An 8-Point Checklist for Debugging Strange Technical SEO Problems

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Occasionally, a problem will land on your desk that's a little out of the ordinary. Something where you don't have an easy answer. You go to your brain and your brain returns nothing.

These problems can’t be solved with a little bit of keyword research and basic technical configuration. These are the types of technical SEO problems where the rabbit hole goes deep.

The very nature of these situations defies a checklist, but it's useful to have one for the same reason we have them on planes: even the best of us can and will forget things, and a checklist will provvide you with places to dig.

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Fancy some examples of strange SEO problems? Here are four examples to mull over while you read. We’ll answer them at the end.

1. Why wasn’t Google showing 5-star markup on product pages?

• The pages had server-rendered product markup and they also had Feefo product markup, including ratings being attached client-side.


• The Feefo ratings snippet was successfully rendered in Fetch & Render, plus the mobile-friendly tool.


• When you put the rendered DOM into the structured data testing tool, both pieces of structured data appeared without errors.

2. Why wouldn’t Bing display 5-star markup on review pages, when Google would?

• The review pages of client & competitors all had rating rich snippets on Google.


• All the competitors had rating rich snippets on Bing; however, the client did not.


• The review pages had correctly validating ratings schema on Google’s structured data testing tool, but did not on Bing.

3. Why were pages getting indexed with a no-index tag?

• Pages with a server-side-rendered no-index tag in the head were being indexed by Google across a large template for a client.

4. Why did any page on a website return a 302 about 20–50% of the time, but only for crawlers?

• A website was randomly throwing 302 errors.


• This never happened in the browser and only in crawlers.


• User agent made no difference; location or cookies also made no difference.

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Finally, a quick note. It’s entirely possible that some of this checklist won’t apply to every scenario. That’s totally fine. It’s meant to be a process for everything you could check, not everything you should check.

The pre-checklist check

Does it actually matter?

Does this problem only affect a tiny amount of traffic? Is it only on a handful of pages and you already have a big list of other actions that will help the website? You probably need to just drop it.

I know, I hate it too. I also want to be right and dig these things out. But in six months' time, when you've solved twenty complex SEO rabbit holes and your website has stayed flat because you didn't re-write the title tags, you're still going to get fired.

But hopefully that's not the case, in which case, onwards!

Where are you seeing the problem?

We don’t want to waste a lot of time. Have you heard this wonderful saying?: “If you hear hooves, it’s probably not a zebra.”

The process we’re about to go through is fairly involved and it’s entirely up to your discretion if you want to go ahead. Just make sure you’re not overlooking something obvious that would solve your problem. Here are some common problems I’ve come across that were mostly horses.

1. You’re underperforming from where you should be.
   
   1. When a site is under-performing, people love looking for excuses. Weird Google nonsense can be quite a handy thing to blame. In reality, it’s typically some combination of a poor site, higher competition, and a failing brand. Horse.
   
   


2. You’ve suffered a sudden traffic drop.
   
   1. Something has certainly happened, but this is probably not the checklist for you. There are plenty of common-sense checklists for this. I’ve written about diagnosing traffic drops recently — check that out first.
   
   


3. The wrong page is ranking for the wrong query.
   
   1. In my experience (which should probably preface this entire post), this is usually a basic problem where a site has poor targeting or a lot of cannibalization. Probably a horse.
   
   

Factors which make it more likely that you’ve got a more complex problem which require you to don your debugging shoes:

• A website that has a lot of client-side JavaScript.


• Bigger, older websites with more legacy.


• Your problem is related to a new Google property or feature where there is less community knowledge.

1. Start by picking some example pages.

Pick a couple of example pages to work with — ones that exhibit whatever problem you're seeing. No, this won't be representative, but we'll come back to that in a bit.

Of course, if it only affects a tiny number of pages then it might actually be representative, in which case we're good. It definitely matters, right? You didn't just skip the step above? OK, cool, let's move on.

2. Can Google crawl the page once?

First we’re checking whether Googlebot has access to the page, which we’ll define as a 200 status code.

We’ll check in four different ways to expose any common issues:

1. Robots.txt: Open up Search Console and check in the robots.txt validator.


2. User agent: Open Dev Tools and verify that you can open the URL with both Googlebot and Googlebot Mobile.
   
   1. To get the user agent switcher, open Dev Tools.
   
   
   2. Check the console drawer is open (the toggle is the Escape key)
   
   
   3. Hit the … and open "Network conditions"
   
   
   4. Here, select your user agent!
   
   

1. IP Address: Verify that you can access the page with the mobile testing tool. (This will come from one of the IPs used by Google; any checks you do from your computer won't.)


2. Country: The mobile testing tool will visit from US IPs, from what I've seen, so we get two birds with one stone. But Googlebot will occasionally crawl from non-American IPs, so it’s also worth using a VPN to double-check whether you can access the site from any other relevant countries.
   
   1. I’ve used HideMyAss for this before, but whatever VPN you have will work fine.
   
   

We should now have an idea whether or not Googlebot is struggling to fetch the page once.

Have we found any problems yet?

If we can re-create a failed crawl with a simple check above, then it’s likely Googlebot is probably failing consistently to fetch our page and it’s typically one of those basic reasons.

But it might not be. Many problems are inconsistent because of the nature of technology. ;)

3. Are we telling Google two different things?

Next up: Google can find the page, but are we confusing it by telling it two different things?

This is most commonly seen, in my experience, because someone has messed up the indexing directives.

By "indexing directives," I’m referring to any tag that defines the correct index status or page in the index which should rank. Here’s a non-exhaustive list:

• No-index


• Canonical


• Mobile alternate tags


• AMP alternate tags

An example of providing mixed messages would be:

• No-indexing page A


• Page B canonicals to page A

Or:

• Page A has a canonical in a header to A with a parameter


• Page A has a canonical in the body to A without a parameter

If we’re providing mixed messages, then it’s not clear how Google will respond. It’s a great way to start seeing strange results.

Good places to check for the indexing directives listed above are:

• Sitemap
  
  • Example: Mobile alternate tags can sit in a sitemap
  
  


• HTTP headers
  
  • Example: Canonical and meta robots can be set in headers.
  
  


• HTML head
  
  • This is where you’re probably looking, you’ll need this one for a comparison.
  
  


• JavaScript-rendered vs hard-coded directives
  
  • You might be setting one thing in the page source and then rendering another with JavaScript, i.e. you would see something different in the HTML source from the rendered DOM.
  
  


• Google Search Console settings
  
  • There are Search Console settings for ignoring parameters and country localization that can clash with indexing tags on the page.
  
  

A quick aside on rendered DOM

This page has a lot of mentions of the rendered DOM on it (18, if you’re curious). Since we’ve just had our first, here’s a quick recap about what that is.

When you load a webpage, the first request is the HTML. This is what you see in the HTML source (right-click on a webpage and click View Source).

This is before JavaScript has done anything to the page. This didn’t use to be such a big deal, but now so many websites rely heavily on JavaScript that the most people quite reasonably won’t trust the the initial HTML.

Rendered DOM is the technical term for a page, when all the JavaScript has been rendered and all the page alterations made. You can see this in Dev Tools.

In Chrome you can get that by right clicking and hitting inspect element (or Ctrl + Shift + I). The Elements tab will show the DOM as it’s being rendered. When it stops flickering and changing, then you’ve got the rendered DOM!

4. Can Google crawl the page consistently?

To see what Google is seeing, we're going to need to get log files. At this point, we can check to see how it is accessing the page.

Aside: Working with logs is an entire post in and of itself. I’ve written a guide to log analysis with BigQuery, I’d also really recommend trying out Screaming Frog Log Analyzer, which has done a great job of handling a lot of the complexity around logs.

When we’re looking at crawling there are three useful checks we can do:

1. Status codes: Plot the status codes over time. Is Google seeing different status codes than you when you check URLs?


2. Resources: Is Google downloading all the resources of the page?
   
   1. Is it downloading all your site-specific JavaScript and CSS files that it would need to generate the page?
   
   


3. Page size follow-up: Take the max and min of all your pages and resources and diff them. If you see a difference, then Google might be failing to fully download all the resources or pages. (Hat tip to @ohgm, where I first heard this neat tip).

Have we found any problems yet?

If Google isn't getting 200s consistently in our log files, but we can access the page fine when we try, then there is clearly still some differences between Googlebot and ourselves. What might those differences be?

1. It will crawl more than us


2. It is obviously a bot, rather than a human pretending to be a bot


3. It will crawl at different times of day

This means that:

• If our website is doing clever bot blocking, it might be able to differentiate between us and Googlebot.


• Because Googlebot will put more stress on our web servers, it might behave differently. When websites have a lot of bots or visitors visiting at once, they might take certain actions to help keep the website online. They might turn on more computers to power the website (this is called scaling), they might also attempt to rate-limit users who are requesting lots of pages, or serve reduced versions of pages.


