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I've been called a Computer Person, but I have no idea what I'm doing. I worked in technical support, for years, with no qualifications whatsoever. I basically Googled things for money. If a computer came in with a virus, I'd run a scan. Sometimes that would fix it, sometimes I'd get an error code instead. I'd Google the error code; invariably I'd find someone else who'd run into the problem before, usually posting in a forum. I'd try whatever it was that helped them, and that would almost always fix it. There were very few problems I couldn't solve this way. This is the secret Computer People are hiding: there is no secret. Think of what you want to do, then experiment to see if the software you're currently using supports that. If you don't see anything that helps, Google it. That's really it. You don't need a degree in computer science to get more out of technology—all you need is a computer and the willingness to experiment. At...

No matter how much you spend on Google Ads, you want to know you're getting the most value for your money when it comes to digital ads. But figuring out and then optimizing your advertising ROI can be difficult and time-consuming. Zapier's newly updated Google Ads integration makes the process of running ads and then tracking the results a lot simpler. With features that make reaching the right audiences and measuring actual conversions more straightforward, this integration is designed to maximize results—not your workload. Here are three ways you can use Zapier and Google Ads together to get more out of your online advertising. Seamlessly import leads from anywhere so you can reach them more effectively If you want to increase conversions from remarketing ads, it's important to keep your customer lists in Google Ads up-to-date. But your leads are constantly changing, which means you may have to import new leads or update those lists every day—which can quickly become ...

My team is spread across four states and three time zones. People often ask me how we find good times to meet. My answer: it's not easy, but it's also rarely necessary. Working remotely, especially when your team is distributed across the globe, means working asynchronously. And it's a skill. Zapier has nearly 300 employees scattered around the world, so it's not efficient—or even possible—to have quick, ad hoc meetings. We regularly need to act without the luxury of a real-time discussion, so we've adapted. Here are some tips for working outside the constraints of time, none of which involve quantum mechanics. Ask good questions There may be no such thing as a stupid question, but there is such thing as a clumsy, burdensome, unproductive question. If you work asynchronously, you're familiar with this situation: you ask someone a question on Slack, wait a few hours, get some follow-up questions, answer those, then wait a few more hours. And while meetings ...

If you aren't on the first page of Google search results, you don't exist. But don't have an existential crisis yet: search engine optimization (SEO) can get you there. SEO involves everything from content strategy to competitive analysis to keyword research and beyond. But none of that will pay off if you don't do an SEO audit. It's decidedly less painful than an IRS audit, and it will serve as a foundation for all of your SEO efforts. What is an SEO audit? An SEO audit is the process of analyzing your website and seeing how well it follows current SEO best practices. You could hire a digital marketing agency to get the job done, but you can also take the reins with an SEO audit tool like WebSite Auditor, Ahrefs, SEMrush, or Moz. With an automated auditor tool, you can check every single page of your domain and get a full analysis of your website's overall SEO health. How many pages contain 4xx and 5xx codes? Do you have .xml and robots.txt files present? A...

Competition is fierce in digital channels, and it's tougher than ever to cut through the noise. Driving traffic is one challenge, but it's another to convert that traffic into sales-qualified leads. In this article, I'll walk through six fatal mistakes in lead generation that I've seen time and time again. We're not talking about the basics, like forgetting a call to action. Here we're looking at fundamental strategic errors that prevent effective lead gen. Making these mistakes will cause you to waste budget, resources, time, and energy. The good news: they're preventable. The key is knowing that they're mistakes before you make them. 1. Not starting with product-market fit From my experience, not achieving product-market fit (PMF) before working on lead generation is the number one reason hyper-growth businesses fail. Put simply, PMF is when a product meets a real market demand. As American entrepreneur Marc Andreessen says , PMF is about "bei...

I mostly use Google Assistant at home to settle debates with my husband and daughter: "Hey Google, what year was Wall-E released?" (2008. I was right.) But I have one friend who uses Alexa exclusively to play music and another who's connected seemingly every device in his house to Alexa to turn things on and off without getting off the couch. But voice assistants aren't just for fun and convenience at home anymore. Amazon and Google are both turning their attention to how voice assistants can make people more productive at work. And even at the early stages of this new focus, the potential of voice assistants to deliver convenience and drive efficiency in the workplace looks promising. How Voice Assistants Simplify Day-to-Day Tasks at Work While my friends and I do a poor job of using our voice assistants at home to do anything constructive (unless you consider asking Google to sing a little ditty constructive), there are tons of ways to use Google Assistant and ...

I'm great at making New Year's resolutions. I'm also great at forgetting about them. This is probably because of my total lack of discipline, which…I'm working on. But I think it's also because the entire culture of New Year's resolutions encourages improvements that are so vague as to be useless. For example: we recently published the Work Resolutions Report by Zapier , focusing on what knowledge workers hope to accomplish in 2020. Here are the most common career resolutions, according to a survey we commissioned that was conducted online by Harris Poll among over 880 American knowledge workers. People want more money, a promotion, and a pony. No real surprises here. But these aren't really resolutions—they're outcomes. You can't magically bestow upon yourself a raise, a promotion, or a new job. You also can't plug your brain into the mainframe to instantly learn a new skill, or become more productive. Resolving to achieve these things doesn...

Are you thinking of resolutions for the new year? Here's an idea: don't. I'm not saying that self-improvement is a bad idea, or that you shouldn't try to improve yourself. I am saying that January is a uniquely terrible time to try to make those changes, and pressuring yourself into making all of them now is only going to make it less likely that you actually change. Here's why. What changes do knowledge workers want to make this year? We asked them. Read the Work Resolutions Report by Zapier to find out. Getting back to normal after January is ambitious enough December is weird. You're probably attending more parties than usual, which means you're eating worse and drinking more. You might be traveling thousands of miles to visit family, during which you will end up sleeping on benches in the Chicago airport (regardless of whether you're traveling anywhere close to Chicago, this will somehow end up happening.) You might also end up sleeping in your...