I don’t know about you, but when I was a kid, I definitely had fantasies of growing up to be a private eye.
In my dad’s favorite action movies, the PI was always romantically featured, hunched in a darkroom, working late into the night to develop the photos she’d surreptitiously snapped.
When the images floated up at her out of the chemicals, it was clear her hard work paid off: She knew the bad guy’s secrets, and everybody would be safe soon.
…OK, maybe it’s just that I was decent with a camera andreallyhad a thing for Easter egg hunts.
Either way, as a 26-year-old, I don’t often find myself creeping around trying to find and report clues.My career took a slightly different path — one featuring a lot more computer screens than film negatives.
That’s why I was so thrilled when I found out: Sneaking around? There’s an app for that.
And you’ll even get paid to use it.
Want to Earn Money Online with QuickThoughts?
If you’re ready to make your childhood spy dream a reality — or at least to make a couple bucks just playing with your phone — here’s how:
Download QuickThoughts for Apple or Android. Fill in your name, email address and demographic info. Signing up is super quick and painless.
Then, the app will prompt you to search for surveys and missions (the fun part!) to earn money toward your first $10 Amazon gift card.
For surveys, you’ll answer a few more demographic questions when the app finds one for you, just to double-check your eligibility — but even if you don’t qualify, you’ll earn 10 cents just for trying.
If you already think that sounds pretty awesome, get ready to have your mind blown.
QuickThoughts also uses your phone’s GPS to send you on local events or “missions,” where you’ll complete location-based surveys and activities to provide customer feedback.
The app will prompt you for either a live-action challenge close to your location, or one to do at your own pace next time you’re out and about.
You might report on the agonizing line you’re sick of standing in at the pharmacy, or snap a pic of your local grocery store’s cute seasonal display.
Got beef about a dirty public restroom? Here’s your chance to let your voice be heard.
As soon as you complete these location-based missions, you’ll see your rewards populate in the app.
Whether you’re playing PI or just filling in surveys,once you reach $10, you can cash out for an Amazon gift card in the same amount. Easy — and fun!
Why This Paid Survey App is Way More Awesome Than We Expected
At first glance, this might seem a lot like your average paid survey app.
But it’s way, way better.
First of all, QuickThoughts even does the plain old survey part better than most apps we’ve seen.
Your earnings aren’t a negligible few cents, either.You’ll get $1-$3 for every survey you complete, and 10 cents every time you even try to qualify.
The app scans paid surveys from over 1,000 sources, and you find out if you’re eligible pretty early — without answering the same question a thousand times, so it doesn’t feel like a waste of time.
Plus, when the app finds a survey that fits, it tells you exactly how long it’ll take and how much of a reward you’ll earn.
My very first attempt garnered me $1, and even though the app told me it’d take eight minutes, it really took closer to five.
The rewards you earn show up instantly in your account. As soon as you’ve accrued $10 — not hard when each survey’s so well-paid — you can cash out for an Amazon gift card (read: money you will actually use).
It doesn’t hurt that the app is beautiful, either.
Plus, the “missions” are a unique addition, and super fun — even if people look at you a little funny for taking random pictures atWalmart.
Either way, you’ll have your voice heard and you may even help improve stores’ customer service and cleanliness. If you’re like me, you’ll feel like a super-cool secret agent.
Just don’t wear a trenchcoat when you head out on your mission. I know you want to… but you might just give yourself away.
Your Turn: Will you try this app to earn extra cash for going on super-secret missions?
Disclosure: Here’s a toast to the affiliate links in this post. May we all be just a little richer today.
Jamie Cattanach is a staff writer at The Penny Hoarder, but she’d probably quit to be a PI. Her writing has also been featured at DMQ Review, Hinchas de Poesia and elsewhere. Feel free to reach out to her on Twitter: @jamiecattanach
Share one of the images provided onFind Your Calling’s site, OR a “photo of you (with or without friends) wearing your high school, college, or soon-to- be college gear.”
In the caption, include a link to FindYourCalling.com and the hashtags #findyourcalling, #graduationmonth and #scholarship.
Also mention “what you are excited for next; e.g., excited to start business marketing, excited to move, etc.”
3. Two deadlines remain:June 19 and June 26— so publish your Instagram photo ASAP.
There’s no limit to the number of times you can enter eachscholarship, but you can only win once.
If you’re selected, Find Your Calling will notify you within a week of the deadline. It’ll feature you on its blog andsocial mediachannels, so note that, “by winning a scholarship, you agree to an interview and headshot.”
Your Turn: Which one of these scholarship contests will you enter?
Susan Shain, senior writer for The Penny Hoarder, is always seeking adventure on a budget. Visit her blog at susanshain.com, or say hi on Twitter @susan_shain.
Companies like Google & Nielsen are hungry for data on web usage trends — what sites we visit, how long we’re on Facebook and other stats. So they’ve started to pay regular people to share this information with them.
And the best part? Once you’ve signed up, you’ll be paid in PASSIVE INCOME!
There are a number of these apps out there (and we’ve covered a few of them before). The way it works is you install the app on your smartphone and the company pays you for every month you keep it installed.
It doesn’t interfere with your data package and you don’t have to answer a bunch of survey questions every month. Just install the apps and forget about them.
The reward?
If you download all five apps, you could earn an extra $420 or more every year! Not too shabby, right?
Here are the five apps you need to sign up with…
1. Smart Panel ($75/Year)
This app’s purpose is to collect anonymous statistics from your phone to help your favorite web sites, apps, tech companies and mobile carriers give you better services and more features.
It’s run by Verto Analytics, a trusted analytics firm. Here’s how it works…
1. Unfortunately, you can’t download the Smart Panel from the app store — you’ll need this promo link. But it’s free to download.
2. Once you’ve qualified and downloaded the app, the company will give you $5. If you keep it installed for at least two weeks, you’ll earn another $10. Then for every month you keep the app installed, you’ll get another $5. In total, you can earn up to $75 for the first year!
You can redeem your rewards via PayPal or an Amazon gift card.
2. Nielsen Mobile Panel for iPhones Only (Up to $50/Year)
You know the company that tracks TV ratings?
Apparently they also want to measure the popularity of websites and online videos.
