pages, persuasion, and retention. They’re not theory. Just tested techniques from brands that convert. Table of contents How to choose the right copywriting framework and emotional trigger Copywriting frameworks Emotional triggers Strategies for clearer copy Product copy tips for conversion What most ecommerce copy gets wrong Persuasion tips that feel natural Strategy Retention tips to boost trust Final thoughts Want 20 more copywriting techniques that drive conversions? And there’s more: Want the full 40? Get the 20 bonus tips straight to your inbox by signing up here. How to choose the right copywriting framework and emotional trigger Before you write, choose two things: A framework to guide structure An emotional trigger to shape tone and persuasion These decisions will shape every line of your copy. Copywriting frameworks 1. AIDA: Attention, Interest, Desire, Action AIDA is the foundational copywriting framework that guides prospects through a systematic journey from awareness to conversion. Best for: Landing pages, ads, hero sections. Why it works: It grabs attention quickly, builds curiosity, then shifts momentum toward a clear action. Example: Selling a portable espresso maker Attention: “Brew perfect espresso anywhere.” Interest: “No plugs, no bulky machines, just fresh coffee in your backpack.” Desire: “Get café-level crema in 90 seconds flat.” Action: “Order now and take 20% off your first brew.” 2. PAS: Problem, Agitation, Solution PAS is the emotional powerhouse that transforms pain points into urgent buying decisions by first identifying problems and discomfort and presenting a solution. Best for: Pain-point-driven products or comparison pages. Why it works: It starts by naming the problem and digging into the frustration, then offers your product as the fix. Example: Selling an anti-theft travel backpack Problem: “Worried about pickpockets on your next trip?” Agitation: “One stolen wallet can ruin your entire vacation and most zippers do not stand a chance.” Solution: “Our backpack has cut-proof fabric, hidden zippers, and lockable compartments to keep you safe on the move.” 3. BAB: Before, After, Bridge BAB leverages aspirational storytelling to showcase transformation, painting a vivid picture of life improvement before positioning your solution as the bridge to that better future. Best for: Lifestyle or transformation-focused products. Why it works: It shows life before and after the product, then connects the dots with your offer. Example: Selling a fitness app Before: “You used to skip workouts, feel sluggish, and waste time guessing what to do at the gym.” After: “Now your workouts are short, focused, and actually fun to stick with.” Bridge: “All it took was our guided 20-minute training plans built for real people and real schedules.” Emotional triggers Pathos: Emotion Best for: Beauty, lifestyle, wellness, identity-driven products. Why it works: It speaks to how people want to feel or who they want to become. Example: Selling sustainable clothing “You are not just buying a shirt. You are choosing to show up for the planet and look good doing it.” Logos: Logic Best for: Tech, tools, performance-based products. Why it works: It appeals to rational decision-making, like saving time, money, or hassle. Example: Selling noise-canceling headphones “Blocks 95% of background noise so you can focus faster and work smarter, backed by lab testing and a 2-year warranty.” Ethos: Trust and credibility Best for: Financial, health, professional, or safety-related products. Why it works: People rely on authority or reputation to reduce risk. Example: Selling skincare “Developed by dermatologists and trusted by over 1 million users worldwide because your skin deserves expert care.” Strategies for clearer copy Strategic copywriting transforms scattered messaging into focused communication that guides prospects smoothly through their buying journey. Let structure guide flow: AIDA, PAS, BAB. Pick one and follow it through. Good copy is linear, not scattered. Tone should match buyer intent: New visitor? Use clarity and reassurance. Returning shopper? Bring speed and confidence. Give each section one job: Trying to explain, reassure, and upsell in a single block? Nothing will land. Break it up. Answer doubts before they form: If shipping time, fit, or returns are common questions, surface them early in the copy. Use a mix of logic, emotion, and visuals: Show how the product works, how it feels, and how it fits their life. Product copy tips for conversion Product copywriting prioritizes outcome-driven messaging that shows customers exactly how their lives improve. It moves beyond features to paint vivid pictures of real-world usage scenarios. Lead with the outcome: Start with what changes for the customer. Then explain how. Put the product in a real moment: Don’t say “compact.” Say, “Fits in your jacket pocket on a rainy commute.” Use bullets to speed up decisions: List what is included, what it is made of, and who it is for. Keep it snappy. Write purposeful alt text: Describe what the image shows and how it ties to the benefit. Example: “Man hiking with a 40L waterproof pack. Rain visible, straps tight.” Flag missing alt text during content analysis: It helps keep accessibility and SEO aligned without extra efforts. What most ecommerce copy gets wrong A well-written text is polite. Descriptive. Sometimes clever. But it rarely decides or helps in conversion. A Strong copy does not try to please everyone. It tells the right person, “This is for you.” It dares to be specific. It has an inviting glare and confidence to emphasize what matters and ignore what does not. Copywriting hooks and earns attention. It says, “Here it is, look.” SEO attracts keen onlookers. Good copy makes them stop and persuades them to be curious about more. The best ecommerce brands leverage both. Tools like Yoast SEO bridge the gap between conversion-driven copy and search visibility. Persuasion tips that feel natural Natural persuasion in copywriting focuses on building genuine connections through transparent communication rather than manipulative tactics. Start strong: Put your main benefit above the fold. Do not hide the reason to care. Use microcopy to ease tension: “No hidden fees” next to pricing. “We will never charge without asking” near the credit card field. Only create urgency if it is real: “Only 3 left” works if it is true. False scarcity breaks trust. Make subheads sell, not just organize: “Why 10,000 customers switched” says more than “Features.” Precision beats cleverness: “Save 3 hours a week” converts better than “Boost productivity. Strategy Retention tips to boost trust Customer retention copywriting transforms one-time buyers into loyal advocates through strategic communication that demonstrates ongoing value and genuine care. Make thank-you pages do more: Confirm next steps. Offer a bonus. Link to a useful guide. Do not waste attention. Follow up with something useful: A setup guide, a pro tip, or a behind-the-scenes story is more valuable than a request for a review. Treat onboarding like conversion 2.0: “You are 60 seconds away from setup” is better than “See instructions.” Write policies with warmth and clarity: “If it does not fit, send it back. No stress.” Sounds like a human. That is the point. Show loyalty some love: A personal thank-you after the third purchase can mean more than a 10 percent coupon. Final thoughts Forget clever. Go for clarity. Don’t be smart. Leverage curious questions. Think about what a customer wants. Let them feel seen and heard. Forget perfection; strive for a connection. Keep your words simple. If your words help the right person say yes and the right searcher find your page, they have already done their job. That is where strong copy meets smart SEO. Want 20 more copywriting techniques that drive conversions? In Part 2, we’ll go deeper into: Advanced copywriting funnel; High-impact product formatting ideas; Persuasive phrasing that feels personal to the reader; Loyalty copy that turns onlookers into trusted comrades. Get the full 40 ecommerce copywriting tips Subscribe to our prepare for Black Friday newsletter to get an interactive checklist, ecommerce tips, and SEO guidance to help you through the seasonal rush! We care about the protection of your data. Read our privacy policy. The post Ecommerce copywriting tips & frameworks that convert [+a free checklist] appeared first on Yoast. View the full article

August really is the Sunday of summer. It’s the moment we realize the easy days are slipping away and we’re about to jump headfirst into the busy routines of fall. There’s a drop in temperature (finally), but there’s an uptick in commitments. All of a sudden, your Google Calendar is a rainbow of colors with The post Collaboration without chaos: How to fix overloaded fall calendars appeared first on RescueTime Blog. View the full article

Last month, a 22-year-old entrepreneur named Emil Barr published a Wall Street Journal op-ed boasting a provocative title:​ “‘Work-Life Balance’ Will Keep You Mediocre.”​ He opens with a spicy take: “I’m 22 and I’ve built two companies that together are valued at more than $20 million…When people ask how I did it, the answer isn’t what they expect—or want—to hear. I eliminated work-life balance entirely and just worked. When you front-load success early, you buy the luxury of choice for the rest of your life.” As Barr elaborates, when starting his first company, he slept only three and a half hours per night. “The physical and mental toll was brutal: I gained 80 pounds, lived on Red Bull and struggled with anxiety,” he writes. “But this level of intensity was the only way to build a multimillion-dollar company.” He ends the piece with a wonderfully cringe-inducing flourish. “I plan to become a billionaire by age 30,” he writes. “Then I will have the time and resources to tackle problems close to my heart like climate change, species extinction and economic inequality.” (Hold for applause.) It’s easy to mock Barr’s twenty-something bravado, even if I do have to be careful not to be the pot calling the kettle black (​ahem​). Yet, some of this knee-jerk mockery might stem from the uncomfortable realization that beneath this performative busyness, there may lie a kernel of truth. Are we forfeiting our opportunity to make a meaningful impact with our work if we prioritize balance too much? As NYU professor Suzy Welch noted, “I do give [Barr] points for saying something I only mutter to my M.B.A. students …You cannot well-being yourself to wealth.” To help address these fears, let’s turn to the advice of another twenty-something: me. In ​an essay I published when I was all of 27​—around the time I was finishing my doctoral dissertation at MIT—I wrote the following: “I found writing my thesis to be similar to writing my books. It’s an exercise in grit: You have to apply hard focus, almost every day, over a long period of time. To me, this is the definition of what I call hard work. The important point, however, is that the regular blocks of hard focus that comprise hard work do not have to be excessively long. That is, there’s nothing painful or unsustainable about hard work. With only a few exceptions, for example, I was easily able to maintain my fixed 9 to 5:30 schedule while writing my thesis. By contrast, the work schedule [followed by many graduate students] meets the definition of what I call hard to do work. Working 14 hours a day, with no break, for months on end, is very hard to do! It exhausts you. It’s painful. It’s impossible to sustain. I’m increasingly convinced that a lot of student stress is caused by a failure to recognize the difference between these two work types. Students feel that big projects should be hard, so hard to do habits seem a natural fit. I am hoping that by explicitly describing the alternative of doing plain hard work, I can help convince you that the hard to do strategy is a terrible way to tackle large…challenges.” I gave that article a simple, declarative title: ​Focus Hard. In Reasonable Bursts. One Day at a Time.