10 Kitchen Innovations for Improving your New Generation Home

Subzero wolf kitchen appliances rustic

In our ever-changing world of high innovation and demand for homes that reflect gorgeous detailing and quality, your kitchen is the number one room where you love to see gorgeous technology. Your kitchen appliances are lifetime investments for many homeowners and Sub-Zero Wolf, the leader in food preservation & innovative cooking products since 1943 have proven how a new generation of innovation is awaiting your kitchen. From seamless aesthetic details that blend into your cabinetry to delivering your guests culinary expert cooking experiences from the cookware. You won’t be able to help but brag with these 10 innovative and contemporary ideas for your kitchen that you can’t wait to have.

1. A New Generation: Classic kitchens with modern appeal:

There is some things that homeowners don’t like to mess around with and that is their kitchen appliances. Similarly to your car, your refrigerator, stove and ovens are all a major investment and the third-generation family-owned company; Sub-Zero and Wolf realize this. Your classic kitchen still wants the reliability of well-made design, trusted manufacturing and gorgeous detailing but now with seamless ways to fit amongst your kitchen cabinetry with integrated design that oozes sophistication.

See how your refrigerator and cooking appliances disappear amongst your gorgeous kitchen

2. Making your refrigerator disappear has never looked so good

Whether you are a design fanatic or you just enjoy fine appointed details, there is nothing like integrated refrigeration that blends seamlessly with your cabinetry. The New Generation of products feature more than 60 new appliances of which many disappear into your interiors. Get the look in your home by choosing one of 3 new design styles: Professional, Transitional or Contemporary to incorporate your modern kitchen with gorgeous appliances. New handles, minimal lines on refrigerator facades and controls that disappear are just a few amenities that you will love.

3. Add or detract colorful kitchen details for a modern touch

For many years kitchens were dull and strictly utilitarian. There has been a renewed sense of pride and love for modern kitchens that show off color or the absence of color in kitchen cabinetry, finishes, countertops and even in tile backsplashes. Look to your own personal design style to see how you can add or detract these from your kitchen. Details such as the designer styled iconic red control knobs for your Wolf cooking range, black or professional stainless steel all reflects your culinary design style.

Beautiful lighting in your kitchen and in your appliances has become a new design aesthetic

4. Beautiful lighting is now a design feature, more than just a function

Similarly to kitchens as a whole, lighting has taken on a new sense of form in modern kitchens. Whether your style is traditional with an ornate chandelier gracing your kitchen island or if you prefer a minimal set of pendants lamps – embrace lighting in your kitchen. Look to the New Generation of Wolf ovens and Sub Zero refrigerators to offer better lighting inside them for better visibility for you to see your food and to create a gorgeous experience preparing your meals.

5. Blur the lines between cooking and your family lifestyle

For many homeowners the way your family lives and uses your kitchen is reflected in the appliances that outfit your home.  Refrigerator drawers are ideal for busy families with children or entertaining homes that need extra refrigeration for easy accessibility. While busy professionals may opt for sleek appliances that heat up quickly to cook a quick culinary creation on their induction stove cooktop. With the new line of Wolf cooking products you don’t have to choose between cooking and your personal design and lifestyle. Blur the lines and combine the way you live into the innovative kitchen amenities you opt for.

Subzero wolf cooktop downdraft

6. Innovative controls & details means you can enjoy cooking again

If you have appliances that aren’t a joy to use everyday, then why settle? Sub-Zero and Wolf have taken innovation you love in your tech gadgets and brought them to the kitchen! Features such as: Dual convection, curved back walls in their ovens, a third halogen lamp inside the oven, LCD screens, preset categories and more are what homeowners love. Bring innovative ideas into your kitchen and decide what features do you love the most. Programmable modes, “finger-swipe” technology on the control panels has never been such a pleasure to operate.

