How to Make $1 Million in a Single Year (Advice From 10 Successful People Who've Actually Done It

I haven't reached this milestone (yet), so I reached out to people who have. Here's their advice.

A million dollars ain’t what it used to be, but it’s still pretty good money--especially if we’re talking about annual income, as opposed to net worth.

So, how do you get to that milestone? Since I haven’t done it myself (yet), I reached out to a group of people who actually have made at least $1 million a year. (Hint: If you didn’t inherit a fortune, it’s all about entrepreneurship.)

Here’s their advice. (Got something to add? Let me know.)

1. Love your customers.
Tim Nguyen, co-founder and CEO of BeSmartee:
“Everything you do should center on your customers. Taking a vacation? Ask yourself how that will affect your customers. … Thinking about revising your employee incentive programs? Consider how that will affect your customers. Don’t worry about the sale, and definitely don’t focus on the money. Focus on your customers.”

2. Solidify your foundation.
Margot Micallef, founder and CEO of Gabriella’s Kitchen:
“A good foundation [includes] a network of investors … or a strong relationship with a banker or institutional lender. … In any situation where I have enjoyed significant returns, it has been based on a foundation built years earlier.”

3. Focus on culture.
Steve Starr of StarrDesign:
“If you get the culture right, the money will come. After buying out my partner, our design firm spent the past two years transforming our approach, process, and firm personality. We increased our gross revenue, while driving our net revenue up by 15 percent to more than $2 million. … In any business, it’s essential to define and keep sight of what inspires your team. Nearly every group begins with passion--and holding on to that passion is vital to success.”

4. Focus on product and metrics.
Simon Slade, CEO and co-founder of Affilorama:
“My best advice for joining the million-dollar-earnings club is to create an awesome product and then continue its growth. Pick a single, straightforward metric, such as sales units or revenue, and aim to beat yesterday’s total every day. This growth strategy is both sustainable and manageable.”

5. Understand other stakeholders’ fears.
Ted Leonhardt, career and negotiation expert:
“Yes, I have made a million or more a year. … I did it by understanding the interpersonal issues that drive all social groups, helping my clients reduce their fear, [and] helping people achieve their goals. My one piece of advice is to truly understand the fear that accompanies spending of large sums, and know how to reduce that fear for your clients.”

6. Be persistent.
Ajay Prasad of GMR Transcription:
“Succeeding in business will be harder, cost more, and take longer than you planned. My advice for success is persistence.”

7. Hustle.
Heidi Burkhart, president of Dane Professional Consulting Group:
“At 21, I got into commercial real estate brokerage in NYC … My first three years I was hustling, working 24/7, and surviving on peanuts … Fourth quarter of my third year, I finally started closing deals. Ever since, my income has consistently been in the six figures, with many 12-month periods producing more than $1 million. … I credit all this, though, to the initial hustle that is now forever embedded in my system.”

8. Grow things organically.
Romy Taormina, “Nausea Relief Chief” at Psi Bands:
“There's no overnight success here. I have led our company organically, and this has kept us in business and allowed us to exceed the $1 million threshold. Case in point: The Psi Bands team pitched our first retailer using a prototype. We landed that account--400 Long's Drugs stores--and garnered a coveted spot in Oprah's Omagazine as an "O Pick.” The associated credibility gave me a great sales opener, and I was able to land more accounts.”

9. Build personal relationships.
Andrew Royce Bauer, CEO of Royce:
Royce is able to make more than $6 million a year by maintaining personal relationships with every single one of our customers. We are a company built on human interaction with our end user … a small amount of really good customers that we truly treat like family rather than trying to be the business that serves everyone.”

10. Stay focused on the ultimate goal.
Zach Halmstad, co-founder and partner of JAMF Software:
My best advice is to stay focused on where you want to be, and not on what could go wrong along the way. … 99 percent of the things that you worry about never happen. It's the things that you don't worry about that actually happen. This has stuck with me.”

One major way that Macbooks will always beat Windows laptops

Even people who don't like mouse touchpads like the MacBook's mouse touchpad.

Beyond the iPhone-friendly features, it's probably the thing I miss most about my MacBook during my ongoing experiment with only using Windows 10.

The MacBook touchpad is a slab of textured glass over metal with a nice grip. The cursor moves smoothly and it recognizes a range of smartphone-like multitouch gestures with no problem. It just "feels" right. 

There's nothing quite like it — and just about every Windows laptop out there falls way short by comparison. A reviewer who rounded up a bunch of Windows 10 laptops for the Wall Street Journal this week found this out the hard way.

I got curious as to why so few Windows laptops can touch what Apple's done with its own touchpad.

Turns out, the answer should have been obvious: Apple's obsessive control over how its products get made.

Since 2008, Apple has held a patent on its touchpad design, covering a bunch of different MacBook models. That patent is both for the process it uses to prepare the glass for that signature texture, as well as the actual mechanical way it clicks down.

It doesn't mean that nobody else can make a trackpad, or a glass trackpad, or even a minor variation on Apple's trackpad. But it means that they can't do it exactly like Apple without risking legal action. 

