Top Tips on Having a Mentor for your Small Business

Why should I have a Small Business Mentor?

You’re passionate about your business and love what you do, but the day-to-day running of a business is hard. It can also be a solitary job, with the stress of payroll, clients, and decisions about the next steps all on you.

One of the best ways to help yourself, and your business, is to get a business mentor, someone who has been there and done that to be your support.

HOW DOES A MENTOR HELP MY BUSINESS?
A mentor is someone who can help guide you during your entrepreneurship journey. Mentors can help you in a host of ways, including by:

    • Providing perspective
    • Offering practical solutions
    • Encouraging you to keep going
    • Providing key connections

Not enough? Small business owners report higher revenue and increased growth after working with a mentor.

WHERE CAN I FIND AN ADVISOR?
It’s important to take the time to learn about the many networks that can help you connect with a mentor.  Here is a few resources to help you find the right match:

    • Your personal network of friends, family, and community
    • SCORE, a national network of volunteer, expert business mentors
    • Business Advising, a program that matches small business owners with expert advisors
    • MicroMentor, is another program that matches small business owners with expert advisor
    • Business accelerators and incubators often have a mentor network.

WHAT ELSE SHOULD I CONSIDER?
Here are a few more tips on mentorship and other ways to get the advice you are looking for:

4 Ways to Make the Most of A Mentorship

As a small business owner, your relationships with your community and your peers are essential to your success. Your fellow business owners can provide much-needed support and advice as you grow your small business. This is why many new entrepreneurs turn to a mentor who has already paved their own path.

A successful mentorship takes effort. Here are some tips on how to have a successful mentor-mentee relationship:

1. Have open communication. A good mentor-mentee relationship has open and honest communication. As a mentee, you should never be afraid to seek advice and honest feedback from your mentor. Mentors, part of healthy communication is the ability to listen. You are not there to lecture your mentee. Listen to their problems and give them thoughtful and relevant advice.

2. Learn to value expertise. When looking for a mentor find someone with the expertise you don’t have so that they can help you fill any knowledge gaps you may have. And don’t feel like you can only have one mentor. You may want to have one mentor who advises your business plan, one who gives you financial advice, etc.

3. Know your goals. Before establishing a mentor-protégée relationship, you should have an idea of what you want from the relationship, otherwise, your mentor may not know how best to help you. You should make sure you are picking a mentor who has the ability to fill the need. On the other side, mentors should make sure that they have the ability to fill your mentee’s needs before accepting a mentorship.

4. Understand this is a mutually beneficial relationship. Mentees are not the sole beneficiaries of mentorships. Mentors often get just as much out of the relationship, benefitting their own businesses. Engaging with mentees can help you develop critical communications and leadership skills and can expose you to fresh ideas and help you stay connected to new developments in your industry, ensuring your business stays relevant.

Source: cdcloans.com ~ Image: Canva Pro

Business Mentoring Increases Small Business Survival Rates

The data shows that mentored businesses were 12% more likely to remain in business after one year, compared to the national average. This supports existing research that shows entrepreneurs with access to a mentor are five times more likely to start a …

Mentoring doesn’t just help young professionals gain the experience and wisdom they need in the workforce, it can also increase the likelihood of small business success.

That’s according to a new survey from SCORE, the nation’s largest network of volunteer, expert business mentors. The data shows that mentored businesses were 12% more likely to remain in business after one year, compared to the national average. This supports existing research that shows entrepreneurs with access to a mentor are five times more likely to start a business than those who do not have a mentor.

Working with a mentor at least five times greatly increases an entrepreneur’s likelihood of business success.

  • 30% of business owners (both men and women) who had just one interaction with a mentor reported business growth, a number that increased with subsequent interactions and peaked at 43% of business owners who had five or more mentoring interactions reporting growth.

Women entrepreneurs experience success when they are expertly mentored, regardless of their mentor’s gender.

  • Women entrepreneurs were just as happy and successful working with mentors of either gender. What mattered to entrepreneurs (of both genders) was a mentor’s helpfulness, respectfulness, listening skills and open-mindedness, accurate assessment of a client’s business situation, and ability to provide relevant advice.

