Category: Internet Marketing

How to Start a New Business

Home Business Magazine Online

Starting a new business needs hard work, time, and commitment. The number of legal requirements, strategic development, and documentation may be overwhelming.

However, you may need to put in more effort to turn your business idea into something successful.

This is why it is important to take the time and consider pros tips from experts. Some of these tips may include the following:

1. Carry Out Research About Business Ideas

First, determine whether your business idea is worth pursuing. In order to achieve this, you will need to carry out market research as well as analyze the competition.

The research should be based on identifying your target customers. You can determine who will benefit from your products. You should look at factors such as marital status, location, and age.

2. Choose the Right Business Location

For many businesses, the right location should be in the state in which you plan to run and operate. You can start a business from home to reduce costs.

However, if you want to rent space for your company, choose a suitable location. In order to choose the right location, there are several things you will need to consider. These may include the following:

  • Utilities
  • Rent
  • Demographics

3. Use Software

Building any business from the ground up is challenging, especially if it involves offering field services. Usually, field service business owners need to manage usual tasks, such as scheduling inventory checks or scheduling jobs.

That is where solutions, such as service scheduling software, come in handy. It can provide your business with a perfect way to monitor and manage your field technicians.

Apart from management for the workforce in the field, the software will help your business to grow.

4. Keep Customers Happy

Getting new clients to your business door is vital. However, retaining them is equally important. You can’t ignore clients you offered services to before. You will have to take good care of them, offer them the best customer service, and then nurture them to be your business fans.

Although sales and inbound marketing are important to the business funnel, it doesn’t end there. The truth is that the effort and time you spend perfecting your strategies will amount to something little if you cannot retain happy clients. Building a customer success model must be central to your business organization.

5. Take Care of the Legal Requirements

Anytime you want to start a new business, checking on the local and state requirements will be a great idea. Some states may need a business permit or license, and you might be fined for failing to meet those requirements.

Based on the kind of business you want to start and run, you should consider looking into the local zoning laws.

Final Touches!

Starting a new business doesn’t need to be overwhelming. With the right steps, you will make the entire process much easier. From development and research to eventual launch, some of these tips should help you successfully start a new business.

The post How to Start a New Business appeared first on Home Business Magazine.

Original source: https://homebusinessmag.com/business-start-up/how-to-guides/how-to-start-new-business/

Alex Medeiros Discusses How to Foster a Loyal Customer Base

Home Business Magazine Online

Alex Medeiros, General Manager of LightTouch Med Spa
Alex Medeiros, General Manager of LightTouch Med Spa

One of the best ways to help a business grow and thrive, even in times of economic downturn, is to foster a loyal customer base. To many mired down in the day-to-day running of their small business, this may seem easier said than done. However, building a fanatic customer base for your business can be accomplished over time and help you weather more challenging economic times and keep your business afloat.

Loyal, repeat customers tend to spend more money with your brand or business overall. According to studies, the probability of a business selling to an existing customer is 60 to 70%. Compare that to the 5 to 20% probability of selling to a new customer, and it’s easy to see the value in focusing on building loyalty.

Why is loyalty important?

When you are building or scaling a business, every customer counts. Loyal customers are more likely to return and do repeat business with you. Multiple factors go into determining what creates a loyal customer base — price, customer satisfaction, and product offerings among them. When loyalty is created, customers become more willing to pay extra for your products/services, leave good reviews, and wait for item restocks or talk up a new product.

Alex Medeiros, General Manager of LightTouch Med Spa in Orlando, knows the value of building loyal customers well. He’s built the medspa into one of Orlando’s fastest-growing and most-lauded spas. The massive growth shifted into high gear just as Covid began, and the business has managed to not only weather Covid shutdowns and nationwide economic pitfalls but come out bigger and better than they ever imagined.

Building a loyal customer base was key to the business’ growth strategy. “Clients seek out our services because of our long-standing experience in the industry and our well-known social media presence,” explains Medeiros. “We are determined and focused on delivering the utmost quality of service in all of the procedures that we provide.”

LightTouch employs an expert approach and a strong social media presence to build loyalty. Even so, there are other considerations that can help small businesses create rabid fans that return again and again.

Get to know your customers

You can only give a crowd what they’re clamoring for if you know what they want. Getting to know who your customer base is and what they are most likely to want from a business is the first step in creating loyal customer relationships.

Medeiros considered what his customers were genuinely looking for when marketing for LightTouch Med Spa. “Everyone wants to look better and feel better,” he explains. “During the pandemic, there was a huge increase in awareness that we need to take care of our mental health, which so often means elevating our self-esteem and self-confidence.” With this in mind, Medeiros reached out to people seeking ways to build self-confidence both amidst the pandemic’s height and after the worst of it had passed.

Getting to know your clients on a deeper level allows you to anticipate their needs and deliver exactly what they want, when they want it. Customers also want to get to know you, a task that many businesses complete by getting vulnerable or authentic on social media. Medeiros is particularly proud of LightTouch’s presence on social media and what it has done to build its loyal customer base. “Educating customers and potential customers on social media has been key to reaching new customers, particularly young people. LightTouch now has thousands of followers on Instagram alone,” he explains.

Create loyalty programs

Loyal customers are going to be looking to be rewarded for their loyalty. Think of the Starbucks stars program or the benefits an Amazon Prime subscription provides — these large corporations know the value of loyalty and reward returning customers with discounts, free and fast delivery, and rewards points toward discounted or free products.

Even small businesses can create loyalty programs. Discounts for returning customers or “punch cards” can be employed to show returning consumers that you appreciate the fact that they continue to choose your business. If you make it worth their while, they will be more likely to continue to choose your business in the future.

Encourage feedback and reward referrals

Just like loyalty programs let loyal customers know you appreciate them, referral rewards can make customers feel good about where they choose to spend their money. Businesses should encourage reviews and feedback from their customers and ask where new customers heard about them.