Kyle Russell/Business InsiderA Dell laptop.

Secondly, and more importantly, Apple takes full charge of the MacBook's design and manufacturing process, from hardware to software. From MacBook to MacBook, the touchpad is exactly the same, and built to the same exact specifications.

It means that Apple has a great basis to make sure that it works really well, all the time. 

Meanwhile, Microsoft is dealing with a moving target. Different laptops have different touchpads. In fact, cost-conscious manufacturers may use two different brands of touchpad from two different suppliers in the same model, as reporter Farhad Manjoo reported back in 2012.

It makes it a lot more complicated for Windows to "talk" to a touchpad. And in the meanwhile, things get lost in translation, metaphorically speaking, resulting in all kinds of erraticism. 

In 2013, Microsoft partnered up with Intel, along with prominent touchpad hardware suppliers Synaptics and Elan, for what it called "Precision Touchpads." With Windows 8.1 and a Precision Touchpad, users would get smoother mouse scrolling and better support for multitouch gestures. 

Steve Kovach/Business InsiderA Microsoft Surface Pro 3.

But because every laptop is slightly different, and because manufactuers like Dell and Lenovo love to put their own software preloaded on the computers that they sell, there were all kinds of compatibility issues.

A laptop can have a Preicison Touchpad, but the software that came preinstalled with their computer may not support it. 

In that scenario, Microsoft can only do so much, since they're not the ones actually making the computers.

It's a big part of why Microsoft pushes its own Surface tablet/laptops so hard: The $129 Surface Type Cover has a trackpad that supports Precision Touchpads, and the touchpad itself is built to Microsoft's exacting specifications. The sales pitch is that it makes for a more ideal Windows 10 experience. 

In the meanwhile, unless Microsoft just bites the bullet and starts making more traditional laptops, the best way to use Windows 10 for that ideal touchpad experience might be with a MacBook.

THE PAYMENTS INDUSTRY EXPLAINED:

The trends creating new winners and losers in the card-processing ecosystem

The payments industry had a huge year in 2014 and it's showing no sign of slowing down. On the one hand tech giants like Amazon and Apple released new products that affirmed their long-term payments ambitions (Apple Pay and Amazon Local Register). On the other hand startups such as Stripe and ShopKeep continued to carve out market share, challenging older players like PayPal and VeriFone. 

Understanding this complex and rapidly evolving space can be challenging. In  this explainer BI Intelligence offers a high-level look at the payments industry — how it functions, who the key players are, and the trends shaping the industry. We start by explaining payment-card processing, since the majority of consumer payments and transaction volume flow through this system. From there we take a look at how consumers' move to mobile devices is changing the way we pay, and which players stand to benefit.

Here are some of the key takeaways:

• The ecosystem for credit- and debit-card processing involves a complicated set of players interacting to process every transaction. Five types of players are involved: acquirers/processors, issuers, card networks, gateway providers, and independent sales organizations (ISOs). 
• To process a typical transaction, three steps must occur: authorizing, batching, and funding. Each participant in this process takes a fee off of the total volume of a transaction. The remainder is deposited in a merchant's account.
• Three trends will shape the payment-card-processing ecosystem from 2015 onward: the EMV security migration, rapid development of new payment technologies, and the massive card-fraud problem in the US. While none of these developments will completely upend the incumbent system for processing payments, each will disrupt key players.
• The mobile point-of-sale (mPOS) is going to have a massive impact on the payments-hardware and payments-software industry. By 2019, we forecast that nearly 80% of US retailers will have implemented a mPOS device. The move to mPOS will continue to put pressure on hardware providers that compete directly against mPOS devices, as well as ISOs that sell legacy devices to merchants.
• While the payment-card-processing system as a whole isn't in danger, the proliferation of mobile devices will have a significant effect on the way we pay.

5 Money Lessons You Can Learn From 50 Cent's Bankruptcy

If you have seen any celebrity news stories lately, chances are you’ve heard about the 50 Cent bankruptcy story. The famed rapper and music mogul shocked fans around the globe when he announced he would be filing for bankruptcy. This move brought about a number of questions from both the public and financial gurus alike who wanted to know “how does someone who makes so much money end up bankrupt?”

Here are some tips I have that can help anyone, no matter what their income may be, to make certain that they do not end up bankrupt like 50 Cent.

1. Make sure to save.

If and when you start making a lot of money, make sure that you are making smart decisions with the income you are using. It can be tempting to make lots of big ticket purchases, but you need to put some of that money away for a rainy day. One of 50 Cent’s biggest mistakes is that he immediately started spending money on cars, jewelry and an entourage without ever putting savings away for an emergency. If he would have saved for a rainy day, things may have turned out much differently for the rapper.

2. Remember what you have to lose.

Having a lot of money is a double-edged sword. If you make a lot of money, do not start fights with random individuals. Remember, you actually have something to lose. People file lawsuits every day, particularly against people with a lot of money. This was a problem that 50 Cent kept running into; he kept facing lawsuits and ended up paying a great deal of money because of petty conflicts.

