We canât ignore the fact that the most annoying thing as user in the world is Pop-ups. However, those traditional pop-up ads have almost gone from internet, but pop-up advertising works way better when your pop-ups are appealing to your website visitors and enhance their experience. For a startup, pop-ups on website have their own pros and cons. Here we’ve discussed some pop-up ads examples to guide to use pop-ups on your Website.
Today we’re going to look at seven surprisingly effective ways to use pop-ups on your website with the choice of the appropriate pop up for your website.
Yes, Copyblogger boosted their email list using high converting Pop-ups as it provides insane value with their lead magnet. According to a report, average click-through rates on the pop-up is around 2% which is not bad at all. Hence, here is guide on how to make pop up ads with some pop up design examples.
A window which suddenly pops-up on the screen is called a pop-up. In the early days, it was used only for (annoying) advertisement purpose, but now, it has evolved a lot and used for many other marketing purposes. Almost all the websites have pop-ups. Sometimes, you donât even realize that it is a pop-up. With a better study and research of the human brain, companies are able to make pop-ups which will not annoy us and in fact, we will love them. Although some people still hate pop-ups, they are a great channel to increase the conversion rate.
Why are Pop-Ups Important?
Gain Attraction
Attract user
Pop-ups on websites scream for attraction. People cannot ignore them. Anyone who came across any pop-up will read what it says if it loads quickly.
Build Email List
grow email list
You can use pop-ups to show the email subscription form and build your email list. If people like your content and you remind them to sign up to your email subscription, they will definitely do it.
Increase Conversion Rate
Even though people find them annoying, but research says that pop-ups increase the conversion rate. And of course, why wouldnât they? Pop-up grabs all the attention of the user.
Focus On One Message
Pop-ups only focus on one message at a time. It helps to keep the promotions simple to understand.
The most obvious disadvantage. Pop-ups are really annoying. When it comes to slow internet,most of the users just close it which makes all the efforts go waste.
Increase Bounce Rate
Pop-ups increases the bounce rate. When people see the pop-ups, the âbackâ is the only button they see useful. It increases the bounce rate of the website, which is definitely not good for it.
Might Affect SEO
Although it is still not clear as to whether or not it does but using pop-ups might affect the SEO. Google always try to provide the best content to its users and a website with more bounce rate is definitely not on their list of good websites.
Spoil Brand Image
Using pop-ups might build your email list but it does not build your image. In fact, it spoils it. When people find something annoying on your website, they think you are not professional in your job.
How To Create A Pop-up For Your Website?
Now, just in case you decided to include a pop-up on your website, then you would want to know how to do so. If you think you can do it manually, then the W3Schools tutorial will help you a lot. But if you want it the easy way, then here are some online tools you can use.
Even though pop-ups are annoying, if you use them with creativity, they will be a great tool to increase the conversion rate. However, they will be disastrous if you donât put some creativity into it. I always say to outsource your work, it is because creativity and experience beat hard work. You cannot be an expert in everything. So just hire someone better to do creative works.
Do you like pop-ups on the websites? Please comment below. Also, share this post with all your friends.
There are so many ways to promote your business, one of them is catchy email signatures. Email signatures are not just a kind of digital signatures, they are an amazing marketing opportunity too. Importance of email signature is massive as they are the last thing people see in your emails. And its well said, âAll is good if the end is goodâ. So, letâs know how to generate leads with creative email signatures.
There are no other marketing channels as effective and efficient as email marketing. But there still might be a use for email your team is overlooking -employee email. Below are some tips on how to make attractive email signatures that stand out and take advantage of this crucial space.
An email signature is a bunch of text and logo which appears at the end of sent emails. Email signatures mostly contain the logo for the company, the tagline, and the contact information. You can also target the CTA in email signature. For instance, a link to download an eBook, schedule an event, visit your blog or any social media, etc. CTA really works in your favor as at the end of the email, people have only two options, either to go back or to click the link. So, you have a 50% chance of getting the attention.
Some of the importance that keeps email signatures alive are:
Look Professional
You never go for a business meeting in shorts, Tees, and flipflops. Then why sending emails so unprofessionally. Email signature shows that you are very professional about your business and profile.
CTA
They tell people, what to do now? You can actually ethically manipulate people to check your website or product out at the end of the email. Call-To-Action is a very important strategy to use for marketing your company.
Social Media Handles
You can add links to your social media handles and let people connect with you. Once people connect with you on social media, they will know you better and will probably try your product out. Mercedes Benz email signature is one of the great examples to learn from.
If you provide your contact number and name in the email signature, people are more likely to call you. They might want to inquire about your company or even order the product.
These were some importance of email signature but they are just some of them. If we go to the psychological level of using email signatures, there are much more advantages we can have by using them in our emails.
How to Add an Email Signature
To add an email signature in Gmail you have to do the following steps:
Login to your Gmail and click the setting gear.
Select âSettingâ from the menu that appeared.
Go to âGeneralâ.
Scroll down and you will find âSignatureâ.
Type whatever you want including the quote, contact number, etc.
After you are done with your signature, just click âSave Changesâ at the end of the page.
Now, whenever you will compose and send an email to anyone, your signature will be automatically get included in that email.
How to include the Signature Before Quoted text
If you want your signature to be shown before your message, you just have to tick the box saying âInsert this signature before quoted text in replies and remove the “–” line that precedesâ. It is located just under the Signature box. Ticking this box will tell Gmail to include your email signature before the message.
How to include the Companyâs Logo in Email Signature
You can easily include the logo or any image. All you have to do is to click on the image option in the signature box. Then just select the image you want to include and click âSelectâ.
Things to remember while creating Email Signature
Full Name The email signature must include your full name.
Picture Include a high-quality charming picture of yours.
Business Name Write your companyâs name.
Profession Include your role in the company. Or you can also write âfreelancerâ if you are one.
Phone Number It is a most important thing. You must include your contact number in the signature. You can also add two numbers.
Social Accounts Add all your social media links in the signature. It will be easy for them to reach you.
Website Donât forget to include your website link.
Logo Add your logo so that it creates brand awareness among people.
Tagline: Â Create a catchy and unforgettable tagline for your company and include it in the signature.
Disclaimer: Â It is not necessary, but if required then add the legal or any type of disclaimer.
These are some things you should always keep in your mind while writing the signature for your company.
How to make Email Signature easily and free
If you are not so creative person in designing and also lazy like me then you can go for some websites like Signature Creator, Wisestamp, Hubspot, etc. They will make your work so easy and provide many templates. The best thing is, they donât ask for a single penny for it.
