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When you host a national call-in radio show, you hear from all types of people. 

There was the renowned photographer who asked me how to safely and privately store the racy photos he takes of his wife. Spoiler: Don’t just upload them to iCloud or Google Photos. Tap or click here for a secure way to store private pics. 

I spoke to a woman whose daughter was being stalked and harassed. I’m proud to say I connected her with the right help, and the man responsible was brought to justice. Tap or click for the scary details. This nightmare could happen to anyone. 

I'm proud to say that I built my own multimillion-dollar enterprise with no debt and no investors. It’s rewarding for me to help the many small business owners who call and need a hand getting their company off the ground or breaking past a big hurdle. I’ve been there myself.  

Here’s my advice from the trenches. 

 PRIVACY TIP: 5 WAYS YOU'RE BEING TRACKED YOU MUST STOP RIGHT NOW 

1. Know your competition 

Unless you're genuinely going rogue with an all-new product or service, your customers already exist and spend their money elsewhere. Competitor research is one of the best ways to get a feel for what works and doesn't work in your industry.  

It’s also a smart way to get in touch with your customers' needs, including what they expect to pay and how much you can expect to earn.  

Find a handful of companies doing what you hope to do and be a student. "How much can I learn here?" 

Study their websites. What stands out and what isn’t so great? You can monitor web site changes over time with Visualping. This free tool allows you to enter a website you want to track, and you’ll get email alerts any time that site changes. You’ll know if your competitor created an excellent new landing page copy or swapped out photos. Tap or click for a direct link to try it out. 

Follow your competitors on social media and subscribe to their newsletters. Take note of any posts that generate a high number of comments or shares. 

Sign up for Google Alerts for your business name, your competitors, and an industry term or two that makes sense. Tap or click here for steps to set up a Google Alert. I suggest you go with weekly alerts. Daily alerts can get overwhelming. 

Get my trusted small business advice right to your inbox. It’s totally free. Try it here. 

2. Brand yourself with a memorable domain 

A strong web presence is essential; the first step is securing a great domain name. You want something easy to remember, clear, and concise. No one is going to remember a six-word-long URL.  

Doctors, lawyers, or other professionals who use their names for their businesses have an advantage. Hey, my website is Komando.com. 

How much will a domain cost you? Let’s use GoDaddy as an example. For a .com address, you’ll spend about $19.99 annually, paying just a penny for your first year. You can get a .me email address for $6.99 for the first year, then $21.99 annually. A .biz URL requires a two-year purchase for about $37 total. 

The best domain idea means nothing if it’s taken, of course. Namech_k shortcuts the process for you. Put in your idea and see if it is registered or open. We’re not talking just .com or .net, either. It checks for .us, .info, .biz and lots more. 

It also scours social media sites to see if your preferred name is taken there, too. Consistency is key because it helps people find you much more quickly. It's why I'm @kimkomando on every social media platform, and by all means, I invite you to follow me. Tap or click here for pro tips on using Namech_k. 

3. Speaking of websites, make yours smart 

SEO is about more than just keywords that get you to the top of Google’s search results. An optimized site is lightweight, loads quickly, and is tight enough to prevent a visitor from getting stuck in a glitchy dropdown menu. 

When in doubt, you can hire a professional developer for a site audit, which may reveal frustrating flaws turning customers off. You can also run these free online tests to see your site's most significant issues.  

A common issue is your website's design. Remember that mobile performance is just as important as your site's appearance on a desktop monitor. Today's website building tools make it easy to create a site that looks good and performs well on every device. 

Weebly’s plans start at $12 a month. Wix starts at $22 a month or $27 if you accept payments online. Squarespace starts at $23 per month or $27 if you take payments. 

It’s worth browsing what those monthly charges get you. Squarespace’s Business plan, for example, includes advanced site analytics and a year of professional email through Google. Wix gives you access to drop shipping inventory and 100 GB of storage space. 