3. Do not talk about your money publicly.

Talking about your wealth publicly is putting your money at risk. If you are out in the open about how much you have, you are just asking for trouble. Keep quiet about your finances. Protect the money you have when you have it so you don’t have to worry about others coming after it.

4. Don’t tie your entire brand to money.

Many people put their money at risk. In fact, this is one of the ways that so many people are able to turn the money they have into more money. However, if you are going to put your money at risk, do not tie your entire brand to that alone. You can use money as a starting point, but make sure that you build off of it. This is a philosophy that I have found to be very important, particularly with some of my most successful students.

5. Think about the investments you make.

There are so many potential investments out there that sound glamorous and may try to pull you in. Things like clothing, alcohol, television and movies may sound glamorous, but they are also very dangerous. Just because they are glamorous doesn’t mean they are smart investments. Stick to better paying industries like finance and technology. They may not seem as fun, but if you take the time to research these industries, do the necessary studying and make smart investments, you will be better off in the long run.

50 Cent was someone who only tried to make glamorous investments. He should have learned from Ashton Kutcher and his tech startup investing -- those are comparatively much more sound investments.

People ask me all the time what the best investment is and I say the same thing every time -- yourself. You need to learn to be self-sufficient with your finances, that way you NEVER risk losing it all like so many celebrities and athletes who rely on others, some of whom lead them astray. I'm entirely self-taught, I aim to be the mentor to people that I never had. Mentors can help save you from situations like this, consider getting one ASAP!

What Font Should You Use on Your Resume?

When you're job hunting, the devil is in the details -- from making the right connections, to doing your research and assembling a resume that gets you noticed. But just like your body language can speak louder than words during an interview, it turns out that the font you use in your CV says something about you, too, according to a recent Bloomberg report.

So what typefaces should you use to put your best foot forward? Not Times New Roman, as it turns out. Brian Hoff, the creative director of Brian Hoff Design, likened the usage of the often default font to wearing sweatpants, as it doesn't show a lot of forethought or effort.

Related: 5 Huge Resume Blunders -- and How to Avoid Them

Fancy interconnected cursive that you would see on a wedding announcement like Zapfino (way too tough to read) or fonts like Courier, which looks like it was typewritten and can convey pretentiousness.  Matt Luckhurst, the creative director of San Francisco, Calif.-based brand consultancy Collins noted “You don’t have a typewriter, so don’t try to pretend that you have a typewriter.” 

As for the fonts that communicate a clean, straightforward and professional image, the experts agreed that typefaces that are sans-serif (no little fusty feet at the end of the letters) and aesthetically pleasing like Helvetica and Garamond are a solid bet for those resumes.

Related: The Do's and Don'ts of the Modern Resumé (Infographic)

And while Comic Sans -- everyone's favorite font-punching bag -- is never welcome, apparently utilizing emojis to show a little personality might be -- depending on who you're talking to.  

Ultimately, when you're looking for a new position, you send out countless cover letters and resumes, but you wouldn't send the same one to every firm or company that you are hoping will give you a second look. And just like you would tailor your CV, different fonts will make more of an impact depending on the industry. 

You Disabled Flash In Your Browsers, But Is That Enough?

A growing number of researchers and analysts recommend disabling the Flash plugin in your web browsers due to ongoing security problems. Perhaps you already did that and you may think your computers are now immune to Flash exploits. But maybe not.

Flash files can not only be embeded in a web page but also in various document formats such as Microsoft Office documents and PDF files. Even if you have disabled Flash in your browsers, Flash exploits can still leverage Flash player vulnerabilities through software like Microsoft Office and Adobe Reader. Let's do some tests. I will use the PoC of CVE-2015-5122 from the Hacking Team in my test. It will pop up the calculator program when loaded in browsers and other applications that have a vulnerable Flash plugin enabled.

First I craft a PPT document with PowerPoint 2013 as shown in the image below.

When I view slide show this document the calculator program pops up on my computer as shown in the image below.

Next I craft a PDF file with Adobe Acrobat Pro DC 2015 as shown in the image below.

The calculator program pops up on my computer when I insert the Flash exploit. I close the PDF file then open it again. The calculator program pops up again when I click the play button.

There is no need to modify the Flash exploit at all. It works well inside a PPT and PDF document until I uninstall the Flash player on my computer.

It is worth noting that this particular exploit (and others like it) can be blocked by Microsoft's Enhanced Mitigation Experience Kit , but this software is not exactly universal in its deployment and this is just one simple example of ways in which Flash can be exploited outside of a web browser.

What all this means, unfortunately, is that disabling the Flash plugin in your browsers isn't a complete solution to Flash security. Flash is a technology that can be embedded in many places and requires vigilance on the part of users as well as smart edge and endpoint protection and rigorously patched software to ensure that Flash exploits don't end up on your network.

Google Auto-complete And What It Means For Your SEO

Is it love, or is it Google's auto-complete?