Email signatures are very important if you have to send emails to people every now and then. The more attractive the email signature is, the more visitors or customers you get. So, try to give it more time while creating.
Comment below what do you like to include in your email signature? Share this post with all your friends. Donât forget to turn on notifications from StartupTalky.com.
The big question is what is the benefit of keeping thousands of recipients on your email campaign list if only a handful actually opens your emails! There always has been a situation that you sent an important mail but the open rates are highly poor. Hereâs the thing that no matter, whatever your content is, people do judge you by the subject lines. The facts say, 47% of marketers say they test different email subject lines to optimize their open rates. What is important is âhow to write killer email subject lines so that you get a high open-rateâ.
How many unread emails do you have in your inbox? 800? Or maybe, if youâre like me and are on countless mailing lists, 5644? And thatâs after a little Gmail spring cleaning! The thing is we get hundreds of emails every day and a lot of them are never opened. People are inundated with boatloads of information â more than ever before in history! The bitter truth lies within is that your subject line is your first and maybe last impression on that person. Here are some go-to tips to write killer email subject lines so that you can boost your open rates.
âPlease put us out of our misery.â That award-winning email subject line, written for a UK financial management company called Money Dashboard
What Determines Email Open Rates?
What determines email open rates?
Your email open rate is the number you get when you subtract bounced emails from emails sent and divide the opened emails by that number. Itâs one of the convenient and best ways to track how your email campaign is delivering the results, which you set out to achieve.
If youâre launching an email campaign, youâll need to know this. All email marketing providers track email open rates and give you statistics on them, as well as click, bounce, and complaint rates.
Your Open Rates Can Suck, Because:
Is the email viewable?
Are you being a pest?
When did you send it?
Quality of your email list.
How to write killer email subject lines?
So, before we go to the tricks and tips, letâs go over some fundamentals of what makes an email subject line rockinâ-sockinâ. Whatever your goals are about the mails, these essential elements are one of those that your subject lines should have in them:
How To Write Killer Email Subject Lines To Get High Open Rates?
1. Keep It Short and Simple
The majority of the population are now reading their emails on their smartphones and the legends are now reading them from their notifications. Subject lines will automatically get cut-off if they are too long. Since 77% of email opens are taking place on mobile devices, we suggest you use subject lines with fewer than 50 characters, so that people scanning your emails read the entire subject line.
.. In spite of writing âYour order is being processedâ looks better than âOrder #9435897758 is being processed.“
2. Develop a Unique Selling Proposition
Hereâs where the Unique Selling Proposition (USP) comes. The important aspects covered under this are:
What unique are you doing other than marketers can do?
What makes your sales unique?
How can you give your services to inspire people to want to click, open or, buy?
If your mail offers a user-friendly platform and solves a problem for its customers. That is its USP. Do that with your emails and you will be successful, too.
3. Use A Familiar Sender Name
The name recognition applies to the familiar, not famous. If the âfromâ name doesnât sound like itâs from someone you would listen to, then bam; it doesnât matter what the subject line is. The fact that everyone on this planet is so busy that they simply wonât bother if you donât seem like someone who would make for an easy and friendly conversation.
4. Segment Your Lists
When the email is about to blast in big numbers, then itâs not humanly possible that relevant reaches to relevant. Some information could cause confusion and frustration to the users. Why is this restaurant sending me out one of the best steakhouses when Iâm vegan? Why is this company sending me product reviews when I just signed up for its mails? Â Sometimes flooding the user account with a bunch of emails can cause you subscription.
You have to personalize the experience using information from the actions your customers have already taken — from which forms they’ve filled out, to which industries they’re in, to what their personal preferences are. In email marketing, you can personalize your recipients’ experience using a little thing called list segmentation.
5. Donât Make False Promises And Accusations
Your subject line is making a promise to your reader but the content is not quite what they expected of. Make it a point that you do your best on that commitment- and do not try to get your email opened by making false promises. Because, this is going to irk your audiences, and theyâll rephrase as no to trust you and never to open your mails; which will result in a lower open rate and a higher unsubscribe rate.
Speaking of making false promises, to avoid this situation use lines like âYour guide awaits!â or, âyour new ebook insideâ. This works better than a simple âregardsâ mail.
6. Time It Right
Sending a relevant mail at the right time with the right subject line is golden. This small step can make a huge difference in open and clickthrough rates. A prime example: a food publication sends at 7:30 P.M. on a Friday evening that said, “Where to Drink Beer Right Now” — just in time for happy hour. Nailed it. Or, Amazon giving you Independence Day sale and Zomato offering you weekend plans for a birthday party with no delivery charges. These small-small steps can increase the chances of your email getting opened — and included a relevant call-to-action about getting glasses to upgrade, too.
7. Create A Sense of Importance Or Urgency
âAct Now!â orâYour Prescription is expiringâ; I mean this worked for me and else I canât say more on this. We guarantee that people do open such types of mails. Since we on someoneâs behalf canât encourage such content language, but we do acknowledge the urgency and scarcity in an email subject line which can help compel readers to click (or act); if phrased creatively, strategically and appropriately.
Since you don’t want to be known as “the brand that cried wolf,” use these subject lines sparingly, and you should try to limit them to when the occasion genuinely calls for immediate action.
8. Pose a Compelling Question
Asking a compelling question in your subject line can be magicalâespecially if youâre asking a question you know is relevant to your recipients’ buyer persona. This is one perfect way to pique the audiencesâ curiosity. A prime expel: âAre you making these common GRE mistakes?â or âDo you know what your LinkedIn Profile is doing wrong?” These tricks can get you to boost your high open rates.
9. Make People Feel Special
The psychology of exclusivity is a powerful thing. When people feel like they’re on the inside, it gives them a sense of belonging that could build loyalty and compel them to convert better on your emails. I guess the cosmology and astrology subscription works âthe bestâ in writing killer subject lines. Believe me each and every mail from them tends to draw its audiencesâ attention, always. Personalization tokens like âYouâ, âYourâ still sounds like you’re addressing them directly.
The appropriate phrasing can make your recipients feel special, and the after-effects of your marketing are golden. A few ideas from here and there could be:
‘For our beloved customers’
‘An exclusive offer only for you’
‘My gift to you’
‘Youâre invited’
‘Private Invite’
Subject lines are similar to calls-to-action, so always start with action-oriented verbs. The fact beneath the subject lines is âsubjects that begin with action verbs tend to be a lot more enticing, and your emails could be drastically more clickable by adding a vibrant verb at the beginning.