• Servers run tasks periodically; for example, a listings website might run a daily task at 01:00 to clean up all it’s old listings, which might affect server performance.

Working out what’s happening with these periodic effects is going to be fiddly; you’re probably going to need to talk to a back-end developer.

Depending on your skill level, you might not know exactly where to lead the discussion. A useful structure for a discussion is often to talk about how a request passes through your technology stack and then look at the edge cases we discussed above.

• What happens to the servers under heavy load?


• When do important scheduled tasks happen?

Two useful pieces of information to enter this conversation with:

1. Depending on the regularity of the problem in the logs, it is often worth trying to re-create the problem by attempting to crawl the website with a crawler at the same speed/intensity that Google is using to see if you can find/cause the same issues. This won’t always be possible depending on the size of the site, but for some sites it will be. Being able to consistently re-create a problem is the best way to get it solved.


2. If you can’t, however, then try to provide the exact periods of time where Googlebot was seeing the problems. This will give the developer the best chance of tying the issue to other logs to let them debug what was happening.

If Google can crawl the page consistently, then we move onto our next step.

5. Does Google see what I can see on a one-off basis?

We know Google is crawling the page correctly. The next step is to try and work out what Google is seeing on the page. If you’ve got a JavaScript-heavy website you’ve probably banged your head against this problem before, but even if you don’t this can still sometimes be an issue.

We follow the same pattern as before. First, we try to re-create it once. The following tools will let us do that:

• Fetch & Render
  
  • Shows: Rendered DOM in an image, but only returns the page source HTML for you to read.
  
  


• Mobile-friendly test
  
  • Shows: Rendered DOM and returns rendered DOM for you to read.
  
  
  • Not only does this show you rendered DOM, but it will also track any console errors.
  
  

Is there a difference between Fetch & Render, the mobile-friendly testing tool, and Googlebot? Not really, with the exception of timeouts (which is why we have our later steps!). Here’s the full analysis of the difference between them, if you’re interested.

Once we have the output from these, we compare them to what we ordinarily see in our browser. I’d recommend using a tool like Diff Checker to compare the two.

Have we found any problems yet?

If we encounter meaningful differences at this point, then in my experience it’s typically either from JavaScript or cookies

Why?

We can isolate each of these by:

• Loading the page with no cookies. This can be done simply by loading the page with a fresh incognito session and comparing the rendered DOM here against the rendered DOM in our ordinary browser.


• Use the mobile testing tool to see the page with Chrome 41 and compare against the rendered DOM we normally see with Inspect Element.

Yet again we can compare them using something like Diff Checker, which will allow us to spot any differences. You might want to use an HTML formatter to help line them up better.

We can also see the JavaScript errors thrown using the Mobile-Friendly Testing Tool, which may prove particularly useful if you’re confident in your JavaScript.

If, using this knowledge and these tools, we can recreate the bug, then we have something that can be replicated and it’s easier for us to hand off to a developer as a bug that will get fixed.

If we’re seeing everything is correct here, we move on to the next step.

6. What is Google actually seeing?

It’s possible that what Google is seeing is different from what we recreate using the tools in the previous step. Why? A couple main reasons:

• Overloaded servers can have all sorts of strange behaviors. For example, they might be returning 200 codes, but perhaps with a default page.


• JavaScript is rendered separately from pages being crawled and Googlebot may spend less time rendering JavaScript than a testing tool.


• There is often a lot of caching in the creation of web pages and this can cause issues.

We’ve gotten this far without talking about time! Pages don’t get crawled instantly, and crawled pages don’t get indexed instantly.

Quick sidebar: What is caching?

Caching is often a problem if you get to this stage. Unlike JS, it’s not talked about as much in our community, so it’s worth some more explanation in case you’re not familiar. Caching is storing something so it’s available more quickly next time.

When you request a webpage, a lot of calculations happen to generate that page. If you then refreshed the page when it was done, it would be incredibly wasteful to just re-run all those same calculations. Instead, servers will often save the output and serve you the output without re-running them. Saving the output is called caching.

Why do we need to know this? Well, we’re already well out into the weeds at this point and so it’s possible that a cache is misconfigured and the wrong information is being returned to users.

There aren’t many good beginner resources on caching which go into more depth. However, I found this article on caching basics to be one of the more friendly ones. It covers some of the basic types of caching quite well.

How can we see what Google is actually working with?

• Google’s cache
  
  • Shows: Source code
  
  
  • While this won’t show you the rendered DOM, it is showing you the raw HTML Googlebot actually saw when visiting the page. You’ll need to check this with JS disabled; otherwise, on opening it, your browser will run all the JS on the cached version.
  
  


• Site searches for specific content
  
  • Shows: A tiny snippet of rendered content.
  
  
  • By searching for a specific phrase on a page, e.g. inurl:example.com/url “only JS rendered text”, you can see if Google has manage to index a specific snippet of content. Of course, it only works for visible text and misses a lot of the content, but it's better than nothing!
  
  
  • Better yet, do the same thing with a rank tracker, to see if it changes over time.
  
  


• Storing the actual rendered DOM
  
  • Shows: Rendered DOM
  
  
  • Alex from DeepCrawl has written about saving the rendered DOM from Googlebot. The TL;DR version: Google will render JS and post to endpoints, so we can get it to submit the JS-rendered version of a page that it sees. We can then save that, examine it, and see what went wrong.
  
  

Have we found any problems yet?

Again, once we’ve found the problem, it’s time to go and talk to a developer. The advice for this conversation is identical to the last one — everything I said there still applies.

The other knowledge you should go into this conversation armed with: how Google works and where it can struggle. While your developer will know the technical ins and outs of your website and how it’s built, they might not know much about how Google works. Together, this can help you reach the answer more quickly.

The obvious source for this are resources or presentations given by Google themselves. Of the various resources that have come out, I’ve found these two to be some of the more useful ones for giving insight into first principles:

But there is often a difference between statements Google will make and what the SEO community sees in practice. All the SEO experiments people tirelessly perform in our industry can also help shed some insight. There are far too many list here, but here are two good examples:

7. Could Google be aggregating your website across others?

If we’ve reached this point, we’re pretty happy that our website is running smoothly. But not all problems can be solved just on your website; sometimes you’ve got to look to the wider landscape and the SERPs around it.

Most commonly, what I’m looking for here is:

• Similar/duplicate content to the pages that have the problem.
  
  • This could be intentional duplicate content (e.g. syndicating content) or unintentional (competitors' scraping or accidentally indexed sites).
  
  

Either way, they’re nearly always found by doing exact searches in Google. I.e. taking a relatively specific piece of content from your page and searching for it in quotes.

Have you found any problems yet?

If you find a number of other exact copies, then it’s possible they might be causing issues.

The best description I’ve come up with for “have you found a problem here?” is: do you think Google is aggregating together similar pages and only showing one? And if it is, is it picking the wrong page?

This doesn’t just have to be on traditional Google search. You might find a version of it on Google Jobs, Google News, etc.

To give an example, if you are a reseller, you might find content isn’t ranking because there's another, more authoritative reseller who consistently posts the same listings first.

Sometimes you’ll see this consistently and straightaway, while other times the aggregation might be changing over time. In that case, you’ll need a rank tracker for whatever Google property you’re working on to see it.

Jon Earnshaw from Pi Datametrics gave an excellent talk on the latter (around suspicious SERP flux) which is well worth watching.

Once you’ve found the problem, you’ll probably need to experiment to find out how to get around it, but the easiest factors to play with are usually:

• De-duplication of content


• Speed of discovery (you can often improve by putting up a 24-hour RSS feed of all the new content that appears)


• Lowering syndication

8. A roundup of some other likely suspects

If you’ve gotten this far, then we’re sure that:

• Google can consistently crawl our pages as intended.


• We’re sending Google consistent signals about the status of our page.


• Google is consistently rendering our pages as we expect.


• Google is picking the correct page out of any duplicates that might exist on the web.

And your problem still isn’t solved?

And it is important?

Well, shoot.

Feel free to hire us…?

As much as I’d love for this article to list every SEO problem ever, that’s not really practical, so to finish off this article let’s go through two more common gotchas and principles that didn’t really fit in elsewhere before the answers to those four problems we listed at the beginning.

Invalid/poorly constructed HTML

You and Googlebot might be seeing the same HTML, but it might be invalid or wrong. Googlebot (and any crawler, for that matter) has to provide workarounds when the HTML specification isn't followed, and those can sometimes cause strange behavior.

The easiest way to spot it is either by eye-balling the rendered DOM tools or using an HTML validator.

The W3C validator is very useful, but will throw up a lot of errors/warnings you won’t care about. The closest I can give to a one-line of summary of which ones are useful is to:

• Look for errors


• Ignore anything to do with attributes (won’t always apply, but is often true).

The classic example of this is breaking the head.

An iframe isn't allowed in the head code, so Chrome will end the head and start the body. Unfortunately, it takes the title and canonical with it, because they fall after it — so Google can't read them. The head code should have ended in a different place.