“In order for us to report accurate data to the mobile industry, we use Nielsen’s proprietary applications and profiles to measure the normal activity of your phone, tablet, or other mobile device. All data transmitted is encrypted and anonymous. All you have to do is download the Nielsen Mobile App or install our profile, depending on your device, and then continue using your mobile device as you usually do – that’s it! The Nielsen Mobile software is undetectable and will not affect your device’s performance or battery life.”
Want to give it a try?
1. If you have an iPhone, Nielsen will pay you $50/year to keep its app on your phone. Sign up here on your iPhone — you can’t directly download it from the app store.
2. Once you’ve registered, the company will send you instructions on how to install the app. After completing installation, you’ll be asked to restart your phone.
As a member of the Nielsen Mobile Panel, you’ll earn up to $50/year just for using your phone like you normally do.
3. Media Insiders Panel (Up to $15/month + $5 Bonus after 12 weeks = $185/year)
This company has an ongoing project to help media companies better understand how consumers use, view and share TV, social, digital and mobile media.
Media Insider Panel’s app “measures activities conducted on a device, such as sharing, viewing, clicking, chatting, downloading and more. The app also listens for TV shows, and, using technology of Gracenote, Inc., identifies which TV shows was captured.”
Also, at no time is a member’s personally identifiable information ever publicly shared or released, nor will the company ever interact with you via social media.
If you install the app, Media Insiders Panel will pay you $5/month per device. And you can install the app on up to three devices. Plus they’ll send you a $5 bonus after the 12th week.
2. Install and activate the MI Mobile app on your device(s).
3. Watch your email for important information and instructions on next steps.
Here are the supported devices:
Android™ smartphones and tablets running Android version 4.0 or greater, and aren’t rooted. The Kindle Fire HD also is supported, but not the first generation Kindle Fire.
iPhone®5, iPad®, iPad mini®, and iPod touch® devices running iOS 5.0 or newer.
Note: You’ve got be a US resident, 13 years or older and have a valid email address.
4. Screenwise Panel ($8 after first week, $2/week after that = $110/year)
The panel is designed to help Google better understand web and mobile usage — such as what times of day people browse, how long they stay on websites and use apps, as well as what types of sites and apps are popular (or not).
As a Screenwise Trends panelist, you’ll add a browser extension and/or mobile meter that will share with Google the sites you visit, apps you use and how you use them.
Screenwise promises it runs in the background and won’t slow anything down.
The company will give you $8 after you’ve been signed up for seven days, and you’ll get an additional $2 every week after.
The “cash” rewards come in the form of gift cards (you can pick between Walmart, Papa Johns, Barnes & Noble, and a bunch of others).
MobileXpression is a research company that studies internet trends and reports to their clients about the popularity of different mobile phone websites.
The company is currently looking for a few thousand of us cell phone users to share some of the websites we browse on our mobile devices.
All sharing is done with special software installed on your phone and it doesn’t require any real work from you. You can also uninstall the software at any time if you decide you no longer want to participate.
This one can be downloaded on most smartphones/tablets. After you’ve had it installed for one week, you get to play an instant rewards game for a prize (everyone wins something).
I won a $25 gift card to Amazon, but some of the other prizes include iPads & Samsung TVs.
2. Download the software. It’s pretty easy and runs in your phone’s background, just like any other cell phone app. The site says it will have no affect on your phone’s performance.
3. Send your data. This step doesn’t really require any work from you — the software automatically sends the relevant data to MobileXpression.
The company doesn’t monitor your phone calls or personal information, but it does check out web pages you view, links you access and usage times for certain device activities (e.g., text messaging, call lengths and web browsing).
4. Collect your rewards. After it’s been installed for seven days, you can play their instant rewards game — you’re guaranteed to win something.
Shares, seen as riskier than cash because of their volatility, have proven this belief with some aplomb over the last five days, skittering in most unpredictable fashion due, no doubt, to next Thursday’s EU referendum – perhaps you’ve heard about this?
Shares, seen as riskier than cash because of their volatility, have proven this belief with some aplomb over the last five days, skittering in most unpredictable fashion due, no doubt, to next Thursday’s EU referendum – perhaps you’ve heard about this?
Every SEO, webmaster, and digital marketer has apowerful toolat their disposal.
I would go so far as to say that this tool is amust-have.You can’t do SEO without it.
What is this powerful tool?
It’sGoogle Search Console, or GSC for short (former Google Webmaster Tools, or GWT).
GSC is a free service provided by Google to manage your website’s search functionality. The search console is a collection of reports and tools that help you rectify errors as well as strategize and optimize your search engine rankings.
I want to show you exactly how you can use this powerful tool to improve your SEO.
Putting it bluntly, GSC is to SEO what oxygen is to humans. You need it. Your site can’t live without it.
The article you’re about to read will put you in a graduate-level intensive study of GSC. Once you understand the information shared here, you’ll become a GSC ninja.
And it’s going to make ahugedifference in your SEO.
First, let me give you a quick overview. The article is pretty long, so you’ll want to set aside a good half an hour to read it.
The article is divided into sections and subsections, based on the the GSC menu:
I’ll give most of my attention to the first four sections: Parts A through D. Parts E and F are important but mostly self-explanatory.
Part A: Search Appearance
The Search Appearance section helps you visualize what your website would look like in the search results.
Please be aware that there are many code snippets such as rich cards, rich snippets, and different types of framework such as Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) as well as the usual HTML corrections that can help your website stand out and look ultra informative in search results.
Here is what each element in this section represents and how you should use it to your search advantage.
(a) Structured Data
Structured data (in the form of rich snippets), when programmed into the HTML code, marks up your content so that Google can categorize and index it better. Google uses it to serve up “rich” results.
SERP results that look like this are usingstructured data:
I searched for “blackberry sauce” on Google.
The image above contains the first four results.
Look at the results carefully. Two results, 3 and 4, look “richer” because they contain ratings, votes, and reviews. The fourth result even displays the calorie information.
Which result would you be tempted to click on? It depends on what you’re looking for, of course, but I headed straight for results 3 and 4.
Why? Because the rich results told me that the site would not only help me learn how to make blackberry sauce but also provide reviews from people who have made it before.