There comes a time in everyone's life when they find someone so compatible that each partner begins finishing the sentences of the other. Is it because their minds are so alike, or that they know one another so well?
Sometimes this relationship exists outside of the bond between two people, and instead becomes a connection between a person and their search engine.

Google introduced its auto-complete function in an effort to take away some of the burdens in the lives of web users everywhere. Why should someone have to stumble over completing a search query when based on their past browsing history, recent searches, and data from their local area a suggestion might be offered to them? Why make someone type out a full query when the same information cited in the previous example could be used again to save the user precious seconds of their time?

What does this mean for your SEO?

While the auto-complete function of Google searches has made for some pretty hilarious results, there is more to it than simply a list of suggestions that range from useful to absolutely absurd. At the end of this particular rainbow there is a pot of SEO gold.

 

The first thing a user sees when searching for your brand are the suggestions presented by the auto-complete aspect of a Google search. These simple fill-in-the-blank style suggested queries could mean everything for your business. If the majority of the suggestions mention scams, hoaxes, and other PR nightmares, chances are people aren't going to continue their search, especially if they were going to find more information on your brand with the intent of making a purchase in the near future!
If you're seeing some not-so-amazing things pop up in the auto-complete area when you're searching for your brand, here are a few things that you can do to help increase the odds that good things will start showing up there instead:

• Step up your searches - And if you can, ask your friends, family, and co-workers to search too! What we mean by this is you are going to need to start searching for more positive queries related to your brand. Instead of "Brand X Scam Warning" search for "Brand X Mission Statement" or "New Product Releases by Brand X Get Rave Reviews" and so on.
• Use social media to make a statement - Social signals area hot topic, but they aren't all that's important about the use of social media for SEO. Having an active, positive social presence is always a good thing, and more activity means more potential for positive mentions of your brand.
• Create positive content on the web - While we don't suggest going out and making a bunch of stand-along websites or random pages on your website, we do think that you should be making an effort to put more positive content out there about your business. Tell people about all of the good things you've been doing as a company and let them know that you mean business!
• Visibility Boost - RankPop has developed this to do the two main factors which is creating quality content and using social media to then promote.  The bottom line is SEO is now about creating brand awareness and getting in front of your potential customers.

Someday, Your Facebook Friends May Determine Whether You Get a Loan

It’s no secret that Facebook has been gathering data about its users for years and uses that data to tailor the ads its serves them.

One day, it may also use that data to approve — or deny — its users a financial loan.

On Tuesday, the social network was granted a patent for authorizing and authenticating a user based on their social network on Facebook, as first spotted by SmartUp Legal. Though the document details multiple applications for the patent, including filtering out SPAM and helping with search queries, it also explicitly states that it could be used to approve a loan based on a user’s social connections:

When an individual applies for a loan, the lender examines the credit ratings of members of the individual’s social network who are connected to the individual through authorized nodes. If the average credit rating of these members is at least a minimum credit score, the lender continues to process the loan application. Otherwise, the loan application is rejected.

The patent is actually part of the portfolio Facebook purchased from Friendster — arguably the first modern social network — for $40 million in 2010. Friendster’s then-VP of engineering Christopher Lunt is cited as the inventor, and he’s now at health insurance shopping site GetInsured.

Though it’s unclear whether Facebook will ever use this patent for that application, as companies often file more than they actually put to use, it could have serious implications for certain people if it does. Using social media data isn’t exactly new — modern consumer lenders such as Affirm already take non-traditional data to estimate credit risk. Implementing this patent could help provide alternative lending, and it could also make it easier for predatory lenders to reach vulnerable people if the method described above is all that’s necessary for the loan.

Windows 10 will cost $119 if you're not eligible for Microsoft's free upgrade

Most people will get it free, but if not, it'll cost the same as Windows 8

Microsoft is giving the bulk of its Windows users a free upgrade to Windows 10 so long as they update within the first year. But for people who aren't eligible for that promotion, the company is maintaining status quo on single license pricing. If you've got an outdated version of Windows (anything older than 7) or build your own PCs, Microsoft's latest release will cost $119. That's for Windows 10 Home, and the Pro tier will be priced higher at $199. Windows 10 Home is the right choice for almost everyone, but if you need a feature that's only available in Pro, you can step up later by purchasing a $99 Windows 10 Pro Pack.

These prices are largely identical to those Microsoft chose for Windows 8. So while the free upgrade is a stellar deal for anyone that's kept up with the Windows release cycle, those planning to build their own system in the coming months and consumers who lack an eligible PC won't be seeing the same perks. (You can purchase most any new PC right now and get the free jump to Windows 10.) Microsoft plans to offer Windows 10 single licenses both online and in retail stores. The major operating system update is slated to launch on July 29th.

Build That Subscriber List: 5 Places For Your Sign Up Boxes

As an entrepreneur, you must know the importance of building a list. Without a list, you may be building nothing that lasts. You may be getting the sales but how much more could you be getting if you got very deliberate about growing your contact database. One of the quickest ways to grow your profits is to get your customers to buy and buy again from you.