The top three issues entrepreneurs asked their mentors for help with were:

  • Human resource issues (61%)
  • Growth/business expansion (59%)
  • Start-up assistance (53%)

“This data confirms what SCORE has learned over 54 years of helping 11 million entrepreneurs to start or grow their businesses – that mentoring has a significant, positive impact on small business success rates,” said SCORE CEO Ken Yancey. “We were surprised to find that there was no statistically-significant difference in our clients’ satisfaction rates according to whether an entrepreneur worked with a mentor of the same gender. Above all else, our small business owner clients want a mentor who listens to them, and who accurately assesses their particular business situation. They want a mentor who is helpful and who provides relevant advice in a respectful manner. SCORE’s 10,000 experienced mentors are happy to volunteer their time doing just that.”

Source: cpapracticeadvisor.com ~ Image: Canva Pro

6 Must-Have Marketing Goals for eCommerce Stores

The right marketing goals are necessary to scale your ecommerce business faster. Check out these six actionable tips.

There’s no better time to get into ecommerce than today. The market for online goods and services is growing rapidly, and technology is getting better at meeting the needs and expectations of consumers.

But as profitable as ecommerce can be, you can never do away with competition. That’s why as an entrepreneur, it’s always wise to have  goals that can get more visitors to your shop, convert these visitors into customers and ultimately grow your .

It’s easy to get lost in the din of ideas about ecommerce, so I’ve listed six marketing goals that you should definitely adopt for your store.

1. Optimize product pages for search engines

As more and more people hop onto the ecommerce bandwagon, it’s becoming more urgent for brands to invest in SEO or search engine optimization. Having the right optimizations in place, especially on your product pages, makes it easier for search engines to find your store and show it in relevant search results. Ultimately, this will lead potential buyers to your store and help establish its name in the niche it falls under.

It makes good business sense for many important reasons.

Gaining organic rankings offers long-term value. However, there’s a quicker way for your store to show up on the search results, and that is via paid ads. For a price, your store can get a high placement on search results and get a traffic boost — a great complement to your organic SEO efforts.

2. Capture leads through social media

 has become an indispensable part of the new normal, and businesses that use multiple social channels ultimately sell more products than those that don’t.

A great place to start  is . It’s a business-friendly platform, especially with its features that let sellers tag products on their posts. With Instagram, brands like yours can easily turn ordinary browsing into a convenient shopping experience for users.

You can also capture leads through other social media sites like  and . But before you settle on a platform, check first if your target audience uses it. It wouldn’t be wise to stretch your time and resources on several social media sites if your ideal customers use only a couple or so.

3. Collect email leads through signup forms

It’s normal to have store visitors who may eye certain products but aren’t ready to make a purchase. These visitors usually need a little more convincing or nurturing, and this is where a signup CTA and email sequences come in handy.

With a signup form, you can collect people’s information and then send them messages and deals that could persuade them to buy. You may use a mix of different signup forms, such as popups and static opt-in boxes.

When someone fills out your form, they’re basically giving you permission to contact them. You should take advantage of that by having email sequences ready. Your emails should aim to nurture your leads, counter any buying objections they might have and eventually lead them to make a purchase.

4. Boost sales through upselling and cross-selling

Upselling and cross-selling are powerful tools to increase the value of a customer’s purchase. Plus, they could help customers know more about your offers even if they don’t immediately buy.

Upselling is when you offer a better and more expensive product than what the customer is looking at on your product page or checkout page. Meanwhile, cross-selling is when you suggest an additional product that can improve the customer’s experience with the product they have in their cart.

Let’s say you’re selling bags. On every bag product page of your store, you can try to offer upsells by displaying one or two more expensive bag designs close to the main product’s images. This way, shoppers will have more options and could decide whether to go for the cheapest bag or the one with the best features.

For cross-selling, an example is offering travel accessories, like a sanitizer bag tag or a neck pillow, that go well with travel bags.

 is one of the most popular platforms that actively offer upsells and cross-sells. Next time you shop on Amazon, pay attention to their product recommendation sections packaged as Frequently Bought Together, Similar Items and Top Picks For You.

5. Reduce abandoned carts

It’s common knowledge among online entrepreneurs that up to 97 percent of store visitors are there simply to look around and click away. That’s why it’s not surprising that abandoned carts are a common problem for ecommerce. In fact, cart abandonment rates could go as high as 87 percent, which should spur your goal of reducing these incidents.

You must assess what could be stopping shoppers from completing their transaction. It could be due to a complicated checkout page, limited payment methods, lack of trust badges or other issues.

