Alexandra Cote 🚀

How to Create a Free E-Book for Children With Canva.com in Just 4 Steps + “The Story of Life” E-Book

Whether you are a parent, an educator, or anyone who’s working with kids, you might have previously looked for ways in which you can create educational or fun materials tailored to the needs of the children you’re sharing them with.

If you’re looking to create your own free book or e-book, you can use Canva to do just this and I have 4 quick steps for you:

1. Find a theme for your book.

Currently, Canva allows users to find even free photos and illustrations. For this tutorial, we are going to choose the “circus” theme.

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How To Hire A Strong Ruby On Rails Developer

Are you looking to hire the perfect Ruby on Rails developers?

I’ve got the perfect tips and tricks of the trade for you. Whether you are an outsourcing company or you have your own products to create, you might come across the need to further expand your back-end technologies using Ruby on Rails. If you’re looking to hire the best Ruby on Rails engineer on the market to help you develop your company’s projects, there are a few necessary steps you have to consider in order to make sure that you end up finding the best candidate for the available position.

Any mistake in the recruitment process can lead to you finding out that you don’t have the right employee who can write clean code for your customers and you might even need to start recruiting again, this time more accurately. I’ve listed a few tips to ease this challenging task of hiring the most talented Ruby on Rails developer in a market that’s more and more competitive when it comes to having the best developers possible.

Job descriptions

A job description is your first chance to present your company and to list specific requirements and tasks that your Rails engineer will have to complete. Therefore, it’s essential that you craft a detailed job description. This allows Ruby on Rails engineers to adjust their resumes according to your job posting and even to complete it with frameworks or tools that he/she might have worked with but failed to mention. It’s surprising how many people have more experience than what they mention in the resume. However, the opposite is also true. Many applicants often add false statements and abilities to their resumes. It’s your duty to make sure that what they claim is true.

If you’re looking for someone who only works with the Rails framework, make sure that you do mention that any other framework is not accepted unless you offer Rails training for suitable candidates.

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The Many Possible Reasons Why Your Google Ads Campaigns Might Fail Without You Knowing

Are you looking to find some of the reasons why your Google Ads (formerly known as Google AdWords) campaigns do not perform as well as you expect them to? Take a look at some of the reasons listed below and see what you can improve right now for better results.

You are not using all free functionalities Google Ads offers. See device adjustments, demographic targeting, ad extensions, or the more recent message extensions. Not all features are the right ones for your business, but it is up to you or your PPC manager to handle the testing and find the optimal solutions for the perfect ad structure for you.

Accidental clicks. People might click on your SERP ad simply by accident. This is something you can’t really avoid as people could be looking for what you are advertising but would rather not click on the ad. This is also an issue when your paid ad appears right above your very own organic link. You can only expect a user to know that you pay for every click and decide to go with the organic link instead.

Annoying ads. This is the case of remarketing as people are used to seeing your ad everywhere and coming across the ad once again on the search results page won’t make them trust you more. To solve this, limit the number of times your ad will show to a person who is involved in your remarketing process and test user reaction and interaction. Another mistake is retargeting someone who has already bought your product or used your services. Suppose the user who sees your ad for an online game you want to advertise is already playing the game on a regular basis. He/She may use the advertisement just to get back to the game. This does not generate any profit to you. The only way for you to save some of your clicks is by creating ads for advanced game/product features that are not being used by all players yet. Be aware that Internet users don’t trust most ads and people are still afraid to shop online.

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30 Things You Can Learn From Seth Godin’s “Small Is the New Big” Book [Marketing Book Review]

Why small companies? Because that is where the employees are the ones who make the decisions. Compared to Seth Godin’s book “Permission Marketing”, “Small Is the New Big” gives more insights into the author’s own business experience than digital marketing advice. Seth proves himself to be very daring in choosing certain companies as examples to criticize for their poor marketing attempts. As Seth himself warns, do not read the entire book at once. It’s full of information, and you need to find relevant examples of what Seth shares in your own experience with marketing as you’re reading the book. Here are 30 useful things you may want to remember after reading “Small Is the New Big”:

1. Implement change when nothing else works and to refresh your marketing approach. The people you work with and your clients might find it difficult to accept change or to adapt to it. However, you can choose to target the segment that actually wants to change something.
2. Asking for a name instead of a username reduces your chances of getting users and leads to reveal anything else about themselves. Anonymity creates more discussions and buzz. This is not always good. Online auctions are fraudulent, spam is a daily business, while false information travels across the Internet all the time. Unverified and erroneous advice can be harmful to users who act based solely on what they read on forums and group chats.

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What You Can Still Learn From Seth Godin’s “Permission Marketing” Book [Marketing Book Review]

permissionmarketing

Seth Godin’s book revolves around the idea that, in today’s fast-living society, the only way you can fully get someone’s attention is by asking them to allow you to market your product. As the father of permission marketing, he became an innovator of seller-client relationships while starting a new trend in the way of seeing and doing marketing. Overall, Seth Godin remains one of the most influential marketers not only because of his expertise in the field but also because of his ability to find and share the best case studies for every aspect there is regarding marketing. Although the book was written in 1999, its ideas and the concept of permission-based marketing have yet to be fully implemented in daily marketing tactics. Here are some of the marketing facts we can still learn from today:

Nobody cares about traditional marketing anymore. We are too busy to even notice online banner ads or other marketing and advertising materials. Marketing more frequently, although boring, is the solution. Repeating advertisements can bring more leads and higher conversion rates. Still, you won’t be able to remember more than 10% of them.
New products and services are always difficult to launch since people are used to the existing ones. Don’t expect results from a business that centers itself around a product or service that exists already on the market. Innovation is now the key to success.
The reason you see commercials on YouTube and even on websites is that marketers are adapting to the population segment that doesn’t watch TV anymore. This is the marketing world’s response to a generation that refuses to turn on the TV. What you can see while watching television is now on the Internet as well.
People are actually interested in what you promote through permission marketing. It’s relevant to them, it’s more personal, and they are actively looking for that promotional material.
Marketing is like a relationship. You have to get to know the person first. Analyze people before they become your customers in order to learn their demands.
Always diversify your marketing methods.
Interruption marketing is not dead yet.
Having more clients doesn’t always mean a bigger profit.
Advertise new products to your old clients.
Focus on converting leads into clients, not on getting more leads. One hundred leads and fifty clients are better than two hundred leads and twenty clients.
Present before selling.
Gaining trust is difficult but essential.
Banner ads have the potential to be fully customizable to an individual’s needs and interests in the future.
Don’t trust that one piece of good content is enough to keep bringing new customers. Always update your website’s content!
Experiment and test before it’s too late.
Always offer rewards and incentives if you want to gain profit.

Overall book grade: 8/10

Read more of Seth Godin’s ideas on his Typepad blog (he is one of the few bloggers who don’t need visuals to create viral content) or check out some of his other books.