7. New built-in coffee system creates a barista in your home

If you are a hot drink lover of coffees, espressos, cappuccinos, hot teas or more, why not use innovative ideas such as Wolf’s new coffee system in your home? Innovation always means following the trends and if your kitchen is like most, preparing a personal hot drink experience for friends and family couldn’t be easier. The fully integrated system cleans itself, steams milk, and easily cleans for all the comforts of your favorite barista at home.

New integrated coffee system for your kitchen

8. Bring out your culinary side in your kitchen options

While you may not be a professionally trained chef, there is nothing like professional-grade appliances to make you look and feel wonderful. Cooking is an emotional experience that you love to spend by yourself, with friends and family and adding on professional modules to your Wolf stove and oven can step your kitchen status up to a rock star! Consider adding a steam oven, fryer, induction cooktop, Sous Vide for water bath cooking and a teppanyaki iron griddle can all transform your cooking experiences!

Subzero wolf new generation Wolf gas oven

9.  Make your kitchen a new destination

We all love being transported off into a new world and creating a personalized kitchen with design style that you love. Kitchen innovation has come a long way over the years and from custom and fanciful range hoods overhead to appliances that exude the same designer appeal as your cabinetry and finishes, your kitchen becomes a destination that you love to escape to. The New Generation of Sub-Zero & Wolf products meets your design needs in innovation and versatility with interchangeable size options, installation custom settings, and more.

Create a kitchen that you love to escape to in destination each day

10. A New Generation for your kitchen with innovation

With over 60 new products from Sub-Zero & Wolf, the New Generation is showing how our world is constantly revolutionizing how you experience your home. Many of the new refrigeration wine coolers, refrigerators are Energy Star compliant and are seeking to create a conscious effort of saving energy while still delivering a gorgeous kitchen experience.

Stop Making These Silly Blogging Mistakes!

A lot of new (and even experienced) bloggers make silly blogging mistakes that could ruin their chances of becoming successful in their blogging endeavors. It is always important to learn all the silly blogging mistakes to avoid in order to making sure that you generate quality blog posts…all the time.

Blogging is indeed a fantastic way to build a reputation in your chosen field, as well as connect with new readers, and keep the old readers coming back for more. A lot of people have actually used blogging in order to grow their business.

There are so many silly blogging mistakes to avoid, but I will just stick to highlight 5 blogging mistakes that every blogger should never make.

1.     Posting Blog Content that Are Downright Boring!

You need to make your blog content very interesting to read, nothing scares off new readers more than wasting their time reading a boring blog post. The content you generate for your blog should be engaging. Reading a very interesting blog post will make readers want to leave comments on your blog. Having a sense of humor goes a long way to helping you get new readers, and win the loyalty of old readers.

Whenever I write, I always want to show my personality and let readers know that I am real and they can count on me to help them learn a thing or two. One of the goals that you should have at the back of your mind when you are generating content for your blog is to make sure that the content you post is interesting to read. No one wants to spend their time reading a boring piece of article.

It is important to know what is considered to be funny as opposed to what many consider to be racist or religious jokes made in poor taste. I have been in front of people who have actually thought there were telling a funny joke, but all the while they were being very rude. There are so many ways you can make your blog post interesting without retorting to so-called funny jokes that would upset a lot of readers.

This is the part where some people would want to ask: “I write about business, so how can I make my blog posts more interesting?”  When it comes to writing interesting topics about business, I have found that what keep people glued to business posts is topics that address issues in business and how to solve them. People also want to read about how a fellow entrepreneur turned a teeny-tiny business into an empire.

If you are not connecting well with your readers, things could backfire. This brings me to the next point.

2.       Being Clueless about Who Your Target Audiences Are

You should know your target audience! Of course, no one is saying that you should know the names and addresses of your readers. But you should know the type of audiences that you wish to reach out to. In my case my target audiences are: online entrepreneurs, small business people, people who are interested in learning new things and people you are interested in personal development.  When you write for a specific group of people in mind, it would help you connect with them much more easily.