10. DONâT USE ALL CAPS or Overuse Exclamation Marks!!!
A subject line that says, âOPEN NOW AND RECEIVE A FREE TRIALâ or, “50% off coupon, apply today only!!!!!!!!” Isn’t going to get your email opened. In fact, it’ll probably get your email ignored. Why? People donât like to be yelled at, and using excessive marks and caps can really rub people the wrong way. According to a proven study, 85% of respondents prefer opening and reading an all-lowercase subject line to one in all caps.
Not only, they act as tactics disruptive, but they look spammy. Instead of using fonts and marks like this, try personalizing your emails, establishing relevancy, and using catchy and delightful language.
Implementing the above tips will always lead your emails to achieve high open rates, and not only this but you will also earn a more loyal subscriber base, who will anticipate seeing your next winning subject line in their inbox. The only thing you have to be consistent with: Keep testing your email subject lines. So, they will eventually increase, as long as you follow the rules.
Although, writing an effective email may be mind-wrecking, but nailing this aspect of your email campaign is trust. What you have to do is âmeld your creativity with your sales pitch and chances are youâll be able to create an email marketing that delivers shocking (good) results.’
There are so many different factors that contribute to the success of your startup. But your business idea is the most important thing among them. The idea drives your business forward. Most of the people think that starting a business is a difficult and mysterious process. Also, they don’t know about the first step to take in starting a business.
Starting a business requires energy and time. The person, who wants to start a business, must be subject to periods of self-reflection in order to find a realistic and profitable business idea. Let us discuss about it. Where can you look for ideas for your business? There are so many ways.
A good idea makes others to invest in the business. Also, it has an important role in creating sales and profits. The profit allows us to invest in more products and services. It enables the business to grow. But a bad idea will increase the chances to face more competition. That will be a reason of reduced sales and profits. Also, it decreases the growth of your business and you may struggle to survive.
How to find a business idea
There are some ways to create the right idea for starting a business. They are given below.
1. Explore your passion
We should identify something that we love to do. It makes you able to find enjoyment in what you are doing. We can turn our interested thing into a business idea. For example, if you love space travel, you can try to start a business of building rockets. So, you should find out what you love. Prepare a list of things you love to do. Look for the ways to turn these ideas into a business. For example, if you are interested in healthy living and also, like to discover the new ways to workout, you can start a fitness startup.
The best business ideas are coming from problem solving. There are so many problems that we are facing in our daily life. If we face a problem, we try to solve it. We can create a business through this. You need to identify and analyze the problems that you face in your daily life. Also, you should try to make solutions to those problems. All creative inventions are born out through problem solving. Your best and most profitable business ideas are the problems that you can solve.
Think about the problems that are most likely to affect the future of our humanity. Identify the needs of our society. Also, think about how to solve those problems. Elon Musk is a perfect example. He is a forward thinking innovator. Musk identified the future problems and made solutions to those problems. He probably knew that there would be short-term solutions to short-term problems. So he thought about bigger future problems.
Business idea has an important role in creating sales and profits
As a result, Musk manufactured rocket ships, founded PayPal, built an electric car, invented a tube-travel capsule, and designed a submarine car. But you donât need to design hyperloop capsules or rockets. There are so many other challenges. So, think about the other kind of future problems that our world is going to experience. Also, think about how to fix those problems. The People will pay you for those solutions.
4. Study successful entrepreneurs
It is very important to know about the great entrepreneurs and their stories. We should study about their successful business models. We can learn so many things from them. It will help you, when starting a business. Also, you will get business ideas from their business models. Try to know about how they implemented their business idea. You will get inspired by knowing about them.
Take a look and analyze the trending subjects on social media sites like YouTube, Twitter, BusFeed, Reddit, etc. You can quickly get into trending topics by reselling or creating services or related products. It enables you to build a valid business. Also, choose an industry and spend a few months for reading everything about it. Do it until you reach where you can find and predict upcoming trends.
6. Find business ideas in your corporate job
Take a look at the internal processes of the company. It includes finance & accounting, human resources, sales, management, marketing, etc. Think about how can be making this process more efficient by using technology. Try to use this process in another industry. Also, think about how its service or product can be made better and cheaper. Look for the ways to access a completely another different market for the product.
We have experienced unavailability of App or need of improvement in an App, when searching for a needed thing in the phone. If you know to develop an application, you can use this opportunity by making an App. Also, we have experienced unavailability, when searching a product or service in the phone. We can turn this into a business opportunity by creating that product or service in the market.
How to determine the quality of a business idea
It’s important to determine the quality of an idea. There are some strategies to help you determine if you have a good business idea. They are given below.
A goodbusiness idea is those that can solve a problem in some way. If you know that a problem affects you, your family, friends and coworkers, it’s more likely to affect people you don’t know.
You do not have to worry about deep financial forecasts at the early stage, but you should do some basic calculations to make sure that your idea is profitable.
There are several ways to solve problems, but the best business ideas do it in a way that is less costly than the market survives. You can evaluate that the solution is worthy or not through determining the price.
A good idea is one of the important factors in the success of a business
You never be successful in your business without a large enough market. You should determine that if there is a niche market for your idea. Â If your business is doing better than it already is, you can achieve success
You may need to spend all your time for the business. So it’s important to make sure that you are passionate about your idea.
You can’t know if your business is profitable until you try it on strangers. Try it with honest people who create your ideal target audience, and then pay attention to the feedback.
Starting a business is not an easy thing. You can’t be successful without taking risks. But there are differences between the calculated risks and the foolish risks. The best ideas are not the specific area of smart and most successful people. It is possible to everyone. We all can come up with an idea that will change the world, revolutionize an industry or helps you to earn millions.
In the initial days of startup, you wonât have any customers if they arenât aware of your startup. Even more challenging is figuring out how to attract your first customers when you have a limited budget and resources. Thus, one of the toughest things for any startup is to gain initial traction. This is where most new entrepreneurs fail. The major culprit is inefficient marketing. Yes! No matter how innovative your product is, if people donât know about it, it’s bound to fail.
This applies to both nascent startups and well-established brands. The world awaits a new iPhone model every year, but what if Apple secretly starts flash sale in the market without advertising, without the highly revered Apple event (yeah, it’s the release conference we’re talking about). To save our readers from committing such blunders, we have listed some of the best techniques to gain initial traction for your startup.
Methods to Get Traction for Your Startup
Source: GrowthRocks
1) Come up with an Innovative Product
It starts with the idea. There’s no shortage of problems or issuesâit’s the absence of the right solution which in turn depends on the initial idea. Product innovation encompasses various factors: the market demand, competition, cost, and many more. The crux of building an ingenious product idea is identifying what the market is looking for and if it’s willing to pay for it.
