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What Modern SEO Skills do You Need?

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What Modern SEO Skills do You NeedYou may have been blogging for a while, and doing ok at monetizing your blog with advertising! There have been lots of ups and downs in terms of income, emotions, and work ethic. Your beginning to wonder how you can take what you have learned to the next level. What modern SEO skills do you need to be successful in the future.

Most people are self-taught since this is such a new industry. Through hard work and a natural aptitude, as well as being able to learn, a few have been successful and have done very well.

Times have changed a great deal since the days of keyword stuffing!

The industry is continuing to evolve. We have identified a few skills that can be developed, learned, and matured to help in your success going forward.

There are various types of SEO professionals, however, they can be divided into two general types: the all-rounder, and the specialist. A small business needs someone who can be an all-rounder, someone who can take on many different tasks and is skilled in many different areas.

What Modern SEO Skills do You Need

While the SEO all-rounder can do everything, time is finite and some projects are absolutely massive. They will probably need to work with other teams, either employees or consultants with specialized skills to get the job done. Delegation and project management will be required, even if they can do it all.

In larger companies (and agency land) you will find specific people focusing on specific SEO tasks. These are skill areas that are required and they are experts in the area, but may not have the all-round skills to manage the larger job.

Apply the right skills to the job

The following list of skills is pretty much essential for SEO professionals. If you want to be successful in the industry then you’ll need some or all of the following.

The skills you have and develop will help determine the career path you choose. For example, if you are highly creative and a great writer but don’t know how to code or understand server configuration you may not want to focus on technical issues. Instead,  roles relating to content might be of more interest.

What Modern SEO Skills do You Need – details

There are both core skills and also softer skills that we all need to develop.

  • The all-rounder
  • T-shaped SEP Specialists
  • Multiple Pillar Specialists
  • Technical
  • Content
  • Analytical
  • Strategic
  • Project management
  • Client management
  • User experience

Soft skills

  • Curiosity
  • Skepticism
  • Critical and whole-brained thinking
  • Competitive nature
  • Passion
  • Goal-orientated
  • Collaborative
  • Adaptability
  • Empathy
  • Entrepreneurial spark
  • Negotiation/persuasion
  • Endurance
  • Reading
  • Attention to detail

What Modern SEO Skills do You Need?

The all-rounder

If you have developed, written, and launched a successful site on your own and monetized it, you probably have most of the skills you need to be an all-rounder.  You could also be a jack of all trades and yet not be a master at any. Also, can you manage a really large project?

T-shaped SEO Specialists

In a T, you may have many skills, an all-rounder, but you are a specialist in at least one area. You understand what it takes to make a large project successful, but you are a specialist in a specific area.

Multiple Pillar Specialists

Some of your SEP resources will specialize in several areas. They have the knowledge and skill set of the all-rounder but can move from one area to another and deliver great results to the overall team. The more specialties they have the more valuable they are.

Technical

Great content is made up of the actual message that is being presented and also the way it is presented to meet the needs of the search engines and also readers.

You may be a technical SEO if you develop a strong understanding of HTML, schema markup, canonicals, server configuration, and mobile optimization, among other things. These are important skills to develop even if you are not one of the writers who create the actual words that readers see on the page.

Content

Quality content is the best way you have of achieving high rankings by the search engines. Great content will increase your chance of attracting links, shares, and traffic to your site which you can monetize.

Content comes in many different shapes and sizes. If you’re a great writer then writing content for a website may be your forte.

There should be a game plan when it comes to content creation to enable success…

  • What keyword terms are you chasing down, and why?
  • What does your internal link architecture look like?
  • Determine what are the main and hub pages that you need to point internal links to?
  • Is your on-page content converting?
  • How should micro-content – such as images, labels, etc – be optimized?

Analytical

If you have analytical skills and are comfortable working with a lot of data SEO analysis may be interesting to you since there is a hell of a lot to process, and to make sense of before you ever start writing content.

Performance analysis, competitor benchmarking, technical audits, traffic analysis, keyword research… are just a few examples.