4. Don’t forget about email marketing 

I’ve been in the email marketing game since 1995. Back then, I’d send out one email a week. These days, my team produces a dozen different emails with millions of monthly sends that have an average open rate over 50%. Tap or click here to try my free tech and digital life newsletters. 

I had to invent ways to make it work back in the day. Today, there are tools that make creating and sending beautiful, compelling emails a snap. Here are a few to consider: 

Mailchimp: Send up to 10,000 emails monthly (2,000 a day) for free. Paid plans start at $11 per month and include email templates and custom branding.  

Constant Contact: You’re charged by the number of email addresses you import, starting at $9.99 monthly for up to 500. Up to 2,500 email addresses will run you $35 a month.  

Emma: Starts at $99 a month for up to 10,000 contacts. You can add up to five users and set up an email automation campaign to woo your new customers. 

HubSpot: Ideal if you need a powerful marketing and contact hub. The free plan is robust, and you can add up to a million contacts. Paid plans with support, automation, and custom branding start at $45 a month for up to 1,000 contacts. 

5. Make it easy to get paid 

Traffic is increasing, but you’re not making more money. Your customers might be running into a wall.  

Are they frustrated by an inconvenient payment method? Is there a technical bug preventing them from finalizing the sale? Go through the entire checkout process yourself, using a VPN or an Incognito window to see your site as a visitor does. Take note of anything that doesn’t go smoothly. 

If your payment processing options aren’t up to snuff, consider these: 

Square: Pay a flat fee plus a percentage of the sale. Cost depends on the type of transaction. For example, a customer entering a card number online will cost you 3.5% of the sale plus 15 cents. 

PayPal: PayPal’s checkout works similarly. A standard credit card payment is 2.99% plus a 49-cent fee. 

Stripe: For card charges, pay 2.9% plus a 30-cent fee. 

6. Only pay for what you need to 

There’s no way around some expenses, but I bet I can save you a bit of money with this gem: There are free versions of most popular paid software that are just as good. 

Instead of Microsoft Office, check out LibreOffice or Google Docs and Sheets. 

For editing photos, I like GIMP, Pixlr X and Canva. Tap or click here to see the pros and cons of each option. 

DaVinci Resolve is excellent free video editing software. 

Audacity is a free audio editing program the pros use. 

That’s not all. Here are 9 free software copycats that work better than the real expensive programs. 

LIST: 10 TECH COMPANY CUSTOMER SERVICE PHONE NUMBERS PLUS, SECRET WAY TO KNOW WAIT TIMES

7. Get advice from other pros 

The federal Small Business Administration has more resources than you may realize. Use this link to find free or low-cost training or business advice in your area. If you're starting out, you can also find guides for creating a business plan, registering your company, and getting a handle on day-to-day operations. 

SCORE can also connect you with business mentors who can help you start or grow your company — and it's free. The nonprofit organization runs the nation's largest network of volunteer business experts. You can get help via email, phone, or video if there's no local chapter where you live. 

I want to help you. 

You can also reach out to me. I get emails and calls from small business owners daily, and I love to help. Email me here. I read them all myself. 

Listen to the podcast below if you'd like to know more about my business and life. I was interviewed about the ups and downs of my success, and there were a lot of tough questions. 

PODCAST PICK: An intimate conversation about business, life, and loss with Kim Komando 

I started my business more than two decades ago. I didn’t have investors, and I didn’t take on any debt. I’ll be honest — the first few years were a struggle. I embraced the struggle, though, and pushed through some of the hardest times of my life to find peace. In this podcast, I tell stories and talk about times in my life I don’t often share. 

Find my podcast "Kim Komando Today" on Apple, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player. 

Just search for my last name, "Komando." 

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What digital lifestyle questions do you have? Call Kim’s national radio show and tap or click here to find it on your local radio station. You can listen to or watch The Kim Komando Show on your phone, tablet, television or computer. Or tap or click here for Kim’s free podcasts.

Copyright 2019, WestStar Multimedia Entertainment. All rights reserved.