Once done with this, proceed on to analyzing the competitors, what they are doing, and what are they missing out on with their offering. Observe their product from a consumer’s perspective and try to identify the possible enhancements or modifications. Then, improve the product as desired. An existing concept gets the flavor of creativity this way!
2) Social Media Marketing
The probability of an individual having a Facebook/Instagram/Snapchat account is much higher than him or her having a bank account! The demand for social media expertise and awareness has been recognized and many online education platforms and institutions do carry a holistic course on social media marketing in their catalog.
This is the holy grail for gaining traction for your startup. There are two ways to market on social media.
First, let’s talk about the organic way of social media marketingâcreate an attractive business profile for people to understand your brandâyour mission and vision. Post valuable, trending content regularly and interact with people as much as possible. Don’t let your audience feel that you’re paying attention to them. Use Facebook groups to build a community where like-minded individuals can converse with each other. Go through StartupTalky’s Facebook community to get an idea of how effective this is!
The paid way of social media marketing is a bit advanced but once you gain a hang of the tools and techniques, it’s a cakewalk. The cost associated with paid ads such as Facebook Ads is going down day by day. These facilities are becoming cheaper. So, don’t forego this economical opportunities while they are available.
What makes your business different from your competitors in the market? Your popularity and influence on the web. Every company has a website and an app nowadays and this has created a rat race where everyone’s eager to scoop a significant piece of the web traffic. Posting contents on trending topics that enriched with videos and graphics is imperative. And this boils down to the use of search engine optimization, or SEO.
Ensure your website is fully optimized and the you don’t serve pirated content. If your site is indexed and you are posting quality content regularly then it will be easy for you to rank on search engine results pages. This is an organic way of marketing so be ready for some grinding in terms of time and efforts!
4) Affiliate Marketing
If you believe your product or service can make a difference and can benefit the consumers, then the affiliate marketing path would do wonders. Affiliate marketing, benefits your influencers and users. When an influencer sells your product through a unique link, he or she gets a commission from the selling price.
There are tools that help in setting up and automating the affiliate marketing process. Popular tools include Flippa, CJ Affiliate, and and SEMRush.
The whole point is here you don’t market your product; the influencers do it for you. Your job is to deliver a quality product and the service you provide is more beneficial when compared to exisitng solutions.
Crowdfunding has brought in a new way to conceive products and services. Platforms like IndieGoGo and Kickstarter offer the ground for people seek others’ help in raising money for their ventures.
This is the perfect opportunity to attain early traction, as the individuals that choose to invest in your product entrench the base of your target audience.
There are a few things you should keep in mind about crowdfunding your business:
Most crowdfunding campaigns fail.
A high percentage of donations come during the initial days of the campaign.
You should set a realistic goal for your campaign.
Choosing the right crowdfunding platform is vital.
Customer appreciation is a smaller, scalable action (like holding contests or sending handwritten notes to customers) for maintain a good rapport with your audience as well as press-coverage and publicity.
To build your brand authority and gain traction for the long term, you need to build a solid relationship with your customers.There are many methods to do this but unconventional PR is the most sustainable and effective way. Surprise your audience with goodies and perks that seem out of the world!
7) Offline Events
Conduct seminars and press conferences to make your product a burning issue among people for the right reasons. Meet people and advertise yourself. Trade shows will help build relations with industry insiders.
You can also connect with influencers capable of representing your brand. Influencers have the target audience you are seeking. There are many benefits of marketing through influencers, but the highlight is the time saved in building your community from scratch.
Invite them and other competitors in your events. The socializing and partnership building will help you and your brand in the long run.
8) Email Marketing
We’ve discussed so many ways of marketing a startup but if you just have started ,then email marketing is a safe, less risky path. Every startup should build an email list as soon as possible because that’s how one gets subscribers.
Despite the presence of social media platforms, email marketing continues to be effective, but why? 58% people check their email before anything else in their phone. Don’t send spam emails to your users because that’s the last thing anyone wants.
Value people through your emails . Soon, you will have a loyal audience that will be yours for a lifetime.
Website design is the most important part of the business to give it a kick start. Sometimes what happens is, that we usually skip the wireframing stage and roll right into what the site is going to look like, the design. Even if clients do not need to see a wireframe, I think itâs still important to create one internally so that designers and developers are all on the same page.
This kind of thinking stemmed from the notion that the client would not understand what wireframes are and that jumping into the design would get us one step closer to launch. This suggestion is a bad one.
Good Design is Good Business.
By this notion, one could say that wireframing is a crucial part of the business. For those looking to build a website of any size or shape, wireframes are the foundation on which to begin building. So, the question is what is a wireframe? Why wireframes are important in business design?
What is a Wireframe?
What is a Wireframe? Wireframe is like a skeleton of the page.
If we say in short words then a wireframe is like a skeleton of the page. Basically, it is like a pen-and-paper design that shows the whole interface with the spacing of elements on the page, how content is prioritized, what functionalities are available, and how users will interact with the site. Wireframing usually comes after the site architecture has been determined by a site map or flow chart of the web-siteâs pages and before the creative design phase
Why this is important? Because no matter how rough it can go, but it plays a vital role in connecting information architecture to the visual aspects of the design by showing pathways between the various pages.
Here is an example of what a wireframe looks like:
What excatly a wireframe looks like?
Why Wireframes Are Needed in Web Design Businesses?
1. Display Site Architecture
Wireframes turn the abstract nature of a flow chart into something real and tangible without distractions. Earlier sitemap was used which can be a bit abstract when the information and design are too large. Wireframing ensures that all parties are on the same page. Wireframes allow web design teams â from UX to copywriting â to start considering visitor purposes. The architecture of the site is brought to the forefront in a wireframe.
2. Prioritize Content
Wireframes are a great way to prioritize content by helping reveal space constraints and designing the hierarchy of elements on the page. Having the opportunity early on to visualize the hierarchy of your pages and begin visually displaying the space constraints will save you a lot of time later when you begin stylizing the pages and filling them with content.
Great Design elimintaes all other unnecessary details.
3. Get To Know Your Client Better
Wireframing is a great way to get your clients to focus on it. You will start seeing patterns in behaviors and motivations the more time you spend with your client. Over time, what you gain from their feedback will impact how best to work with them in the future and how to make your time with the most productive. The possibility for clients to get distracted from thinking about the functionality and structure of the design will be something you will find greatly rewarding.
Wireframe Basic | the easy way to get started
4. Scalability And Flexibility of Wireframes
Now for someone, who purchases a content managed website, this is a kind of important one. A wireframe will immediately identify how well your site will handle content growth. Scalability and flexibility matter. Wireframes will identify these important areas of content growth. Websites need to remain effective through multiple business changes over the course of at least two years, which is the average lifespan of a website. The site needs to be scalable, flexible, and easy to update â without impacting the overall design.