Plus, I know how long it will take me to make it. I can also have the confidence that other people did it and liked it. And I can even find out how many calories I’ll be consuming when I eat it.
See the power?
Visually, rich results will help you bring in the traffic.
Currently, Google supports rich snippets for the following:
Articles (AMP-only, I’ll get to this later)
Local Businesses
Music
Recipes
Reviews
TV & Movies and Videos.
That may not seem like a huge list, but you’d be surprised to see how much rich information you can add to your site.
It makes ahugedifference!
How to leverage Structured Data for SEO: Ask your developer to build rich snippets into all of the mentioned features available on your website. Ask them to refer toSchema.orgfor code snippets and help.
How does the GSC > Search Appearance > Structured Data section help?
It tells you where you have gone wrong with your rich snippets codingandprovides you with a tool that helps you test live data (see the blue button in the image below).
(b) Rich Cards
Rich Cards are a new invention by Google. They work like Structured Data (see (a) above in case you haven’t been paying attention) but are visually more appealing. Check this image out to learn the difference between rich snippets and rich cards:
When your content is visually appealing, it may translate to heavy user engagement, thereby increasing your traffic and sales. Google currently allows users to deploy rich cards for Recipes and Movies.
How to leverage Rich Cards for SEO: As in the case with rich snippets, ask your developer to build rich snippets into either recipes or movie information, if you host such information.Refer this page for sample code snippets.
How does the GSC > Search Appearance > Rich Cards section help?
It tells you where you have gone wrong with your rich cards coding and informs you how many cards you can enhance. Like in the rich snippets section, Google equips you with a tool that helps you test live data.
The Data Highlighter is an excellent substitute for Structured Data, and you don’t need a developer to write the code snippets in your HTML.
It marks up the same content that Structured Data does.
That being said, this tool has limitations. You have to write the tags individually per URL. Basically, if you have thousands of pages on your website, it can be a pain.
How to leverage Rich Cards for SEO
Click on “Start Highlighting.” A pop-up will appear.
Enter your URL, and choose the data you want to highlight (articles, events, reviews, local business, movies, products, restaurants, TV shows, etc.).
Once you’ve made your selection, Google will render the page in GSC and allow you to highlight the relevant data.
You now have to select the text or images per page that you want to highlight. You can highlight titles, images, category, and ratings.
Google will then prompt you to highlight data in other pages as well and help create page sets.
Here’s a helpful video for a tutorial on this feature:
(d) HTML Improvements
HTML improvements is a report that reveals any problem areas that Google has discovered while crawling/indexing your site.
Here is a list of issues that may surface in this report:
Duplicate/long/short meta descriptions
Missing/duplicate/long/short title tags
Content non-indexable by Google
How to leverage HTML Improvements Report for SEO:
It’s simple. Just fix the problem areas that Google has reported.
Here are some basic SEO rules that you may already be aware of:
Ensure titles are up to 70 characters long (or up to 612 pixels in width).
Ensure descriptions are about 160-165 characters.
Each page must be supported by a unique title and description.
Google should be able to crawl all pages you want to rank in SERPs. Ensure that critical content is not blocked by robots.txt or .htaccess files.
(e) Sitelinks
Sitelinks are automatically generated by Google. You can’t necessarilychangethese because Google uses its algorithm to decide when and how to display them.
Accelerated Mobile Pages is a technique that allows developers to build fast-loading HTML and JS pages. It is based on open source specifications.
The idea behind AMP HTML is to make web pages render quickly on mobile devices. The number of people using their mobile devices to browse the Internet is growing exponentially. Google introduced AMP HTML to help website owners remove any pages loading sluggishly for mobile devices.
How to leverage AMP for SEO:
Embrace the technology. Ask your developer to get up to speed on AMP, and then convert your regular HTML into AMP HTML.
This section digs deeper into your rankings and reports on links to your site, how your keywords are ranking, penalties imposed by Google, mobile-friendliness, etc.
There’s a lot in this section. I consider it to be the most valuable section of GSC for SEO actionable data.
(a) Search Analytics Report
The report digs deep into your site and shows you how often the site showed up in search results.
The report even displays clicks per keyword, how each keyword ranked geographically, its click-through ratio, and more. Here’s an image with each category broken down into parts and how you should leverage each feature or filter to improve your SEO:
Thenumber of clicks per keyword. This helps you learn how each keyword ranks in the search results and how many clicks it received. You can build backlinks, add/optimize content, or create specific landing pages to increase the number of clicks per keyword.
The totalnumber of impressions per keyword. This helps you understand how users interacted with a keyword. For example, a high number of impressions and a low number of clicks implies that your page title or description is not well written or that you have not built in rich snippets.
CTR (click-through ratio) is reported as a percentage. It is basically theCTR:Impressions ratioexpressed as a percentage.
Checking the Position box tells you thesearch position per keyword. For example, position # 120 implies that ? particular keyword landed on Google SERP #12. You can then optimize keywords and pages based on the keywords you want to rank higher.
The Queries filter helps you search specific keywords from within the results, check how one keyword compares with another, and sort the keywords. The filter tool gives you a deeper insight into each keyword. Use this filter to drill down into the keywords and improve the performance of those that already rank high.
The Pages filter helps you filter URLs, compare one page with another (excellent forA/B split testing), and sort out pages in terms of clicks. Use this feature to figure out your top, middle, and worst performing pages, and then deploy SEO to improve their rankings.
The Countries filter comes into play if you are targeting a global audience. I’ve experimented with this,translating the Quick Sprout blog into 82 languages,and have seen some amazing results. This filter helps you filter your site performance by country and compare site rankings between two countries.
The Devices filter shows you the devices, including desktop, tablet, and mobile, used to access your site. You can compare search figures between the devices to get advanced insights. Use this filter to optimize your site for devices often used to access your website. For example, if mobile devices make up most of your searches, you can focus on improving your mobile user experience and creating faster loading pages.
The Search Type filter reports the volume of searches for web, images, and videos. Let’s say you own an art gallery but are ranking low for image searches. You can then optimize your alt tags and image titles to help improve your image search rankings.
The Dates filter helps you set up a date range. You can compare site performance between two date ranges, just as you would do in Google Analytics.
(b) Links to your Site
This section reports the websites that link to your URLs and the keywords used by most backlinks.
