Small Businesses Are a Great Place to Start Your Career

Does it seem like everyone is jockeying for a job with the Big Four? Or, maybe you've started working for one, and it's not going as well as you thought it would. Sure, you have a generous salary, but perhaps you're tired of working from a windowless cubicle or fighting heavy traffic every day.

If you're burned out by working for large corporations, a job with a small business could be a smart move—and one that could pay huge dividends for your career. Here's how.

What Is a Small Business?

A small business isn't just your local cupcake bakery with four employees. The Small Business Administration (SBA) defines a small business as a company with up to 1,500 employees that generates no more than $41.5 million in annual revenue. And small businesses employ more than 40% of working Americans.

The Advantages of Working for a Small Business

There are numerous benefits to working for a small business. Here are just a few reasons to consider a job with a small company for your next career move.

— Expand Your Skill Set

Employees who work for a small business may wear a lot of hats. You might be helping manage the ecommerce store in addition to updating social media and writing ad copy. Or, you might not only work as a UX Designer creating mock-ups of apps, but you could also be helping market the product.

Working for a small business, you'll get to try many new things to build your skill set for future opportunities.

— Enjoy More Flexibility

A large, widely-known Fortune 500 company may not be as willing to embrace remote or hybrid work, although many are shifting their views. Attempts to negotiate flexible work options can be difficult since there can be more red tape with corporate policy.

A small business has less bureaucracy, so it can be easier to negotiate the hybrid or remote work options you desire.

— Easily Access Leadership

At a large company, there's a slim chance you'll ever interact with senior leaders, like the CEO. However, at a small company, you might be meeting with the CEO regularly to provide updates as the sole marketer. Or, they may hold company town halls to discuss policy changes or goals for the upcoming quarter.

This access allows you to demonstrate your value to senior leadership, which means that working for a small business could provide opportunities to grow your career within the company.

Start Working for a Small Business Today

While a small business may not come with an internationally-known name or large salary, there can be numerous benefits to working for one. A small company can provide you the valuable opportunity to learn new skills, enjoy flexible working options, and meet with senior leadership.

Ready to enjoy the flexibility of working for a small business? Since 2007, FlexJobs has provided job seekers with access to a scam-free jobs board to help them land their next hybrid or remote role. Explore the benefits of a FlexJobs membership today!

Teacher Builds Better Balance for Fun in Retirement

Many people think of retirement as a period in life full of baking cookies, swinging on the porch, and golfing. But for many retirees, that routine might sound like a nice vacation for a little while but becomes tedious on a daily basis.

Karen J. was one of those retirees. She didn't want to settle quietly into her hobbies after she retired from teaching. The desire to fill up some of her time and satisfy her quest for continual learning took her back to the classroom part-time.

However, it didn't take long for her to realize a traditional teaching role in a classroom was no longer an ideal fit for her retirement years. "Being inside the school working with a very limited and tight schedule, I decided I wanted more flexibility," Karen says.

Seeking a Better Work-Life Balance in Retirement

Karen also needed a job that provided more consistent income to add to her savings and boost her hobby fund. "Not getting a salary when schools are closed, on holidays, during vacation weeks, or over the entire summer was a bit stressful!"

But Karen found that it was challenging to find a part-time job that matched her professional skills and experience on her own, which led her to FlexJobs.

Discovering New Options

Through FlexJobs, Karen was able to land not one but two part-time, flexible positions with TutorMe and Littera Education. And together, they fit her needs perfectly. Now, Karen is busy "enjoying more of life by having time for other pursuits, piano, crafts, church activities, or simply being with friends."

"I enjoy being at home because it is quiet. I can take breaks when needed, schedule work, and not feel rushed to get from one place to another by a certain time. Now, I can leave for appointments or just have additional time for my hobbies."

Beyond balancing her time, Karen enjoys staying relevant and learning new skills that align with her lifelong career. "These roles give me additional training since I am a lifelong learner and still would like to help students achieve success."

Advice to Anyone Considering a FlexJobs Membership

Like many retirees, Karen noted that it's a balancing act to fight against age bias and other stereotypes about retirees. She suggests that other retirees update their resumes strategically with a focus on communicating both their experience and desire to keep working.

And even though budgets can be tight in retirement, Karen thinks the paid membership is well worth it. She says, "Try it for three months and keep looking! FlexJobs has a LOT of jobs."

Create Your Own Retirement Rules

There is no standard blueprint for retirement anymore. As Karen discovered, you can create your work-life balance rules.

If you're ready to explore your flexible work options, FlexJobs can help. We post jobs daily in over 50 career categories, and we have an entire team of real people dedicated to verifying those jobs to ensure that our members only see legitimate opportunities. Take the tour and discover all of the ways FlexJobs can support you!

