How to Make Money with BuySellAds

In my last video series, we discussed about “Applying for Adsense Account in Urdu“. But there is one more great platform for content creators called “BuySellAds” which is not designed as Adsense, but it’s more powerful than Adsense in terms of everything. Adsense is a PPC (Pay Per Click) ad network which pays publishers when the ads are clicked by the visitors, while BuySellAds (BSA) is much different than Adsense. BSA is a direct banners ad network which will allow you to insert blank Ad spots inside your blog/site and whenever an advertiser will be interested to display an ad over your site, he/she will directly contact BSA to show their interest in your site, and after that you’ll accept the ad. The ads are displayed on your site for a minimum period of 30 days regardless any clicks or impressions. So here you have an advantage that you’ll get a sponsor for the whole month, and the payment will be confirmed.

BSA works as a Gateway between the publisher & the advertiser, You’re a publisher who has a website & content to monetize, and an advertiser is looking for a website to offer their advert, so BSA will find advertisers for you and you’ll be paid on monthly basis. However, BSA takes some of the service charges from your earning, but don’t worry, its very low and less than Google Adsense.

How Much can you earn from BuySellAds?

There is no exact figure for earning with BSA, but it all depends on the traffic you have on your website. And more importantly, if your site is approved by BSA, because BSA doesn’t easily accept new websites. So you have to work hard to be approved by BuySellAds.com. Once your site is approved, you can instantly show their ad spots on your site. Usually a website with 50K monthly impressions earns up to $500 per month from BSA. So the more visitors you have, the more earning will be there.

Moreover, the topic of your site also matters in terms of earning with BuySellads. Topics related to technology get high paying advertisers and they make more money than celebrity, sports & other general topics. Make Money Online, SEO, Web Development and web designing topics are most high paying for BSA advertisers.

Read this one also: Alternatives to BuySellAds

Criteria for getting an Approval from BSA?

You can create your account at BSA without any requirements, but for inserting BSA ads, you must have at least one website approved by them. So for approving your site, you’ll first have to submit that for review. Your website must meet their minimum criteria in order to be easily approved by them. And here is the simplest criteria before applying for BSA:

• Your site must receive 30,000 or above monthly impressions
• Your site must be in English
• Your site must have a professional looking design (Very important)
• Your site must have at least 50 or above posts/articles
• Your site must be at least 4 months old (For new site approval)
• No hacking, no cracking, no pornography, no adult content, no plagiarism

The above mentioned points are must before you submit your website for a review. However, you must read their criteria listed on their own website before applying.

Now here is the video tutorials series for this whole procedure in Urdu language, which I just created for you. These video tutorials are the part of my upcoming “4 Ways to Make Money online in Urdu” course, which is on the way and soon will be released in DVDs, but you can enjoy the free videos here:

Make Money with BuySellAds video 1 in Urdu

Make Money with BuySellAds video 2 inSo after watching the above videos, I hopefully can say, you have understood how does BSA work basically. But one thing is sure that if you got an approval from BSA than you can make more money with it. Even it’s a bigger thing than Adsense.

If you have any questions regarding this post or you want to add some more tips then kindly use our comment section.

Best SEO Link Building methods in 2014

Best SEO Link Building methods in 2015

Link building is a must part of any SEO project. I must say ranking your website is incomplete without doing link building. your website’s link building is done in an appropriate way. If you are confused about what are the best SEO link building methods then not to worry, we would here give you an updated overview of the best strategies. I am sure by following these easy to understand link building methods, you be able to enjoy the good blog ranking because Google continuously updates its algorithm strategies and this is why an SEO project handler should keep in mind the following link building strategies and methods.

Before going to know about the tips, have a look at following SEO tutorials: 

• Search Engine Optimization in Urdu 
• SEO meta Tags
• Top 10 Blogger SEO tips 
• 30 SEO components
• Top 30 SEO tools
• Image SEO in Urdu 
• Dofollow & Nofollow Definitions 
• What’s Keyword Density? 

#1, Good Content matters:

I don’t know if you have noticed it or not but the quality of contents and articles is the key to success for every SEO project. It is a tip of SEO strategy that you should always create well engaged content and articles for your website. The importance of good and quality content can not be ignored in SEO link building, because it would become the reason for you to get maximum traffic from social media and other networks.

#2, Quality Info-graphics:

Google always prefer the blogs to rank higher which have best and quality info-graphics. For this reason, you have to create top notch and valid info-graphics for your blog or website. Try your level best to create best info-graphics with valid data source so that your web site gets ranked higher. Another must remember thing is that you should embed your code in a way that no one else can track or hack it. This would tremendously increase your blog ranking because it is a very effective link building method.

#3, Directory Submissions:

Google prefer the blogs and websites which have used quality directories in order to submit their contents. Thus, directory submission is yet another very effective SEO link building method. The blogs which implement quality directory submission strategies, usually get very good PR. So you need to use the web directories as per your blog niche and submit it as much as you can.

#4, Guest Posting:

Guest posting is yet another very efficient SEO link building method. Try you get information about the best websites or blogs with PR 1 to 3 in order to write guest posts at. Within every article / post you write at such blogs, you can insert your own website’s link in order to get direct organic traffic. Almost all the bloggers and SEOs make use of this link building ideas because so far it has been a proven effective method to rank the websites. It is due to the reason that Google and other search engines crawl such websites better and easier so their rankings go higher and higher.

But make sure, you guest post for quality blogs and you know the website owner better for whom you are doing guest posting, because recently Google’s head of web spam (Matt Cutts) hinted to not do this practice everywhere for the sake of backlinks, but yeah, it’s still a great method to create backlinks but with authority and interaction.

#5, Using Social Media Networking Websites:

You should try to use as many social networking communities and forums in order to build quality links for your website. This can be done when you create both personal and professional profiles at facebook, twitter, linked-in, google+ and other social networking websites, and once the profiles have been created then the next step is to join the comments and communications and leave your website link over there. The more you input your efforts in this regard, the better organic traffic would be generated to your website, and thus the better would be its ranking.

All these methods are quite easy and once you get to know their significant role in ranking the website higher, I am sure you wouldn’t miss the chance of following them so that quality links are built for your website. So how did you like my post? Please let me know with your comments.

10 Killer tips to increase Blog Visitors in 2014

Generating more and more organic traffic towards a blog has become a necessity for survival in the World Wide Web. Many of us use to adopt the ways and tricks to increase blog visitors, so that we can enjoy huge earnings from adsense and affiliate marketing strategies. The urge to become dominating in the world of internet leads every blog owner work hard and hard. So if you want to know which tips would really be effective to help your generate blog visitors, then here you are.

The More you learn about SEO, the more you’ll be rewarded by search engines, so you need to consider the year 2014 as game changing year, and focus on all of your SEO strategies once again. So you might get success and bring your website on the top of Google. Let’s have a look at the tips below.

#1; Claiming the blog domain:

Most of the people don’t care of claiming the hosting and domain services of their blogs with their own name. But to rank your website better in Alexa ranking you have to claim both the domain and hosting with your name. This is very easy, you can just verify your site in Alexa by putting its meta tag inside your site or uploading the HTML file they provide, and for domain name you can use Google Webmaster tools.

#2; Set-up Alexa widgets:

To maximize your chances of getting more traffic for your blog, you should set up alexa widgets on it. This is essential due to the reason that Alexa keeps a record of the hits and impressions which fall under its widget system. This would definitely help you increase your visitor as you would be clear with how to improve the ranking at alexa.

#3; Generate quality Backlinks:

The significant role of backlinks in the life of a blog or website can not be ignored. By generating quality backlinks with different strategies such as forum posting, guest article writing etc. you can be ensured that quality backlinks are being developed for your blog and ultimately it is getting double and triple the traffic of what you desired / expected.

#4; Generate massive traffic from forums:

Forums are the places where millions and billions of people come and join different conversation on a daily basis. So this is your golden opportunity to generate massive traffic from forums towards your blog. Take interest in forum communications and become a part of the conversations and insert your blog link over there. This would ultimately help you increase blog visitors tremendously.

#5; Become social media habitual:

The use of social networking websites such as facebook, twitter, linked-in and google+ etc. is a must to generate traffic for the blog. If you really want to maximize the number of visitors for your blog, then you have to become habitual of updating your social media pages and profiles on a regular basis.

#6; Try using your email signatures:

Many of the people / visitors who come to your website and contact your via email or Contact Us form are crazy about professional email signatures. Make sure when you respond their inquiries, you have inserted a catchy email signature to keep them occupied and urge them visit your blog again and again.

#7; Use simple domain names:

The readers usually give preference to the blogs and websites which have simple and short formed domain names. Make sure you have the one which can easily be memorized. This would definitely help the readers visit your blog again and again as they would find it to be no problem in typing your simple and quicker domain name in the search box.

#8; Hire an SEO:

Without taking help of an SEO, you can not generate traffic for your blog. Make sure whoever you hire for this purpose is experienced enough to get your work done properly.

#9; Take advantage of communities:

No matter the communities are of social media websites like facebook or some other marketplaces like blogger.com, you can always take advantage of them to increase your blog visitors. Insert your blog links at such platforms more and more so that the people can know about it and are urged to visit it regularly for getting updates.

#10; Online Marketing:

Online marketing is a kind of promotional idea to spread the URL of your blog around the globe. So you can also use this tip to be ensured that your blog is being visited by numerous potential readers or clients.

If you have any question or have more tips & ideas then don’t hesitate and share them in the comment section, so we can love your voice. You can also share this post with everyone if you liked it

SEO Keyword Research – Top 6 Tools

With the passage of time, Google has made it quite tough for the blogs to get ranked better. So many rules and strategies have to keep in mind including proper use of keywords, well-engaged content, domain name, marketing, promotion as well as appropriate SEO. Without all these things, we can not even imagine of getting our blogs and websites ranked higher in the search engines.