You can gain a lot of valuable insights from this report.
Here are the two biggest takeaways:
You’ll know whether you should bedisavowing backlinksthat look suspicious (pharma or drug enhancement sites, adult themed websites, foreign language sites, PBNs, thin content sites, link farms, unrelated spammy sites, and other sites that practice black-hat SEO).
You’ll get a good perspective on who is linking to you and what they’re linking to. This information can help you increase the number and quality of backlinks by targeting similar sites or by increasing engagement/advertising on the sites that already link to you the most.
(c) Internal Links
This section reports on the number of internal links pointing to a page.
Here’s how you can use this report in SEO:
Many internal links to a web page inform Google that this is an important page. As a result, that page should rank higher than other pages for keywords present on that page.
You should focus on building internal links to important pages that do not have any or many internal links pointing to them. Avoid sending all your links to the “about” or “contact us” page. Instead, use internal links to strengthen your deep internal pages, such as content-rich articles or information pages.
Pages that have internal links pointing to them, but have been deleted or renamed, should be identified and redirected (using 301 redirects).
(d) Manual Actions
This report informs you when Google penalizes your site for any spam or black-hat techniques.
Keep in mind that a “manual action” is different from an algorithmic penalty. Algorithm penalties are automatic and will not be reflected in this section. Manual penalties, on the other hand, are more severe and require you to take extensive action.
After fixing the reported issues and ensuring your site contains meaningful content, you must file a reconsideration request to get your site ranking back in the SERPs.
This section is applicable only if your website serves translated/modified-for-a-country or regional content for users in different geographies beyond your main location.
For example, if your website attracts viewers from the UK, you may want to present a UK-English version to visitors from that area.
Or if you sell to customers from France and Germany, you should translate your website into those languages for better targeting.
In such cases, your web developer will employ the hreflang tag to inform Google to serve the appropriate page according to geography.
This GSC section reports on the accuracy of your hreflang tags. This information can help you fix and optimize your coding.
(f) Mobile Usability
This report lists problems that might be keeping your website from delivering a positive web experience on mobile devices.
Google reports on elements that are too close together, content that is wider than the screen, content for which the viewport is not set, and other places where the text is too small to read.
Everything in this report matters. Mobile optimization is a significant ranking factor, and your website needs to be totally up to par.
For SEO purposes, fix all the issues reported, and make sure that your website delivers a great experience on every device.
Part C: Google Index
This section reports on how Google is crawling and indexing your website and keywords.
(a) Index Status
The indexation status displays the URLs indexed by Google, blocked URLs (by your robots.txt) and any URLs that have been removed.
If you come across pages that are not indexed or blocked, you can find out what’s happening on your end and correct the errors.
If there are any indexation issues, you may want to examine your robots.txt file or look into the accuracy of your sitemap.
(b) Content Keywords
This section reports on the keywords in your content and their significance in search results.
Drilling down into each keyword will help you understand the top pages where that particular keyword or its variants are situated.
The report helps you understand the keywords and pages that are not ranking well. Such reports help you optimize your content by introducing keywords and variants in the title, headers, alt tags, on page SEO, tags, and content.
(c) Blocked Resources
Google needs complete access to your javascript, CSS, JQuery, image files, etc., in order to index and render your pages correctly.
If you block Google from accessing any of these resources either by disallowing access in your robots.txt file or by any other means, you will stop Google from indexing and rendering your pages to viewers.
This section informs you where the blocked resources are hosted.
Unblock whatever is necessary to enhance your search engine rankings.
(d) Remove URLs
Some areas of your website must be kept private and away from the prowling eyes of the search engines.
For example, you may want to prevent search engines from crawling your members’ private data, third-party content, or content that is of no value to your viewers.
The tool in this section informs Google that its bot must not index such URLs. After filling in the “Temporarily Hide” field, you can specify whether you want to remove the URL from the cache or search results or both. You can even temporarily hide URLs and make them indexable later.
Removing URLs containing thin, valueless, and third party content can really improve your SEO, and blocking search engines from accessing your members’ private data will help protect your brand.
Part D: Crawl
This section reports on Googlebot’s website crawl rate, the errors it picked up, sitemap, robots, URL parameters, and the indispensableFetch as Googletool.
(a) Crawl Errors
Here’s what you’ll see in this section:
the last date Google crawled your site
server errors (Request Timed Out or instances of your site blocking Google)
Soft 404 errors (the URL does not exist, but the server does NOT return a 404 page)
URL pointing to a nonexistent page
URLs that redirect to an irrelevant page
URLs that are blocked for Googlebot mobile
Fixing any errors will help improve your SEO.
(b) Crawl Stats
Crawl stats report on Googlebot’s daily crawl on your website, pages crawled, kilobytes downloaded, and the time it took to download a page.
Not all of this information is actionable, but there are some things that you want to pay attention to.
As a whole, this report shows how active Googlebot is on your website and how heavy or light your pages are.
I’m assuming you have already usedPage Speed Insightsfor tweaking your loading speed and are adding fresh and helpful content on a regular basis. If not, run your website through this test, and make any improvements that it recommends.
(c) Fetch as Google
The Fetch as Google tool allows you to test the way Google fetches your URL and renders it.
Here’s how to use theFetch as GoogleTool:
Enter the URL you want Google to fetch.
The Fetch Button checks whether the URL connects and whether the tool encountered errors, redirects, or any security loopholes. It checks the code but does not render the page.
The Fetch and Render button fetches the page (and checks for all the issues mentioned above) and renders it.
You can fetch the page for Desktop, Smartphones/Handhelds and even check the Mobile XHTML/WML (older hypertextual computer languages for mobile). cHTML for mobile is mostly used on Japanese mobile phones, so you may not have to use this feature.
After you Fetch and Render a page, you should, if required, submit it to Google for indexation.
Google can return any of the following statuses:
Complete: Google successfully crawled your page.
Partial: Implies that you have blocked Google from accessing some of your coding resources such as Javascript or JQuery, etc. These should be unblocked; otherwise, Google cannot render your page correctly.
Redirected: You set up a redirect to another page (maybe because you may have deleted the page or some other reason).
Not Found: Google could not find the URL on the server.
Not Authorized: Google (and other viewers) have been blocked from accessing the URL.