Learn about all the latest technology on The Kim Komando Show, the nation's largest weekend radio talk show. Kim takes calls and dispenses advice on today's digital lifestyle, from smartphones and tablets to online privacy and data hacks. For her daily tips, free newsletters and more, visit her website at Komando.com.

Personalisation is becoming a sought-after advantage in the workplace. Employees no longer accept a generic experience that doesn’t support them on an individual level. 

From an organisation’s onboarding strategy to wellbeing perks, leaders must embrace personalisation in every stage of the employee experience. 

For too long, personas and segments have been the holy grail of personalisation in the workplace. But if the past couple of years has taught the working world anything, it’s that not every employee need fits within these blueprints.

In fact, according to one study, 66% of employees would choose to receive two tickets to an event of their choice rather than three times the value of those tickets paid into their paycheck over a year. 

It’s clear that personalisation in the form of recognition, rewards, and the wider employee experience is key. In Monster’s 2021 Future of Work survey, 75% said virtual hiring made it difficult to assess a company’s values and culture and how they align with their own.

By personalising the candidate’s journey, organisations can minimise this issue. From tailored messaging to direct communication with candidates, recruiters must establish genuine relationships remotely. 

Personalised employee benefits

In the UK, businesses are dealing with the prospect of a recession as inflation hits 9.4%. The cost of living crisis has created an epidemic of its own, and both employers and employees are burdened by soaring prices. 

In times of instability, employers are pressured to increase wages. It’s never this easy, especially for some SMEs. That said, the personalisation of employee benefits can be the affordable solution they’re looking for.  

The cost-of-living crisis is guaranteed to impact millions of Brits. Many will be forced to spend less and cut back on the smaller luxuries of life. 

Of course, this can be detrimental to our health and wellbeing which in turn affects our performance at work, and this is why personalised benefits can be so powerful. 

By understanding the circumstances employees face, leaders can rethink their benefits package that supports employee lifestyle choices. 

Take gym memberships for example, at the staggering price of £200 – £600 per year, freeing up the cost can help just as much as a pay rise. 

Personalised onboarding

The onboarding phase is especially important, and one that must be personalised. A staggering 30% of employees quit their jobs in the first 90 days, according to one report.

It’s a lack of communication that drives this issue, with most employees feeling they were led to believe the role was something different. 

Like any introduction, first impressions matter. A generic onboarding strategy will see employees deflated by an organisation’s lack of interest in them.

Leaders can vastly Boost their onboarding phase through personalisation. This means understanding the best way to communicate with new hires; it’s working with them, rather than against them. 

Communicate effectively, and do so in a way that suits your employee best. In addition to this, new employees should be invited to social gatherings and opportunities to meet team members prior to their first day. 

It’s tactics like this that drive higher engagement, help individuals settle, and create a sense of belonging. 

Personalised career progression and development 

Career progression is essential to our working lives. It’s a lack of opportunity that often drives employees to leave. What’s worse, is organisations that invest in learning and development in the wrong areas. 

We all have a rough idea of where we want to go in our career, and without the right support, progress can feel a bit flat or futile. Companies must show their support for the individual interests of their employees. This requires 1-2-1 to discuss future goals, career ambitions, and more. 

Since the rise of eLearning, personalised learning has boomed. The sheer volume available to employees online means that their individual interests can be met, and at an affordable price to the employer. 

Offering a personalised L&D means skill gaps can be addressed, employee engagement can be improved and organisations can see better retention rates.

When it comes to career progression, it goes hand-in-hand with learning and development. Through personalised learning comes the opportunity to grow our roles in the workplace.

Leaders should acknowledge this link and work with employees to provide clear goals and objectives for the future. It’s about finding areas within the business that suits their career progression needs. 

Final note

Personalisation is here to stay. If leaders want to build a thriving business, a people-centric approach must be taken. In fact, personalisation must be addressed in all facets of business, and leadership teams should constantly be asking themselves how they can Boost the employee experience. 

This should be a wake-up call for leaders to embrace personalisation and the powerful benefits it has for both employees and the organisation itself.