Are you doing that? No, then you are leaving money on the table.

Here are a few key places to put your sign up box in order to get more people signing up to your subscriber list.

1. Your Home Page
   Do not let your prospects pass go without being shown your sign up box. As soon as they pop on over to your site, make sure it is the first thing that they see. Make it compelling - Offer a free giveaway that actually gets attention.


2. A feature box
   If your technical skill is up to it, get a feature box that tops every single page of your website or blog so that again, your prospects do not miss an opportunity to sign up for your list. If you are not technical, then get someone who is to help you out. It is worth paying out a little to make sure you are obtaining every single subscriber that you can. The money really is in your list.


3. The Top Of Your Sidebar
   Make it a priority item on your website. Let most pages have the sidebar on it and right at the top, ensure there is a way for your people to sign up to your list.


4. At the bottom of every post
   Again, make sure that there is a call to action on every post. Where possible, make the call to action specific to the detail in the post. Make it something that your people will fall over themselves to get access to, having read the post. You might even want to offer the post itself as a downloadable PDF. Ultimately test various ways to get people to respond and join your list.


5. In the middle of every post
   It is not overkill to break posts up with a call to action to join your mailing list. Have some HTML prepared so that you are ready to use it to get people onto your list without causing you to lose your line of thought when writing your blog post. Use the words "Just before you carry on reading, would you like more information on_______________, pop over here to get _________________" and then carry on with the post. Test and see how effective this is at building your list by having a different sign up box for each area on your site and keep a document open with the different HTML codes for each area. That way, you can see what is working and what is not working.

Important Factors to Consider When It Comes to Apple Repairs

Almost every person in the world has a mobile device of some kind these days. A high volume of these devices are Apple products. These contain the well-known iPhone and the iPads, which is the mobile tablet. Mobile devices offer convenience, they enable to stay in contact with colleagues, customers, family and friends while on the move, whether it's answering a call, receiving an email or emailing through an important document.

When something goes wrong with your mobile device, your world can come crashing down around you. The funny thing is that you won't realise how reliant you are on your Apple product until it stops working and then you are stuck without your contact list, without emails, without internet and you have to revert to your PC computer to help you manage your messages and work.

When it comes to Apple repairs you can't simple drop your device off at any store. You need to choose a reputable company that has years of knowledge and experience working specifically with Apple products. While you may assume that all mobile devices are created equal, they are different in the components they use, the systems that operate them and so much more. Finding a company that can fix your device and provide you with a good quality service is imperative to getting your device back up and running again without delay and reducing the risk of losing all your valuable data.

The first thing you are going to want to do is ensure the company you choose for Apple repairs has a good reputation in the mobile repairs industry. You can type the company name into your search engine and go through the results. Find online forums and independent review sites where past customers have written down their experiences and shared it with the world. This can help you narrow down your search and identify the companies that are going to be able to help you get back up and mobile in the best possible timeframe.

Experience is essential when it comes to Apple repairs. Many people will choose to take their device to an Apple store, which is an option, but this is the same as taking your vehicle for repairs at the dealership. It can be expensive and with the number of devices they work with daily, you could find yourself missing your phone or tablet for a week, two weeks or even a month or more, depending on what is wrong with it.

Further don't let price be your only deciding factor when it comes to Apple repairs. While price will play some role, you also want to ensure that you are getting the best repairs possible. Focus on the company, how long they have been offering this type of service, their reputation and their customer reviews. Use this to make your final decision, rather than focusing on price alone. Of course if all the companies you have selected for Apple repairs come out equal, then enable the price to play a role in your decision, combined with turnaround time.

Ensure the company you choose for Apple repairs can provide you with a guarantee once they have completed the work. They should believe in their own quality of work, sharing this trust with you in form of a guarantee. The guarantee should last a short while, enough time to ensure your device is working properly. In the event there is further issues, they should be willing to take back the device and carry out the work completely free of charge.

Will 3D Printers Become Commonplace Tools Like InkJet and Laser Printers?

I believe almost everyone has heard something about 3D Printing. This new technology can be considered to be one of the breakthroughs of this century even though it was initially created in the 1980s. It started popping up in the news several years ago. Usually, there were reports on 3D printed parts, 3D model objects, 3D printing in medicine, and even 3D printed houses. Nowadays, there is no doubt that the technology is growing rapidly and bringing a lot to manufacturing process and medicine. However, predictions about having at least one 3D printer in every household are still far away from the truth.

One of the main reasons 3D printers will hardly become as popular as ordinary printers in the next few years is a large variety of companies that create 3D printers. I am not against competition and believe it to be very good for the entire industry but if someone who is not very familiar with all the terminology (such as "extruders", "heating bed", "nozzle", and etc.) decides to buy a 3D printer, this person will be lost and after 5-10 minutes of reading endless reviews will simply close the browser and return to watching TV or - that much better - reading a book.

