It’s fair to say that Facebook has experienced some turbulence in 2018.

As the year draws to a close, looking back at the bumps in the road for Facebook over the past 11 months makes it difficult to believe that, well, it’s only been 11 months — to the point where It’s difficult to encapsulate the 2018 ups and downs experienced by Facebook in a single paragraph.

But here goes.

The year kicked off with a major News Feed algorithm change in January to prioritize posts from users’ friends and family over those from Business Pages. By August, engagement with these Pages had dropped by up to 50%. In the spring, details emerged on the improper harvesting of private user data by a voter profiling firm — leading Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg to appear before Congress in two high-profile hearings. In November, the New York Times published a report that the company’s leadership had not only actively worked to hide these issues (instead of fixing them), but also hired a PR firm to portray Facebook’s critics in a negative light.

And that’s only a selection of some of the bigger stories about Facebook from 2018.

Think you’re having a bad year? It’s probably not as bad as Facebook’shttps://t.co/unNh2GldHl

— Barron’s (@barronsonline)
October 2, 2018

But with every new announcement and report, it seems that it isn’t quite enough for people to part ways with the social network for good. After many of these events, we ran surveys to determine if it they were enough for users to delete or deactivate their accounts, and every time, there was a consensus: “No, I’ll stay.“

To find out why, we decided to go directly to users themselves and ask, “Look at the year this company has had. What’s keeping you around?”

Here’s what we found.

Friends and Family First

In our most recent survey to measure user sentiment toward Facebook, we provided a short summary of the company’s alleged scandals over the past two years for 643 people across the U.S., UK, and Canada, followed by a key question. It read:

“Over the past two years, Facebook has been plagued by a number of scandals. These include foreign actors using the site to spread misinformation and influence major elections, voter profiling firms improperly obtaining private user data, and a major data breach. There have also been reports of company leaders actively trying to hide these issues instead of fixing them, as well as hiring a PR firm to help make critics of the company look bad. However, our research has shown that despite all these issues, very few people have deactivated or deleted their Facebook accounts. What are your reasons for continuing to use Facebook, despite these issues?”

Data collected with Lucid

In previous instances this year, we’ve speculated that, for most users, the cost of losing the connection to friends and family provided by Facebook is too high when compared to the cost of the company’s issues.

That was confirmed by the responses we received to this survey.

Data collected with Lucid

The highest number of users — about 45% — indicated that they haven’t left Facebook due to their personal lives being too intertwined with it.

When we ran one of our earlier sentiment surveys in October, Likeable Media CEO Carrie Kerpen pointed to Facebook growing as a source of connections to relatives, for instance, who may not have previously considered using social media at all.

“Your Grandma is likely not on Twitter, but she’s on Facebook now,” Kerpen said at the time. “It’s easy to use Facebook, every one is on it, and it’s widely adopted.”

Some People Have Given up on Privacy

At the same time, some users say they have simply accepted that using social media comes with the cost of their privacy being protected.

Data collected with Lucid

That was the second-highest response we received, with over a quarter of participants selecting the answer: “I have accepted that my privacy and personal information may never be completely protected if I use social media.”

This response could indicate that many users have simply come to terms with a potential lack of privacy as a result of having a presence on any social apps. That was one thought that HubSpot VP of Marketing, Jon Dick, had about the seemingly lack of shock among respondents earlier this year when we surveyed them about a Facebook data breach.

“People just assume that their data is constantly breached,” Dick told me a few days after news of the breach first broke. That’s why it’s possible that “the Facebook news didn’t even alarm people.”

Benefits Beyond Friends and Family

If that’s true — that social media users simply assume and acquiesce that their personal data will always be compromised as a result of using it — that impression could lend itself to other reasons respondents indicated for maintaining a presence on Facebook.

For example, the third-highest number of responses we received were from users who said that the other benefits provided by Facebook — such as getting news or discovering other new content — outweighed any problems the company might have.

Data collected with Lucid

Just over a fifth of respondents answered, “The overall value Facebook provides me — like being able to discover news stories, watch videos, or follow brands — is greater than any concerns I have about the company itself.” 

That aligns with a point made by HubSpot VP of Marketing Meghan Keaney Anderson regarding user alliance to Facebook, when we discovered that many still didn’t plan to delete their accounts upon learning of the aforementioned data breach. 

And as per Kerpen’s point, Facebook in particular serves as “a primary connection point to family members, to news, to society at large,” Keaney Anderson said at the time. “And for now, there is no viable replacement to that.”

But Facebook’s seemingly irreplaceable nature wasn’t one of the more popular responses we received, with only 9% of people answering, “I don’t think there are suitable alternatives to Facebook that could do a better job at protecting my privacy and personal information.”

Data collected with Lucid

Looking Ahead

As 2018 draws to a close and the roller-coaster it’s provided for the tech industry at large (Facebook hasn’t been isolated in its controversy), we find ourselves looking ahead at its potential ripple effect.

Although users mostly say they’re not leaving Facebook, the company’s growth has all but come to a screeching halt in some regions — namely, in the U.S. and Canada, which are its largest markets for (advertising) revenue.

Source: Facebook

With new users plateauing in its most lucrative markets, some speculate that Facebook is on something of a warpath to find new revenue streams, such as introducing ads to WhatsApp: the encrypted messaging app it acquired in 2014. Instagram, too — which Facebook acquired in 2012 — is viewed by many as a social plethora of ads, and has been identified by some as something the company will heavily rely on for revenue in the near future.

So, what does all of this mean for marketers and small-to-midsize businesses? 

While active user growth in certain regions may have slowed, the fact that most of Facebook’s core users have yet to leave the network likely means that it’s still one of the best places for marketers to reach audiences.

That hasn’t stopped other companies from building out tools and resources for businesses that are similar to those provided by Facebook. For example, Google recently introduced new features to its Google My Business app that emulates some of those provided on Facebook Business Pages, such as the ability communicate with customers via in-app messaging.

Image source: Apple

But when all is said and done, Kerpen says, it could be quite some time — if ever — that business tools provided by other platforms begin to rival Facebook’s.

“Google My Business seems interesting, but even in a best-case scenario, it’s years away from even being a blip on Facebook’s radar,” Kerpen explains. “If advertisers ever flee Facebook — which won’t actually happen until results decline — it’s going to be for ad platforms like Instagram [which is owned by Facebook], Twitter, Pinterest, and YouTube.”

And as we look ahead to 2019, it seems that Facebook continues to serve as a resource valued by users and businesses alike — one that, despite its issues, upholds a high barrier to being replicated or replaced. 

When it comes to determining what you want your WordPress website to look like, you’ll first need to consider the theme that you plan on installing — that’s because WordPress themes are how you actually design and customize the look of your entire website.

No matter what industry you’re in or which style you’re envisioning for your website, a simple theme — meaning minimalist, clean, and well-organized — is often ideal for businesses, visitors, and customers.

However, with the hundreds of simple WordPress themes available, finding one that fits your needs may seem like a daunting task. That’s why we’ve done the work for you and compiled this list of our 15 favorite simple WordPress themes for you to explore.

15 of the Best Simple WordPress Themes

We have categorized 15 of our favorite simple WordPress themes by need and industry to help you determine which option is best suited for your website. Whether you need a theme to display your photography, manage your online store, complete a variety of different tasks, showcase your writing, or share your creative work, there is a simple WordPress theme option that could work for you.

Simple Photography Themes

If you are a photographer or want to display your artwork, these simple photography themes will allow you to share your content in a way that looks nice, organized, and doesn’t detract from your work.
 

1. Fargo

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Fargo is a minimalist WordPress theme built for artists who want to share their photography. The theme offers unique transitions between photographs as well as Smart Galleries that seamlessly move visitors between types of content, such as text to photos to videos. If there are certain aspects of a photo that you want to make sure your viewers see, this theme offers zoom-in and zoom-out features that add a “cinematic experience” to your still photography.

Key Takeaways:

• Unique transitions between photos
• Smart Galleries
• Zoom-in and out features

2. Luisa

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Luisa is a simple theme preferable for photographers, graphic designers, and artists who want to include written content or blog-type content with their photographs. Each photo is displayed as a portfolio post-type, meaning your projects are beautifully formatted in categories of your choosing with the option to include text if you’d like. The theme also supports videos. Lastly, Luisa is SEO-optimized to help you organically attract more traffic and visitors.

Key Takeaways:

• Portfolio post-type
• Option to include video
• SEO-optimized

3. Shape

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Shape is a simple WordPress theme ideal for artists who want to tell stories through photography. Shape is known for their Filterable Galleries feature which offers smooth transitions between pictures and videos as well as the ability to add written descriptions of your photographs, display your content in a way that is unique to your site, and add a comments section for your visitors. The theme even has social media support so you can post and link to your social accounts (like Google+, Twitter, and Facebook) straight from your website.

Key Takeaways:

• Filterable Galleries
• Ability to add comments section
• Social media support

Simple Business and E-Commerce Themes

These simple business and e-commerce themes are ideal for a distraction-free and intuitive online shopping experience for your customers. 

4. Monochrome

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Monochrome is a simple WordPress theme created by StudioPress that works well for businesses and online stores. The theme is pre-styled for WooCommerce, an e-commerce platform for WordPress websites, making it easy to integrate your online shopping experience. The typography options and multiple areas of white space allow for a simple, focused, and straightforward experience for your visitors.