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It's all fun and games until someone gets hurt … or dies. And a lack of regulations and oversight surrounding a popular, easily rentable party feature could be putting tens of thousands of children at risk, according to new research from the University of Georgia.

The study found at least 479 people were injured and 28 died worldwide in more than 130 bounce house accidents due to weather events since 2000. But the researchers caution that these estimates are likely an undercount.

These injuries are on top of an estimated 10,000 ER visits in the U.S. each year because of bounce house-related accidents that regularly result in broken bones, muscle sprains and concussions.

"These bounce houses aren't something to set up and then forget to stake them into the ground," said John Knox, lead author of the study and a geography professor in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. "What could go wrong? The answer is that it could blow away in winds that are not anywhere near severe levels. Some of these cases were in purely clear skies."

Many of the wind-related accidents happened on what seemed to be good weather days, according to the research: a cool and sunny day after a cold front with clear skies, a hot but calm day that triggers a dust devil or a nice summer day with a thunderstorm somewhere off in the distance. More than 80 of the 132 events identified by the study were caused by cold fronts or post-cold front conditions, dust devils and overhead or distant thunderstorms.

Even minor wind speeds pose risk to playhouse safety

Also known as bouncy houses, magic castles, jumping balloons or bounce castles, the portable playhouses are common fixtures at birthday parties, carnivals and even wedding receptions. They cost less than $100 to rent on average in the U.S. and are an easy and fun way to keep kids (and some adults) entertained for hours.

But the study found it didn't take high wind speeds to tip the inflatable playhouses over, loft them into the air or send them bouncing along the ground for yards, often while people were still inside.

"There was a case in Southern California where one of the bounce houses got picked up by the wind and dropped in the middle of a highway with a boy still inside the playhouse," said Thomas Gill, second author on the paper and a professor of environmental science at the University of Texas at El Paso. "When the winds get to be too much, these bounce houses need not only to be evacuated but also deflated. There have been cases where a bounce house was empty, but it blew away and struck a bystander."

Basic precautions such as securely staking bounce houses into the ground, attaching sandbags to weigh the structure down and monitoring windspeeds and other dangerous weather conditions likely could've prevented many, if not all, of the accidents, the researchers said.

But fewer than half of the states in the U.S. have explicit statutes and regulations for safe bounce house usage, the study found. Seventeen states have no guidelines at all or specifically exclude inflatables like bounce houses from regulation.

Of the ones that do have regulations, most do not explicitly state weather and wind conditions required for safe use.

"The regulatory landscape is all over the place from one state to another," Knox said. "From our perspective, this isn't good enough. Bounce houses need to be attended by someone who is weather-wise and can recognize when winds are at an unsafe level."

Only 19 states' regulations cite the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) standards, which set a maximum wind gust speed of 25 miles per hour unless the bounce house has been secured by a professional engineer. The standards also require a meteorologically savvy attendant on site for commercial bounce house use.

Of the 132 bounce house incidents, though, more than one out of every five actually occurred with wind speeds lower than those deemed unsafe by the ASTM standards. Over a third of the accidents occurred with observed wind speeds between 0 and 20 miles per hour, and more than half occurred at or below the 25 mile per hour mark.

"Ahead of a strong wind event, we encourage people to secure outdoor items and remove loose tree limbs to avoid damage or injury once the wind starts picking up," said Danielle Nagele, a public program coordinator at the National Weather Service who was not involved in the study. "New information and research, such as this study, can help Boost public awareness of wind-related risks."

Monitor weather, secure bounce house and monitor play to keep children safe

The present publication is the first academic study to examine wind-related bounce house accidents.

The researchers spent a decade searching for wind-related incidents, resulting in tens of thousands of Google searches and alerts to plot the locations, date and weather conditions of each of the 132 documented cases found globally. Multiple authors conducted independent analyses using a variety of sources including National Weather Service observations and satellite imagery to classify the weather conditions. The researchers also performed independent analyses and classifications of state regulations for inflatable devices.

The researchers used this information to create a website to document their findings and provide safety tips for consumers.