Another reason is the price of the 3D printers. You may say that someone somewhere has created a 3D printer using an ordinary projector and spent $50 on the other parts but this is not really the case I want to discuss here. Most of the good 3D printers cost a lot of money and many people cannot afford them (of course, there is always the option of applying for another loan). The good thing is that it is not necessary to buy a 3D printer, you can just type "3D printing service" into Google and see a list of websites where you can choose a 3D model and order to print it. I like 3D Hubs the most. Sometimes you may literally find another 3D hub right next door.

Even if a 3D printer is chosen, the next step would be to find a good filament for it. Believe me, it would be even more interesting than choosing a printer. Thank God that we have professional communities where experienced people can advise on what to buy and provide a good explanation of why they suggest this particular filament. Another thing is to browse catalogues where at least you can compare the prices of 3D filaments which is also not the last thing to consider.

Most likely, once the big sharks like HP enter the 3D game, they will help spread the technology everywhere. Still, one of the main questions is how can 3D printing become useful for ordinary people. If you look at different marketplaces, all you can find are different mini sculptures like the shark model from Katy Perry's performance during the last Super Bowl. Once again, there is no doubt that this technology is a real breakthrough for medical research, especially bioprinting but I suspect that it is highly unlikely that everyone will be able to 3D print a new ear or another body part at home. And there is no need to do it at home anyway, since we have hospitals.

You have also probably heard about food 3D printers. First time I read about it, I recalled a scene from The Fifth Element where Leeloo puts something in a microwave and pulls out a big juicy and crispy chicken in a few seconds. Who knows, maybe it was a bag with different 3D printer food filaments and the microwave had a built-in 3D printer in it. Looking at current printer models, it is hard to believe that it will somehow replace the well-known process of cooking.

Finalizing everything that was said above, I would add that I still believe in 3D printing technologies despite of 3D printers price and the other factors. Hopefully, this technology will make our world better, especially in the field of medicine.

Paperless or Paperlite?

You'd think that nearly 38 years on we'd be there - but in reality the paperless office is a myth. Businesses want a 'less paper' solution not quite as far as 'paperless' as hard copies still play a vital role in business success. Many firms and organisations still need to produce different types of documents for print, such as draft copies, official letters, and internal documents. The emerging trend seems to be the businesses desire to become more efficient, cost-effective and information secure.

The approach many firms are taking to achieve these goals is implementing print management software. These systems are often administered and implemented centrally, giving key business stakeholders increased control over all print output.

Organisations are able to understand where and how their money is spent through the ability to configure existing print reports and build entirely new ones to offer the necessary insight. These solutions all for such monitoring and visibility that can in turn result in cost-savings through an in-depth analysis of how users are printing.

Once key areas for improvement are identified, tools can be implemented to combat these challenges. Cost obstacles can be averted through the simple introduction of rules based printing, and the effectiveness of these rules can also then be measured - demonstrating very real ROI. This is particularly important for organizations that print a variety of different types of documents. These print management tools can be set up to direct documents to certain trays and printing styles; diverting larger print jobs to the most efficient device - these rules that can be suggested or enforced on users.

Software like Kappris presents users with a print dialogue box with a number of easy to use drop-down menus giving users the ability to switch to several more cost effective printing options. These products can also automatically detect the type of document being printed, whether it's a letter, internal document, email or sales proposal, and will automatically route these documents to the correct device with the correct print settings. So letters will always print on headed paper, internal documents on lower quality paper and sales proposal on that expensive glossy A3 - all this helps to reduce waste, improve efficiency and control excessive costs.

Simply speaking, these solutions are like placing an organization's print environment under a very powerful microscope. You'll be able to see what's going where and how and then you're provided with the necessary tools to rectify the problems - the unnecessary spend, waste and use. Offering such control and confidence allows organizations to create an effective print strategy that will give transparency over the way users print through successful print management resulting in reduction in waste, increasing efficiency and a reduction in excessive costs. Whilst we're not quite completely digital, these solutions go a long way to ensuring that anything we do actually print, is completely necessary and in the most effective format.

24 Steps To Rank Your Blog On Google’s 1st Page

Matt Cutts, the lead of Google’s web spam team, spoke about why WordPress is the best optimized blogging platform for search engines and gave some tips for all bloggers on how to start getting search traffic. It is a classic WordCamp talk that has stood the test of time and is a great introduction to SEO for any blogger. In short the advice is to produce a lot of quality content and follow a few simple tips in order to optimize your site and get better in Google’s results.

WordPress is “a fantastic choice”

Matt Cutts praised WordPress for being SEO-friendly platform. WordPress automatically solves a ton of issues bloggers might have. It is a fantastic piece of software, makes your site easily crawlable by search engines, solves some 80-90% of mechanics of SEO and is the first big step anyone can take towards creating a popular online business. Watch the full presentation and see the full list of tips below:

What bloggers need to know about Google

Google provides value to the searchers by displaying the most relevant and useful content in the search results. The goal is to reduce and eliminate ranking of unsubstantial and useless content. Algorithms such as Panda extensively evaluate different aspects of a site to assess its value and quality. As these algorithms constantly evolve Google’s advice for content publishers is to focus on creating the best user experience instead of working on tweaks and patches to keep up with the latest algorithmic update.