Oliver Mason wrote a good post that explains an even more subtle version of this in breaking the head quietly.

When in doubt, diff

Never underestimate the power of trying to compare two things line by line with a diff from something like Diff Checker. It won’t apply to everything, but when it does it’s powerful.

For example, if Google has suddenly stopped showing your featured markup, try to diff your page against a historical version either in your QA environment or from the Wayback Machine.

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Answers to our original 4 questions

Time to answer those questions. These are all problems we’ve had clients bring to us at Distilled.

1. Why wasn’t Google showing 5-star markup on product pages?

Google was seeing both the server-rendered markup and the client-side-rendered markup; however, the server-rendered side was taking precedence.

Removing the server-rendered markup meant the 5-star markup began appearing.

2. Why wouldn’t Bing display 5-star markup on review pages, when Google would?

The problem came from the references to schema.org.

 <div itemscope="" itemtype="https://schema.org/Movie">
 </div>
 <p> <h1 itemprop="name">Avatar</h1>
 </p>
 <p> <span>Director: <span itemprop="director">James Cameron</span> (born August 16, 1954)</span>
 </p>
 <p> <span itemprop="genre">Science fiction</span>
 </p>
 <p> <a href="http://moz.com/movies/avatar-theatrical-trailer.html" itemprop="trailer">Trailer</a>
 </p>
 <p></div>
 </p>

We diffed our markup against our competitors and the only difference was we’d referenced the HTTPS version of schema.org in our itemtype, which caused Bing to not support it.

C’mon, Bing.

3. Why were pages getting indexed with a no-index tag?

The answer for this was in this post. This was a case of breaking the head.

The developers had installed some ad-tech in the head and inserted an non-standard tag, i.e. not:

• <title>


• <style>


• <base>


• <link>


• <meta>


• <script>


• <noscript>

This caused the head to end prematurely and the no-index tag was left in the body where it wasn’t read.

4. Why did any page on a website return a 302 about 20–50% of the time, but only for crawlers?

This took some time to figure out. The client had an old legacy website that has two servers, one for the blog and one for the rest of the site. This issue started occurring shortly after a migration of the blog from a subdomain (blog.client.com) to a subdirectory (client.com/blog/…).

At surface level everything was fine; if a user requested any individual page, it all looked good. A crawl of all the blog URLs to check they’d redirected was fine.

But we noticed a sharp increase of errors being flagged in Search Console, and during a routine site-wide crawl, many pages that were fine when checked manually were causing redirect loops.

We checked using Fetch and Render, but once again, the pages were fine.

Eventually, it turned out that when a non-blog page was requested very quickly after a blog page (which, realistically, only a crawler is fast enough to achieve), the request for the non-blog page would be sent to the blog server.

These would then be caught by a long-forgotten redirect rule, which 302-redirected deleted blog posts (or other duff URLs) to the root. This, in turn, was caught by a blanket HTTP to HTTPS 301 redirect rule, which would be requested from the blog server again, perpetuating the loop.

For example, requesting https://www.client.com/blog/ followed quickly enough by https://www.client.com/category/ would result in:

• 302 to http://www.client.com - This was the rule that redirected deleted blog posts to the root


• 301 to https://www.client.com - This was the blanket HTTPS redirect


• 302 to http://www.client.com - The blog server doesn’t know about the HTTPS non-blog homepage and it redirects back to the HTTP version. Rinse and repeat.

This caused the periodic 302 errors and it meant we could work with their devs to fix the problem.

What are the best brainteasers you've had?

Let’s hear them, people. What problems have you run into? Let us know in the comments.

Also credit to @RobinLord8, @TomAnthonySEO, @THCapper, @samnemzer, and @sergeystefoglo_ for help with this piece.

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How to Market to Someone -- and You Know Who That Is -- Who's Constantly Online

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Almost half of America's teens are constantly online. As a marketer, what are you going to do about that?

June 18, 2018

5 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

A recent Pew Research study discovered that almost half of America's teens are online “almost constantly.” In that study, 45 percent of respondents confessed that obsession -- a figure that has almost doubled since the same study was conducted three years ago.

Related: Do You Know Where Your Buyers Hang Out Online?

What do they do online so much, you ask? Mostly they hang out on social media platforms. Youtube, Instagram and Snapchat took the first three spots among the most popular networks for teens. The largest social network, Facebook, landed in the fourth spot.

So, given this information, as these teens approach adulthood, how do you market to the growing Gen-Z cohort? Here are some ideas.

Be where they are.

Even though Snapchat has noticeably lost its appeal to the masses, teens named it the second-most-used platform. Also, notice that Facebook, the first network that comes to mind when we adults talk about social media, took fourth place, which is pretty disappointing for that megasite.

In fact, teens are getting away from their parents’ social platforms. Not only do they like to have their “cool” platforms where they connect with peers, they are also much more open to experimentation. When they adopt a new platform, they do not stress over saving their content, backing up their images and so forth. They jump right into it.

So, if you are marketing to teens or want your company to stay "cool" with Gen-Z, you have to be as adventurous and experimental as they are. Is some obscure network suddenly getting traction with teens? You'd better be there. Not sure how to market your business on a platform where you overlay your clips with music? You'd better figure it out, and fast.

Skeptical about how ephemeral content can help you make a lasting impression? You'd better be comfortable constantly creating lots of content to stay top of mind. That latter tip brings me to my next point.

Related:  Ways Marketers Can Reach Gen Z

Accept the need to create more content than you could possibly use.

So, let's return to that startling 45 percent of teens who are online “almost constantly.” What does that mean? It means they log on (maybe they never logged off) at least more than several times a day. With that much time spent online, teens want to be entertained, educated and engaged. They don’t want to see that same old blog post of yours every time they go onto their Instagram.

Besides, the algorithms that almost every network now has will not allow you to show that same post over and over again. So you have to adapt and create a ton of content constantly and consistently. (Pssst ... Upcycling can become your best friend.) You also can’t get hung up on the fact that the half life of your content is 30 minutes, at best.

Adopt a variety of media.

Because teens are constantly online and looking to be continuously engaged, you have to adapt a variety of media on your content mix. It's not surprising that the video-sharing platform YouTube was named the most used by teens, followed by the image-first network Instagram and then by Snapchat, a platform that has introduced the concept of ephemeral content. You have to become very comfortable sharing your brand story through videos, images, snaps and music clips and rely less on somebody reading your stories.

"The social media environment among teens is quite different from what it was just three years ago," research associate Monica Anderson, the lead author of the report, said in a statement. "Back then, teens' social media use mostly revolved around Facebook. Today, their habits revolve less around a single platform."

Bottom line

Throw out the window everything you thought you knew about marketing. The new generations are disrupting all the norms with their habits. They are more connected than ever. They are truly native in the digital space. They know how to research information and find what they need.

They are also looking to be entertained and educated at all times. Their engagement with your content will quickly let you know whether they find it worthy of their time or not, which -- of course -- will be quickly picked up by the algorithms.

And by looking at the sheer amount of information teens consume every single day, you have to find ways to stand out above the noise. Oh, and one more thing: You have to do it with taste. The new generations of consumers do not like when ads are being pushed down their throats.

So get ready to pump out large volumes of high-quality, engaging content in a variety of media. Also, learn to constantly adapt. Do not bank on the network that is deemed the most popular today remaining in that No. 1 spot tomorrow. Instead, don't be afraid to experiment and get creative in your promotional messages.

Related: 4 Marketing Tactics for Appealing to Generation Z

That report of social media trends from last year? It won't be of any use to you this year. Your market -- those young Gen-Zers -- will let you know, loud and clear, exactly what they prefer this season.

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The SmoKING Rib BBQ Restaurant

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We check out what many foodies consider the best BBQ rib restaurant in Orange County. Does the SmoKING Rib BBQ live up to the hype? Watch the video to find out.

Click Here To Download John Chow’s New eBook, The Ultimate Online Profit Model!

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Refinery29's Christene Barberich on How All the No's Pushed Her Forward

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The co-founder and global editor-in-chief reveals who all her 'high priestesses of strength' are during her times of need.

June 18, 2018

9 min read

Editor’s Note: Inspire Me is a series in which entrepreneurs and leaders share what motivates them through good times and bad, while also sharing stories of how they overcame challenges in hopes of inspiring others.

When you launch a business, you want it to grow and thrive. But you want to make sure the hallmarks of that initial idea that you were so passionate about stay intact as the company evolves. This the constant push and pull that Christene Barberich experiences as the co-founder and the global editor-in-chief of Refinery29.

In 2005, Barberich, Piera Gelardi, Philippe von Borries and Justin Stefano founded the site from a kitchen table in Brooklyn. But today, Barberich is overseeing an operation that has a presence all over the world. What began as a guide to hidden style and fashion gems in New York City has vastly expanded in scope over the last thirteen years.

