As you may have guessed, today’s topic is brain-centric, and it’s an important one … trauma

OUR DISCUSSION INCLUDES:

• How to identify and deal with trauma in healthy ways
• Trauma and disease
• How we can help children deal with, and overcome, trauma
• How movement, mindfulness and meditation positively affect the brain
• Metabolizing the stress hormone
• Becoming more aware of, and moving past, our childhood trauma

Listen to the full episode HERE.

EXCERPT FROM THE EPISODE …

Mark: So moving the body is a is a is a powerful way to help metabolize stress hormones associated with trauma.

A number of years ago, Christmas Eve, my wife and I are getting ready to go to bed. And all of a sudden there’s this loud knock at our door. And who’s this? I go the door, the dog starts barking and I open the door … cautiously.

I look out and there’s a guy there. And he’s wide eyed. And he says, “Did you know that your chimney is on fire?”

I didn’t. And so I looked. Up until I actually went up and looked, I was relatively calm. But then I saw these eight foot giant flames shooting up off the roof. And my stress hormones just went through the roof. So great that I couldn’t think, I basically froze. And suddenly, then I could hear myself in a little child’s voice. I said, “What should I do?” And the guy who knocked on my door said, “Well, you should probably call 911. And see if you can use your hose.”

And it’s winter, right … And so I go the first hose bib, turn it on, it’s frozen. I go the next one, it’s frozen, I’m racing around the house, right? I go the one that we keep outside there, we put the water for the dogs, and it’s working.

So immediately I run it, grab a ladder, and jump up and climb up on the roof on the ladder, and I take one squirt with the hose and that immediately knocked down the flames. And as soon as I saw that, I could feel my stress hormones just going down again, I knew the house wasn’t gonna burn down. It’s gonna be okay.

Joey: Mark, that’s some story, I can see it. And I could identify with it also — that moment, where it’s literally just a moment where it’s almost like a switch gets flipped, right? We could be completely fine. And then it’s like our brain stops working.

It’s funny that you mentioned water. I look what you call the stress hormones like it’s a raging river. Like at any moment, an external source can cause a flood or an internal source. Just internal anxiety, fear, worry, thoughts, thoughts, emotion. And I look at it like it’s it’s like a river. And even when the river is raging, you know, the question is, am I drowning in it? Which, for a moment, you were when you’re when your chimney was on fire — or are we making space so we can observe it? It doesn’t mean it’s not happening, it doesn’t mean we’re not experiencing something traumatic or intense. It just means that we are still able to
identify what’s going on and kind of process it, and make room for thought. Instead of panic.

Mark: Yeah, that’s right. We can’t really think well, when stress hormones are doing their thing. And basically what they do is they sever what’s called the binding proteins that keep the cells connected. High levels of stress hormones just sever them, they just run through the network and cut all the connections.

So you can’t think.

With the fire, once I realized that we’re not going to lose the house, we’re not going to lose all our possessions. It’s going to be fine. Everything came back online. And that’s that this is a key piece. That’s how fast cells in the brain connect and disconnect.

Listen to the full episode HERE.

—

MORE ABOUT MARK BRADY, Ph.D.
Mark is a transpersonal neurobiologist, neuroscience educator, and recent throat cancer survivor. He spent 10 years at The Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, one of the nation’s premier think tanks (according to him: “stalking behavioral scientists in their natural habitat, undercover as the maintenance man!”). He is also the prize-winning author of a number of books, magazine articles and academic papers and has published The Flowering Brain blog regularly for 14 years.

RELEVANT LINKS

Visit The Flowering Brain blog
Mark Brady, Ph.D. books
The Anatomy of an Upset, by Mark Brady, Ph.D.
Trauma & Chronic Illness, by Veronique Mead, MD, MA

The post Tackling Trauma — An Interview with Mark Brady, Ph.D, Part 1 appeared first on Cuppa SEO.

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Before we do, let’s take a moment to answer the question:

What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?

In a nutshell, SEO is a process that has the ability to improve the natural ranking of your website or blog in search results — leading to increased traffic, sales, customer engagement and overall growth. SEO is the connector between someone who’s making a specific query on Google (or another search engine) with websites and/or blogs that contain relevant information pertaining to the query.

We’ve all performed countless searches, right? And on the surface, it seems pretty simple. Someone performs a search — say with the keyword “plumber” — and Google looks for and delivers results that are relevant to this keyword phrase. This, in and of itself, is no big news. But the question is, how does Google decide which results to list? And why do some sites or blogs rank higher than others?