3.       Making Spelling and Grammar Errors – Yikes!

In one of my blog posts titled: Ultimate Guide to Blogging I pointed out how a lot of writers makegrammar errors. Okay let’s face it, there are times when we write in a hurry and a few typos slip through the cracks, but when your readers keep seeing badly spelt words, typos and poor syntax, then you can count on losing your readership base. I am a Nigerian, and English is not my native language; but back home in Nigeria, English is the lingua franca. Any Nigerian who attended primary school up to the university/polytechnic level would definitely be able to write and express themselves in decent English.

• Read: 20 common Grammar mistakes 

I started using American spelling when I began blogging, because I noticed that it was the norm. Instead of writing honour (which I learned in school), I simply spelt it the American way; which is spelt “honor”. But if you are not too confident when it comes to writing error-free English, you can pay someone to proofread the content prior to posting the write –up on your website.

• Learn how to better proofread an article for free

According to the research I made some time ago, Matt Cutts from Google revealed that websites/blogs with better grammar and spelling rank higher in Google search results.

• Read: What is readability for SEO and few online Readability calculator

Read this very carefully, because I am only going to write it once: Poor spelling and poor grammar will leave a bad impression on your readers. Think about it, why on God’s earth should someone trust you when you cannot even spell the name of your company right, or when you are guilty of writing sentences packed with grammar errors and misspellings?! 

4.       Not Using Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Techniques

Do not forget about search engine optimization when you blog. I do not mean that you should just stuff your webpage with keywords and keyword phrases! You need to write for readers and not just for search engines and learn the art of balancing quality writing with search engine  optimization – hey, do not worry, the process is pretty easy.

• Beginner guide: Importance of Keywords for better search engine ranking

There are certain types of keywords that would not sound natural; so you should not worry if you cannot “squeeze” it into your blog post more than once. Learning how to tactfully add unnatural-sounding keywords into an article is a skill that can be acquired easily, especially when you are a naturally gifted writer. Google is getting better by the minute at being able to fish out spammy web pages.

5.       Not Promoting your Blog Content

Writing thought provoking and super interesting blogs is just not enough, you will also need to make sure that you promote your blog on social media websites such as facebook and Twitter.  If you do not have a facebook or twitter account, the best time to sign-up for one is NOW! If you already have different social media accounts, then you have absolutely no reason not to start promoting your website or blog!

• Learn: How to promote your old blog post
• How to promote blog posts for maximum exposure

These are just 5 of many silly mistakes, which happens unknowingly. If you are a newbie blogger or one of those blogger who are taking the leap of faith to become a successful blogger, you need to work hard on mistakes which you are making on daily basis. A good strategy is to learn from other people mistakes, and quickly jump ahead. Here I’m suggesting some of the articles from ShoutMeLoud archive, which will help you learn more about common mistakes which every blogger makes in his initial days of blogging:

• Top 21 blogging mistakes that can ruin your blog
• 11 costly mistakes that may reduce blog traffic
• Biggest mistakes of my blogging life
• What common mistakes an amateur blogger makes

I’m sure you will learn many new things today, which will change the way you blog. If you like to share some of your stories about mistakes that you used to make, feel free to add few via comments. Don’t forget to share this article with your blogger friends on Facebook and Google plus. I wish you success in your blogging endeavors 

Source: ShoutMeloud

7 #Ways to Generate #Business in the #Travel World

During Global Travel Marketplace West (GTM West), travel agents shared insider tips on how they generate new business and find new clients. Here’s a sampling:

Play Your Best Hand

“I play poker all over the world,” said Wane Webber, owner of Avanti Travel in Redding, Calif. “I pick the winners and I give them my card. Yes, I have helped pay for a lot of their trips, but I also get a lot of new business.”

Cut Through the Clutter

We get walk-in people, once or twice a day, who come in with stacks of information they found on the Internet,” said Sheryl Fick, owner of Endless Travel / Uniglobe, in Evergreen, Colo. “I say, ‘Come, sit down. Let me help you.’ Then I take their stuff and put it aside, and I qualify them and I book them. That’s how we get new clients.” The agency also writes advertorials for the local newspaper.