Blocked: Your robots.txt blocks Google from accessing your URL.
Error: Some error prevented Google from accessing the URL.
When should you use the Fetch as Google tool and resubmit pages for reindexation?
After fixing any of the statuses described above
After optimizing a page with copy, images, or videos
After adding a new category/sub-category to your site
Whenever you optimize your site for mobile (select the Fetch for Smartphones option)
When you change your sitemap.xml or your robots.txt files
When you set up 301 redirects
When you buy an SSL encryption, which changes your http into https
(d) Robots.txt Tester
The robots.txt file (http://ift.tt/1jLiEV5) informs search engines about the pages theyshouldcrawl (and those theyshouldn’t).
When a crawl bot looks at this page, it will crawl anything that’s not disallowed.
For example, you don’t want search engines to view your CGI-BIN, admin login, Forgot Password, members’ private data, and some other areas of your website.
The robots.txt Tester section tests your robots.txt file and reports errors and warnings. It also allows you to test pages to check for any blocking.
(e) Sitemaps
A sitemap.xml is a critical part of SEO. It informs search engines about the URLs on your site along with the date they were changed. It helps search engines crawl and index your URLs efficiently.
This section in GSC allows you to submit Sitemaps. It also informs you about the number of URLs that were submitted and indexed.
Essentially, the tool helps you fine-tune your sitemaps.xml file to ensure all your URLs are indexed.
(f) URL Parameters
Quick warning: Work on this section only if you know how to code. Otherwise, you should ask your web developer to handle it for you.
URL parameters are values that are dynamically entered per URL. For example, if you own a product website that sells globally, you may set a Country parameter that differentiates pages that should be served in different geographies.
This GSC section allows you to tell Google how to handle your URLs.
Like I said earlier, this is a technical area, so don’t go near it without your web developer. Setting the wrong parameters can ruin your SEO.
Part E: Security Issues
Security issues are a big concern with nearlyanywebsite today.
Google takes the issue very seriously. You may have seen warning screens like this one:
Google also displays these warnings in the SERPs.
Sometimes, websites are flagged for phishing.
If your site has been compromised, hacked, or is simply vulnerable to hackers, you’ll find out about it in this section.
If, on the other hand, you see this message, you’re clean.
What if your siteishacked?
Check out this video.
Hacked sites can be costly to fix, both in time and money. Thankfully, Google has a helpful tutorial on the process,which you can explore here.
Here is the process summarized:
Part F: Other Resources
“Other Resources” is a collection of Google’s tools, helpers, and testers.
Here is a list of all these pages as summarized in GSC:
Learn to create a great website with valuable content and have it findable in Google Search.
I consider all of these resources helpful but not essential.
Don’t feel like you have to spend a lot of time on each of them. For example, if you’re not selling any products on your website, then you have no need to check out “Google Merchant Center.”
Choose the ones that are most important to your business and SEO, and focus on those.
Here are my four main suggestions, in order of importance:
Pagespeed Insights: Use this tool to improve your site loading time, and make an instant improvement in SEO.
Google My Business: If you run a local brick-and-mortar shop, check this out. It’s essential.
Structured Data Testing Tool and Structured Data Markup Helper: Once you’ve mastered the basics of SEO, move on to structured data to further enhance your website.
Webmaster Academy: You can never learn too much about SEO, right?
Conclusion
If you’ve read through this guide, you know more about GSC than most people on the planet.Even better, you can use this information to improve your SEO, your website, and your business.
GSC is a powerful tool, and the more you learn how to use it, the better an SEO you become. So what do you think, are you going to start using it to improve your rankings?
One of the most discussed concepts in personal finance is the “Latte Factor,” an idea first popularized by the personal finance writer and speaker David Bach. The idea, in a nutshell, is that you can achieve a great deal of personal finance success by finding small things to cut in your life, and he used the example of a daily latte that one might purchase at a coffee shop, hence the name “Latte Factor.”
The big dispute around the idea of the “Latte Factor” comes down to how effective it actually is. On one side of the debate are people who look at the savings from cutting a latte – say, $8 or something like that – and think that it’s probably not worth doing that if it reduces the quality of your day by any significant amount. On the other side of that debate are people who point out that the value doesn’t come from just cutting out the latte once, but from cutting it out every single day. For example, if you get an $8 latte and bagel every single weekday for fifty weeks out of the year, that’s 250 purchases, which adds up to $2,000.
Looking at things from that perspective changes the debate. It becomes a question not of whether there’s value in doing something once, but in whether there’s value in doing it every single day as part of a routine. Spending $8 on a latte and a bagel might be a good one-time choice if you’re going out with friends or something, but spending $2,500 a year to have that latte and a bagel every single morning is a different value proposition altogether.
When you start to look at things from the repeated perspective, in that you’re spending $2,500 a year for the daily latte and bagel rather than $8 for the one-off latte and bagel, it really puts a hard focus on the idea of daily routine, so let’s take a hard look at that idea.
The Daily Routine
Let’s start by taking a look at what my typical day was like before I started my financial turnaround. Most days, I got up and drove to work. Along the way, I often stopped for breakfast of some kind, almost every day – it was routine. I’d go to work and many days I’d go out for lunch with coworkers, usually to one of the nearby food stands. After work, I’d head home, but I’d often stop at a bookstore or an electronic store that I’d pass on the way (and sometimes buy things) and about twice a week I’d stop for groceries, picking things up in an unplanned way for meals for the next few days. Those actions made up a big part of my daily routine.
On the other hand, my routine today is much different. I usually wake up and settle in to a morning writing session in my home office. Breakfast and lunch are usually scavenged from the refrigerator or freezer, often leftovers but sometimes a prepared frozen meal. Once a week or so I’ll go to the library and eat lunch out of the house, and on those trips I’ll stop for groceries most weeks, though that stop is usually highly planned and involves a grocery list, and I’ll also stop at a game shop about half the time. That’s some semblance of what my routine looks like these days.
Both of those routines involve things that cost money, but many of the changes in routine result in me spending less today than I did in the past. I eat perhaps 10% of breakfasts outside of the house and maybe 10% of lunches, too, whereas before I ate about 75% of both breakfasts and lunches out and about. My grocery store visits were twice weekly in the past and were often poorly planned; today, I stop once a week and spend about the same amount of money. I don’t stop at bookstores or gadget stores any more, though I occasionally do stop at a local board game store.