To make the keyword research easier for the SEOs, plenty of tools are available. What you have to do is to insert your desired keyword idea to get relevant suggestions with an automatic keyword research system. If you are a little confused of which SEO keyword research tools would be best and most appropriate, then here are some useful suggestions to consider while searching both short tail and long tail keywords.

 

#1. Wordtracker:

Wordtracker is one of the most favorite keyword research tools of SEOs and marketers. This tool kit provides you plenty of features and options to get facilitated with while searching your list of keywords. But it is not free of cost, you have to pay a monthly subscription fee in order to make use of it.

#2. Keyword Discovery:

Keyword Discovery is yet another wonderful keyword research tool which lets you get desired keywords by using it pulling from top to end option. With Keyword Discovery, you can also enjoy bidding values on PPC campaigns which get translated into informative data. Its premium version is available by paying a few hundred dollars annually.

#3. Google Adword Tool:

I must say Google Adword is the most appropriate and extensively used keyword research tool all over the world. If I am not wrong then almost 70 to 80 percent website and blog owners make use of Google Adword to find their desired list of keywords. Another plus point of Google Adword is that it is free of cost. Along with the words and phrases, it also provides you the suggested list of short tail and long tail keywords on a global search basis.

Note: For researching keywords, you can use “Keyword Planner” available in Google Adword.

4. Ubersuggest:

Ubersuggest is also a very handy and easy to use keyword research tool. Unlike other traditional keyword research toolkits, Ubersuggest pulls a lot of suggestions on the basis of global research and presents you the list of keywords which are ranked higher by the search engines.

5. SEOBook Keyword List Generator:

SEOBook Keyword List Generator is a quite easy to use keyword research tool. It provides you the facility generating appropriate keywords and phrases. Many of us also call it a nifty keyword research program. To make best use of SEOBook Keyword List Generator, you should either use Chrome or Firefox as the default browser.

6. SpyFu:

With SpyFu, you can see which of your competitors are going up and which are going down in the rankings of search engines. Isn’t it amazing that now you would have clear idea of which keywords your competitors are making use of for the purpose of competing you in the World Wide Web? Yes it definitely is a wonderful idea. So monitor your website niche’ status by inserting your keywords into this tool, and also get the most desired and appropriate list of keywords which you can make use of in writing your web contents / articles.

7. Bing Keyword Research Tool:

We can say it for sure that Bing Keyword research program is not behind the race than Google Adword. It, instead, can be of great help in searching the keywords which can maximize your chances of getting organic traffic for. Bing would also help you get your keywords in multiple languages.

If you still wants to find more about Related to SEO tools then read following posts

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On-Page SEO – Keyword Density-Prominence & Proximity

 

This article & video tutorial in Urdu belongs to the same series which we started a few days ago on Search Engine Optimization in Urdu. Today, we’ll be learning about Keyword Density, Keyword Prominence & Keyword Proximity. Along with these three On-Page SEO elements, we’ll also learn the rest of the on-page SEO for an article or a single page which we try to optimize before publishing it on our website. Today’s tutorial gives you a very deep insight about on-Page SEO and the above mentioned three important SEO components for 2014. All you have to do is to follow this series till the end, and you’ll learn the important points to note before either doing SEO of your website or applying somewhere for an SEO job. Let’s get started.

What’s Keyword Density – Prominence & Proximity?

These all three SEO components are straight belonging to On-Page optimization, we should always take care of these three while optimizing & placing keywords in our articles. To be more clearer on the above terms, let’s know about them below.

Keyword Density = The number of keywords you use in an article is called “Keyword Density”, the maximum keyword density you can put in an article is almost 3%, while if you keep your Keyword Density upto 2% that would be more better for you and things will be balanced. Example :- if you have an article of 500 words, and your keyword is “SEO tips” then you can use “SEO Tips” 15 times in the entire article (maximum) but using it 10 times is more better.

Keyword Prominence = The placements of the keywords in an article is called “Keyword Prominence”, There are many places you can show your keywords on the page so that search engines can discover them easily. Mostly the keyword is being shown in difference places of the page; for example the title of the page, URL of the page, Meta description of the page, Keyword in the starting of the article, Keyword in headings i.e H1, H2 and you can also show your keyword in an Image using ALT attribute. So the more earlier you show up your keyword, the more it will be better for you in terms of “Keyword Prominence”. However, make it balanced, and don’t do keyword stuffing which can destroy your blog/website within days.

Keyword Proximity = The distance between the exact words in a keyword is called “Keyword Proximity”, for example if a person searches for “How to create quality backlinks in 2014″ and Google shows him this result “Quality Backlinks & how to create them?”, so in this scenario the exact keyword is “Create Quality Backlinks“, while in Google’s result there is a distance between the words “Quality Backlinks” And the word “Create“, so this is basically called “Keyword Proximity“, the more closer the exact words are, the more it will be considered as high “Keyword Proximity” which is good and better. If all of the words are exactly next to each other that would mean 100% perfect Keyword Proximity, however, if one word is away from the others that would make it 80% perfect. And if there are three words as in the above example and all are far from one another then it would mean there is less than 50% keyword proximity, which is not good at all from search engine’s point of view.

I think it’s enough theory about these terms, if you are still confused about it then don’t worry, here is the video tutorial for it in Urdu & Hindi languages which will make you understand practically.

Keyword Density – Prominence – Proximity in Urdu (video)After watching the video in Urdu, I hope you’ve understood it easily. Those who have not watched the previous tutorials of this series can watch it from here:

• SEO for 2014 Updates in Urdu
• Keyword Research in Urdu 

I would like you to share this tutorial with everyone, and let me know about your thoughts, questions & feedback using below comment form. Thanks buddies! 

Google Hummingbird, Panda & Penguin Algorithms

Google is the major search engine and SEO’s always look towards it for ranking & traffic. Whether it’s a small blogger or a big company, all follow Google’s rules & regulations to implement SEO and keep balance between SEO & their content. In order to understand how Google search works and how it’s algorithms are frequently updated, we need to understand it’s core mechanism first. Google came into being on 3 September in 1998 and since then it has updated it’s search process & systems more than 100 times. The latest system/algorithm is called “Hummingbird” which we are going to discuss throughout this article and we also have a detailed video tutorial for you in Urdu. Along with Hummingbird we’ll also discuss “Google Panda” and “Google Penguin” which are particularly designed to detect spamming on the web. Latent Semantic Search or LSI is also a part of today’s tutorial.

First, we’ll give you a little bit description for each part included in this tutorial, for example Panda, Penguin, LSI and Hummingbird, after that you can watch the video tutorial in Urdu/Hindi languages to understand it practically.

What’s is Google Panda?

Google Panda is a particular Google algorithm (released in February 2011) which detects websites/blogs that are involved in following activities listed below.

• Blogs which produce low quality content
• Blogs which publish copied or duplicate content
• Blogs overall involve in black hat spamming techniques

You must be aware of above points in order to be on a safe side from Google Panda. To avoid losing your search traffic you need to watch the video and also avoid using bad SEO tactics.

What’s Google Penguin?

Google Penguin is another specific algorithm designed for detecting spamming on the web, it was initially released in April 2012, however, many of it’s versions were released previously with the passage of time. It will affect websites involved in following activities:

• Unnatural link building  + Paid Links
• Keyword Stuffing
• Excessive Keyword Density

If you want to be on safe side then avoid doing above practices. However, this algorithm or Panda are not directly related to basic Google search system i.e Crawling, Indexing and sorting web pages. These are just to detect the spam websites within the already indexed pages.

What’s Hummingbird?

Hummingbird is actually the main replacement to the old overall search algorithm of Google. This was announced by Google in the last month of 2013. However, it’s now working and Google search system has gotten a new fast technology in shape of Hummingbird. What’s the difference between the old and this new search algorithm? here are some highlights:

• Hummingbird mainly has improved “Conversational search”
• It will work with “Google Knowledge Graph” in particular
• It will know the meaning of the words in a query, instead of the keyword itself
• It will work much more faster than all previous algorithms
• It will bring more than 30 medium of content i.e Image, web, weather, scores, ages, videos, news and so many others
• It will work with LSI (Latent Semantic Search) jointly
• It will also look closer into Social Media hints

The above are few examples that Hummingbird will take care of, however, there are many more facts I can’t tell you in the article. You need to now watch the video in Urdu to understand it more easily.

Google Hummingbird, Panda & Penguin Video in UrduIn the above video, I’ve mostly talked about the importance of Hummingbird and the facts which are the part of Google’s strategies beyond 2014. You have to understand that Google will no longer be your friend if you don’t work hard. It’s now up to you how you react to Google Hummingbird as a blogger or webmaster.

However, one thing is 100% sure that SEO has not died and will never die, because Google will always need new facts & information from different cultures, languages, countries, regions and even from personalities. So this is what you need to do and understand.

You can also watch the previous parts of this series: 

1. SEO in Urdu for 2015
2. SEO Keyword Research in Urdu
3. SEO Keyword Proximity, Prominence in urdu

Please let me know in the comments, if you have questions related to this part of the new SEO series or you want to say something about upcoming parts of this series.

Page & Domain Authority

 Page Authority & Domain Authority are those terms which have taken place in SEO’s minds. Today, they are discussed most often over SEO forums and blogs. I therefore, thought to create a complete tutorial on it in Urdu and thus I’m here with a tutorial regarding PA & DA in Urdu language. These terms were basically created by Moz.com (Formally known as SEOMoz.com) few years back, but now it’s very important to understand. People from some corners make it Google’s approach towards domains & web pages, but this is not in any way related to Google. I’ll tell you how it works and how it’s determined by the MoZ.com algrithms.

Moz.com created an algorithm few years back to Analyze domains across the web as well as single pages rendering on the internet. And thus they came up with a numeric ranking standard for Domain Authority & page Authority. This is given to all domains & all pages something in numbers between 0 to 100. When a domain is just newly registered, it obtains a very few points out of 100 in the starting, for example a new domain always gets 10 to 20 numbers out of 100 after the first 3 months, but the more old is the domain, the more chances are of high numbers. Let’s proceed further.