The company now has a staff of more than 600 in New York, Berlin, London and Los Angeles. While style is certainly still a focus, the site’s coverage has expanded to cover health and wellness, careers, personal finance and popular culture.

Refinery29’s audience of more than 550 million -- across all its platforms -- come to the site to get off-the-beaten-track insights and stories from women who are blazing their own trails.

Barberich says every day she is focused on ensuring that what is published on the site is consistent with the company’s core mission of helping women live their version of a well-rounded life. And while staying on top of all the logistics involved in growing a global brand, she wants to still be able to be a mentor to her employees.

Related: Why Your Done List is Just as Important as Your To-Do List

“[I’m] thinking constantly about what the team needs, how they could be best supported, refining career paths, and maintaining an environment of positivity and well-being,” says Barberich. “It can be a lot, but it's a challenge and a particular understanding that's worth it."

Flexibility is the name of the game, and Barberich notes that in tough moments, it requires her to seek out inspiration and motivation from sources that range from her beloved readers to media mogul role models, including Oprah Winfrey.

“As women [while we] are so often tested, we aren't alone -- we are a part of a long lineage of builders, caregivers and rule breakers, and feeling that presence, that energy can be exactly what I need to push ahead, even when I don't exactly know what I'm doing.”   

Barberich spoke with Entrepreneur about what drives her when the going gets tough.

When did you realize you wanted to go into business on your own?
Early in my career, I had the good fortune of working at a world-class publishing company, and while the skills I developed there provided the foundation for my role as an editor, I felt very limited by all the rules and restrictions that often come with such juggernauts. It's true, you need a certain degree of systems and formulas to scale and function at a high level, but I always needed that space to take risks, ask questions and solve a problem in a new way. That’s why I've always been drawn to startups. Hatching the "how" and "why" at the beginning of something never ceases to thrill me.

Was there someone who told you you could launch the company?
I honestly think it's all the people who told me I couldn't do it -- there were many -- that pushed me forward. Sometimes the word “no” can be more motivating than “yes.”  

What do you find to be a challenge in running your company?
Whether I have a gut feeling on how to handle something, or if I'm conflicted to move forward because the challenge, or confronting it, has a lot of moving parts. For me personally, the challenge of constantly pivoting my thinking and approach between an established successful global brand and scrappy startup is always active. No matter how big or successful you become, it's important to employ your startup instincts in the right places, and at the right times, to stay creatively and strategically aware. If you lose that, I think the spark starts to fade.   

Related: The CEO of the Girl Scouts Wants to Turn Today's Cookie Sellers Into Tomorrow's Powerful Female Entrepreneurs

What is a quote that inspires you, and why?
The author and poet Dorothy Parker said, "The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity." I love this quote because it speaks to my constant urge, even when it's scary, to explore what is possible, what is necessary to get our brains running in new directions, to shift our energies toward higher work. And hopefully, the people around you, too. The other quote I love is “I dwell in possibility,” from Emily Dickinson. I think that’s good advice for life, not just for work.  

What is a book that inspires you and why?
The book I've most recently been talking about a lot and recommending to people is Pain, Parties, Work: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953. The author, Elizabeth Winder, took great care to paint a very real picture not just of Sylvia Plath, but of all the talented women whom she worked alongside that summer, and the choices they were forced to make around family, life and career.

The themes of societal pressure and a need to conform were obviously much more potent in the 1950s, but so much of what these women faced in terms of the image of "success" is still so relevant to today. Women are always asked to sacrifice and to take on more for the sake of others. This book makes you think about what might have happened if Sylvia Plath or any woman at that time were free to live the life that felt most right and real, not most convenient or acceptable.  

Who is a woman that inspires you, and why?
Oprah -- she is my true north for making sure my life and purpose continually rise above all my bullshit. It's hard, but it's possible.

What inspires you at work?
[I’m inspired ] when a young editor or writer emails me or asks me a question or sends me an idea, and I can see the wheels are turning and they're onto something. That takes me right back to why I wanted to do this in the first place. When we launch a big story or program, you can literally feel the energy vibrating at a higher level in the office. The team has such pride. And of course, when readers come up to me on the street and ask me about women I work with that they follow and love or things Refinery29 has created that have had meaning in their lives, like the 67% Project, 29Rooms or the UnStyled podcast. When we are reminded that all the hours we put in have the power to launch discussions, change minds, shift perspectives, how can you not be inspired?  

Related: How This Former Makeup Artist Broke the Rules to Create a YouTube Community of More Than 2 Million

Are there lessons from earlier bosses or mentors that you think back on when you need an extra boost or bit of encouragement?
It always comes back to my earliest lessons as an editor: Setting aside my own ego, again and again, which can be hard, to help a writer or editor discover and develop her own true voice. I'm more removed from the editing process now, but whenever I have the chance to work closely with another editor or writer, this lesson comes back to me.  

What has inspired you to be a better person?
Forgiveness and remembering that I am as vulnerable and a work in progress as everyone else. When I am reminded of this, I remember the great responsibility to have empathy for all people in all conditions and situations facing challenges we can't ever know or imagine.

When you are feeling at your worst, what inspires you?
Watching Oprah's talk at Stanford Business School. I love that a student interviews her and does it beautifully. And then, there are so many important beliefs that she shares that have truly guided me over the past few years -- everything from her definition of luck as the preparation meeting the moment of opportunity to how she dealt with always being the only woman in the room.

She also references a line from one of Maya Angelou's poems, "I come as one, but I stand as 10,000." She talks about how when she walks into a room -- particularly when she has something challenging to do or knows she'll be up against obstacles -- she literally sits and calls on those 10,000: "I will call on my ancestors, those who came before me, the women that forged a path that I might be able to sit in a room with all those white men...and love it, just love it."

That belief and practice is something that's become a sort of ritual for me, calling upon the support of the women who came before me when I'm in tough or unknowable circumstances, both in my work and my life.

For those women who are looking to start a business, or have begun one but are feeling discouraged, what advice do you have for them to keep going?
I think the trick is knowing why you're doing it. You have to love it, really, really love it and believe in your heart that this is more than a business, it's a personal destiny. As soon as that belief clicks in, you will truly be unstoppable.

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This Entrepreneur Turned His Obsession With Tiny Details Into a Big Business

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And the award goes to...David Moritz, who built a business building prestigious awards!

June 18, 2018

5 min read

We've all asked ourselves who is going to win at the Golden Globes, but did you ever ask yourself who makes the Golden Globes?

The answer is David Moritz, whose company Society Awards creates the statues and trophies that emotional artists cling to for dear life at events including the aforementioned Golden Globes, the Clio Awards, Dancing With the Stars and the American Music Awards, as well as luxury business awards.

How did he get his start? Studying English literature and going to law school, obviously. OK, maybe not so obvious. "While studying the finer points of English literature as an undergrad at NYU, I was also running a successful events promotion business," Moritz told Entrepreneur. "By the time I graduated law school, I had started, run and sold a bar-lounge. The prospect of going into a law firm just didn’t feel right."

Related: How to Start a Business With (Almost) No Money

What did feel right was channeling his self-described obsession with details into creating a luxury brand where he saw a void in the awards and gift packaging arena. "There was no branding, no differentiation and no care for the fine details that built an experience," he says. So he set about changing all that. Here's how he did it and his advice for starting your own passion project.

Be ready to work harder than ever.

"Our society glamorizes startup culture, but that can disguise just how gritty the process is in practice. I spent the first year as a company of one, even as I gained major contracts. The team grew after the first year, but I kept that group tight and lean and continued to manage most facets of the business for several more years. It was valuable experience because I gained a deep understanding of all aspects of the business, including design and marketing, but I can see how that could overwhelm someone. You need to be really invested and know when your business has reached the stage that you should be handing off certain responsibilities. That was an important lesson to learn. It can be particularly hard to start that process when you feel so attached to this business you’ve built."

Related: The Complete, 12-Step Guide to Starting a Business

Hire motivated people.

"This is not an easy task; it’s a matter of becoming really good at reading and understanding people in the interview process. In the end, though, it saves your business a lot of money and a lot of time. When you hire motivated people, you just need to keep them motivated and inspire them. Otherwise, you’re wasting time on a futile task, trying to bring people up to your level."

Take lots and lots of notes.

"Starting out as a one-man team, I had to find ways to be as efficient as possible. I was our whole sales team, and I needed to keep track of a growing client base. I committed to taking thorough notes in a CRM for every project and account and always creating follow-up tasks for everything. This system prevents anything from falling through the cracks. I’m very serious with our sales team about the importance of note-taking. When a client calls, we have a wealth of notes from all past conversations, and anyone would be able to easily jump in. It’s a small but constant bit of up-front work that pays off in the form of seamless service and happy clients."

Related: How to Find the Right Business Idea When Starting a Business

Find a niche and become an expert.