Added bonus: WP Engine hosting plan users get free access to all StudioPress themes.

Key Takeaways:

• Pre-styled for WooCommerce
• Simple typography and plenty of white space
• WP Engine plan users get free StudioPress theme access

5. Enterprise

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Enterprise is a simple, multi-purpose WordPress theme meant for businesses and corporations. The minimalist and modern-looking theme offers a variety of pages you can customize for your customers, such as FAQ, forums, support, and a knowledge base. The theme has built-in shortcodes so users without coding knowledge can still easily build their website.

Key Takeaways:

• Ideal for corporations
• Customizable pages include FAQ, forums, knowledge base, and more
• Built-in shortcodes 

6. Presence 

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Presence is a business, e-commerce, and education-focused simple WordPress theme that provides you with pre-built layouts, blog pages, and different designs. These designs are created for different industries including corporations, online stores, hotels, and real estate companies. Presence also has a drag-and-drop page builder to make website creation even easier.

Key Takeaways:

• Pre-built layouts
• Different designs based on industry
• Drag-and-drop page builder feature

Simple Multi-Purpose Themes

Whether you’re looking for a simple theme for your business, blog, photography, or creative website, these multi-purpose themes can be manipulated and designed to fit your exact needs. 

7. Salient

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Salient is a simple, multi-purpose theme that offers over 250 different templates you can use to customize your website. There are also hundreds of ways to customize your color scheme and typography to keep your site on-brand and matching your company’s aesthetic. Salient is a lightweight theme which means it’s speedy, efficient, and takes up less space on your server.

Key Takeaways:

• Over 250 different customizable templates
• Hundreds of color and typography options
• Lightweight theme

8. Infinite

Infinite is a simple WordPress theme with WooCommerce integration and a variety of installable demos suited for different industries such as creative, corporate, e-commerce, and other niche businesses. In addition to customizable demos, the theme also offers access to the Google Fonts library which includes over 770 different fonts. Infinite is automatically responsive on all devices, meaning you don’t need to worry about creating another version of your website for mobile and tablet usage.

Key Takeaways:

• WooCommerce integration
• Customizable, installable demos
• Access to Google Fonts library 

9. Montblanc 

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Montblanc is a simple, multi-purpose WordPress theme ideal for creative and e-commerce use. Whether you’re an author, photographer, videographer, blogger, or graphic designer, this theme has a wide range of features including five different shop and homepage layouts that allow you to display your work in a unique way. Montblanc is WooCommerce integrated so you can also sell your artistic work directly from your site.

Key Takeaways:

• Creative, multi-purpose theme
• Five shop and homepage layouts
• WooCommerce integrated

Simple Writing Themes

No matter the type of writer you are, these simple themes are ideal for featuring your work — there are options for news writing, editorial writing, business writing, blogging, and more.
 

10. Newspaper

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Newspaper is a simple WordPress theme ideal for writing and posting articles and blogs on your website. The theme offers a newspaper template so your pieces are formatted in a layout that’s easy to read for your visitors. Newspaper also has social media and YouTube integration so you can seamlessly share your content with your followers on all mediums.

Key Takeaways:

• Ideal for news articles and blogs
• Newspaper template
• Social media and YouTube integration

11. Writee

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If you’re a blogger of any kind, Writee is a great way to share and display all of your content. This simple WordPress theme can be translated into multiple different languages and has customizable features to fit your blog no matter what you write about — whether it’s food, lifestyle, fashion, or marketing. Writee also has a number of options to help you feature your photographs and other visual content in a way that complements your written work.

Key Takeaways:

• Ideal for bloggers
• Can be translated into other languages
• Customizable options to pair written and visual content

12. The Breaking News

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The Breaking News is a simple, minimalist WordPress theme created for news sites and online magazines. The clean design includes distraction-free styling, whitespace that keeps visitors focused on your content, and simple typography. The theme also provides you with a number of ways to feature your most relevant, popular, and important articles.

Key Takeaways:

• Ideal for news sites and magazines
• Distraction-free styling and formatting
• Options to feature your relevant and important articles

Simple Creative Themes

The following simple themes are ideal for any professional looking to share their creative works such as art, writing, photography, in a minimalist format. 

13. Kalium

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Kalium is a simple theme ideal for any type of creative professional. The theme offers installable demos that include entire website concepts so you can simply customize the content within the theme to get your site up and running as quickly as possible. Kalium is already translated into over 16 languages and includes a wide range of portfolio layouts so you can display your work in a way that makes the most sense for your specific business and industry.

Key Takeaways:

• Installable website demos
• Translated into over 16 languages
• Multiple portfolio layout options

14. Corner 

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Corner is a simple, creative WordPress theme that includes over 16,000 color variations to customize your website’s look, WooCommerce integration to allow for a simple online shopping experience, and a clean layout for a great user experience. The theme also has several custom widget options so you can include buttons on your site that direct visitors to your social media profiles and other content.

Key Takeaways:

• 16,000+ color variation options
• WooCommerce integration
• Custom widgets

15. Kleanity

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Kleanity is a simple, creative theme for anyone looking to share their portfolio. The drag-and-drop page builders allow you to easily showcase your work. There is also a Live Customizer feature that allows you to edit your pages with your content on them and view your changes instantly. The theme also auto-updates so you’ll never have to worry about downloading any new software.

Key Takeaways:

• Ideal for displaying portfolio work
• Drag-and-drop page builder
• Live Customizer feature

Back To You

Simple WordPress themes are a great way to build a minimalist, clean, and straightforward website that improves user experience while getting rid of unnecessary fluff and content. Simple themes allow you to create a focused online experience for your customers and visitors that is unique, on-brand, and appealing to the eye.

No matter your industry, there’s a simple WordPress theme option that works your website, buyer personas, and company. So, if a minimalist and clean design is what you envision for your site, try installing one of these 15 options and implementing your own content to see what a simple theme could do for your website.

What do the lines “You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog, cryin’ all the time”, “Baby, you’re a firework”, and “Life is a highway, I want to ride it all night long” all have in common?

The obvious answer is that they’re lyrics from famous songs. The not so obvious answer is that they’re also metaphors.

Most of our favorite artists use metaphors to figuratively describe their thoughts and emotions, making them more vivid and easy to understand. But metaphors aren’t only commonplace in music — they’re widespread in everyday conversation. In fact, since metaphors are so effective at clarifying abstract ideas, our brains practically think in them to grasp reality, prompting some researchers to suggest we use metaphors every 25 words.

However, metaphors are deeply seeded in our language, so we barely notice them. A lot of times, we even forget what they are and their ability to clarify things and persuade people. So to help you understand the true power of a metaphor, let’s go over what exactly it is and the impact the literary device can have on an audience.

Since metaphors help us reference what is simple and familiar (like an adventure) to understand what is complex and distant (like love) the literary device can sculpt people’s emotions, thoughts, and opinions toward almost any subject.

For instance, in a study conducted at Purchase College, researchers tested the effect that certain metaphors have on people’s urgency to reduce carbon emissions. When they framed the campaign against climate change as a “war” instead of a “race”, researchers noticed people expressed more willingness to end global warming.

Metaphor Examples

Along with our favorite musical artists, some of the greatest minds in the world have crafted poetic and insightful metaphors that have seared themselves into our memories and given us refreshing ways to reflect on ordinary concepts and ideas. Here are a few examples:

“Conscience is a man’s compass.” – Vincent Van Gogh

“Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket.” – George Orwell

“A hospital bed is a parked taxi with the meter running.” – Groucho Marx

“America has tossed its cap over the wall of space.” – John F. Kennedy

“Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.” – Pablo Picasso

“Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” – Marcel Proust

“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances.” – William Shakespeare

Metaphors are one of the most powerful tools in a writer’s arsenal. Not only can they clarify complex and broad concepts, but they can also influence people’s emotions and opinions. And if you learn how to effectively leverage metaphors in your writing, you could impact your readers just like our favorite artists, thinkers, and writers do.

Welcome to The Science Behind Success— a new blog series that explores the best ways to help our brains perform better at work. With psychological research and interviews with leaders in the field, we’re showing you how psychology can help you overcome workplace obstacles and excel in your career. Because a little mindset change could go a long way.

Writer Annie Dillard once said, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”

Most of us will spend a huge portion of our days, and thus our lives, at work — in fact, the average American spends 90,000 hours at work over their lifetime.

And yet, so many of us aren’t passionate about our jobs. A Gallup poll found only 15% of the world’s full-time employees are engaged at work.

 We recognize this lack of career enjoyment all around us — in the cousin who complains over Thanksgiving break about his boring work environment, or in the friend who has been seeking out new jobs for the past year but still says, “What’s the point? No one really likes to work, do they?”

Ultimately, we can all agree on the importance of enjoying our work. Doing something you don’t like every day can be both exhausting and demoralizing. But finding a new job can seem equally frustrating, and sometimes even impossible.

Fortunately, there’s an alternative solution to finding meaning and passion in your current role. Amy Wrzesniewski, professor of organizational behavior at the Yale School of Management, has conducted research on something she calls “Job crafting”. Here, we’ll explore how you can use her research to start enjoying your job more, immediately.

Job Crafting — Reimagining Your Job to Find Purpose

A few years ago, Amy Wrzesniewski interviewed the cleaning staff at a hospital and noticed something interesting — even though all 28 members of the staff were doing relatively the same job, they each described it differently. And the way they described it (or “crafted it”), made a significant difference as to whether they enjoyed it.

