I am aware that there are some people out there who strongly believe that SEO marketing is dead. There are firm believers that the golden era of serp is over and that it is time to move on. I have to admit that I rather disagree with this view as I have reasons to believe that search marketing is going strong and this trend will continue to be valid for years to come.

If you know me in person, you know that once I get into something I am willing to focus myself totally on it. So when I started doing some research on the topic I came across various resources including this eBook here. This one was a real eye opener and it is a valuable read to all those who are into the topic as well as #SEOUncovered.

I also came across some fun facts about search engines. Here they are:
1. There is no denying that Google is the biggest player in the game. It is estimated that over 85% of search engine traffic comes through Google, which is more than all the other engines combined together. let’s admit it, Google is just too big to be ignored.
2. google actually distinguishes between the plural forms of words. This is why you will get different results when you write the term “apple” and different ones when you type “apples”.
3. The more backlinks coming to a website the more authoritative it is. This is why it is so essential to get some good backlinks to your website from other websites that have high authority. This might be sometimes easier said than done, but there are some effective ways to achieve that.
4. Many people using google are not that good at specifying keywords while looking for specific information, so often it might take them a few tries to come up with the result they are after. For example, writing simply “apple” will get you a lot of results about Apple Inc., but most Google users are looking for apple recipees and not particularly any information about the giant company.

As you can see from the points about, the knowledge about search engine optimisation can be very useful to a business owner, and the more you understand the rules behind Google, the more likely you will be to achieve the results you are after.

For dedicated business owners and entrepreneurs, the thought of handing over the keys to something into which you’ve poured your blood, sweat and tears can be a terrifying thought. However, until we find the fountain of youth, coming to terms with selling your business will just have to remain a fact of life. Here are a few signs that might indicate it’s time for you to sell your business.

You’ve Had Enough Risk

Risk is an inherent element to owning a business. There are no companies that face a zero-risk environment—be it from competition, changing business climates or disruptive technologies. Managing and mitigating these risks for years—or decades—can become a tiresome affair.

Risk is one of the great ironies of business. As your company grows and realizes success, it’s also accumulating risk. The repercussions of a PR disaster, or mismanagement, has much more negative potential for a company like Apple than a startup with three employees. There’s simply much more to lose when you’ve already gained a lot. When you reach a place where you want to start limiting your risk exposure, it might be time to sell your business.

Someone Wants to Buy Your Business

If you’ve led your company to a position in which suitors want to buy it, you should think long and hard about their offers. Of course, just because someone’s interested doesn’t mean you must sell. There are a few aspects that you should consider before pulling the trigger, such as:

• Is It the Right Buyer? While some people might not consider this aspect important if the price is right, selling your business to someone who doesn’t really understand or appreciate it is something you potentially might regret later in life. Longtime family-run businesses especially need to consider the viability of potential buyers.
• Are They Offering a Good Price? If a potential buyer is making you an offer at or above what you value the company, you should consider the offer no matter how much you like being the boss. That money could easily catapult you into starting another business.
• Are Your Books in Order? Before any reasonable buyer pays you anything, they’re going to want to see your business’s financial records. They’re going to want to see a list of your assets, the types of business insurance you use, accounting statements and a litany of other information. Make sure your numbers all check out, or risk scaring away buyers.

You’re Anticipating Market Changes

There are several ways markets can determine if it’s the right time for you to sell your business. The nature of your business dictates its reactiveness to changes in broader equity markets. However, almost all businesses suffer during down periods and recessions. If you anticipate a downturn in the markets, it might be a good time to sell your business, especially if you were already considering it.

Changing sector climates can also determine if you should consider selling. Disruptive technologies and companies are responsible for turning entire industries upside down seemingly overnight. If you see your business as susceptible to disruption, it might be prudent to get out too early rather than too late.

Ultimately, it’s your decision whether you’re ready to sell your business. If you’re still passionate about coming into work every day, maybe it’s not worth selling even if that’s objectively the best decision.

There’s something you know you need to do, but you can’t get yourself to actually do it. Despite how important the task is, you just don’t feel compelled to take action. We’ve all been there. Here are three things that I often procrastinate:

• Writing or finishing other tedious work tasks
• Paying bills or completing paperwork
• Having difficult conversations with friends, family or colleagues

I discovered an interesting approach for beating procrastination while listening to “Beat Your Genes,” a podcast about psychology and finding happiness. In episode 39, the co-host, Dr. Doug Lisle, an evolutionary psychologist, shares how to stop procrastinating by being aware of the living conditions of our ancestors, how our brains have adapted to account for those conditions, and how to update your decision making “algorithm” to account for the living conditions in modern society.

Sometimes procrastination is a good strategy

Dr. Lisle posits that procrastinating is not necessarily indicative of a character flaw or moral shortcoming. Rather, it’s an adaptive strategy that was quite effective for our ancestors, and can even be effective today.

Dr. Lisle discusses why procrastinating on paying back debt may have been an effective strategy for our ancestors. In pre-civilized times, there was more significant risk that your lender would die before he was able to collect on the debt that you owe him. Therefore, it wouldn’t make sense to pay back your debt before you needed to. Rather, procrastinating was a better strategy because there was a chance that you may never need to pay back your debt, which would save you time, energy and money.

However, in modern times, there is significantly less risk that your lender will spontaneously die or disappear. In other words, you’re gonna have to do that thing that you don’t want to do! Yet, we haven’t updated our algorithms to account for the new conditions.

We need to update this algorithm in part because waiting to do the work until closer to the due dates means that your time will be monopolized and you won’t be able to pursue more promising opportunities. For example, if writing your term paper will take twenty hours, and you wait until two days before it’s due, you will have to spend most of those to days on your paper. So if a new opportunity comes up, such as an invitation to an important event, you won’t have the time to seize it.

