September 2024

The Jetsons, a popular TV show from the 1960s, foreshadowed the rise of AI chatbots, video calls, robotic vacuum cleaners — and now holograms.

U.S. startup Proto is making waves as the first platform to allow for communication through holograms. The company’s products are physical boxes that display 3D images from pre-recorded videos, live feeds, phones, and cameras. They can also be used for video calls and interviews. The images appear to be 3D because of shadowing and reflective effects.

^{Comedian Howie Mandel in a Proto device talking to a reporter. Photo Credit: Bizuayehu Tesfaye/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Tribune News Service via Getty Images}

Proto has two real-size hologram boxes available that cost anywhere from $29,000 to $65,000: the Proto Epic, which over 100 companies are using, and the Proto Luma, which the company has newly introduced, according to a Friday CNN Business report.

Related: What You Need to Know About ‘AI Agents’ and Why We Are One Step Closer to The Jetsons

The cheapest option is the $5,900 Proto M, a tabletop version less than 3 feet tall.

Holograms aren’t just science fiction anymore. Jetsons promised it and Proto delivered it. pic.twitter.com/A2NHfVhThk

— Proto Hologram (@ProtoHologram) September 22, 2024

Since launching in 2018, Proto has sold close to 1,000 hologram boxes, founder David Nussbaum told CNN Business. The company’s technology appeared on America’s Got Talent in 2022. Jon Bon Jovi’s bar in Nashville, Tennessee added a permanent Proto hologram unit to the premises in June.

Proto is steadily making its mark on communication with Amazon using it in an AI hub in San Francisco in August. Also last month, a healthcare facility in West Tennessee became the first to use Proto holograms to bring cancer specialists to patients, so they don’t have to travel far for specialized care.

I visited @west_cancer in Henry County to see their new telemedicine device, the Proto Epic, which is the first of its kind in the US. This device projects a realistic life-sized image that allows patients to meet with cancer specialists in Memphis or any other location without… pic.twitter.com/JFOb8lT97O

— Rep. David Kustoff (@RepDavidKustoff) September 3, 2024

Proto exists at a time when big tech companies are taking an interest in hologram technology. Earlier this week, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg offered a first glance at Orion, Meta’s holographic glasses. The glasses overlap holograms and digital communication with the physical world.

Zuckerberg said the glasses were best thought of as “a time machine” and that they needed some fine-tuning before being released to the public.

Related: ‘The Jetsons’ World Is Becoming Reality. Innovators, Start Your Engines.

You may now see AI-generated images of yourself on your Facebook or Instagram feeds as Meta tests new content.

Meta told Axios on Friday that users can opt out of a new “Imagined for You” test that creates AI content based on a user’s interests, even incorporating their likenesses. For example, users can imagine themselves in new settings, as royalty, or as an astronaut, and share the images that Meta AI creates of them with their network.

You “can be the star of your own story,” Meta stated.

The generated images seem to rely on photos uploaded by users, noted The Verge.

^{Credit: Meta}

Meta is also testing adding other AI images on newsfeeds that may not feature users’ faces but are still personalized to them. One example image Meta shared shows an enchanted realm with moonbeams.

Meta is experimenting with the changes across Facebook and Instagram. The new feature is in its testing stages and it’s unclear how many accounts it affects.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg spoke about its AI efforts earlier this week at Connect, stating that Meta AI has 500 million monthly active users and is slated to become the most-used AI assistant by the end of the year.

^{Meta AI moonbeams. Credit: Meta}

Related: Mark Zuckerberg Revealed His Vision for Smart Glasses at Meta Connect — and It Involves Holograms: ‘Beginning of a Big Thing’

I have had the pleasure of working with many leading search engine optimization (SEO) specialists in my nearly decade-long career as an SEO expert. But one stood out for her ambitious goal to think like a human and a bot at the same time.

Sharing this philosophy, this is something I admit to doing myself. Why? Because advances in natural language processing (NLP) require a forward-thinking approach to content optimization.