Strategic

It’s essential to step back and look at the big picture. Google makes countless changes to its algorithm and user interfaces every year. Markets change and customer interest also changes. Focusing on the tactical can be a dangerous distraction.

It’s important to know what’s going on, and certainly to be aware of major updates, but it’s also crucial to take a long-term view. As such, a strategic mindset is vital. You have to be able to look beyond the horizon, to be patient, and above all explain the long-term strategy to senior stakeholders/clients to convince them of the strategic direction you are proposing.

Project management

Even a small site needs regular updates and adjustments to servers, technical issues, and content. Large sites require large numbers of people and focused changes that are implemented without errors on a live site that must never fail or go out of service. Project management skill is often overlooked until it is too late. If your planning changes to your site, regardless of the size, map out the process and project flow to make these changes in a manner that keeps your site always live.

Client management

You might be the best technical specialist available, however, if you cannot communicate and convince your management team or client then you are wasting their time and yours. Communication is a required skill by all SEO professionals regardless of what position or skill set you to have.

Managing expectations makes the difference between perceived success and failure. Making people aware of the risks (and rewards) is another important element of an SEO specialist.

User experience

Google has stated that user experience is increasingly becoming more important in search results. It is common sense that if you are delivering some product or service to your customer, you want them to have a positive experience. If they do not they are not going to buy more of your product or service.

Whatever website you have, regardless if you are selling something or providing information focusing on quality content that answers your reader’s questions is going to deliver better user experiences. Don’t try to game the system. Don’t try to scam your reader. It is just going to make your customer more upset. Happy customers will spread your information and they will cause more traffic to come to your site.

What Modern SEO Skills do You Need – Soft skills

There are lots of soft skills that you need to work in any job including digital, and that also applies to SEO. These are essential, and reflect skills that will help you in your job, your career, and yes, also your personal life.

Curiosity

This is massively important if you are going to expand your horizons, experiment, and try different things in this new field.

Skepticism

In the world of SEO, there are lots of opinions and statements. Look well beyond the press the obvious and test opinions whether they are your own or come from others. Above all do they pass the test of common sense.

Critical and whole-brained thinking

Avoid focusing on one area, expand your thought processes to the big picture, and make sure that all of the tactical activities fit well into the big picture.

Competitive nature

SEO is a competitive industry. There are millions of companies and people working on websites around the world, all trying to land on the first page of search results. You should want to win and have a competitive streak in your nature.

Passion

If this is just a job, your heart is not in it, then you will not achieve greatness. You may survive, but you will not be wildly successful if you are not passionate about what you are doing.

Goal-orientated

Set and achieve goals, objectives, and targets. Goals should drive you forward, and you should take great pleasure in achieving your objectives, your targets, and especially your goals.

Collaborative

Working in a silo, whether you are a single person company or working in a large corporation will never be successful. Collaborate with colleagues, others in the industry, and even competitors. Learning from these people, brainstorming, and thinking outside the box are necessary skills.

Adaptability

Search is hanging all of the time. Google updates its Search engine at least twice a year. Ideas and processes come and go. Above all, you need to understand, evaluate, and adapt to these changes to take maximum advantage and not get left behind.

Empathy

Build relationships online and in-person with like-minded people and websites. Linking to websites for example that has no relationship to your own in terms of content, ideas, services, and products will not help you in the long run.

Entrepreneurial spark

Are you an entrepreneur? You are building a business, whether it is your own, the company, or a customer. Just doing a job is not going to cut it in the long run, take risks, learn, adapt, and keep trying until you get it right.

Negotiation/persuasion

Be prepared to negotiate for links, for content, for expenses, and everything else related to your business opportunity and that of your customers.

Endurance

There is a lot of hard work associated with SEO. While there are tools to help make your task easier, be prepared to work, but work smart. If you find you are doing the same thing over and over with no solid results, you may want to rethink your activities.

Reading

Yes, you need to be able to read (and write) but what’s key is the desire to read, read, read. It accounts for about 20% of your time. Reading what others are doing, how is the SEO industry-changing, etc. There is much to learn, and the environment is constantly changing. You have to stay on top of things.