How Domain Authority rank is given?

MoZ’s system checks 40 different factors while giving ranking to a particular domain, no one knows except the (Moz Team) about the exact 40 factors which are considered before a rank is given. However, as an eye keeper, we can tell you some of the factors which are checked must, and here are they:

1. The age of the domain
2. The content of the domain & frequency of updation
3. The Link Structure of the domain
4. The Internal Links used in the domain & pointing to the home page
5. The External Links with High DA & PA websites
6. The External Dofollow Links with High PR websites
7. The External Nofollow Links with High DA websites
8. The Google SERP for that domain
9. The More Root Domains are pointing to that domain
10. Social Signals & Google Authorship

The above ten factors are of course checked before giving the ranking to a particular domain by MoZ.com, and you can work hard to improve your domain authority by keeping above points in mind.

Learn Improving Domain Authority in Urdu

Now I’ll not take your precious time further, and we’ll straight come to the main point of this post which is in fact a video tutorial in Urdu, This video is created especially to make you understand about DA & PA, and while attempting to this, I was not at good health. But I tried my best to do it, and I assume it’s somehow useful for watching. Let’s watch it now.

Page Authority & Domain Authority Video in UrduSo you went through the video, now let me tell you one thing, that you can’t improve your domain Authority until you create quality backlinks or at least links with more & more root domains. The more links you have with more root domains, it will be super easier for MoZ to give you a higher domain authority.

This was the continuation of new SEO series for 2014-15 in which we discussed many aspects of modern SEO, if you want to also watch & read previous tutorials then links are given:

• SEO latest updates 2014
• Keyword Research in Urdu
• Keyword Prominence & Density in Urdu
• Hummingbird, Panda & Penguin Urdu

Let us know if you have questions or suggestions either related to this post or related to this blog, I’ll be glad to answer your queries in the comment section below. Peace out!

How to Install Disqus Commenting System

In Blogging world, getting comments from the readers and engaging with them is the most important and precious part. When that’s said, in order to attract readers for posting comments, we need to have a proper commenting system on our blogs/sites. In WordPress, we have a default commenting system which is very simple and good, but if we want to install a more better one then Disqus comes into hands. Disqus (pronounces as Discuss) is a very popular commenting system which has been installed on millions of blogs. It has many customization options such as, it can control the readers’ behavior while they are commenting on your posts, it can restrict readers what they can post inside comments and what they can not. And the important part of it is; it can stop spam comments. Because spammers mostly target the default commenting system, they use software/tools to insert automatic comments for the sake of backlinks, and that practice is very difficult to completely stop using the default WP installation. However, Disqus will somehow stop it. So in this article and video tutorial in Urdu/Hindi, I’ll be teaching you how to install Disqus on WordPress.

If you want add social media buttons in WordPress then read this post: Social Media Buttons for WordPress

How to Install Disqus on WordPress?

First of all, Disqus can easily be installed on all well-known blogging CMS platforms such as WordPress, Blogger, Typed, Joomla, Dropal etc, but as I’ll show you installing it on WordPress, so follow the steps now:

• Go to www.disqus.com
• Create an Account (It’s simple)
• Then, Click Disqus for Websites
• Add your site and it’s details (It’s simple)
• Done!

Now after creating your account on Disqus and adding site/sites, just go to your WordPress dashboard and do the following:

• Plugins >> Add New
• Search >> Enter “Disqus”
• Click “Install Now” And Install the Plugin
• Activate the Plugin
• Go to the Configure option in the Plugin setting
• Enter your Disqus account details (Email & Password)
• Select your Site
• Done!

Above is the simplest process to add site to disqus and then install disqus using WP Dashboard, if you want to add another site, just repeat the process. However, if you still have not got it right then here is the video tutorial in Urdu, which will show it practicallyAfter watching the video, I’m sure, you’ll get it quickly. However, if you could face any difficulty then let me know in the comments. But before ending this article, I’ll mention some of the advantages you’ll get after installing Disqus commenting system.

Advantages of Disqus

There are many advantages, but in my opinion, the important one is to get rid of spam comments which actually becomes a headache sometimes. You can get following advantages after you install this commenting system on your blog:

• Get rid of Spam comments
• Comments are stored in a different server, so your site will be more faster
• Shows relevant stories at the end of the comments, so increase in Page Views
• It’s SEO friendly
• You can make setting for comments, who can comment and how, each option is there to use
• You can make money with Disqus ads if your site was approved
• Custom Avatars for commentators who don’t have profile image
• Importing/Exporting comments
• Analytic stats
• Rating system for comments
• Voting System for Comments
• Many More…

There are many more features this commenting system has, but I can not write each of them here, so better you just install it and use it yourself, after creating an account on Disqus and adding your site, simply checkout each option available there, and make your setting for comments, that’s easy as 1,2,3 or ABC. Have fun

5 Untold SEO Tips in 2015

When it comes to SEO = Search Engine Optimization, everyone is looking for new tips & real techniques to improve their overall search engines’ ranking and particularly ranking in Google. From a marketing prospective, SEO is still alive and will be forever, because search engines mostly rely on the content published by authors/bloggers & companies. However, there are new algorithm updates every another day released by major search engines such as Google, which makes the small business owners & bloggers unhappy, because they have to slightly change their SEO strategies as per the new changes. And thus, many bloggers/webmasters try to search for updated tips/techniques on the internet, so in this regard, I came up with 5 untold SEO tips which can help you targeting your goals in SEO. Remember, I’ve always been a white-hat SEO guy who’s never used any black-hat or unethical ways to improve search engine rankings after Google Algorithms Panda (in 2011) and Penguin (in 2012). In fact, you should never be afraid of any algorithm if you are doing your best in a natural way to make humans happy & satisfied instead of only targeting the search engine bots which never understand the feeling of a real human. To make it easier for you, I’ve recently experimented some best SEO practices (on-page & off-page), which I’m sharing with you throughout this post.

Top 5 SEO Tips in 2015

So this is the list of top 5 tips I’m sharing with you on this page, these all are for getting organic real results from Google & other search engines, first of all I recently tried to implement these tips myself, and when I got better results then I decided to share them on my blog. And as you know, the new year 2015 is just knocking the doors, so I think these tips will work best in 2015 and afterwards. Now let’s move on to the tips.

Tip # 1 – Update Your Content Regularly

This is the number one tip I can give you, because it has worked for me many times and search engines also highly recommend you to update your content in accordance with the current date. What I mean by updating content?, I simply mean, whenever you publish something on your blog in shape of a post/article, few days after publishing, go to that post/article, edit it and add some more text/image or video etc, and then update it, you’ll see search engines bots coming back to your post and crawling the updated version of your post. It works great, you’ll see dramatic boosts in the ranking of that particular article/post. I always try to update my normal posts in a period of 2 months and popular in 3 months. But I’ll recommend you to update the new posts on weekly basis if you want to get quick ranking from search engines, and this is all SEO friendly & original thing to do.

Bonus Tip: to keep an eye on the progress after updating the posts/articles, use a keyword tracking tool such as moonsy.com or serpbook.com.

And to let the search engines properly know that you have updated your post/posts use the modified-date or updated date [meta], if you are using WordPress then you can use this plugin for last updated date: WP Last Modified Date

Tip # 2 – Include a Video in Your Post

This is another great strategy worked for me and can work for you too, I recently experimented it on a live blog post, first of all I created a video on something, then I created a blog post with a permalink & I kept that in the draft mode, However, I uploaded the video to YouTube.com, Vimeo.com, Dailymotion.com & tune.pk. These are popular video sharing sites with millions of visitors every single day. I added the blog post link to the description of the video on all four places where I uploaded the video and I also mentioned in the video about visiting the blog post if the person wants to get full information. After uploading the video, I published the blog post, and this worked very well in getting better ranking, in simple words you can say, I got four links from a single video on four different platforms & I got many visitors to that post. And having a video in blog post really attracts search engine bots to give extra exposure to that post, because video speaks much loudly than words.

Tip: Again keep tracking your keyword for that post, so you may know whether it’s getting improved or not.

Tip # 3 – Create E-Books & Presentations

SEO today has to be played on a real ground, and when that’s being said, you have to be more social, more natural & more helpful. If you want to really improve your blog/site ranking in a real organic way then take out some time and create some free E-Books & presentations on the topics you cover on your blog, after creating a simple 10-20 pages e-book, go and upload it to all platforms which offer free e-books such as this one:

• www.free-ebooks.net

Don’t forget to include your blog/site URL in the e-book as well as in your profile you create over these sites, you’ll get tons of backlinks quickly. You can find top 5 free e-books service by doing this simple Google search “Free e-books submit”.

Now after e-books, one more easiest step is to create PowerPoint presentations on something you know, it might be short or long that doesn’t matter, but always include your site in the presentation & also in your biography on the website where you upload your presentations, these sites will work best for you to upload your free presentations and get backlinks:

• www.slideshare.net
• www.slideboom.com
• www.powershow.com
• www.sliderocket.com
• www.slideroll.com
• www.slideworld.com

Tip # 4 – Use Fetch As Google [in Urgency]

If you want to let the Google crawler know about your website faster & to index/rank it quickly then you can do it yourself straight from the Google Webmaster Tools account, there is an option in Webmaster Tools called “Fetch As Google”, which does a very smooth job, I mean you can put the URL either of your home page or any single post in that tool which will be immediately crawled & indexed by Google.

Go to your webmaster account >> Click the website you want to see >> at left side find >> Crawl >> Fetch As Google >> it will already have the main URL of your blog/site, so if you want it to crawl the main site then simply leave the box blank and click “Fetch“, after you click fetch, within seconds, Google will tell you whether your site has been accessed or not. And you can also submit it for indexation.

This process is particularly helpful for new websites or new articles/posts, because certainly Google crawlers take sometime to index your site or post, so you can instantly do it yourself. And yes, it worked for me always.