If a new customer is brought in on referral from a loyal customer, that loyal customer should also be rewarded for spreading the word. Referral rewards open up a whole new set of possibilities to build loyalty among customers.

Stand out from the crowd

Being at the forefront of what’s new in your industry is a great way to drive loyalty. If customers know they can always count on you to provide the latest and greatest, they will continue to flock to your door.

“Knowing newer methods and technologies ensures that our clinic remains at the forefront in the competitive medspa industry,” explains Medeiros. “This is what ultimately creates a loyal clientele and fuels future growth.”

Businesses should play to their strengths and make those strengths known. Answering the question of what you do better than your competitors will help you communicate better with consumers, which will in turn foster loyalty.

Personalizing your message, engaging with customers via social media and in-person, and building programs that pay customers back for being loyal are all great ways to build that base that will keep your business growing and thriving. “At the end of the day, however, it’s not just about having the latest and greatest, but offering the complete package,” explains Medeiros.

Businesses that take the time to create that complete package — expertise, offerings, personality, and price — will be more likely to succeed in the long run.

The post Alex Medeiros Discusses How to Foster a Loyal Customer Base appeared first on Home Business Magazine.

Original source: https://homebusinessmag.com/growing-a-business/how-to-guides-growing-a-business/alex-medeiros-how-to-foster-loyal-customer-base/

Businesses, users, experts defend big tech against algorithm lawsuits

On Thursday, a diverse group of individuals and organizations defended the liability shield of Big Tech in a crucial Supreme Court case regarding YouTube’s algorithms. This group included businesses, internet users, academics, and human rights experts, with some arguing that removing federal legal protections for AI-driven recommendation engines would have a major impact on the open internet.

Among those weighing in at the Court were major tech companies such as Meta, Twitter, and Microsoft, as well as some of Big Tech’s most vocal critics, including Yelp and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Additionally, Reddit and a group of volunteer Reddit moderators also participated in the case.

What happened. The controversy started with the Supreme Court case Gonzalez v. Google and centers around the question of whether Google can be held liable for recommending pro-ISIS content to users through its YouTube algorithm.

Google has claimed that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act protects them from such litigation. However, the plaintiffs in the case, the family members of a victim killed in a 2015 ISIS attack in Paris, argue that YouTube’s recommendation algorithm can be held liable under a US anti-terrorism law.

The filing read:

“The entire Reddit platform is built around users ‘recommending’ content for the benefit of others by taking actions like upvoting and pinning content. There should be no mistaking the consequences of the petitioners’ claim in this case: their theory would dramatically expand Internet users’ potential to be sued for their online interactions.”

Yelp steps in. Yelp, a company with a history of conflict with Google, has argued that its business model relies on providing accurate and non-fraudulent reviews to their users. They have also stated that a ruling that holds recommendation algorithms liable could severely impact Yelp’s operations by forcing them to stop sorting through reviews, including those that are fake or manipulative.

Yelp wrote;

“If Yelp could not analyze and recommend reviews without facing liability, those costs of submitting fraudulent reviews would disappear. If Yelp had to display every submitted review … business owners could submit hundreds of positive reviews for their own business with little effort or risk of a penalty.”

Meta’s involvement. Facebook parent Meta has stated in their legal submission that if the Supreme Court were to change the interpretation of Section 230 to protect platforms’ ability to remove content but not to recommend content, it would raise significant questions about the meaning of recommending something online.

Meta representatives stated:

“If merely displaying third-party content in a user’s feed qualifies as ‘recommending’ it, then many services will face potential liability for virtually all the third-party content they host, because nearly all decisions about how to sort, pick, organize, and display third-party content could be construed as ‘recommending’ that content.”

Human rights advocates intervene. New York University’s Stern Center for Business and Human Rights has stated that it would be extremely difficult to create a rule that specifically targets algorithmic recommendations for liability, and that it might lead to the suppression or loss of a significant amount of valuable speech, particularly speech from marginalized or minority groups.

Why we care. The outcome of this case could have significant implications for the way that tech companies operate. If the court were to rule that companies can be held liable for the content that their algorithms recommend, it could change the way that companies design and operate their recommendation systems.

This could lead to more careful content curation and a reduction in the amount of content that is recommended to users. Additionally, it could also lead to increased legal costs and uncertainty for these companies.

The post Businesses, users, experts defend big tech against algorithm lawsuits appeared first on Search Engine Land.

Original source: https://searchengineland.com/businesses-users-and-experts-defend-big-tech-against-algorithm-lawsuits-391976

This day in search marketing history: January 22

Google deduplicates featured snippets

In 2020, Google rolled out a global change to featured snippets that resulted in any URL only appearing once on the first page of search results, instead of twice.

Google said there would be no change to its overall set of web search results. There would still be 10 unique listings, as before. It’s just that Google would be deduplicating and no longer show any of those listings twice.

Google Search Liaison Danny Sullivan announced the news via Twitter:

If a web page listing is elevated into the featured snippet position, we no longer repeat the listing in the search results. This declutters the results & helps users locate relevant information more easily. Featured snippets count as one of the ten web page listings we show.

@dannysullivan

In November, Google was testing removing a site’s normal snippet when a featured snippet was displayed. Google even tested this back in 2017.

Read about it in Listings that earn featured snippets will not repeat on the first page of Google search.

Also on this day 

Google Search launches updated mobile design and interface

2021: The updated interface aimed to make the search  interface easier to read for searchers while providing a cleaner and more modern experience.

Google My Business updates flag review feature

2021: The new form asked the business owner, “Why are you reporting this review?” Then it offered multiple options.

Google might remove search in Australia if forced to pay to link to sites

2021: “The latest version of the Code requires Google to pay to link to news sites, breaking a fundamental principle of how the web works,” said Mel Silva, Google Australia’s managing director.

Contextual links in featured snippets may present new opportunities and risks

2021: The potential for more links to appear in this high-visibility search result feature had SEOs concerned about click-through rates, brand safety and how to optimize for it.

