When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other – Eric Hoffer

de
Onasill ~ Bill - Onasill ~ OFF - For The Holidays - Toronto Ontario - Canada - Allan Gardens Botanical Gardens - The Most Unique Cacti

“When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.” – Eric Hoffer

There’s a book titled: “Nebunia de a gândi cu mintea ta” (on the madness of thinking with your own mind) by Gabriel Liiceanu.

It’s so hard not to imitate others!

Whenever faced with a choice, the usual solution is “What would another person from the society do?”.

Of course, each person is unique, and on a regular day, most likely people take their own choices, each of them has a unique set of values and acts accordingly.

But, all-in-all, I think it’s rather difficult, due to social pressure and conformity, to constantly try and think with your own mind, as opposed of copying others.

Citește mai departe

CDN for WordPress – Cloudflare

de
Cloudflare

Cloudflare is a popular solution for a CDN (content-delivery network).

You might want to know that you can have a free WordPress plugin to help you power up your website.

Do note that this change, once done, might make your website a bit more complicated to manage.

Due to this reason, I didn’t install Cloudflare on any of the websites I manage.

A plugin like Imagify for WebP images and LiteSpeed Cache for powerful caching are great solutions to improve a website’s speed.

Also, choosing a fast WordPress theme.

Citește mai departe

Number one criteria for sorting – Top Sales

de
Dennis Sylvester Hurd - Slow Sales

For me, the top criteria for sorting the products in a category of an online store should be “Top Sales”.

Yes, there are other criteria (best rating, the newest added, alphabetically, by price).

And, of course, people should also be able to filter, not only to sort.

But to go into a category of an online store and not see the option of sorting via top sales is a huge miss for the store.

Imagine going to an actual store. You see three types of milk, with similar pricing. Wouldn’t you want to know which product has the most sales, and which people tend to skip?

If I am to choose a keyboard, I go to an online store’s website, pick a category, and sort by top sales. The top products in the list are likely to have a product I need.

That’s the main difference between an online and a physical store – access to data about customers/sales.

Be a nice company and also give me data like this, it really helps with the process of buying.

Citește mai departe

How to memorize a phone number?

de
Adam Y Zhang - Legendary Number ( 传奇号码 ）

Let’s say you’re in a cab, you don’t have your cell phone with you, and you need to memorize a phone number the cab driver gives you.

How to do it?

In Romania, we have some major telecommunication providers, so, for example, 0743- would belong to Orange, while 0724- would belong to Vodafone.

The lines of separation got very blurry once a person can move the phone number to another provider with ease, but, still, there are some general rules (at least in my mind).

So, the first step – associate the phone number with the provider.

Then, for each provider, remember just the final digit – So 0743, the last digit is 3 (it can differ from the same provider, they might have 0741, 0742, and so on).

For the remaining 6 digits, try and form some associations. “1 less than the birthday of”. “Double of a bad luck number”. “The first two and last two digits are similar due to”.

In my opinion, it’s much easier to remember a rule between digits, rather than try and memorize 6 unique digits.

Citește mai departe

On telling the truth, bluntly

de
iezalel williams - Narcissus - The Truth is OUT with NO FEAR IMG_1934-001

I don’t like telling harsh truths.

It’s like this (I don’t know the source):

“I tried being optimistic. Once. I failed”.

Similarly, on the rare occasions when I tried telling the truth, I tend to upset people.

32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” John 8:32 NIV

Yes, f you have dilemmas, express them, do not dwell on uncertainty.

But do expect burning some bridges and losing some close friends with this.

Citește mai departe

Videos for medical professionals’ websites

de
Thomas Hawk - Doctor Kit

I think that if you are a medical professional, a big part of the equation of “Should I work with this person?”, concerning a website, is related to the video part.

If you are bold, you should create a website that has a small video with you – 30 seconds to two minutes, at most.

At a minimum, put a photo of you, a LinkedIn/CV profile, and some words about you.

But a video can do so much more – people can see how you communicate, can understand you much better than in any other means of communication.

I can’t emphasize this enough – if you’re in the business of serving people, you need to convey trust. And video is a great way to do so.

It might even not matter what you are saying. What it surely matters is how you say things, how confident you are, how much charisma you send out.

Citește mai departe

We’re too busy to think!

de
Iaia - Farfalla sfinge

There’s a slogan that goes: “We are busy working, we don’t have time to think”.

I think it’s wrong.

To treat the SEO client as a person that simply doesn’t get it is not a solution.

Make suggestions, say things like: dilemmas, options, questions, variants, paths, explorations, ideas, alternative routes..

Of course, you can give advice; you can say “I strongly suggest”; you can set priorities and difficulties.

But, at the end of the day, you should remember:

“The customer is not a moron. She’s your wife” – David Ogilvy

For example, I think that if I do an audit, it’s worth a debate, research, not a “do as I do, I know better.”

Saying “do this; I urge you” vs. “let’s talk this through” leads to lower efficiency. On the other hand, it helps with:

  • Understanding the context;
  • Passing responsibility exclusively to SEO, “he said.” After a debate, both sides are responsible for the success.

Citește mai departe

Self-sufficiency

de
PinkFloydFanSince1986 - Utah (Explored on December 29, 2021)

I meet sometimes people that are self-sufficient.

There’s nothing wrong with being happy at the place you currently are in your career, personal life, or other parts that make you a person.

But to constantly say, “it’s OK where I am”, to answer “I don’t have any issues” to any kind of feedback might be a way to just refuse to grow.

“It’s never like that!” Perhaps, you’re right. Still, give it a try. See how that image fits your personality.

On another hand, you should also be able to stay “Stop, I have enough, I don’t need to fight anymore, I can settle with the current level”.

Citește mai departe

On the Secretary problem

de
Peter - From the Stone Ages of Applied Mathematics

I like the Secretary problem:

The basic form of the problem is the following: imagine an administrator who wants to hire the best secretary out of n rankable applicants for a position. The applicants are interviewed one by one in random order. A decision about each particular applicant is to be made immediately after the interview. Once rejected, an applicant cannot be recalled. During the interview, the administrator gains information sufficient to rank the applicant among all applicants interviewed so far, but is unaware of the quality of yet unseen applicants. The question is about the optimal strategy (stopping rule) to maximize the probability of selecting the best applicant.

Have a look at these articles for details:

Citește mai departe