The most important things people can do to safely enjoy bounce houses are to keep an eye on the weather, set up bounce houses correctly with stakes and/or sandbags and always have an adult monitoring the behavior of bounce house users.

"Make taking wind measurements part of the fun of the event," Gill said. "Wind-related incidents and accidents are just a small part of the overall safety hazard of bounce houses. While they're a lot of fun, there are dangers with them, and people need to take those seriously."

The study was recently published online in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.

"This is going to be south Philippines, somewhere on this road down here," Trevor Rainbolt said instantly, clicking on a location on a map of the world that was less than 11 miles from the spot.

A road winding through woods was up next. Lake Tahoe? Siberia? "It looks like we're going to be in Switzerland here, unless we're in Japan. Yeah, we have to be in Japan here," Rainbolt said, correctly pinpointing the country.

To some, Rainbolt's snap answers seem like wizardry. To him, they are simply the result of countless hours of practice and an insatiable thirst for geographic knowledge.

"I don't think I'm some genius," said Rainbolt, a 23-year-old online video producer in Los Angeles. "It's like a magician. To the magician, the trick is easy, but to everyone else, it's a lot harder."

For the casual player, traversing still images of winding pastoral roads, Mediterranean foothills and streets filled with tuk-tuks can be tranquil, especially without a time limit. But for performers like Rainbolt, the pace is frenetic, and identifying a location can take only seconds - or less.

Rainbolt is not the top GeoGuessr player in the world. That distinction is often considered to belong to a Dutch teenager who goes by GeoStique, or to a French player known as Blinky. But since around the start of this year, Rainbolt has been the standard-bearer for GeoGuessr, thanks to his captivating social media posts, shared with his 820,000 followers on TikTok as well as on other social platforms.

Appearing in a hoodie and sometimes headphones as dramatic classical music plays in the background, Rainbolt identifies countries after what appears to be simply a

In some videos, he guesses the correct locale after looking at a Street View image for only a tenth of a second, or in black and white, or pixelated - or all of the above. In others, he is blindfolded and guesses (correctly) off a description someone else provides him.

The videos that have generated the most shock are ones in which Rainbolt, using his topographical sleuthing, identifies exactly where music videos were filmed. In one viral clip, he found the exact street in Nevada from a video of a person driving with a capybara. "If I ever go missing, I hope someone hires this guy on my behalf," one Twitter user commented.

GeoGuessr was created in 2013 by a Swedish software engineer, Anton Wallén, who came up with the idea while on a trek across the United States. Early influencers like GeoWizard, a British YouTuber, helped promote the game. It also gained popularity during the pandemic, when it introduced a multiplayer mode called Battle Royale.

Rainbolt's social media posts boosted it further. Last month, in a publicity coup, Rainbolt livestreamed with Ludwig Ahgren, a former Twitch personality who now broadcasts to 3 million followers on YouTube.

The GeoGuessr site has 40 million accounts, said Filip Antell, who leads content for GeoGuessr, a 25-person company in Stockholm. Some of those people are subscribers who chip in $2 a month for the ability to play an unlimited number of games. The revenue, Antell said, goes toward paying developers and Google, which charges GeoGuessr for the use of its software.

Despite his globe-spanning knowledge, Rainbolt, who grew up in Arkansas, has never left North America. But he has plenty of locales on his bucket list, including Laos and the Aleutian Islands in Alaska. People tell Rainbolt that his passion is somewhat crazy. The most common question his friends ask him is: "Is it real?"

He says it is, and promises he has never faked a video. He does get countries wrong, sometimes. Mistaking the United States for Canada, or the Czech Republic for Slovakia, are two common slip-ups for even the greatest players. And he acknowledged that he was mostly posting only his highlights on social media, rather than the occasional fumble.

So How Does He Do It?
The key, of course, is practice. Rainbolt fell down the GeoGuessr rabbit hole during the pandemic, watching others livestream their play and poring through study guides assembled by geography lovers. He said he spent four to five hours each day studying: playing GeoGuessr in specific countries repeatedly to get a feel for the terrain and memorizing how landmarks like road markers and telephone poles differ by country.