In this article, I dive into some of the key fundamentals of NLP, offering a simple analogy to how it works. I then focus on optimizing content using NLP in a way that both bots and your readers will love. Let’s get started.

Related: How to Leverage AI to Boost Your SEO Efforts and Stay Ahead of the Competition

Fundamentals of NLP

At the risk of oversimplifying, imagine a bridge over a river connecting two pieces of land. On the left side are people with literally thousands of search queries. And on the right side are search engines like Google, containing possibly the world’s largest library of information accessible at one’s fingertips.

So, how do people get their searches answered? The answer lies in algorithms. For example, Google’s algorithms crawl millions of content pieces each day and organize and structure them to meet search queries.

But where does NLP fit into the picture? As part of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, it bridges the gap between real people’s search queries and what search engines have to offer.

Wondering how this is done? Basically, highly sophisticated computer systems take language found in sentences and break them down into words, phrases, symbols and other meaningful elements. This process is called tokenization.

There is also “stemming,” which reduces words to their root form. Lemmatization, on the other hand, groups together different forms of a word that are then analyzed as a single unit. But there’s more.

Other ways NLP kicks into high gear include through syntax analysis, named entity recognition, sentiment analysis, topic segmentation and others. And to add a cherry on top, NLP also carries out tasks that include speech-to-text recognition, grammatical tagging, disambiguation, coreference resolution and others.

With so much intelligence and sophistication in NLP, it’s becoming clearer that SEO experts need to rethink their strategies for optimizing content. Today, this task is as much about enabling bots to semantically understand content as it is about understanding the user’s intent behind a search query.

While I won’t go into the complexities of the BERT algorithm rollout or the statistical measure called frequency-inverse document frequency (TF-IDF), if there’s one thing you will want to walk away from knowing, it is that catering to user intent on Google has never been this important.

Gone are the days of happily stuffing keywords to get a high keyword density score just to boost the rankings of your content. Today, Google is much smarter and is prioritizing the user experience over anything else.

That’s why its NLP technology is so sophisticated and is worth paying attention to. Therefore, whether you’re aiming to revive your content strategy or embark on a totally new route, you can’t afford to ignore NLP.

Applying NLP to keyword research

Having covered the importance of NLP, let’s explore some ways in which you can apply it to keyword research. Firstly, I need to mention that comprehensive keyword research should be the backbone of your content optimization efforts.

Without quality keywords, you risk your content piece never seeing daylight on the first page of the search engine results. Secondly, you need to identify relevant, high-traffic keywords which are accompanied by an in-depth user intent analysis.

To achieve all this, you need NLP-powered tools to streamline your keyword research process. While the choice of tool is up to you, ensure you make the right investment because this will pay off in the long run.

Related: How AI Is Transforming Keyword Research (and Why You Can’t Afford to Ignore It)

Optimizing content with NLP

A few tips worth sharing when optimizing content with NLP tools include the following:

• Use it for both content ideation and generation

• Optimize your content structure and flow based on NLP insights

• Refine content for improved readability and engagement

To do this, focus on creating keyword-rich but not keyword-stuffed metadata. Use the right structuring in your content with appropriate H1s, H2s, H3s and bullet points or numbering to match the user’s journey. Add semantically related keywords in your text, ensuring they flow naturally. However, keep the use of stop words in SEO to a minimum.

Write short and unambiguous sentences with each sentence conveying one main idea. Avoid jargon and colloquial language. Lastly, get to the point by providing answers to questions quickly, followed by indicating the subtle nuances in your answers in more detail later.

Measuring NLP-driven content performance

Every SEO expert worth their salt knows that measuring content performance is a big deal. Ignoring the metrics is done at your own peril. Constantly monitoring your metrics is critical for your content optimization success.

That’s because they allow you to refine and tweak the content based on user engagement and data for even better results. To better understand and improve your users’ experience with your content after applying NLP strategies to it, a couple of metrics you will want to keep an eye on are:

• Search engine results rankings

• Website traffic

• User behavior data such as time on page, conversions, etc.

Related: Revive Your Content Strategy With These 7 Powerful Techniques

Case study — boosting SEO with NLP

At InBound Blogging, we use NeuronWriter to assist us with our content optimization through the power of NLP. It’s as simple as creating a new project and typing in your primary keyword. Once you’ve done this, you can select a list of top-ranking competitors whose keywords will be extracted and which you can use in your article.

There are options to optimize your meta title and description, either manually or through the help of AI magic. Once you’ve taken these steps, you’ll be taken to a screen where you can paste in your blog article. You’ll get a numerical score for your article’s current performance.

You’ll also see which keywords you should include naturally in your text so that you boost your score, outperforming the highest-performing article for this keyword. By using NeuronWriter, we managed to drive organic traffic up to 49,000 in the space of just six months, while incorporating 1,623 keywords.

Another article that performed well during the same period saw traffic of 16,020 with 8,082 keywords.

Future trends in NLP-powered content optimization

A few trends that I foresee taking center stage with NLP in the near future must be mentioned, too. Among the prominent ones that will make a splash in the world of SEO are:

• Optimization for mobile searches

• Catering to voice search queries which usually use long-tail keywords

• Using generative AI

• Data and insight-driven strategies

• Hyper-personalized content

Ultimately, if you’re in SEO, you constantly need to stay ahead of the curve with NLP adoption and refinement.

If you haven’t tried using NLP-driven tools and techniques to optimize your content, I strongly encourage you to do so. NLP is powerful, and as Google’s algorithms get smarter and more effective at understanding the nuances of human language, you’ll need to stay at the very top of your SEO and content game to make a mark in the industry.

When the beer brand Modelo launched its “Mark of a Fighter” marketing campaign in March of 2023, it was not only an intriguing concept that appealed to the underdogs of America, but it was also an indicator that this beer brand had a fierce and competitive spirit — something sorely needed if you’re going to take on Anheuser-Busch, the brewer behind Bud Light and “the King of Beers,” Budweiser.

In fact, Bud Light reigned as America’s No. 1 beer for more than two decades (since 2001). It seemed that Bud Light was as American as the Fourth of July. Meanwhile, Modelo wasn’t even on a top-10 beer a decade ago, according to reports.

But Modelo fought its way to the very top and is now the most popular beer in the country.

You might be even more surprised by Modelo’s secret weapon: marketing. Here are three lessons we can all learn from Modelo’s marketing strategy that will help you reach the number-one spot on your industry’s list, too.

Related: 5 Marketing Strategies From Major Brands: What You Can Learn From Their Mistakes and Successes

Lesson 1: Spend crazy amounts on your marketing — far more than your competition.

If Modelo was “brewed with a fighting spirit,” it definitely shows. They fought so hard to get to the top that they spent crazy amounts of money on advertising. In fact, they have had the biggest TV advertising bill since the second quarter of 2020, research shows.

Last year, Modelo spent $155 million on TV commercials, and they say they plan to spend even more in 2024. As of July, they have invested $65 million in TV ads — that’s about 75% more than Bud Light has spent this year, and 35% more than Michelob Ultra, which just dethroned Bud Light in July as America’s second favorite beer.

You might notice a trend here: The more you spend, the more business you generate.

This is actually my most effective — and most hated — piece of marketing advice for business owners: Spend more on your marketing than you think is rational or sane. This is the hardest thing for me to get across to my clients.

Here’s a story that sums up what I mean: I have a very successful friend. In his whole career, he’s never needed marketing because he’s a money manager and that’s growth through word of mouth in his circles. He recently decided to try his hand at real estate development and built eight gorgeous townhomes in Hiawassee, GA, right on the water, and he got himself a realtor. Simple real estate investment, right?

Unfortunately, no! None of his townhomes have sold yet, and only one is in contract. He honestly thought, “If I build them, they will come.” But it doesn’t work that way! He finally realized he has to market these homes, and he’s about to do a large integrated campaign with direct mail and online ads.

The point is this: A very smart, very successful man had no clue! He wanted to do a tiny little campaign, and I had to really spend time educating him on this principle — you have to market more than you think is sane or rational!

This applies to all types of businesses, but here are three great examples of companies that grew from increasing their marketing budgets:

• American manufacturer Proctor & Gamble’s marketing budget of 9.84% revenue led to 5.9% revenue growth in fiscal year 2023

• SaaS company Atlassian’s marketing budget of 15-16% of revenue led to 26% revenue growth in fiscal year 2023

• Another SaaS company Asana’s marketing budget of 78.3% of revenue led to 45% year-over-year revenue growth in 2023

Related: The Growth Hack My Clients Hate the Most Is the One That Promises the Biggest Financial Rewards — Here’s What You Should Know

Lesson 2: Defy trendy and popular marketing tactics to truly dominate

Fighting off competitors isn’t always a frontline battle. Sometimes a smarter approach will help you win. It may feel counterintuitive, but it’s the hidden spaces that can help you get ahead, kind of like taking a shortcut to the front that no one else is paying attention to.

For example, between 2019 and 2023, total linear TV ad spend declined 20%, falling more than $183 million. Going with the flow, competitors Budweiser and Bud Light pulled back on their TV budgets. Research shows that, between 2018 and 2023, Budweiser reduced their TV ad spend by 77%, and Bud Light reduced theirs by 38%. Meanwhile, Modelo continued to outspend them — by a lot.

Despite linear TV’s waning popularity, Modelo heavily invested, and this helped them take over this area of advertising when other brands like Bud Light were spending more on social media and influencers.

Similarly, my company PostcardMania has taken a lesser-traveled path. Direct mail, once the most common form of advertising, has also declined. Marketing mail decreased by 26% between 2014 to 2023.

But not us — we’ve increased and now mail 232,000 postcards every single week advertising our own services.

Postcard marketing takes up the largest majority of our budget, and it pays off. As of 2023, mail delivers six times more revenue per lead than digital ads. We figured this out by analyzing 114,373 leads that converted to sales in 2023 and found that we made $229.41 for every postcard lead versus $37.09 for every pay-per-click lead.

Meanwhile, digital and social media remains a trendy space for ad dollars as spending on digital platforms like Meta and TikTok continues to rise steadily. In fact: More than half of U.S. advertising dollars are set to be spent on digital platforms such as Google and Facebook for the first time ever, reports show.

So, would you rather be a big fish in a smaller pond, or fight for space in an overcrowded ocean? I know which one I would pick.

Related: Don’t Copy. Be Different. And Your Marketing Will Win.

Lesson 3: Fine-tune your strategy by tracking your marketing

Failure is often the best teacher, and it can set us up for success in the future. By tracking all of your marketing, you can see which avenues are lacking and which ones are succeeding. Just like a boxer in a ring, you can use hard blows as a learning experience and come back stronger and harder.

In Modelo’s case, they noticed traditional TV advertising was working for them and kept investing in it. Of course, don’t throw all of your money into one tactic; diversify your marketing budget as well. But let the data determine the percentage of money going into one particular marketing form or another. We do spend a pretty penny on digital ads as well!

One of my clients, a dentist in Charlotte, NC, at one point, equated spending money on direct mail to a “money pit.” But his marketing manager insisted on a direct mail campaign, and once his practice started seeing an 87.5% increase in new patients thanks to those postcards, he had to admit he had been wrong — and his practice was all the better for it!

And of course, never give up the fight. The hard times and the losses I’ve experienced only fueled my fire even more to succeed. Let it do the same for you!

Real estate prices have been soaring, making it challenging for many people to afford homes. However, the push for affordable housing has been gaining traction. More and more stakeholders believe that addressing the affordable housing crisis could not only meet urgent societal needs but also propel the growth of the real estate sector.

Affordable housing can attract a large pool of buyers, stimulate construction activities and create job opportunities — all of which contribute to the growth of the real estate market.

Additionally, more and more organizations and thought leaders affirm that housing is a basic human right, akin to clean water and food.

The demand for affordable housing drives not just social impact but also yields substantial investment opportunities. Experts believe with conviction that investing in affordable housing offers attractive financial returns, supported by stable cash flows, tax incentives and reduced vacancy rates.

Related: Property Tech Is Creating An Incredible Real Estate Opportunity for Entrepreneurs

PropTech — conduit for community and collaboration

Needs arise, and people increasingly require communities where they can collaborate seamlessly. This is where PropTech steps in. By integrating technology with real estate, PropTech companies enable easy access to community facilities, making neighborhood collaborations simpler and more inclusive.

Space for new entrepreneurs:

The field of PropTech is expansive and constantly evolving. While many businesses are already making significant headway in this space, there remains ample room for new entrepreneurs to bring unique value propositions.

PropTech is poised for a transformative evolution. Emerging trends like artificial intelligence (AI), virtual reality (VR), blockchain and the Internet of Things (IoT) are continuing to shape this field. As these technologies mature, they will offer unprecedented opportunities for innovation within the real estate sector.

Artificial Intelligence (AI): AI can optimize property management and enhance customer experiences through predictive analytics and chatbots. Entrepreneurs can develop AI-driven platforms that help property managers anticipate maintenance needs, streamline tenant communications and even predict market trends.

Virtual Reality (VR): VR offers immersive property tours, which are crucial in today’s digital-first world. Entrepreneurs can leverage VR to provide potential buyers or renters with a virtual walkthrough of properties, making it easier to make informed decisions without visiting multiple locations physically.

Blockchain: Blockchain technology ensures transparency and security in real estate transactions. Entrepreneurs can capitalize on blockchain to develop smart contracts that simplify property sales and lease agreements as well as reduce fraud.

Internet of Things (IoT): IoT devices can enhance property management by automating lighting, heating and security systems. Entrepreneurs can create smart home solutions that offer residents convenience and security while providing property managers with valuable data to improve operational efficiency.

Related: How This New and Innovative Technology Is Disrupting the Real Estate Industry

Strategic entry points for entrepreneurs

Affordable housing solutions: With the call for affordable housing growing louder, entrepreneurs can focus on developing cost-effective construction technologies and materials. Solutions that reduce construction time and cost can make affordable housing projects more viable.

Sustainable living: The push for eco-friendly living solutions is stronger than ever. Entrepreneurs can invest in sustainable property technologies — solar power systems, rainwater harvesting solutions and green building materials — that not only reduce operational costs but also appeal to an environmentally conscious market.

Community-centric platforms: Platforms that facilitate community engagement and collaboration are increasingly in demand. Entrepreneurs can develop apps or platforms that allow residents to connect with local services, organize community events or even share resources.

Data analytics and marketplaces: Data is the new oil in real estate. Entrepreneurs can create data analytics platforms that offer insights into property values, market trends and investment opportunities. Similarly, online marketplaces that connect buyers, sellers and renters can streamline transactions and enhance market liquidity.

Capitalizing on PropTech — practical steps

1. Identify market gaps: Start by identifying unmet needs in the real estate market. Conduct thorough market research to understand existing solutions, and pinpoint gaps where your innovative idea could thrive.

2. Build a robust business model: Develop a business model that outlines your value proposition, revenue streams and growth strategy. Ensure that your model is scalable and adaptable to changing market dynamics.

3. Leverage technology: Embrace cutting-edge technologies to differentiate your solution. Collaborate with tech experts to ensure your platform or product is user-friendly, secure and efficient.

4. Engage with stakeholders: Build relationships with key stakeholders in the real estate industry, including property developers, investors and community leaders. Their insights and support can be invaluable in refining your product and scaling your business.

5. Secure funding: Funding is crucial for turning your PropTech idea into reality. Explore various funding options, including venture capital, angel investors and government grants. Present a compelling case for your business’s potential impact and profitability.

Related: Future of Proptech: The Next Billion-dollar Opportunities

The future of PropTech is bright, filled with opportunities for entrepreneurs to innovate and thrive. By focusing on affordability, sustainability, community engagement and leveraging advanced technologies, you can carve out a lucrative niche in this dynamic industry.

As the real estate market continues to evolve, those who are willing to embrace change and drive innovation will find themselves at the forefront of this profitable sector. Stay tuned as we further explore practical strategies and inspirational success stories within the PropTech arena.

Climate change is causing more frequent and intense extreme weather events, resulting in widespread adverse impacts and related losses and damages to nature, structures, people, and businesses alike. Risks of severe weather and the resulting economic impacts are making business leaders’ decisions about where they locate their business and its resources critical.

But what can entrepreneurs and other business leaders do? Thankfully, we have some answers. Join us for a free webinar, How Business Leaders Can Prepare for Climate Change Other Costly Risks, produced by Michigan Economic Development Corporation and Entrepreneur.

Moderator and Entrepreneur Expert-in-Residence Terry Rice will lead a lively discussion with Hilary Doe, the state of Michigan’s Chief Growth Officer. Doe will outline some of the biggest threats businesses face from climate change and other costly location-based risks, while offering tips, tools, strategies business leaders can take to help mitigate those risks.

Attendees of this webinar will:

• Understand how climate change affects business operations and the economic consequences it brings.
• Discover the key factors for assessing and managing risks at your business locations to minimize environmental and economic threats.
• Learn strategies to develop and implement plans that protect your business from climate-related disruptions.
• Explore how to collaborate with government and industry partners to access resources and funding that help reduce climate risks.
• Recognize the importance of purpose-driven work in attracting and retaining younger talent.

Join us for the How Business Leaders Can Prepare for Climate Change Other Costly Risks webinar, which will take place live on Wednesday, October 16 at 3:30 p.m. ET | 12:30 p.m. PT.

In this episode of Reclaim + Advance, we’ll hear from Jess Ekstrom. Jess is the founder of Headbands of Hope and Mic Drop Workshop. She also invests in women-owned businesses, is a two-time bestselling author, a top-rated speaker, and a new mom. Jess and her companies have been featured on Today, Good Morning America, 17 magazine, Vanity Fair, Forbes, People, and more importantly, they’ve helped millions of women and girls around the world.

For years Jess Ekstrom avoided speaking about a formative event in her family life — her family getting swindled out of money by her uncle, Bernie Madoff. But on the show, she explains what spurred her to start speaking about formative challenges, and how true optimism isn’t naive.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

• How Jess turned a family scandal into fuel for her entrepreneurial journey.
• The shocking pay gap revelation that inspired Jess to champion women speakers.
• Why simplifying complex ideas is key to connecting with your audience.
• How embracing vulnerability can amplify your impact as a speaker and leader.

I’ll share a few of my favorite quotes from my conversation with Jess below:

On Authentic Expertise:

“A lot of [the] time, the thing that you teach to others is the thing that didn’t come naturally to you. It’s the thing that you had to will yourself to learn and to practice.”

The Power of Simplicity:

“I like to simplify the complex for people. We make things too complicated, whether that be entrepreneurship or speaking or writing. I like to make things feel attainable to someone.”

Embracing Struggle in Storytelling:

“No one wants to learn from someone who’s just naturally good at something. Sometimes the greatest lessons that you have to share with others come from your worst moments.”

Click here to listen on your platform of choice, or tune in below.

In August, Google entered a $2.7 billion agreement with AI chatbot startup Character.AI. The official reason? Getting a license to use Character’s technology.

The unofficial reason? According to a Wednesday Wall Street Journal report, the consensus within Google is that the tech giant primarily wanted to rehire a former employee who quit in 2021 after creating an AI chatbot that Google refused to take public.

The engineer, 48-year-old Noam Shazeer, was one of the first hundred employees at Google. He quickly established himself as an AI expert and wrote a paper in 2017 with seven other Google employees called “Attention is All You Need” which introduced a new deep learning architecture. That paper has been cited by other researchers more than 100,000 times and established him as one of the inventors of modern AI.

Related: Google Introduces Its New Project Astra AI Assistant at I/O Event — Here’s What Else You Missed

Shazeer claims credit for his contributions: His LinkedIn “About” section at the time of writing reads, “I have invented much of the current revolution in large language models.”

^{Noam Shazeer. Credit: Winni Wintermeyer for The Washington Post via Getty Images}

In 2021, before the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Shazeer was working on AI at Google. He and his colleagues created an AI chatbot that could interact with users conversationally, and they advocated for Google to demo it to the public. Google refused multiple times and Shazeer quit to start Character, building up the startup from 2021 to the present with over $150 million in funding at a valuation of $1 billion as of March.

Google’s August agreement with Character brought Shazeer back into the company as part of the DeepMind research team, which works on AI.

Shazeer made hundreds of millions of dollars as part of the deal, according to the WSJ.

Related: Google Co-Founder Sergey Brin Is Back at the Company ‘Pretty Much Every Day.’ Here’s What He’s Working On.

Other big tech companies have made similar agreements recently. In late August, Amazon signed a deal to non-exclusively license AI models developed by AI robotics startup Covariant and bring over Covariant’s co-founders and some employees.

Local search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the most important aspects of SEO strategy. For many businesses, the local community makes up most or all of their customer base. But even for larger businesses with multiple locations, local SEO is a powerful tool to help your ideal audience find you faster and easier by bringing you to the top of their search results.

In fact, local SEO is one of the best places to get started if you’re new to SEO, because it’s often much easier to achieve high search results ranking for localized queries rather than general queries. Here are the basics you need to get started:

Related: 12 Local SEO Tips From SEO Agency Founders

Start with best practices to optimize your website

Local SEO begins with the same best practices that any type of SEO uses. Before you move on to more specific strategies, make sure you’re already doing the following well:

• Your website has been set up to follow technical SEO rules so it’s functioning well and doesn’t have any issues that would cause it to be penalized by Google’s algorithm.

• Your website is designed for both mobile and desktop users to engage with easily and loads quickly with alt text on all images and those images optimized for website performance.

• You publish valuable and interesting content and optimize it with keywords that you’ve researched, as well as title tags and meta descriptions.

• You’re effectively using internal links.

• You use analytics tools to track your website traffic and make adjustments based on that data.

Understand your market

If you’re a local business, understanding your market requires you to know your local community as well as your competitors. Research in this stage is particularly important for businesses that have multiple locations and may not have a strong understanding of how the market differs in each location.

Analyze your competitors in order to understand what they’re doing well and where you see room for improvements. Both of these serve as valuable information you can use to improve upon what they’re doing. Start by seeing where they pop up in local search queries and visiting their websites. Do they have particular pages that perform well in the search results? If so, can you create a page that’s even better than theirs?

Next, look them up on Google Maps and view their ratings and reviews — what do people say they love about the business, and what complaints do they have?

Whatever you discover, good or bad, look for ways you can improve upon it for your own website and your customer experience as a whole. While you’re bound to find ways you can improve your website, you may also find some tips about how to beat your competitors offline as well, which will ultimately come back around to benefit your website in the form of improved reviews, repeat customers, referrals and increased traffic.

Related: Struggling to Attract Local Customers to Your Business? Use These Digital Marketing Strategies to Increase Your Visibility.

Make sure you’re set up to be seen locally

Google Maps and other local directories are one of the primary ways customers find businesses in their area. It’s important to build a strong brand that addresses client-centered marketing strategies. While it may seem obvious that you want to be on Google Maps, you’d be surprised how many businesses haven’t set up their Google Business Profile properly. In some cases, someone else may even have set it up for them!

Here’s a quick guide:

• If you haven’t set up Google Maps for your business, someone else may already have done so. Don’t worry if they have — you’ll just need to claim your business.

• Once you have your Google My Business profile set up, fill it out in full. Include your website, phone number, business hours and photos of your business. The more complete it is, the better. Don’t forget to keep it up to date! This information directly interacts with Google’s algorithm and will boost your website.

• Ask customers to leave a positive review for you on Google Maps. And for any reviews you receive, be sure to respond. Thank people for positive reviews, and respond politely and respectfully to negative reviews with an offer to fix any problems. Do not argue with or insult negative reviewers, as it will reflect badly on you — prospective customers are more likely to identify with other customers and not with your business.