Google’s mobile-first indexing guide update emphasizes the same content across site versions

2020: New guidelines were added in several areas, including crawling, structured data, visual content, and best practices.

Video: Josef Sperzel talks technical SEO and using Python to pull data

2020: In this installment of Barry Schwartz’s vlog series, he chats with Sperzel about how he got into technical SEO, site architecture and spider crawling issues, and more.

Google offers improved GMB sign-up flow for service-area businesses

2019: Improved process would make it easier to set up service areas on GMB.

Small business scammer shut down by Google lawsuit

2019: Defendant firm had falsely represented that it was acting on behalf of Google.

New Google Search Console may be rolling out for everyone now

2018: Most users were able to see their properties in the new Search Console beta.

Sergei Eisenstein Google doodle honors Soviet film director known as the ‘Father of Montage’

2018: The animated image highlighted the director’s technique for creating montage film effects.

Court Documents Show Google Paid Apple $1 Billion For Safari Default Placement

2016: According to court documents and testimony in Oracle’s copyright suit against Google, “Apple received $1 billion from its rival in 2014.”

Google Down 1 Billion PC Searches From 2014, But Mobile Volumes Likely Way Up

2016: Including “powered by” search, Google controlled 64.8% of US search query volume, while Bing powered 32.2% of organic search.

Search In Pics: Google Dance Shirts, Google’s Micro Library & Revealing Screen Shot

2016: The latest images culled from the web, showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have and more.

Wilbur Scoville Google Doodle Marks 151st Birthday Of Man Behind The Scoville Scale

2016: The interactive doodle included an animated Scoville, pepper facts and a game pitting an ice-cream cone against different pepper types.

Google Suggesting Firefox Users Change Their Search Engine & Home Page

2015: Yahoo won the deal to be the default search engine in Firefox in November; now after losing some search share, Google was fighting back.

Bing Ads New Bid Preview Tool Lets You See Effects Of Bid Changes In Real Time

2015: Advertisers could see how ads would display with bid increases before committing to new keyword bids. 

Bing Also Testing Google’s Search Design Interface

2015: Days after Yahoo was caught testing a Google search design interface, Bing is also caught testing it.

YP Introduces Cross-Device Retargeting With Local Search Query Data

2015: It combined the company’s high-intent local query data with cross-screen behavior and ad exchange mobile display inventory.

Google Webmaster Tools Crawl Errors Reports Now Showing Errors On Final Redirect URL

2014: The crawl errors report showed errors on the final URL of the redirect, as opposed to the origin URL of the redirect.

Google’s Matt Cutts: We Don’t Use Twitter Or Facebook Social Signals To Rank Pages

2014: A video answered the question: “Are Facebook and Twitter signals part of the ranking algorithm?” Short answer: no.

Google Adds A Knowledge Graph Popup To Search Results, But Is It Good For Site Owners?

2014: The data provided background on the website listed in the search result, and it appeared in a small popup window that’s accessible from a clickable link on the second line of the result.

Yahoo Search Goes Secure, Taking Referrer Data — An Indicator Of Yahoo’s Popularity — With It

2014: That meant more protection for searchers but what did the loss of referrer data mean for search marketers?

Google Now Changing The Top Search Filters Based On Query

2014: The options you saw at the top might differ or be in a different order based on the query you entered into Google’s search box.

Study: Display Ads Drive Search Clicks After Two Weeks

2014: Display advertising did generate more search volume, clicks and conversions.

Google Panda Update Version #24; 1.2% Of Search Queries Impacted

2013: A new Panda refresh.

Report: 25 Percent Of Search Clicks Now From Mobile Devices

2013: Desktop searches remained level from Q3 2012 to Q4 2012, while mobile experienced an increase in search share.

Google Earnings Show Halt Of CPC Decline, At Least Temporarily

2013: The cost-per-click across Google’s advertising business increased approximately 2% in the fourth quarter, as compared to the third quarter, after several consecutive quarters of decline.

Google To Replace Black Top Bar With Gray Colored Bar?

2013:  Since June 2011, Google’s top bar had a black background color with white/gray text overlaid.

Bing Tags Expands, Makes Pages Linked To Your Profile Public

2013: You (or others) could tag pages to appear associated with you in Bing’s search results. This would be visible to those who had a Facebook account connected to Bing.

Are Search Engines Driving Libraries To Extinction? Not Quite Yet

2013: The traditional role played by libraries, including access to print works and professional librarians, was still important to most.

Google’s “Find Hotels By Travel Time” Offers Some Of That “Innovation” Google Was Talking About

2012: Transit time search was only available in cities where Google had partnered with local transit agencies to integrate their data into Google Maps.

Google May Let You Blacklist Domains To Fight Spam

2011: Matt Cutts confirmed that Google had discussed giving searchers the ability to remove domains from its search results.

Google’s Matt Cutts On 2010 & Looking Back At 2009

2010: Cutts answered a question about where he thought Google and search would be in 2010. In another video, he re-created his presentation on the “state of the index.”

comScore: US Has Most Searches; China Slowest Growth; Google Tops Worldwide In 2009

2010: Globally, searches grew overall by 46%.

Google Adds More Answers & Info To Search Results

2010: Google added an events hCalendar microformat and started highlighting answers in the snippets.

Google Founders To Sell 10 Million Shares Over Five Years

2010: This was part of a plan to diversify their portfolios over time.

Google 4th On Forbes’ Best Companies To Work For List

2010: Google also ranked fourth on the list in 2009, after being first in 2007 and 2008.

Ballmer Critical Of Google’s China Decision

2010: Ballmer called it an “irrational business decision” on Google’s part.

Satellite Images Of Haiti Earthquake From Google & Bing Maps

2010: How to see before and after images, taken by satellite, as well as 360-degree ground-level videos.

Bing Maps Challenge: Try Silverlight Version, Maybe Win $100

2010: Microsoft wanted people to download (or update Sliverlight) so they could use the new and improved Bing Maps. 

Search In Pictures: Google China, Yahoo Character & Google Pillows

2010: The latest images culled from the web, showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have, and more.