Search engine optimization is a large part of the answer to these questions. It plays a critical role in determining where a website or blog ranks in the natural (also referred to as “organic”) search results.

Let’s take a deeper look at how this works, and learn about …

THE SEO PIE

Part of search engine optimization is the selection and strategic implementation of optimal keywords into your website content. Keywords account for approximately one-third of the SEO pie — a significant amount, for sure, but not a complete package by any means. In the past, keywords were a bigger piece of the pie. Then blogs and social media came along.

Now, effective SEO is broken into three major parts: keywords, content and social media. Together, they make up the SEO pie. And in this tip of the day, we’re going to focus our attention on keywords …

Keywords
You’ve probably heard the term “keywords” referred to more than once in relation to your website. And although you may know they’re a critical element in SEO, you may be wondering exactly what keywords are.

Keywords are terms or phrases that, when implemented into your website, can help connect you with people who are looking for what you do. In other words, when the keywords you use on your site are in alignment with the search terms people use to find the specific products or services you offer, there’s a better chance Google will present your website higher in the search results.

That said, the quality of your keywords makes a big difference in how effective they are. Many factors go into determining which keywords are best for your website and blog, including:

• The size of your site
• How long it’s been around
• How many people are searching for a specific keyword phrase
  within the region(s) where you do business
• How much competition you’ll be facing for that particular keyword
  or keyword phrase
• How relevant a keyword phrase is for your organization

Now that we’ve got a basic definition in place, let’s dive deeper for a greater understanding of what I like to call …

Keyword Hierarchy
This is something I’ve developed over the years to help identify optimal keyword phrase usage.

Essentially, when optimizing content, you don’t want to have just one keyword phrase that you hammer on ad nauseam. Instead, you’ll want to create a well-rounded list of keyword phrases for every web page and blog post. Depending on the topic and the content length, this list could include 3–5 keyword phrases or more than a dozen.

No matter the length of the list, make sure every single phrase is relevant to the topic, service or product you “discuss” in your content.

Once you’ve developed your list of keywords for a particular web page or blog post, you’ll need to decide which are primary, secondary and semantic, respectively.

• Primary Keywords: As “primary” indicates, these are the main keywords in your content. Sometimes you’ll determine them in advance; other times your organically written content will dictate them.
• Secondary Keywords: Used less often than primary keywords, these are still specific to the website page or blog post you’re optimizing.
• Semantic Keywords:Used only once or twice, at most, these stillplay an important role in “rounding out” the relevance of the content.

As you can see, semantic and secondary keywords play a supporting role in the optimization of content. They’re good to use, but they don’t have the oomph that a main keyword has, typically for three reasons: 1) they have low search numbers; 2) they have high competition; 3) they’re not the main topic of the page, but they work tangentially to support the main topic. An SEO novice might use secondary and semantic keywords as main keywords — or might overlook them completely. In Part 2 of the book, we’ll dive deeper into primary, secondary and semantic keyword usage.

Long-tail Keywords
This is a fancy term for using keyword phrases that are typically three or more words long. Very often, what makes a keyword phrase long-tail is the fact that it has some “definers” or “qualifiers” in it, making it very specific.

For example, “dentist” is most likely going to be a strong keyword, no matter where your dental office is located. But I’ll bet it also has very high competition. Adding qualifiers to the keyword — “Dentist Madison WI” for example — makes it more specific and might have less competition from other area dental offices.

Keyword Density
The term “keyword density” is worth a quick mention here. Keyword density is what it sounds like: the number of times (density) a keyword phrase appears on a page compared with the total number of words on the page.

Over the years, I’ve heard SEO experts argue that a keyword phrase needs to occur a certain percentage of the time to be considered an actual keyword. Through testing, I’ve found this untrue. Although a keyword phrase typically needs to appear more than once within the content to be taken seriously by Google, it DOES NOT need to appear a certain percentage of the time. That’s no way to optimize — and that’s no way to write good, relevant content.

Next time, we’ll dive into the content slice of the SEO pie.

Ready to learn more online marketing tips?

You’ll find hundreds of additional ways improve your online marketing in my book, A Holistic Guide to Online Marketing …

The post Marketing Tip of the Day: The SEO Pie — Keywords appeared first on Cuppa SEO.

I’m excited to share that this week my new podcast launched!

It’s called, Getting Under the Surface (GUTS), and it’s about digging into the connection between mindfulness, marketing, self-care and relationships — including the relationship you have with yourself.