Tip # 5 – Build Quick, But Natural Backlinks

If you are taking very much care of your On-Page SEO stuff such as optimized titles, permalinks, meta description, keyword density, keyword prominent, keyword proximity, interlinking and social media sharing etc, that all is OK and great to know, But if you are not building quality & natural backlinks overtime then don’t think for a long term stable ranking in Google. So keeping this in mind, you have to use all available resources to create backlinks for your site & single articles. In short, if you want to regularly & quickly build some backlinks through blog commenting, Dofollow sites & .edu/.gov then use below website to create tons of free backlinks over time and improve your overall search engines ranking:

• Dropmylink.com

This is a website where you can put your keyword and select a category from the list of available resources, so it will show the results of blogs/sites where you can comment or post something to get a backlink or simply a link.

Another site which you can use to find the relevant forums according to your niche and build backlinks is this one:

• boardreader.com

By using this website, you can find the relevant forums exactly related to your main keyword, just write your keyword and get the instant list of forums where you can participate in the discussion & create backlinks.
Bonus Tip:

OK, so there are hundreds of strategies SEO guys make and most of them change the strategies overtime if they are not working for them. For any optimizer, the strong Keyword Research is one of the initial keys to success in SEO. Therefore, always do a in-depth keyword research before starting optimizing a keyword, because when you know what can be the future potential in a keyword or topic then you’ll use the best part of your brain to bring that keyword into the 1st page of Google.

Conclusion: 

These are some simple, but white-hat & I guess untold SEO tactics which you can use to improve your overall ranking in Google and also in other search engines, I’ve experimented them recently and all of them worked for me. However, there are hundreds of other SEO tips out there which can also be useful for improving ranking, so testing something new is not prohibited. Wish You Best of Luck!

Google Panda & Penguin Penality Checker & Recovery

Undoubtedly, organic SEO is in the hands of Google, Google is rolling out algorithmic updates every now and then, but when there is a major update such as Panda 4.1 or Penguin 3.0 then some webmasters/And/Or/bloggers get shocks after having seen a dramatic drop in their traffic suddenly after the update has been live. Many of my readers recently asked me about the latest Google Panda update (4.1) which affected many websites on individual page level, so the questions were about finding ways to know whether the website/blog has been hit by any of the Google’s Animals or not? and when the website/blog was hit?, and how to recover the site back to normal in case things have gone worst. I had these all questions in mind while I was creating a new Complete SEO 2015 Updated course in Urdu/Hindi, so I included step by step process about these Google algorithms, from Panda to Penguin and from Google Humming Bird to DMCA Pirate, I’ve explained and revealed everything in this one single course in Urdu. However, in today’s tutorial/video I’ll specifically explain to you knowing about which Google update has actually affected your website/blog and when it happened, and how to recover the traffic back.

What is Google Panda?

Google Panda is an algorithm which first released in 2011, and recently on 23 September 2014, its 27th updated rolled out. This is designed to detect websites having following factors:

• Low Quality Content
• Copied/Infringed Content
• Thin Content
• No Content at Above the Fold
• Bad Website Structure

So if Panda detected any of the above points in your site, it will give a penalty either side-wide or individually on page-level. However, you’ll see sudden drop in your traffic if you were caught by Panda.

What is Google Penguin?

Google Penguin first came into being on 24 April 2012, and its latest version the Penguin 3.0 which rolled out on 23 October this year, it has been designed to detect sites/blogs having the following:

• Unnatural Backlinks
• Paid Backlinks
• Keyword Stuffing (Over Optimization)
• Irrelevant Backlinks
• Bad Anchor Texts

So if it detected any of the above things in a website, it will give a penalty either side-wide or page-level according to the percentage of bad SEO practices.

How to Know About the Penalty?

Now, if you have been hit by any of these animals then you can simply go to your Google Analytic Account and can see the traffic graph, if there is a drop in the traffic, just note the date, now come to this page:

• http://moz.com/google-algorithm-change

Here, you’ll find the history of Google algorithm updates, so if your traffic has dropped from next day the update or few days later of the update then simply understand that you’ve been hit by that specific Google update. Now you have time to work on the concerns areas of your website in order to bring your traffic back to normal.

Google Panda & Penguin Penalty Checkers

The above method was manually checking the penalty which is I think very easy, but if you want to use tools to check the penalties then you can use very simple tools to do so, visit the following site to check any Google algorithm penalty or Google sandbox:

• Check Any Google Penalty 

And the another tool for specifically checking the Panda & Penguin penalties is the below one:

• Google Penguin or Panda Penalty Checker

To use the above tool, You have to integrate your Google Analytic account to it, after you integrate your account, it will go through all of the traffic graph and will find whether there was a traffic drop when there was an update either Panda or Penguin.

How to Recover From Panda & Penguin?

If you were hit by any of these algorithms then you have to work hard and resolve the problems in your site as soon as possible, so in the next update, you’ll see much improvements in your traffic. Most of these penalties take place automatically, and rarely, you’ll be informed by Google, so better to work on the areas mentioned above, and you’ll get your traffic back. For Panda work on the content of your website, remove duplicate pages and add more fresh content to outdated posts. And for Penguin check for bad links / paid links or any links that are not relevant.

You can also watch below video in Urdu/Hindi to know about the factors which are involved in Panda and Penguin penalties, this video is on YouTube, so you need to open YouTube and then watch the below video.After watching the video, I hope you’ve got all in this tutorial, but if you still have questions then don’t hesitate to ask your questions in the comment section, I’ll be there to answer your questions. Meanwhile, you can check the New SEO 2015 Updated course in Urdu/Hindi which you can purchase in DVDs and this is all in one time complete SEO course.

Blog Content Copy Protection in WordPress

Needless to say, Copying content from other blogs is a very bad practice, but unfortunately still some people are doing this practice to waste their precious time. I have been striving to report websites/blogs which had re-published or you can say copied my content and posted on their blogs, but I’m a human, I can’t spend hours everyday to search for my content on the web, then fill out long long forms and submit them to web hosting companies as well as Google or blogspot, after reporting hundreds of blogs/sites previously, I finally got tired , then I tried to find a way where I could minimize the chances of being infringed. Since I’m on WordPress, so I got some easy solutions to this issue in shape of plugins, I tried many plugins in this regard, and today I thought to share some of them with you, so you can also use them to protect your WordPress site/blog content from being copied or infringed by others without your permission. Never copy content from other websites.

How to Protect WordPress Blog Content?

As I mentioned above, I’ve found some really easy solutions for WordPress blogs in shape of plugins, and I’ll tell you how you can easily install and set up them to get rid of copycats, at least you can get rid of the newbies who just use their mouse to select the article/text and then copy/paste it to their blogs, this way, they make a duplicate copy of your content which is very bad for SEO and Google indexing. They can’t get benefit from this for long time, but it creates some issues for you in terms of SEO.

WordPress Plugins for Copy Protection

I used two plugins for this thing, and both of them worked fine, but I then selected the better and simple one which I’m currently using on this blog, so I’ll tell you the setting of that, but both of the plugins work fine. You can simply search the names of these two plugins in your WP dashboard:

• Wp-copyright-protection
• WP Site Protector 

In fact, You don’t need to do any setting for these plugins, just install them and you are all done, but for the “WP Site Protector”, You can make the following setting if you want, but by default this is the same:

After making setting just click “Save Changes” and you are all done with this. And I published this post upon requests from many readers of this blog, and if you are one of them then please say “Thank You” in the comments and if you are not one of them then learn this thing which might be helpful for you in the future.And I really appreciate your questions and comments if you have anything to say about this trick.

I have something to say:

Since the new year has already started, so I wish all of you a great new year and best wishes for your success and best health in 2015. Also remember me in your prays and thank you very much for your support throughout the entire year 2015, I’ll never forget your help and love You’ve been showing over the past few years, I’ve always been motivated by you to create more tutorials for you and publish on this blog.

Google Webmaster SEO Tutorials in Urdu/Hindi

Google Webmaster Tools (GWT) is one of the SEO tools which is used by almost every webmaster to check the SEO related data for each website they have verified inside their GWT account. From search queries to server errors and from sitemaps to backlinks, You’ll find everything in GWT related to your website. So after knowing the importance of this tool, let’s learn it today in Urdu/Hindi, I already had created a complete training about this back in 2013, but since things have changed rapidly and dramatically, therefore, I created a new complete SEO course, in which I also included Google Webmaster training, so I split this part from the full course, and I’m sharing this with you, so you guys can easily learn most of the options/features inside GWT. Let’s dive into the details.

Google Webmaster Tools in Urdu – The Topics:

First of all, as I said this is a great and accurate place to know everything about your site/blog, and secondly, this tool is created by Google itself, so you can further expand learning by exploring Google’s help pages about GWT. But here on this page You’ll learn some of the important topics inside GWT, for example these ones:

• Site Appearance in Search Results
• Search Traffic from Google
• Google Indexing Status
• Google Crawling Status
• Security Issues

There are many other sub-topics within the topics I mentioned above, so You guys are gonna learn all of them in this complete video training in Urdu/Hindi. I’ve tried my best to create something useful and helpful for you, now it’s your turn to learn this and implement it the right way.

Google Webmaster – Video Tutorials in Urdu

Now, here is the list of video tutorials in Urdu/Hindi, this is a playlist of video tutorials on YouTube, so make sure to first open YouTube and then come back to this page for watching the videos, just play one video and the next one will play automatically, because this a complete playlist of video tutorials from YouTube. I hope you’ll not face any difficulty while watching the

After watching this series of tutorials, You can easily learn Google Webmaster Tools, just don’t only learn, but also go and implement the learning yourself, play with GWT options and features, and I hope you’ll get positive results in very less time. Meanwhile, if you are interested in learning complete 2015 updated SEO then just take our new course which will give you A to Z knowledge about SEO and latest trends. Make sure to visit our Buy a DVD page and see what’s new there and take action according to your needs.