Attention to detail

Some people have to learn the hard way, but most people quickly learn that quality sites do better than others that are sloppy and do not read well with broken links. This is just so important, you can lose a customer in less time it takes to read this sentence if you do not pay attention to detail.

This is a lot to consider re What Modern SEO Skills do You Need, but then no job is easy.

Teaching Your Kids About Managing Money

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Teaching Your Kids About Managing MoneyTeaching your kids about managing money can be among the most important life skills that parents can teach their kids. If you can avoid debt problems and save for things you want as well as retirement, you should have a pretty good life. At least financially. It is never too late to begin teaching your kids about managing money. Even pre-teens, young adults and even older adults can benefit. So what are the things you should do to help people and kids start learning about money? How to manage money and how to avoid getting into problems later in life over money?

Teaching Your Kids About Managing Money

These points are listed in general from an age perspective. However many can be applied even for older teens and adults:

  • Save 10% of all income, including allowances and paychecks
  • Pay an allowance
  • Assign age-appropriate tasks tied to their allowance
  • Open a savings account to teach about saving
  • Establish emergency savings
  • Establish goal-oriented savings accounts
  • Young adults should start saving for retirement
  • Learn the power of compounding interest rates and income
  • Older teens should obtain a credit card to learn about credit, debt and credit ratings
  • Start saving for a down payment on a home
  • Learn about debt ratios and the 35% rule

We will expand on this list. We will also explain some of the items in our next post about teaching your kids how to manage money.

For more posts about lifestyle issues, click here.

Evolution Long Tail Mobile Keyword

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Evolution Long Tail Mobile KeywordFor those of you who may not be fully aware of how keywords work, the evolution long-tail mobile keyword is changing once again, this time for mobile phones. But before we discuss this topic a quick refresher on how keywords work and what they cost. Common keywords that are short one or two words are expensive to advertise using Adwords/ There is a great deal of competition for them as shown by the graph. There is a lot of traffic, they are expensive and there is lots of competition. Long-tail keywords with 4 or more words are searched for less frequently. They have less traffic and cost less in programs like google’s Adwords.

Mobile phones are increasing in use for just about everything including searching for information. The search engines are paying a lot of attention to this requirement and have begun changing the way results of searches are presented to the mobile phone owner.

Evolution Long Tail Mobile Keyword

Previously search results were presented to the mobile phone user for apps they already had installed on their phone. This limited the search results and value the searchers received. The change means that now search results will include results for all relevant information. Even if the app is not installed on the phone.

This step levels the playing field for app developers and companies and also makes content even more important. If your app is not installed on a smartphone or tablet, you can still get your information and your app displayed in search results on mobile phones. There is a chance of selling more apps and also whatever products or services you may be delivering.

Banks Failing to Stop Elder Abuse

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Banks Failing to Stop Elder AbuseMost people are surrounded by a caring and loving family. As a result, the chances are that elder abuse will not be an issue for these people. On the other hand, many people are still taken advantage of by family members as well as scam artists. But the banks can help in a number of ways. Further with baby boomers aging banks failing to stop elder abuse in a financial sense is a real issue. The banks are assessing adding safeguards. They will monitor unusual amounts of money being withdrawn from accounts. They can alert appropriate people. As a senior, you have to tell the banks who they should contact and when. Above all there is a part for the senior and the caregiver to play here as well.

Banks Failing to Stop Elder Abuse

While the banks figure this out there are a number of things that individuals can do. First you can manage abuse of your own accounts or on accounts that you are managing for someone else. For example, all banks now offer email alerts that can be set at various thresholds. An email is sent to the specified address any time this threshold is exceeded.

This is an excellent way to keep track of what is going on in someones account if you are a caregiver. As a senior you may want to have more than one person manage the account. Moreover, this will help to avoid temptation for a single caregiver.

Make sure that there is a living will that specifies who can manage your affairs if you are incapacitated. Set up the safeguards as mentioned to avoid being scammed. Or finding that all of your money has been removed by someone who you trusted. Tell the bank who this person is. Add controls on the account to avoid large sums of money being removed without your knowledge.