​ This strategy has continued to serve me well. I’m now 43 years old and, I suppose, still managing to avoid mediocrity—all while continuing to rarely work past 5:30 p.m. I’m not willing to sacrifice all the other things I care about in order to grind. Barr is still young, and his body is resilient enough to get away with his hustle for a while longer. I hope, however, that those who found his message appealing might also hear mine. Deep results require disciplined, relentless action over a long period of time, and this is a very different commitment than the type of unfocused freneticism lionized by Barr. I work hard almost every day. But those days are rarely hard to get through. This distinction matters. The post Does Work-Life Balance Make You Mediocre? appeared first on Cal Newport. View the full article

Last month, a 22-year-old entrepreneur named Emil Barr published a Wall Street Journal op-ed boasting a provocative title:​ “‘Work-Life Balance’ Will Keep You Mediocre.”​ He opens with a spicy take: “I’m 22 and I’ve built two companies that together are valued at more than $20 million…When people ask how I did it, the answer isn’t what they expect—or want—to hear. I eliminated work-life balance entirely and just worked. When you front-load success early, you buy the luxury of choice for the rest of your life.” As Barr elaborates, when starting his first company, he slept only three and a half hours per night. “The physical and mental toll was brutal: I gained 80 pounds, lived on Red Bull and struggled with anxiety,” he writes. “But this level of intensity was the only way to build a multimillion-dollar company.” He ends the piece with a wonderfully cringe-inducing flourish. “I plan to become a billionaire by age 30,” he writes. “Then I will have the time and resources to tackle problems close to my heart like climate change, species extinction and economic inequality.” (Hold for applause.) It’s easy to mock Barr’s twenty-something bravado, even if I do have to be careful not to be the pot calling the kettle black (​ahem​). Yet, some of this knee-jerk mockery might stem from the uncomfortable realization that beneath this performative busyness, there may lie a kernel of truth. Are we forfeiting our opportunity to make a meaningful impact with our work if we prioritize balance too much? As NYU professor Suzy Welch noted, “I do give [Barr] points for saying something I only mutter to my M.B.A. students …You cannot well-being yourself to wealth.” To help address these fears, let’s turn to the advice of another twenty-something: me. In ​an essay I published when I was all of 27​—around the time I was finishing my doctoral dissertation at MIT—I wrote the following: “I found writing my thesis to be similar to writing my books. It’s an exercise in grit: You have to apply hard focus, almost every day, over a long period of time. To me, this is the definition of what I call hard work. The important point, however, is that the regular blocks of hard focus that comprise hard work do not have to be excessively long. That is, there’s nothing painful or unsustainable about hard work. With only a few exceptions, for example, I was easily able to maintain my fixed 9 to 5:30 schedule while writing my thesis. By contrast, the work schedule [followed by many graduate students] meets the definition of what I call hard to do work. Working 14 hours a day, with no break, for months on end, is very hard to do! It exhausts you. It’s painful. It’s impossible to sustain. I’m increasingly convinced that a lot of student stress is caused by a failure to recognize the difference between these two work types. Students feel that big projects should be hard, so hard to do habits seem a natural fit. I am hoping that by explicitly describing the alternative of doing plain hard work, I can help convince you that the hard to do strategy is a terrible way to tackle large…challenges.” I gave that article a simple, declarative title: ​Focus Hard. In Reasonable Bursts. One Day at a Time.​ This strategy has continued to serve me well. I’m now 43 years old and, I suppose, still managing to avoid mediocrity—all while continuing to rarely work past 5:30 p.m. I’m not willing to sacrifice all the other things I care about in order to grind. Barr is still young, and his body is resilient enough to get away with his hustle for a while longer. I hope, however, that those who found his message appealing might also hear mine. Deep results require disciplined, relentless action over a long period of time, and this is a very different commitment than the type of unfocused freneticism lionized by Barr. I work hard almost every day. But those days are rarely hard to get through. This distinction matters. The post Does Work-Life Balance Make You Mediocre? appeared first on Cal Newport. View the full article

Every year, summer seems to fly by. You squeeze in as many beach trips and cookouts as you can, but those sunny days are gone in a flash. While it can be challenging to take time off, especially with the pressures of work, it's more important than ever to take a break and recharge. View the full article

Table of contents What are you actually paying for when building a website? Website building options Watch out for these hidden costs How Yoast saves you money (over time) Budgeting tips for small business owners Ecommerce vs. general website: does it change the cost? Final thoughts TL;DR Thinking about building a website? Whether you are a small business owner, a freelancer, or launching a side project, one of the first questions you will want answered is: how much does it cost to build a website? This is not just about curiosity, understanding your website costs early on can help you budget effectively and avoid any unpleasant surprises. The truth is that the answer is rarely simple. Ask ten business owners about their website building costs and you will probably get ten completely different answers. That is because website costs can range from almost nothing to tens of thousands of euros. The variation comes down to what you need your website to do. A small brochure site with a few pages can be built on a modest budget, whereas an ecommerce store with thousands of products and secure payment facilities will always cost more. The good news is that once you understand where the costs lie, you can make better decisions. And while Yoast SEO will not directly reduce your build costs, it will help you avoid expensive SEO mistakes, improve site performance, and keep your long-term marketing budget under control. What are you actually paying for when building a website? Design and user experience: This sets the tone for how visitors feel about your site. Good design is more than colors and fonts, it is about navigation, site structure, and encouraging visitors to stay and explore. Read more about user experience. Development: Turns your designs into a working website. A simple build will cost less, but advanced features or integrations push the price up. Domain and hosting: These two are essential and unavoidable. Your domain name generally costs between €10 and €50 per year and hosting keeps your site live. Shared hosting is cheapest, but dedicated hosting provides better performance and enhanced security. As a recommendation, Bluehost is a great choice for both domain registration and hosting. On top of that, it also works extremely well with WordPress. Read more: Yoast SEO. Content: A blank page isn’t going to keep visitors on your site for very long, so you’re going to need to have something to show them. You can of course do your own content, but professional content creators can be useful in getting more conversions. Read more: writing great website copy. SEO: This ensures your site gets found. You can do it yourself, but Yoast SEO helps simplify the process and can reduce costs by guiding you on how to optimize pages as you write. Read more: how to use the Yoast SEO plugin. Here’s a chart to explain the above in a quick-check guide: Area Description Design Custom visuals, layout, user interface (UI), mobile responsiveness User experience (UX) Navigation logic, site structure, call-to-action placement Development Code, content management system (CMS), plug-ins or features Domain and hosting Your website’s address and where it lives online Content and SEO Written pages, blog posts, metadata, and optimizations Ongoing maintenance Plugin updates, security, backups, fixes Upfront costs: Of course, none of this comes for free, unless there are some things you can do yourself like copywriting or photography. This will still cost you in terms of time though, so it may be worth considering hiring a professional if there are other areas of your business that you would rather focus on. With that in mind, let’s take a quick look at some upfront costs that you will only have to pay for once at the very start. Type of costLow estimateHigh estimateDomain name€10/year€50/yearDesign & UX€0 (DIY template)€10,000+Development (CMS setup, features, integrations)€0 (DIY)€40,000+Initial content (copywriting, images, product setup)€200€5,000+ Ongoing and variable costs: Obviously, once your website is up and running, that’s not the end of the story. You are presumably here for the long-term and that means there are going to be recurring costs. These cover things like hosting, so your site can stay live, maintenance, to keep everything secure and updated, and you’ll need to continually post new content to engage with your site’s visitors. Ongoing costs (billed monthly or yearly): Type of costLow estimateHigh estimateHosting€50/year€300+/yearMaintenance & security (updates, backups, SSL, fixes)€100/month€500+/monthOngoing content & SEO€200/year€5,000+/year Variable costs: Most people spend their time focusing on the look and feel of their site and while that is important, it’s not the only thing to consider. It’s understandable that things like legal technicalities and CDNs are not front-of-mind when you’re excited about growing your business but it is necessary. That means you’ll need to complete these, often overlooked, tasks to make sure that you remain on track for growth and stay compliant. Type of costLow estimateHigh estimateMarketing & ads€100/month€10,000+/monthAccessibility & legal compliance€200€5,000+Scaling & performance upgrades (plugins, CDN, extra