You can minimize potential problems by displaying badges and logos shoppers can easily recognize, such as those of cybersecurity companies like Norton and .

You can also offer multiple payment options on your checkout page to accommodate shoppers’ preferences. Consider , Google Pay and  options like Visa and .

6. Build customer loyalty

Did you know that it’s far less expensive to sell to a past customer than acquire a new one? This is why brands invest in customer retention, and one way to do this is through a customer loyalty program.

Rewarding loyalty can benefit both your customers and your brand. With it, you can give customers compelling reasons to purchase and repurchase from your store. And if your rewards are one of a kind, they’ll likely spread the word to their social circles and help you with word-of-mouth marketing.

Rewards can come in the form of discounts, freebies, waived fees or exclusive items. The key point is to create offers that can inspire loyalty and increase your customers’ lifetime value.

As an ecommerce business owner, setting goals and taking action — especially for marketing your brand — are what will help you scale. You can’t go wrong with the goals listed here, but be sure to keep track of your niche, monitor your progress and adjust your strategies as needed. Hopefully, the six insights I’ve shared have helped you understand how important marketing is and the many different ways you can strengthen your ecommerce brand.

Source: entrepreneur.com  ~ By: Steve Tan ~ Image: Canva Pro

11 Essential Ecommerce Marketing Strategies

Which ecommerce marketing strategies are worth the time and investment?

Whether your online retail company is just starting up or has reached the point of maintaining a well-established customer base, it’s important to stay up to date with the most current ecommerce marketing trends and techniques for your business. Structuring and finally launching an ecommerce website is a milestone achievement for your brand. Therefore, it’s crucial to invest in an effective website structure and ecommerce marketing strategy. Apart from all the structure, it also helps and builds trust with your customers when you protect your traffic with SSL encryption.

If you’re interested in finding out the best tried-and-true methods, as well as the newest techniques of marketing for an ecommerce business, pay attention to the 11 tips below.

1. Produce original content

The first step in setting up an ecommerce website is creating the content for it. Creating high-quality and original content will set you up for success because it will resonate with your customers in a way that makes them want to interact with you, purchase from you, and maintain a following.

Be creative. Be original.

Promoting original content is a great way to make a statement, strike a compelling idea, and make a mark on the user’s mind. There is a fine line between content that engages users and content that deters them.

Why not take an extra step, put in a little effort, and create something that will be genuinely compelling? It’s an ecommerce marketing strategy with lasting effect. One or two well-written pages can drive revenue for years to come.

What should you write?

First, add informative content to your primary site pages – your homepage, about, policies (warranties, shipping, etc.) at the bare minimum.

Then it’s important to populate your online store’s product content. Start with individual products, prioritizing by your best sellers or highest earners, and write unique descriptions. Don’t just drop in the manufacturer’s boilerplate language. Explain what it is, why it’s better, and its key features.

Look also to category pages. These also pose great SEO opportunity (more on that below). Here’s where you can explain a type of product (e.g., men’s athletic shoes) and provide paths to other products, to help the user find what they’re looking for. FAQs are often handy on category pages to answer questions related to the segment (e.g., “how to choose men’s athletic shoes”).

Now, it’s time to get proactive.

Spawning from your ecommerce company’s authority (e.g., shoes), publish blog posts that will attract new audiences while informing and engaging existing fans.

Add rich content to your website, too – in ecommerce, product demo or explainer videos are a supreme fit.

If you’re coming up short of ideas, ask your customers. Use a user feedback tool offering pop-up chat interactions to ask, for example…

  • What are you looking for?
  • What do you want to learn more about?
  • What questions do you have?
  • What brought you here today?

Your goal is to zero in on content topics that your audience cares about – because they tell you so. More on content beyond core “money pages” below as we talk content marketing.

This online fireworks company added informative content to their category pages that answers common questions about specific types. Not only did this drive SEO performance, it increased engagement, conversions, and order value.

2. Optimize your ecommerce website’s layout

After launching or redesigning your ecommerce site, it’s important to test your website’s layout, language, and placement of conversion elements. When customers visit your website, you want to make sure it’s easy and simple to check out, that they feel naturally inclined to purchase your products, and that it’s abundantly clear how to do so.

You should test the language displayed on your landing and product pages, the language in your conversion elements, and even the strategic placement of icons and elements. You can use various usability testing methods for this.