Google Revenues Beat Street, Economic Uncertainty Lingers

2009: Google reported revenues of $5.70 billion for the quarter ended Dec. 31, 2008, an increase of 18% compared to the fourth quarter of 2007.

The Rise (And Fall?) Of Real-Time Search

2009: For all the effort to put value into real-time search, particularly where Twitter was concerned – Twitter itself may have put an end to those efforts by announcing new limits on its API.

Microsoft Announces Q2 Results, 5,000 Layoffs

2009: The layoff rumors were true, though the numbers were less than anticipated.

Google Wants To Help Marketers Do More With Less

2009: The Google AdWords team has launched a new mini-site to help advertisers reach their goals in light of the current economy.

Job Search Engines: The Hottest Thing Going

2009: Job search was the fastest-growing search category in the U.S. in 2008.

Obama Is “Failure” At Google & “Miserable Failure” At Yahoo

2009: President Obama inherited all the links containing anchor text with the words “miserable failure” in them, aimed at former president Bush.

Yahoo Search Update: First Update Of 2008

2008:Yahoo had been rolling out updates to their “crawling, indexing and ranking algorithms” over the past couple days.

Publicis & Google In Technology, Media-Planning Partnership

2008: “Google would exchange its technological know-how for Publicis’s analytical and media planning expertise.”

After A Month, Google Fails The One Hour Guaranteed Press Response Test

2008: The fast response was meant for “corporate policy issues.”

Google Walks Down Fashion Avenue: The Oogle Sari

2008: A design in Satya Paul’s collection was named “Oogle sari” that looked like a sari
made up of the Google web search results.

Chinese Kissing Couple Sues Subway Operator For Uploading Video To YouTube

2008: The video reportedly drew over 15,000 hits in just two days and apparently embarrassed the couple tremendously.

Yahoo Search Index Update – January 2007

2007: Yahoo officially confirmed recent speculations of an index update taking place.

Google’s Blacklist Of Phishing Sites Contained Bank Information & More Confidential Details

2007: Google has quietly removed the information, which included usernames and passwords of individuals, including credentials for accounts at banks and other financial institutions.

Wikipedia Nofollows Links Again – Due To SEOs Abusing Wikipedia

2007: This was due to a discussion of a new SEO contest, where editors were warned of an onslaught of spam.

BBC To Partner With Google On Video Content Deal

2007: Google would make some of BBC’s content available through Google Video and possibly YouTube.

Google Germany Gone Kaput?

2007: That time when Google Germany disappeared due to google.de domain registrations shenanigans.

Google Seeking To Place Ads In Video Games; In Talks To Buy Adscape Media

2007: Google was “always considering new ways to extend Google’s advertising program to benefit our users, advertisers and publishers” – including in-game advertising.

Google To Provide Downloadable E-Books

2007: They hoped to “allow readers to download entire books to their computers in a format that they could read on screen or on mobile devices such as a Blackberry.”

Google Adds Sponsored Links To Your Search History

2007: Google added your sponsored link click activity to Google Search History. 

SuggestLocal Offers Collaboration Tools For Local Search

2007: It sought to solve the problem of figuring out where to go and what to do with a group of colleagues or friends.

From Search Marketing Expo (SMX)

Past contributions from Search Engine Land’s Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)

These columns are a snapshot in time and have not been updated since publishing, unless noted. Opinions expressed in these articles are those of the author and not necessarily Search Engine Land.

< January 21 | Search Marketing History | January 23 >

The post This day in search marketing history: January 22 appeared first on Search Engine Land.

Original source: https://searchengineland.com/search-marketing-history-january-22-391990

Trading Bonds: How to Invest in Bonds

Home Business Magazine Online

Companies and governments issue bonds as a kind of debt security to raise money. When you purchase a bond, you are essentially lending money to the issuer in exchange for a fixed rate of return, known as the coupon rate, over a set period of time. The coupon rate is the amount of interest that the bond pays to the bondholder on an annual basis. The bond also has a face value, also known as the par value, which is the amount the bond will be worth when it matures.

When an issuer wants to raise capital, they issue bonds to investors in exchange for money. The issuer is then obligated to make regular interest payments to bondholders, and return the principal amount of the bond when it matures. Bond investments can be a wonderful method to reduce risk and diversify your investment. Because bonds have a fixed rate of return, they can provide a steady stream of income for investors.

Understanding Bond Basics

Before you start trading bonds, it’s important to understand some of the basic concepts. A bond is essentially a loan that an investor makes to a company or government. The bond issuer promises to pay the investor a fixed rate of interest over a set period of time and to return the principal amount at maturity. The interest rate is known as the coupon rate, and the maturity date is the date on which the bond issuer must return the principal to the investor.

Bonds are typically rated by credit rating agencies, such as Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s, to indicate the level of risk associated with the bond. The risk and interest rate is lower when the rating is high.

How to Trade Bonds

Bonds can be traded through a variety of channels, including brokerage firms, banks, and online platforms. One option is to trade government bonds with help of forex brokers. Forex brokers often provide access to government bonds, and they can provide valuable research and analysis to help you make informed decisions.

When trading bonds, it’s important to consider factors such as the creditworthiness of the issuer, the coupon rate, and the maturity date. You should also be aware of the impact of interest rate changes on bond prices, as rising interest rates can cause bond prices to fall.

Types of Bonds

There are several different types of bonds available for investors to choose from. Some of the most common include:

  • Government Bonds

These bonds are issued by national governments and are considered to be among the safest investments. They typically offer lower returns than other types of bonds, but they also carry less risk.

  • Corporate Bonds

Companies issue these bonds to raise revenue. They offer higher returns than government bonds, but they also carry more risk. The creditworthiness of the company issuing the bond is a key factor to consider when evaluating corporate bonds.

  • Municipal Bonds

These bonds are issued by state and local governments to finance infrastructure projects. They are generally considered to be less risky than corporate bonds, but they may be subject to state and local taxes.

  • Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS)

These U.S. government-issued bonds are intended to shield investors from inflation. The interest rate and principal value of these bonds are adjusted for inflation, making them an attractive option for investors looking for a hedge against rising prices.

How to Evaluate Bonds

When evaluating bonds, it’s important to consider the following factors:

  • Creditworthiness of the Issuer

This refers to the ability of the bond issuer to pay the interest and principal on the bond. Credit ratings from agencies like Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s can provide a useful indication of the risk associated with a bond.

  • Coupon Rate

This is the interest rate paid to bondholders. A higher coupon rate generally indicates a higher return, but it also means that the bond is less sensitive to changes in interest rates.

  • Maturity Date

This is the date on which the bond issuer must return the principal to the investor. Longer-term bonds offer higher coupon rates, but they also carry more interest rate risk.

  • Market Conditions

The bond market can be affected by a variety of factors, including changes in interest rates, economic conditions, and political events. It’s important to stay informed about current market conditions and how they may impact bond prices.

Conclusion

Bond investments can be a brilliant strategy to diversify your investment and generate a consistent income. With knowledge of bond basics, types of bonds, how to evaluate creditworthiness, bond funds, investors can make informed decisions and potentially earn a steady stream of income from their investments.

FAQ:

Q: What is the bond’s coupon rate?

A. The coupon rate is the amount of interest that the bond pays to the bondholder on an annual basis. Its proportion of the bond’s face value is how it is expressed.

Q: What is the face value or par value of a bond?

A. The face value, also known as the par value, is the amount the bond will be worth when it matures.

Q: How are bonds different from stocks?

A. Bonds and stocks are both securities, but they represent different types of investments. Bonds represent a debt to a corporation or government, whereas stocks indicate ownership in a company.

Q: How long should I hold bonds?

A. The length of time you should hold a bond depends on your investment goals and risk tolerance. Generally, short-term bonds are less risky than long-term bonds, but they also tend to have lower yields. Long-term bonds can offer higher yields, but they are also more sensitive to interest rate changes.

The post Trading Bonds: How to Invest in Bonds appeared first on Home Business Magazine.

Original source: https://homebusinessmag.com/money/how-to-guides-money/trading-bonds-how-to-invest-bonds/

Report: Google search will debut chatbot features this year

Google will demonstrate a version of its search engine with chatbot features this year, according to a New York Times report.

Why we care. AI – and OpenAI’s ChatGPT in particular – has been discussed ad nauseum over the past two months. Microsoft already is reportedly working on adding ChatGPT features to Microsoft Bing search. This has the potential to reshape SEO significantly. If you thought featured snippets were stealing your traffic, just wait until Google starts being able to accurately answer some even more complex questions which your existing content is designed to answer.

Code Red at Google. In December, following the launch of and reaction to ChatGPT, Google CEO Sundar Pichai reportedly issued a “code red,” realizing the technology was an urgent and significant threat to Google’s search business.

Founders return. Google executives reportedly called in Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who stepped down in December 2019, for several meetings about the company’s A.I. product strategy. Prior to this, neither had been involved with Google search since leaving Google, according to the Times.

What’s coming? According to the Times:

Google now intends to unveil more than 20 new products and demonstrate a version of its search engine with chatbot features this year, according to a slide presentation reviewed by The New York Times and two people with knowledge of the plans who were not authorized to discuss them.

Three priorities were discussed in that chatbot search presentation:

  • Getting facts right.
  • Ensuring safety.
  • Getting rid of misinformation.

Google may block certain words to avoid hate speech and will try to minimize other potential issues relating to hate and toxicity, danger and misinformation, according to the report.

Dig deeper. The New York Times has all the details in Google Calls In Help From Larry Page and Sergey Brin for A.I. Fight (registration required).

The post Report: Google search will debut chatbot features this year appeared first on Search Engine Land.

Original source: https://searchengineland.com/google-search-chatbot-features-this-year-391977

This day in search marketing history: January 21

Google explains the “core” algorithm

In 2016, Google’s Andrey Lipattsev explained the “core” algorithm.

This happened following the news about Panda becoming part of Google’s core algorithm. SEOs wanted to better understand what being part of Google’s core algorithm meant.

Put simply, it meant that an algorithm is consistent enough that Google doesn’t have to worry about it because it’s been tested, works the way it should, and won’t require many changes in the future. As Lipattsev explained:

It is less about the functionality, which means it probably doesn’t change that much over time, and it is more about how we perceive it, in the context of the algorithm. Do we still think this is an experimental thing, it is running for a while and we aren’t sure how long it will last? Or is it like PageRank, it is part of it, it will always be there, at least in the foreseeable future and then probably call it in certain context part of the core algorithm.

So now when you hear about the latest Google core updates, hopefully you better understand what Google’s core algorithm means.

Read all about it in: Google Explains What It Means To Be Part Of The “Core” Algorithm

Also on this day 

Google adds new robots tag indexifembedded

2022: The tag let you define if you wanted your content indexed when it was embedded through iframes or other means.

Google updates product structured data for car review snippets

2022: Google added a note to the product structured data help documentation to explain how to specify car markup and still have Product review snippet feature eligibility.

Google Ads issue impacted some Discover and Performance Max campaigns between Jan. 18-21

2022: It was a temporary technical issue that affected serving on YouTube inventory.

Google will drop support for data-vocabulary.org structured data on April 6

2020: Site owners needed to convert to the schema.org markup if they wanted their pages to be eligible for Google rich results.

CallRail adds call analytics integration with Google My Business

2020: CallRail developed the solution partly as a response to the rise of “zero-click search” and the “cannibalization” of website traffic by GMB.

Google’s 2015 “Bad Ads” Report: 780 Million Ads, 25K App Accounts Shut Down

2016: One of Google’s efforts was to prevent accidental mobile clicks when app developers purposely placed ads too close to application buttons.

Bing Boasts Continuous Updates To Their Search Engine Daily

2016: Bing deploys multiple updates per day in an effort to constantly improve the search results and features.