Google cares about relevancy and reputation when choosing which sites to rank in their listings. You want your site to be a very reputable place with a lot of relevant quality content about your topic. Reputation is external, it is what people say about you in social media and how people link to you from their websites. It is about the number of links and the importance of sites that link to you. Relevancy is internal, it is the stuff that you write and create content about. This is what you need to do:

• Create quality content. For gaining a good reputation and good links, high quality, linkable and sharable content makes a difference. More on how to do this is further down in this article.

• Post new content often. By producing more content you have more material that search engines can find. It also helps get people to come and visit you more often.

• Be natural. To be relevant you need to think about what your target group would type into Google to find the topic you write about. Create content in regular English, in language that people in your target group speak.

• Research keywords. Use Google Keyword Planner to find the demand for the different keywords. When you know in-demand keywords that you want to target, include those keywords naturally when writing your articles.

• Use Analytics for ideas. Look into your Google Analytics data to see where people are going on your page in order to get ideas for new topics to create content about.

• Revisit older content. Some of your content might have been published a year ago but still gets traffic and ranks in search engines. Revisit your older content, update it, make sure it is still relevant and correct.

• Link quality not quantity. It is not all about the number of links pointing to you though, it is about the quality and importance of places that point to you. The higher the quality of a site that links to you the more importance that link gets.

• Get free links. In Webmaster Tools go into “Crawl Errors” to find links to non-existent pages on your site. See “Linked From” to identify sites that linked to these pages and either fix the page or contact the author of the link to get them to update it.

• Avoid shortcuts and scams. There are no easy ways and tricks to the top of search engines like some people will promise you. Follow the principles in this post instead.

How to optimize WordPress

As seen above Matt Cutts’ advice is not to worry about small things, but to spend time on producing great and targeted content that your audience would share and link to. There are though few things he recommends you do in your WordPress admin to optimize it. These are the things you should do after installing a new WordPress blog:

• www vs non-www. Create a permanent redirect of your domain name. Decide what is the URL of your website. In Settings – General choose either www version or non-www version and stick with it. If you decide your main URL is yourblog.com (without www) make sure to always and from anywhere link to yourblog.com, and not to www.yourblog.com or any other alternative. Also set your preferred domain in Google Webmaster Tools.

• Create a sitemap. Google uses your XML sitemap to learn about the structure of your site and to hopefully increase the exposure your pages get in its results. Install a sitemap plugin, activate it and submit it to Google Search Console.

• Pretty permalinks. Create a custom permalink structure of your posts and pages. Having keywords from your post titles in your URL is a very important step in ranking well in search engines. Go into Settings – Permalinks and choose “Post Name” or “Custom Structure”: /%category%/%postname%/

• Descriptive categories. If you use categories when publishing your posts, make sure that categories have keywords in them as well.

• Change the URL. Have a post title be different than the URL itself to help cover few more keyword alternations that you couldn’t cover if they were both identical. Use the “Edit” button on the side of your permalink when writing a new post to change the URL.

• Show related posts at the end of your articles to reduce bounce rate and increase page views and time spent on site. Several plugins are available for this including YARPP.

• Your design needs to be simple, effective and clutter-free. It needs to help your visitors explore more.

• Use a mobile-responsive design. Google is expanding the use of mobile-friendliness as an important ranking signal. Find a quality theme with a clean code, clean CSS and mobile responsive design. Help on finding the right design theme is here.

• Fancy, complicated navigation tends to turn visitors away quite quickly. And the Google crawler doesn’t recognize text contained in images, Flash navigation or links contained within Javascript. So keep it simple and use good old text based menu navigation towards the top of your blog. Most WordPress themes are optimized for this so in most cases you will be fine out of the box.

• Upgrade your software to keep your site secure. Older versions of WordPress are easier to hack and that will negatively affect your site. More tips on making your site secure.

• Speed up the loading time. Make sure your site is fast to load as that is another factor that contributes to people staying longer. See here how to do that.

• Check for broken links. Search engines and your readers do not like broken links so use the Broken Link Checker plugin to discover and fix broken links. It is a simple plugin that automates the process for you.

• Use HTTPS instead of HTTP. Google prefers encrypted and secure sites as these protect the users better.

• Authorship in Google’s search results is no longer relevant as Google has dropped the authorship functionality on August 28th 2014.

5 elements of a user-friendly (and Google-friendly) website

Google has a list of evergreen questions that you can use to assess the quality of your site. Reviewing these questions will help you figure out what to improve in order to regain your rankings, get back to that coveted first page and future proof your site. I’ve split the 23 questions into five categories:

How to create quality content and add substantial value

Great content is key to your search rankings. Without great content you will not have any visitors, loyal followers and any traffic from search engines.