Basically, I consider something part of my daily routine if I do it once a week or more frequently. I consider grocery shopping part of my daily routine. I consider my weekly game night to be part of my daily routine. You get the idea.
Why do I consider weekly events part of a daily routine? It’s because some things rely on the schedules of others and are somewhat out of my control, which restricts me from doing them every single day. I want to include those routine events that might not necessarily happen daily, but happen frequently enough to pay attention to.
It is my belief that optimizing a person’s daily routine is the most powerful tool a person has for maximizing the value of their money, their time, their energy, and their joy in life. Notice that I did not say “minimizing spending” there.
Figuring Out Your Daily Routine
The first step, of course, is understanding what your daily routine actually is. So, how does one really figure out what makes up a part of their “daily routine”?
The easiest method I know of is by simply using a time diary. For one week, every fifteen minutes or half hour, write down what you did in the previous fifteen minutes or half hour. You can do this on your smartphone or in a pocket notebook. I find that a recurring smartphone alarm makes this pretty easy to do.
After a week or so – or, better yet, a couple of weeks – all you have to do is sit down and look at all of the different activities listed in that diary. How many of those things do you typically repeat on a weekly basis – or more frequently? Those are the things that you should consider to be a part of your daily routine.
Improving a Daily Routine
The best way to improve a daily routine is to go through, item by item, and ask yourself a few questions about each item.
What is the reason that I’m doing this particular thing so often? Is it a worthwhile thing to be doing? Should I be doing less of this? More of this? For example, one thing that’s part of my daily routine is simply looking at websites. I do this for a mixture of reasons, but in terms of my pure entertainment usage, I’d like to be doing it less. On the other hand, exercise is something I do that I want to do more of. I usually enjoy moderate intensity exercise and it certainly improves my health and makes me feel better, but getting started is always the tricky part.
Is this the most worthwhile way to use my time/money/energy to accomplish my objective? Eventually, you’ll come to realize that most of the things you do serve to accomplish a handful of life objectives. Even your leisure time is that way – you strive for quality leisure time and meaningful experiences. Once you realize that, you can start to move through all of the things you spend your time on and ask yourself how much value you’re getting out of each of the ways you spend your money, time, and energy regularly.
For example, I enjoy reading books and playing board games for the entertainment value, the mental challenges provided, and in the case of board games, the social interaction as well. The question is this: does time spent going to a board game store or a bookstore and the money spent in those stores really further what I want to get out of those hobbies? Sure, but in those cases, I’m exchanging a significant amount of money and some time just to acquire more books and games. It’s not about reading or playing a game.
What are the alternative ways I could try to use my time/money/energy to accomplish the objective? Are they more efficient at achieving the same result? Do they achieve a better result without using more resources? On the other hand, going to the library allows me to acquire books essentially for free. I can basically get any book that I want from the library, either on the shelves or via requests. With board games, I do have some reason to own a few games, but they’re mostly played with my wife; I have no real reason to own many multiplayer games because I play them at community nights where others bring a lot of games, too.
In other words, if my passion is truly about reading books and not acquiring them, I have no reason to go to bookstores. Similarly, if it’s about playing board games instead of acquiring them, I have little reason to go to game stores. I can simply replace any routine visit to a bookstore with a library visit, or a routine visit to a game store with an actual play of a game. In both cases, I’m either matching or coming closer to the thing I want to be doing while spending less money, making those choices superior.
Here’s another example: the morning latte. Let’s say you’re in this routine of picking up a morning latte and a bagel at the coffee shop each day. What are the alternative options to doing that? You could quit doing it, but you might really want that morning coffee to get going. Maybe you could get a coffee grinder and a simple French press and make coffee before you go, and buy some bagels to toast at home. That would save you money – the time would perhaps be a little more, depending on the speed of your coffee shop, or maybe making it yourself would even be faster.
The point is simple: consider the options for everything in your routine. What’s the “best” way of doing things, the one that gives you maximum “bang for the buck” for what you want to get out of each thing in your routine? Sure, sometimes you won’t do the cheapest thing, but you’ll find that if you put some critical thought into your choices, you’ll often end up choosing a less expensive (in terms of money or time or energy) option.
If you do that across most of the things in your daily routine, you’re going to end up saving a lot of money (and time) without really losing any of the quality.
Final Thoughts
The purpose of all of this can be expressed in two words: maximize value. Your goal is to maximize the value of every part of your routine, but it’s important to remember that “value” isn’t just money. It’s simply the smartest use of your time, money, and energy to get the results you want.
Over the last several years, applying this kind of thinking to my daily routine has saved me a ton of money, but it’s also helped me to discover a lot of time and energy for my various hobbies, too. I’ve eliminated some things that weren’t very good in terms of using my time, money, and energy because I realized that they weren’t really giving me any value in terms of what I wanted out of life – watching television in the evening is a perfect example, as was reading several distracting websites.
To me, that’s the value of the latte factor. It’s not about dropping those things in your routine that you enjoy. It’s about getting the most value possible out of the things in your routine.
We talk a whole lot about working moms here at The Penny Hoarder, and with good reason: Balancing a family and a career is hard work.
But we’d be remiss not to mention that career balance is difficult for men, too — especially with Father’s Day coming up.
Although women are frequently the primary caretakers in a family, that’s not always the case.For dads as well as moms, some states are better to live and work in than others.
But which states are the best? And worst?
What’s the Best Place to Live for Working Dads?
To discern exactly that, WalletHub recently conducted a study of the 50 states and D.C.It assessed 20 different quality of life metrics that matter to working dads, from child care costs to the rate of prostate cancer cases in a given population.
These metrics were organized into four weighted categories: Economic and Social Well-Being (30%), Work-Life Balance (30%), Child Care (30%) and Health (10%).
Three key metrics were given double weight: day care quality, the strength of the school system (per another WalletHub study) and men’s life expectancy at birth.
Does your state make the cut?
The 5 Best States for Working Dads
(With #1 being the best:)
1. Minnesota
2. Connecticut(Bonus: kids who graduate from New Haven public schools are guaranteed free in-state tuition, on top of other generous moving incentives —see #2.)