In the first episode, I share how this podcast started manifesting over four years ago, and how my wife’s health issues caused me to take a deep look at how (poorly) I was practicing self care.

We’ll also discuss some of the topics you can expect to be tackled on the show, including resistance, acceptance, trauma, fear, awareness, and self perception. Taking it one step further, episodes will also cover how our personal experiences affect our professional life.

Whether you’re a parent who runs their own business, a leader who is strapped for time, or someone who is struggling or overwhelmed, you are not alone. The goal of this podcast is to provide a safe space for diving into mindfulness, meditation, marketing and professional life (which is all part of the ball of wax of your existence), self care, and relationships — including the relationship you have with yourself.

This podcast (and forthcoming program) debunks the “work/life balance” myth, and helps each of us look at life more holistically.
 
The podcast is available on all major platforms (although some may still be in the approval process), and you can listen here right now.

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And although being aware of and addressing challenges is important — if it becomes all consuming, then we are lost.

Why?

Because once we start “swimming” in the river of our challenges (AKA problems), it’s just too easy to drown in them.

I’ve learned a couple of things about this I’d like to share:

1. It’s much better to observe the river, than to go swimming in the rough water. AND, it’s also OK to feel what we’re feeling while we’re the observer on the shoreline. Being aware of our feelings and thoughts doesn’t make them go away — but it can diminish their impact.
2. Being grateful is incredibly important. It may sound like a cliché, but it’s true. I’ve often thought to myself, “how can I be grateful when so many things are challenging?” Then I realized that being grateful doesn’t mean that we just forget about, or ignore, the challenges — but instead, we make space for gratitude to exist along with the struggle. In other words, it’s OK to be grateful for one thing and upset about another at the same time, just as it’s OK to feel something deeply and also observe yourself feeling what you’re feeling instead of drowning in it.

Why are we talking about this on a web design blog?

Because how we’re doing emotionally and cognitively has a DIRECT EFFECT on how well we run our business and our marketing efforts. it has a direct effect on the health of our relationships — and how well we make decisions.

Whether it’s work, parenting, relationships, or simply living our lives, I have found the practices mentioned above to be invaluable — I hope you find them helpful, too!

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Why this is important
The user experience on your website is a critical component of helping visitors feel comfortable, know the “lay of the land,” and making it easy for them to understand what to do next (without twisting their arm).

Your website navigation may not be the first thing a visitor looks at when they land on your site, but it is a critical component to their user experience. It’s almost like Google Maps, helping lead visitors to the destination they want to arrive at. Hence, it needs to be clear, easy to understand, and distraction free.

Thanks for visiting, Cuppa SEO Web Design.

I hope this video helps you create a better user experience on your website!

Want more tips and insights from Cuppa SEO?

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LinkedIn is a great platform to stay connected to our professional network, but I have to say I’m usually picky about who I accept into my circle of connections.

Why?

I often find that people I don’t know who want to “connect” with me on LinkedIn often send a sales pitch just moments after I accept them into my network.

And this is when selling winds up smelling like a rotten sandwich that nobody wants to be near.

Nobody likes to be sold, not even the people doing the hardcore selling — but their quest for more business has got them blind to the fact that they are essentially walking up to a complete stranger and proposing marriage — not even knowing their name.

No thank you.

Did you know that adding an “m” to selling literally spells smelling?

Avoid it, just as you would an expired container of milk.

Instead, use LinkedIn to offer value, insights and growth tips — that’s a fine way to develop relationships, because at the end of the day, the goal is not to sell but to develop relationships. And these relationships can lead to many things … friends, colleagues, mentors, and yes, even clients.

If you’re wondering how to shift your LinkedIn posts to this value-driven philosophy, here are three “magic questions” you can apply to every social media post (not to mention every web page, blog post, video, white paper, etc.) you create …

Three “Magic” Questions
To ensure your copy packs the most value possible, always do your best to CLEARLY and SUCCINCTLY answer these three “magic” questions on every web page:

1. What is it?
2. What does it do?
3. How does it help me (benefits)?

I call them magic questions because they get to the heart of what your content needs to contain. It’s something I talk about in my book, A Holistic Guide to Online Marketing, becasue it’s a critical component to successful content creation.

Just remember, even though you see hard-core selling often, that doesn’t mean it’s a good tactic. Slamming someone with a sales pitch — when you know nothing about them or their needs — is just bad form.

Yes, relationship building is more work, but it can also garner more benefits.

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