Google constantly preaches about high-quality vs low-quality content. Google wants you to focus on creating high quality content. Quality content means original content such as reports, analysis, insights and research. Low quality means content with no value added to the visitor, material that is not useful or that is copied from another source.

The way some bloggers and content creators go wrong with Google is by being so obsessed with search engine optimization that they neglect the importance of quality. Forget about SEO. Start with your audience in mind. Focus on creating the best experience for people that are interested in your topic and that are using your site.

Here is how you can create quality content that gets visitors, social media shares and links:

• Be interesting. Nobody wants to spend time on or share boring content. Thrill and delight your target audience. Your content needs to engage and grab the interest within the first couple seconds.

• Provide a useful service. Help people. Sort their issues.

• Do original research and reporting. Don’t just repeat what everyone else is saying, create some value on top.

• Give great information, tutorial and guides. Be substantial, insightful and comprehensive. Teach and educate your audience on how to do something.

• Make lists. People love lists.

• Publish videos. Videos are very sharable and linkable, people enjoy watching them, they spread fast and tend to rank very well in search engine results.

• Create controversy. Make people respond and take action. Make them either agree or disagree with what you’re saying.

• Create content that is timeless and does not expire or become irrelevant few days or weeks after being published.

• Start experimenting with long form content that mixes textual storytelling with different multimedia aspects. Introduce high quality pictures into your content. Present data and information in nice looking infographics.

For more information check out my complete guide on creating compelling and sharable content.

Quality control measures

You need to put strict quality control measures in place when publishing content. Your content needs to be of such high standards that it could be published in a magazine or in a book.

• You should double and triple check everything before publishing. Have a checklist of things to do before posting an article and actually take the time to go through the list. Use a spell checker. Look for typos and sentences that don’t read well. Check your facts and sources. Review the links.

• Get a second pair of eyes to review your content and be an editor for you. Second opinion will help you improve and spot mistakes that you may have missed.

Trustworthiness

Google values trust and wants to rank trustworthy sites. This means that you need to build a trustworthy site. But how do you actually make a site that is trusted by people?

• Design plays a big role in building trust. Start by having a professional looking design. Using WordPress is a good first step as with it you have access to a large selection of great designs. Look for something clean, pretty to look at, fast to load and mobile friendly as described earlier.

• Personalize your site. Present yourself, show your face, tell your story and explain why you are worth listening to. What are your achievements? What is your experience? One of the main elements you need to get right is your about page.

• If you are a company include full company information, address, phone number and other contact details.

• If you are providing services or selling products include testimonials and reviews from real customers and people.

• Work on the social proof. Build your following and shares on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. This is not about buying followers. It is about creating real and lasting connections with people in your audience. Display your social media profiles, your follower counts and number of shares your content gets on your site by using one of the many WordPress plugins.

• Limit the number of banner ads, especially those prominent banners above the fold. Banners are not the best monetization method as you need tons of pageviews in order to get a decent income and those numbers are out of reach for most. If possible remove banner ads entirely and focus on other revenue sources which have more potential such as creating your own product or selling services.

Authority

Authority goes hand in hand with trust. What can you do to make yourself and your site more authoritative?

• First of all you should actually be an authority. You must know your topic. Knowledge and experience helps you create great content that will get other people to take notice, share your content in social media and link to it from other sites. Links from quality sites and social media shares are keys to becoming a recognized authority.

• Proactively reach out to other webmasters and influential users. Give people a reason to link to you. Show them why they should interview or in any other way feature you on their sites.

• Guest posting on the authoritative sites in your field is another great way of getting quality links. Remember that this is not about writing bad content or outsourcing your content production and posting on any site that will accept you. This is about strategically choosing a handful of popular and relevant sites and posting great articles that will drive views and social media engagement.

• Include the list of sites and other media that you have been featured in so your visitors are aware of your status and your authority.

Audience focused

• Common advice pre-Panda was to publish large quantity of posts in order to rank for a variety of long tail keyword phrases. Post-Panda having less pages (but of higher value) can actually result in more organic traffic from Google.

• Don’t just rely on keyword research and on publishing weak articles targeting keyword phrases people search for. Don’t post content on topics that you don’t care about, that you have nothing interesting and useful to say about.

• Review your entire content archive as low quality content on parts of your site can impact the rankings of the rest of the site. Are there any very short articles? Are there bad and spammy guest posts that you have featured? Are there posts that you copied from another site? Do a search on Google for “site:yourdomain.com” to get a list of pages from your domain that Google ranks.

• Review all the page and don’t be afraid to remove any bad content. Spend a lot of time and effort on adding to, enhancing and improving the content on individual pages that are short, shallow and not extensive.

• Merge similar articles to create “ultimate guide” type of posts where you put all the important information on one topic in one post. Aim for one ultimate guide per individual topic area instead of having several smaller and shorter articles on that one topic. It’s quality over quantity.

That’s it. Straight from the horse’s mouth. Google is the biggest search engine and a very important referral of traffic for most online publishers. These SEO tips are very valuable in order for your site to get ranked and get traffic from search.