Max Out on Social Media

“We market primarily on social media, on our Facebook page and even more on Instagram,” explained Dedra Shahan, president of Cowboy Way Travel in Stephenville, Texas. “And we have a great Pinterest board. We get lots of callers from Pinterest.”

Additionally, Shahan’s agency runs plenty of mini-contests for clients and award winners with Starbucks cards and swag from suppliers. “We have fun keeping people thinking about us,” Shahan said.

Reward Referrals

“We market to our clients and we ask for referrals — we ask for the business,” said Moriah Turnbull, owner of Moriah’s Travel Service in Fresno, Calif.

To incentivize clients, Turnbull has also established a reward system revolving around referrals. The approach works: On average, the agency receives about three calls a day just from referrals.

Give a Little to Get a Lot

“Volunteer. Join a philanthropic organization,” said Sara Reshaw, an agent with Uniglobe Golden Empire in Bakersfield, Calif. “You’ll be surprised how much benefit you will get.”

Case in point: The agency donated a small item to a local school’s silent auction and got a $68,000 booking from the simple gesture.

Bark Up the Right Tree

Robert Papkin, owner of Bob’s Ultimate Travel LLC in Chandler, Ariz., cleverly uses his local dog park as a source for potential business. “Walk up to another dog owner and ask what they do for a living,” Papkin advised. “They’ll tell you and then, pretty soon, they’ll ask what you do.” It can be an effective opening to hand someone a business card.

Get the News Out

Linda May-Dinsmore, owner of Deluxe Travel & Cruises in South Surrey, British Columbia, paid an outside firm to develop a semimonthly newsletter for her agency. The newsletter generates a lot of response every time it comes out, with emails regarding everything from the newsletter content to questions about other trips.

But more importantly, the newsletter “touches people twice a month and keeps us on top of their list,” said May-Dinsmore.

SOURCE: TAW

7 Shocking Stats & Trends about the Internet – Infographic

If you are involved in an Internet business, or just curious about where the Internet is heading, this infographic will interest you.

If you’re involved in a startup, it’s important to analyze major trends that are likely to make an impact in the next few years. For example, you could look for the emerging tech that might give you a strategic business advantage if you’re an early adopter.

So here you go, we present to you our latest infographic — Seven Shocking Stats & Trends about the Internet.

7 Shocking Stats & Trends About the Internet Infographic | Staff.com

Staff.com – Connecting Great Companies with Global Talent

 

7 things going against you as a first-time entrepreneur

7 things going against you as a first-time entrepreneur

If you are a first-time entrepreneur in any industry, odds are well against you. You already know this, too, but you go ahead with your (ad)venture. Hats off to your courage, but that’s not sufficient enough to cross all the hurdles.

1. Not being able to see escalating friction

There is literally zero friction for your ideas when they are in your head. The friction escalates at an alarming rate as you move through the following phases:

* Reflecting on your idea and self-validating

* Asking people close to you, not necessarily those that are knowledgeable

* Sharing it with people who think similarly to you

* Market research

* Recruiting partners whom you will pay (vendors of any kind)

* Talking to potential prospects

* Talking to potential investors

If you don’t understand the level of friction at each stage, you will notice that you will enter the stage terribly unprepared and fail miserably.

2. Confusing activity with progress

In a startup, there are so many things to do and so many things that you can do. Lot of activity can happen under the radar without ever talking to a potential customer. Interestingly, you can create work that will create more work. For instance, you decide to file for not one but five patents. That will spawn some work. This work will spawn more work in terms of queries from USPTO, and those queries will spawn some more work.

The sad part is that you can start misattributing several activities to progress.

In general, any activity that cannot create value to your customers in a measurable way needs to be questioned. There is a good chance that it’s just activity leading nowhere.

3. Lack of valuable accomplishments

Unless you have built a product that is shockingly awesome, you need to have built an identity that will bring credibility to the venture. Somebody should be able to easily understand and appreciate why you are the right person to take this venture forward. If they don’t believe in you, the derivative will be that they will lose belief in the venture.