"No business today can thrive without differentiation. A unique product is part of the equation, but unique voice and point of view are almost just as important. We set about creating the luxury awards brand that these prestigious custom trophies deserved. Once you’ve identified an industry or product you want to work with, the next step is to become an industry expert. Consume as much information as possible. You should know what the industry looks like: trends, winners and losers, alternative products, production processes. Once you know what’s out there, you can start to ask yourself the important questions. I was questioning why the details weren’t sharp on a lot of the custom awards from competitors. We had to develop our own production methods and quality standards because there was just nothing on the market yet that lived up to my expectations. This meant employing some unconventional processes from other industries, and I had to learn about those as well."

Read. A lot.

"You’ve heard this time and again, but reading is so important to success. It opens your mind to draw parallels in a way that no other activity can. It’s this connection of seemingly unrelated ideas that make the most successful thinkers and creators in our society. There isn’t a lot more to say about it because you’ve already been told you this by Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, Mark Cuban, Phil Knight, et al. If you won’t listen to their advice, you probably won’t follow mine."

 

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6 Steps to Figuring Out If You've Got the Right Job Offer

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You've landed a job offer. Congratulations! Now you have to decide if you'll accept it.

June 18, 2018

7 min read

This story originally appeared on Glassdoor

You’ve landed a job offer. Congratulations! Now you have to decide if you’ll accept it. Occasionally, an offer is so good that the choice is obvious, but most of the time, that’s just not the case. Every position has its benefits and drawbacks, and no two companies are exactly alike, but there are some common questions you should ask yourself and factors you should contemplate before saying yes or no to an offer. Here are six key things to consider.

Related: 7 Common Cover Letter Mistakes to Avoid

Step 1: Do a gut check.

Before you think about negotiating or even get into the details, take a moment to consider your initial reaction to the offer and the job itself. “While data is important, you also want to trust your gut,” says Mikaela Kiner, an executive career coach and CEO of uniquelyHR.

“During your interviews, were you hopeful things would work out? Or would you have been relieved if they chose someone else? Don’t dismiss concerns, even if they were just fleeting thoughts,” she says. Your instinct and intuition about whether or not a job is a good fit are usually right.

Ask yourself how you felt when you first got the offer. Excited? Disappointed? Something else? You answer can be incredibly revealing about whether this is the right opportunity for you or not.

Step 2: Ask yourself the big questions.

Before diving into the numbers and other specifics in the offer, you should ask yourself the following important questions, according to Dana Manciagli, a career coach and speaker: Are the tasks and responsibilities of the job something you want to do full time? Did the team and environment seem pleasant and safe? What are the sacrifices you’re making by taking this particular job, and are any of those sacrifices things you don’t want to give up?

Basically, you want to be sure that you’re going to be happy with your day-to-day life in this new gig before getting any further along in the process. “If you feel good about your answers, then move along,” Manciagli says. “If not, ask for another meeting to get some questions answered or communicate it is not the right position and you’ll pass. The key is not to accept or negotiate an offer if you are not willing to work there.”

Related: 4 Myths We're Taught About Success

Step 3: Decide if taking this position will help you advance your career goals.

If you’re job hunting, you’ve probably taken the time to think about what your career goals are. “I recommend my clients make a list of what they are looking for even before they begin searching for a job,” says Amy M. Gardner, certified professional coach with Apochromatik. “If you’ve done that, go back to the list you created and evaluate the offer against the factors you initially listed.” How does this current job offer measure up in terms of opportunity to accomplish these goals?

It’s also key to look beyond financial objectives, Gardner emphasizes. Money is important, but for long-term job happiness, it shouldn’t be the only thing you consider. The list of questions to contemplate, Gardner says, should include: “Are there enough other areas within the organization that you can have room for advancement, even if your immediate supervisor is there for eternity? Does the company support and encourage employees to continue to learn and grow? Will you be able to get home in time for the non-work things that are important to you? Will your stress level be what you’d like it to be?” If you feel good about the answers to these questions, move on to the next step.

Step 4: Carefully evaluate the salary and benefits package.

Obviously, compensation matters. “It’s important that your needs are met by your job,” says Carisa Miklusak, CEO of tilr, an automated recruiting platform. “When evaluating an offer, you need to look at the entire offer, not just the salary.”

Often, the base salary alone does not provide the whole compensation picture. “It may be that the salary is $5,000 lower than you had hoped for, but the full package being offered counterbalances it,” Miklusak explains. “What does the total package contribute to your personal and financial needs? Sometimes, a job that at first glance looks like it’s paying less can actually provide more financial security than a job with a higher salary.” Take into account benefits like subsidized child care, bonus opportunities and health care options.

Step 5: Understand who you’ll be working with on a day-to-day basis.

This is easier said than done, but it’s important, because you’ll be spending a lot of time with your new team. While it’s tricky to execute, if you can find out more about your future team, you’ll be able to make a more informed decision. “It’s important to ask yourself whether you will be working with the kind of people who will engage, excite and challenge you -- without driving you crazy,” Gardner says.

“Whether and how you can get to know people in advance varies depending on whether you are in the same city as the employer, what your role will be and how big the group is. But do what you can to get a sense of your future team, because they will have a huge impact on both your job satisfaction and your success,” she adds.

Step 6: Decide whether the company is really somewhere you want to work.

If you’ve made it this far, the main thing left to determine is how well the company fits into your life, not just in terms of location and size, but also in terms of company culture. “Ask everyone you can about company culture -- not just their brand, but what it’s really like to work there day to day,” Kiner recommends. “No one is going to say, ‘Our culture is toxic,’ but you can figure it out through a combination of questions and observations.”

Related: 5 Signs You're in the Wrong Career -- and How to Make a Change

“Ask about what you’d look for in a healthy work environment. That might be access to training, how often people get promoted from within, flexibility, recognition or teams that celebrate together,” she says. “If too many of these are missing, it’s a red flag.”

Another thing to consider is why the job is open in the first place. “I’m always cautious when a position is open because someone left the company,” says Laura Handrick, HR Analyst at FitSmallBusiness.com. “If HR tells you the company is growing, that’s great! If the former person whose job you’re replacing moved up in the organization, that’s also a positive sign. But if you see job openings at this company all the time, it may be a telltale sign that it’s not a great place to work.” In other words, turnover can be an important clue as to what it’s really like to work somewhere -- one you shouldn’t ignore.

(By Julia Malacoff) 

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Audi CEO, Rupert Stadler, Arrested in Germany for Potential Evidence Tampering

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June 18, 2018

2 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

The CEO of luxury automobile manufacturer, Audi, was arrested on Monday in Germany for potential involvement in parent company, Volkswagen's, diesel emissions scandal. Rupert Stadler, Audi CEO, was rumored to tamper with evidence that showed Audi’s role in Volkswagen's violation of the Clean Air Act.

The arrest takes place only days after Germany imposed a $1.2 billion fine on Volkswagen for manipulating diesel emission test results. Volkswagen admitted to producing millions of engines with “defeat devices” to misrepresent emission toxicity levels. Last month, Audi recalled over 60,000 A6 and A7 models for “irregularities.” 850,000 Audi’s were recalled the previous year.  

Stadler, who has worked for Audi since 1990, is the highest ranking Volkswagen executive to be arrested in connection to the ongoing emission violations. Martin Winterfork, former CEO of Volkswagen, was indicted last month for wire fraud and conspiracy to defraud American customers. Deiselgate has cost Volkswagen over $30 billion recalls and legal settlements. Customer trust in Volkswagen was already shaky, and Stadler’s arrest resulted in a 2.6% drop in share price in Frankfurt.

Stadler will speak to law enforcements on Wednesday after he has spoken with his lawyers. According to prosecutors, Stadler could be released within the week if he cooperates.

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Why It Pays to Break the Rules at Work

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We think of rule breakers as troublemakers, but they actually provide positive results.

June 18, 2018

7 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

While working as the general manager of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Istanbul for several years, Massimiliano Zanardi, known as Max, played a critical role in the hotel's opening and devoted a lot of effort to finding ways to improve the experience of customers. His efforts paid off: The hotel received the prestigious Business Destinations Travel Awards in 2015, was named Turkey's Best Luxury Hotel and was praised by Business Destinations magazine for its unique way of innovating, its unparalleled facilities and the passion and commitment the hotel's employees have for their jobs.

Related: If It's Not Broken, Don't Fix It -- Break It

When asked where their passion comes from, the employees often say it's due to the way that Zanardi encouraged them to always ask questions. Despite the hotel's success, Zanardi regularly challenged employees to think differently about luxury by asking "why?" and "what if?" questions. Take the employees' yearly ritual of planting flowers on the terrace right outside the hotel's restaurant. Employees get together at around the same time each year to fill the pots and choose what to plant. To assure that the usual way of doing things was questioned, Zanardi asked staff members, "Why do we always plant flowers? What else could we plant?" These questions raised the employees' curiosity and triggered some creative answers. Though the pots were generally used for flowers, they ended up becoming home to herbs and heirloom tomatoes that then were used in the hotel's acclaimed restaurant, Atelier Real Food. All of this from asking a few simple questions, rather than taking the usual way of doing things for granted.