For instance, the first group, when asked about their work, said they didn’t like their jobs, that they didn’t feel particularly satisfied, and that the skill-level required of the role was low. Then, when asked to describe the tasks of the work involved, they described exactly what the job description listed.

By comparison, the second group Amy spoke with found the job both meaningful and rewarding, and felt the work required a high skill-level.

So, what was it about this second group — were they naturally happier? Were they willing to settle for less?

Actually, the answer is neither.

When Amy asked the second group to describe the tasks of the work involved, this group altered and stretched the boundaries of their job description to include additional tasks, like interacting with patients and visitors.

For instance, one cleaner regularly changed the pictures on the walls in each of the patients’ rooms on a long-term rehabilitation floor where patients were unconscious or comatose, believing the change of atmosphere could potentially help revive the patients.

Another cleaner liked to double back after her shift to speak with patients who hadn’t had visitors, or looked particularly lonely.

Additionally, many of the cleaners in the second group gave themselves different job titles. When asked what they did, they’d say “I’m an ambassador” or even, “I’m a healer.” They were doing the same work as the first group, but cognitively, they’d reimagined their title to fit what they found meaningful. And they weren’t lying to themselves — they then sought out activities to match that new job description. For instance, the “healer” would look for tasks that she believed could help patients heal.

Apart from how they crafted their jobs, these two groups had no other differences — they worked in the same units, interacted with the same people, and had the same shifts. The second group simply used “job crafting” to find meaning, and enjoyment, in their work.

Amy Wrzesniewski and her co-authors
describe job crafting as, “the process of employees redefining and reimagining their job designs in personally meaningful ways.”

There are three types of job crafting — task crafting, relational crafting, and cognitive crafting.

Let’s dive into those, now:

• Task crafting: Adding, dropping, changing, or altering the tasks required of you in your job description. Alternatively, you might put more or less time and effort into certain tasks, depending on your interests and skills. For instance, perhaps you’re particularly skilled at design, but you’re a customer service representative. As a freelance project, you begin designing templates for you, and your colleagues, to use in the customer service department.
• Relational crafting: Changing with whom you regularly interact when performing your job duties. For instance, maybe you are passionate about social media but you’re a marketing analyst. You might form a friendship with the social media manager, and set up meetings with her to discuss future potential collaborations, even though this isn’t technically in your job description.
• Cognitive crafting: Altering how you perceive your tasks and the meaning behind them. For instance, perhaps you’re an administrative assistant who sees her job as an opportunity to help people and make other people’s lives easier, not just to fulfill organizational duties.

If you’re unsure how to craft your role to make it more meaningful, begin by thinking of something of deep value to you. Is it music? Fashion? Travel? Then, consider how you might integrate it, through tasks, relationships, or cognition, into your job.

Let’s say you’re a content creator with a passion for travel. Rather than wishing for a job with more travel opportunities, like a travel blogger, consider how you might use one of Amy’s three crafting methods to introduce this passion into your daily life.

For instance, you might put more effort into finding opportunities to write or edit content about places around the world (task crafting).

Alternatively, maybe you seek out the Marketing Director for Latin America to discuss how you might collaborate on content in the future (relational crafting).

Lastly, maybe you recognize that many of the same things you enjoy about travel (the novelty of visiting new places, meeting new people), are similar to aspects you find in your daily interaction with clients (cognitive crafting). In other words, maybe you recognize there are parallels between the aspects of travel you enjoy, and your work’s purpose.

You Might Not Need a New Job to Find Your Calling

When you aren’t happy with your job, it’s easy to believe it’s because it’s the wrong job. Oftentimes, it’s tempting to peruse alternative job descriptions and think, “Huh. Maybe those are the tasks I’d enjoy doing. Maybe that’s what I’m ‘meant’ to do.”

Interestingly, Amy’s research takes an alternative approach — and it’s an approach that just might save you from missing out on enjoying your life more, today.

On NPR’s Hidden Brain podcast, Amy said, “I do think that there are two different schools of thought in play around callings. And one is that it’s out there. You have to find it. It’s a matter of moving into the right role, or the right position in the right organization, and so on. And then, suddenly, this will be unlocked, and your work will be this sort of joyful end in and of itself … Versus, how is it that I can craft the boundaries of this job, and the way that I think about its role sort of in the world in such a way that I can come to experience it, perhaps, as something that is meaningful in a way that potentially a calling could be?”

She recognizes that believing your calling is “out there”, and feeling you need to magically stumble upon it, can be both anxiety-producing, and limiting.

The alternative — that you might reshape and reimagine how you can make your current role work for you, inspire you, and excite you — is something both unique and potentially liberating.

At the hospital, Amy asked the woman who moved pictures around on the rehabilitation floor, “Is this part of your role?”

“No that’s not part of my job,” the woman replied. “But that’s part of me.”

It’s important to note, job crafting is a continuous and fluid process. You won’t always have the flexibility to add or subtract tasks from your daily list. Wrzesniewski recognizes this. To combat roadblocks employees might face, she advises managers and directors to enable space for employees to customize their jobs to their individual skills and interests, whenever possible.

For instance, she says managers might help “[define] for employees how their work is interconnected with others’ work … [which] may help provide them with raw materials for cultivating meaningfulness through cognitive and relational crafting”.

Alternatively, she suggests offering one-on-one coaching sessions or group workshops related to job crafting, or simply working with your employees to strategize on how your employees might implement crafting into their daily routine.

For instance, if your employee, a marketing blogger, mentions she feels most motivated when she believes her writing is helping people, you might allow her to set up monthly phone calls in which she is able to hear feedback directly from customers — even if this is not in her job description. As a result, she might work harder on the job, perform better, and even brainstorm ways to make her writing more appealing to those with whom she’s speaking.

If you’re wary of the benefits of job crafting, consider this — one study found fundraising callers who were given stories about how their job could make a difference in other people’s’ lives more than doubled their weekly pledges earned, and the amount of donation money raised, for the entire month after they were given told stories. This suggests your employees’ performance could increase with something as simple as a reminder that what they’re doing is significant to the greater organization.

Ultimately, it’s critical for both employees and managers to consider how they might re-align or change job descriptions to fit someone’s unique skills and interests. By deliberately stretching the boundaries of your tasks, you just might find happiness and meaning in your job, today.

At age 11, I dreamed of being an editor at a major magazine. I even put together my first publication, Teen Scene Magazine, using colored construction paper, yarn, and in-depth feature interviews with … my dad.

Flash forward to today. I’ve swapped my colored construction paper and yarn for PowerPoint and InDesign. I’ve replaced my dad with marketing experts and influencers (in the office, that is). And week after week, I have the satisfaction of being an ebook creator.

What Is an Ebook?

Ebook is short for “electronic book,” and uses either a computer, mobile device, or ebook reader to display long-form texts in book form. Ebooks have multiple digital “pages” that people can navigate through, and are often packaged as a PDF document so they can easily be sent from one user to another.

How Is an Ebook Structured?

There’s no set rule for organizing your content into an ebook. It generally mimics the structure of a novel or textbook (depending on what it is you’re writing about). But, there are some aspects of an ebook you should be sure to adhere to.

Ebooks have some system of chapters and supporting images. Similar to a blog post, they also do well when further segmenting their text with subheaders that break down the discussion into specific sections. If you’re writing about professional sports, for example, and one of your chapters is about Major League Baseball (MLB) in the U.S., you might want to establish subchapters about the various teams belonging to the MLB.

What Can an Ebook Be About?

Anything. Well, within reason. Ebooks are simply a marketer’s way of delivering lots of critical information in a form their potential customers are most willing to read it. An environmental company might write an ebook all about water conservation. They also might focus an ebook entirely on how their water-saving product is used, or how it helped a customer solve a problem. Discover more ebook ideas at the end of this article.

No matter what subject your ebook takes on, research is a significant part of ebook creation. Unlike short-form content like articles and videos, the content of an ebook is predicated on trust and evidence. A user who obtains (or requests access to) your ebook wants the full story, not just the bullet points. That includes all the content and testing you went through to produce the ebook.

In What File Formats Can You Save an Ebook?

Ebooks can be saved in one of several formats. Depending on your end user, though, you might find a use for any of the following file types:

PDF

PDFs are likely the most well-known file type. The “PDF” extension stands for “Portable Document Format,” and is best for ebooks that are meant to be read on a computer (digital marketers, you’ll want to remember this one). We’ll talk more about how to save your ebook as a PDF later in this article.

EPUB

This file type stands for “Electronic Publication,” and is the more flexible ebook formats. By that, I mean EPUB ebooks can “reflow” their text to adapt to various mobile devices and tablets, allowing the ebook’s text to move on and off different pages based on the size of the device on which a user is reading the ebook. They’re particularly helpful for viewing on smaller screens, such as smartphones as well as the Nook from Barnes and Noble.

AZW

This is an ebook file type designed for the Kindle, an e-reader device by Amazon. However, users can also open this file format on smartphones, tablets, and computers.

ODF 

ODF stands for OpenDocument Format, a file type meant primarily for OpenOffice, a series of open-source content creation programs similar to Microsoft Office.

Can You Edit an Ebook?

Nope. An ebook can’t be edited once it’s been saved in one of the file formats described above, so it’s best to ensure you have an editable version saved in a program like Microsoft Word.