development work)€100€10,000+ Website building options There are three main ways to build a site, and your choice here will have an impact on the final cost. 1. DIY builders (like Wix or Squarespace) These platforms, as well as some others, will let you build a site from scratch without the need for any technical skills. They’re affordable, quick to set up and ideal for portfolio sites, hobby sites, or small businesses. If you are using these site builders for business, you might find them limiting when you need to scale or want more advanced SEO. 2. WordPress + Yoast For most successful small and medium sized businesses, WordPress is an excellent solution as it’s flexible, scalable, and widely supported. What’s more, when you pair it with Yoast SEO for WooCommerce you can start publishing optimized content from day one, making your online store more visible instantly. This makes it more affordable in the long run as there’s no need for an agency, and you can add features as you grow rather than having to rebuild every time. 3. Custom-built website via an agency For complex businesses like advanced ecommerce or security services, a custom-built site is their best option. It’s the most expensive option but gives you complete control, giving you everything you want without having to compromise on anything. However, you may find that tailored code and features will cost a lot more. Watch out for these hidden costs One common misconception is that the costs end when your site goes live. That’s just not true, in fact, some of the most expensive problems show up after launch. These can include: Non-converting content: You can have the most beautiful website in the world but if it’s not pulling in paying customers, there’s a problem. Try investing in professional copywriting and SEO-friendly content that will ensure visitors take action. Dropped traffic: Starting off with bad SEO can really hamper your traffic. Without help, it’s easy to make errors that could take months to fix. This is very much a case of prevention is better than cure. Technical debt: Sites built on outdated technology or poorly coded templates may work at first but become costly to maintain or upgrade after a while. Accessibility cost: It’s important that you make sure your site caters to all, especially those who may have visual or audio impairments. Legal costs: There are certain legal requirements to take care of. These aren’t just there to protect the customer; they protect you too. So, don’t forget that you’ll need things like a cookie consent tool and a term of service policy. How Yoast saves you money (over time) Yoast isn’t about saving you money on upfront costs; what it does is prevent expensive mistakes. It will save you money over time though as you’ll benefit from reduced costs of ongoing SEO and content marketing. To get more specific though, Yoast’s real-time SEO guidance helps you write better, optimized content without needing to hire a writer. In addition, the Readability analysis and Internal linking suggestions are two features that help to reduce bounce rates by making your content perform better, which literally translates into more conversions. On top of this, adding structured data manually is time consuming and costly. Yoast automates much of this, giving you rich search results without developer costs. And if that’s not enough to whet your appetite, there are free and premium options. Feature How it saves you money Real-time SEO guidance Write better content, faster, without hiring an SEO expert Readability analysis Engaged readers means more conversions Schema & structured data Get results without coding knowledge Internal linking suggestions Boost traffic to key pages without external help Budgeting tips for small business owners By spending smart, you can get big results for less. Here are a few things to keep in mind: Start with clarity, not complexity: Fancy animations might look nice, but if they confuse your visitors, they’re not worth the price. Spend more on content than code: Great content = better SEO = better ROI. Invest in tools that scale with you: WordPress and Yoast both grow with your business. Plan for the long game: Don’t treat launch as the finish line. Content updates and SEO tweaks are ongoing. Read more: How to optimize your crawl budget Ecommerce vs. general website: does it change the cost? Yes, dramatically. Ecommerce sites need: Payment gateways. Product listings. Inventory management. Legal disclaimers. Stronger performance and security. Expect to pay more, sometimes a lot more, for development, plugins, and maintenance. But again, tools like Yoast SEO help make your product pages more visible and your content more persuasive. Platforms like WooCommerce give you a practical and flexible way to run your online store without having to reinvent the wheel. But the real key to success is visibility, after all, if people can’t find you, they can’t buy from you. And this is what Yoast SEO for WooCommerce does best. Read more: See how Yoast helps ecommerce sites Final thoughts Ultimately, what matters about your site most is what it does for your business. With WordPress and Yoast, you can create a professional site that looks great, enhances your online visibility, and grows with your business, without breaking the bank. One of the best things you can do to really set the wheels in motion now though is to go to this guide WordPress for beginners training course and learn how to put yourself and your company first. Good SEO isn’t a luxury; it’s a smart investment, so start today. Good luck! The post How much does it cost to build a website? appeared first on Yoast. View the full article

Table of Contents What is an SEO reporting tool? Summary: best SEO reporting tools at a glance 10 SEO Reporting tools to choose From Google Search Console (free) Yoast SEO Dashboard (free) Google Analytics (free) AgencyAnalytics (paid) Semrush (free & paid) Ahrefs (Paid) Moz Pro (free trial & paid) Screaming Frog SEO Spider (free & paid) Mangools (paid) BrightLocal (paid) Choose wisely: what to consider Turn insights into action TL;DR If you’re investing time and budget into SEO, you’ll want to know if it’s actually delivering results. That’s where SEO reporting tools come in. They take the guesswork out of your strategy by showing you what’s working, what isn’t, and where you should focus your efforts next. Without them, you’re left with assumptions, anecdotes, and gut feeling. That might work for a while, but it’s no way to grow a business. Whether you need a free SEO report, a quick SEO report generator, or a professional-level dashboard for clients, the right tool will help you measure progress and make smarter business decisions. A solo blogger might just want to know which posts are attracting clicks, while a global agency might need to present polished reports to dozens of clients each month. The scale is different, but the principle is the same: reporting keeps you honest about what’s happening. Read more: Beginner’s guide to SEO reporting What is an SEO reporting tool? An SEO reporting tool collects data about your site’s search engine visibility and turns it into insights. Think of it as your SEO dashboard. At its simplest, it might show which keywords your pages are ranking for. At its most advanced, it can track backlinks, crawl your entire site for errors, and pull together complex competitor benchmarks. These tools save time by pulling in data automatically, but they don’t replace critical thinking. You still need to interpret what the numbers mean and decide what action to take. A sudden dip in traffic, for instance, could be caused by a technical error, a Google algorithm update, or even seasonality in your industry. The tool will show you the dip; it’s your job to work out why. Some tools focus on one particular task, like crawling your website, while others are built as all-in-one suites. Below, we’ll look at 10 of the best SEO reporting tools available today, covering free and paid options for every kind of user. Summary: best SEO reporting tools at a glance Tool Best for Pricing Google Search Console Beginners & site owners Free Yoast SEO Dashboard WordPress users Free Google Analytics Behavior & conversion tracking Free AgencyAnalytics Agencies managing multiple clients From $12/month per client Semrush All-in-one professional SEO From $139.95/month Ahrefs Link building & competitive research From $27/month Moz Pro Beginners & SMBs From $49/month (30-day free trial) Screaming Frog Technical SEO & crawling Free (500 URLs) or unlimited for £199/year Mangools Solo marketers & freelancers From €19.90/month when billed annuallyBrightLocal Local SEO & GBP management From $29/month 10 SEO reporting tools to choose from 1: Google Search Console (free) Best for: Website owners who want a free, reliable way to track search performance and identify technical issues directly from Google. Google Search Console is one of the most essential SEO reporting tools available, and it has the distinct advantage of being completely free. It tells you how your website performs in Google Search, showing impressions, clicks, and rankings for the queries that bring visitors to your site. It also alerts you to crawl errors, indexing problems, and mobile usability issues, so you can catch technical problems before they affect your rankings. The data here is particularly valuable because it comes straight from Google. You’ll see which search terms trigger impressions, how often users click your site, and which pages are performing well. This makes it an excellent starting point for beginners, but it’s also a must-have for seasoned professionals. The drawback is that historical data is limited, and it doesn’t show you how competitors are performing. But for pure insight into your own search presence, it’s unmatched. Key features: Direct performance data, coverage and indexing reports, Core Web Vitals. Pros: Free, trusted first-party data, essential insights. Cons: Limited history, no competitor data. Price: Free. Read more: How to use Google Search Console: a beginner’s guide 2: Yoast SEO Dashboard (free) Best for: WordPress users who want in-editor SEO guidance and ongoing optimization tracking. Of course, we need to mention our own tool. And, yes, it’s right up at the top of the list but hey, we’re very proud of it. The Yoast SEO Dashboard sits right inside WordPress and gives you feedback as you write. It tracks readability, internal linking, and keyword optimization, helping you improve your content before you hit publish. With the new Site Kit by Google integration, the dashboard becomes even more powerful. You can pull in data from Google Search Console and Google Analytics, meaning you don’t need to keep switching tabs to see how your content is performing. Instead, you get real-time feedback in the editor and clear reporting inside your WordPress dashboard. This makes it especially useful for content teams who want SEO baked into their publishing process from the start. Rather than writing first and optimizing later, the Yoast SEO Dashboard guides you as you go, making it easier to publish content that performs. Here’s why you’ll love this: One view of GSC