Zanardi's actions seem contrary to the popular adage "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." By deviating from customs, even successful ones, his behavior offers an example of rebellion that can bring about positive change in organizations.

We generally think of rule-breaking in business as trouble. We picture people who rebel just for the sake of creating chaos or annoying others, and workplaces that risk spinning out of control. But, we have this wrong: Breaking rules, when done with the right intent, can generate rather surprising results. We, as well as our organizations, stand to benefit from more rebelliousness, not less.

Related: This Entrepreneur Who Sold Her Company for $1 Billion Wants You to Throw Out the Unwritten Rules That Hold You Back

When we break rules constructively by letting ourselves explore and wonder rather than just following existing procedures or processes, our ideas are more innovative. Curiosity and innovation go hand in hand, research finds. For instance, in a study led by Spencer Harrison of INSEAD, people selling their handmade goods online answered a survey about how much curiosity they experienced in their work. The researchers counted the number of new items each artisan listed online over a two-week period and used the number as a measure of creative productivity. The more curious the artisans felt, the greater their productivity.

As was true for Zanardi, curiosity can be encouraged in the workplace by asking questions such as "What if ... ?" "Why?" and "How might we ... ?" Many innovations we know today were born out of such simple questions. The inspiration that led to the Polaroid instant camera, for instance, was a question that the 3-year-old daughter of its inventor, Edwin H. Land, asked in the mid-1940s. Her father snapped a photo, and she found herself having to wait impatiently to see it. When her father explained to her that the film had to be processed first, she wondered aloud, "Why do we have to wait for the picture?"

Breaking rules is not only good for innovation. It also changes how much respect we gain in the eyes of others. Consider the successful 16th-century French pirate Francois Le Clerc. As a testament to his success, he nabbed the No. 13 spot on Forbes's list of highest-earning pirates. (Yes, Forbes came up with a list of top-earning pirates.) Legend has it that Le Clerc was a "lead from the front" pirate, often the first to board an enemy ship. This trait cost him a leg: That's why he became known as "Jambe de Bois" ("Peg Leg"). He went on to lead a fleet of 10 vessels and over 300 men. So many other pirates followed Le Clerc into battle, even after he lost his leg. Why? Because he fought beside them and gained their respect.

Related: What You're Afraid Will Happen If You Break the Rules Probably Won't

In a survey I conducted of over 700 employees, I found that the most respected leaders are those most willing to get their hands dirty. When I asked the employees to think about leaders they don't respect, they zeroed in on managers removed from the nitty-gritty. When talking about their success, rebels use "we" rather than "I." By breaking away from prescribed roles, rebels gain respect, and the relationships they develop with others are tighter as a result.

There's another reason why breaking rules pays off. When we rebel, we avoid boredom, as we choose novelty over what's familiar and comfortable. And no matter how repetitive or rote a job may seem to be, there is always room to inject some novelty. At the fast-food chain Pal's Sudden Service, workers move from station to station throughout the day, and they're told the specific order they'll follow on their shift when they show up for work. A simple gesture, but one that injects novelty.

How satisfied we are in our jobs, how creative we are and how well we perform depends on how much novelty we experience at work, research shows. My colleague Brad Staats (of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) and I analyzed data from transactions of employees who processed applications for home loans at a Japanese bank. Each employee engaged in 17 different tasks, such as scanning applications, inputting application data and conducting credit checks. After a worker completed a task, the system automatically assigned him or her a new one. Using two and a half years of data, we found that when workers were assigned a greater variety of tasks across a few days, their productivity (which we measured as processing time) got better. Variety provided novelty and motivated people in their work.

Related: The Inherent Rebellion of Entrepreneurship

Novelty also increases how much we grow in both confidence and ability. Psychologists Brent Mattingly (Ashland University) and Gary Lewandowski (Monmouth University) asked a group of participants to read a list of facts. Some of the participants received facts that came across as interesting, novel and exciting ("Butterflies taste with their feet"), while others received information that was duller ("Butterflies begin life as a caterpillar"). When participants read interesting facts, they believed they were more knowledgeable than when they read mundane ones. Thanks to the novel reading, they felt more like masters -- and more confident that they would be able to accomplish new tasks in the future. When presented with new tasks, they worked harder on them.

By breaking rules, our ideas become more creative, our relationships become stronger and joy and excitement become common at work and in our lives. Though rebelling may seem risky, it clearly pays off.

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Preorder the Special Edition of Let Go on Kickstarter!

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10 years ago today I walked into my boss’s office and got let go from my dream job. I felt like I’d been punched in the gut, but this was actually one of the best things that’s ever happened to me! Sometimes it takes letting go of where you are to get where you need to be.

I celebrate my Let Go Day every year. It reminds me of how far I’ve come since starting my journey. I’ve written about this journey before in my book, Let Go, but this year I’m doing something special.

To celebrate the tenth anniversary of my Let Go Day, I’m launching the first ever hardcover edition, coffee table-style version of Let Go. Through my brand-new Kickstarter campaign, you can get access to it, as well as a limited, signature edition of the book. I have various pledge goals at different levels: You can get VIP tickets to my first-ever live event in San Diego, you can get $100 off my course, Smart From Scratch, you can get digital and audio versions of Let Go—you can even get access to me as a speaker, coach, and more!

Celebrate ten years with me! Go to SmartPassiveIncome.com/10years to learn more.

Thanks so much for being part of this journey with me. I hope that I can be a part of your let go journey too!

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Learn How to Dress to Impress From This Men's Style Expert With Over 1 Million YouTube Followers

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How you dress in a professional setting goes a long way in how others perceive you.

June 18, 2018

3 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

If you take one look at Antonio Centeno, your first thought is probably, “Wow, here’s a good-looking, well-dressed guy that’s probably a Fortune 500 CEO.” I know that’s what I thought when I first came across him at Social Media Marketing World in San Diego recently.

It turns out that Centeno is a former Marine captain turned men’s style and fashion consultant who has written over 1,000 articles and published thousands of videos to close to 2 million subscribers on YouTube while teaching men of all ages, shapes and sizes how to dress their best to impress.

According to Centeno, how you dress in a professional setting goes a long way in how others perceive you, which traditionally has been true for your typical job interview or pitch meeting depending on your industry or line of work.

However, what does Centeno say to the modern-day professional who commonly will show up to an industry conference in a backward hat, skinny jeans and Jordan’s?

Combining his military background and the “science of style to command respect and earn more money” lifestyle content that reaches over 6 million men monthly, Centeno suggests that you are the captain of your message. Meaning, your appearance should align with who you want others to perceive you as and the message that goes along with it.

Here are five key takeaways from my five-minute with Centeno:

• It’s proven that you’re likely to earn $232,000 more over the lifetime of your career based on how you dress and present yourself to others.
• Your look influences your message. For example, if a firefighter walks into a room and yells, “Get out!” everyone is going to immediately listen because of the uniform. Centeno suggests that the same principle applies in business. Your uniform is your attire -- what does it say about you?
• If you’re going to wear a T-shirt to an industry event it should have your logo on the front. You can also dress up your T-shirt and jeans look by throwing on a blazer.
• Your face is the feature that people see first, therefore your hair and beard (if applicable) should always be neatly groomed.
• Clothing is the first step to get you in the door. In the corporate world, people will judge you based on aesthetics, therefore you should dress to impress when meeting others at a conference or networking mixer.

Watch more videos from Carlos Gil on his YouTube channel here.

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How to Write Guest Posts That Drive Traffic to Your Website

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Are you currently writing guest posts?

I see this problem all too often when I’m consulting various businesses and bloggers. They aren’t using guest posts as a lead generation strategy because they don’t see the benefits.

That’s because they don’t want to waste time creating content for other websites. These bloggers would much rather put more effort into publishing blogs on their own sites.

If this sounds like your mentality, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity here.

Guest posts are one of my favorite ways to drive more traffic to a website. I use this strategy all the time.

If you’re not convinced that guest blogging will benefit your business, this is the perfect guide for you. Those of you who want to begin guest blogging but don’t know how to start or turn these posts into site traffic, you’re in luck as well.

As an experienced guest blogger, I’ll tell you everything you need to know about the topic so you can increase traffic to your website. Let’s dive in.

Write for websites related to your brand

If you’ve been writing guest posts for a while but haven’t seen a boost in website traffic, you may want to re-evaluate the websites you’re writing for.

Here’s the first question you should ask yourself:

Is this website related to my brand?

Don’t get me wrong. There is definitely some wiggle room and flexibility when it comes to answering this question.

I have several businesses. While they are all different, they all primarily focus on helping brands with their online marketing, lead generation, and site traffic.

Take a look at this guest post I wrote for Forbes magazine:

Forbes is a global brand. They specialize in topics related to business, entrepreneurship, technology, investing, and other similar subjects.