You can prevent yourself from procrastinating on an important task by understanding the algorithm your brain uses to make decisions about whether or not to procrastinate on a task, and updating the variables within it to account for modern times.

Update your algorithm

Your brain runs a cost-benefit analysis to determine whether it should procrastinate on a given task or complete it.

If there’s a high probability that you won’t need to complete the task, it makes sense to procrastinate. For example, if your friend often flakes on you at the last minute, it makes sense not to buy him an expensive concert ticket until the last minute. However, if you overestimate the probability that you won’t need to complete the task, you won’t be motivated to complete it until the last minute.

Thus, the key to overcoming procrastination is to properly determine the probability that you will need to complete the task.

In making this calculation, be aware that your algorithm will lead you astray when it’s driven by your adaptive brain — the brain that accounts for pre-civilized times rather than modern times. It’s critical that you calculate your probabilities based on modern times.

Once you’ve updated your algorithm, determine the best course of action.

If there’s a low probability that you’ll need to complete a given task, or if there’s a chance the probability will change based on upcoming events, procrastinating may be your best strategy.

If there’s a high probability that you’re going need to complete the task, complete that task sooner rather than later. Completing the task sooner will enable you to take advantage of new opportunities that may arise between now and the due date, reduce your stress levels, and potentially improve the quality of your work.

Beat your procrastinating genes

Don’t beat yourself up too much about your tendency to procrastinate. It’s natural. Procrastination was often an effective strategy for our ancestors.

To overcome procrastination, be aware of how our brains have evolved and how that can lead us astray, and update your algorithm to account for modern times.

This article was originally published on Medium.

Mike Fishbein studies psychology and philosophy and writes about how you can apply what he learns to your personal and professional development. He’s been featured on The Observer, Lifehacker, and Tiny Buddha. You can connect with him at mfishbein.com.

Working at home can afford you the unique opportunity to save money from your monthly budget. Here are some quick tips that will save you thousands each year and make working from home even more worth it.

Plan a Weekly Menu

Getting your grocery bill under control is one way to curb excess expenses and also makes trips to the store easier. Make a menu for each day of the week you will be eating at home and create a shopping list to make it easier while you’re at the store. It helps to know exactly what you need so you don’t end up buying things you won’t use.

Use Coupon Apps

No need to clip coupons anymore, there are smartphone apps that you can use to get deals all over town and everything is handled by the app. You can even look for deals on prescriptions to save money on those each month.

Rearrange Your Car Situation

Now that you’re working from home you may need to switch some things around with the cars. You won’t be my driving as much, a cost savings all by itself, so make sure you are left at home with the car that makes the most sense, in most cases the one that gets the worse gas mileage.

It could even be the case that you can get by with one less car now that you are not commuting back and forth to work. This can make a huge difference not only in the amount of car payments made per month, but also the amount of car insurance you pay over the year.

Assess Your Cable Needs

One way to cut back on monthly expenses is to determine exactly how much you are using your cable TV and decide if it’s time to cut the cord. With streaming services like Netflix and Hulu as well as on demand DIY videos on YouTube you could find that you don’t even need cable anymore.

Of course, as a work-at-home mom you’ll won’t be able to get rid of the high speed internet, but paying an extra $50 to $80 per month for a basic cable package, and even more for a premium package adds up to a sizable annual cost.

Get Into Gardening

Growing your own vegetables is a healthy way to go, and also is a way to save money on produce. It doesn’t have to be anything expansive, even a small herb garden will come in handy when you are making dinner and will take the place of dried spices. You can start off with just a few different plants and expand things as you get better at it.

Try DIY Household Cleaners

You can get most anything clean these days with natural household cleaners you make by yourself. Vinegar and baking soda can clean up just about anything when mixed properly, and vinegar itself has many uses around the home and is very cheap.

One side benefit of cleaning things naturally is that you won’t be using any harsh chemicals that can cause allergic reactions. Switching to an all-natural laundry detergent is often much cheaper per load, and can leave your clothes looking and smelling better than before.

Incorporate Home Automation Features

You can have it set up so that certain lights in your house go on and off at certain times, and everything can be controlled from your smartphone. That way you won’t leave lights on in the house all day. Now rather than walking all through your house discovering lights that have been left on, you can command everything from your home office and save money in the long run.

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We already know that big companies such as Amazon use a lot of their resources in big data in order to increase their efficiency. If this is the case, you might be wondering how small businesses can benefit from big data services such as www.ibds.com. Here are five reasons for small and medium-sized companies to get involved in big data too:

1. Being data-oriented is a smart move in this digital age. You might not have the budget of Amazon in order to analyse the data the way they do, but the least you can do is to use tools such as Google analytics to get you the goals you want to achieve. In fact, this is almost the only way to make your operations better.

2. Getting engaged in big data will allow you to understand the target market. In other words, you need to find out about the preferences of your customers even before you release any product. This way can you be certain that what you deliver is exactly what they need.

3.Big data can help you fight with competition. It is especially useful if in your industry your competitors do not take advantage of big data yet. This way you can outsmart them on every corner.

4. Big data helps small businesses understand trends. Very often, people can be very predictable. they shop following certain trends, their economic status, or even the general way the world is changing. You have to admit that the world today is a lot different from even 20 years ago and it’s best to embrace those changes by making sure that you fully utilise them to your advantage.

5.Finally, get the best staff members using the power of big data. Yes, big data can be used to get the best of the best using various big data channels. Lots of information is available for you to interpret such as productivity of a person, absenteeism, etc., which makes things a lot easier when it comes to your staffing choices.

Below you find an infographic that tells you a lot of interesting things about big data. Feel free to familiarise yourself with it so that you can tell your friends or family members all those facts you have learned from it: