Now streaming options like DirectTV NOW, Hulu, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Sling are changing the game. (HENSE THE NET NEUTRALITY BATTLE) But Youtube is still the biggest network of content producers, and they are actively seeking up-and-coming content creators to improve production quality, and provide other valuable assets to help creators become even more successful! Youtube Studios are some of the coolest places to hang out with upbeat vibes and just a fun positive atmosphere.

And the thing is, with so many niches of content in the world, it’s kind of hard not to shine since so many people are still NOT taking advantage of video marketing! There’s virtually no competition in so many areas!

Get started. Start small. Don’t go buy $5,000 in gear. Most of your smart phones shoot 1080p and will work just fine. In fact, many popular bloggers all started with an iPhone and the standard apple headphones and mic! Broadcast from your desk, a park bench, your kitchen. Record and edit later, or stream it live. Just get out there and talk to the world the same way you talk to your customers now, the only difference, is that one video can talk to 1000’s of times more people than you can physically in one day or one year without having a meltdown… #internetpower

Here’s some strategies for Video Marketing Success in 2018:

We turn to the internet for everything. From selling to buying, it is the introduction of an E-world. With this dominating trend, online security has become a necessity.

Undoubtedly, Google loves its users and therefore, is coming up with every possible way to make us feel secure here on the internet. With its recent announcement, earlier this year, Google and Web Browsers will flag all unencrypted websites starting January 2017.

Security Issues & Vulnerabilities

Google will continue to monitor websites, and unsecured websites may also be penalized in search results due to further known security vulnerabilities that have been wreaking havoc across the web. The vulnerabilities that hundreds of thousands of websites utilizing security layers whose support will be shuttered on June 30, 2018, are dubbed Beast and Poodle. Beast and Poodle vulnerabilities are attack entities that target secured internet traffic leveraging outdated SSL/TLS certificates operations.

Google will flag 2/3rd of the web as unsafe.
(Based on Today’s Current SSL Sites)

This means if your website doesn’t have an SSL certificate, it will display a ‘Not Secure’ in the URL bar.

Get Your SSL Certificate

When Do You need to Worry About SSL?

With Chrome version 62 being released, websites with any kind of text input will need an SSL certificate.

1. Does your website takes text inputs in the form of login panels, contact forms, search bars, etc.
2. Is your website on HTTP://?

If it’s a YES to both these questions, you need to install SSL to avoid any risks or warnings. If you don’t implement SSL soon, your visitors will see a “Not Secure” warning on visiting your site.

• Avoiding The Google Not Secure Warning For Your Website
• Google Starts Giving A Ranking Boost To Secure HTTPS/SSL Sites

What is an SSL Certificate? How does it Work?

SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) is the standard security technology for establishing an encrypted link between a website’s server and a visitor’s browser. This link ensures that all data passed between the web server and browsers remain private and integral.

If you don’t have the SSL certificate, a secure connection cannot be established, that means, your company information will not be digitally connected to a cryptographic key.

SSL Certificate has following information:

• Name of the holder
• Serial number and expiration date
• Copy of the certificate holder’s public key
• Digital Signature of the certificate-issuing authority

Why are SSL Certificates Critical?

Here are some of the reasons to have SSL Certificates:

1. Encrypts Sensitive Information

The information you send on the Internet is passed from computer to computer to get to the destination server. Any computer in between you and the server can see your credit card numbers, usernames and passwords, and other sensitive information if it is not encrypted. When an SSL certificate is used, the information becomes unreadable to everyone except for the server you are sending the information to.

2. Protects You From Cybercriminals

They are clever!

According to Cybersecurity Ventures, cyber-security damages will cost the world over $6 trillion annually by 2021!

It is impossible to escape the rising tide of cybercrime if your website doesn’t have an SSL certificate. They will identify weakness(es) in your network or in the ever changing version updates of software like WordPress and Magento. Recently, cybercriminals have been refining malicious strains that are specifically designed to capture data while moving between websites and with the ever growing complexity of websites, sometimes when you load a webpage, it is pulling assets from multiple servers such as basic Google Analytics Tracking.

Get SSL Protection Bundled with 24/7 Malware Scanning & Repair!

Google has taken this step in response to ever growing threat of website hacking and malware. Hackers have been attacking websites at an ever alarming rate, making regular Malware Scanning & Repair paired with SSL certificates and a firewall a necessity these days. With prices starting as low as $25/month (paid monthly) and greater discounts apply when you purchase 1-Year or 2-Years of service. You can be worry-free of costly malware. For more complex websites OutBoost Media offers monthly maintenance packages combined with Malware Scanning & Repair for 24/7 monitoring and 6 or 12-Hour Response Times, in addition to regularly scheduled software updates ensuring you have the latest stable software running on your website, while 24/7 Monitoring keeps an eye out for intruders who find back doors or “Zero Day” exploits in even the most trusted web applications. While we advise ecommerce clients, and web apps to stick to monthly maintenance packages, basic websites, even local businesses or personal brand sites can take advantage of the low cost malware protection and scanning to avoid costly malware repairs and cleaning after the breach, which can cost upwards of $1,500 per event or more based on the complexity of the situation.

You surely can protect yourself from this mess by installing SSL certificates that offer a vital means of defending against transit-based hacks. And Daily Malware Protection Scans & Repairs can ease your worries about the ever growing malware threat. With the growth of Internet of Things devices, to the heavy reliance on computers and automation to run our countries infrastructure, hackers will take control of any website and its server that they can, in order to use that server’s resources to disguise themselves or create a coordinated attack with multiple systems that can shut down entire websites and networks known as DDoS Attacks (Distributed Denial of Service). If your WordPress website is hosted with OutBoost Media’s Managed WordPress Hosting, our servers use the latest stable releases of WordPress, plus we make specific modifications that prevent users from making security mistakes. These basics, plus free Malware Scanning we typically install on our sites, help to decrease the chances of success for a hacker, but are by no means a replacement for SSL Certificates and Daily Malware Scans & real humans making the repairs.

3. SSL Certificate Builds Trust & Brand Power

With SSL certificates, your customers will see visuals like lock icon and green address bar that indicates well-trusted encryption is in use. EV-SSL Certificates (Extended Validation), goes one step further and verifies the business is a real business. EV-SSL’s take about 1-2 weeks to setup, due to background checks, but provide the added Green Bar, not present with a typical SSL. As a customer, or prospective customer, seeing these visuals like NOT SECURE or SECURED have a psychological impact and often determine whether a user will even remain on the website, let alone make a purchase or send an email to contact you. Going forward, SSL Secured websites can assure their visitors that their information is traveling safely, and cannot be seen by prying eyes.

This has shown to boost the credibility of the brand and increase the website’s reputation with consumers. In fact, like most digital trends, Google’s new policy is simply taking an off-line action – Seeing a secured-website, feeling safe & adding credibility to the company – and bringing that same concept to how Google ranks websites in the organic search results. Google’s automated systems and their new algorithm will think “like humans” and when websites offer secured connections they will reward them by moving them up the search results, and move websites down the search results page, that deliver unsecured connections.

Impact on Search Engine Rankings & SEO

Keep in mind that just because you add an SSL you will not magically move up the search results. Google’s algorithm is highly complex and is based on numerous factors that determine how your website ranks for a given keyword. However, with all other factors being equal, if all 10 results on the 1st page of Google do not have SSL certificates, and one of the websites adds one, they will likely move up the search results. How much is unknown at this point, as Google hasn’t fully implemented this rule, and factors between two websites are rarely, if ever, identical when it comes to SEO.

If you’d like a complimentary SEO consultation on your website and to learn more about how many people are looking for the products, services or information your business or website offers, and how to turn those prospects into customers – click here schedule a complimentary consultation!

Conclusion

Before Google, and web browsers begin to flag your website as NOT SECURE or lower your website in the search results, contact an OutBoost Media Consultant to learn about the various ways you can secure it today with SSL Certificates. Existing clients may login into their current account and add the Premium EV SSL to have the Green Trusted Bar with your company verified information displayed in all browsers for the most secure option.

If you do not have your account credentials, or wish for us to setup the SSL Certificate for you start the process here.

Visit https://www.outboostmedia.com/ssl-certificate-signup/

So here I am probably 12 years after by my first Mac, and I’m still in love. I successfully phased out all but one PC, a Surface Pro 4 tablet/laptop hybrid running a full version of Windows, but it turns out I really don’t need it. I just use it for one business, which has compliance requirements, so it’s barebones. But the Mac is the mothership. My devices are all synced up, and then I have access to shared drives which syncs key information from our shared storage, which one “storage-server” is just a hard drive connected to a desktop and shared, with user priviledges assigned to each person on the team who accesses it. It’s simple. There’s minimal maintenance. But the hardware setup for small businesses is a topic for another day.

A Very Brief History Behind PDFs

Today we’re just going to go over what should be a simple task, editing a PDF. Why is it so difficult? It was created in the early 1990’s at a time when there were multiple companies competing aggressively to have their format become widely adopted. Adobe’s proprietary standard released in 1993, and proprietary meant you needed their special software to save and open it. It wasn’t until 2008 they made it an open standard, opening up the software to have other companies be able to create PDF files, convert Word Docs to PDFs, as well as edit existing PDFs. But editing, PDFs was never really intended to be full-scale editing. The PDF format was created as a standard format that was intended for publishing text and image based documents in a consistent manner, to international standards specifications (ISO designated such as ISO 32000). This allowed a Russian scientist to share his research report, which may have been created in a custom software, not even available in English, and export a report in PDF format, which could be read by American Scientists, Italian, French.. you get the point.

Since this format was intended for publishing, in other words, the FINAL DRAFT, it wasn’t intended to allow edits. Adobe Reader, software released by Adobe, was required up until recently to even open and view the PDF file and you were limited to making comments or “marking up” the document, so that it could be sent back to the creator and revised if they so desired. In 2008, when Adobe opened the format as an open standard things began to change. Microsoft Word allowed exporting documents directly to PDF within the Application, same with Apple Pages, Excel, even many computers allow you to save a webpage as a PDF from the print menu instead of printing it to an actual piece of paper. But one of the main benefits of saving in this format is that it could not be edited easily, if at all. If the PDF has proper metadata setup it extremely difficult for even an advanced user to spoof making the document appear that it was the original if they edit it. If you send a contract to a customer to sign, you don’t want them to have the ability to make a little change here and there, and sign it, then requiring you to reread it all over again just to ensure they didn’t change anything. That’s why we send important documents in PDF format, as they cannot be tampered with.

What Edits Can You Make

Assuming you have a real legitimate reason to make the edit, you do have a few tools available to you. Today we’ll focus on Apple Preview, the software that comes built in with all Apple Computers. You’ll notice at the top a few different icons, and you want to look for the toolbox, to make sure you have the Markup Tools showing and at your disposal. The toolbox is highlighted in red in the screenshot below.

By selecting the toolbox, a row appears below it with a variety of tools. They include a text tool, pen tool, shape tool, textbox tool, a handy signature tool (to have your signature digitally saved so that you can add it to documents later and avoid the whole print, sign, scan hassle!) plus a few others. Here you can add a date to the top of the post, or you could even add a logo and make some other changes. You’re not going to be able to edit the file like its a word processor, but if you get creative you can get alot done. For instance…

How To Edit A PDF File (Without Adobe Acrobat Pro, Photoshop or Expensive Software)

Let’s say I lost the original document. Or in this case, the report that my software generates doesn’t have the header I want on the document, we can get creative and in a few easy steps have a whole new document. Watch below how we totally changed the top of the report. You could actually design a new header in Photoshop or another image editor and copy/paste it in if you’d like. (If you’re having trouble seeing the animation below, watch it on Youtube – https://youtu.be/juz6ls7fmy8 ) ?

How To Combine PDFs Into One Document

Here is a quick walk thru on some of the ways you can use Apple Preview, which is included with all Mac Computers, and use it to combine multiple documents or select pages from one document and move and merge them into another.  The best part of this technique is that it’s free! You don’t need to buy any special software, and you don’t need to learn any complicated steps or tools, its very simple. You can edit your PDF files with free software and save a lot of money that you would spend on expensive software that is very limited in its capabilities. And if you’re not getting the results you’re looking for, you can always contact us to do some quick graphic design work that’ll sharpen up your PDF and make it look spectacular, giving your business a strong presence, leaving a lasting impression. Presentation is key!

1. First you’ll want to go to View > Thumbnails or click the left most icon on the top of the document and click Thumbnails. This will show you the pages of each document
2. Do step 1 for the second document
3. Locate the page you’d like from document 2, drag the thumbnail to the location you’d like in document 1
4. Repeat if you need to add multiple pages
5. Then save your work. If you hit save, you will save document 1, overwriting the original document, so you may want to Save As, and rename the filename something unique, if you still want or need both original documents, in addition to the combined version.

Here’s an animated walk-thru below. And if you cannot see it, check it out on YouTube – Best Free Software for Combining PDFs on Mac 

So the next time you’re thinking about buying expensive software, or recreating an entire document, stop and think. Maybe you can save time and money by using this free software for editing PDF files. For most people this does what they need, and you can get creative and find ways to make it work even if it’s not the best free software for editing PDF files. And before you go spend $200 on overpriced software, contact us, and we’ll give you a quote on fixing your PDF design to get it the way you want for a fraction of that! It’s just one more way that OutBoost Media is helping small businesses utilize technology in a smart way to make their lives easier, their business more efficient, and their revenue more profitable!

The Pitch

What these companies are selling, is a listing service, if you are lucky! If you are not lucky, you just paid a bunch of money for nothing! That’s right, we’ve heard horror stories of unfortunate companies who are unaware of how the Google ecosystem really works, and are swindled out of their hard-earned dollars to never receive any type of beneficial service! Then we, at OutBoost Media, have to play psychiatrist, and teach them that not all digital marketing companies are like this and that when you spend your money with a real digital agency, you are going to huge returns on your investment compared to other traditional marketing and advertising methods!

How To Tell If You’re Getting Scammed

These companies do not want to be known because the way they are conducting business starts at unethical and grows in severity to illegal and downright disgusting. OutBoost Media founder, Joseph Tartaglione stated,

It’s a very hard market we are in. It’s highly competitive on the surface, but when you dig deeper, there are very few companies doing high quality work, the caliber work, that most businesses want, expect, and need in order to be successful today. So we as digital marketing consultants play numerous roles, as advisors, marketing directors, project managers and shrinks, helping undo the damage that these scamming companies have done to honest businessmen and women. It’s a shame, but overtime we’ll beat them. I’m a firm believer in you get what you give. And that is why most of our new customers actually come from referrals.

Here are some signs you can tell you’re dealing with a scammer:

1.  You answer the phone and it is a pre-recorded greeting. Yes, that is exactly the type of customer service you don’t want. Someone who cannot even take the time to dial you themself, they have to call thousands of people, to find the few suckers who will answer. When we answer the phone and its a pre-recorded call, we don’t even wait for the option to be removed from the list. We hang up, go into our office phone system, and block the caller from ever reaching us again. They just get an out-of-order signal, and they’ll remove us from the list eventually. And we’ll never waste our time, or get frustrated ever again. BYE FELICIA!
2. You answer the phone, you press 1, (they almost got you), you ask them what company they are from. You’ll get an answer like, we are Authorized Google Representatives. You ask the question again, “What company are you from?” At this point, they’ll repeat the previous answer, and avoid the question, or they’ll hang up. These companies are frauds, chances are you’ll hear them shuffling through their script to look for an answer to that question, they were never expecting and is not in their script. WHY? Because they don’t want you to know their company! It will incriminate them when people start complaining.
3. The caller says there is tremendous urgency due to changes in the Google system or algorithm. This is fancy talk. Google never makes a huge change that will dramatically hurt honest businesses. Most of their large changes are to combat unethical and unfair SEO practices, and this allows the honest businesses to make it back to the top of the search results.
4. The caller says they are reviewing businesses in [Insert your town here]. All this means is they scraped the web, or telephone book for businesses in a certain area and are calling you all at once so the script can have some more consistencies to it.
5. This is the funniest part, these companies call us, and sometimes when we are feeling mischievious we’ll put an intern on the call to entertain them. We let them go through the whole sales pitch, and give them all sorts of questions, and say I don’t know, so they can give their scripted rebuttals, (Oh, they are brutal to listen to, these people can barely read!) But then we ask them, if they researched our company so well, why are they offering US, OutBoost Media, the same services we provide. They sit in silence for a moment, then hang up. It’s really sad the people who get pulled into these scams, as I’m sure some of the call-center people who do pick up, don’t realize what they are involved in.

Regardless, this is a serious problem in the industry, along with other fraudulent SEO companies, and website design companies, who promise to build you a spectacular website for $800.00. Remember you get what you pay for!

We are going to keep a list of the phone numbers who call us, so that if you see these numbers pop-up on your caller ID, you know to avoid them!

Avoid these telemarketing scammers, claiming to be Google. calling from these phone numbers:

• (347) 370-3089
• (517) 641-5330
• (800) 544-7351
• (405) 755-3131
• (504) 517-1062
• (360) 663-9001
• (619) 551-4309
• (855) 229-5561
• (331) 200-7334
• (973) 435-1950
• (715) 304-0324
• (407) 530-0051
• (805) 574-2087

Check back soon as we are keeping this list up to date to help small businesses avoid a costly mistake. Feel free to leave more numbers in the comments below and add your experiences, so other business owners won’t fall for the same hoax.

Leaders in Local Search Marketing

If you are looking for real Local Search Marketing, and Local Search Engine Optimization, contact us for a free consultation. The team at OutBoost Media has over 15 years experience in Digital Marketing and services, startups, incubators, national brands, and Fortune 500 companies. We build brands and online digital marketing campaigns for one-man shops up to 100+ employee businesses, with the ability to scale to meet your needs. When you’re looking for marketing and can’t decide if you want to hire a full time marketing director or communications manager, contact OutBoost Media, we provide top-notch quality outsourced marketing services for small businesses, so that business owners and management can focus on running the business and doing what they do best, while we market the business.  From social media management and email marketing to search engine optimization, PPC Advertising and content marketing, OutBoost Media can provide your business the tools and services you need to have your business be seen on Google Search and beyond, delivering you qualified leads that will grow your business in no time at all!

For more information on OutBoost Media’s Full Service – Express Business Listing Service, we can help optimize your Google Business Listing, plus your Bing, Yahoo, Apple Maps, and publish your information to thousands of databases and directories visit our Google Business Listing Service Page. –

Get Listed @ https://www.outboostmedia.com/packages/business-listings/ 

Are you ready to ride the Trump Wave?

You can tell we’re a little excited about Trump. His policies are sure to help small business in America. I don’t mean business, or big business, but small business and the middle class. Trump is an entrepreneur, and he respects the process, the passion, the risk, and the reward among the plethora of other things required to be a successful small business. OutBoost Media is not a political organization, and we are not blind Trump supporters, he’s far from perfect, and our staff has called out his bad moves numerous time, but he has adjusted his opinion of himself in certain circumstances, especially when the pubic has provided a different perspective, backed by reasonable arguments.

Politics. Business. Marketing. There is a HUGE Wave Coming…

And it has already showed signs in emerging markets, products and Trump promise to release DARPA technology which will likely propel us to close to, if not into a Star-Trek civilization. The CIA has recently release millions of documents under the cover of the inauguration, on their website, where before you had to go to a terminal in one library in Washington to pickup the declassified materials, anyone can easily access and analyze them! Already researches are finding all sorts of material that the government has been researching for years quietly, while pretending and or lying that there was no such thing. Well, these things that “never existed before” will now have confirmation back by trillions of dollars of taxpayer funded research. Trump has pledged that he will ensure America gets the benefit from the release of these technologies, so if you want to get on the bandwagon, you’d better become at least proficient in the basics!

Building A Strong Foundation First: Knowledge

The most successful business owners, investors, and entrepreneurs all have a few things in common, and we believe one of the most important characteristics of a true leader and successful person in life-in-general, is always have an open mind. The moment you think you know it all, and you stop learning, you stop growing. And a closed mind is not a fun and inspiring mind to be around. Who wants to be with a know-it-all, who’d rather hear himself speak, than listen and learn from others.

That is why we are tremendously excited to start our webinar series next month! it is going to be an amazing platform for small business owners, to learn, grow, and interact and elevate your business to a whole new level. And this is the perfect time to do this, because lets face it, if the market fails and the economy is hurting, you’re going to need marketing to bring in business in creative ways, and if it skyrockets, you’re going to want to pour every dollar you have to the expansion

Convenient Webinars On Your Desktop, Tablet & Mobile Phone!

We will be starting multiple series of webinars online teaching business owners, investors, managers, and staff how to leverage different types of technology, how to market online, trends in the marketplace and a variety of subjects at a variety of skill levels. Most will be completely free, while the more advanced webinars will be for a small fee, which you can watch at your convenience, or listen to on the car ride home. Sign up below and tell us what type of information you’d like to learn about when it comes to digital marketing and properly leveraging technology in the workplace. We’ll then take your requests into consideration when we make our webinar schedule which will start next month! Sign up soon! Space will be limited, and telling us where you need help will ensure we deliver you the information you need. Signup is totally free, there is no commitment, we will merely send you an email of upcoming webinars, and reminders for those who register.

At the end of the day we need to let him do his thing, because the way this government is currently set up, only the highest of the highness-es, what we call American politicians, have access to the real information, data, and trends that show where the winds of prosperity are blowing. Which is why the select few stay rich for so long, as the recent year has shown, the markets are rigged, even at the very highest level, and there are rumor’s surfacing of even more disclosures and arrests coming down the pipeline. And, the recent development, the extradition of El Chapo to the US, could lead to the biggest rat of them all, potentially leaking all the money laundering beyond what was exposed already!

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Today, in what many call the Second #AmericanRevolution, Donald J. Trump officially takes office in the 2017 US Presidential Inauguration. Americans voted to take back control of their government. In his very first speech, Trump disclosed the secret group that has been pulling the strings behind the scenes and vows to end their reign. Already Trump has brought back thousands of jobs to America and initiated trade deals benefiting the American people. If Trump continues on this path, Small Businesses, Entrepreneurs, and the Working Class will all greatly benefit.

There has been much controversy around Trump during the election period, with fake news, mainly purported and promoting false information about Trump and his followers. It was eventually discovered that these protesters were paid for by the DNC, and the strategy backfired, giving Trump more exposure on the news. This gives even more credit to the saying, “Any publicity is good publicity.” Studies show that American’s trust in the mainstream media is at an all-time low and this in combination with fake news, likely propelled President Trump to victory.

Nevertheless, he is our President for the next 4 years whether you like him or not. But from what we’ve seen so far, Trump has already made a positive impact for middle class and working class Americans. As a small business owner, Trump has already proposed taxed cuts which will help us, and our clients alike. So if you didn’t vote for Trump, stay open minded. Nobody is perfect, but we see great prospects for Small Businesses and the middle and working class under a Trump Presidency.

Stay diligent and honest and we can all build a new, better America together!

How To Design Business Cards?

Do you know, a well-built business card offers legitimacy to your business, and can help you to stand out from the crowd? Here is a list of few tips that can help you to make a long lasting impression:

1) Size

The standard size of business cards, either horizontal or vertical layout is 2″ x 3.5″. Horizontal layout offers a traditional look. Many companies are now choosing vertical layouts.

2) Material and Effects

Most of the business cards are printed on cardstock paper. These paper comes in variety of weights, colors, and textures.

• Weight – Card stock is any paper with weight 50 – 110lbs. It is also known as mils or points, thickness of the sheet in thousands of an inch.

• Paper Texture – You can choose any paper texture for yousiness card – rough orth, glossy or matte, or anywhere in between.

• Paper Color – Most of the business cards are prepared in cream or white color. But you can use any r for your business

• Coatings – Many of the businesses don’t bother about coating, but you may use UV protective coating or water resistant coating. These coatingsrease the durabilf your card –eases the cost. Have you ever touched a silk laminated business card? Once you do, you’ll never forget it, and the person who handed it to you!

• Materials – Most of the business cards are printed on paper, but specialty of other materials such as plastic, wood and other metals are increasing day by day.

• Embossing – You can also opt for embossed cards. In embossing, heat and pressure is applied to raise area on a piece of cardstock. It is done without using ink to the raised parts. Common things embossed on business cards are – logo, monogram or other images.

• Embellishments –You can also use virtual embellishments on your cards depending on your budget.

3) Color and Styles

Now that you’ve an idea about what type of business card you want for yourself. It’s time to choose a color and style for your business card!

Colors have a great impact on the type of printing process you can use, as well as the cost of your printed piece.

For offset and digital printing, a 4-color printing process is used commonly. Choosing a single-color for your business card use to be able to help you save your money. However, OutBoost Media has partnered with some of the largest presses in the country to provide enterprise grade full color (4C) printing at dramatically reduced prices. Before you think one or two color, get a quote from us, and you’ll be amazed at what’s possible!

You may still want to stick with one or two-color business cards if:

• If your website is simple, prefer to design a minimalist card. Pay close attention to fonts and color rather than focusing on images and embellishments.
• If your style is more artistic or extravagant, reflect that in your card by choosing four-color printing process.

Experiment with some card styles and designs, and then get estimates for it. These can cost you from a few cents each (or less) to well over a dollar or more.

4) Information To Include

Most of the cards include your name, your organization name, your profession, and your basic information such as email id, phone number, and website address. The other information that you can add to your business cards are:

• A tagline or slogan
• Twitter username
• Street address
• Professional certifications or memberships etc.

5) Printing Methods

There are a variety of printing methods available for printing business cards. One of the most common processes for commercial printing is known as offset. The method used to print business cards is known as digital printing method. If you want to have a high-end look then go for letterpress.

15 Minimalistic And Inspiring Business Card Design Examples

1) I Love Typography

It is one of the popular blog associated to fonts, typography, lettering, and type design etc.  It is one of the best minimalistic card. A light and beautiful typography is used to print this business card.

2) Stephen De Wolf

It’s a beautiful and simple card. One side of the card is black and the other is white. A green line connects both the sides making it trendy and eye-catching.

3) Fuse

Go for elegance. Black cards with bold and white text always look classy.The texture makes the card unique and intriguing.

4) Empowering Performance

Beautiful engraved typography makes this card looks amazing. Blue color offers professional look to these cards.

5) StavGerts – Photographer

From this card you can easily tell the profession of the card’s owner. The lens view is perfectly printed on the card for a unique look.

6) 19 Marks

Nineteen marks card is of vertical layout. One side of card is orange in color making it catchy.

7) Sweet Breaker

It’s a nice card. Rounded corner grabs more attention. Font style is unique, making the card easily understandable.

8) Seasonal Nutritional

Image on card right away reflects that it’s a card of a nutritional expert or a dietician. Typography is done very well. The ‘’O’’ symbol represents a connection between the both sides of the card and its logo.

9) Dphotofolio

Font style used perfectly to grab attention. Black and white colors are blended well.

10) Garage Culture

Garage Culture business card is perfect example of use of rough and heavyweight artisanal cotton paper stock. The typography makes it unique.

11) Le Balene 

It’s a logo for an Italian communication agency, Le Balene. The card design and the idea is quite genius. Moreover, a set of stamps and colored inks allow customization.

12) The Fox Yard Company

It is a great example of 3D embossed card. The complete focus is on the text. The quirky texture background makes it more attractive to the customers.

13) Mia parcel

This beautiful business card is made on Fluoro White Crane Lettra stock. A two color, double sided business card is quite impressive.

14) Lucky Cat Acupuncture

This playful business card had a little bit of an anime style with some whimsy. The business card is quite attractive and intriguing.

15) Dot Design

Two colors and die cut shape is used to print these cards. The elements on both sides of card are placed carefully to avoid any overlapping. Distinct shape of the card, make it one of our favorites.

What do you think of our collection? If you have seen or know more minimalistic business card designs, share with us in the comments below.

How do you recognize a brand?

…By its logo?

Logos are the best way to establish your brand’s identity. It makes people remember your brand and ensure repeat visits on your site. It even helps in creating a fan base. At OutBoost Media, we always keep up with the trends when it comes to logo designing. Check out the 10 best logo design trends that I’ve compiled for you guys and let me know which style you like the most.

1) Dotted logo

Isn’t it’s amazing to see when people create something iconic with something so simple? Take a look at the idea behind this logo. Whenever you think of a particle, round shapes come to mind, right? So, they made the logo with small black spheres. There is one blue sphere in there as well as blue represents reliability and peace.

• Pros of Dotted logos: These types of logos are easy to create. They are perfect for startup companies that are looking to make a mark.
• Cons of Dotted Logos: These logos are pretty eye-catching but usually require great designing to ensure quality. Logos like these must convey a message to the consumer about the company.

2) Circles

Designers love to create logos out of spheres and circles. The idea behind logos like this is quite straightforward. The simple the design, the better it is received by the audience. More and more companies are now embracing this style of simplicity.

• Pros of Circle logos ­– As spheres and circles represent a positive and emotional message. Using a circle in a logo represents friendship, community, love, relationships and unity. You can use these types of logos for websites that are associated with building relationships with people.
• Cons of Circle logos – Using these logos for organizations dealing with pharmaceutical, education, IT, telecom, etc. is a big NO…

3) Wordmarks

Wordmarks logo trend is timeless. With digital-first design trending in 2016, this style is surely getting noticed. It is less distracting than more illustrative styles and easily blends into websites and apps.

• Pros of wordmarks logo: One of the major benefits of a wordmark logo is its simplicity and ease of understanding it. With a wordmark logo, the name of the company or product is obvious, as it is the only component of the logo. This memorable identity will stick in the consumer’s mind, thus creating greater brand recognition.
• Cons of wordmarks logo: The text-only nature of a wordmark logo doesn’t mean that the logo will always be interesting. You really need to choose attention-grabbing colors and fonts, to ensure that the logos are eye-catching.

4) Handmade Logos

Okay, this kind of style may look a bit informal, but they are catching on quick. People usually find handmade logos like these comforting and personal. They started out in blogs and now slowly taken up by creative agencies/companies. The best thing about handmade logos is that they are not restricted by the typography of the digital world. They can be bespoke and as creative as a brand wants it to be.

• Pros of Handmade logos – These logos don’t need the serious sophistication like various minimalist styles. These logos allow designers to add more color to their logos, creating freer tones in designs.
• Cons of Handmade logos – Handmade logos don’t offer professional looks. Most of the companies offering IT, consultation, and education, etc. avoid using these logos.

5) Linked

Logos that exemplify linkage are mostly found on companies that believe in partnerships and building relationships. It shows unity, conformity and commitment. Usually, companies that are merging to form a new brand or companies with different technologies under one roof, tend to go for logos like these.

• Pros of Linked logos – These logos are great examples for businesses that involve networking of people. The idea of linkage can be perceived in many ways, but in general it is about pairing one with other for expansion and growth. These logos invoke trust in people.
• Cons of Linked logos – These kinds of logos have to be used carefully and should justify the nature of the company using it. They can look repetitive and boring to some people.

6) Modern Retro/Vintage

This logo trend kind of picked up in 2015 and it continues in 2016 as well. This kind of logo is a blend of the flat styles of today with the styles and shapes of older logos, giving this style a retro yet fresh look. You can say it’s a refreshing take on the vintage logo style. The best part about these types of logos is they instantly capture the attention of a user. And of course, they are quite easy to remember and identify among other logos.

• Pros of Vintage Logos: Vintage logos offer a sense of history, stability, and reliability.  Even if your business or organization is new, using a vintage design logo can give people the feeling that it has been around for a while, and it’s a company they can trust.
• Cons of Vintage Logos: They are not as sleek as the minimalist styles are, and they usually don’t get much attention from millennials. It may not work for some new companies that are trying to look old but don’t hold the values of an older company!

7) Dynamic

You have seen this logo style way too many times by now. Haven’t you? Well, this kind of logo style is known as dynamic logo style, where the basic structure stays the same but some changes are made to the logo to make it appear a bit different. The idea behind this kind of logo is to make people identify the main brand while introducing new sub-brands to them.

For example: USA TODAY – The company keeps adding new colors along with their primary brand name to introduce new or a different branch of its network. People remember the main USA TODAY logo, so they can easily identify with the new changes.

• Pros of Dynamic Logos– These types of logos are mostly used by organizations like news channels, lifestyle magazines etc.
• Cons of Dynamic logos – For logos like this to work, the main logo has to create an impact first. If the customer remembers the main company, only then they are going to recognize and relate with dynamic logos of that company. It may also be confusing for the users to connect a color to a particular branch of company.

8) Letterstacking

This is a tricky one, but it is getting quite popular in 2016. Basically, a logo like this challenges a consumer to make sense out of the logo. It instantly grabs consumer attention and draws them in. By the time the consumers decipher the logo, they are hooked.

• Pros of Letterstacking logo – These type of logos are very popular among youths. These are quite tricky and eye catching. They usually get well received among the youths.
• Cons of Letterstacking logos – Sometime these types of logos fail to offer their real meaning. They can be eye-catching but may lose out on conveying the real meaning of the logo. It can be confusing for an older audience.

9) Negative Space

This kind of logo design is what we call the epitome of creativity! The more you look at these kinds of logos, the more you understand the meaning behind it. Usually, businesses that want to convey a deeper meaning, or show their creativity, choose these kinds of logo styles. The ability to communicate more without adding anything extra in the logo is a challenge for a designer, but when it comes of, it is beautiful to watch.

• Pros of Negative Space Logos – Most of the companies use these type of logos to add multiple meaning to their logo. These logos are great to attract customers and make them think twice.
• Cons of Negative Space Logos – Sometimes these types of logos are so complicated that sometimes people cannot figure out the meaning behind the logo. They usually don’t work with people who have short attention spans.

10) Half and Half

This is quite an old way of creating logos. The logo is split in half. They try to give an extra dimension to the logo by creating an illusion between the top and the bottom half of the logo. This style has gained popularity in the last 7-8 years and is quite eye-catching.

• Pros of Half and Half Logos ­– These logos are attention-grabbing and offer a two dimensional color effect to your logos. It makes the logo unique.
• Cons of Half and Half Logos – These logos are time consuming and sometimes the meaning is lost on the consumers. The image on top has to reflect and connect to the name of the company below or else it won’t make sense to the consumers.

Sources:

https://www.spellbrand.com/top-10-dotted-logos

https://www.logolounge.com/articles/2016-logo-trends

https://99designs.com/blog/trends/top-logo-design-trends-2016/

http://justcreative.com/2016/01/02/2016-logo-design-trends-forecast/

https://www.logolounge.com/articles/2016-logo-trends

https://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/resources/10-logo-design-trends-to-look-out-for-in-2016

https://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/resources/10-logo-design-trends-to-look-out-for-in-2016

http://justcreative.com/2016/01/02/2016-logo-design-trends-forecast/

http://justcreative.com/2016/01/02/2016-logo-design-trends-forecast/

https://www.logolounge.com/articles/2016-logo-trends

https://www.logolounge.com/articles/2016-logo-trends

Businesses are buzzing with work all across the world. Today employees are connected with each other more than ever before. However, for businesses, sharing of data and communication with each other has gotten a little complicated and often happen in silos.  It is even more challenging for the bigger organizations. To overcome these issues, Google has come out with G Suite to help people everywhere to work and innovate together, and grow their businesses faster.

What is G Suite?

G Suite is a set of intelligent apps—Gmail, Drive, Docs, Hangouts, Calendar, and more. It is basically designed to bring people together, with real-time collaboration built in from the start. It’s easy to set up, use and manage, so your business can focus on what really matters.

Millions of organizations around the world trust G Suite for file storage, professional email, video meetings, document editing, online calendars and more.
Watch a video or find out more here.

Highlights Of G Suite

Here are some highlights of G-Suite:

• Business email for your domain – Looking professional matters, and that means communicating as [email protected]. Gmail’s simple and powerful features help you build your brand while getting more done.
• Access from any location or device – You can access your emails, share files, edit documents and hold video meetings and more anywhere. You can access your data at work, home or in transit. You can start from where you’ve left and access from any device – computer, tablet or phone.
• Enterprise-level management tools – Robust admin settings offers you complete access over users, devices, security and more. Your data always belongs to you, and it goes with you if you switch solutions.
• Smart Scheduling in Calendar– G-Suite can help you with scheduling your meeting in Calendars. Google Calendar uses machine intelligence to find a time when invitees are free, and it also suggests available rooms based on your previous bookings.
• Quick Access –This feature of G-Suite will help you to search the right file in 50% off the average time, by eliminating the necessity to search for it. Instead, machine learning will predict which file you need before you type and then display those near the top of the screen.

Even so, for those enterprises looking too drive efficiency that relies upon machine learning capability, G Suite is an interesting place to start. Google has been in the machine learning business for a very long time and so functions like Quick Access and Explore should work pretty smoothly. The proof of course will come in the eating.

Signup For G Suite and Save 20% Per User for the first year!

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Well, it’s really disappointing to see a sudden fall in the traffic coming to your site. If you’re looking for some SEO techniques that will help you to increase traffic on your site then you must follow these tactics:

1) Wikidata

Wikidata belongs to the Wikimedia organization: a free, multilingual, collaborative, secondary database, collecting structured data to offer support for Wikipedia. It offers a common source of data to Wikimedia projects including Wikipedia and anyone under a “public domain” license.

Wikimedia has a bunch of sites that offers information to the users in various languages. Your business will definitely get more exposure and traffic, once you get into Wikidata, either as reference or as a company. And it will be like icing on the cake, if you get link from any of the Wiki sites.

See how you can get a free pass to Wikidata.

• The initial step is to read and understand the guidelines of wikidata.
• The next step is to write content based on a primary keyword, organization, or individual according to your niche. The content must be genuine and non-promotional.
• Now create a website or page that contains comprehensive information related to your keyword.
• Next, participate into the Wikidata community, and try to get social with users. Make sure not to create a topic until you’ve contributed to the community in a positive way and haven’testablished your own personal identity. If a new member jumps in and creates a topic, it could be flagged by the editors. Make sure to create a topic that doesn’t already exist in the community.

2) Get into Google News

You can use Google News as a Traffic Source. Getting into Google News requires perseverance,cutting-edge articles, honest reporting, and regular updates.

Follow these steps if you want to show your website in Google News SERP.

• Create a “News” section on your site or blog. Make sure to update it regularly (1-2 posts in a day.)
• Make sure to publish unique, authoritative and newsworthy content on the blog. You can also set up a Google Alert for your keyword.
• Every post must be newsy.Adding informative articles such as how-to and guides do not qualify.
• Do not post any aggregated content.

• Every article must be authoritative.
• You must link the credit of each post to the author’s profile – containing contact information and links to their social accounts.
• Make sure to follow the Google quality guidelines.
• You need to subscribe to a paid Google account to become a Google News Partner

3) Use Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) HTML/JS

Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) is an open-source coding standard for publishers. AMP HTML is just like regular HTML with some advance features that reducesclunkiness and generates more reliability.It also increases the loading speed of your web pages. The main aim of AMP HTML/JS is for publishers to able to load their sites quickly on mobile as mobile responsive can be clunky and more time consuming. The more responsive, clean and speedy the page, the more traffic will come to your site.

4) Create FAQ page in your niche

Creating an FAQ page in your niche can also help to get more traffic to your website. The users continuously look for answers to their questions over search engines. If your FAQ page is well structured and informative, your visitors will easily find their answers on your page. If the content available on your FAQ page directly addresses the queries of search engine with relevant answers, it may help to increase your page rank as well. However, this happens neither automatically or overnight! You must earn the higher rank by providing comprehensive and helpful answers. Users’ behavior in response to your efforts will determine whether your page earns more traffic and a goodmobile rank, or it ends up as just another page on your website with little or zero traffic.

The introduction of local search listings changes search algorithms to a great extent and offer small local businesses the ability to compete with their competitors. It’s one of the few changes that help local businesses to improve the SEO rankings.

“Digital marketers always keep on looking for new ways, so that they can help their clients to improve their rankings. And finally, a big change was just made: a new ranking signal was introduced.”

 

Yes, we are talking about Prominence, a new ranking signal for SEO. Maybe it’s not completely new—we already knew that reputation affected search rankings. However, the emphasis on prominence is new and going to change the way of optimization for local search results.

Along with relevance and distance, prominence too needs a certain level of brand awareness. That means if people know you, more people are going to know you, because you will be higher in local search results.

What Is Prominence?

Prominence refers to how well-known a business is. Some businesses are prominent offline, but don’t have any online presence. But now Google will try to count their prominence and offer their listing with higher ranking because they’re renowned in the community and are therefore valuable to be considered for the search results.

How Google Determines Local Rankings?

Local results are primarily offered depending on distance, relevance, and prominence. These factors help in finding the best result for your search. For example, Google may consider a business that’s quite away from your location as more relevant to your search than a business that’s closer, and therefore Google can rank it higher in local results. The factors that determine local SEO rankings are:

1. Distance: It is the physical distance between the user’s device and business location. For example, if you type “coffee” in the search bar, the local search results will give you the nearest coffee shop on the top.

2. Prominence:  How famous is your business? Google extracts all information across the web including your reviews and position in the search results to help position you in local search. So the more link building, the more positive customer feedback your business has, the better local search ranking your business will have.

The search result displays “Winter’s Dolphin Tale Adventure” as it’s from the famous Disney movie -”Winter.” Google offer familiar places in an effort to display relevant search results.

3. Relevance:  Relevance refers to how exact the result of local search query matches to what someone is looking for. Adding complete and detailed information of your business can help Google to understand your business better and match your listing to relevant searches.

Ask yourself whether it offers you relevant results or not.

How Can You Improve Your Local Search Rankings?

You may find that your business doesn’t appear for relevant searches in your area. Fill the required information correctly in Google My Business to maximise the chances that your customers can see your business in local search results. Updating information of your business in Google My Business can help to improve your business’s local ranking on Google and also enhances your business presence in Search and Maps.

• Enter Complete Data: Local results give priority to the most relevant results for each search, and businesses with accurate and complete information are easier to match with the right searches. Make sure to enter your complete business information in Google My Business, so that customers can know more about you and your services. Provide information including your physical address, phone number, and category. Make sure to update your information regularly as your business changes. Learn how to edit your business information here!

• Verify Your Location: Verify your business location to offer your business the best opportunity to appear for users across Google products, like Maps and Search.

• Keep Your Hours Accurate:  Entering and updating your opening hours, including special hours for your special events, allow your potential customers to know when you’re available and gives them confidence that when they travel to your location, it will be open. Learn how to edit your hours!

• Manage And Respond To Reviews: Make sure to interact with customers by responding to reviews that they leave about your business. Responding to your customer’s reviews means that you value them and their feedback. High-quality and positive reviews from your potential customers will definitely improve your business’s visibility and increase the chances of a potential customer visiting your location.

• Add Photos: Adding photos to your listings allows people to know about your products and services, and can help you to tell them your business story. Accurate and appealing pictures may also help your customers to know that your brand offers exactly the same what they’re looking for.

How Does Prominence Affect SEO And Content Strategy?

Ranking signals, brand awareness, and brand reputation have a great impact on a business’s local search results. This means businesses with physical locations need to implement all three elements into their organic search strategy in order to rank well at the local market level.

So, if your brand is trustable and offers valuable and informative content, your prominence will grow. In order to grow your prominence, build a positive brand reputation, establish a great user experience that transforms into good reviews in store and on your website, and ensure that you are recognized in the local community. Vertical-specific directories, articles from news sources, and links from influencers all impact overall prominence.

Source: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/