Google Improves Weather Search Results On Android In Time For Winter Storm Jonas

2016: Weather-related search results would now include hourly sky conditions, air quality and severe weather alerts.

Google Ventures-Backed RetailMeNot Climbs Out Of Its Google Penalty

2015: It was unclear what changes RetailMeNot made to recover from the Google Panda algorithm, but their rankings did bounce back.

Bing Ads Rolls Out Enhanced Sitelinks Globally, Adds Sitelink Device Preference

2015: Additional copy below each Sitelink extension became available in most markets and languages supported by Bing Ads.

Right To Be Forgotten: Google Tells Europe It Won’t Scrub Google.com

2015: “It’s our strong view that there needs to be some way of limiting the concept, because it is a European concept,” said David Drummond, Google’s Chief Legal Officer.

Keep Writing Quality Content: SEO Bloggers React To Matt Cutts’ Claim “Guest Blogging Is Dead”

2014: A round-up of industry reactions, summarizing comments from a selection of popular bloggers.

Expedia & Google: No Comment From Both About Possible Expedia Penalty

2014: Expedia appeared to have been hit by a Google penalty related to unnatural links.

Marin: 40% Of Google PLA Clicks To Come From Smartphones By Dec 2014

2014: Marin expected retailers to allocate roughly a third of their PPC budgets to PLAs.

Pinterest Adds Vegetarian, Vegan, Gluten-Free & Paleo Filters For Recipe Related Searches

2014: Pinterest also added an “Indulge Me” button to perform searches for “not so healthy” dessert recipes.

As Google Evolves To Satisfy User Demands, Others Are Necessarily Marginalized

2013: “People no longer have patience for traditional search results … They mostly just want quick (and reliable) answers, which is exactly what Google is increasingly giving them.”

Google’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Logo

2013: The Doodle was in shades of blue, green and yellow. With Dr. King’s face as one of the “O”s in the Google logo.

A To Do List For Google’s New CEO Larry Page

2011: How well would the leadership shuffling tackle Google’s many challenges?

Google Turns To Page: The Day Two Narrative

2011: The desire to get some of its old startup fire back was one of the driving forces behind Page’s ascension.

Google Sets Sights On Content Farms In 2011

2011: Matt Cutts promises a renewed effort to take action against content farms (which he defined as “sites with shallow or low-quality content”).

Google Says Search Quality Improved With New Spam Detection

2011: A redesigned document-level classifier made it harder for on-page spam to impact Google’s search index.

First Google Toolbar PageRank Update Of 2011

2011: It was arguably the first update in almost 9 months – though Toolbar PageRank was very out of date and didn’t have a direct impact on ranking.

AdWords Preview Tool Gets Mobile-Focused Facelift

2011: The tool let advertisers see how their ads looked on different devices (iPhone, Android, etc.) on multiple carriers.

Small Google Navigation Element Changes

2011: The first was making the Google search left-side bar more compact and the second was changing the menu choices in the top menu while in Gmail.

Search In Pictures: GoogleBot T-Shirt, Yahoo Rodeo & Yahoo Rubber Duckies

2011: The latest images culled from the web, showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have, and more.

Google Beats Estimates With Very Strong Q4: $6.67 Billion

2010: Google reported revenues of $6.67 billion in the fourth quarter of 2009, representing a 17% increase over fourth quarter 2008 revenues of $5.70 billion.

Another Person No One’s Heard Of Tries To Trademark SEO

2010: This was the second time in about two years that someone with no general stature, reputation or well-known and documented history had tried to claim a trademark on SEO. 

Bing As iPhone Default Search Engine Part Deux

2010: Some additional information asserted default search status on the iPhone was a real possibility for Bing. 

44% Of Google News Readers Only Scan Headlines? Maybe Not!

2010: Google really wasn’t the content vampire that some news publishers accused it of being.

Facebook To Cut Some Microsoft Ads

2010: Facebook and Microsoft scaled back their display ad relationship.

The YouTube Music Discovery Project

2010: The tool helped you search for music and create YouTube playlists based on that query.

What’s For Dinner? Bing Mixes Recipes Into Search Results

2010: Bing pulled the recipes from popular websites and let you filter by holiday, meals, ratings and convenience.

Google’s Sergey Brin Writes About His Relief Mission Visit To Haiti

2010: Brin said the people of Haiti were “the real heroes.”

A Quick January 2009 SEO Update

2009: Updates many SEOs and SEMs noticed at Google, Yahoo and Ask.com in the past week.

Layoffs At Microsoft Widely Expected To Be Announced This Week

2009: This was expected to impact around 6,000 to 8,000 employees of its 95,000 workforce.

Microsoft Offers SearchPerks Incentive

2009: It was a three-day incentive to encourage participants to do more searches on Live Search. 

The Obama Effect: Google Says President Changed Search Activity

2009: Google shared some interesting facts and figures about inauguration-related search activity.

Google: All Your NYC Tourists Are Belong To Us

2009: NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced a partnership with Google to use Google Maps on a new tourism website and information center.

Comparing Mobile Search Surveys: Early Adopters Vs. Mainstream Users

2008: An informal, online reader survey, of two different audiences, on a range of high-level topics pertaining to mobile search yields different results.

The Google Webmaster Tools Quick Start Guide

2008: Google created the guide to help webmasters learn the features and reasons to use the tool.

Project Palimpsest: Google To Host Open-Source Science Data

2008: The data Google would be hosting would be available for scientists and also for free for anyone.

Yahoo Planning Big Job Cuts?

2008: Perhaps as many as 2,500.

Yahoo Tests Delicious Integration In Search Results

2008: For some users, a search would show whether a page listed in Yahoo results was also on Delicious and how it had been tagged.

Google-DoubleClick Drama Moves To European Stage

2008: The Europeans appeared poised to be more aggressive than their American counterparts in holding Google’s feet to the fire.

Search Engines Commemorate Martin Luther King Jr. Day

2008: Google had an artistic logo, with children drawing the face of Martin Luther King Jr. on a sidewalk.