Let me know in the comments if you liked this tutorial or you want to more tutorials to be published on this blog, I always get very happy after seeing you active on this blog, really appreciate your feedback! Thanks!

How to Install & Use CloudFlare CDN in Urdu/Hindi

CDN = Content Delivery Network which is now a days used by most of the popular websites on the web such as Facebook, Mashable.com and many other. CDN is actually a life saver application which provides many benefits. The main advantages of using a CDN are such as website speed, Website Security and saving resources. For last couple of days, I was thinking to move all of my websites to a CDN, and thus, yesterday I installed a free CDN called “CloudFlare” on all of my websites which I think is the best free CDN out there. It was very simple process to install and use this CDN, now I’m waiting for the results. However, I did not forget to create a tutorial on it and to let you know that you can too install and use this network in order to make your website more engaging.

Below is a video tutorial in Urdu/Hindi which you can watch to step by step learn how to install this app, and then how to integrate it with WordPress plugin called “w3 Total Cache”.

How to Install & Configure CloudFlare?

In order to install CloudFlare, you must have a website which is currently running on the web, and you must have access to your domain name server. Just go to www.cloudflare.com which is the official website of this free CDN, create a free account there and then add your website, it will automatically detect the sub-domains and associated IPs of your main domain, you can go to next step, and on the final step, you’ll have to replace your name servers with the name servers provided by CloudFlare on last step. That’s all done very easily. Please watch the video for complete understanding.

How to Integrate it with Total Cache in WordPress?

After you installed the cloudflare on your server, now it’s time to make it working in real time. You can use it with a great WordPress Plugins called “w3 Total Cache” which is also used for speeding up websites. Just go to the setting page of Total Cache plugin and then click on extensions, you’ll find CloudFlare there, just activate it, and now you’ll see the CloudFlare option in the dashboard of Total Cache. Click CloudFlare from the Total Cache options, and add your details for your website as mentioned in below video in Urdu, and then click save changes. That’s all done for WordPress.

Now watch below video to understand this whole procedure practically in Urdu/Hindi, if you liked the video and this post then don’t forget to share it with your friends on social media. Have fun!After watching the video tutorial above, I hope you’ve learned something new today, I’ll continue creating such tutorials in Urdu/Hindi languages. Actually I took a long break from blogging, but now I’ve come back to work, and I’ll be slowly creating new video tutorials in Urdu which will help you guys in understanding the modern blogging techniques and web development + SEO etc.
If you have any questions then don’t hesitate to ask them in the comments section below, I always feel glad to answer your questions myself, because this is something truly great and amazing. Happy Clouding!

How to Make Your Website Responsive & Fast in Urdu/Hindi

How to Make Your Website Responsive & Fast in Urdu/Hindi

The good news is that mobile users/searches have surpassed the desktop users/searches in 2015. This was one of the major indications Google used to mention in their past announcements. The next generation is the mobile generation, so one can think that 2016 will be the year of mobile traffic and searches. And therefore, we must think on how to improve our websites/blogs’ mobile visibility very quickly without wasting more time. I already had made all of my websites responsive [mobile friendly] a few years ago, but now I took all the steps which were necessary to improve the user experience on mobile devices including the browsing speed. Today, I’ve come up with a complete tutorial in Urdu/Hindi about how to make your websites responsive and mobile friendly in 2015. And more importantly, how to improve your website loading time which is one of the major factors in slow browsing and resulting errors in mobile searches. Google has announced that Mobile Ranking will be an important factor of future SEO. So make sure you take it seriously.

How to Make Your Website Responsive?

Before taking any step, you first need to check whether your website is mobile friendly, I mean responsive or not, for this purpose you can use two popular tools, one is introduced by Google recently and another one is a famous mobile testing website online. However, the important & authentic one is Google.

• Check your website responsiveness in Google Tool 
• Check your website on different mobile devices 

Now, if your sites/blogs are already responsive & mobile friendly then make sure to bring a beautiful smile on your face, but if not then let’s do it together now.

For making your website/blog mobile friendly, you need to install a responsive template/theme which can automatically adjust on any device such as desktop devices i.e Monitor, LCD, Laptops, and mobile devices i.e Smart Phones, iPads, iPhones, Tablets and Nokia Mania. Every template/theme designer has mentioned in the description of that template/theme whether their template/theme is responsive or not, so if you are not using a mobile friendly [responsive] theme/template on your blog/site then don’t waste time and replace your template/theme today with a responsive one.

How to Make Your Site Loading Fast Everywhere?

Now when the responsive design is done, the next step is to make your website loading very fast on all devices, I mean your website/blog should load within 3 seconds on both mobile devices and desktops. So in order to make it possible, we first need to check whether our websites/blogs are loading fast or not. We have so many tools out there for this purpose, but I’ll recommend you to use two accurate and official tools to know the score and issues with your website speed. Find the tools below:

• Google Page Speed Tool
• GT Metrix a Tool for Checking Website Speed

You should get 80 out 100 score for mobile devices in Google tool, and 85 out of 100 for desktop devices in Google tool. And you should get 85+ out of 100 in GT Metrix and 80 for YSlow score. If you got the score what I’m saying here then you are a super man in this area, so you need a little efforts to make it more better. But if you have got very less score, then BUDDY, you are in the HOT water. Watch the video!However, we can make our websites/blogs more fast by taking a few steps such as installing “Autoptimize” plugin in WordPress, this plugin will actually move our site’s CSS & JavaScript files to somewhere which can not interrupt the above fold area when our website is viewed in the browser [detail talk on this in the video].

We should also add leverage browsing caching code to our .htaccess file, this actually adds expiration for the header requests which are sent to the server numerous times a day, and this will save a lot of time, and thus an improved website speed and experience for the users. Below is the code you can add to the top of your .htaccess file in your Cpanel, you can watch the details of this in the video above:

## EXPIRES CACHING ##
<IfModule mod_expires.c>
ExpiresActive On
ExpiresByType image/jpg “access 1 year”
ExpiresByType image/jpeg “access 1 year”
ExpiresByType image/gif “access 1 year”
ExpiresByType image/png “access 1 year”
ExpiresByType text/css “access 1 month”
ExpiresByType application/pdf “access 1 month”
ExpiresByType text/x-javascript “access 1 month”
ExpiresByType application/x-shockwave-flash “access 1 month”
ExpiresByType image/x-icon “access 1 year”
ExpiresDefault “access 2 days”
</IfModule>
## EXPIRES CACHING ##

After adding above code to the top of your .htaccess file, you’ll see a dramatic change in your website speed, but you should wait for a few hours or few days to see it in full affect.

Now if you want to make your website speed working like a rocket then use and install a CDN (Content Delivery Network) such as CloudFlare or MaxCDN. I’ve a tutorial in Urdu on how to use & install CloudFlare CDN in Urdu/Hindi, and I suggest you to watch that tutorial and use CDN to make your website the best for the users.

 Submit Guest Post

We always appreciate people who want to write for us and contribute for our blog. Here you can submit your own written article or guest post for This blog. Your post will be published on our website upon our review. This blog  is a place to where we help bloggers, health, medical research, medical information, prevention, disease, health care, health information, health news, healthcare information, drug information, cancer, diabetes, depression, asthma, medical library, cholesterol, herpes, bipolar, fitness, diet, weight loss, heart disease, breast cancer, fibromyalgia, pain, migraine, harmaceutical drugs, prescription medicines, natural remedies, symptoms, treatments, diagnoses, Health policy, healthcare, physician, health information technology, hospital, health costs, quality of care, insurance, patient, health economics, health care financing, access to care, health care reform, pharmaceutical, health system, long term care, nursing, health care delivery, electronic medical records, mental health care, health care services, health spending, ACOs, accountable care organizations, health insurance exchanges, medical home, primary care and much more.

 

What You Get In Return?

• One backlink from Author's Bio.

• This will build your reputation in the online world.

• This will develop your writing skills and knowledge.

• You attract our audience with your attractive contents and thoughts.

• Author's bio will be published below the post.

• Thousands of visitors visit this blog daily and they will read your written post.

   

Rules & Guidelines For Submitting Guest Post.

• These rules are necessary for the quality of guest post and reputation of this blog.

• Don't send us any copied article from other blogs/websites or from any other resource.

• I don’t accept article from SEO link-builders

• You agree to not publish the post anywhere else (In your own blog or any other blog as a guest post).

• No affiliate codes or referral links or advertisements are allowed in posts.

• Poor quality articles will be rejected upon our review.

• Content should be fresh and unique.

• We may make minor edits to posts.

• Some guest posts may be deleted at any point of time even after they are published if we find a problem with them or simply because if we consider it outdated.

   

How Do I Get Started?

Once verified, send us the post for review with a small bio about yourself like your blog name and URL, blog description in about 2 lines, your name, etc.

You can send your article to us via email at : hasnaarabegume@gmail.com

So go ahead and submit your post now and become popular! Best of Luck!

The 65 Best Health & Fitness Apps of 2014

The 65 Best Health & Fitness Apps of 2014

Your health is in your hands. Seriously, it’s right there—or it can be, in the form of flashy little apps downloaded to your smartphone. But with so many options to choose from, it can be tough to know which apps actually enable results. So at a time when storage space is precious and your health even more so, we’ve hand-selected the 65 best health and fitness apps designed to help you create a healthier you.

We scoured every app market for standouts that were pushing the boundaries of health and fitness, and we sought to cover an array of interests and goals. While we definitely took popularity into consideration, we placed most of our focus for each app on these key criteria:

• Is it highly rated?
• Does it offer something totally unique?
• Is it user-friendly?
• Is it reliable and not buggy?
• Can it continue to grow and innovate?

Some of these apps have made it onto our yearly list in the past (they’re just that awesome!). We took our research seriously, but if there are other apps we should consider for next year, let us know in the comments below!