Take control of the elder abuse possibility yourself. Avoid becoming a victim.

For more details about managing your lifestyle as we age, click here.

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Banks and Elder Abuse

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Banks and Elder AbuseElder abuse can come in many different forms. In some cases, it is a failure to provide adequate care, while in others it is actual physical abuse. But there is another form of abuse. This is where banks and elder abuse come together. Also where they can make a difference. Financial elder abuse can come from scams that are perpetrated by 3rd parties on confused seniors. They somehow persuade them to part with large sums of money. In other cases, it is the actual family members who have responsibility for the senior’s financial affairs. It may be a son or daughter or a relative that just cannot resist taking some of the money out of the bank for their own personal use.

There are a number of ways that the banks, as well as individuals, can protect themselves from this sort of financial abuse. The banks are gradually putting systems and triggers in place. These alerts will alert them when large sums are removed from an account. Also, abnormal amounts that do not fit the profile of the account owner can also trigger alerts. But there are more ways than you can protect yourself as well as your elder family member.

Banks and Elder Abuse

We will list a few steps that consumers can take to protect themselves. This applies to the senior as well as the person responsible for looking after their accounts. It is not foolproof, but it is a step in the right direction.

Living Will – make sure that there is a living will that specifies at least two people who will look after health decisions and financial decisions. Make sure the bank is aware of the living will.

Account Alerts – emails can be sent based on triggers of both deposits and withdrawals to the designated living will executors and the senior in question, providing information about activity taking place in the account.

Monitor – Check online at least once a month and more often to make sure that nothing suspicious is going on with the account’s finances.

Place Limits – on the account in terms of transactions. Anything larger than a specified amount triggers a phone call to the executors or the account owner for approval.

Make good decisions regarding your living will executors. There is a much higher probability of avoiding elder abuse. For more details on personal finance issues, click here.

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Evolving Long Tail Keywords

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Evolving Long Tail KeywordsKeywords have always been the lifeblood of the success of any website. If you do not focus your writing around keywords, provide useful content related to these keywords, your blogging success may be limited. This page is about evolving long-tail mobile keywords vs. much shorter keywords. The chart on the left indicates the cost/ competition vs reward for short vs. long-tail keywords. Many bloggers over the last few years have focused on long-tail keywords. They do this as a method of carving out a niche for themselves. They found the short keywords just too competitive and too expensive to include in their work. Now long-tail keywords are evolving once again with the introduction of mobile.

Evolving Long Tail Keywords – Mobile

Previously when you searched for something using a longer phrase, search engines would deliver SERPs based on the apps that were installed on your phone which was somewhat limiting in terms of the total content available.

Now they are delivering SERPs based on the total content available even if you do not have the app installed on your phone. This is good for searchers, and it is good for app developers. It does mean that there will be more competition and that many apps will need to focus on having content with long-tail keywords that they previously did not have in the past. More to come on this particular project.

How Long Should You Plan For Your Nest Egg to Last

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How Long Should You Plan For Your Nest Egg to LastIn our last post, we suggested that consumers assess how long they should plan for their nest egg to last. What this question is asking is how long you will live. And also how long your spouse will live. No one knows. However, you can look for indicators such as how long your parents, uncles, and aunts lived. This statistic is a good indicator from a genetic perspective. There could be many external issues, such as health and accidents, but you have to ignore these. No one can tell what will happen in the next 5 minutes, let alone years from now.

How Long Should You Plan For Your Nest Egg to Last

If you want to be conservative, take the average age of your parents and add at least five years to that life span to reflect that we have better health care and have lived generally in a healthier manner over the years.

Next, examine your extended family to determine if any members lived significantly longer. Compare your health to that person’s and adjust the average number you calculated earlier, adding 5 years.

If you plan to retire at a specific age, you now have an indicator of how long you need your savings to last. This answers the question of how long should you plan your nest egg to last. From here, you can use a calculator that considers the income you should make from your investments and how much you should withdraw each year. Our previous post gave a simple method of calculating this number.