People do judge a book by its cover and a founder by his or her previous valuable accomplishments. You might as well get prepared for it.

4. Not knowing what not to do

Time is the most precious asset you have. It is not only important for you to know what to do but most important to know what not to do.

How do you get to know that?

It comes from experience.

But you are a first-time entrepreneur, so experience is out of the question. This is where you surround yourself with people who have been there and done that and are willing to help.

5. Concluding for convenience

It is better to call a spade a spade and move on. When you take a misstep or face a setback, it is better to quickly acknowledge that you goofed up and clear the air for the next set of actions.

When you engage in blame game to conveniently wiggle out of the uncomfortable situations, nobody wins. If you are surrounded by smart people, they will see through it; and if you are not surrounded by smart people, you have a bigger problem at hand already.

By design your first foray into entrepreneurship will be uncomfortable, and that is part of growth. By posturing as anyone other than a student of the craft, you will be doing a dis-service to yourself and others around you.

6. Trying to fix your weaknesses fast

Trying to fix your weaknesses during your first entrepreneurship journey will be like trying to change tires on a moving vehicle. There is no trial run in entrepreneurship; everything is real.

The only way to win the game is to play to your strengths, invest in your strengths, and invest in the team that will compensate your for your weaknesses.

7. Believing that you will have it all in control

There is a thin line between confidence and hubris. Your hubris might appear to you as extreme confidence until you are humbled. There is an African saying that is apt in this and many scenarios. It goes something like this: “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”

Entrepreneurship is a game that you win in the long term. It is a game that is beyond just you. It is a myth to think that you alone will have it all under control, however smart you are.

As you would have guessed, there are many more hurdles along the way. Whatever your adventure, it will be a humbling experience that will help you grow by leaps and bounds along the way.

7 Best Free Website Builder for your Business

From the first day of start, every business need online presence and want there customers to be happy. The mouth publicity is considered to be the best publicity and to get it you need to provide excellent services,  before and after sale. Making a website and running it to engage customers is one of the best things which could be done now a days.

To build a website you need web developing services, who will make your website according to your needs. But with many web applications this money can be saved. You just need to spend a little time and with few clicks you could build a site of your own. These free website maker for any business can make it possible to showcase your product, tell about your organisation or may be write news articles to keep them updated. Here are are few excellent websites which offer such services free of cost.

7 Best Services that build your Website for free

1. Ucoz.com : To make a website with Ucoz.com you will need to register yourself here and get started with confirming your email, which will reach your mail instantly. After confirming the mail, you will need to set admin password and normal password. I like their use of captcha, its easy and secured at the same time. Now you will be presented with two or three forms like choosing a name for your site, then design and finally what all modules you require.. i choose all the options like page editor, site news, forum, publisher, blog, guestbook, photo albums, email forms, web polls, and last but not the least E-shop. Yes you can build an e-shop to sell your goods as well.

You can add blocks, write blog post from front end, change the look and feel, and much more.. a complete solution for building website absolutely free. Above i have choose the most popular business template for my demo site.

2. Webs.com : It took me only 5 mins to create a free site at webs.com. It was smooth easy and fun.. Their image insertion is awesome, with flickr search for common creatives they have stood out with their competition.

Features like photo gallery, e-commerce shop, articles, blog, contact page and much more with just spending so little time..  The customization is easy and far better than other free builders out there.

3. Weebly.com – You can make a website, even add Google Adsense with 50% ad share given to weebly and build it for absolutely free. They allow you to add many effects like in text like shadow, glow etc with image customization and also downloading an archive for the your website.

4. JIMDO – Jimdo starts you off with a relatively blank canvas. You choose from a selection of templates, then get a simple front page with options for adding a title image, navigation and general content. Pages are built as you go, and the interface changes depending on what you’re adding. Click an empty area to pop up a menu of options you can choose to include.