Fitness and Strength

Cody
What It Is: Why do it alone when you can get fit with friends? Cody offers users inside connections to a fitness community where they can share and discover workouts (complete with video, photo, and text instructions) by following new and old friends.
Why It's Cool: Users get their own cheering section! Friends can like and comment on each other’s workout activity (Seriously, what could be more motivational?). Cody also allows users to track their progress via a timeline packed with stats and highlights.
Cost: Free. Available for iOS.

 

 

 

FitStar
What It Is: NFL star Tony Gonzalez has taken on the role of personal trainer. Multi-angled videos coach users through pe-loaded and customizable workouts that meet their fitness goals.
Why It’s Cool: Once you think you’ve gotten a handle on your workout, FitStar throws you for a loop by calculating your progress and making the next move in your routine an unexpected (and satisfying) challenge.
Cost: Free. Available for iOS.

 

 

 

 

Fitness Fast
What It Is: Fitness Fast gets into the nitty gritty of any workout—both pre-loaded or personally customized—by providing instructions for numerous exercises targeting key muscles. It also number-crunches optimal rep max, tracks sleep and body stats, and offers a community forum for crowd-sourced fitness info and social support.
Why It's Cool: Snap a photo, log it, and literally see your progress in specific areas (abs, arms, back, etc.). Detailed charts graph reps, sets, inches, weight, calories, BMI, and the effect sleep patterns have on workouts.
Cost: $0.99. Available for iOS.

 

 

Gain Fitness
What It Is: This personal trainer app is stocked with more than 1,300 exercises, HD motion images, and step-by-step voice commands. Tell it your fitness goals, and it tells you what routines will help you accomplish those goals.
Why It's Cool: Only have a few pieces of equipment on hand? No worries. Just give the app an inventory of your equipment and it will generate countless routines geared toward your fitness level while tracking every set, rep, weight, and rest time so you can gauge your gains.
Cost: Free. Available for iOS.

 

 

NIKE Training Club
What It Is: This app features more than 100 full-body, 15-, 30-, and 45- minute workouts (complete with step-by-step audio,  visual, and video demos) from some of the world’s most inspirational female athletes, trainers, and celebrities.
Why It's Cool: Get lean, get toned, get strong: You choose! Tailored workout programs make this app uniquely functional, regardless of your fitness goals. Whether you’re opting for a 4-week program tailored to your abilities or supplementing your regular workout sessions, this app goes above and beyond basic instructions to measure your progress in number of workouts, minutes logged, and average calories burned.
Cost: Free. Available for iOS and Android.

 

 

Pact
What It Is: Formerly know as GymPact, this app still encourages users to put their money on the line and their butts in the gym (or to get moving in some way). Each week, users pledge a set number of days they’ll work out along with a set amount of cash. Users pay up for each day they miss, and get paid each time they bust out a workout.
Why It's Cool: Instead of losing money, users typically wind up gaining fitness. The rebranded app now features a motion tracker, as well as an option to connect with other tracking apps so users’ winnings don't all go towards a gym membership. Users can also now enter into new nutritional pacts—commit to eating healthy, or pay up.
Cost: Free. Available for iOS and Android.

 

 

Reps & Sets
What It Is: For those looking to calculate their gains with precision and no distractions, Reps & Sets is the app to turn to. Users can pre-program their favorite workouts or choose a pre-loaded one, set the timer, and then simply check off each set as they go. Log every detail, from supersets and drop-sets to weights, the incline of the bench, and body measurements while progress is tracked and graphed.

Why It's Cool: No one wants to be tinkering with their phone when in the rep zone, which is why this app keeps it simple. Swiping through interactive muscle diagrams and illustrated exercise guides before workouts, and detailed progress charts and spreadsheets after breaking sweat, can fine tune your routine.
Cost: $1.99. Available for iOS.

 

 

 

Runtastic Six-Pack Abs
What It Is: Packed with a variety of ab workouts, including a customized 10-Week Six-Pack Plan, The 7-Minute Workout, Insanity, Shape Up, and Six-Pack Junkie, this HD-video-based app produces results and allows users to track and share their progress.
Why It's Cool: Choose your personal trainer avatar and get crunching, mountain climbing, or reverse curling. As your avatar breaks down each move, the muscles they’re targeting are illuminated, so you know where you’ll feel the burn. Whether you’re customizing a 5-minute workout or gearing up for the 30-minute insane ab routine, you can amp up the motivation with music packs that match the pace of each circuit. Users can also sync workouts with Runtastic.
Cost: Free. Available for iOS and Android.

 

 

Tracking and Analytics

 

Argus
What It Is: Argus tracks everything—and we mean everything—24/7. The app monitors every step, stride, cycle, bite, sip, pound, snore, and more. Constantly processing your daily routine, Argus produces detailed charts that can help you make sense of numerous bio-feedback data points to reach your health goals and improve overall wellbeing.
Why It's Cool: Argus is pretty much a health diary you don’t have to remind yourself to write in. It allows you to uncover important trends in your personal health habits that you didn’t even know were there. Not only is the interface sleek and intuitive, but Argus is easy on the battery (even for a 24/7 monitor).
Cost: Free. Available for iOS.

 

 

CARROTfit
What It Is: A judgmental weight tracker? Yes, that’s exactly what this app is. The simple-to-use tracker is moderated by CARROT, who doles out harsh criticism to motivate “meatbags” to lose weight .
Why It’s Cool: The app promises that “losing weight is going to suck so much less” thanks to hefty servings of motivational snark. Not everyone gets fired up by “rah, rah, rah!” coaching, which is why CARROT’s threatening, ridiculing, and bribing may do the trick. Especially when she shares new workout tips for every pound dropped.
Cost: $1.99. Available for iOS.

 

 

EveryMove
What It Is: This rewards-based app turns your every fitness move into points that earn you rewards from retailers and services that value your healthy lifestyle.
Why It's Cool: You’re already logging your every fitness accomplishment, so why not get rewarded for them? No need to switch apps and lose your stat-packed fitness history; EveryMove easily connects with MapMyFitness, MyFitnessPal, Nike apps, RunKeeper, Runtastic, Strava, and more.
Cost: Free. Available for iOS and Android. Coming soon for Windows Phone.

 

 

Fitocracy
What It Is: If it’s true that “there’s power in numbers,” then this app is one of the most powerful—especially when it comes to motivating its multitude of users via a community of dedicated fitness enthusiasts that are tracking their progress too.
Why It's Cool: Fitocracy not only introduces you to a world bustling with fitness coaches, nutrition experts, and other folks from a wide variety of fitness backgrounds; it also turns that world into a game in which you enter strength training, cardio, and nutrition challenges, gain points, and track your progress toward the ultimate goal: optimal health and fitness.
Cost: Free. Available for iOS and Android.

 

 

Human
What It Is: A casual fitness app that encourages you to take on the “Daily30”, which is exactly what it sounds like: Thirty minutes of physical activity, every day, whenever and in whatever way you want.
Why It’s Cool: Walk, run, skip, gallop, dance, jump rope—as long as you’re being active for more than a minute at a time, no matter what you’re doing, Human tracks your movement and lets you know when you’ve achieved your Daily 30.
Cost: Free. Available for iOS.

 

MapMyFitness
What It Is: Fitness isn’t one of those things you can neatly fit, and keep, in a box—which is where this GPS-based fitness tracking app comes in. The app allows users to explore and manage more than 600 fitness activities, meaning virtually anyone can tailor the app to their personal routines.
Why It's Cool: Whether you’re running, rock climbing, playing tennis, or swimming, MapMyFitness records every detail of your workout, including duration, distance, pace, speed, elevation, calories burned, and route traveled on an interactive map. The app compiles and crunches this data to create a comprehensive workout history.
Cost: Free. Available for iOS, Android, and Windows Phone.

 

 

Moves
What It Is: Minute by minute, this pedometer-app calculates your calorie burn based on your mode of movement—be it walking, running, or cycling.
Why It's Cool: Sometimes you just don’t want to deal with all the doohickeys. Moves gets right to the calorie-burning point by presenting your day as a simple storyline of steps, strides, and pedals. It serves as a straightforward reminder that little changes really can add up to huge progress.
Cost: Free. Available for iOS.

 

 

The Walk
What It Is: Turn a routine stroll into a thrilling adventure as this gamified pedometer tracks minutes walked and steps taken—all while users participate in games in which they’re tasked with saving the world (by walking long distances, of course).
Why It’s Cool: Before you set out, choose an episode and follow the storyline to your destination. With each step tracked, more and more clues are revealed. Users can always elect to change the story, making it more intense depending on fitness level.
Cost: $2.99. Available for iOS and Android.

 

Intervals and Circuit Training

 

Power20
What It Is: Power through 20-minute, full-body workouts with this interval training app.
Why It's Cool: Only able to do 10 push-ups (on a good day)? No worries. Power20 will take note and customize a routine that meets your fitness abilities while still offering up a challenge. Each challenge includes a tip or two, which are displayed via illustrated videos and infographics.
Cost: $2.99. Available for iOS.

 

 

Seconds Pro
What It Is: This is the interval timer to beat all timers. Customize every detail of the timer to create simple, straightforward circuit workouts.
Why It's Cool: Not only do the customized, color-coded backgrounds behind each circuit’s timer keep you on your toes, but the app boasts iPod integration, which allows users to assign playlists or tracks to individual timer intervals (Talk about a fun way to know it’s time to transition to the next exercise!).
Cost: $4.99. Available for iOS.

 

 

SworkIt Pro
What It Is: Enter in the part of your body that you want to work and how long you want to work it, and this bodyweight-based circuit training app will ‘sworkit’, if you will, by customizing a workout just for you—complete with stretches, strength training, cardio, yoga, and timed breaks.
Why It's Cool: Aside from customizing users’ workouts, SworkIt comes with 12 pre-loaded routines for everyone, from surfer dudes to pregnant fitness fanatics. The Pro version offers advanced stat tracking and goal setting, and also syncs with My Fitness Pal.
Cost: $0.99. Available for iOS and Android.

 

 

Tabata Trainer
What It Is: This interval training app is based on the wildly intense, 4-minute Tabata method of training.
Why It's Cool: Choose from pre-loaded workout routines or customize your own by swiping through the updated exercise library for a seriously simple challenge. Thanks to the new Voice feedback on all exercises, your form will always be on point.
Cost: $1.99. Available for iOS.

 

 

Running and Cardio

 

Boston Marathon World Run
What It Is: Regardless of ability or location, this app allows runners to get involved in the 2014 Boston Marathon community by pledging to run, walk, or wheel any distance over any period of time.
Why It's Cool: Runners can pledge a distance, share photos, and interact with current Boston Marathon elite athletes while receiving digital incentives like a printable bib number, finisher’s certificate, and Facebook medal. Best of all, this app allows users to donate to One Fund Boston.
Cost: Free. Available for iOS and Android.

Nike+ Running
What It Is: Track distance, pace, time, and calories burned—then share those stats with friends. The app also now offers the guidance of a coach to motivate you to reach new goals.
Why It's Cool: The app comes equipped with training programs, coaching tips, and daily workouts to get you 5K-,
10K-, half-marathon-, or marathon- race-ready. It also sends a daily motivational reminder to lace up and hit the pavement.
Cost: Free. Available for iOS and Android.

 

 

PUMATRAC
What It Is: Track distance, pace, and calories burned while analyzing your personal behaviors so you can learn how to get the most out of a workout.
Why It's Cool: PUMATRAC gives an absurd amount of insight into each run. There’s even a feature that tells you which days of the week you typically run your personal best, how weather can impact your personal calorie burn, and what tunes get your feet moving fastest.
Cost: Free. Available for iOS.

 

 

RunKeeper
What It Is: This app puts all your running stats (pace, distance, and time) at your fingertips in a bold format perfect for eyes “on the run.” It also organizes the data into neat charts so you can track your progress during your cooldown walk.
Why It's Cool: Not only does RunKeeper track your running stats, but it also keeps track of the awe-inspiring sites along your running route by letting your share snapshots with friends. RunKeeper’s GPS can log walks, bike rides, hikes, and more.
Cost: Free. Available for iOS and Android.

 

 

Runtastic Pro
What It Is: This live-tracking running app is equipped with uplifting song features that act as surprising motivation when you least expect it (but need it most).
Why It's Cool: Story Running! The latest version of Runtastic Pro lets you choose an audio story from a variety of genres written specifically to motivate runners. When the tension builds, so does your speed.
Cost: $4.99. Available for iOS and Android.

 

 

Spring/Spring Moves
What It Is: Founded in science, this music app operates on rhythm-based movement, pulling tracks for your personal playlist while tracking your run.
Why It's Cool: You get the GPS and the distance, time, and calorie tracking, but you also get a playlist customized just for you based on your running rhythm! No more worrying about picking the perfect songs. Research confirms that listening to music can amp up our power and endurance during a workout.
Cost: Free Available for iOS.

 

 

Zombies, Run! 2
What It Is: The story continues. The zombie apocalypse is still raging and this app is tracking your run, which just so happens to double as a mission to save the human race. The further and faster you go, the more supplies you collect in this game-based app.
Why It's Cool: The app has added 100-plus more missions, along with a Zombie Chase interval training program.
Cost: $3.99. Available for iOS, Android, and Windows Phone.

Cycling

 

Cyclemeter GPS
What It Is: This training program app is equipped with GPS to map out routes and a tracker to manage laps, intervals, and splits.
Why It's Cool: When you can’t exactly be hands-on (two hands on the handlebars, folks!), this app takes care of it for you by allowing for start and stop activation via your earphone remote, and automatic stop detection that pauses your tracker.
Cost: $4.99. Available for iOS.

 

 

RoadID
What It Is: Perfect for runners, cyclists, hikers, walkers, and skiers who often find themselves on adventures, RoadID allows friends or family to track you while you’re out. They don’t need the app; they just need a web browser and your username in order to monitor your progress and safety.
Why It's Cool: This app lets you know you’re not alone on the road. Users can create a personalized lock screen that includes up to three “in case of emergency contacts” as well as important health information. If something happens, a friend or family member is alerted so they can get you the help you need.
Cost: Free. Available for iOS.

 

 

Strava Cycling
What It Is: Turn your training into a game with this cycling tracking app.
Why It's Cool: Connect with other cyclists and challenge them to rides that will push both of you further. Each time you set a personal record, you earn King or Queen of the Mountain honors. You can also check in on friends and send them support while they’re riding out their own goals.
Cost: Free. Available for iOS and Android.

 

 

 

Weight Management

 

LoseIt!
What It Is: LoseIt! is a calorie tracking app that creates a weight loss plan just for you. Plug in your goals, from pounds lost per week to overall wellness, and LoseIt! will customize a plan that fits your life.
Why It's Cool: Tracking is beyond easy with LoseIt!’s barcode scanner feature and vast food database. Plus, it makes weight management fun by allowing users to create head-to-head, team, and group-based challenges. LoseIt! also connects with a ton of other apps and devices.
Cost: Free. Available for iOS, Android, Kindle, and Nook.

 

 

MyFitnessPal
What It Is: This popular calorie tracker boasts a food database overflowing with more than three million foods, with the added perk of a cardio and strength training tracker loaded with 350 exercises.
Why It's Cool: Users can enter their own recipes and calculate their nutritional contents, allowing them to keep tabs on nutrition info including calories, fat, protein, carbs, sugar, fiber, and cholesterol.
Cost: Free. Available for iOS, Android, Blackberry and Windows Phone.

 

 

 

Noom Weight Loss Coach
What It Is: This personalized coaching app helps you form healthy habits through daily tasks, meal logging, and exercise tracking. Log meals and workouts while the integrated pedometer counts your steps all day.
Why It's Cool: Noom offers the encouragement and support you need to stay motivated, daily health and wellness articles sent your way, and healthy recipes. Color-coded logging teaches you which foods are really healthy (and which foods aren’t). The huge food database is loaded with nearly one million foods, including meals at popular restaurants and local cuisines.
Cost: Free. Available for iOS and Android.

 

 

Withings
What It Is: Monitoring overall wellness means paying attention to a number of personal stats. Withings makes that easier by allowing users to monitor things like weight, activity, blood pressure, and sleep all in one place.
Why It's Cool: The "Health Mate" sends entertaining, supportive messages to get you pumped to exercise. The display shows a butterfly with four quadrants (weight, activity, heart, and sleep) that grows and shrinks depending on how healthy users are at that moment.
Cost: Free. Available for iOS and Android.

Diet and Nutrition

Allergy Food Translator
What It Is: Travelers with food allergies, rejoice! This translation app covers 62 food allergies translated by native language speakers—perfect for trips abroad.
Why It's Cool: Just type in your  food allergies, click to translate, flash your waiter the screen, and s/he'll know which foods you need to stay away from. The translations contain specific, in-your-face warning labels. Ah, to feel relaxed about your allergy in a restaurant can be a vacation in itself.
Cost: $2.99. Available for iOS.

 

 

Fitocracy Macros
What It Is: This super-simple macro and calorie counter is perfect for people tracking their macronutrients.
Why It’s Cool: With the right macros, the thinking goes, you can remain full all day, stay energetic, and build lean muscle. The app has a ton of updates in the works, such as fiber, water, and alcohol counting.
Cost: Free. Available for iOS and Android.

 

 

 

Fooducate
What It Is: Turns out a barcode can actually tell you a lot more about nutritional value than a food label can—at least it will with this app, which can help you make healthier choices when grocery shopping.
Why It's Cool: Fooducate not only deciphers the quality of calories in a given food item, it also suggests similar yet healthier products and tracks your food intake and exercise.
Cost: Free. Available for iOS and Android.

 

 

 

HealthyOut
What It Is: If only restaurant and takeout meals came with nutrition labels, right? Well, when you’ve got the HealthyOut app, they do! Just plug in your dietary restrictions and nutritional needs, and this app will find you something worth biting into at the restaurant of your choice.
Why It's Cool: Low Calorie, Low Carb, Low Fat, High Protein, Low Sodium, Heart Healthy? No problem. Vegetarian, Vegan, Lactose Intolerant, or Gluten Free? No problem. Eating Paleo, Atkins, South Beach, or Zone? No problem. Once you’ve chosen a dish, HealthyOut will suggest healthy modifications and break down the calories into protein, carbs, and fats.
Cost: Free. Available for iOS and Android.

 

 

Rise
What It Is: A nutrition coaching app featuring a… wait for it… real live nutrition coach! (To access the coach, you first have to join the Rise community via plans starting at as low as $15 a week.)
Why It's Cool: Craving a cheeseburger with extra bacon at 2am? Your coach will be there for you. Your needs are actually acknowledged, 24/7. The coach will set up a personalized plan and you’ll receive daily expertise, tips, and feedback—perhaps the most important part when it comes to making progress.
Cost: Free ($15+/month to join the Rise community). Available for iOS. 

 

 

Shopwell
What It Is: When you can’t have a personal nutritionist create your grocery shopping list, you can always have Shopwell do it. With a quick scan of a barcode, this app can determine which foods meet your dietary needs.
Why It's Cool: Shopwell personally scores each product just for you based on your age, gender, health goals, diet needs, and ingredient and nutrition preferences. Scores range from 0-100; the higher the number, the better the product is for you.
Cost: Free. Available for iOS.

 

 

UPcoffee
What It Is: With coffee in one hand and this app in the other, you’ll be on your way to better understanding how your caffeine consumption seeps into your sleep habits.
Why It’s Cool: After seven days of tracking all the caffeine you consume—from chocolate, to coffee, to tea, to energy drinks—your caffeine persona will be revealed. Track for 10 days, and UPcoffee will understand your body well enough to tell you when your day’s jolt will mellow and you’ll finally be able to get some shut eye.
Cost: Free. Available for iOS.