While their brand isn’t exactly like mine, it’s close enough. Plus, their readers and target audience are similar to mine as well.

Here’s another example. Let’s say you have an ecommerce brand that sells sneakers and sunglasses. Your guest blogging strategy doesn’t have to be restricted to websites specializing only in sneakers and sunglasses.

Instead, you could write for fashion blogs. But not just any fashion blog.

As I explained with my Forbes example, you need to make sure the readers fit within your target market. If your brand sells sunglasses made for males between the ages of 18 and 35, it wouldn’t make sense to write for a fashion blog that targets women over the age of 50. Make sense?

Although your current guest posts may have great substance and content, it won’t do you any good if they’re not published on the proper sites.

It’s okay to turn down guest posting opportunities if they don’t fit with your brand. Just don’t burn any bridges. Politely say “no, thank you” and explain why you’re not interested.

You never know. The person who reached out to you may end up working for another website in the future that’s more aligned with your industry. You’d want to keep that relationship on good terms.

Reach out to credible blogs

Don’t just sit back and wait for people to contact you about writing guest posts for their websites.

Unless you’ve got an extremely well-known website, name, reputation, and brand, chances are this may not happen. You need to be proactive and find websites on your own.

But it’s extremely important to make sure these prospective blogs have elements that add credibility to the website. For example, is the site full of various ads?

As you can see from this data, people don’t like seeing ads on websites. They can hurt a brand’s credibility. You may want to avoid reaching out to blogs that have an overwhelming number of ads.

As I just discussed, it’s best to start your search with blogs relevant to your brand.

But just because a website is relevant and has the same target audience as you do doesn’t mean you should write for it.

Do some research.

You want to find sites that already have lots of website traffic. It’ll be a waste of your time if you write for sites nobody reads.

In addition to the advertisements, there are other ways to tell whether a blog is credible. For starters, if it’s a big name brand you know and recognize as an authority in your industry, it’s a safe bet to assume they already have lots of traffic.

If you’re unsure about this, look at the engagement for their blog posts. Check the comments section. Are people interested?

Look at their posting frequency.

If a blog publishes only one new post per month, you can assume they don’t have a strong audience that drives lots of traffic.

But bloggers who post on a more frequent basis report stronger results in terms of engagement:

These are the kinds of websites you should try to contribute to.

That’s because their audience is more likely to come back to the site on a regular basis. As a result, your guest posts will be more likely to be seen, and your site will see more traffic as well.

Don’t be afraid to reach out to websites to inquire about guests posting. You may be pleasantly surprised by their responses.

As you know, blogging takes time. On average, it takes more than three hours to write a typical blog post.

These sites may be relieved to hear you’re willing to lighten their workload and help them produce more content.

What’s the worst-case scenario? They say no. Not a big deal. Just move on to the next site.

Show off your unique voice

A guest post isn’t the time to slack off when it comes to quality. Actually, it’s quite the opposite.

Unlike the readers from your own website, this new audience doesn’t know who you are yet. You haven’t won them over.

They may be skeptical because they’re reading something that’s different from what they’re used to. You need to recognize that these readers may be critical of the way you write.

Don’t disappoint them. Your guest posts should be an accurate reflection of the posts on your own site. Don’t pretend to be something you’re not.

Recall the example of my guest contribution to Forbes. If you read that article, you’ll recognize I wrote it with the same voice as I do all my other posts.

If your writing style is typically funny or sarcastic, continue using that unique style. Just make sure it’s done tastefully.

The last thing you want to do is offend someone or damage your brand. That won’t help you get more site traffic.

Write a strong introduction

People reading your guest posts won’t navigate to your website unless they actually read your post.

Considering that 43% of readers scan through posts and articles, the odds are against you that your content will get read in its entirety.

If you can’t write post introductions that hook your audience, people won’t have any reason to read the rest of your post and visit your website.

Your opening lines are essential. Your headlines are even more important:

After you come up with an engaging headline, you can use several approaches to hook your audience in the introduction.

Ask a question. If you recall, the opening line of this post was a question. Scroll back to the top if you don’t believe me.

You can also state an intriguing fact or statistic in your intro to pique the interest of the readers.

Identify a problem. Hint at a solution that can be found in the post. Don’t be ambiguous. Be direct and get straight to the point.

Talk about a subject your readers can relate to. Again, I’ll use this current post as an example.

I talked about the reasons why people are opposed to writing guest posts because I figured it was relevant to the majority of readers. But I also made comments about people who are currently writing guest posts but need some additional guidance.

With this approach, I was able to reach the widest possible audience and get them hooked with the introduction.

If you do this in your guest posts, people will be more likely to read the rest of your post and navigate to your website.

Include links to your own website

How can you expect people to navigate to your website if you don’t give them a link to click?

Don’t expect them to Google your name, do some investigation to see what company you own, and then visit your website from there.

That’s way too complicated, and nobody is going to take that many steps.

Instead, just include natural hyperlinks within the content of your posts. Writing guest posts is one of my favorite ways for you to consistently build backlinks.

If you do this correctly, people will click and be sent to your website directly.

But that’s not all. Having backlinks on other credible websites will positively impact your SEO ranking.

As a result, you’ll also benefit from an increase in organic search traffic.

Tell your story

It should be clear from the beginning that you’re writing a guest post.

Introduce yourself so the readers know right away the post is written by someone they’re unfamiliar with. Otherwise, your audience may not have a reason to visit your site if they don’t even know they’re reading content from a new author.

This is the perfect time for you to master the art of storytelling.

That’s because more than 90% of consumers want brands to deliver content that feels like a story:

Not sure what story to tell? Start with your own story.

Relate your background and expertise in the subject matter of the blog post.

If you own a successful business in an industry related to the topic, be sure to talk about it. Do you have a degree in a particular field that makes you an expert? Mention it.

All of this helps improve your credibility.

By letting the readers know you’re legitimate, you increase the chances they’ll navigate to your website as a result.

Encourage the site to promote your guest posts

This part is a little bit tricky. There is a fine line between writing a guest post and being part of a company.

Just because you’re writing a guest post doesn’t give you the authority to make decisions for that brand. But that doesn’t mean you can’t politely ask them to share your guest post on their social media pages.

You can even ask them to send it to their email subscribers.

A nice way to help the site meet your request is by offering to return the favor. You can tell them you’ll share the post on your social channels too.

This benefits everyone. Their website will get more traffic. As a result, more people will see your guest post, which increases the chances of you getting more traffic to your own site.

Track your results

How can you tell whether your guest post strategy is working?

You don’t know unless you use analytics and tools to your advantage. I recommend building unique links by creating UTM parameters:

Each hyperlink in your guest post can have a unique link. You’ll be able to see exactly how much traffic comes from these links.

If nobody is clicking on these links, obviously your strategy isn’t working.

There are a few different ways to go from here. You could potentially change the style of your posts and the placement of your hyperlinks within the content.

Or you could decide to stop writing guest posts for that particular site.

Regardless of your decision, you’ll need to track the results with these types of analytic tools to evaluate your performance properly.

Keep writing

Don’t just write one guest post and think that’s going to be enough to spike your site traffic. Continue writing for that blog if they allow you to.

You don’t have to go overboard. Once per month or so should be sufficient.

Just because you had success with one website doesn’t mean they have to be the only site you contribute guest posts to. Reach out to other brands as well.

Write for as many sites as possible, without spreading yourself too thin. You don’t want your own blog or brand to suffer as a result of your guest blogging.

Make sure you stay balanced, and don’t let your quality suffer. But the more sites you write for, the greater your chances of getting higher traffic to your website will be.

Conclusion

Contrary to popular belief, guest blogging is a great content marketing strategy. It’s an inexpensive way to drive more traffic to your website.

It’s important you write for sites related to your brand. Reach out to credible blogs, and pitch a guest post idea.

Stay true to your voice. You want this new audience to enjoy your writing so they can visit your website. Tell your story to prove you are an expert on particular topics.

Start with a strong introduction that hooks the readers. This will increase the chances that they’ll click on the hyperlinks throughout the post.

Promote your guest posts on social media and other distribution channels. Encourage the website you’re writing for to do the same.

Use tools to track your results with analytics. This will help you decide whether your strategy is effective.

Always look for new guest blogging opportunities. Build long term relationships with as many people as possible to help you increase your exposure.

If you follow the tips in this guide, your guest blogging strategy will translate to an increase in traffic to your own website.

How are your guest posts generating new leads and driving traffic to your website?

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How Paul Collins Overcame Childhood Illness to Become a Successful Entrepreneur

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How Paul Collins overcame life-threatening health struggles, became an English as a Second Language teacher, and used Pat's teachings to develop a successful online business.

Pat Flynn
June 18, 2018

Welcome to our second SPI community member feature! On our SPI Facebook Group, we have over 40,000 amazing entrepreneurs across all stages of business, and I wanted to start highlighting some of the amazing work the community members are doing with their businesses here on the blog.