"Candidly, I haven't had any social life for the past year," he said. "But it's worth it, because it's so fun and I enjoy learning."

Some of the top features that Rainbolt uses to distinguish one country from another, he said, are bollards, the posts used as barriers on the sides of roads; telephone poles; license plates; which side of the road the cars are driving on; and soil color.

There are other clues, if you know where to look. The quality of the image matters - Google filmed different countries using different generations of camera - as does the color of the car being used to record the terrain. A glimpse of a white car in South America, for instance, means you are in Peru, Bolivia or Chile, Rainbolt said.

GeoGuessr has a variety of game modes. One of the most popular formats is a duel, in which players or teams start with 6,000 points and take "damage" based on how accurate their opponent's guesses are until they are reduced to zero. In some games, you are allowed to click to move through the map, while others are "no-move" games. Once one player has guessed, the other has 15 seconds to lock in a prediction.

Professional GeoGuessr players - so described because they are the best in the world, not because they earn a living doing it - say the competitive scene is still nascent but growing rapidly.

Leon Cornale, a 21-year-old pro player known as Kodiak, from Ratingen, Germany, described competitive GeoGuessr as "fragmented and divided." A group of players in France, for instance, have formed their own community and host tournaments, while other players have formed groups through Reddit. But GeoGuessr's accurate social media popularity has jump-started interest in broader competitions.

The best players, who are often as young as 15, vie for world records and have begun competing in tournaments organized by Rainbolt and streamed live on Twitch. There is little money to be had, but star players do earn the adulation of the thousands of more casual GeoGuessr players who gather on a Discord server to swap tips and share scores.

Lukas Zircher, a 24-year-old in Innsbruck, Austria, grew obsessed with GeoGuessr when he stumbled upon one of Rainbolt's Instagram posts. Zircher decided that he, too, wanted to become one of the greats of the game.

"It's tough to get good, really good," said Zircher, whose free time is now devoted to studying bollards and memorizing the color of South African soil. "I can recognize all the African countries from a few pictures, but I'm still far from being good - I miss all the eastern European countries."

Syd Mills, a 22-year-old freelance illustrator from New Jersey, became enthralled after watching Rainbolt's content. She had played GeoGuessr before, but was surprised at how quickly she improved after watching his videos that provide tips on identifying countries.

"This time, instead of passively wandering around and desperately looking for a language hint or a flag, I would pick up on stuff like guardrails, road markings, bollards," Mills said.

She sometimes experiences moments that she imagines are similar to the awe Rainbolt inspires. Once, when playing GeoGuessr with her father, she immediately identified an image as being in Uruguay, because of lines on a road.

His reaction, she said, was "How the hell do you know that?"

The internet is a ubiquitous tool that we all use every day, sometimes several times a day. We use it for entertainment, to get our news, to communicate with friends and family members, and to do all sorts of business. From buying things on Amazon to selling things on eBay and everything in between, the internet makes the world go ‘round – and that’s not changing anytime soon. Real estate professionals know this intimately. Without a good online presence, a real estate agent is going to have a hard time sourcing new leads and converting them into clients. With that said learning Real Estate SEO may not be a bad idea.

It’s because of this need that agents spend so much time and energy on creating their own websites. But for that site to be effective, you need to ensure people can find it when they search the internet. Therefore, you need to learn SEO. But how long does it take to learn real estate SEO? What even is it and why is it important? Let’s answer all those questions right here and right now.

SEO is short for search engine optimization. SEO is a collection of best practices that web designers follow to ensure a website ranks high when someone uses Google or another search engine to find what they’re looking for. If your site doesn’t have good SEO, you’re going to get less traffic to your website.

How Does SEO Work?

SEO works by ensuring that your website contains content that search engines find attractive. There are dozens of different factors that go into this, but perhaps the most crucial aspect of good SEO is to ensure your site is using relevant keywords that are a close match to what users are typing into search engines. 

Is SEO Good for Realtors?