On the one hand, being tied to a template makes the software incredibly easy to use, because you aren’t faced with confusing tools and elements. On the other hand, it’s a rather inflexible way of working and you may find that the program simply can’t do what you want it to. For example, to move the navigation menu, you have to change the entire template. Still, the designs are logical and the rigid structure means it’s difficult to make mistakes.

The free version comes with just 500MB of space and you can only use an address with a jimdo.com suffix. You’re also forced to have a Jimdo advert placed on your site. But you get an unlimited number of pages, unlimited bandwidth and you can even set up a simple shop using PayPal, though it’s limited to five products.

If you upgrade to the Pro service for $96 per year (which is $8 per month), you lose the Jimdo advert. You also get a domain name, 5GB of space and more template designs to choose from. There’s a Business package for $290 per year, which provides two domains and unlimited storage space.The software is very similar to 1&1’s MyWebsite, with the same icons on the right, but some different options. The main reason we’ve ranked Jimdo above 1&1’s service is that you can use it to create a perfectly serviceable site for free.

5.  Moonfruit : The service hasn’t changed much since then. What felt fresh and cutting-edge has now been superseded by the likes of Jimdo, 1&1 and Squarespace. Moonfruit still has very attractive templates and the site now offers a free option, which it lacked previously.

The site-design tool feels like PC-based web-design software that has been transported to the internet. This makes it fiddly in places but offers a lot of flexibility if you’re willing to spend time learning how to use it. The free service is limited to 15 pages and 20MB of storage. You’ll need to upgrade and pay £4 per month to get 500MB of storage and unlimited pages, though other options are available for £8, £15 and £25 per month.

6. WebEden : Moonfruit’s software is available for other companies to license, which is what WebEden has done. Your starting site and method of choosing a template are different and less dynamic, but otherwise the services are identical.

You get the same interface, which is powerful and flexible, but it’s harder to learn and use than the newer and updated services, which have left Moonfruit and its licencees looking a bit old-fashioned. Pricing is also the same as Moonfruit. You can build a free website with 20MB of space but it can only have 15 pages. Upgrading to £4 per month gives you unlimited pages and 500MB of storage, but doesn’t include a domain name. More packages are available with increasing amounts of storage and options, for £8, £15 and £25 per month.

7. Doomby : Doomby isn’t as dynamic as Jimdo or Squarespace. Instead of editing directly onto the page for an immediate ‘what you see is what you get’ effect, you use a content- management interface. This consists of some behind-the-scenes web pages where you type your text and load your pictures.

When you save your work, the content uploads and you can then see the results. You can run a Doomby site for free, but the top of the screen will be taken up by an intrusive advert. The free option comes with 250MB of web space and unlimited pages. Upgrading to the Plus version costs $58 per year. This removes the ad and gives you 2.5GB of storage space.

Freerangestock.com – A great source for free stock photos

As designers, we need to work with lots of high quality stock images.  Unfortunately, finding free high quality stock photos can be a pain, especially if you are looking for a particular shot or photo. Fortunately, there are a number of a good resources that provide free stock images. Freerangestock.com is one of them.  This is a new resource that I have just stumble onto and I find it to be quite valuable as another source of photos that I can tap into when I am doing my work.  Best of all, all the photos have been cleared of copyrights so there is no fear on any legal issue down the road for you or your client.

Here are some of the attractions of using Freerangestock.com

#1:  Photos are licensed for commercial use

As mentioned, the photos on Freerangestock.com are copyrighted images but they have been licensed for commercial use. This is similar to how other non free stock photo sites such as iStockPhoto work. As a designer, this makes it more reassuring for me to use the images as I do not want our clients to encounter any legal issue down the road.