But why would you want your ebook to be uneditable? Making ebooks uneditable ensures the content remains unchanged — both the format and the information — as it’s shared between multiple uses.

You can edit ebooks if they’re saved using an editable PDF, a feature that is specific to Adobe Acrobat — the founding program of the PDF file type. Learn how to edit PDFs in this blog post.

How Do You Read an Ebook?

You can read an ebook on many different devices: iPhone, Android smartphones, a Macbook, PC, and e-readers such as the Nook and Kindle. The latter two devices are typically used to read novels in digital form. Nook and Kindle owners can store thousands of books (literally) on a single Nook or Kindle.

But making an ebook can be overwhelming. Not only do you have to write the content, but you also need to design and format it into a professional-looking document that people will want to download and read. With lead generation being the top goal for content marketing, however, ebooks are an essential part of an successful inbound marketing program.

In this post, we’ll walk you through the ins and outs of creating an ebook by, well, creating an ebook. And if you’re worried about your lacking design skills, fret not …

Got your free ebook templates? Ready to make an ebook? Great — let’s get to it.

1. Choose a topic that Matches your audience’s needs

Remember: The goal of your ebook is to generate leads for your sales team, so pick a topic that will make it easy for a prospect to go from downloading your ebook to having a conversation with your sales team.

This means your ebook shouldn’t deviate much from the topics you cover in your other content marketing channels. Rather, it’s your opportunity to do a deep dive into a subject you’ve only lightly covered until now, but something your audience knows they need to learn more about.

For example, in listening to sales and customer calls here at HubSpot, I’ve learned ebooks for use in content marketing is a huge obstacle for our audience, who are marketers themselves. So if I can provide not only this blog post, but resources to make ebook creation easier, I’m focusing on the right topic for opening up a sales conversation.

To get your creative juices flowing, here are some example ebook titles to consider. (Note: Replace “x” with an appropriate number.) You can also use our free Blog Topic Generator tool to come up with more ideas. Most blog topics can be made comprehensive enough to serve as longer form ebook topics.

• X Best Practices for [Insert Industry/Topic]
• An Introduction to [Insert Industry/Topic]
• X Common Questions About [Insert Industry/Topic] Answered
• X [Insert Industry/Topic] Statistics For Better Decision Making
• Learn From The Best: X [Insert Industry/Topic] Experts Share Insights

For this blog post, I’m going to use the PowerPoint version of template two from our collection of five free ebook templates. Through each section of this post, I’ll provide a side-by-side of the template slide and how I customized it.

Below, you’ll see my customized cover with my sales-relevant ebook topic. For help with writing compelling titles for your ebooks, check out the tips in this blog post.

2. Outline each chapter of your ebook.

The introduction to your ebook should both set the stage for the contents of your ebook and draw the reader in. What will you cover in your ebook? How will the reader benefit from reading it? For tips on how to write an effective introduction, check out this post.

Some ebook creators say that an ebook is simply a series of blog posts stitched together. While I agree you should treat each chapter like an individual blog post, the chapters of your ebook should also flow fluidly from one to the other.

The best way to outline your ebook is by thinking of it as a crash course on the sales-relevant topic you selected. In my example of creating an ebook, I know I need to cover how to:

1. write effective copy
2. design an ebook
3. optimize ebooks for lead generation and promotion

While my example has a few chapters, keep in mind that your ebook does not need to be lengthy. I have one golden rule for ebook length: Write what is needed to effectively educate your audience about your selected topic. If that requires five pages, great! If that requires 30 pages, so be it. Just don’t waste words thinking you need to write a long ebook.

With that, let’s move on to the actual copy you’re writing.

3. Break down each chapter as you write.

Get writing! Here, you can approach each chapter the way you might write a long blog post — by compartmentalizing each chapter into smaller sections or bullet points, as shown in the picture below. This helps you write simply and clearly, rather than trying to use sophisticated language to convey each point. It’s the most effective way to educate readers and help them understand the new material you’re providing.

Be sure to maintain a consistent structure across each chapter, as well. This helps you establish natural transitions between each chapter so there’s a clear progression from one chapter to the next (simply stiching blog posts together can rob you of this quality).

These practices should hold true for all your other marketing efforts, such as email marketing, call-to-action creation, and landing page development. “Clarity trumps persuasion,” as Dr. Flint McGlaughlin of MECLABS often likes to say.

Want to make sure you’re keeping your ebook exciting for readers? Here are some key tips to keep in mind:

• Use keywords in the title that emphasize the value of your offer. Examples include adjectives like “amazing,” “awesome,” or “ultimate.”
• Keep your format consistent so you create a mental model for readers and enhance their understanding of the material.
• When appropriate, make use of formatting — like bulleted lists, bold text, italics, and font size changes — to draw people’s eyes to your most important content or emphasize certain points you want readers to remember.

4. Design your ebook.

Our downloadable ebook templates are offered in both PowerPoint and InDesign. For this example, we’ll show you how to do it in PowerPoint, since more people have access to that software.

You’ll notice we only have one “chapter page” in the template (slide three). To create additional chapter pages, or any pages really, simply right click the slide and choose Duplicate Slide. This will make a copy of your slide and allow you to drag it to its proper place in your ebook via the sidebar or Slide Sorter section of PowerPoint. You can then customize it for any subsequent chapters.

5. Use the right colors.

Ideally, our free ebook templates would magically match your brand colors. But, they probably don’t; this is where you get to truly personalize your work. However, because ebooks offer more real estate for color than your logo or website, it’s a good idea to consider secondary colors within your brand’s color palate. Ebooks are where this color scheme can truly shine.

To learn how to add your brand’s colors to PowerPoint, check out this blog post. That way, you can customize the color scheme in our ebook templates to match your brand!

6. Incorporate visuals.

Images and graphics in ebooks are hard to get right. The key to making them fit well is to think of them as complementary to your writing. Whether you add them during or after you’ve finished writing your ebook’s copy, your visuals should serve to highlight an important point you’re making or deconstruct the meaning of a concept in an easy-to-understand, visual way.

Images shouldn’t just be there to make the ebook easy on the eyes. Rather, they should be used to enhance the reader’s understanding of the material you’re covering. If you need help gathering visuals, we have three sets of free stock photos that might help you along the way:

• 75 Standard Stock Photos
• 160 Business-Themed Stock Photos
• 250 Holiday Stock Photos

And if you’re compiling a data-heavy ebook, you might want to download our free data visualization ebook for tips about designing compelling charts and graphs for your content.

7. Highlight quotes or stats.

Another way to enhance your ebook is by highlighting quotes or stats within your design. Just be sure the quote or stat you’re using genuinely adds value to the content.

Whether you’re emphasizing a quote or adding a visual, keep all your content within the same margins. If your copy is consistently 1-inch indented on your page from both the left and right side, keep your designed elements aligned using that same spacing.

8. Place appropriate calls-to-action within your ebook.

Now that your content is written and designed, it’s time to optimize it for lead generation, reconversion, and promotion.

Think about how you got here — you clicked on a call-to-action (CTA) in an email, on a social media post, or somewhere else. A CTA is a link or visual object that entices the visitor to click and arrive on a landing page that will get them further engaged with your company. Since your ebook readers have probably converted into leads in order to get their hands on your ebook to begin with (more on this in Step 2 below), use the CTAs within your ebook to reconvert your readers and propel them further down your marketing funnel.

For instance, a CTA can lead to another offer, your annual conference’s registration page, or even a product page. Depending on what this next action is, CTAs can be an in-line rectangle or a full page teasing the next offer (see both images below).

To hyperlink the CTA in your ebook (or any image or text in your ebook) to your destination URL, simply go to Insert >> Hyperlink in PowerPoint.

We’ve even designed 50 customizable calls-to-action in PowerPoint you can download and use in your ebooks. You can grab them here.

Now, we don’t have a dedicated CTA template slide in the PowerPoint ebook templates for you to customize … but it’s still simple! All you have to do is duplicate slide four (the Header/Subheader slide) and customize copy or add images as needed. You can also go to Insert >> New Slide and work from there.

9. Convert it into a PDF.

Once you’ve finished writing your ebook — CTAs and all — it’s time to convert it to the right file type so it’s transferrable from you to your recipient.

To convert your ebook to a PDF, click File >> Save As in the ebook template you have open. Under File Format, select PDF and select a destination on your computer for this new file.

Why can’t you just attach what you have to a landing page and be done with it? Word documents, PowerPoints, and similar templates are perfect for creating your ebook, but not for delivering it. Because these templates are editable, the contents of your ebook are too easily corrupted, distorted, or even lost when moving from your computer to the hands of your future leads. That’s where PDFs come in.

You’ve seen these letters at the end of files before. Short for Portable Document Format, the .PDF file type essentially freezes your ebook so it can be displayed clearly on any device. A popular alternative to PDFs is the .EPUB file type. See a comparison of EPUB to PDF here.

10. Create a dedicated landing page for your ebook.

Your ebook should be available for download through a landing page on your site. A landing page is a web page that promotes/describes your offer and provides a form that visitors need to fill out with their contact information in order to access your ebook. This is how you are able to convert your visitors into business leads that your sales team can ultimately follow up with.

For instance, you went through this landing page in order to access this ebook template. To learn more about how to optimize your landing pages for conversion, download this free ebook.