If you want your real estate website to attract lots of visitors that you can use for lead generation, your site needs good real estate SEO. This causes your site to rank higher in search engine results, and that means creating content that will attract attention. With 44 percent of home buyers using Google to begin their home search, you can’t afford to miss out.

The goal of your SEO efforts for your real estate site is to get as close to the top of the search rankings as possible for your chosen keywords. This is a monumental task; only around 5.7 percent of all newly-published pages will get into Google’s top 10 search results within a year, let alone grab that coveted top spot – a spot that gets you more than 36 percent of total clicks, which is absolutely huge.

Meanwhile, the benefits of having high-ranking listings are incredible. Zillow ranks for something like 11 million keywords, which results in nearly 44 million organic visitors every month. That’s a lot of eyeballs on a lot of property listings. We’re not saying you’ll be able to achieve that level of success for your small-scale real estate site, but the potential is there, so let’s talk about what makes for great real estate SEO.

Craft Great Content

Experts from real estate SEO services agree that your site needs the best content you can provide to attract attention. One of the most effective types of content comes in the form of regular blogging. Sharing interesting tips about the real estate industry, exciting developments in the community you serve, and glimpses into the life of a real estate professional are all great ways to attract that attention. 

Long Over Short for Attracting Backlinks

One way that Google judges the value of your page is by determining how many backlinks you have, or links from other people’s content to your own. It’s clear that longer is better when it comes to your content, as an analysis of more than 900 million blog posts found that long-form content was 77.2 percent more likely to attract backlinks than shorter content.

Rely on Expert Help

Perhaps the most crucial step to take for building great real estate SEO is to not try to wing it. If you don’t have the requisite knowledge on things like content creation, keyword research, or site design, you can always supply yourself a crash course on the subject if you have the time. But most real estate professionals are already busy enough as it is, which is why enlisting the aid of a real estate SEO company to fine-tune your site is often a much better idea.

Learning the basics of search engine optimization doesn’t take that long at all. It’s easy to grasp the concept of why having your website optimized for search engines is important since optimized sites rank higher in searches and attract more visitor traffic. It’s also not exactly difficult to understand what your site needs to have in order to build good real estate SEO. 

The thing that takes time, however, is implementation. Theoretical knowledge is great, but when you have to apply that knowledge and use effective SEO techniques in practice is where the process can slow down. It can take weeks or even months of study and trial-and-error before you’ll get enough practical experience in real estate SEO – time that might have been better spent anywhere else. That’s it’s always a good idea to invest in the help of a trusted real estate SEO services provider, as “winging it” is tough.

The Bottom Line

Today, everything gets done over the internet, and that includes house hunting. Having your own real estate site is an absolute must if you want to attract new leads to your business. This means that you have to leverage the best real estate SEO you can to maximize your site traffic. Learning effective real estate SEO techniques can take quite a long time, so feel free to turn to the experts for help!

A study from the University of Georgia assesses the safety of those popular bounce houses and finds it lacking: the UGA research says there been almost 500 injuries worldwide and 28 deaths in bounce houses since the year 2000. The study published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society says most of the bounce accidents have involved wind events.

From Leigh Beeson, UGA Media Relations…

It’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt … or dies. And a lack of regulations and oversight surrounding a popular, easily rentable party feature could be putting tens of thousands of children at risk, according to new research from the University of Georgia.

The study found at least 479 people were injured and 28 died worldwide in more than 130 bounce house accidents due to weather events since 2000. But the researchers caution that these estimates are likely an undercount.

These injuries are on top of an estimated 10,000 ER visits in the U.S. each year because of bounce house-related accidents that regularly result in broken bones, muscle sprains and concussions.

“These bounce houses aren’t something to set up and then forget to stake them into the ground,” said John Knox, lead author of the study and a geography professor in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. “What could go wrong? The answer is that it could blow away in winds that are not anywhere near severe levels. Some of these cases were in purely clear skies.”