 

YoDish
What It Is: A fast and fun way to share your dining successes and failures when it comes to preparing food-allergy-friendly, gluten-free, vegetarian, and vegan meals.
Why It's Cool: That dish may meet your dietary restriction, look good, and sound good—but does it actually taste good? Take the word of others who have actually given it a bite—and a thumbs up or a thumbs down.
Cost: Free. Available for iOS.

 

 

Zipongo
What It Is: This app is all about eating healthy on the cheap, which is why it alerts you to weekly in-store sale items and digital coupons and helps you build your shopping list around these savings.
Why It's Cool: Zipongo has its own database of "GO foods"—food that qualify as healthy based on their analysis of nutrients, vitamins, and minerals. It's also chock full of healthy-eating tips and recipes.
Cost: Free. Available for iOS and coming soon for Android.

Mind and Brain

Braingle
What It Is: Oh, it’s only the world's largest collection of brain teasers, riddles, logic problems, mind puzzles, and optical illusions from Braingle.com.
Why It's Cool: Braingle is packed with more than 15,000 brain teasers, and more are added daily. Customize your own favorites list and download the teasers so you can exercise your cognitive skills even when you’re offline.
Cost: Free. Available for iOS.

 

 

Duo Lingo
What It Is: This popular language-learning app teaches users how to read, write, listen, and speak a new language at their own pace—when you want to, not when you have to.
Why It's Cool: Thirty-four hours on Duo Lingo (theoretically) equals a whole semester in college. The app hooks people by turning learning a language into a real brain game. Users lose "lives" when they get a question wrong and gain points with each right question. The app tracks progress over time so nothing is lost.
Cost: Free. Available for iOS and Android.

 

 

Khan Academy
What It Is: Free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere? Yes, please. The updated version now features articles in addition to more than 4,200 videos.
Why It's Cool: Need a refresher in mathematics, chemistry, art history, or finance? Just pull out your phone. With every video you watch, you log credits that add up to some serious educational achievements.
Cost: Free. Available for iOS and Windows Phone.

 

 

Lift
What It Is: Everyone needs a little lift every now and then, which is where this app comes in. Acting as a personal life coach, Lift creates customized plans to help you meet your life goals.
Why It's Cool: Lift recently transitioned from a pure tracking app to goal support—in other words, users are more connected than ever, with a community that’s looking to inspire you as much as they’re looking for you to inspire them.
Cost: Free. Available for iOS and Android.

 

 

Zen and Mindfulness

 

Acupressure: Heal Yourself
What It Is: Release muscular tension and promote the circulation of blood (and, theoretically, the body's life force) with this app.
Why It's Cool: Trouble quitting smoking? Experiencing more headaches than usual? Feel like something’s backed up in your gut? Acupressure: Heal Yourself has you covered, thanks to more than 90 accupressure points combinations tailored to specific issues.
Cost: $1.99. Available for iOS and Android.

 

 

Buddhify2
What It Is: Buddhify2 specializes in guided meditations for the busy young professional who thinks they don’t have a second to breathe, let alone count their breaths.
Why It's Cool: Quick but enlightening mediation sessions can be done while riding the subway, walking down crowded streets, or sitting at a cluttered desk. Buddhify2 also features a progress tracker that monitors mindfulness, concentration, and balance.
Cost: $1.99. Available for iOS.

 

 

Calm
What It Is: Calm offers a soothing, guided meditation app for whenever you need a break—even just a short one—from your day.
Why It's Cool: Whether you’re searching for focus, creativity, energy, confidence, or a little extra sleep, Calm offers 50 guided meditations to choose from—which you can sync with 16 soothing music tracks by meditation music master, Kip Mazuy. Plus, new content is added monthly.
Cost: Free. Available for iOS and Android.

 

 

Daily Yoga
What It Is: This yoga coaching app gets you through the most stressful days with dynamic yoga sessions displayed in HD videos, explained via live voice guidance, and backed by soothing music.
Why It's Cool: The step-by-step guidance is perfect for beginners. With more than 45 yoga sessions and a library packed with more than 300 poses, users can track their way to zen-filled progress.
Cost: Free. Available for iOS and Android.

 

 

Headspace
What It Is: If you’ve got 10 minutes, then you’ve got the time to hang out with Andy Puddicombe (full disclosure: a Greatist Expert!) and clear yourself some headspace via his 10-minute guided meditations.
Why It's Cool: The app offers specialized free meditations on stress, eating, and public transportation—the very things that clutter so many of our minds on a daily basis. Just set yourself a reminder to check in every day and track your progress.
Cost: Free. Available for iOS and Android.

 

 

Mindshift
What It Is: Anxious? This coaching app is designed with you in mind, as it works to help teens and young adults cope with anxiety.
Why It's Cool: It can help you change how you think about anxiety—rather than trying to avoid the sources of your nerves, you can learn to face them. The app includes strategies for dealing with everyday anxiety, as well as specific tools to tackle Test Anxiety, Perfectionism, Social Anxiety, Performance Anxiety, Worry, Panic, and Conflict.
Cost: Free. Available for iOS and Android.

Overall Health

Glow
What It Is: For women looking to take a more in-depth approach to their sexual health, this period, ovulation, and fertility tracker applies advanced proprietary algorithms to your cycle, helping you determine when you should (or shouldn’t) hit the sheets.
Why It's Cool: Detailed calendars, charts, and informative fertility tips offer a sex ed class in the palm of a hand, and allow users to pin down the best days to conceive or, depending on their goals, simply stick to kissing.
Cost: Free. Available for iOS and Android.

 

 

GotoAID
What It Is: This potentially life-saving database provides clear and simple step-by-step instructions for what to do in medical emergency situations—from identifying problems to providing first aid to people and pets when the clock is ticking.
Why It's Cool: No matter the emergency, you’ll be able to handle it (at least until the professionals arrive). The app is stocked with more than 400 topics, interactive tools, and report generators.
Cost: $4.99. Available for iOS and Android.

 

 

Headache Diary
What It Is: Similar to a food diary but designed for headache sufferers, this app tracks every little detail (including triggers and remedies) when it comes to recurring headaches.
Why It's Cool: Headaches can actually be quite telling when it comes to your overall health. By keeping detailed notes of headache symptoms—right down to the location, duration, and foods you snacked on before the headache flared—you can help your doctor diagnose you more easily and begin treating you quickly.
Cost: Free. Available for Android.

 

 

Hula

What It Is: This STI clinic locator app allows users to find a test center near them, get results online, and  share test results with a partner.
Why It's Cool: The app locates clinics in the user’s area that meet individualized criteria, from sliding-scale payments to specialties such as women’s health and LGBTQ-friendly care.
Cost: Free. Available for iOS.

 

 

Performance Stretching
What It Is: Improve athletic performance with this video-based app, which prepares the body for exercise with a variety of dynamic stretching routines and provides static and foam roller stretches for cool downs.
Why It's Cool: No matter your sport of choice, there’s a dynamic stretching routine in here for you: The app is loaded with more than 150 stretches to help prevent injuries.
Cost: $2.99. Available for iOS.

 

 

Sleep Cycle
What It Is: Say hello to the new way of waking up. This bio-alarm clock analyzes your sleep patterns and wakes you when you're in the lightest sleep phase.
Why It's Cool: Waking up in your lightest sleep phase (which this app accomplishes by utilizing a 30-minute alarm window that ends at your set alarm time and wakes you in your lightest sleep phase during that window) allows you to start the day feeling relaxed and refreshed. Sleep Cycle also allows you to keep track of everyday factors that may be affecting your sleep patterns.
Cost: $0.99. Available for iOS.

 

Social Good and Innovation

BudgWhat It Is: Up for a challenge? If so, set it in Budge, an app that allows you to challenge friends to pretty much any activity. Whoever loses makes a small donation to a worthy cause.
Why It's Cool: If you’re not sure which charity you want the winnings to go to, scroll through a range of them until you find the right one. Once you win, you can share an epic brag from the app via your social media profiles, drawing more attention to the cause.
Cost: Fee. Available on iOS.

 

 

Charity Miles
What It Is: For every mile you run, bike, or walk, a corporate sponsor matches your miles monetarily and donates to a charity on your behalf.
Why It's Cool: Users get to experience what it’d be like to be a sponsored athlete. Hard work pays off in the form of changing the lives of people in need.
Cost: Free. Available for iOS and Android.

Check in for Good
What It Is: Sometimes the best way to make a difference is to simply… show up! With Check in for Good, users can pick a cause and visit a business supporting that cause. Once you “check in,” the business donates to the cause.
Why It's Cool: Not only are users supporting worthy causes, but sometimes showing up comes with extra rewards—such as exclusive offers from participating businesses when you check in.
Cost: Free. Available on iOS and Android.

 

 

Donate a Photo
What It Is: They say a picture can be worth a thousand words. Well, a photo can be worth $1 that can make a priceless impact, thanks to this photo sharing app.
Why It's Cool: With each photo you snap and post, Johnson & Johnson donates $1 to a cause you want to help, such as getting kids vaccines, fresh water, or school books.
Cost: Free. Available on iOS and Android.

 

 

 

 

 

I Can Go Without
What It Is: Think you can go without that latte today? Great! Just let your "Personal Concierge" know, and he’ll let you know which charity to spend the money on instead, then set up the transaction in seconds.
Why It's Cool: Micro-giving is a new movement, which, in this app’s case, becomes something bigger than itself. Donations get pooled and amplified across social networks for greater effect.
Cost: Free. Available on iOS.

 

 

One Today
What It Is: This charity app features one new charity each day to which users can donate one dollar.
Why It's Cool: It’s a small act (and a small amount of money) that can add up to big change. Users can track the difference they’ve made one dollar and one day at a time, and get friends to match their donations by sharing their philanthropy across social media accounts.
Cost: Free. Available on iOS and Android.