WalletHub also pulled out some of the best and worst states for specific metrics, which sometimes look very different from the overall ranking.
For example,although Louisiana and Mississippi rank among the worst states overall, they both boast some of the cheapest child care around.
Also good to know — men enjoy the highest life expectancy at birth in Minnesota. Guess the winter freeze does a body good!
Check out thefull stats over at WalletHuband see how your state stacks up. As always with these types of studies, take the findings with a grain of salt.
After all, my native Florida ranked 40th on the list overall, and I know a fair number of happy, flip-flop-shod dads.
Your Turn: Where does your state rank on the list of best places to live for working dads?
Jamie Cattanach is a staff writer at The Penny Hoarder. Her writing has also been featured at DMQ Review, Hinchas de Poesia and elsewhere. Feel free to reach out to her on Twitter: @jamiecattanach
You never want to overstate the case, it may not be an exaggeration to say that TradeKing is one of the very best investment platforms available. Though the company has only been in existence for a little over 10 years, this TradeKing review will show how they’ve already built an impressive reputation in the industry, as well as a long line of satisfied customers.
The platform offers an almost unique combination of investment and trading tools and services, along with some of the lowest trading fees in the industry, and generally no required account minimums. It would be hard to go wrong investing with this broker, and that is why we list them as one of the top online brokerages available.
About TradeKing
TradeKing was founded in 2005 and has become one of the most popular low-cost brokerage trading platforms in the industry since. The company offers one of the lowest trading fees available, combined with cutting edge technology, top level customer support, and a wide range of free tools and services to help improve your trading experience and performance.
In just 11 years the company has racked up an impressive number of awards and endorsements, including:
2015 – NerdWallet – One of the “Best Online Brokers for Stock Trading”
2015 – Barron’s 20th Annual ranking of online brokers – 4 stars out of 5 for the ninth consecutive year
2015 – StockBrokers.com – “#1 Broker Innovation Industry Award”
2012 – SmartMoney -”#1 in Customer Service” for the fourth time
With TradeKing you can trade the full range of investments, including options, stocks, exchange traded funds (ETFs), mutual funds and fixed income securities. You can open regular taxable trading accounts, in addition to IRA accounts.
TradeKing offers TradeKing Live, which is the platform’s fully browser-based and streaming active trading platform. It provides live streaming quotes of securities, and news items as they hit the wires. It uses an intuitive design that enables you to trade the way you want from your computer, iPad, tablet or any mobile device. TradeKing Live is fully customizable, and acts as your home trading page.
TradeKing Features and Benefits
Features and benefits that are available with a TradeKing account are too many to describe fully, but here is a list of what we consider to be the ones that are most important:
Cash Sweep Account. TradeKing allows your cash balances to be automatically swept into an FDIC insured account. The account is offered through Apex Clearing Corp., which is TradeKing’s clearing firm. Your cash account balance is protected up to $250,000.
No account minimums. This is a major plus when it comes to TradeKing – no minimum initial account deposit, and no minimum account balance requirement. This makes TradeKing the perfect trading platform for both new and small investors. One exception however is margin accounts. The minimum balance required on margin accounts is $2,000.
AutoTrade. This feature enables you to activate automatic trading based on the recommendations of investment newsletters. TradeKing can accept trading instructions directly from the newsletter of your choice, and then execute them automatically according to parameters that you set your account.
Extended Hours Trading. TradeKing enables you to enter pre-market orders between 8 AM and 9:30 AM Eastern time, or post-market orders between 4:00 PM and 5:00 PM Eastern time. On days when the market closes early, you can generally place trades between 1:00 PM and 2:00 PM Eastern time.
Dividend Reinvestment Plans (DRIP). TradeKing offers DRIPs on all marketable US equities and selected American Depository Receipts (ADRs) that are priced at $4 or more, and trade on an exchange or quotes on NASDAQ. The DRIP can be set up on your entire account so that any eligible security will be automatically enrolled in the plan. There is no charge to enroll a security in a DRIP.
Mobile App. TradeKing’s mobile app enables you to trade wherever you’re at from your mobile device, be it a an iPhone or Android.
No account fees. TradeKing does not have an annual fee but the account may be subject to annual inactivity charge (see below).
Maxit Tax Manager. This is TradeKing’s tool that identifies tax smart investment opportunities. It provides cost basis and tax reporting for all portfolio transactions, it also identifies wash sales, calculates proper tax liability based on the selected accounting method and provides for pre-trade analysis for both short- and long-term gain/loss opportunities. And at the end of the year, Maxit provides on-demand tax reports, including the required form 1099. This will simplify the tax season rush to produce documents necessary in order to properly calculate your capital gains and losses for the filing of your income tax return.
Account Protection. Your TradeKing account is covered under the Securities Investors Protection Corporation (SIPC) for a maximum of $500,000 in cash and securities, including $250,000 in cash that is not moved into your sweep account. SIPC does not protect your investments from declines in value owing to market factors, but it does protect you from the failure of the brokerage account.
In addition to SIPC protection, TradeKing maintains additional insurance through a group of London Underwriters, that provides additional insurance in the event that SIPC limits are exhausted, and provides coverage on securities and cash up to an aggregate of $150 million. The additional insurance coverage is maintained by Apex Clearing, and similarly protects against broker failure, and not losses brought on by market factors.
Customer Service. TradeKing customer service is available as follows:
Live Chat: Monday through Friday, from 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM, Eastern time
Email: Expected response time is within two hours during normal business hours, and within 24 hours during the weekend
Telephone: TradeKing offers 800 phone service Monday through Friday, 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM, Eastern time
Mail: TradeKing accepts correspondence by mail, if there is a need to send checks, forms, letters or overnight deliveries
TradeKing also offers dedicated support for Forex trading. They provide toll-free phone contact 24 hours a day, beginning 10:00 AM Sunday through 5:00 PM Friday, Eastern time. Email support for Forex trading is also available during the same hours.
Account security. TradeKing uses multiple systems and methods to protect your account. They employ electronic safeguards such as firewalls, and their entire site area uses secure socket layer (SSL) technology to protect all transactions. They also provide automatic logon procedures, limits on failed login attempts, and of course username and password security.