and GA metrics alongside Yoast SEO Dashboard and readability results. Quickly spot content that needs work and act in context. Lightweight workflow for both editors and SEO professionals alike. Key features: Real-time SEO analysis, Google Site Kit integration, internal linking tools. Pros: Easy to use, directly in WordPress, improves content before publishing. Cons: Limited to WordPress. Price: Free. Read more: Site Kit by Google integration in Yoast SEO 3: Google Analytics (free) Best for: Marketers and site owners who want to understand on-site user behavior and measure the impact of SEO on conversion. Where Google Search Console shows how users arrive at your site, Google Analytics shows what they do once they’re there. It’s a natural partner to GSC and together they provide a complete picture of SEO performance. Analytics lets you track user behaviour, see how long visitors spend on your site, and measure conversions. One of its biggest strengths is the ability to segment traffic. You can look specifically at organic users and see how they behave differently from paid or social visitors. You can also set up goals to track the actions that matter most, such as filling out a contact form or completing a purchase. This makes Google Analytics invaluable if you want to connect SEO efforts to business results. The learning curve is steeper than with some other tools, particularly since the rollout of GA4, but once you master it, the insights are worth it. And of course, the price is unbeatable: it’s completely free. Key features: GA4 event tracking, segmentation, funnel reporting. Pros: Free, deep insights, connects SEO with results. Cons: Steep learning curve. Price: Free. 4: AgencyAnalytics (paid) Best for: Agencies looking for automated, white-label reporting solutions for multiple clients. AgencyAnalytics is designed with agencies in mind. If you manage SEO for multiple clients, you’ll know how much time is spent building and delivering reports. AgencyAnalytics takes away much of that pain by automating the process. You can integrate it with platforms like Google Search Console, Analytics, and even social media channels, then deliver white-label reports directly to clients. The main appeal is the ability to customize dashboards and reports with your own branding. For agencies, that’s a big deal because it saves hours of manual work while still giving clients a polished experience. Reports can be scheduled to go out automatically, meaning your team can focus on strategy instead of spreadsheet wrangling. This isn’t a tool for solo bloggers or small business owners, it would be overkill, but for agencies with a portfolio of clients, it can be transformative. The pricing is based on the number of clients, starting from around $12 per client per month, which makes it scalable as you grow. Key features: White-label reports, multi-platform integrations, scheduled delivery. Pros: Saves agencies time, professional client-ready reports, scalable. Cons: Overkill for solo bloggers or small businesses. Price: From $12 per client/month. 5: Semrush (free & paid) Best for: Agencies and SEO professionals who need a comprehensive suite of tools for competitive analysis and reporting. Semrush is one of the most widely used SEO platforms in the industry. It’s not just a reporting tool, it’s a full suite covering keyword research, competitor analysis, backlink audits, and site crawls. The reporting features are particularly strong, allowing you to track visibility trends, rankings, and content performance over time. For agencies and professional SEOs, Semrush is a powerhouse. It provides granular detail about competitors, making it easier to benchmark your performance and identify gaps. Content audits help you spot underperforming pages, while backlink reports show you where your link-building strategy needs work. Semrush even integrates with Yoast SEO, offering a seamless workflow whether you’re using our WordPress plugin or our Shopify app. The free version is limited, so most businesses will need a paid plan to get full value. At $129.95 per month, it’s not cheap, but the breadth of functionality makes it a worthwhile investment for those serious about SEO. Key features: Competitor benchmarking, keyword and backlink reports, site audits. Pros: Huge dataset, strong competitor analysis, integrates with Yoast. Cons: Expensive, limited free tier. Price: From $139.95/month. Read more: Keyword data via Semrush in Yoast SEO 6: Ahrefs (paid) Best for: Businesses focused on link-building strategies and competitive research. Ahrefs has built its reputation on having one of the largest and most accurate backlink indexes available. If link-building is part of your strategy, this is often the tool of choice. But Ahrefs does more than just backlinks. It also provides keyword research, site audits, and rank tracking, making it a comprehensive SEO platform. The reports are particularly well-designed, making complex data easy to understand. This is useful when you need to share results with stakeholders who might not be familiar with SEO jargon. It’s also popular for competitor analysis, giving you a clear view of how others in your space are performing and where you might gain an advantage. The main downside is cost. With plans starting at $99 per month and no free tier, it’s not the most accessible option for beginners. But for businesses that prioritize link-building and want robust competitive insights, it’s one of the best. Key features: Backlink index, Keyword Explorer, Content Explorer. Pros: Accurate, user-friendly reports, powerful for link-building. Cons: Costly, free tier is limited. Price: Limited free tools, Starter plan $27/month. 7: Moz Pro (free trial & paid) Best for: Beginners and small businesses who want straightforward reporting and keyword tracking. Moz Pro offers a balance between beginner-friendly usability and professional-level features. It provides keyword tracking, site audits, and link analysis in an interface that’s easier to navigate than some of the heavier platforms. For small businesses and those new to SEO, this can be a big advantage. One feature that stands out is the Keyword Explorer, which helps you understand not just search volume but also difficulty and potential click-through rates. This makes it easier to prioritize which keywords are worth targeting. Moz Pro also provides link metrics, though its index is smaller than Ahrefs or Semrush. The company offers a 30-day free trial, which is generous compared to most competitors. After that, pricing starts at $99 per month. For many small to medium businesses, it hits the sweet spot of offering enough depth without overwhelming complexity. Key features: Keyword Explorer, site audits, link metrics. Pros: Beginner-friendly, generous free trial, clean design. Cons: Smaller index than Ahrefs or Semrush. Price: From $49/month. 8: Screaming Frog SEO Spider (free & paid) Best for: SEOs and developers who need to quickly identify technical issues and improve site structure. Screaming Frog is a different kind of SEO reporting tool. Instead of dashboards and trend lines, it’s a desktop crawler that scans your site much like a search engine does. The result is a detailed breakdown of every URL, title tag, meta description, heading, and link. For technical SEO audits, this tool is hard to beat. The free version lets you crawl up to 500 URLs, which is enough for many small sites. The paid version adds advanced features like JavaScript rendering, scheduled crawls, and integrations with Google Analytics and Search Console. It’s not the most user-friendly option for beginners, but for SEO specialists and developers, it provides unparalleled insight into the technical health of a site. At £259 per year, it’s also one of the more affordable professional tools. Key features: 500 free URL crawl, GA & GSC integration, advanced features in paid version. Pros: Extremely detailed, industry standard for technical SEO. Cons: Steep learning curve, desktop-only. Price: Free up to 500 URLs, Paid £199/year. Read more: How to perform an SEO audit (with checklist) 9: Mangools (paid) Best for: Freelancers and small teams who want a low-learning-curve SEO toolset. Mangools is aimed at marketers and freelancers who want powerful SEO tools without the steep learning curve. The suite includes keyword research, SERP analysis, rank tracking, and backlink monitoring, all presented in a clean, simple interface. Reporting is straightforward, focusing on clarity rather than overwhelming detail. For solo marketers or small teams, this simplicity is a feature rather than a limitation. You don’t need to spend weeks learning the tool, you can start getting useful insights almost immediately. While it doesn’t have the breadth of Semrush or Ahrefs, Mangools is much more affordable, starting at just under €30 per month. That makes it an attractive option for those who need solid SEO data without enterprise-level complexity. Key features: KWFinder, SERPChecker, LinkMiner. Pros: Affordable, quick learning curve, simple reporting. Cons: Not as deep as Semrush or Ahrefs. Price: From €19.90/month when billed annually. 10: BrightLocal (paid) Best for: Local businesses and agencies managing multiple Google Business Profiles. BrightLocal is built specifically for local SEO. If your business relies on being found in a particular town, city, or neighborhood, this tool is tailor-made for you. It tracks local rankings, monitors reviews, checks citations, and even audits Google Business Profiles. The reports are practical and easy to share, making them ideal for agencies managing multiple local clients. BrightLocal also provides tools for managing online reputation, which can be just as important as rankings in driving local business. For businesses competing on a local level, it’s hard to find a better option. Prices start from $29 per month, making it relatively affordable compared to the big all-in-one suites. Key features: Local rank tracking, citation checks, review monitoring. Pros: Affordable, perfect for local businesses, practical reporting. Cons: Narrow scope, not for global SEO. Price: From $29/month. Read more: Guide to local SEO Choose wisely: what to consider Before deciding on a tool, it’s worth asking yourself what you really need. If you’re a solo blogger, Google Search Console and Yoast SEO might be all you need to keep track of performance. If you’re running an agency, automation and client reporting might make AgencyAnalytics or Semrush a better fit. Think about your budget too. Free tools go a long way, but paid tools offer depth and convenience that free tools often can’t match. Also consider how comfortable you are with data. Some platforms are designed to be beginner-friendly, while others assume a level of expertise. The good news is that most paid platforms offer free trials. That gives you a chance to experiment and see which tool feels right before committing long-term. Turn insights into action SEO reporting tools do more than track performance, they shape your strategy. They tell you what’s working and highlight the areas that need attention. But tools don’t make the decisions, the real value comes from how you interpret the data and act on it. So whether you’re just getting started with Google Search Console, refining your content with Yoast SEO, or managing enterprise-scale campaigns in Semrush, the goal is the same: turn insights into action. The post 10 free and paid SEO reporting tools for 2025 appeared first on Yoast. View the full article