From Search Marketing Expo (SMX)

Past contributions from Search Engine Land’s Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)

These columns are a snapshot in time and have not been updated since publishing, unless noted. Opinions expressed in these articles are those of the author and not necessarily Search Engine Land.

< January 20 | Search Marketing History | January 22 >

The post This day in search marketing history: January 21 appeared first on Search Engine Land.

Original source: https://searchengineland.com/search-marketing-history-january-21-391982

Is AI-written content replacing cheap old content farms?

The Verge has a piece up today named Inside CNET’s AI-powered SEO money machine. It covers much of what we reported in Google search responds to BankRate, more brands using AI to write content last week. It also dives more into how the company has been using machines to replace low-cost humans to generate low-quality content designed to rank well in search.

Google’s algorithms. All of this reminds me of the Google Panda update days, where Google built algorithms to detect content farms and content written with the purpose of generating search traffic. Now, with the helpful content update, that specifically aims to discount content written for search rankings (and not for users) – this strategy deployed by the Red Ventures websites seems like it is set up to fail ultimately – that is, if Google’s algorithms do what they say they will do.

Red Ventures goal. According to The Verge:

“Red Ventures’ business model is straightforward and explicit: it publishes content designed to rank highly in Google search for “high-intent” queries and then monetizes that traffic with lucrative affiliate links.”

That specifically goes against Google’s latest helpful content update algorithm, which aims to downgrade sites where content is written for search engines first (i.e. content written to rank in search and not help people).

The article goes on to explain how these sites are trying to rank well in the credit card space, and turn that traffic into clicks to affiliate revenue. “Red Ventures has found a major niche in credit cards and other finance products,” the article explains.

This goes beyond just CNET. Red Ventures also owns The Points Guy, Bankrate, and CreditCards.com, “all of which monetize through credit card affiliate fees,” they add.

“The CNET AI stories at the center of the controversy are straightforward examples of this strategy: ‘Can You Buy a Gift Card With a Credit Card?’ and ‘What Is Zelle and How Does It Work?’ are obviously designed to rank highly in searches for those topics. Like CNET, Bankrate and CreditCards.com have also published AI-written articles about credit cards with ads for opening cards nestled within.”

Sound familiar?

Content farms. Replace humans with AI to build content farms, content that is aimed to rank well in search, generate traffic, clicks on ads, revenue from affiliates and other publishing goals.

The article goes on to say:

“Viewed cynically, it makes perfect sense for Red Ventures to deploy AI: it is flooding the Google search algorithm with content, attempting to rank highly for various valuable searches, and then collecting fees when visitors click through to a credit card or mortgage application. AI lowers the cost of content creation, increasing the profit for each click. There is not a private equity company in the world that can resist this temptation.”

Didn’t Google already tackle such efforts with Panda with the downfall of content farms? I guess not. Not yet.

Wordsmith. The tool being used to generate this content is Wordsmith, something they have been using for well over a year now, and something other companies have been using as well.

“A former CNET employee says that Red Ventures was using automated technology for content long before the AI byline began cropping up in November. They say a tool called Wordsmith — nicknamed “Mortgotron” internally because of its use in mortgage stories — has been used for at least a year and a half.”

Not new. Yes, for a year and a half, this has been going on. But it has been going on longer.

You see it a lot with financial earnings news analysis, sports scores news stories and anything that can be somewhat templated. Machines can pull out the metrics and then write up a sensible article using the revised data.

It is cheap and serves the purpose. But is this the type of content that Google wants to rank?

Here is a tweet from Glenn Gabe showing how it worked years ago:

Good enough to rank. So with the layoffs at these publishing companies, they came up with more and more ways to have machines write content that ranks in search. The Verge wrote that it just needs to be good enough to rank,

“But the robot articles published on CNET don’t need to be ‘good’ — they need to rank highly in Google searches so lots of people open them and click the lucrative affiliate marketing links they contain.”

It can’t last. I mean, it can’t last, it can’t continue to work in the long run, right?

If Google has their say, and they do, Google wants content written in a way that is designed to help users. If The Verge is accurate in saying the intent of this content that AI writes is to just rank well in search, then Google’s new helpful content update should tackle that. It might not tackle it today but it should in the future.

Why we care. It is tempting to find low-cost ways to generate endless content that can rank well in Google Search. I mean, who doesn’t want to make a lot of money fast, for very little cost? But how long will those efforts last? Is this a long-term strategy? Will we look back at these efforts and say this is why Google rolled out the helpful content update?

Time will tell, but it is super interesting to watch this all play out, just like we did with the Panda, Penguin and other Google Search algorithm updates over the years.

The post Is AI-written content replacing cheap old content farms? appeared first on Search Engine Land.

Original source: https://searchengineland.com/is-ai-written-content-replacing-cheap-old-content-farms-391979

TikTok has a secret “Heating” (cheating?) button

According to six sources and documents reviewed by Forbes, TikTok and ByteDance employees frequently engage in “heating,” which is a manual process that guarantees certain videos receive a specific amount of views.

Heating is cheating. Six current and former employees of TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, as well as internal documents and communications reviewed by Forbes, TikTok and ByteDance staff use a practice called “heating” to artificially boost the distribution of certain videos in addition to relying on the algorithm to determine what becomes popular.

According to one of those sources:

“The heating feature refers to boosting videos into the For You feed through operation intervention to achieve a certain number of video views,” an internal TikTok document titled MINT Heating Playbook explains. “The total video views of heated videos accounts for a large portion of the daily total video views, around 1-2%, which can have a significant impact on overall core metrics.”

TikTok doesn’t publicly disclose this, of course. Sources stated to Forbes that TikTok has used “heating” to attract influencers and brands by artificially increasing the view count of their videos, indicating that this practice may have benefited some influencers and brands that TikTok has business relationships with at the expense of others it does not have partnerships with.