5. Time-Saver
Itâs just what opposite of what one might think, wireframing saves time in a multitude of ways:
Your designs are more calculated.
Your development team understands what they are building.
Content creation becomes much clearer.
You avoid hacks later on in the process.
Everyone from the web team, the agency and client team are all on the same page about what the website is supposed to do and how it is supposed to function.
At the end of the day, pen, paper, or even markers can make excellent wireframing tools. Sketching and drawing out wireframes on paper is a great way to keep the ideas flowing, to quickly illustrate those ideas to colleagues, and to get things straight in your own head.
Basic wireframing tools
What To Avoid While Making A Wireframe?
Keep Your colors to grey, white or black.
Use a generic font.
Avoid High stylized graphics and images
Avoid too much detail.
Wireframing every single page should be avoided.
After all this, it might surprise you to discover that we usually donât produce wireframes at Orbit. We actually create what we call layouts â a more robust version of a wireframe. Layouts go beyond the traditional wireframe to include draft copy and a semblance of container structure.
Wireframing is a quick and effective way to identify usability issues early on in your design process. If you are a web designer, then for sure you are familiar with wireframing and if you are a user experience (UX) designer you probably spend a large percentage of your time creating wireframes either by hand with paper and pencil or using a digital tool.
Managing a local business is not an easy task to do and then to attract gain new customers is like competing with larger companies. Competition with larger companies makes it almost impossible to reach the audience you want unless you invest in Digital Marketing. Strategies like Content Marketing allow companies of all sizes to compete for the same organic audience.
For this, it is important to know that what is Local SEO? With a small investment, you can use the reach of search engines, such as Google, to increase traffic to your internet channels. To achieve this goal, of course, you need to master the concept of Local SEO. But how local SEO can help you gain new customers?
Local SEO is one of the most effective ways to reach customers online and increase traffic to both your website and physical location.
What Is Local SEO?
In an era of the digital world, it has put us more in a convenient position to make a purchase, visit a new location, or hire someone. Since the internet is a source of all the information, and users look for information in search engines. Big data companies have been trying to improve the user experience to feature the most relevant results and attract customers.
What is Local SEO?
And thatâs where Local SEO comes in. so, when you search âa coffee shop near meâ then that near me is going to direct you to local businesses. Many users of Google and other search engines have the habit of using such tools to find local businesses. Â All it takes is adding something like ânear meâ to the search, and the results will bring together the main business options within a given range of miles.
Searches that include location activate a so-called local search algorithm, which changes the way results are displayed. Thus, in addition to standard criteria such as authority and relevance, the distance from the business to the customerâs location also makes a difference in the filtering of results.
Itâs nothing new that the use of tablets and smartphones for digital experiences increases every day. These devices tend to track the userâs location in real-time. In fact, they are most important in the context of Local SEO. For instance, Google has access to your location for 24*7, itâll definitely indicate the nearest businesses to them.
However, in order for your company to appear as a suggestion on the Internet, you must be effective in providing the algorithm with information about its address and service regions, as well as detailing what kind of service it offers.
The top tip for you to improve your Local SEO results is to use Google My Business.
Local SEO Process
Technical SEO
On-Site Optimization
Off-Site Optimization
Website Speed
Title Tags
Links
Coding
Meta Description
Content
CSS
Head Tags
Google My Business
JavaScript
Content Strategy
PR
Internal Linking
Page Hierarchy
Social Media
Mobile Friendliness
Keywords
Reviews
URL Structure
Image Optimization
Schema
Local SEO in 2020 | How To Rank #1
How Local SEO Help Achieve Your Goals Of New Customers?
1. Keep Your Information Up-To-Date
Outdated information about your products and hours of service can result in the loss of good opportunities. So be committed to constantly updating your channels and ensure the relevance of information, especially on Google My Business.
2. Invest In Organic SEO
Investing in traditional SEO remains imperative. Therefore, structure your blog posts with a focus on the visitorsâ experience, optimizing URL, title tags, headers, and meta-description. Also, use high-quality videos and images to increase engagement. Itâs also important to apply link building techniques to increase the authority of your domain.
Inserting local pages on your website is a way to guide the consumer to your establishment. More than the address, it should bring information such as contact phone numbers, store hours, parking information, and testimonials from other customers.
Add location pages to your website
A good idea is to use interactive content to make the experience even more enjoyable. Maps, for example, can connect with the customerâs GPS service and provide detailed directions for them to find you.
4. Be Mobile-Friendly
Thereâs no escape: to make a good SEO site, you need to be mobile-friendly. Mobile devices are responsible for most of the local searches, so if you donât have responsive channels, you wonât appear in any kind of ranking.
5. Maintain Consistency With Different Channels
Business is consistent with what you pass on in your other channels. Different addresses, phone numbers, and store hours can make the user suspicious and scare them away. Itâs also important to care about your visual identity. Your companyâs colors and logos should be predominant on all your Internet channels.
If your company is not well evaluated on the Internet, users cannot know if the service is qualified, so they opt for other alternatives. The problem is that often low ratings happen because few customers remember to leave a review. Subway, for example, provides a link and code on their receipts so that consumers can leave their opinion and earn a free cookie.
So, create calls-to-action focused on encouraging the client to leave an evaluation. You can even create campaigns focused on that.
Essential Factors Of Local SEO
1. Proximity
The proximity creation factors refer to the distance of the business from the user. If the user does not specify a region in the search terms, Google itself calculates the distances using the location information provided by GPS technologies installed on smartphones.
This factor has to do with the level of approval of a business in its region. So, Google analyses the brandâs popularity on the web and in the offline world. Here the brand reputation I measured by criteria such as links referring to the brand.
3. Relevance
The relevance criteria consider the correspondence between the business and the term the user searched for. For this, Google analyses the companyâs data available in Google My Business.
Invest in Local SEO to generate new opportunities for your business, increase your local relevance, and consolidate your brand image on the Internet. The strategy can be executed with little investment as long as you produce quality content. The listed strategies will not only help small or medium-sized businesses, but multi-location companies can grow their business and attract more customers using Local SEO.
After working on small-small areas, you can have an impressive local SEO strategy in no time!
LinkedIn is known as one of the most prominent social networking site for the professionals around the world. These facts and statistics based on LinkedIn will guide you to successfully use the site for your benefits. The users of this platform can create online resume, list out their current and previous job roles, and most importantly their skills and education. This site connects the LinkedIn members to the jobs available based on their criteria. The LinkedIn website also allows its users to be endorsed by other users for their individual skills.