Once you’ve gotten set up on Google Maps, you’ll be able to make use of the Google My Business’s insights dashboard in order to analyze data about your leads. This can give you important information to help you focus your SEO efforts for better results, such as which search queries led to your pages and where website traffic came from.

Publish local content

One of the best ways to optimize your website for local SEO is simply to publish content that’s relevant to your community using localized keywords. The more often you publish content related to a specific location, the more Google’s algorithm will associate your business with that location. It’s also often easier to rank for location-specific topics than for topics that aren’t tied to any location.

One of my favorite ways to create local content is by engaging with my local community and posting about it. You can highlight businesses and events in your area, and if you attend any of those events, write or make a video about it! This strategy can go far in creating a strong reputation in your community.

Reach your community through offsite SEO

In addition to publishing content about local topics, there’s a significant amount you can do to boost your SEO by engaging with your community off of your website. This could include link-building with other businesses, publishing articles in a local publication and even getting offline and engaging with the community directly in order to build relationships and your reputation.

Related: 4 Strategies to Help You Attract More Local Customers to Your Small Business

Never stop learning more about SEO

Search engine optimization is a constantly changing practice, and even those of us who are experts need to continue learning to stay up to date on best practices. Luckily, there are many resources available to keep learning. Watch recently published YouTube instructional videos about SEO, and read recently published books about how to create effective SEO strategies written by SEO experts.

Ultimately, the best way to learn is to create your strategy, document the results and then simply learn through experience. The more you experiment, the more you’ll learn. Just keep trying — remember, SEO is a marathon, not a sprint.

Although 83% of U.S. adults said parents are the most responsible for teaching their children about money, 31% of American parents never speak to their kids about the topic, according to a survey from CNBC and Acorns.

Last week, the subject came up on Northwestern Mutual’s A Better Way to Money podcast, which featured social media star and owner of Stur Drinks Kat Stickler and Northwestern Mutual vice president and chief portfolio manager Matt Stucky.

“I love and respect my parents, but we didn’t really talk about money ever — I never saw them talk about money,” Stickler told Stucky during the conversation. “It was taboo. It wasn’t brought up once.”

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According to Stucky, parents can instill strong money management skills like any other good habit.

“It just takes a lot of repetition — things like saving, investing,” Stucky said. “I’m not going to teach my 4-year-old about investing, but just the idea of if I save a dollar, that means I can spend it down the road on something that I really want. That takes a while to sink in.”

Money might not have been a regular topic of discussion while Stickler was growing up, but the entrepreneur says her mother did show her the value of a dollar in other ways: repurposing old jeans into shorts or empty butter tubs into containers for school lunch.

In addition to talking to their kids about money, parents can lead by example when it comes to smart financial decisions.

“There are new risks that are now in the equation of being a parent,” Stucky said. “Things like, What if something happens to me; what if I can’t work anymore? How does that impact my child’s financial life?“

Navigating those uncertainties means planning for big-ticket items, according to Stucky. Stickler, who has a young daughter, said she’s already taken some key steps to secure her future: setting up a will complete with a month-by-month timeline and establishing funds for healthcare and school — and even one for clothes and toys.

Related: What Your Parents Never Taught You About Money

According to Stucky, parents should leverage today’s circumstances for tomorrow’s success.

Stucky recommends setting up a 529, to which you can contribute funds for education, and a Roth IRA for your child.

“[With a Roth IRA], you are able to contribute on their behalf up to the child’s earned income amount or the current contribution limits of $7,000, and the dollars come out tax-free after age 59 ½ or if they need to use it for a qualifying life event,” Stucky explains. “It’s a way to set up your children for their retirement, as well as support generational wealth.”

Parents might also consider a Uniform Transfer to Minors Account (UTMA), which has no limit on the amount that goes in and allows them to retain control until their kids reach 18-21, depending on where they live, Stucky says.

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Finally, Stucky recommends the “often overlooked option” of permanent life insurance for your child.

“The policy will pay a death benefit someday so long as the required premiums are paid,” he explains. “In addition, policies accumulate cash value, which your child could access during their lifetime.”