“Heating” suggests that some videos on the For You page may not be based on personal preference but rather intended to increase views for specific brands or creators. Without labeling, it isn’t easy to distinguish these videos from regular content.

Potential abuse cases. Sources have informed Forbes that employees have misused “heating” by using it to boost the view count of their own or their loved ones’ accounts in violation of company policies. Documents reviewed by Forbes also support this, showing that employees have used “heating” on their own accounts and the accounts of people they have personal relationships with. One document revealed that an account had received over 3 million views due to this type of “heating” incident.

How TikTok has responded. “We promote some videos to help diversify the content experience and introduce celebrities and emerging creators to the TikTok community. Only a few people, based in the U.S., have the ability to approve content for promotion in the U.S., and that content makes up approximately .002% of videos in For You feeds.” TikTok spokesperson Jamie Favazza wrote.

Dig deeper. You can read the full article from Forbes here.

Why we care. If TikTok is artificially inflating the view count of some videos through “heating,” it could skew the metrics that marketers use to evaluate the success of their campaigns. This could lead to brands investing in partnerships or collaborations with influencers or channels that may not have as large of an audience as they appear to have, ultimately reducing the ROI of their marketing efforts.

Additionally, artificially inflating view counts could also lead to misleading metrics and data, which could cause issues with transparency, trust and reputation of the platform and brands on it.

The post TikTok has a secret “Heating” (cheating?) button appeared first on Search Engine Land.

Original source: https://searchengineland.com/tiktok-has-a-secret-heating-cheating-button-391983

What Is Disruptive Innovation and How Can It Transform Your Business?

Home Business Magazine Online

In the era of digitalization, you can easily replace big players. Disruptive companies can identify and solve problems existing players in a market have overlooked. They create unique value propositions that appeal to new customers who demand change. This is what happened with Blockbuster, Borders, Kodak, and other once-dominant businesses in the face of digital disruption. Read on and find out how the past, present, and future are affected by disruptive innovations.

What Is Disruptive Innovation?

Most people consider disruptive innovation as a new product or service different and better than what is currently available. However, they are not. Disruptive innovation is the process where a company or product emerges and takes over an existing market by displacing established competitors.

The term “disruptive innovation” was popularized by Clay Christensen’s book, “The Innovator’s Dilemma,” which came out in 1997. The book became a hit among entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, the home of the brightest minds in the world.

So how can you create disruptive innovation in your business? There are three key steps:

  • Identify opportunities
  • Develop solutions
  • Execute seamlessly

Examples of Disruptive Innovation

Here are two popular disruptive innovations:

Netflix

Netflix is an excellent example of a disruptive company. When it first started, it was a DVD-by-mail service. It soon realized that DVDs were becoming obsolete, so it pivoted and became a streaming service.

That disruptive move caught the industry by surprise. Netflix identified an opportunity of shifting from DVDs to streaming. They developed a solution that appealed to subscribers who wanted to watch TV shows and movies online.

Amazon

A common thread among business leaders of disruptive companies is the naysayers. Many people told them their idea would not work, but they did not care what others thought.

One example is Jeff Bezos, who left a stable job to start a company he thought would probably fail. Nevertheless, he went ahead with his idea despite what anyone said.

Amazon was the result of that idea and is an excellent example of a company that has seamlessly executed a disruptive innovation. It started as an online platform for selling books but began offering CDs in 1998 and other products in 1999.

However, the real disruption was when Bezos realized he could scale faster if he allowed third-party sellers on the platform. He did so in 2000, and the rest is history.

Amazon eventually expanded into other markets, such as groceries and cloud computing. The key to its success was it was able to identify opportunities and develop solutions that appealed to new customers.

How Can Disruptive Innovation Transform Businesses?

Here are ways that disruptive innovation can transform your business:

Social Media

Many believe that social media is a disruptive innovation. Undoubtedly, it has changed how people communicate and interact with one another. However, its impact extends far beyond that. Social media has also disrupted the way businesses operate.

For example, businesses can now use social media to connect with customers more meaningfully. They can also use social media to build brand awareness and online presence. Additionally, companies can use social media to bring traffic to their websites and sell products and services.

Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is another example of disruptive innovation. It changed the way businesses operate and had a profound impact on other industries. Cloud computing allows direct access to information and applications over the Internet. You can use your computer or mobile device to access data and applications hosted on remote servers.

One of the key benefits of cloud infrastructures is allowing businesses to reduce their IT costs. They no longer have to purchase and maintain their own data centers. Additionally, companies can access their data and applications from any location, which makes it easier for them to work remotely.

Blockchain Technology

Blockchain technology is a disruptive innovation that changed the way we do business. This technology allows you to create and share digital records of transactions (i.e., contracts, payments, assets, etc.). With blockchain technology, you can create and track transactions without third-party intermediaries such as banks, governments, and other financial services.

One of the best benefits of blockchain technology is its security and transparency. All transactions are on a public ledger accessible by anyone. Additionally, blockchain technology is resistant to fraud and hacking, because it uses cryptography to encrypt data.

Mobile Payments

Mobile payments have changed how we pay for goods and services. It is fast and convenient. You can use your smartphone to purchase goods and services with only a few clicks. Business owners and freelancers can also collect client and customer payments through these technologies.

Big Data Analytics

It is a type of analytics that allows you to process and make sense of large amounts of data. You can use big data analytics to make better business decisions by understanding patterns and trends in your data. It helps them understand their customers, their competition, and the market.

Make Disruptive Innovation Work for Your Business!

What can you do to make disruptive innovation work for your business? Be open to change and embrace new technologies. Doing so will help you identify opportunities for disrupting your industry.

Disruptive innovations often cause upheaval in the marketplace. You must be ready to adapt quickly. Cloud computing, blockchain technology, and mobile payments disrupt traditional industries, so you must innovate to stay competitive.

The post What Is Disruptive Innovation and How Can It Transform Your Business? appeared first on Home Business Magazine.

Original source: https://homebusinessmag.com/growing-a-business/diversifying-a-biz/disruptive-innovation-transform-business/