One really nifty tool is Mouseflow’s heatmap software that reveals valuable patterns in customer behavior on your website. One of their most popular heatmaps, the movement heatmap, reveals the most attractive parts of your website — based on visitor movement data to your website.

With a color guide, Mouseflow will tell you where your customers spend the most time, and the least amount of time! If a specific area of your page receives more attention (in white), you should consider moving your conversion elements to those more attractive areas to increase click-through rates (CTR).

You’ll also want to set up a conversion funnel analysis and optimization tool. With this, you can assign pages on your site to a funnel and analyze how users move through the journey.

You’ll find that certain pages and funnel journeys perform better than others. You can also watch session recordings of users that dropped and converted, to better empathize with their experiences.

Test it for a week and see how your conversions change. Take your ecommerce marketing strategy to the next level with an ecommerce conversion rate optimization strategy using these methods.

Mouseflow’s affordable, scalable pricing plans gets you started for free and grow with you as you become an ecommerce power player.

3. Content marketing

Proper ecommerce content marketing can attract more positive attention, interaction, and sustainable conversions in a way no other marketing method can. By creating and promoting original content, you are ensuring that your audience is receiving new information that matters to them on a continual basis.

Content for your website, like mentioned above, includes home page, category pages, product pages, and the like. Content marketing on the other hand is content specifically geared to attract customers and is promoted to get their attention.

Brainstorm with your team to create a list of the different types of content you wish to create. This can be blog posts, videos, and newsletters. Also, make sure you are utilizing your marketing budget by consulting with experts, outsourcing work when necessary. Invest in high-quality software, subscriptions, employees, and training for your team.

You will also find that if you work with the right people, many of the things you’ve paid for in the past can be done internally. Create diversity within your team and listen to everyone’s ideas.

And in the spirit of listening to everyone’s ideas, deploy a user feedback tool to collect questions, thoughts, and topics from your audience. Or, “listen” to their behavior – use heatmap tools to identify the parts of your website, and even parts of specific pieces of content, that get the most interest. then expand on these topics, and link them within the content’s “hot spot”.

We also suggest that you create content based on Pareto’s 80/20 rule, which means that your promotions should comprise of 80% informational content, and 20% promotional content. All of the content you publish should be relevant, interesting, and unique.

4. Social media marketing

Social media ecommerce marketing is a very powerful tool. It allows you to communicate with your industry, customers, and market in a personal, public way. You can utilize social media to generate engagement and interaction, boost traffic to your website, and develop a larger base of customers.

Utilizing different social media platforms for different purposes also creates a rich presence for your company that diversifies your abilities and efforts. This will ultimately help you cater to your customers’ needs in a way that grows your business over time.

Maintaining a solid tone and personality of your company through social media is very important because consistency is what will create trust within your audience. In order to develop and maintain brand recognition and authority, make sure your outreach efforts are unified by ensuring your team is on the same page with your company’s communication style.

Just as important as being present and engaged on social is monitoring this channel’s performance. To do so, you’ll want to use your web analytics tool to…

  • Monitor the performance of the social referral journey on-site with a funnel optimization tool.
  • Review user session recordings to understand why customers abandoned the journey, what compelled them to convert, and what caught their interest along the way.
    • Bonus tip: look at the full on-site journeys of your converted customers and consider how to adjust your pre-defined funnel to better meet these needs. You may have forgotten to consider a customer’s affinity for visiting your reviews page, and can identify this as a key conversion-journey touchpoint.
  • Analyze the behavior of the distinct social segment via heatmaps. How deep do they scroll? What sections get the most interest? where are they compelled to click? Use this to inform campaign and strategy tweaks.
  • Ask the audience for user feedback via pop-up chat tools at key moments in their journey, such as when they stay on a page for long enough or have exit intent.
  • Run through your forms with a fine-toothed comb via form analysis tool. You may find that social audiences are more or less inclined to give up information, and can adjust your form fields to suit them.

Form Analysis

5. Email marketing

One of the most effective forms of reaching out to your customer base is through email marketing. Although you have to be very careful about the content within your emails and who is included in your outreach, the reason email marketing has been around for so long is because it works.

In order to reach your audience most effectively, provide useful content within your emails.  Make them as personal as you can, offer valuable promotions, and use it as an opportunity to socialize.

Open up about what your business is doing, any events you are attending, new features or products, and be transparent about your company. You want to relate to your customers on a level that gauges their interest and keeps them engaging with your emails.