In the world of work, few things have undergone as rapid a transformation as the meeting. What was once a static, in-person affair has become a dynamic, hybrid experience, blending physical and virtual attendance. Yet, for many organizations, the spaces where these meetings happen have lagged behind. Traditional meeting rooms are often built around a "room-centric" philosophy: a fixed set of technology, a rigid setup, and a one-size-fits-all approach. This model, however, is becoming a relic of the past. The future of collaboration lies in a "user-centric" approach, and the key to this evolution is the concept of Bring Your Own Meeting (BYOM). View the full article

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with: I. Luc de Brabandere on changing twice: “If you want to change, you have to change twice. You not only need to change the reality of your situation, you also need to change perception of this reality.” Source: The Forgotten Half of Change: Achieving Greater Creativity through Changes in Perception II. Nido Qubein on bureaucracy: “There is a tendency in any organization for it to become self-serving. The larger the organization grows and the older it is, the stronger this tendency expresses itself and becomes this kind of inertia, a growing gravitational field if you will, that pulls everything into its orbit. Whatever its stated goals or original mission may have been, the organization’s everyday purpose becomes more and more about the perpetuation of the organization itself. This is the essence of the term bureaucracy.” Source: Extraordinary Transformation: An Entrepreneurial Blueprint for Leaders Who Seek Transformational Growth in Any Organization * * * Look for these ideas every Thursday on the Leading Blog. Find more ideas on the LeadingThoughts index. * * * Follow us on Instagram and X for additional leadership and personal development ideas. View the full article

Do you want to take your site’s SEO to the next level? Yoast SEO Premium can help you out! But there is also a free version of Yoast SEO. So, what exactly is the difference between the free version of Yoast SEO and Yoast SEO Premium? How do these two compare? And is Yoast SEO Premium worth it? Let’s uncover the ten reasons why you should buy Yoast SEO Premium today! Table of contents Yoast SEO free vs premium: what is the difference? What are the benefits of Yoast SEO Premium? 1: Yoast SEO Premium comes with amazing AI features 2: Yoast SEO Premium comes with all add-ons 3: Yoast SEO Premium is a time-saver 4: Use Yoast SEO in Google Docs 5: Makes doing site maintenance easier 6: Helpful tools to build a great site structure 7: An advanced language analysis that makes writing more natural 8: Use synonyms and related keyphrases in your text to make it richer 9: Boost AI visibility while maintaining control 10: 24/7 access to our world-class support team An incredible bonus: free access to Yoast SEO Academy Invest in Yoast SEO Premium: it pays off! How much does Yoast SEO Premium cost? Get Yoast SEO Premium now! Yoast SEO free vs premium: what is the difference? Do you want to compare the main differences between Yoast SEO Free and Premium? This table will give you quick insights: Yoast SEO Premium Includes Local SEO, Video SEO, and News SEO plugins Yoast SEO Premium provides everything you need to improve your website's visibility, whether you're a business owner, publisher, agency, or content creator. (Beta) Get AI-powered suggestions to optimize your content Get optimization suggestions and apply changes instantly with Yoast’s AI features, saving you time and ensuring your content is search engine-friendly. This feature is currently in beta. (Beta) Get high-quality titles and meta descriptions with Yoast AI Yoast's AI helps you craft optimized SEO titles and meta descriptions for search and social, boosting your CTR while saving you time. Optimize for up to five keyword synonyms by adding variants Include up to four keyword synonyms for a broader reach, and receive a complete SEO analysis for each one. Automatic redirects: so no more dead links or 404 errors Effortlessly redirect old or renamed pages to maintain satisfaction for both your visitors and Google. Get real-time suggestions for internal links As you write, you'll receive suggestions for internal links to other pages, which Google favors and can boost your ranking. Preview your page on Facebook and Twitter/X You have complete control over your page's social media appearance, ensuring it entices users to click. 24/7 support Our helpful and expert support team is ready to assist you with any questions via email or live chat. Safeguard your content from being used to train AI bots Easily protect your intellectual property and data privacy by blocking AI bots from scraping your content with a simple toggle. Includes 1 free seat to the Yoast SEO Google Docs add-on Create and optimize your SEO content in Google Docs with Yoast's guidance, ideal for teamwork with internal and external partners. Enjoy 1 free seat, valued at $5/month. Yoast SEO Free Find other ways to optimize your website for SEO No comprehensive SEO solution. You'd need to find other ways to optimize your website, especially if you have a local business, a news website, or if you have a lot of videos. No AI You have to manually optimize all your content yourself. No AI You have to manually write and optimize all your SEO titles and meta descriptions yourself. Only 1 keyword per page Optimize for one keyword per post or page. No redirect manager Forgetting to set up a redirect results in visitors hitting a 404 page, which displeases both them and Google. You need to guess which links would work best Identify which pages to link to for improved rankings, for both new and existing pages on your site. No preview of your page on social media Without a preview of social snippets, you're left guessing and hoping for the best. No support No support You can help yourself with our extensive knowledge database. Manually edit robots.txt file Manually edit your robots.txt file to block AI bots, at the risk of making mistakes. No free access to the Yoast SEO Google Docs add-on Transferring draft content from Google Docs to your website for SEO optimization slows your workflow and makes collaboration with internal and external teams more time-consuming. Yoast SEO Premium vs Yoast SEO Free Includes Local SEO, Video SEO, and News SEO plugins Yoast SEO Premium provides everything you need to improve your website's visibility, whether you're a business owner, publisher, agency, or content creator. Find other ways to optimize your website for SEO No comprehensive SEO solution. You'd need to find other ways to optimize your website, especially if you have a local business, a news website, or if you have a lot of videos. (Beta) Get AI-powered suggestions to optimize your content Get optimization suggestions and apply changes instantly with Yoast’s AI features, saving you time and ensuring your content is search engine-friendly. This feature is currently in beta. No AI You have to manually optimize all your content yourself. (Beta) Get high-quality titles and meta descriptions with Yoast AI Yoast's AI helps you craft optimized SEO titles and meta descriptions for search and social, boosting your CTR while saving you time. No AI You have to manually write and optimize all your SEO titles and meta descriptions yourself. Optimize for up to five keyword synonyms by adding variants Include up to four keyword synonyms for a broader reach, and receive a complete SEO analysis for each one. Only 1 keyword per page Optimize for one keyword per post or page. Automatic redirects: so no more dead links or 404 errors Effortlessly redirect old or renamed pages to maintain satisfaction for both your visitors and Google. No redirect manager Forgetting to set up a redirect results in visitors hitting a 404 page, which displeases both them and Google. Get real-time suggestions for internal links As you write, you'll receive suggestions for internal links to other pages, which Google favors and can boost your ranking. You need to guess which links would work best Identify which pages to link to for improved rankings, for both new and existing pages on your site. Preview your page on Facebook and Twitter/X You have complete control over your page's social media appearance, ensuring it entices users to click. No preview of your page on social media Without a preview of social snippets, you're left guessing and hoping for the best. 24/7 support Our helpful and expert support team is ready to assist you with any questions via email or live chat. No support No support You can help yourself with our extensive knowledge database. Safeguard your content from being used to train AI bots Easily protect your intellectual property and data privacy by blocking AI bots from scraping your content with a simple toggle. Manually edit robots.txt file Manually edit your robots.txt file to block AI bots, at the risk of making mistakes. Includes 1 free seat to the Yoast SEO Google Docs add-on Create and optimize your SEO content in Google Docs with Yoast's guidance, ideal for teamwork with internal and external partners. Enjoy 1 free seat, valued at $5/month. No free access to the Yoast SEO Google Docs add-on Transferring draft content from Google Docs to your website for SEO optimization slows your workflow and makes collaboration with internal and external teams more time-consuming. What are the benefits of Yoast SEO Premium? For over fifteen years, Yoast SEO has provided small businesses, bloggers, marketers, and online and offline stores with almost everything they need to compete in the search results. Over the years, we made the plugin better and better — following feedback from users, through thorough research and insights from insiders at the search engines. Today, Yoast SEO is run by a team of passionate SEO experts and built by very talented developers. While the free version of Yoast SEO gives you a lot of tools to help you do well in the search results, Yoast SEO Premium makes many tasks much easier. It saves precious time that you can invest in other ways. Yoast SEO Premium also gives you additional tools, like, for instance, Local SEO, AI features, internal linking suggestions, and the redirect manager. You can use all of these tools to build an impressive site structure. All of this helps make your site a great fit for users and search engines alike. As such, Yoast SEO Premium is a wise investment. Buy Yoast SEO Premium now!Unlock powerful features and much more for your WordPress site with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin! Get Yoast SEO Premium »Only $118.80 / year (ex VAT) 1: Yoast SEO Premium comes with amazing AI features Yoast SEO Premium now offers AI-powered features that streamline your SEO tasks. With Yoast AI Generate, you can create engaging titles and meta descriptions effortlessly. Choose from multiple options or generate more until you find the perfect fit. Meanwhile, Yoast AI Optimize provides smart suggestions to enhance your existing content, ensuring SEO best practices are met with just a click. These tools integrate smoothly into your workflow, saving you time and effort while keeping your content search-engine friendly. Available for WordPress and Shopify, these features help you maintain control over your content’s final look and feel. 2: Yoast SEO Premium comes with all add-ons Yoast SEO Premium now includes various separate add-ons, such as News, Video, and Local SEO, in one convenient package. This comprehensive suite enhances your optimization capabilities without needing additional purchases. However, the WooCommerce SEO add-on is not included and is available separately. Enjoy a streamlined experience to boost your site’s performance across different content types and media. 