11. Promote your ebook and track its success.

Once your landing page is all set, you can use that destination URL to promote your ebook across your marketing channels. Here are five ways you can do this:

• Advertise your new ebook on your website. For example, feature a CTA or link to your offer’s landing page on your resources page or even your homepage.
• Promote your ebook through your blog. For instance, consider publishing an excerpt of your ebook as a blog post. Or write a separate blog article on the same topic as your ebook, and link to it at the end of your post using a call-to-action to encourage readers to keep learning. (Note: This very blog post is the perfect example of how to promote an offer you created with a blog post.)
• Send a segmented email to contacts who have indicated an interest in receiving offers from your company.
• Leverage paid advertising and co-marketing partnerships that will help you promote your ebook to a new audience.
• Publish posts to social media with a link to your ebook. You can also increase social shares by creating social media share buttons within your ebook, such as the ones at the bottom right of this ebook. Here’s a blog post that shows how to hyperlink them.

After your content is launched and promoted across your marketing channels, you’ll also want marketing analytics in place to measure the success of your live product.

For instance, you should have landing page analytics that give you insight into how many people downloaded your ebook and converted into leads, and closed-loop analytics that show how many of those people ultimately converted into opportunities and customers for your business. Learn more through HubSpot’s Landing Pages App.

And with that, we’ve built an ebook, folks! You can check out the packaged version of the example I built through this post here:

Ebook Ideas

So, what should you write about in your ebook? I’ll answer that question with another question: What do you want your readers to get out of this ebook? To identify an ebook idea that suits your audience, consider the type of ebook you’re trying to create. Here are a few ideas.

New Research

Conducting an experiment or business survey? This is a great way to develop proprietary knowledge and become a thought leader in your industry. But how will you share your findings with the people who care about it? Create an ebook that describes the experiment, what you intended to find out, what the results of the experiment were, and what these findings mean for your readers and the market at large.

Case Study

People love success stories, especially if these people are on the fence about purchasing something from you. If you have a client whose business you’re particularly proud to have, why not tell their story in an ebook?

Ebook case studies show your buyers that other people trust you and have benefited from your product or service. In your ebook, describe what your client’s challenge was, how you connected with them, and how you were able to help your client solve their challenge and become successful.

Product Demo

The more complex your product is, the more information your customers will need to use it correctly. If your product or service can be used in multiple ways, or it’s hard to set up alone, dedicate a brief ebook to showing people how it’s done. In the first section of your ebook, for example, explain how to launch your product or service. In the second section, break down the individual features and purposes your product is best used for.

Interview

Interested in interviewing a well-known person in your market? Perhaps you’ve already sat down with an influencer to pick their brain about the future of the industry. Package this interview into an ebook, making it easy for your customers to read and share your inside scoop.

Playbook

A “playbook” is a document people can use when taking on a new project or concept that is foreign to them. Think of it like a cheat sheet, full of tips and tricks that help your customers get better at what they do.

When done right, a playbook equips your customers with information they would need to excel when using your product. For example, a software vendor for IT professionals might create a “virus protection playbook” that makes support teams better at preventing viruses at their respective companies.

Blog Post Series

Sometimes, the best ebook for your business is already strewn across a series of blog posts. If you’ve spent the last month writing articles all on the same subject for your business, imagine how these posts would look stitched together?

Each article can begin a new chapter. Then, once this ebook is created, you can promote it on a landing page, link to this landing page from each individual blog post, and generate leads from readers who want to download the entire blog series in one convenient ebook.

Ebook Creation Resources

• 5 Free Ebook Templates in PowerPoint and InDesign [Free Download]
• 13 More Customizable Ebook Templates in PowerPoint [Free Download]
• Data Visualization 101: How to Design Charts and Graphs [Free Download]
• How to Easily Turn Blog Posts Into an Ebook [Blog Post]
• A Simple Guide to Creating Social Sharing Links for Your Ebooks [Blog Post]

Do you have any other tips or resources for making ebook creation easier? Apply them to your content marketing strategy. I’d be remiss not to admit every company’s ebook will come to fruition differently. It all depends on the needs of your brand.

 

Imagine a world with zero search results. As it turns out, Google is moving toward making that world a reality.

Google has been experimenting with a ‘zero search results’ page — where the search engine provides a single answer to queries about local time and mathematical conversions or calculations — e.g., “8 tbsp in tsp” — without displaying any other search results.

As reported by SEO Roundtable, this is not the first time users have reported seeing the zero search results landscape. The feature was first tested in March, received poor reviews, then briefly appeared again in September due to what Google called “a glitch.”

But now, Google has confirmed that it has rolled out the zero search results feature on mobile, telling SEO Roundtable that it contributes to quicker load times, among other user experience improvements.

So, where exactly do users weigh in on the world of zero search results — and what does it mean for the work that marketers do? We did some research to find out.

How Do Users Feel About a Zero Search Results World?

We asked over 4,200 people across the U.S., UK, and Canada for their reactions to Google’s new zero search results feature. First, we explained what it is — “the search engine will provide a single answer to queries — such as, ‘What time is it in New York?’ — without displaying any other search results.”

Then, we asked them to measure how this would impact their search experience in a few areas — such as their ability to find information, the accuracy of the single answers they might receive, and others.

Here’s what we found out.

Even Exposure

We wanted to gauge how many users had actually come across this feature — so we began by asking how many of them had seen it.

There was a somewhat even split between those who said they had come across a zero search results page and those who hadn’t. However, most respondents — nearly 60% — said they hadn’t yet seen it. 

Data collected with Lucid

Ease of Finding Information

Then, we wanted to know if users thought a zero search results feature would make it easier — or more difficult — to find information.

Data collected with Lucid

The impression of a zero results world seems to be generally positive, with about half of respondents indicating that they think it would make finding information on Google easier.

The Accuracy Element

Next, we wanted to find out how users think the zero search results feature would impact the accuracy of the information they might receive in response to a query. 

We phrased this question two ways. First, we asked users, “How do you think this will impact the accuracy of the search results?”

Data collected with Lucid

When the question was phrased this way, the response was generally positive, with most people (close to 80%) indicating that they believe a zero search results page would generally make the information more accurate — or equally accurate to a traditional search results page.

Then, we asked how much users would trust the information they received on a zero search results page.

Data collected with Lucid

Interestingly, the positive sentiment here was sightly lower — with 20% fewer respondents indicating that they would be more or equally likely to trust the accuracy of information received on a zero search results page.

Still, the positive response outweighed the negative, with less than a quarter of participants saying they would trust a zero search results page less.

Time Spent on Google

Finally, we wanted to know if a zero search results page would impact the amount of time users spend on Google.

Data collected with Lucid

Overall, the prospect of a zero-search-results-driven world doesn’t appear to have much impact on how much time people will spend on Google, with half of respondents indicating they would continue use the search engine as much as they would otherwise.

It’s worth noting that one of the reasons Google provided for introducing a zero search results page is quicker access to answers. Over a third of users said they might actually use Google more with the onset of this feature — suggesting that people would respond positively to the ability to perform more searches in a smaller amount of time.

What a Zero Search Results World Looks Like for Marketers

But even if a zero search results feature solves for the user, what impact could it have on marketers and content creators — especially those behind sites that specialized in unit or time conversations?

“Zero search results is the new extreme in search,” says HubSpot Head of SEO Victor Pan. “Remember when it used to be just 10 search results? Then it sometimes became just seven, then folks started seeing three-to-five search results on the first page, and now we’re at the point where zero could happen.”

It’s that evolution of what search results look like, Pan says, that points to a need for marketers to look at search results from a multi-dimensional perspective.

“What this means for marketers in the future is that, if you prioritize by just one piece of search — like volume or rankings,” he explains, “you could be getting an extremely inaccurate picture of a target search term or keyword.”

So instead of looking at search terms and keywords through a narrow scope, Pan advises marketers to prepare for a more widespread presence of zero results by focusing on intent.

First, Pan says to consider the users who might be searching for these target terms or keywords, and what they’re hoping to accomplish by searching for them — their intent. Does the intent behind that search actually present an opportunity for your SEO-related goals, like visitors, rankings, or brand awareness?

In other words, Pan asks:

“What’s the total opportunity for that intent?”

A follow-up question, then, concerns whether or not multiple search results would actually serve the user’s intent and goals in searching for a particular term or keyword. 

“You need to know … whether it’s helpful for users to have more than one source tell them the answer,” Pan says, or if the results for those terms and keywords are best served via a single result.

Finally, Pan suggests researching what the results for these target terms and keywords look like, perhaps by way of searching for them yourself before optimizing for them.

“How many search results and features — like featured snippets or ‘people also ask’ — show up for specific keywords?” Pan challenges marketers to ask. “These are clues to what Google thinks the user’s intent is.”

And by learning how Google interprets a user’s intent, you can begin to understand that of the audience you’re trying to draw to your content — and, therefore, if certain terms and keywords aren’t worth pursuing, especially in a zero search results world.

To improve your team’s productivity, reduce turnover rates, and drive increased revenue for your company, it’s critical you take the time to focus on your employees’ job satisfaction.

If you’re wary about the tangible benefits of job satisfaction, consider this — happiness has shown to increase employee productivity by at least 12%. Undoubtedly, your company will grow faster if you invest in your employees’ happiness.