As always, make sure you are monitoring the analytics of your email marketing efforts, and any ecommerce marketing strategy elements, for that matter. Remember to follow email design best practices to serve up a satisfying message and experience.

You can also track users who entered your website from your email campaigns with Mouseflow. All you have to do is set a custom URL that users “visit” when entering your site, and their entry page will contain that unique URL. A great way of doing this is to append UTM variables to your URL.

You can use Mouseflow filters or the search feature to find users whose sessions contained your custom URL. From here, you can save and export the list, perform analytics, and watch how they interacted on their site.

You can also filter your heatmaps for this data to analyze how they engage with each page of your site, which elements they find most attractive, and more!

For Level Two of email marketing, consider how triggered emails can be leveraged to recover lost conversions, such as abandoned carts.

7. Pay-per-click advertising (PPC for ecommerce)

There are three basic elements to any pay-per-click marketing campaign: the ad, the offer, and the landing page.

All three must be in good harmony and synchronization if you want to maintain the interest of the lead. The landing page must be a continuation of your ad, delivering what was promised as the reward of clicking on the ad, in order to take the visitor through your convesion funnel.

It must also be customized for keywords to appear somewhere near the top of search engine results. Likely, these keywords will play into the rest of your ecommerce marketing strategies, too.

Keep the landing page free of distractions and unnecessary bells and whistles. Also, keep in mind that your landing page is the most appropriate place to boast your product benefits to the customer.

To measure performance, use your web analytics tool‘s filters to identify the UTM-coded audience.

8. Optimize for mobile

It is absolutely crucial to make sure your website is responsive to any user layout. Mobile users are starting to dominate the sea of internet use, especially in ecommerce, and it’s important to accommodate their needs to provide a good user experience (UX) for everyone.

Mobile funnel example

People who visit your website do not want to be redirected to an app or web version of your website, they want the full-meal-deal. So, make sure you deliver what they are expecting and make the investment to enhance your website so that it’s fully responsive. UX strategies are often the most essential ecommerce marketing strategies you can have — a user that bounces isn’t worth much!

You can also use mobile marketing techniques to target mobile users specifically. One of the most popular marketing trends is called geo-targeting, which advertises to mobile users based on their location. This technique enables you to reach out to customers who are within a specific distance of your business, and provide them with an incentive to stop by or make a purchase.

Then, leverage geo heatmaps to audit the effectiveness of your regional campaigns. You can even use these geo heatmaps to strategize which regions to target, either chasing what works or breaking into untapped markets.

If you head into a new region, consider multilingual marketing to speak to the audience on their own terms.

9. Target wearable and VR

Targeting wearable and Virtual Reality (VR) technology is a trending technique that grabs users in a new and exciting way. People are still getting used to this technology, and are not yet overwhelmed by or habituated to advertisements.

Your target audience for these mediums will be very refined, as these users are the part of the population that carries the latest technology at the palm of their hands at all times, keeps up to date with trends, and doesn’t mind dropping some extra cash for items they desire.

Although creating campaigns that are designed for these technologies can be expensive, the right approach can be worth the initial investment because a filtered audience is more likely to convert.

This isn’t one fo those ecommerce marketing strategies that will work for every business, either. Be sure wearable and VR tech are familiar to your audience before making the investment. enter , another opportunity to gauge customer reception by using a survey tool.

10. Humanize and personalize

Consumers have become the power player in the ecommerce industry. Which means your business needs to stand out in a unique way. Because of this, it’s more important than ever to customize your user experience (UX) to cater to the needs of your audience. This is just as much a crucial part of your ecommerce marketing strategies as it is a total brand strategy.

Make your outreach efforts personal by taking the time to learn about your customers. People love it when they feel special, and if you make sure to add personal touches like addressing your prospects by name, sharing videos and pictures of your employees, and being transparent about your company processes and procedures, you will reap the benefits of a loyal customer base.

All of this adds to the overall ‘face of the business’. This will hopefully make its way to the hearts of your customers.

11. Retargeting

Customers who have already shown an interest in your website are more likely to make a later purchase.

Retargeting is a technique that tracks customers who have visited your website and displays ads to them while they’re browsing the internet with the intent of getting them back on your website. When these visitors enter your website again, they are far more likely to make a purchase.