Many of the wind-related accidents happened on what seemed to be good weather days, according to the research: a cool and sunny day after a cold front with clear skies, a hot but calm day that triggers a dust devil or a nice summer day with a thunderstorm somewhere off in the distance. More than 80 of the 132 events identified by the study were caused by cold fronts or post-cold front conditions, dust devils and overhead or distant thunderstorms.

Also known as bouncy houses, magic castles, jumping balloons or bounce castles, the portable playhouses are common fixtures at birthday parties, carnivals and even wedding receptions. They cost less than $100 to rent on average in the U.S. and are an easy and fun way to keep kids (and some adults) entertained for hours.

But the study found it didn’t take high wind speeds to tip the inflatable playhouses over, loft them into the air or send them bouncing along the ground for yards, often while people were still inside.

“There was a case in Southern California where one of the bounce houses got picked up by the wind and dropped in the middle of a highway with a boy still inside the playhouse,” said Thomas Gill, second author on the paper and a professor of environmental science at the University of Texas at El Paso. “When the winds get to be too much, these bounce houses need not only to be evacuated but also deflated. There have been cases where a bounce house was empty, but it blew away and struck a bystander.”

Basic precautions such as securely staking bounce houses into the ground, attaching sandbags to weigh the structure down and monitoring windspeeds and other dangerous weather conditions likely could’ve prevented many, if not all, of the accidents, the researchers said.

But fewer than half of the states in the U.S. have explicit statutes and regulations for safe bounce house usage, the study found. Seventeen states have no guidelines at all or specifically exclude inflatables like bounce houses from regulation.

Of the ones that do have regulations, most do not explicitly state weather and wind conditions required for safe use.

“The regulatory landscape is all over the place from one state to another,” Knox said. “From our perspective, this isn’t good enough. Bounce houses need to be attended by someone who is weather-wise and can recognize when winds are at an unsafe level.”

Only 19 states’ regulations cite the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) standards, which set a maximum wind gust speed of 25 miles per hour unless the bounce house has been secured by a professional engineer. The standards also require a meteorologically savvy attendant on site for commercial bounce house use.

Of the 132 bounce house incidents, though, more than one out of every five actually occurred with wind speeds lower than those deemed unsafe by the ASTM standards. Over a third of the accidents occurred with observed wind speeds between 0 and 20 miles per hour, and more than half occurred at or below the 25 mile per hour mark.

“Ahead of a strong wind event, we encourage people to secure outdoor items and remove loose tree limbs to avoid damage or injury once the wind starts picking up,” said Danielle Nagele, a public program coordinator at the National Weather Service who was not involved in the study. “New information and research, such as this study, can help Boost public awareness of wind-related risks.”

The present publication is the first academic study to examine wind-related bounce house accidents.

The researchers spent a decade searching for wind-related incidents, resulting in tens of thousands of Google searches and alerts to plot the locations, date and weather conditions of each of the 132 documented cases found globally. Multiple authors conducted independent analyses using a variety of sources including National Weather Service observations and satellite imagery to classify the weather conditions. The researchers also performed independent analyses and classifications of state regulations for inflatable devices.

The researchers used this information to create a website to document their findings and provide safety tips for consumers.

The most important things people can do to safely enjoy bounce houses are to keep an eye on the weather, set up bounce houses correctly with stakes and/or sandbags and always have an adult monitoring the behavior of bounce house users.

“Make taking wind measurements part of the fun of the event,” Gill said. “Wind-related incidents and accidents are just a small part of the overall safety hazard of bounce houses. While they’re a lot of fun, there are dangers with them, and people need to take those seriously.”

The study was recently published online in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. It was co-authored by Castle Williams, a doctoral graduate from UGA’s Department of Geography and social scientist contractor supporting the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; Jada Smith, an undergraduate researcher in the Department of Geography; Lucas Boggs, a graduate of the UGA School of Law and practicing attorney; Alan Black, a doctoral graduate of the Department of Geography and assistant professor at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville; and Hope Skypek, a graduate of the Department of Geography and a student at the School of Law.

©2022 Cox Media Group

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