Additionally, happy employees means lower turnover rates, and a better workplace culture. If you want to keep your top talent and nurture them for the long-term, it’s critical you find ways to ensure they’re satisfied with their jobs.

Fortunately, there are plenty of free and relatively easy strategies to boost your team’s satisfaction — so why not try to make your employees happier? Here, we’ll explore five guaranteed ways to boost job satisfaction to ensure more success in the long-run.

But first, let’s explore what job satisfaction means for employees today.

The Definition of Job Satisfaction

While we know what job satisfaction is — essentially, being happy with one’s job — it’s difficult to discern where and how satisfaction in the workplace arises. Do people who feel satisfied in their careers just get lucky? Are they naturally happy? Is it their paycheck, their sense of purpose, or both?

The Cambridge English Dictionary defines Job Satisfaction as, “The feeling of pleasure and achievement that you experience in your job when you know that your work is worth doing.”

This definition is supported by a global survey run by LinkedIn and Imperative, which found that 74% of job candidates want a job where they feel their work matters.

Besides purpose, there are other elements that lead to job satisfaction, including autonomy, flexibility, recognition, a sense of belonging, and a good relationship with one’s manager.

Ultimately, job satisfaction means how much an employee likes her job, and how willing she is to stay with her company. While it might be impossible to make every employee happy, it’s critical you work hard to boost job satisfaction for as many employees as possible. This will help lower turnover and decrease money spent on recruitment and new hire training. Additionally, happy employees will be more successful, which is critical for your company’s bottom line. 

Now that we’ve defined job satisfaction, let’s take a look at some strategies you can implement to improve employee happiness immediately.

How to Boost Job Satisfaction

1. Give consistent praise, and focus on impact.

Office Vibe’s State of Employee Engagement research report found 63% of employees don’t feel they get enough praise. By consistently telling your employees when they’ve done a good job, you’ll make them feel more proud of their work, and provide them with incentive to work harder in the future.

Additionally, as previously stated, employees need to feel like their work matters. Rather than simply saying, “Good job on that Facebook campaign,” consider explaining to your employee how her work makes a difference for your team, and the company, as a whole. Your employees will feel more indispensable if you focus on how their work relates to long-term company goals.

For instance, you might say, “I’d like to take the time to thank you for the effort you put into your last Facebook campaign. The campaign helped attract an audience of over 17,000, and 12% of that audience turned out to be quality leads, which is incredible. Additionally, your leadership and input helped shape the direction of our brand’s voice on Facebook, both for this campaign and for future campaigns down the road.”

With this praise, you’ve demonstrated to your employee that her work matters to the company’s bottom line, and to the future success of your team. This positive reinforcement could go a long way towards increasing her job satisfaction.

2. Offer career development, training, or education opportunities.

Nowadays, career development is no longer just a nice perk. In fact, a LinkedIn Workplace Learning report found 94% of employees would stay at a company longer if it invested in their career. By offering career development and actively seeking out opportunities to help your employees grow, you’re signaling you care about their long-term success.

Additionally, training your employees and allowing them to expand their skillset will help your team become more successful long-term, as well. For instance, HubSpot offers master classes, which are classes in which employees teach other employees skills such as video production or SEO. As employees gain these skills they can apply them to their role, making them more well-rounded and innovative.

A Leadership Training program is also a chance for you to prepare your employees to become managers and team leaders down-the-road. This can reduce turnover and enable your employees to grow with the company.

3. Show you care about your employee’s mental and physical well-being.

Your employees can’t be satisfied in the workplace if they feel they’re sacrificing physical or mental well-being. To boost job satisfaction, it’s critical you make an effort to show employees’ that their health matters. Plus, if your employees’ take the time to recharge throughout the day, they’ll be more productive on the job, as well.

To show you care about your employees’ physical well-being, consider how you might incorporate physical activity into the workplace. It’s okay if you don’t have the budget to install a gym — simply creating a culture in which it’s okay to leave early to catch a workout class, or do yoga during lunch, can help. Ultimately, it’s about showing your employees that you understand physical activity should be a priority.

Additionally, it’s important you create opportunities to reduce stress and promote mental well-being. For instance, perhaps you offer flexible hours, so employees can avoid a stressful commute in the morning. Alternatively, you might create lunchtime mindfulness sessions, like Google, Nike, and Apple.

At the very least, take the time to check-in with employees and ask them how they’re feeling about their workload. If they seem exceptionally stressed, consider how you might help delegate tasks to help them get back on-track.

4. Foster an environment in which coworkers can bond and develop friendships.

Most people spend more time at work than they do with any of the most important people in their lives, including spouses, children, and friends. To boost job satisfaction, it’s critical you find ways to help your employees connect with one another and form genuine friendships.

To foster workplace connections, consider adding games or activities to your shared space — for instance, you might purchase a ping-pong table or wii to encourage employees to engage with one another. Alternatively, you might plan weekly “breaks” from work, like Friday happy hour or Monday team lunches.

It’s also important you plan regular team outings to get outside the office. Your employees are more likely to form authentic friendships outside the office, when they don’t feel they need to act as strictly professional. For instance, you might take them to an arcade, or baseball game. A new environment could help employees’ bond on a deeper level.

Additionally, it will help employees feel appreciated if you take the time to celebrate major milestones in their lives. For instance, you could gather a group for a coworker’s birthday, or another coworker’s engagement.

5. Conduct a job satisfaction survey.

Ultimately, you’ll never know if your strategies are working if you don’t regularly conduct surveys to see how happy and satisfied your employees are. Conducting job satisfaction surveys will help you see areas of improvement you might’ve otherwise missed.

Additionally, job satisfaction surveys show your employees that you care about how they feel. By allowing them to voice their opinion, you’re showing them they are important to the company.

Ensure your survey is anonymous, so employees feel comfortable voicing their concerns. The eNPS (employee Net Promoter Score) is a good tool to measure employee engagement. Alternatively, you might create your own company survey using SurveyMonkey or Google Forms.

Job Satisfaction Statistics

To truly understand the measurable difference job satisfaction can make for your company, take a look at the following statistics.

• Organizations with engaged employees outperform those with low employee engagement by 202% (Business2Community).
• 83% of employees who are offered opportunities to take on new challenges are more likely to stay with their organization (ReportLinker).
• 42% of millennials say learning and development is the most important benefit when deciding where to work (Udemy).
• 15% of employees worldwide are engaged in their jobs (Gallup).
• Over 80% of full-time workers are actively seeking or passively open to new job opportunities (Ajilon).
• In a survey of 2,000 employees, 43% said corporate culture is the main reason they are looking for a new job (Hays).
• 92% of employees said that would be more likely to stay with their job, if their bosses would show more empathy (Businesssolver).
• Employees who feel they get to use the best strengths and abilities and work are 15% less likely to quit their job (Gallup).

In a world where retail eCommerce sales surpassed $2.3 billion this year, touting your products at fairs, trade shows, and festivals might seem like an outdated tactic to grow your business.

However, showcasing your product or service in real life still has high sales potential today. 82% of trade show attendees are directly involved in their teams’ purchasing decisions, so setting up shop at fairs, trade shows, and festivals is one of the best ways to connect with your target accounts’ key decision makers. Trade shows can also help you connect with other players in your industry, market your brand to a large audience, and gather feedback about your products.

To help you get the most out of your next trade show, we’ve compiled five effective strategies for selling your products at your booth. And hopefully, they can help you instantly attract your visitors’ attention and convince them to buy on the spot.

5 Strategies for Selling Your Products at Fairs, Trade Shows, & Festivals

1. Attract attendees with eye-catching merchandise or engaging entertainment.

In a venue full of generic trade booths screaming for everyone’s attention, you really only have a few seconds to catch someone’s eye. Fortunately, offering interesting swag, giveaways, food, videos, and music can entice them to check out your booth.

For instance, at Agritechnica 2017, a leading trade fair for agricultural technology, SIP set up a booth where people could take a look at their agricultural machinery. But to initially attract them to their booth, they knew asking every single passerby to check out their products would repel them faster than a door-to-door salesman could. So they decided to set up a concert in front of their booth, where visitors would enjoy live music from a few row of seats.

SIP’s clever marketing tactic created a fun environment for attendees who wanted to take a break from the trade fair, and the large crowd attracted even more people to their booth. The live music also warmed up most attendees to SIP’s sales representatives when they talked to them and even prompted some visitors to approach the representatives themselves.

 

 

 

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2. Target the companies in attendance.

Another way you can instantly grab people’s attention at trade shows is designing your booth to attract specific target accounts in attendance. For example, at Salesforce’s Dreamforce conference one year, HubSpot used the Marketing Grader Tool to grade the marketing programs of companies we know would be in attendance.

We then displayed a leaderboard of the top-ranked companies on one of our television sets, which captivated the attendees who saw their company on the leaderboard and, in turn, lead to a lot of conversations with our representatives about how they could improve their marketing programs.

3. Sell an experience, not your product.

Most people cherish experiences over material possessions. Why? Because we’re the sum of our experiences, so they’re ingrained in our identity and will always be a part of our story, allowing us to bond with other people who’ve shared similar experiences.

If your booth can provide attendees with a delightful, memorable experience, you’ll make much more of an emotional impact than selling them a product ever would. These experiences also make for a compelling story that visitors will be more than happy to share with other attendees.

Charity Water, an organization that creates clean water sources for remote villages in developing nations, gave attendees at a trade show an experience they will always remember. The company had a booth where guests could carry two 40 pound jugs of water across a 50 yard platform, which African villagers do for miles every single day.

Picture Credit: Huffington Post

This experience helped attendees realize how challenging it is for villagers in developing nations to access something that most people can obtain with the twist of a faucet, boosting the odds that attendees would donate more money to the cause.

4. Make sure your credit card machine works.

As someone who has had to manually enter customers’ credit card information into a point-of-sale system, I know how horrifying it is to see a long line of impatient customers eventually trickle out of your store.

Nowadays, 77% of consumers prefer using credit or debit cards as their main form of payment. So only accepting cash and check or manually entering people’s credit card details could cause you to lose money and loyal customers in the long-run, even though you have to pay credit card companies processing fees to accept their cards.

Before you set up shop at your fair, festival, or trade show, strongly consider purchasing a credit card machine and make sure it works properly.

5. Treat everyone who visits your booth like a paying customer.

The first impression your brand makes on potential customers is arguably the most important interaction in the buyer’s journey. Studies show that good first impressions lead to connection, while bad ones lead to bias and prejudice. And as the old saying goes, you never get a second chance at first impressions.

Acting aloof toward curious attendees who want to learn about your product but might not seem like the best fit for your solution can spark a ripple effect that could hurt your business down the road. You never know when an unqualified prospect could get a new job and turn into a coveted lead. Losing a deal over a bad first impression is infuriating, so treat every visitor like a paying customer — answer all their questions and give them a thorough product demo if they ask for one.

“Unriddled” is HubSpot’s weekly digest of the tech headlines you need to know. We give you the top tech stories in a quick, scannable way and break it all down. It’s tech news: explained.

Unriddled: The Tech News You Need

1. Snap Gives Spectacles Another Shot

Cheddar recently reported that Snap Inc. — the parent company of social media app Snapchat — will launch a second generation of its camera-equipped Spectacles glasses before 2019. The move follows the company’s original Spectacles release in 2016, which ended with $40 million in unsold units. This time, the glasses will be built with two cameras that can create augmented reality video overlays, as well as three-dimensional photo effects — all for the price of $350. Read full story >>

2. Class Is in Session at Amazon’s Machine Learning University

At its annual AWS re:Invent event, Amazon announced this week that the same machine learning courses used to train its own engineers will now be available to all developers. The courses, which will be made available through Amazon Web Services, seek to democratize machine learning, taking it from “something which had previously been only available to the largest, most well-funded technology companies” to something that’s “in the hands of every developer.” The courses are available — for free — here. Read full story >>

3. Meanwhile, Amazon Also Has New Plans for Alexa

Alexa, the voice assistant used to equip such Amazon smart devices as its Echo speakers, is getting a news anchor gig. According to The Verge, the company will roll out new vocal styles for the assistant, including one that some might liken to a newscaster — for reading, of course, news items aloud. Read full story >>

Meanwhile, Amazon is also hoping for Alexa to get some advertising air time, mostly to encourage users to leverage the voice assistant’s online shopping capabilities. According to Recode, the company has been pitching Alexa to consumer packaged goods companies with requests for it to be included in ad campaigns — preferably, in the form of showing people prompting Alexa to buy more of a certain product. But there’s a catch: Amazon wants this advertising to be done “essentially for free.” Read full story >>

4. Time Management Tools (Finally) Arrive on Facebook

Following last week’s news that Instagram has officially added time management tools to its dashboard, the app’s parent company, Facebook, has finally launched its own. The social media giant originally announced these tools over the summer, slating the integration of a new dashboard to show users how much time they spent on both Instagram and Facebook. According to TechCrunch, these tools are officially live on Facebook, where users can set daily time limits for using the app, among other settings. Read full story >>

5. We Tested out the Google Home Hub so You Don’t Have To

As the season of gifting approaches, we had to ask: Where does the Google Home Hub fall on the list? Here’s what happened when we took it for a spin. Read full story >>

6. Ecommerce Wars: Who Are the Top Online Retailers This Holiday Season? [New Data]

And speaking of the holiday shopping season, there’s been a shake-up in the top three online retailers. Here’s a look a the leading contenders for this year’s ecommerce wars. Read full story >>

Since the 1990s, few things have remained timeless societal staples like Friends, Pokémon, Britney Spears, and the internet.

Seriously. Lots of things have come and gone, but these guys have stuck around, rolled with the Y2K punches, and integrated themselves into our society. (Pokémon Go or a new Britney Spears Vegas residency, anyone?)

Yet nothing has said “I’m here to stay” like the internet. From dial-up and AOL everything to Chrome and IoT, the ~*interwebs*~ have completely infiltrated our lives.

Learning about web development is kind of like drinking from a fire hose. Google “coding,” and you’ve turned the hose on full blast. This guide serves as a slow drip to get you acquainted with and intrigued by the world of web development. It’s by no means a comprehensive manual.

In this guide, we’ll cover the bare-bone-basics of web development, the process of creating a website, and additional resources for those who want to learn more about development — or become a developer themselves.

Keep reading to dive into website development or use the chapter links to jump around the guide.

While web development typically refers to web markup and coding, it includes all related development tasks, such as:

• Client-side scripting (writing front-end code)
• Server-side scripting (writing back-end code)
• Server and network security configuration (setting up security for browsers and networks)
• E-commerce development (building e-commerce websites and online stores)
• Content management system development (writing and building websites)

Web Development Terms to Know

Before I dive into the web development process, let’s review a few web development terms you might see throughout this piece.

Website

Websites are files stored on servers, which are computers that host (fancy term for “store files for”) websites. These servers are connected to a giant network called the internet … or the World Wide Web (if we’re sticking with 90s terminology). We talk more about servers in the next section.

Browsers are computer programs that load the websites via your internet connection, such as Google Chrome or Internet Explorer. Your computer is also known as the client.

Internet Protocol (IP) Address

Internet Protocol is a set of standards that govern interaction on the internet.

To access a website, you need to know its IP address. An IP address is a unique string of numbers. Each device has an IP address to distinguish itself from the billions of websites and devices connected via the internet.

The IP address for HubSpot is 104.16.249.5. You can find any website’s IP address using Command Prompt on Windows or Network Utility > Traceroute on MacBooks or by visiting a site like Site 24×7..

To find your device’s IP address, you can also type “what’s my IP address” into your search browser.

While you can access a website using its IP address, most internet users prefer to use domain names or by going through search engines.

HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP)

HyperText Transfer Protocol connects you and your website request to the remote server that houses all website data. It’s a set of rules (a protocol) that defines how messages should be sent over the internet. It allows you to jump between site pages and websites.

When you type a website into your web browser or search for something through a search engine, HTTP provides a framework so that the client (computer) and server can speak the same language when they make requests and responses to each other over the internet. It’s essentially the translator between you and the internet — it reads your website request, reads the code sent back from the server, and translates it for you in the form of a website.

Coding Language

Coding refers to writing code for servers and applications. It’s called a “language” because it’s comprised of vocabulary and grammatical rules for communicating with computers. They also include special commands, abbreviations, and punctuation that can only be read by devices and programs.

In a sense, developers are translators, too.

All software is written by at least one coding language, but they all vary based on platform, operating system, and style. There are many different types of coding languages … all of which fall into two categories (written by two different types of developers) — front-end and back-end.

Front-End

Front-end (or client-side) is the side of web development that you see and interact with as an internet user. When website information is transferred from a server to a browser, front-end coding languages allow the website to function without having to continually “communicate” with the internet.

Front-end code allows users like you and me to interact with a website and play videos, expand or minimize images, highlight text, and more. Web developers who work on front-end coding work on client-side development.

We’ll cover some front-end coding languages in the next section.

Back-End

Back-end (or server-side) is the side that you don’t see when you use the internet. It’s the digital infrastructure, and to non-developers, it looks like a bunch of numbers, letters, and symbols.

Back-end developers work in systems like servers, operating systems, APIs, and databases and manage the code for security, content, and site structure.

There are more back-end coding languages than front-end languages. That’s because of browsers — at the front-end — only understand JavaScript, but a server — at the back-end — can be configured to understand (pretty much) any language. We’ll cover some back-end coding languages in the next section.

Content Management System (CMS)

A content management system is a web application or a series of programs used to create and manage web content. (Note: CMSs aren’t the same as site builders, like Squarespace or Wix.)

While not required to build a website, using is CMS is certainly easier. It provides the building blocks (like plugins and add-ons) and lets you create the structure with your code. CMSs are typically used for e-commerce and blogging, but they’re useful for all types of websites.

Why Learn About Web Development?

You might be a business owner hiring a freelance developer to build your website, a marketer pitching a vision to your development team, or a student learning about development as a career. Regardless of who you are or why you’re reading this guide, understanding the basics of website development can be helpful in this technology-driven world.

The internet isn’t going away anytime soon. In fact, it’s become a portal and primary method of research, connection, education, and entertainment in the world.

As of 2018, there are 4.2 billion global internet users. That’s more than half the world’s population, and these folks are using the internet for a vast variety of reasons.

What’s the one thing those reasons have in common? They require a website, and each website requires a skilled web developer.

Web development is also a rapidly expanding industry. Between now and 2026, the employment of web developers is expected to grow by 15%. That’s much faster than most other technology careers.