To effectively manage a retargeting campaign, make sure your ads are as specific as possible. Was the customer looking at a specific product? Make sure the ads displayed to them are ads of that specific product and link to the page of the product. Just like with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Pay Per Click (PPC) marketing, it’s important to display the information the user is looking for the instant they click on your ad.

If they click on an ad for hiking boots and are redirected to the home page of your camping website, they aren’t going to be thrilled. But, if they are directed to the exact hiking boots they were considering, or even had added to their cart, before leaving your website, they will be much more likely to continue with a purchase.

Although retargeting is getting more difficult due to the demise of third-party tracking cookies, there’s still opportunity to be chased.

Which ecommerce marketing strategies will you deploy?

Staying current with the latest marketing trends and techniques is crucial for any successful eCommerce website. It’s important to deliver relevant, interesting and valuable content and products that truly suite the needs of your target market.

Reach out to your customers in a variety of ways and make sure you are working with a team of experts with varying skill sets. If you listen to everyone’s ideas, you may find new ways of improving your current campaigns and outreach methods.

And, as always, make sure you are monitoring your website analytics to examine trends, keep your website optimized, and track your results!

With the right mix of marketing techniques, you can improve your conversion rate and attract sustainable business that will continue growing over time. Sharpening your skills as an ecommerce website marketing manager will help you level-up and become more attractive in the job market.

The 27 Best Anti-Aging Tips of All Time

Prevent fine lines, wrinkles, sagging, dark spots, and other visible signs of aging with these proven strategies

1) Skip the Straw

Of all the places on your body, you face can truly show your age if you don’t take steps to keep your skin healthy.

That includes common precautions such as maintaining a well-balanced diet that is rich in good fats and using UV protection. But there are also quite a few ways that you may be aging your face without knowing it. Watch the video for more.

2) Seriously, Don’t Smoke

Add this to the already-long list of reasons to quit. While less serious than reducing your chances of getting lung cancer or heart disease, smoking also damages your looks.

The habit takes a major toll on your appearance, contributing to premature skin aging, wrinkles, stained teeth, and even increased psoriasis risk.

“Smoking increases wrinkles due to facial motion, and it also has a vasoconstricting effect, which means it chokes off blood vessel circulation,” says dermatologist David Stoll, MD, author of A Woman’s Skin.

3) Eat Your Antioxidants

Vitamin B12 helps your body produce DNA and red blood cells, supports your immune system, and encourages healthy nerve function.

Watch the video to learn which foods are high in this essential nutrient.

4) Fill Up on Fermented Foods

You probably already know that foods like kimchi, sauerkraut, tempeh, and other probiotic-rich foods are good for your gut. Turns out they may also combat premature aging.

“Fermented foods have excellent antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties,” says Craig Kraffert, MD, a Board Certified Dermatologist and President of Amarte.

Beauty products that are made with fermented extracts may also make a difference. Dr. Kraffert recommends products that contain ingredients like fermented gingko biloba nut or mushroom extract.

“The most commonly cited benefits of fermented extracts within skincare products are skin calming and brightening,” he says.

5) Pack on the Protein

You consume plenty of protein by eating meat and eggs, but you can also get protein in an array of other foods, all of which are meat-free.

Watch this video for some surprising sources of protein.

6) Cut Back on Sugar

As if the risk for obesity, diabetes, and heart disease wasn’t enough, sugar may take a toll on your skin, too. In a 2010 study, researchers found a link between dietary sugars like glucose and greater production of advanced glycation end products (AGES).

But if you have a sweet tooth, don’t panic just yet. “The supportive scientific and clinical data, while growing, remains limited,” says Dr. Kraffert. So enjoy sugar in small amounts, and focus more on leading an active lifestyle and eating an overall balanced diet.

7) Sleep on a Silk Pillowcase

Insufficient sleep is linked to a host of health problems, from depression to cardiovascular disease. Make sure you’re falling asleep quickly so you can get a good night’s rest.

8) Sleep on Your Back

Always sleep on your side? The habit could be causing lines to form on the cheek that’s constantly pressed against the pillow. “Sleeping on one side can definitely cause wrinkles on that side alone,” says Dr. Stoll. “I’ve seen this many times.”

Side-sleepers may want to switch to their backs—and not just to prevent wrinkles. Back-sleeping eases neck and back pain, fights acid reflux, and even helps prevent saggy breasts.

9) Fill Up on Healthy Fats

Not all fats are created equal. Eating foods rich in healthful fats can protect your heart and help you absorb a host of vitamins.

