Member Since 2014
Alphametic
Miami/Fort Lauderdale Area
Matthew Capala is an international SEO and content marketing strategist, speaker, author, and entrepreneur. He founded Alphametic, a global boutique search marketing agency delivering transformative strategies for mid-size to enterprise clients, including L’Oreal, Novartis, Shopkeep, Hoval, and Quest Diagnostics, and SearchDecoder SEO Training Institute™, which offers basic and advanced SEO workshops and certified training solutions for marketing professionals and businesses. Matthew is the author of bestselling “SEO Like I’m 5”, now in its’ third edition, and writes on The Next Web, Entrepreneur and Social Media Today. His groundbreaking work and ideas have been featured in Chicago Tribune, Huffington Post, Mashable, Problogger, and Inc. Matthew has been hired to speak on main stages at some of the largest conferences and brands in the world, including Internet Summit, Social Media Week, Techmunch, Digital Summit, AMA, and ePharma. He’s been invited to deliver his trademark SEO workshops in destinations ranging from a luxury retreat in Trinidad to a corporate summit in the Swiss Alps. Capala’s offices are headquartered in Miami, and he serves actively as managing director of both Alphametic and SearchDecoder.
When posting a job listing, businesses generally have their go-to, established platforms that they know are frequented by potential candidates. Sometimes, however, a company needs to think outside the box when sourcing talent. Occasionally, the least obvious places to post vacancies may result in the most remarkable outpouring of candidates. That’s why these 12 entrepreneurs from Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) reflect on the following question:
17 members of YEC share effective tactics for gathering together leaders in a way that will lead to actual productivity and strategizing.
Businesses never stay the same size forever. An entrepreneur may yearn for the early days when their business was just a handful of people. But over time, businesses find great success and become entities that may span several offices and regions.
The dark and dreary months of winter often take a toll on people’s mental health. Thankfully, there are ways to keep your spirits bright through this season so you can stay motivated and inspired in your business and life.
Social media has changed how businesses and entrepreneurs interact with their audiences. In the past, you were required to go out and meet in person with your customers to establish a rapport with them. The internet has mostly simplified this, making it much easier to engage an audience on a social media platform.
Finding funding is typically one of the most challenging parts of starting a new business. The risks versus rewards of investing in new companies can usually have investors worried about jumping in. The responsibility is then on the entrepreneur to make their business idea exciting and attractive enough to warrant investors' attention.
Technology has given us a plethora of options for speeding up our workflows. From automation software to artificial intelligence chatbots, we can leverage a significant amount of tech to make demands on our time much less burdensome.
Entrepreneurs, especially when first starting out, often fall into the trap of overwork. While any successful business needs a firm hand to guide it, your body and mind have their own needs as well. Taking time off for relaxation and socialization in a non-work environment is critical to maintaining your health and the productivity you need to run a growing company.
When you understand your customer, you can better tailor your products and services to their needs. The most reliable way to get to know who your customers are and what they're looking for is to get that information directly from them. But how can you persuade customers to give you the comprehensive, actionable feedback you need?
The backbone of a company is its employees, but the brain of a business is its leadership. The best leaders inspire and encourage the employees working under them, but even these leaders need positive reinforcement from time to time. While a lot of this reinforcement comes from those above them in the hierarchy, it has special meaning when the employees under them reach out to show their appreciation.
Onboarding a new employee is an exciting time for any business. While you're eager to get your new team member up and running on their tasks, you also need to ensure they understand the company culture and will mesh with your organization for the long term. That's why we asked the members of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) the following question:
If 2020 has taught us anything, it's that the workforce can be adaptable and deal with many challenges as they arise. From pivoting into remote work to changing their priorities from real life to the digital realm, employees have had to evolve their practices to remain competitive.
It's no secret that the holidays are among the most hectic times of the year for businesses. Everyone wants to close off the year well, and the holiday season makes for some fantastic business opportunities, but staff also looks forward to spending more time with loved ones and away from work.
Prices can make or break a business, and deciding on what to charge for a particular good or service varies by the company. Finding the "sweet spot" for your pricing takes a bit of market research and a lot of trial and error, especially for new entrepreneurs. Sometimes, their approach to pricing structure can change over time, evolving to account for further information they learn in their journeys as business owners and new key considerations that affect a company’s pricing model. That’s why we asked 12 entrepreneurs from Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) the following:
Everyone online shopper has added items to their cart, only to close out of the website before completing the purchase. This behavior has led to an average online cart abandonment rate of 60% to 80% for many e-commerce sites.