The members can also further join professional groups that are relevant to their interests. LinkedIn also allows business to create their companies profiles and put out their current vacancies. Giving the members an opportunity to apply for these positions directly through its interface. It also provides a platform for publishing with the thought of facilitating leadership in the business world.
Demographics are further divided based on sex, age and geographical location
The LinkedIn user distribution worldwide.
Age:
37% of the users are from the age group of 30 to 49 years old, 28% of them are 18 to 29 years old and 24% of them are 50 to 64 years old while 11% of them are above 65 years old and above.
While marketers can only reach 12% of people aged 18 years or older with the help of adverts on LinkedIn.
37% of the American adults and 51% of US college graduate are on LinkedIn.
Out of the 2 billion millennial globally, 87 million millennial are on LinkedIn with 11 million in decision making positions.
Sex:
57% of the overall users are males and 43% of the overall users are female.
29%of LinkedIn users are males and 24% of the users are females in an average session.
43% the LinkedIn ads audience is female while 57% of their LinkedIn audience is male.
Geographical location:
LinkedIn is spread out to more than 200 countries while representing 30 companies from all over the world by 2019.
33% of the users come from urban areas while 30% are from suburban and 10% from the rural areas.
The countries with the greatest reach are: USA (167,000,000), India (64,000,000), China (50,000,000), Brazil (41,000,000) and UK (28,000,000).
More than 70% of LinkedIn users are from outside the USA.
LinkedIn has an overall of 675 million users from all over the world, while 310 million of them are monthly active users. 38.6% of the LinkedIn traffic comes from the countries like US with 38.6% and India with 16.8%.
Other facts based on the users of LinkedIn
Out of those 4% of them engage on a daily basis. While most user only spend 17 minutes on LinkedIn per month.
According to the study done by Pew Research Center 2018 Social Media Use study, LinkedIn is popular among youth as 50% of the college graduates in the USA are LinkedIn users.
44% of the LinkedIn users in the US take home more than $75,000 per year which about their national medium.
Although the US has most LinkedIn users at 167 million, 70% of the LinkedIn users come from outside the US.
Linked in has 2 new members every second, but their goal is to reach 3 billion users and also to be the hub for every job posting across the estimated 70 million companies worldwide.
LinkedIn profiles that have photos get 21 times more views and 36 times more messages.
LinkedIn users spend an average of 10 to 20 minutes on the site regularly; visiting 8 to 9 pages.
122 million users have been invited to an interview through LinkedIn, with 35.5% million getting a job through someone with whom they are connected.
In 2016, Microsoft acquired the company for $26.2 Billion after recognizing the value of LinkedIn. Since its acquisition, LinkedInâs Financial have been consolidated with Microsoftâs. However, unlike other social media platform that rely on advertisements for revenue. LinkedIn services are something that users are willing to pay.
The annual revenue amounted to almost 6.8 billion U.S dollars.
In 2018, it contributed $5.3 billion in revenue. In 2019, revenue increased by 27%.
Linked generates more than $454.000 per employee.
Most of LinkedIn Revenue is generated from three of its main major services
Talent solutions:
Before the acquisition of the company in 2016, 65% of third quarter revenue, totaling $960 million which came from recruitment services called Talent solutions. This service helped companies in hiring employees and learning and development (L&D) to the existing employees of the company.
Marketing solutions:
This solution provides a platform for the companies to advertise to LinkedIn users. In 2016, it accounted for 18% of the total revenue or $109 million from the combination of advertising to the online marketers and the sale of sponsored updates posted to a target audiences within the members of the LinkedIn feed.
LinkedIn Premium:
The four tiers of LinkedIn Premium
A total of LinkedIn users pay for LinkedIn Premium which now has four price tiers:
Premium Career â meant for those looking for job opportunities in any field. It includes in mail messages per month and in demand videos, as well as the ability to see who viewed your profile. The monthly subscription fee is $29.99/month and INR 1400 per month.
Premium Business â This service gives you additional information about business and unlimited people searches. The business owners, MSME and Startups prefer this as itâs pretty much a pocket friendly option for them. The monthly subscription fee is $59.99/month and INR 1900 per month.
Sales Navigator pro â This allows the user advanced search filters, access to different sales tools and the ability to make notes on the user profiles. It is mostly chosen by the companies who lookout for some good quality leads through LinkedIn products. The subscription fee is $79.99/month and INR 3900 per month.
Recruiter Lite â This service suggests them the top recruiters especially associated with the MNCâs go for this plan. The main purpose for them is to get a good amount of job application for the opportunities they have. The subscription fee is $119.95/month and INR 5000 per month.
LinkedIn is the No. 1 B2B marketer because it distributes content at 94%. It makes up more than 50% of all social traffic to B2B websites and blogs. Only 3 million users share content on weekly basis, while 1 million users publish an article on LinkedIn.
Content marketing done by LinkedIn
97% of B2B marketers utilizes it for their content marketing efforts.
The professional content posted gets 15x more content impressions than job postings with 57% consuming content on mobile.
280 billion feed updates are viewers annually.
92% of the B2B marketers includes LinkedIn in their digital marketing mix.
If the posts are split into 5, 7 or 9 headings perform the best on the site.
The articles titles between 40 to 49 characters perform the best on LinkedIn.
The articles perform better without video than compared to the ones that contain a video in them.
45% of marketers have gained customers by using this platform, 65% of the B2B companies have LinkedIn paid ads services to acquire customers
80% of the B2B leads come from LinkedIn then compared to 13% from Twitter and 7% from Facebook.
In LinkedIn the content that gets the most shared are the long form of content.
It is an effective platform for lead generator and customer acquisition. It is even 277% more effective than Facebook in generating leads.
Last but not the least LinkedIn is the most top rated paid social media platform with 76% of B2B content marketers using it.
What if I told you that with a yearly/monthly subscription youâll be able to successfully develop your skills and also get job offers simultaneously? Yes! Itâs time to make that a reality with the help of LinkedIn Learning where you can access an entire learning library of content and learn new creative skills.
Not only that, LinkedIn Learning offers you job recommendations after you complete your courses in your LinkedIn profile. And also helps you enhance your learning experience through the means of video courses that come along with transcripts, exercises files and assessments. It then gives you feedback to your preferred course, while allowing you to view and download videos offline.
LinkedIn Learning Logo
LinkedIn Learning – About
LinkedIn Learning is an American based website that bridges the gap between the career you want and the skill you require. It mainly offers video courses taught by industry experts in creative, software and business skills. LinkedIn Learning is a subsidiary of LinkedIn which was founded by Lynda Weinman in the year of 1995. Formally known as Lynda.com, it was acquired by LinkedIn for $1.5 billion in 2015.