The longer answer is that you must take into account your investments, what income you can expect from them, what the inflation rate will be, and how the markets will change over the years. This is a complicated calculation, and most advisers will be happy to help you with developing a conservative answer.

If you want more ideas about your lifestyle decisions, click here.

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Will Your Emergency Fund Meet Your Needs

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Will Your Emergency Fund Meet Your NeedsWill your emergency fund meet your needs? What is an emergency? Do you have enough saved? Can you access it when you need it? How do you determine How much you will need to set aside to feel that your financial needs will be met if an emergency comes along? First, we can discuss what an emergency fund actually is!

Will Your Emergency Fund Meet Your Needs?

Definition of an emergency fund: Money sitting in a savings account at a bank or credit union in accounts that are insulated from the ups and downs of the stock and bond markets. They are easily accessible online. Interest rates are pitiful on these accounts, but the emphasis is on safety over returns. In other words, you can count on the money being there when you need it. It is there to help you during your emergency!

Most experts suggest you should have the equivalent of 6 months’ salary. If you cut back on expenses to the bare minimum, and you have 6 months salary saved, it will actually last you more than 6 months. This type of emergency fund is for a job loss and will help you survive while looking for another job.

Our experts also suggest you look into the details a little more before finalizing the amount. For example how long will it realistically take you to find a job? If it is longer than 6 months then you better save more!

Are their major repairs or some other kind of emergency you need to plan for. Does your car need repair? What about the house? How about health issues? These are all things that an emergency fund might be able to help you with.

Take a look at your life and see what emergencies you should plan for! Don’t forget to top up your fund if you need to draw on it. You want it to have sufficient funds for the next time!

Techniques for Website SEO Training After Being Away

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Techniques for Website SEO Training After Being AwayWhether you have been away for 6 months or a year, the task of staying up to date on SEO is a daunting one. In this post, we will cover a few techniques for website SEO training after being away. In fact, you can use these techniques for your everyday self-training activity. The industry is changing quickly on many different fronts. The search engines are constantly updating their search algorithms to provide better more relevant results. Information goes out of date. Technology changes e.g mobile browsing and consumers are getting smarter when it comes to searching for information online. They expect instant accurate answers to whatever they are looking for. So how to you keep up to date on a regular basis or whether you have been away from the industry for a period of time?

Techniques for Website SEO Training After Being Away

Here is our list of techniques for staying up to date or catching up on what is evolving in the industry. There is no magic bullet, but if you work at it you can keep your website’s SEO optimized.

  • Take advantage of services like Feedly to aggregate SEO news
  • Subscribe to Google blogs on search engine changes
  • Subscribe to the MOZ blog
  • Attend conferences on SEO, although this may cost $$ and may or may not be profitable depending on the conference
  • Read every day about SEO topics and current trends
  • Taking a course from a qualified trainer can help to come up to speed quickly, however you still need to read every day to stay current.
  • Run several blogs and experiment with various parameters
  • Track your traffic, bounce rates, links, etc and learn from them
  • You may want to read the previous post on this blog.
  • Apply a read, write and talk approach to learning about new techniques to harden them in your memory and also find out what other people are thinking.

File Taxes Online

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File Taxes OnlineTurbotax is one of the online tax filing services that consumers can use to file taxes online. Turbo tax can be found at Turbotax.com. It can be downloaded to your PC. You can file your taxes easily online. Subsequently, you can then make your payment from your bank account if you owe taxes to the Federal Government.   This program will also help you make sure you get all of your tax deductions. You can also get your tax refund early. File taxes online prior to April 15th in the US and prior to April 30 in Canada to avoid any tax penalties on tax amounts owing.

Many people use a tax preparation service from companies that use Turbo tax and provide tax services. In some cases, they may even prepare your tax forms for free. File your taxes,  for both federal and state taxes. Canadians can do the same, filing for provincial and federal taxes online.

If you are a  business or a  consumer, it does not matter. It is easy to file using the efile, capabilities of Turbotax. Tubrotax includes all of the financial forms you will need. They include all income,  interest, and investment income. If you have loans or mortgage interest expenses, you can use Turbotax to track all of your income.