Public speaking is a great way to gain exposure for your brand and a reputation for expertise in your field. Events with an audience allow for transparency and vulnerability—two key pieces to success when you're working to build a brand that consumers are eager to engage with. Speaking events also help you show off the core solutions your business has to offer.
There's no question that retail is a challenging industry to master. However, for investors or manufacturers, the challenges it presents are more than worth the rewards. Retail distribution allows a business to serve its offerings up to a much broader population than direct distribution, thus increasing an enterprise’s visibility and revenue.
Resumes are the first look that business owners get at potential hires. As a result, they must use these resumes as a basis to figure out if that person is worth bringing in for an interview or not. Each business has its own demands for potential employees and therefore looks for specific elements in candidates’ resumes to determine possible fit. How can job seekers optimize their resumes to include these essential elements? To help, we asked we asked 13 successful entrepreneurs from Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) the following question:
Keeping up with your employees on an individual level makes for good leadership. As you hire more and more people to your team, it can be difficult to maintain that one-on-one time with each employee. However, doing so is crucial to ensuring everyone is on the same page and performing their best.
LinkedIn is often thought of as the go-to social network for professionals, but it’s more than just a social media platform. It’s a powerful marketing tool for brands to engage with customers, employees and business partners.
A company blog isn't anything like a personal blog, yet many businesses look to individual bloggers to inform their choices on topics and content. Some strike on their own, coming up with their own ideas and fleshing them out by themselves, but the result can be just as underwhelming.
A website can be a critical marketing tool as long as you manage to keep your audience engaged. Marketing can drive traffic to your website in several ways, with video, text, or image content. But once they get there, how do you keep them there?
Members of Young Entrepreneur Council offer suggestions for entrepreneurs that want to change up their mobile ad campaigns.
These 20 entrepreneurs from YEC discuss their favorite market research tools and why you should be using them.
As a business owner, you know your company can't remain stagnant and stuck in its ways if it hopes to grow. That growth requires innovation and creativity, both of which are best sourced from everyone on your team.
Social media following is an integral part of executing a successful marketing strategy. Engagement on social media is far higher than other channels. However, despite their constant presence, social media networks aren't the only way for a company to do outreach and connect to their core audience.
Whether you’re job hunting or starting a business, it’s important to play to your strengths throughout your career. By zeroing in your natural interests and aptitudes, you’re more likely to find the right opportunities and achieve success. That’s why it’s a good idea to continually refine and improve upon your core strengths.
Congratulations! You’ve just had a great pitch meeting with an investor. But holding an investor’s attention during your pitch is only the beginning of securing a deal. The real challenge lies in staying top-of-mind afterward.
Many businesses see a major shift in their success once they establish a website that lets them provide new information and tools to their customers. However, some may see even greater success if they develop a mobile app.
Businesses thrive on interaction with large clients. They form the most significant inflow of money to the enterprise and help you meet your obligations from month to month. With so many companies closing down, it's not far-fetched to think that one of your massive clients might face bankruptcy. When that happens, you will need to have a clear plan in place to recover any overdue payments and soften the blow until you find new customers. That’s why we asked 12 entrepreneurs from Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) the following:
17 professionals from YEC share the best websites for locating fresh talent.
As a small to medium enterprise owner, it can be challenging to find time for anything. Even in your supposed downtime, you invest time into ensuring the company runs smoothly. Work-life balance as an always-busy professional can be hard, if not impossible, to find. When you don't focus on your well-being, both your health as well as your relationships suffer. Being busy is essential for success, but so is knowing when to stake a step back. In such an active lifestyle, however, how does an entrepreneur know how to balance work and pleasure? That’s why we asked 10 members of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) the following question:
Content marketing has become a cornerstone marketing approach in the world of business and for good reason. It's a cost-effective method of getting new clients to notice the company while keeping current customers engaged with valuable information. However, for the bloggers, it can be a pain to come up with new ideas. With content so widespread on the internet, it's challenging to develop new topics or new spins on old issues.
Leadership is a battle for constant improvement.
It takes more than just raising your voice
In the age of remote work and social distancing, try these video conferencing tools for your company's online meetings.
Stress is common when you’re in a management position. With countless tasks to complete, employees to manage and business operations to oversee, it’s no surprise many leaders end up feeling overwhelmed at one point or another.
Businesses have seen a period of massive growth, especially those that deal solely with online sales and services. While this development is promising, it also opens up a business to another problem -- that of having their growth outscale their ability to communicate.
Since the internet has permeated business to such an extent, PR crises are becoming far more common for companies. Many of those PR faux-pas are due to misuse or misunderstanding of social media interaction. However, as much as social media can be a tool to cause a PR crisis, it can also be useful in helping to manage it. Social media is still the best way to create a rapport and interact with a particular demographic of customers directly.
Professionals, regardless of their work environment, sometimes find their focus flagging. If you're someone who has to deal with divided attention between multiple tasks, the amount of effort you put into a job will start telling on your psyche before too long. To deal with this situation, you'll have to figure out how to retain your focus and discipline within the workplace.
With so many remote working teams in the world today, productivity requires utilizing tools that can connect the team through voice, chat and video. Slack rules the roost as the team collaboration software, but it’s far from being the only reliable one. Dozens of team collaboration tools have gained growing popularity over the last two months. Some of them offer similar functionality to Slack and might even be better at some things. Others are sorely lacking in utilities to help a team get organized.
Working remotely has become the new standard in the COVID-19 era. Companies that followed a traditional in-office model have had to adjust to how they presently work, and soon have to learn how to hire remotely.
Trust is essential in a team, especially in times of change. Leaders need to believe employees will carry out their tasks properly, and employees need to believe heir leaders are taking them in the right direction. But trust between people isn’t a given -- it has to be earned.
Travel can help you gain new perspectives as an entrepreneur and a leader.
Spending time alone and focusing on the year ahead are among the most effective strategies.
A business is built on the reputation it gets through its dealings. Not all the press a company receives will be positive, however. Depending on how the consumers see the business, a company might have mixed reviews on social media.
A business is built on the reputation it gets through its dealings. Not all the press a company receives will be positive, however. Depending on how the consumers see the business, a company might have mixed reviews on social media.
Each day is different for each person. For entrepreneurs, a string of disappointments or rejections can lead to a significant impact on your psyche and your confidence. Many business coaches maintain that the best way to keep motivated is to stay positive and to keep a firm sight of what your goals are and how you intend to attain them. Ensuring that this works hinges on your confidence. These three things are essential contributors to your overall motivation.
Time management is one of the most challenging parts of being an entrepreneur. When you're a business owner, you don't have the luxury of getting all your tasks laid out for you. You have to formulate those tasks, assign importance to them, and schedule them so that they can get done in a reasonable window, all while finding ways to keep the entire business running and growing.
Running a business is no easy feat, and with each new challenge that arises, an entrepreneur risks becoming buried under the weight of the responsibility. There's no way that an individual can stop the flood of responsibilities, so the only option that a new business owner has is to find an effective and efficient process for managing the situation.
With tech innovation happening at an unprecedentedly fast pace, businesses and entrepreneurs should stay abreast of the latest developments and find ways to leverage new technology to make their life easier. For entrepreneurs especially, using the right technological tools can streamline their work and free up more of their time, helping them attain that ever-elusive but much needed work-life balance.
Everyone feels down from time to time -- especially when you're dealing with the stress of running a business. Those negative feelings can make you question everything.
While it's OK to feel down, the best way to relieve that feeling is to actively seek out positive thoughts. That's why we asked Young Entrepreneur Council members what they do in moments of doubt to help remind them of their potential. Ask yourself the following questions to regain your confidence during a mental or emotional rut.
Starting a business always comes with a certain amount of risk. You’re opening yourself to the possibility of both the successes and challenges that come with entrepreneurship, many of which are difficult to predict before you start.
As successful business owners, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council have experienced firsthand the unexpected challenges of starting a company. Below, they share 10 of the toughest obstacles they didn't expect to face, and how other leaders can prepare for them.
Build a team-focused environment that's conducive to putting out their best work and feeling fulfilled.
Be steps ahead of your competition by optimizing your marketing efforts for the latest tools.
Build a legendary brand through mythical marketing campaigns.
Mindfulness should never be mandated, only encouraged.
Alphametic is a Miami-based search marketing agency for mid-market to enterprise clients delivering integrated SEO, SEM, local search, and content marketing solutions in competitive markets. Founded in 2015 by a search industry-veteran, author and speaker, Matthew Capala, Alphametic has experienced a fast-track growth, signing high-profile clients and assignments, including Novartis, Shopkeep, L’Oreal, ilani Resort, Paragon Casino Resort, Lendio, Edgenuity, Hoval, Mohegan Sun, Alliance Technology, Primoprint, and Medmeme. Alphametic’s work and ideas have been featured on Inc Magazine, eMarketer, The Next Web, Entrepreneur, Mashable, Chicago Tribune, Huffington Post, Digital Summit, Internet Summit, New York University, and Social Media Week.
Marketing & Advertising