LinkedIn learning helps professionals learn with their own pace from the library that contains more than 12,000 creative, technology and business courses on any given subject. Â
These courses can be selected by employees as well as recommended by employers or their HR managers who can then use LinkedInâs analytics to monitor the employeeâs progress.
These tips are for the beginners to want to start out with learning new skills through this platform. In LinkedIn Learning the first thing someone should do is registration followed by picking out your interests.
According to the field of your interest the platform provides you 3 options/categories to choose from these include: Business, Creative and Technology. Business for example will include customer service, accounting, etc.
Then it guides the subscriber to the trending list and to the top liked and suggested videos (to give you an insight to the video that have better quality and content).
LinkedIn Learning caters to youngsters seeking for a job while developing their skills.
There are also have 3 ways through which you can filter out the course that people want to watch:
By Subject: To gain experience with a specific skill, this is the way to go. If you can pick a topic for example business then that would be HR, Finance and pick courses based on it.
Software: No matter your occupation thereâs a solid chance that you need to know your way around several types of software.
Learning paths: Instead of having to look for random courses in a given field, you can simply pick your path and get a structured learning experience. learning courses offers course such as Online marketing foundations; SEO foundation; Google Analytics; Content marketing foundation; Lead generation foundation and growth hacking.
LinkedIn learning offers different versions of premium from which you can you can buy to cater to different types of business people. All of these paid services give the professionalâs unlimited access to everything in LinkedIn learning. The premium costs $29.99 per month or $2239.88 per year which is the preferred level meant for job seekers and applicants. While the professional can also cancel during the first month and not pay anything, since it is free to try for the first month. However, after the free month, people can start paying if they want to stay onboard and continue learning from these courses.
Benefits of LinkedIn Learning:
Benefits of LinkedIn Learning
The company emphasis on education and learning as it goes hand in hand with the companyâs primary role where people maintain their professional profiles publicly and look for jobs. While the LinkedIn Learning is just broadened platform that offers you to build on your professional skills.
This education platform is available only for the LinkedIn Premium subscribers who look like they will get more than 50 new courses every week available in various languages.
LinkedIn learning now has 14,000 enterprise customers, 17 million enterprise users and 12,000 high fidelity courses.
Video based tutorials are produced in house in their California studios.
There also a possibility of customizing your own content by making your own or from your organization.
The analytics will also inform them of their progress with the knowledge they gained or even the level of engagement and more.
¡It also provides higher education facilities by special, verified profile pages to universities and colleges. Hence encouraging youngsters to get started on building their profiles.
This platform can be further used for connecting those young students into alumni job finding networks for the recruitment business.
These materials (PDF files and other related documents) can also be downloaded to watch offline.
The videos made on this platform are understandable and the teachers are business executives and other professional from different industries. They also provide you a certificate right after you finish the course.
LinkedIn Learning is powerful even if youâre not seeking for jobs
The platform is not just a job search booster, it is also a career booster for any professional who wants to stand out and advance their career faster. It can also help a professional get a raise or promotions with the completion of their LinkedIn Learning course. Doing all these course work can also help develop ones resume by mentioning it under the âskillsâ section. Example: Basics of Java Programming- LinkedIn Learning course completed on April 2020. During the times of the COVID pandemic people can make use of their time by self-educating themselves on various subjects by doing online courses with the help LinkedIn Learning.
Competitors of LinkedIn Learning:
Udemy: Udemy is a platform where you can create online video course and earn money by teaching people around the world. This platform helps people learn new skills and advance their careers by sharing your knowledge. It also helps businesses up skill their employees with virtual training.
Skillshare: Skillshare provides learning for the worldâs most innovative companies. This platform gives business solution to maximize the creativity, engagement and develop the entire workforce. With skillshare for teams you can empower and inspire your teams with on demand classes, in person events, customized learning paths and world class teachers. Thereâs on demand classes, hands-on workshops and events.
Coursera: This platforms helps build your skills with courses, certificate and degrees online from various world class universities and companies. You can learn the latest skill like business analytics, Python, Graphic design and more. It helps people who are interested for a career in fields like IT, AI and cloud engineering with the help of coursera.
LinkedIn Learning now has more 17 million users and is among the top ten vendors providing such services. It has also recently introduced LinkedIn Learning Pro which is a big competitor for other Learning Experience Platforms such as Degreed, Coursera, Skillshare, etc. It has the potential to conquer the corporate learning market because of the quality of their videos. The Learning Pro edition helps you create your own pathways or even customize combination of courses by putting in different content from their site.
Imagine a night before an important exam, when it’s all hasty, you just canât see yourself focusing on a single task. You tend to ponder from one page to another book and what you just lost was concentration. Or, you just got some free time to read an article and wait, What! Hereâs a mail from your boss. It is quite difficult to concentrate when so much is happening around, but to make something happen you need to keep your power concentrated on a single work.
“The digital generation considers constant interruptions normal and these days we expect to multitask, which spreads concentration very thin and can be counterproductive.” – Harriet Griffey, journalist, and author of The Art of Concentration
Concentration is the second name to Meditation.
Concentration refers to the mental effort you direct toward whatever youâre working on or learning at the moment. Itâs sometimes confused with attention span, but attention span refers to the length of time you can concentrate on something. There are many psychological facts involving concentration and some are quite astonishing, for instance, one said that concentration helps your subconscious mind be much more powerful than you think. i mean isn’t it amazing, when you already know how much powerful your subconscious mind is.
Factors Affecting Concentration
Attention span and concentration vary for a number reason and some reasons are natural and unavoidable but when it comes to distractions, this is what can be controlled.
Factors affecting concentration
When people age, they tend to forget things more readily, and decreased concentration can accompany memory loss.
Head or Brain injuries, such as a concussion can affect concentration.
Stress, anxiety, and frustration are sort of distraction when youâre trying to concentrate on things that are more important than anything else; because thatâs what makes us more anxious.
If that sounds familiar, keep reading to learn more about research-backed methods to help improve your concentration. Weâll also go over some conditions that can affect concentration and steps to take if trying to increase concentration on your own just doesnât seem to help.
how to get your brain to focus
5 Secret Tips To Concentrate Effectively
1. Get Your Game On
Brain games may not be a type of game that can improve your concentration, but according to research, playing video games could help boost your concentration. The reason behind it is that an hour of gaming help improves your Visual Selective Attention (VSA).
VSA, basically, refers to your ability to concentrate on a specific task while ignoring distractions around you. Although the study covered small aspects, so these findings canât be conclusive and, encouraging masses for gaming is sheer nonsense. So, study authors are still researching and exploring how video games can help increase brain activity and boost concentration.