Online statement availability. Monthly account statements and trade confirmations for the previous 13 months remain online free of charge. If you need a document that is older than 13 months, there is a $4 charge for each monthly statement ordered, or a $2 charge for each trade confirmation requested.
TradeKing Tools and Calculators
TradeKing offers a number of tools to help you improve your trading skills.
Options Pricing Calculator. This tool helps you to research option contracts Greeks and implied volatility, as well as forecast theoretical values and compare them with current bid/ask prices. You simply type in the underlying stock or indexed symbol, and the pricing model will automatically populate. You can adjust variables to fit your forecast, and the tool will give you theoretical option values, current bid and ask prices, plus all the Greeks for the call or the put of your chosen strike price.
Probability Calculator. This tool helps you to determine your probability of success for any strategy for trading options. You choose the underlying security and select up to two target prices, and you can then adjust for variables, such as volatility, interest rate, or dividends. The calculator will show you the probability touching, finishing below, finishing between, or finishing above your targets.
Profit + Loss Calculator. This calculator charts the profit and loss potential of your trades before you even make them. It also allows you to study the profit/loss potential of any existing positions that you hold. It also offers an integrated options chain that allows you to choose a single option, or multiple legs for more advanced strategies. It also offers a set of sliders so that you can see how your profitability and targets change based on changes in volatility at any time until expiration.
Options and Strategy Scanners. This tool allows you to screen over 150,000 individual option contracts so that you can find the exact traits that meet your criteria. You can track as many as 25. And the tool will display matching options contracts. You can place the trade directly from the scanner, or even have the scanner find specific options strategies and then make the trade for you in a matter of seconds.
Stock, ETF and Mutual Fund Screeners. This is actually a set of screeners, one for stocks, one for ETFs, and one for mutual funds. Each screener enables you to set criteria based on your trading strategy, from which it selects investments within the criteria There is also a Back Testing Screener that can be used to build the right stocks screen for your online trading strategy. You can use it to add qualifying criteria, such as technical patterns.
Technical Analysis tools. This is a full suite of free technical analysis tools, including chart pattern recognition, price forecasting and full educational support. It scans the markets to find bullish or bearish technical patterns in the price charts of US stocks and indices. You can even setup automated email alerts to let you know about pattern formations in certain securities.
TradeKing’s Managed Portfolio
If you’re not really into do-it-yourself investing and not into working with a robo-advisor like Betterment, TradeKing can help. They offer managed portfolios through TradeKing Advisors. You choose your investment plan and fund your account. TradeKing Advisors then builds a diversified, low-cost portfolio using ETFs. TradeKing Advisors manages and rebalances your portfolio as necessary. All you need to do is continue funding your account, and TradeKing handles all of the details for you.
You can choose either the Core portfolio, which creates a long-term investment allocation, or you can use the Momentum portfolio, that responds to market ups and downs, and is reviewed monthly for new investments.
The Core portfolio can be started with as little as $500, and there is a $1 per month advisory fee on accounts below $5,000, or 0.25% on balances above $5,000. There are no trading fees involved.
For the Momentum portfolio, there is a minimum investment required of $5,000, and an annual advisory fee of 0.50%.
TradeKing Fees
There is a long list of fees for various activities, such as overnight delivery, check stop payment, returned checks, and similar charges, but the main trading fees are as follows:
Stocks and ETFs TradeKing charges a fee of $4.95 per trade. This is the lowest trading fee among the major brokers, and one of the lowest in the entire industry.
Options. TradeKing charges $0.65 per option contract, plus $4.95 per trade. Multileg trades are charged for just a single leg. They will also allow you to close out short options valued at five cents or less for no charge.
Margin rates. TradeKing uses a sliding scale to determine margin rates. For example, the range on a margin account balance of less than $5,000 is 9.00%. The rate drops down to 4.25% on margin account balances and least $500,000.
Mutual funds. TradeKing charges no transaction fees on trades of mutual fund positions that require mutual fund loads. On no-load mutual funds however, the fee is $9.95 for both purchases and sales.
TradeKing Caveats
TradeKing is one of the very best trading platforms available. But not even TradeKing is completely perfect. Here are a few of the limitations that you should be aware of:
Check-writing and Debit Cards have steep requirements. TradeKing offers both check writing and debit cards, but you must maintain a minimum account balance $10,000 in order to qualify. Check writing also requires a $50 annual fee.
No demo trading accounts. Some brokerage firms provide a demo account that enables you to try your hand at trading without using real money. TradeKing does not offer that feature. However, since there are no account minimums required, and can still familiarize yourself with both the platform and all of the available tools without having to put up a large amount of money to gain access.
No accounts for non-US residents. Except for active military personnel stationed abroad, US citizens must be living in the US in order to open an account. US citizens who live abroad cannot open an account. Foreign citizens can open up an account, but only if they have a valid Social Security number and are legally residing in the US.
Inactivity charges. TradeKing does have an inactivity charge that applies if you have not traded for an entire year and have a combined household account balance of less than $2,500. TradeKing is a very low-cost trading platform because they rely on the fees generated by active trading. The inactivity charge is designed to offset a lack of trading activity. The inactivity charge applies to cash accounts, margin accounts, and IRA accounts. The fee for the inactivity charge is $50 per year.
Will TradeKing Work for You?
TradeKing is currently offering to refund up to $150 in transfer fees that you may be charged by your current broker in the process of transferring funds to a TradeKing account. They are also offering $50 when you refer a friend to Trade King, and there is no limit to the number of friends that you can refer (the referral must open a new account with at least $3,000 and execute at least three trades in order for you to qualify for the referral fee).
They are also offering $1,000 in free trade commissions if you fund an account with at least $5,000 within 30 days of opening the account. The trade credits are good for 60 days after the award, and covers the cost of both equity and option trades.
TradeKing offers a complete range of training tools designed to make you a better trader, as well as features and benefits that create a better overall investment experience. And they are able to deliver all of these services as one of the very lowest costs trading platforms available.
TradeKing is the perfect trading platform for new investors, small investors, active traders, and options traders. Low fees, the whole range of investment services, and a lack of account minimums offer a warm welcome for traders and investors at all levels. This platform is truly one of the best!