Watch the video to learn which high-fat foods you can cross off your no-no list.

10) Make Exercise a Priority

We all know how important exercising is for our health, but for some of us, maintaining a consistent fitness routine can be elusive. One key to staying consistent with exercising is finding an activity that you enjoy (and don’t dread), so search for something that gets you excited.

Watch the video for the other easy ways that you can stay motivated.

11) Manage Your Stress

Help yourself relax almost anywhere.

Watch the video on how to kick stress in 20 minutes or less.

12) Exfoliate the Right Way

Exfoliating using beads or chemical peels is a go-to skincare strategy for sloughing off dead skin and revealing a smoother complexion underneath—but it’s important to make sure you’re not aggravating your face in the process.

“Too much exfoliation is counterproductive,” says Dr. Stoll. He recommends talking to your dermatologist about the best exfoliation method for your skin type.

13) Get on the Retinoid Bandwagon

If you only have one anti-aging product in your medicine cabinet, make it a retinoid. Dermatologists love this powerful skincare ingredient (a derivative of vitamin A) for its ability to accelerate cell renewal.

“Retinoids turn over skin cells and boost collagen production, which leads to more youthful-looking skin,” says Angela Lamb, MD, Director of Westside Mount Sanai Dermatology Faculty Practice, in New York City.

New to retinoids? The ingredient can be drying, so start off slowly by working products with a lower percentage into your regimen, and then working your way up.

For an over-the-counter option, we love Roc Retinol Correxion Deep Wrinkle Night Cream ($20; target.com), which is one of the highest strength, non-prescription formulas you can get.

14) Scale Back on Salt

You already know that eating high-sodium foods make your body retain water, leaving you feeling heavy and bloated. So it should come as no surprise that super-salty fare triggers a similar response in your face, giving you a puffier appearance (under your eyes, for example).

To cut back gradually, start cooking with salt-free flavor boosters such as chili peppers, lemon juice, and fresh herbs. Not only will you look less bloated, but a low-sodium diet will also reduce your risk of high blood pressure and stroke.

15) Drink Plenty of H2O

Are you drinking enough water each day? With these tips from Holley Grainger, RD, filling up on the recommended 13 to 16 cups is easier than you think.

16) Go Easy on the Booze

Speaking of drinking: Alcohol dehydrates the body, so think twice before having that second glass of wine.

“Dehydrated skin is more likely to appear dry, sallow, dull, and crepey,” Dr. Nussbaum says.

Be especially careful of white wine: the acid in white wine can damage your enamel and make your teeth more susceptible to long-lasting stains.

17) Take Care of Your Hands

You’ve heard it before: your hands age before any other part of your body. And why wouldn’t they?

Hands simply don’t receive the same TLC that we lavish on the rest of our bodies in terms of sun protection and anti-aging creams. And that means that years of sun exposure and working with our hands can cause spots, wrinkles, and discolored nails.

Thankfully, there are ways to reverse signs of aging hands.

Watch the video to learn a few of the best ways to make them look young again.

18) Take Time off Your Chest

Another often-forgotten patch of skin: your chest. Too much sun exposure when you’re young may leave you with blotchy, freckled skin in the short term, and down the line, you may notice wrinkles, loose skin, and white spots.

“Your best bet is to stop daily damage before it gets serious,” says Dr. Kraffert. To keep your décolletage from deteriorating, wear sunscreen on days you’re not wearing clothing that covers your chest.

And if you already have sun damage, moisturize the area before bed with an over-the-counter retinol such as Neutrogena Rapid Wrinkle Repair Retinol Moisturizer, or with a cream that contains melanin production inhibitors to brighten skin.

“Adding other skin-brightening ingredients such as sulfur and botanical extracts will help, too,” says Dr. Kraffert.

19) Wash Your Face Before Bed

You know you’re supposed to do it, but sometimes you just… don’t. We get it. But experts stress that failing to wash your face at the end of the day is a major missed opportunity for skin to regenerate while you sleep (not to mention, it ups your chances of waking up with clogged pores).

“Skin renews itself overnight, so if you want to change the way your skin functions, the most important ingredients should be applied before bed,” Olga Lorencin-Northrup, founder and lead aesthetician of Kinara Spa in Los Angeles previously told Health.

20) Get Serious About Sunscreen
Ask Michele Today Skip to content Secured By miniOrange