This review had several limitations, including the fact that the studies focused on widely varying topics, including video game addiction and the possible effects of violent video games.
Although playing certain types of games can help you get better at concentrating. Try:
sudoku
crossword puzzles
chess
jigsaw puzzles
word searches or scrambles
memory games
2. Improve Sleep
Lack of sleep makes you more frustrated and can affect your concentration. Sleep deprivation can easily disrupt concentration, not to mention other cognitive functions, such as memory and attention. Although a day or two of sleepless nights canât show you serious consequences if itâs continuing in a row, then thatâs a problem.
Being too tired can even show, slowing down of your reflexes and affect your ability to drive or do other daily tasks. Getting 7 to 8 hours of sleep can be a tough job when thereâs a demanding schedule, health issues, or lots of travel and, other factors sometimes make it difficult to get enough sleep.
But improving sleeping habits may show you wonders. A few quick tips:
Turn off the TV and put away screens an hour before bed.
Keep your room at a comfortable but cool temperature.
Wind down before bed with soft music, a warm bath, or a book.
Go to bed and get up around the same time each day, even on weekends.
Exercise regularly, but try to avoid a heavy workout just before bed.
3. Take A Break And Listen Music
Take a break, and have a KitKat. I donât know how much this ad makes an impact on you, but it covers two aspects and both improves your concentration. First, the idea of taking a break might seem counterintuitive, but experts say it really works. Second, the chocolate (KitKat) also has some amount of caffeine into it, which improves your power to focus on things.
When you feel your concentration is dropping, take a short mental break, and that break doesnât mean youâll keep banging yourself onto the phone. But just take a small nap or lie down with your closed eyes. Refresh yourself with a cool drink or nutritious snack, take a quick walk, or go outside and get some sun. And then, after getting back to work, youâll be surprised when you feel more focused, motivated, or even creative. Breaks can help boost these functions and more.
Turning on music while working or studying may help increase concentration. The type of music you listen to can make a difference. Experts generally agree with classical music, particularly baroque classical music or nature sounds are good choices to help increase your focus.
4. Meditate In Nature
Meditation and mindfulness practices can offer multiple benefits. Improved concentration is only one of these. If you want to boost your concentration naturally, try to get outside every day, even for just 15 to 20 minutes. Sitting in your garden or backyard can also help. Any natural environment has benefits.
meditate in nature
Succulents make great choices for low-maintenance plants if you donât have a green thumb. Although a child doesnât know how to meditate, children can benefit from natural environments very much. The study hoped to determine how lifelong exposure to trees and greenery at home or in the neighbourhood might affect attention in children.
5. Vary Your Diet And Try Supplements
Always be specific on the food you eat because it can affect cognitive functions like concentration and memory. Avoiding processed foods, too much sugar, and very greasy or fatty foods. To boost concentration, try eating more of the following:
fatty fish
eggs (white and yolk both)
blueberries
spinach
Milk
Oats or Porridge
vary our diet and try supplements
Thereâs no need to include caffeine in your diet if you prefer to avoid it, but research does suggest caffeine can benefit your attention and focus. If you feel your concentration starting to drop, consider a cup of coffee or green tea.
Staying hydrated is a catalyst for improving your concentration. Even mild dehydration can make it harder to focus or remember information. Always aim for routine breakfasts with fiber and protein-rich meals.
Some supplements may help promote better concentration and improved brain function. But always check it with your health care provider before taking any supplements, especially if youâre a person with allergies.
The following supplements may help promote increased concentration and overall brain health:
The above tips may sound less effective when it comes to exercise because increased concentration is among the many benefits of regular exercise. There are some listed exercises whose special focus is on to increase your concentration power in a day or two.
Sit in a comfortable chair and see how still you can keep. This is not as easy as it seems. You will have to center your attention on sitting still. Watch and see that you are not making any involuntary muscular movements.
Exercise 2: Fix Gaze on Fingers
Sit in a chair with your head up and your chin out, shoulders back. Raise your right arm until it is on the level with your shoulder, pointing to your right. Look around, with the head only, and fix your gaze on your fingers, and keep the arm perfectly still for one minute. Do the same exercise with your left arm.
Exercise 3: Fix Eyes on Outstretched Glass
Fill a small glass full of water, and grasp it by the fingers; put the arm directly in front of you. Now fix the eyes upon the glass and try to keep the arm so steady that no movement will be noticeable. Do this first for one moment and then increase it to five. Do the exercise with the first one arm and then the other.
Exercise 4: Concentrate on Opening and Closing Fists
Move your chair up to a table, placing your hands upon it, clenching the fists, keeping the back of the hand on the table, the thumb doubled over the fingers. Now fix your gaze upon the fist for a while, then gradually extend the thumb, keeping your whole attention fixed upon the act, just as if it was a matter of great importance.
Exercise 5: Concentration Increases the Sense of Smell
When you take a walk or drive in the country, or pass a flower garden, concentrate on the odor of flowers and plants. See how many different kinds you can detect. Then choose one particular kind and try to sense only this. You will find that this strongly intensifies the sense of smell. This differentiation requires, however, a peculiarly attentive attitude.
Exercise 6: Concentration on the Within
Lie down and thoroughly relax your muscles. Concentrate on the beating of your heart. Do not pay any attention to anything else.
Exercise 7: Concentrating on Sleep
What is known as the water method is, although very simple, very effective in inducing sleep. Put a full glass of clear water on a table in your sleeping room. Sit in a chair beside the table and gaze into the glass of water and think how calm it is. Then picture yourself getting into just as calm a state.
Exercise 8: Practice Talking Before a Mirror
Make two marks on your mirror on a level with your eyes, and think of them as two human eyes looking into yours. Your eyes will probably blink a little at first. Do not move your head, but stand erect. Concentrate all your thoughts on keeping your head perfectly still.
Exercise 9: The Eastern Way of Concentrating
Sit in a chair with a high back in an upright position. Press one finger against the right nostril. Now take a long, deep breath, drawing the breath in gently as you count to ten; then expel the breath through the right nostril as you count to ten.
Exercise 10: Controlling Desires
Desire, which is one of the hardest forces to control, will furnish you with excellent exercises in concentration. It seems natural to want to tell others what you know; but, by learning to control these desires, you can wonderfully strengthen your powers of concentration.
Mindfulness
Some ways to improve concentration may work well, while others may not seem to do much for you. Consider giving a range of approaches a try to see what helps. Whatâs more, these tips are unlikely to decrease concentration or cause other harm, so you know that concentration helps increase your memory