Whether you’re looking to hire a web developer or become one, it’s good to know the career path offers high-demand, high-value positions. Continue reading to learn more about the web development process, and don’t forget to check out the resources for developers below.

Website Development Process

The process of creating a website isn’t as easy as 1-2-3. Each development path is different based on the type of website, coding languages, and resources.

The following section serves as a brief overview of the web development process and a short introduction into the most common languages and CMS options.

Planning Your Website and Creating a Sitemap

All websites start with a plan. Developers call this plan a wireframe or sitemap (not to be confused with sitemap.XML, which is a file that helps SERPs crawl and find your site). It doesn’t have to be an official document; it’s simply a vision for your site that’ll give both you and your developer(s) direction and a place to start. You can draw it on a whiteboard or use a tool like Invision, Slickplan, or Mindnode.

Just like a business plan gives a potential investor insight into your goals and deliverables, a sitemap gives a developer an idea of what you’re picturing and the information needed to meet your vision. You can create your sitemap on your own or work with your developer(s).

Here are a few questions to ask yourself when planning your site.

• What individual pages do you want? What content will be on those pages?
• How can you organize those pages into categories? (These categories might represent your homepage menu — if it helps to think about it like that.)
• What is the hierarchy of pages on your site?
• How will the pages link together?
• What pages and categories are essential to your site and user experience, and which ones could be removed or combined?

Writing Your Website Code

The next step in the web development process is writing the code.

Developers will use different coding languages for the front-end and back-end of websites, as well as for different functionalities of the site (such as design, interactivity, etc.) These different languages work together to build and run your site.

Let’s start with the most commonly-used languages. Almost every website uses these three together, and yours probably will, too.

HTML

HyperText Markup Language (HTML) has been used since the 1990s. It’s the foundation of all websites and represents the bare minimum of what’s needed to create a website. (Yes, you can create a website with only HTML. It wouldn’t look too pretty, though.)

Languages like CSS and JavaScript enhance and modify the basic site structure built by HTML. HTML5 is the most recent version and supports cross-platform browser functionality, making it popular in mobile application development.

CSS

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) was developed in the late 1990s. It adds design elements like typography, colors, and layouts to websites; it’s the cosmetic code.

CSS allows developers to transform your website to match the aesthetic you envisioned for your site, and like HTML5, CSS is compatible with all browsers.   

JavaScript

JavaScript is the cherry-on-top of coding languages. Created in the mid-90s, JavaScript is used to add functionality to websites. Developers use it to add animations, automate tasks within certain pages, and add interactive features that enhance user experience.

JavaScript is rapidly evolving. Once considered a “toy” language, JavaScript is now the most widely used coding language in the world. With the help of Node.Js, it’s now a back-end coding language. It’s the first language to be understood by browser, and some have even discussed applying machine learning to it, too.

HTML, CSS, JavaScript are the “big three” of web development. Almost every website uses them in some capacity. There are plenty of others, such as server-side languages like Java, C++, Python, and SQL, but understanding these three is foundational to your website development knowledge.

Building the Back-End of Your Website

Writing code might be one of the more complicated parts of web development, but it’s hardly the only component. You also have to build your back-end and front-end site structures and design.

Let’s start with the back-end.

The back-end handles the data that enables the functionality on the front-end. For example, Facebook’s back-end stores my photos, so that the front-end can then allow others to look at them. It’s comprised of two major components:

• Databases, which is responsible for storing, organizing, and processing data so that it’s retrievable by server requests
• Servers, which is the hardware and software that make up your computer. Servers are responsible for sending, processing, and receiving data requests. They’re the intermediary between the database and the client/browser. The browser will, in effect, tell the server “I need this information”, and the server will know how to get that information from the database and send it to the client.

These components work together to build the foundation for each website.

As for building your website, back-end developers will establish three things.

1. Your logic code, which is essentially a set of rules for how your website will respond to certain requests and how objects of your website will interact.
2. Your database management, which is how your website will organize, manage, and retrieve its data. Read more on SQL vs. NoSQL here.
3. Your infrastructure, which is how your site will be hosted. Hosting your own site will give you greater control, but it’s much more expensive and requires you to maintain your own server health and security.

With these components and decisions in place, your website will be ready for front-end development.

Note: The back-end is slightly tangential to web development because you don’t always need a back-end if you’re not storing any data. “Data” in this context means any user-entered information that you need to save and persist. Think about logging in to a website. If they don’t have a back-end, how could they remember your login information? Or what your profile settings are? To get this information, you need a back-end.

Facebook, as an example, needs to know what people are in your Friends list, what events you have joined, what posts you have created, and more. This is all “data” that lives in a database. If they didn’t have a back-end with a database, none of that data would be accessible to them.

On the other hand, a website that’s purely informational and doesn’t require the users to enter any data wouldn’t need a back-end.

So, if you have no data, you don’t necessarily have a need for back-end development. But that’s not saying you shouldn’t learn the basics. You never know when you might need it.

Building the Front-End of Your Website

If you’ve ever dabbled in web design or toyed with a website in WordPress or Squarespace, you’ve touched front-end web development.

The front-end stuff is important — it’s what your visitors, customers, and users see and how they’ll use your website.

Front-end (or client-side) development includes a combination of JavaScript, HTML, and CSS. It also controls components such as typography, navigation, positioning, and browser compatibility and responsiveness. This part will reflect more of your initial site vision and what you included in your wireframe.

As technology and consumer preferences change, client-side coding tends to become outdated … a lot faster than back-end development does. This is where coding resources (like the ones we’ve included below) come in handy.

Working with a CMS

Why would someone choose a CMS over coding “by hand” or “from scratch?” Well, a CMS — like WordPress or HubSpot — is easier to use (you have to write less code), and it often has tools around hosting the site. On the other hand, it’s less flexible and, therefore, gives you less control over your front-end.

CMS options also often include plugins that remove the need to write a backend. For example, there are WordPress plugins for e-commerce so that, instead of building a complicated back-end to charge customers’ credit cards, you can just use an existing plugin and avoid the need to deal with databases and server-side code at all.

Popular content management systems include HubSpot, Joomla, Magento, and WordPress — which has almost 60% market share. (In this case we’re talking about open source WordPress software, not the WordPress site builder.)

Acquiring a Domain Name

At this point, your website will have an IP address. It also needs a domain name that your visitors can use to find your site.

Perhaps you’ve heard of sites like GoDaddy and Hover. These services help you purchase a domain name and register with ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers). Most domain registrations are good for a year before you’re required to renew.

Site builders and hosting services, like WordPress and Squarespace, also allow you to purchase a domain name.

Website Development Resources

Interested in learning more about development and coding? Outside of  connecting and networking with other developers, there are plenty of resources you can tap into to further your understanding or web development.

Web Development Courses and Classes

Whether you want to explore back-end, front-end, or full-stack coding, here are a few online courses and classes recommended by our own HubSpot developers.

TutorialsPoint

All content and resources on TutorialsPoint are free. Between tutorials, ebooks, and videos, TutorialsPoint provides many different ways to learn.

egghead

According to their website, “egghead is a group of working web development professionals and open source contributors that provide you with concise, information-dense video courses on the best tools in the industry.” Users can take courses, listen to podcasts, or take lessons on a wide variety of web development topics.

Khan Academy

Khan Academy is a well-known free educational resource. Users can learn anything from macroeconomics to linear algebra to US history, as well as a handful of computing topics.

freeCodeCamp

freeCodeCamp is a non-profit organization (like Khan Academy) that helps people learn to code for free. With thousands of articles, videos, and interactive lessons, as well as worldwide study groups, freeCodeCamp helps thousands of developers and engineers learn about programming and land development jobs.

Treehouse

Team Treehouse is a subscription-based online learning program. Users pay a monthly fee and gain access to hundreds of courses on over 20 different topics. From JavaScript to Python to PHP, Treehouse can teach you all you need to know about web development.

Web Development Communities

Web developers are masters of the internet, so it makes sense that they’d hang out on there.

According to Code Condo, developers join these communities for:

• Up-to-date information and problem solving
• Insightful answers, new perspectives
• Tips and tricks for all-level programmers
• Links to resources, talks and research papers
• Meeting new friends, code buddies, and potential partners

Here are a few online communities recommended by our own HubSpot developers.

Stack Overflow

Stack Overflow was introduced ten years ago and has since become one of the most popular programming communities in the world. According to co-founder Jeff Atwood, “[Stack Overflow] is by programmers, for programmers, with the ultimate intent of collectively increasing the sum total of good programming knowledge in the world.”

Stack Overflow is a great place to go with questions because most of the time, other developers have asked and answered the same ones. The forums in Stack Overflow keep you connected to other developers while also keeping you informed.

Mozilla Development Network (MDN)

Mozilla Development Network is known to be more thorough and accurate than other online resources. It’s not as much a community as a comprehensive resource and library of documents for coding languages. It’s useful when learning how certain functions work and staying up-to-date on coding and development news.

Reddit

Reddit is a forum-based community where developers of all levels gather to ask and answer questions. It’s incredibly interactive and includes people from all over the world. You can also join “subreddits” based on topic, such as web design, JavaScript, or freelancing.

Over to You

The internet is here to stay. It’s getting better every day, and web developers are on the front lines of these innovations and improvements. From this blog to your favorite social network to the apps you use on your phone, web development touches almost every part of your day — and your business. Take the time to understand coding and programming to improve not only your life but the lives of your customers, too.