3: Yoast SEO Premium is a time-saver One of the most important things you need to remember about SEO is that it is never done. There’s always more to do, better content to write, or fixes to make. Luckily, there’s a WordPress SEO plugin that’s glad to be of assistance. As you might know, Yoast SEO is not a set-it-and-forget-it kind of tool. You need to work with it, whether it’s improving your content or building your site structure. In the free version, you still need to do much of the work yourself. Yoast SEO Premium comes with a number of AI tools that can save you lots of time. 4: Use Yoast SEO in Google Docs The Yoast SEO Google Docs add-on allows you to draft and optimize your SEO content directly within Google Docs. This tool is ideal for seamless collaboration with both internal teams and external partners. You can work on content, refine it, and ensure it aligns with SEO best practices, all without leaving your document. This efficiency streamlines your workflow and enhances team cooperation. Plus, Yoast SEO Premium includes one user seat for this add-on, typically valued at $5 per seat. 5: Makes doing site maintenance easier If working on your site is turning into a day job, you might need some help! Premium makes site maintenance easier. For one, Premium comes with a stale cornerstone content finder that reminds you to update your most important content. Another tool that helps you work on your pages is the redirect manager. Whenever you make changes to pages or URLs, this tool makes sure to add a redirect for you. All you have to do is say where the new URL needs to lead. With the redirect manager, you can also fix your 404 errors in no time. No developer necessary. It’s so helpful that 58% of Premium users praise the redirect manager as the best feature in Yoast SEO Premium! 6: Helpful tools to build a great site structure Building a solid site structure is one of the quickest routes to success. Making your content easily accessible to users and search engines helps them both make sense of your site. Yoast SEO Premium comes with a number of tools that help you build relevant links that can build a solid foundation for your site structure. Our plugin comes with internal linking blocks, an orphaned content finder and a targeted internal linking suggestion tool. With the internal linking suggestions, relevant content will automatically be suggested while you’re writing your new content. There’s no need to remember that all those posts are pages! But don’t just take our word for it, here’s what Andrew Evans from Intellifluence says about the internal linking tool: “While the free Yoast SEO plugin offers many great features, the Premium version takes things to the next level. The internal linking suggestions feature ensures our blog is organized in a cohesive manner. It also ensures that link equity passes to other posts. This feature alone saves a tremendous amount of time as the plugin suggests links as we write. As the site grows, this feature only becomes more valuable! If you’ve ever tried to develop an interlinking strategy for an established blog, you’ll know exactly what I mean…“ Andrew Evans 7: An advanced language analysis that makes writing more natural Yoast SEO is famous for its SEO and readability analyses — a.k.a. the colored traffic lights. The feedback these analyses give you helps you produce a great piece of content that adheres to a range of SEO best practices. This works splendidly, but Premium makes this process a lot more natural and flexible. Premium has a very smart feature called word forms support. This innovative language analysis looks not only at the exact match of the focus keyphrase you enter but also at all the grammatical forms of that word. If you use, for instance, “decoration”, we will find word forms like “decorated” and “decorates” in your text as well, just like Google does. The words don’t even have to be in the same order when your focus keyphrase consists of more than one word. 8: Use synonyms and related keyphrases in your text to make it richer Search engines get smarter every day, and context is key in SEO. They use the context in which a keyword appears to determine what a text is about. Synonyms and related terms, therefore, are more important than ever. In the free version of Yoast SEO, you can only add a single focus keyphrase. The plugin uses this to help you optimize your post. Yoast SEO Premium has more tricks up its sleeve, making it a much smarter solution. What is that? Well, you can add a number of synonyms and related keyphrases to your post. By using these, you can make your content come alive. The Premium analysis makes sure that you use these synonyms and related keyphrases correctly in your post. Awesome, right? You can even use the Semrush integration to gather data and trends about your related keyphrases. Premium users can add the related keyphrases Semrush uncovers for you to their post with a single mouse click. 9: Boost AI visibility while maintaining control Yoast SEO introduces AI-focused features such as llms.txt and AI bot blockers to protect your site’s content and maintain data privacy. The llms.txt file helps AI tools understand your site’s structure and important content. Meanwhile, the AI bot blocker feature lets you safeguard your intellectual property with a simple toggle, preventing AI bots from scraping your content for training purposes. This ensures that your valuable information remains secure and under your control. 10: 24/7 access to our world-class support team What if you run into issues with the plugin? It would be good if you could contact a real person to help you figure out what the problem is. Luckily, if you sign up for Yoast SEO Premium, you get just that: Premium support. Our helpful support staff is available around the clock to get you up and running in no time. An incredible bonus: free access to Yoast SEO Academy Every Yoast SEO Premium subscription comes with complimentary access to Yoast SEO Academy. This is a big deal. We don’t just provide you with the number one WordPress SEO plugin to help you do well in search engines — we also supply many hours of instructional material. We offer several of our courses free of charge to get you started with the basics. But when you sign up for Yoast SEO Premium, you get access to all our SEO courses! Learn about Yoast SEO, SEO copywriting, keyword research, structured data, ecommerce SEO, and many other topics related to SEO! Invest in Yoast SEO Premium: it pays off! You see, there are many good reasons to get a Yoast SEO Premium subscription today. A Premium subscription can save you lots of time and gives you access to incredible tools that make working on your site easier and more fun. Plus, you’ll get unrestricted access to Yoast SEO Academy for hundreds of hours of SEO training. And, of course, you get to contact our support team if you should ever run into a problem. How much does Yoast SEO Premium cost? You can buy Yoast SEO Premium for $118.80 excluding VAT per year, or €118.80/£118.80 per year, depending on where you are in the world. For this, you not only get Yoast SEO Premium, all the additional plugins like Local SEO and Video SEO, and its awesome tools, but you also get a year of support, updates, and access to all our Yoast SEO Academy courses. Check out all of our products here. Get Yoast SEO Premium now! Convinced? Make sure to grab your copy! Buy Yoast SEO Premium now!Unlock powerful features and much more for your WordPress site with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin! Get Yoast SEO Premium »Only $118.80 / year (ex VAT) The post Yoast SEO free vs Premium: why upgrading is worth it appeared first on Yoast. View the full article

Here’s a fact: marketing budgets can make or break your company’s ROI, and it often comes down to how well you plan, track, and manage spending across campaigns. A marketing budget template gives you the framework to track spending and align campaigns with business goals. In this article, you’ll see how tools like monday.com support… The post 8 Free Marketing Budget Templates to Track ROI and Costs in 2025 appeared first on project-management.com. View the full article

Table of contents How AI perceives your brand The new gatekeepers: LLMs & generative search What shapes your brand’s AI profile What you can do about it: building brand equity in the AI era The future of brand perception What does ChatGPT say about your brand? Or Perplexity, Gemini, or Claude? As AI agents emerge alongside traditional search engines as the starting point of discovery, the way they perceive and present your brand can directly shape customer trust and buying decisions. These models don’t know your brand the way people do. They learn it from the web, from structured data, citations, reviews, and the context you’ve built across digital touchpoints. The result: AI isn’t just reflecting your brand; it’s actively influencing how audiences experience it! This article explores how AI is reshaping brand perception and, more importantly, what you can do about it. How AI perceives your brand AI doesn’t just read your brand; it interprets it. Instead of scanning isolated keywords, AI systems build a contextual map of who you are, what you offer, and how the world perceives you. This understanding comes from a combination of techniques like knowledge graphs, entity linking, relationship mapping, and sentiment analysis. Here is a brief overview of different technologies that AI agents use for understanding brands: Knowledge graphs Knowledge graphs are structured databases that represent entities (like brands, products, or people) and the relationships between them. For AI, they serve as a kind of brand blueprint, linking Apple not only to ‘smartphones’ and ‘laptops’ but also to competitors like Samsung, product lines like iPhone, and audiences like ‘tech-savvy young adults.’ By connecting these dots, AI understands a brand’s position within a larger ecosystem. Entity linking Entity linking ensures that when AI encounters a brand reference – whether in a news article, review, or social post – it knows exactly which brand is being discussed. A mention of ‘Apple’s new iPhone’ doesn’t just get read as text; AI links ‘Apple’ and ‘iPhone’ to their knowledge graph entries, capturing the context that this is about Apple’s smartphone launch, not fruit. Relationship mapping Beyond direct links, AI maps relationships between entities to uncover patterns. This could mean identifying which product features resonate with certain customer segments or surfacing how a brand is associated with trends like sustainability or innovation. Relationship mapping highlights not only who is connected to a brand, but how. Sentiment and perception analysis AI also analyzes tone and sentiment across reviews, forums, social platforms, and media. These signals reveal whether people talk about a brand positively, negatively, or neutrally, and in what context. Over time, these insights shape how AI interprets a brand’s reputation and credibility. Personalization and content alignment Finally, AI uses this brand understanding to personalize consumer interactions and even generate content aligned with a brand’s tone and values. The more consistent the data and signals a brand sends out, the clearer its identity becomes in AI systems. Taken together, these technologies mean AI doesn’t just see a brand as a logo or a tagline. It sees a web of relationships, perceptions, and behaviors, continuously updated in real time. AI understands brands through both what they say about themselves and how the world engages with them, but it often weighs the latter more heavily. Overall, if we set aside the technical layers, the bigger picture is this: AI doesn’t see a brand as just a logo, tagline, or marketing claim. Instead, it constructs meaning from the countless interactions, mentions, and connections that exist around the brand. Every review, conversation, and association adds another layer to how AI perceives brand equity. Your brand’s story was never yours alone; customers, communities, and competitors have always shaped it. What’s changing is that AI amplifies those influences in real time. The new gatekeepers: LLMs & generative search For decades, search has been the front door of the internet, the place where customers first discovered, compared, and connected with brands. Ranking high on Google meant visibility, trust, and traffic, and much of the brand strategy was built around that dynamic. But that front door is changing. Today, large language models (LLMs) and generative AI are reshaping discovery itself. Search is no longer just a list of blue links you can optimize against. Instead, AI compresses, summarizes, and reinterprets content on behalf of the user. It’s faster, more convenient, and increasingly becoming the default way people search. In fact, by 2028, organic search traffic could decline by 50% or more as consumers rely more heavily on generative AI-powered search. This shift marks a turning point: discovery is moving from traditional search engines toward AI-driven experiences. And nowhere is this transformation clearer than in the evolution of search engines themselves. Read more: LLM SEO optimization techniques (including llms.txt) Let’s understand this shift and its different aspects in detail. See how visible your brand is in AI searchTrack mentions, sentiment, and AI visibility. With Yoast AI Brand Insights, you can start monitoring and growing your brand. Learn more » From traditional search to AI-driven discovery In the pre-AI era, search meant competing for blue links. Your content carries not just keywords but also your voice, tone, and brand identity. That visibility gave businesses some control over how they were discovered. Now, discovery is expanding beyond links into AI-generated answers, instant summaries, and conversational results. These systems don’t just point to your site; they synthesize information from multiple sources and deliver it directly to the user. This shift means people are no longer ‘clicking through’ in the same way; they’re expecting instant, conversational results. It’s faster, more convenient, and quickly becoming the default search experience. Search engines’ evolution into generative platforms Search engines themselves are fuelling this transition. Google is the clearest example. It remains the dominant force in search, with usage rising more than 20% in 2024 and still delivering ~373X more searches than ChatGPT. But the nature of that search is changing. AI Overviews, launched in May 2024, now appear in more than half of searches. Instead of users scrolling down to organic results, they see synthesized AI summaries right at the top. AI Mode, rolling out widely in 2025, makes the entire experience conversational, with generative responses as the default surface, not the list of links below. Behind all of this is Gemini, the model family that deepens Google’s ability to parse context, language, and intent, reshaping what it means for content to be ‘visible.’ For brands, this creates a paradox. Your content may be seen more often through impressions, but clicks decline because users often don’t need to leave the search results page. Instead of optimizing just for rankings, success depends on whether your content can deliver highly specific, immediately useful insights that AI wants to pull into its answers. Recognizing this shift early opens up space to differentiate, while many competitors are still optimizing for the old playbook. Read more: How to optimize content for AI LLM comprehension using Yoast’s tools The branding challenges of AI mediation While generative search improves user experience, it strips away brand nuance. AI blends multiple sources, compresses messaging, and removes design and visual branding, leading to tone flattening. A playful coffee brand known for witty puns and bold design may simply appear as ‘a coffee retailer offering various blends’. Stripped of its energy and personality. There’s also the problem of sentiment drift. Because models rely on historical data, they may surface outdated or dominant narratives that don’t reflect your current positioning. A hotel that has rebranded into a luxury wellness retreat may still show up as ‘a budget accommodation option,’ simply because older reviews carry more weight in training data. The risk here is bigger than being misrepresented; it’s being misunderstood at scale. In the AI-driven discovery era, your brand isn’t just competing for attention; it’s competing for interpretation. Read more: What AI gets wrong about your site, and why it’s not your fault What shapes your brand’s AI profile AI agents build brand profiles not just from your owned content but from the network of signals surrounding it, some of which you can influence directly, others that linger long after you’ve moved on. Everything mentioned till now clearly shows that AI agents’ answers for your brand depend on several factors, like: Structured data and schema usage provide machines with a clear blueprint of who you are, what you offer, and why it matters. Without this scaffolding, your content risks being flattened into something indistinguishable. Citations in authoritative sources act like trust anchors. When established publications, industry bodies, or credible researchers reference your brand, AI models absorb those signals and treat them as validation. Consistency of context, making sure your brand name, description, and expertise align across platforms, ensures that fragmented or contradictory mentions don’t dilute your identity in AI summaries. Depth and authority of content matter more than sheer volume. AI is tuned to favor content that demonstrates expertise and perspective, not just keyword density. Geographical and personalization cues influence how your brand is profiled in specific markets or for specific user types. For instance, a brand may appear as a local leader in one geography and an emerging player in another. Reputation signals like reviews, press coverage, and forum discussions shape how AI remembers your brand. Unlike a campaign you can sunset, these signals persist in training data.A software tool that fixed its early bugs, for example, might still be labelled unreliable in AI-generated summaries because forum complaints from years ago remain part of the record. Together, these factors reveal an uncomfortable truth: your brand’s AI profile is not solely in your control. It is co-authored by every structured markup, citation, review, and discussion thread tied to your name. And that’s exactly why the next step isn’t just about visibility, it’s about equity. If machines are going to carry your reputation forward, then the real question becomes: how do you actively shape and protect that equity in the AI era? What you can do about it: building brand equity in the AI era If AI is going to summarize your brand for users, the challenge is no longer just getting to page one; it’s making sure those summaries capture the right story. That means shifting your strategy from chasing rankings to actively shaping the signals AI pulls from. Here’s how to start: Audit how AI describes your brand Don’t assume your website is the only source AI is pulling from. Ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Gemini to ‘Describe [Your Brand]’ every quarter. Track how those descriptions change, whether they reflect your current positioning, and if old baggage is still showing up. This gives you a baseline for what’s working and what needs fixing. For deeper insights, tools like Yoast AI Brand Insights go a step further, tracking mentions, sentiment, and visibility across AI assistants so you can see exactly how your brand is represented and take control of the narrative. Keep ‘anchor’ content fresh Pages like your About, product introductions, and service overviews are disproportionately influential. Refresh them regularly with clear, keyword-rich descriptors that reinforce your current narrative. These are often the first things AI models latch onto, so make sure they reflect today’s positioning, not yesterday’s. Infuse brand storytelling into content Generic descriptions fade in summaries; unique stories stick. Instead of ‘We sell camping gear,’ write ‘We help families turn weekends into campfire stories.’ Language that’s memorable, metaphorical, or emotionally charged has a better chance of surviving AI compression and carrying your brand identity with it. Experiment beyond traditional blog posts AI models ingest more than just written blogs. Case studies, explainer videos, podcasts, interviews, or even forum contributions can influence how your expertise gets profiled. A varied content mix increases the likelihood that your brand is represented in different contexts and query types. Work on visibility across multiple touchpoints Don’t let your footprint be limited to your own site. Citations in industry publications, guest appearances, reviews, and even thoughtful participation in online discussions expand the sources AI relies on. The broader your presence, the harder it is for AI to miss you. Always think about intent and context AI-powered discovery isn’t keyword stuffing; instead, it’s intent recognition. Structure your content around the problems your audience is trying to solve, not just the queries you want to rank for. When your answers consistently match user intent, AI is more likely to position you as relevant and authoritative. Invest in tools that guide AI to your brand Unlike search engines, AI tools don’t crawl your full site; they only scan small pieces of content in real time. This means important details can be missed or outdated. That’s where Yoast SEO’s llms.txt feature helps. A smarter analysis in Yoast SEO PremiumYoast SEO Premium has a smart content analysis that helps you take your content to the next level! Get Yoast SEO Premium »Only $118.80 / year (ex VAT) This feature automatically creates a file that acts as a map for AI assistants, pointing them to your most important, cleanly structured content. No setup required. By doing this, you give LLMs a better chance of representing your business accurately in their answers. The future of brand perception We’ve entered a new era of discovery. Customers aren’t just scanning pages; they’re trusting AI-generated answers to shape their perception of your brand. That shift comes with both risk and opportunity. On one hand, AI assistants can strip away the nuance, tone, and ownership brands that brands once held over how they’re presented. On the other hand, they offer a chance to reach audiences in more natural, context-rich ways than ever before, if you prepare for it. The path forward isn’t about chasing rankings alone. It’s about ensuring your brand is understood, accurately represented, and consistently visible across this new AI-powered landscape. That means building content that survives summarization, experimenting beyond traditional formats, and guiding AI to the information that matters most about you. But awareness is only the first step; you also need visibility into how AI tools are currently describing and interpreting your brand. That’s where Yoast AI Brand Insights comes in. With AI visibility scores, sentiment tracking, and real-time monitoring of mentions across tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity, you’ll finally have a clear picture of how your brand lives inside AI answers, and how to shape it. The future of brand perception isn’t written by you alone. It’s written by the AI that your customers trust. The question is: will you leave that story to chance, or take control of it? [Join the waitlist for Yoast AI Brand Insights] and be among the first to shape how AI sees your brand. The post How AI is shaping brand perception, and what you can do about it appeared first on Yoast. View the full article

This guide is to help find the best areas to stay in Dubai for first-time visitors. Dubai has grown to become one of the most visited cities in the world. Even if you’re not planning on visiting, you might end up here on the way to somewhere else thanks to the extensive Emirates network. Dubai is a geographically enormous city, so choosing what area to stay in is just as important as what hotel to stay in. To give you an idea of how big Dubai is, here is Manhattan in New York overlaid on Dubai. [Size of Manhattan compared to Dubai (via size-explorer.com.] This Where To Stay guide is to help find the best areas to stay in Dubai for first-time visitors. This is based on my personal experience and exploration of the city. I want to show you what Dubai really looks like, beyond the Instagram-friendly infinity pools. [A Hilton Garden Inn in an area I don’t recommend staying in.] These areas are near public transport and amenities to make the most of your time. You don’t want to be stranded in a suburban area surrounded by freeways. I’ve also added hotels that are famous landmarks or that are a destination in their own right. Where to stay in Dubai guide Map of Dubai hotels Best areas to stay in Dubai Deira (old city area with the most budget options) Downtown Dubai (Burj Khalifa and Dubai Mall) Jumeirah (see or stay at the Burj Al Arab) Palm Jumeirah (the palm tree-shaped island in the sea) Trade Centre (the most central financial district) Dubai Marina (popular beach and canal neighbourhood) Frequently asked questions Map of Dubai hotels Hotels mentioned in this article are pinned on this map, along with metro stations in each area. [View map of Dubai.] Best areas to stay in Dubai The short version is that if you are on a budget and don’t know where to stay, then stay in Deira. If you stay outside Deira, then refer to the metro map and make sure you are staying near a station on the Red Line of the Dubai Metro. This will make a big improvement on your trip as you will be able to visit other places that are along the line. Start your search for hotels in Dubai. Deira [Muteena Park in Deira.] Deira is the best place to stay if you are on a budget, and it’s my preferred area to stay in Dubai. It’s the most interesting place because the streets are more walkable here than in any other part of the city. There are also more affordable eating options, with cafes and restaurants catering to the army of overseas workers that live in the area (especially from South Asia and the Philippines). Deira is one of the oldest areas of Deira, though don’t expect to see an “old town” with cobbled streets and ancient buildings. It’s old in that it’s more lived-in than anywhere else, and it has more street activity compared to the newer areas. Deira has the advantage of being close to the airport and having a metro station where the two lines interchange (Union Station). You can base yourself here and use the metro to see the main sights further up the line. If you are doing a stopover in Dubai then it is easy to get to the airport from here. While Dubai is famous for lavish hotels that are featured in luxury hotel guides, the budget end of the scale is poor value. The cheapest private rooms I found were on Airbnb, but many of them are no more than a bed in a partitioned room. There are a number of listings like this on Airbnb, and you will find many rooms run by the same agent. Partitioned rooms and dorms are how many overseas workers live in Dubai, and you will see advertisements all over the city advertising bed space. My tip for looking for a room is to make sure it has a window, that way your broom-closet-sized room won’t be so depressing. When looking for a place to stay in Deira, look for hotels near Union Station and along the Red Line at towards Al Rigga and City Centre Deira. And on the Green Line, look towards Salah Al Din Metro Station. Hotels in Deira The central point of Deira is Al Ghurair Centre mall, near Union Station. The mall is home to Swissôtel Al Ghurair Dubai. Near Al Rigga is ibis Dubai Al Rigga and Howard Johnson Plaza by Wyndham Dubai Deira. I stayed at Royal Falcon Hotel near Salah Al Din Metro Station, and at Panorama Hotel Deira near union Station. Search for hotels in Deira. Downtown Dubai Downtown Dubai is a mixed-use complex created by the Emaar Real Estate Development Company, and not a downtown in an American sense (Deira would be more downtown than anywhere). It is centrally located with lots of skyscrapers that are relatively easy to get to, so I can give them a pass on the name. If you are doing touristy things then you will end up here at some point to see the Burj Khalifa (the world’s tallest skyscraper). Next to the Burj Khalifa is the Burj Park by Emaar, where you can watch The Dubai Fountain. Downtown Dubai is home to the Dubai Mall, which is one of the largest malls in the world. The mall is directly connected to the Burj Khalifa/ Dubai Mall Metro Station by an enclosed air-conditioned walkway. Hotels in Downtown Dubai Armani Hotel Dubai is a hotel by fashion icon Giorgio Armani. The hotel occupies 11 floors of the Burj Khalifa, and it has direct access to Dubai Mall. Search for more hotels in Downtown Dubai. Jumeirah Jumeirah is a residential area on the stretch of the coast between Deira and Palm Jumeirah. There is a surprisingly good public beach here, and the main landmark is the Jumeirah Mosque. Jumeirah is not on the metro line, so it’s not a convenient area for using as a base to explore. Hotels in Jumeirah If you want to blow out your budget, then head to the Burj Al Arab. This hotel looks like a spinnaker sail of a yacht, and it is perhaps the most recognizable hotel in the world. It became known as a seven-star hotel, even though there is no such thing. Search for more hotels in Jumeirah. Palm Jumeirah The Palm Jumeirah is a group of artificial islands off the coast of Dubai that forms the shape of a palm tree. This land-reclamation projection is not to be confused with the other projects that remain unfinished. The trunk of the palm tree has a 5.4-kilometre-long monorail that connects the mainland to the top of the tree. The monorail is not part of the metro system, and the ticket price is priced more like a theme park, which this entire island group feels like. The palm fronds are filled with mansions and villas, and the outer breakwater that surrounds the tree has some famous hotels that are a destination unto themselves. Hotels in Palm Jumeirah Atlantis, The Palm is the most well-known resort in Dubai, and you have probably seen the photos of its underwater hotel rooms. [Atlantis, The Palm] Nearby is Atlantis The Royal, which has become a visible landmark of the city (even so far out at sea). This ultra-luxury resort made global headlines when Beyoncé earned $24 million for a one-hour grand opening concert. She stayed in a a $100,000-a-night suite. In the middle of the tree trunk at Nakheel Mall is the Palm Tower. This tower includes The St. Regis Dubai, The Palm. Its location in the middle of the tree gives it a better view, and the infinity pool is often featured by Instagram influencers. Search for more hotels in Palm Jumeirah. Trade Centre Trade Centre is a major financial district characterised by a canyon of skyscrapers along Sheikh Zayed Rd. The metro follows the route of Sheikh Zayed Rd with three stops in this area. The most notable landmark in this area is the Museum of the Future. [Museum of the Future.] Stay here if you have a conference or business to attend in the area. Hotels in Trade Centre A notable hotel here is the Gevora Hotel. According to Guinness World Records, this 356.33 metre / 75-storey tower is officially the tallest hotel in the world. [Gevora Hotel.] 25hours Hotel Dubai One Central offers a creative respite in a very suit and tie-focused district. Search for more hotels in Trade Centre area. Dubai Marina Dubai Marina is a beachfront district that was purpose-built with canals. The combination of beaches and canals has made Dubai Marina the most sought-after location in Dubai. There is a large expat community that lives here among the many apartment towers, and the big names in luxury hotels are on the seafront. Hotels in Dubai Marina Dubai Marina is dominated by Jumeirah Beach Residence, which includes 35 residential towers and 5 hotels. With so many apartments in this area, it’s worth checking for apartment rentals. Address Beach Resort is the most distinctive hotel on the beach. The hotel features two 77-story towers connected by a sky bridge, topped of by the world’s highest infinity pool. [Address Beach Resort.] Search for more hotels in Dubai Marina. Frequently asked questions Where to find hotels with gyms? Visit this list of the best hotel gyms in Dubai. View the full article