Brendan Hufford, our Facebook Community manager, wrote this post to highlight Paul Collins, whose business focuses on teaching English as a second language.

You can also check out Brendan and his work at his blog.

And if you haven’t done so already, click here to join the Facebook Group and be a part of the community!

“Why would anybody pay for this?”

That’s a question Paul Collins asked himself as he was starting his business, English Transformation, which focuses on teaching people how to speak English as a second language.

He was launching his business in a saturated marketplace, which included powerhouse language businesses such as:

• Rosetta Stone, which is publicly traded and had $265 million in revenue in 2013


• Babbel, which raised $22 million in 2015


• Duolingo, which raised $75 million in 2017 at a $700 million valuation

How could Paul possibly compete with those businesses?

But Paul has drive and determination, two traits he developed as a child struggling with illness. According to his doctor in London, Paul suffered from the worst case of eczema in the United Kingdom from age one to twenty-four. Sometimes, he could barely walk, get dressed, or even function.

When he was 13, his eczema cleared up for a short time. However, he would later learn that the reason his symptoms cleared up was because his body was battling something else: liver cancer. Paul was told, at points, that he wouldn’t live another 48 hours. Thankfully, he survived the cancer, only to see his eczema return worse than ever.

But struggling with his health was all that Paul had ever known, so the resilience that it bred in him has always been there.

In 2004, Paul met a man that would change his life. Paul was on a boat, trying to put on two wetsuits and getting ready to scuba dive when the man asked Paul if he had a problem with his liver. Amazed that somebody could know this just by looking at him, Paul would go on a journey of discovery where he not only learned how to heal himself physically but also mentally.

This man took one look at Paul and said, “Come and see me and I’ll teach you how to breathe.” Paul thought to himself, ”OK, buddy. I’m all right, thanks. I know how to breathe just fine.”

But at this time, Paul was always carrying around an asthma inhaler to help him breathe and a tube of steroid cream for his eczema. The final decision for Paul to go see this acquaintance was when he started to have suicidal ideation–even going so far as to write a goodbye letter to his relatives. It was then he decided it was time to pull out all the stops.

The man took Paul to the beach near his home on the Gold Coast, Australia, and lead Paul through Qi Gong—a holistic system of coordinated body posture and movement, breathing, and meditation used in the belief that it promotes health, spirituality—martial arts training, and a variety of meditations. He taught Paul his Breathe Enhancement Technique as well as The Geno-Type Diet.

He told Paul to throw away the inhaler. Paul took his advice and hasn’t used one since. Within a few weeks, Paul was running around the local park doing things he’d never have been able to do. “Basically, I became ‘normal.’ I was able to do things that other people take for granted,” he says.

After that, his eczema, asthma, and cancer didn’t return. Paul was left with only half a liver due to the cancer, but he wouldn’t trade his health struggles for the world, as they shaped him into the type of entrepreneur who wades, unflinching, into the deep waters of building a business.

Despite never attending college or university due to his chronic illness, Paul was able to attain a position as an English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher, something nearly impossible without a degree.

While teaching ESL in Australia, Paul noticed that his students were not getting the services that they expected and deserved. While working at a failing school, Paul started his own courses from his home office in the afternoons. One day, while he was looking for office space with a friend (who also taught ESL), Paul met with a group looking for International English Language Testing System (IELTS) instructors.

Six months later, after the school Paul was teaching at closed, he decided to go all-in on his own business.

Diving Into a Saturated Market

Seeing the local market opportunity, Paul and his friend (who would become his business partner) paid no attention to big players like Duolingo and Rosetta Stone. “I honestly didn’t really give it too much thought. Maybe that was out of arrogance, or maybe it was stupidity,” says Paul.

While there are a lot of solutions out there to teach English, Paul specifically helps people pass the IELTS exam, a high-stakes English exam. It is an extremely challenging test for most people, including native speakers. So, they are not only teaching a language but the specifics of how to reach a particular score on a test.

Paul set himself apart with an integrated approach (which he also refers to as “blended learning”) that result in students having the highest level of IELTS and ESL knowledge. This means they integrate personal development aspect into all of our sessions as nearly all of their students suffer from anxiety, worry, and a myriad of other problems from trying to pass a constantly changing exam.

“Really, we believe that the human aspect is essential to improving at a language,” says Paul. “That’s one of the main reasons why we have our online courses, and still provide face-to-face sessions, either with one of us directly or with one of our tutors. We aim to expand this with a pay-as-you-go app service. Students need the connection for clarification and correction of their work and progress. Yes, it’s more time consuming for us, but we also get to provide work for others and a better service to our clients.”

Sadly, says Paul, many other businesses in the market provide a sub-par, and in many cases incorrect, product. “It’s just wrong and doesn’t help the student,” Paul says. His students often tell him they have learned more through English Transformation in a few hours than they did in weeks or months at a traditional school or trying to learn via YouTube videos.

Staying Afloat in Rough Waters

Paul’s journey hasn’t been without its setbacks. In fact, one of his biggest mistakes was, ironically, over-thinking some things and not thinking others through fully.

Things that Paul should have paid attention to, like his bookkeeping (which he refers to as “the boring side of business”) actually cost him quite a bit in penalties and government fines until he brought on his wife as a bookkeeper.

For example, in deciding on a platform for their online courses, Paul caught a case of “analysis paralysis” as he fully educated himself on every single platform possible, reading multiple reviews and comparisons of each. As you might expect, Paul settled on hosting his online courses with Teachable for its mix of ease-of-use, price, and design. [Full Disclosure: As an affiliate, Pat receives compensation if you purchase through this link.]

Another mistake, which cost Paul dearly, was going into a deal with an international partner. They partnered with a friend of a friend to license teachers in another country and were never paid for their work. In the end, they had to pay the teachers out of their pockets and walk away. In retrospect, Paul says, “I knew it was not the right move but whether it was greed or hope or something, I went along with the idea. I did stop it sooner than others were willing to when the gut feeling got too strong, but by then it was a little late.”

Since then, they’ve had numerous requests to partner with others or take on investment, but Paul and his partner have learned from their mistakes and are much more wary this time around.

Navigating these rough waters was possible because he took action on what he was learning from Pat and Smart Passive Income. Some of the resources that helped Paul grow his business include:

First, simply seeing that Pat had lost his job and created a blog to teach people how to pass a test. Although his business is in a different market, Paul simply mirrored that effort and had a path to move forward.

Next, it was Pat’s short video on how to start a website. Within a few minutes, Paul had his own website up and running.

Additionally, here are six podcast episodes that had a huge impact on Paul:

• Episode 25: More Online Business Success Stories from People Who Don’t Teach Others How to Make Money Online. Paul says, “It was great to hear that folks could make money without teaching people how to make money. . . I guess for all of [the guests] I liked their ‘Go For It!’ attitude. I’m still developing that as I go.”


• Episode 37: Monetizing in A Hobby Niche – Success Story, Interview Series 3. “I loved how [the guest] ran webinars and repackaged the content into information products. I also liked how the guest talked about being genuine and using her personality as is, remaining natural which is what I think people connect with. That’s what we do too.”


• Episode 38: World Domination and The $100 Start-up with Chris Guillebeau. “I listened to the audio book before I heard the podcast. What’s not to like about this? I liked how he talks about a product that people can get for free, but that they pay for out of convenience. Everyone should read Chris’ book for sure.”


• Episode 44 and Episode 45: How to Win with Your Email List Parts 1 and 2, respectively. “I loved all of the DOs and DON’Ts of email marketing, particularly where to place sign-up forms. Also, the way Pat includes the fact that he has posts with affiliate links, but emphasizes that he won’t give them in this post and doesn’t expect listeners to use the links unless they felt they gained value. In episode 45, the GOLD was what to include, when to include it and how to time your email sequence.”


• Episode 49: Being Everywhere and Building a Community Around A Product Niche with Brendan Hufford. “I liked the fact that Brendan was teaching and running this in his spare time. The real niche aspect was cool too. Another few things that I liked were the laid-back style he talked about using on the site and the business idea that came from the project. Helping others while you help yourself is super cool.”

Setting His Sails

Currently, Paul’s business makes around $15k AUD per month (roughly $11k USD per month at time of publishing). This can fluctuate quite a bit month to month, but this breakthrough of income has only come recently. Much of the income has come on the back of offering online courses and a self-published book.

But for Paul, it’s not just about money. Owning his own business has enabled him to live life (mostly) on his own terms. If he wants to spend the afternoon in the pool with his daughters who are two and seven, he can.

What’s next for Paul? He wants to continue to grow his business and keep telling the story of how he’s been able to heal so radically from his childhood illness and go on to become a successful entrepreneur.

If you’re inspired by Paul’s story, check out Pat’s awesome free course on how to Build Your Own Brand. And be sure to join our SPI Facebook Community to get to know other entrepreneurs like Paul! Hope to see you there.

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