#2:  No credit or link back necessary

Some of the free stock photos site require you to link back to their site for using their photos. This is sometimes not possible, especially when the photo is being used for client’s work. Freerangestock.com doesn’t have this requirement so it makes it easier for us to just use whatever images that we need from the site. Of course, you can always help them by letting other know about their great service, like what I am doing now 

#3: Exclusive images

Freerangestock.com also offers exclusive images that are not available on other sites. In fact their range of exclusive photos is in the thousands, with more added everyday.  This makes it worthwhile to visit their site, just to take a look at what exclusive images you can potentially use.

#4: Super easy to find relevant images

As pictures are not words, it can be difficult to find a relevant image. Fortunately, Freerangestock.com has labelled all their images accurately and making them super easy to search. As I was using the site, almost all the image keywords I search for returned the right photos. This saves a lot of my time as I don’t need to look through pages and pages of search result to find the image that I need.

#5: Revenue sharing with photographers

Freerangestock.com has a nice revenue share programme with photographers to encourage more photos to be added. Basically, they will give you 100% of any adsense revenue that is generated from people viewing your photos. For those who might not know what adsense is, it is pay per click advertising programme whereby every click from a user generates some ad revenue. If you upload more pictures at Freerangestock.com, there is higher chances of users clicking on an ad that is based on the images you uploaded.

I hope you give Freerangestock.com a try. All the images you seen above are from the site and I got them all for free from the site itself.

Facebook Changes Cover Photo Rules (Again): 3 Things You Still Shouldn’t Do

3 Things You Shouldn’t Do On Your Cover Photo

Facebook has quietly removed the “20% text rule” for Page cover photos. In case you weren’t aware, since March 2013, Facebook has had a guideline stipulating that cover photos on Facebook could not include more than 20 percent text. This rule caused both confusion and frustration among business Page owners. It was often hard to judge whether or not a cover image was in compliance. And some brands seemed to get away with breaking the rules, while others didn’t.

But as of today, according to the updated Facebook Page Guidelines, it appears that the rule has disappeared. So what does this mean for businesses? Go crazy! Actually, not really. What it means is that businesses need to find that fine line between “just enough” and “way too much.” Just because the cover photo can now have as much text as you’d like, doesn’t mean you should abuse the space.

Here’s how the new guidelines appear:

The rule may be gone, but there are 3 things you still should NOT do with your Facebook cover photo: 

1. Overcrowd the space

A cover photo is 851 pixels wide by 315 pixels tall. Although it’s one of the largest image spaces on Facebook, text still needs to be used strategically.  When creating your new cover photo, make sure your text is organized, readable and makes sense. Don’t try to cram everything in at once. Use a font, and a font size, that is legible. People naturally read left to right, so keep this in mind when adding text to your cover photo: Don’t try to be so clever that visitors have to work hard to read the type.

In addition, don’t try to convey too many ideas at once. If you want to promote a new eBook or PDF download, go for it. Just don’t promote your latest eBook, a PDF download and new website all in the same cover photo. Spread it out and highlight one idea per photo. Focusing on one thing at a time also motivates you to change your cover photo frequently, something I suggest.

2. Be too sales-y

A few months ago Facebook removed cover photo guidelines stating that a business Page’s cover could not include any form of call to action. Since then, businesses have had the opportunity to experiment with promoting products, giveaways and contests through their cover photos, but were still limited by the 20 percent text rule. Now that the limit is gone, businesses should be careful to not be over sales-y on their cover photos.

It’s important to remember that Facebook is a place where people like to chat with their friends, see photos and interact with their favorite brands in a personal way. Turning your cover photo into a digital billboard might be dangerous for your business. Instead, try to think of creative ways to promote your products and contests. For example, instead of saying “New hair straightener, BUY NOW!” try something like “Still having bad hair days? We’ve got the solutions you need at [insert website]!”

3. Forget the power of a picture

Bottom line: Just because you can now fit a gazillion words on a cover photo doesn’t mean you should. Remember that pictures still speak louder than words when it comes to Facebook. When you update your cover photo, the image will appear in your fans’ News Feed, so keep in mind that Facebook users respond more to images than they do to text. A strong photo of your team, or your product, could bring you more attention than a cover photo crammed with words.