Balance and a Rewarding Career Using FlexJobs

For many, the United States Census Bureau study about commuting comes as no surprise. The Bureau's report shares that the average time spent commuting back and forth to work has grown to almost 30 minutes each way. And for most professionals who work in an office setting, giving up five hours of life each week for a commute is pretty standard.

But Sara S. struggled with a lengthy commute combined with long, draining hours. She realized that something had to change. Her work life was taking a toll on her family and personal commitments and pushing her to professional burnout. It was time to take back control of her life.

Committing to Pursuing Balance

Recognizing that she needed a change, Sara looked for remote roles independently. It was only a short time before she realized she was spending more time sourcing legitimate positions than she was applying for and following up on them.

"I had been looking for a remote position for a few months and wasted so much time and energy on fake job leads." Even with the many awareness campaigns, job seekers like Sara are often overwhelmed with the number of scams targeting job seekers. Fortunately, she found FlexJobs, and her job search became streamlined and productive.

Building a Rewarding Career

Sara knew that her next role needed to do more than create balance. She was also determined that it would be a quality position aligned with her career goals. "I didn't want to step backward in my career or be stuck in a position with no growth opportunities."

Fortunately, Sara remained focused on her goals and found a perfect fit in a fully remote role with UnitedHealth Group. Now, Sara can be more present for her family without having to put her career to the side. "I found an organization I can grow with, professionally and personally."

Thriving Throughout All Areas

If you ask Sara how working remotely has affected her life, she'll tell you she's enjoying building better balance in the larger, more apparent areas of her life. "I have more time for the things that are important to me—my kids, my education goals, and my health," she says.

But like most professionals new to remote work, Sara discovered that work flexibility has also enhanced her life in other areas. "I am saving on gas and auto expenses, eating healthier, and I can wear activewear to work, so I go for a jog or do Pilates on my breaks!"

Advocating for Work Flexibility

Now that Sara is thriving in a meaningful role supporting her work-life balance, she has become an advocate for others to make effective changes in their lives. "I have recommended FlexJobs to so many people. It was well worth purchasing the membership."

Her guidance to others looking for more work freedom? Your job search is much more than tailoring a resume and hitting "submit." Sara says, "Don't forget about the value of networking," also stating that, "A flawless resume is useless if no one ever reads it."

Create Your Own Success Story

We hear from job seekers like Sara every day, sharing the enormous impact that flexible work has made on their lives.

If you're ready to build a better work-life balance, take the tour and discover all of the resources that FlexJobs offers to support you in your job search.

A video showing how to use the Yoast SEO content blocks

 Using the content blocks is easy. This is one of the main advantages of the block editor — it’s become a joy to build content like this. If you’re not sure about how it works — or you are still using the classic editor and to take a peak at the blocks — please check the video below. This’ll show you everything you need to know.

What does an FAQ rich result look like?

We have an FAQ page for our Yoast Diversity Fund and Google awarded that page an FAQ rich result after we added an FAQ structured data content block. So, wondering what an FAQ looks like in Google? Wonder no more:

An example FAQ rich result for a Yoast page

Keep in mind that an FAQ rich result like this might influence the CTR to that page. It might even lead to a decrease in traffic to your site since you are giving away answers instantly. It is a good idea, therefore, to use it only for information that you don’t mind giving away like this. Or you have to find a way to make people click to your site. Do experiment with it, of course, to see the effects. Maybe it works brilliantly for you, who knows?

Read more: Rich results, structured data and Schema: a visual guide to help you understand »

What does this look like under the hood?

Run your new FAQ page through Rich Results Testing Tool to see what it looks like for Google. Yoast SEO automatically generates valid structured data for your FAQ page. Here’s a piece of the FAQ on the Yoast Diversity Fund page:

The FAQ is neatly integrated into the structured data graph

Let’s take a quick look at how it works. The context surrounding the questions is an FAQPage Schema graph. Every question gets a Question type and an acceptedAnswer with an answer type. The name field in the Question is the question, of course. The acceptedAnswer is the correct answer attached to this specific question.

A piece of the FAQ graph showing a Question and the corresponding Answer

That sounds hard, but it’s not. This is just what goes on behind the scenes. All you have to remember is fill in the Question and the Answer and Yoast SEO will take care of the rest!

How to add FAQ Schema in WordPress using Yoast SEO

 Many, many sites have an FAQ page. This is a page where a lot of frequently asked questions get the appropriate answer. It is often a single page filled to the brim with questions and answers. While it’s easy to add one, it’s good to keep in mind that not all sites need an FAQ. Most of the time all you need is good content targeted at the users’ needs. Here, I’ll discuss the use of FAQ pages and show you how to make one yourself with Yoast SEOs free FAQ structured data content block for the WordPress block editor. You won’t believe how easy it is.

For more information on the Yoast SEO Schema structured data implementation, please read our Schema documentation.

What is an FAQ?

FAQ stands for frequently asked questions. It is often a single page collecting a series of questions and their answers on a specific subject, product or company. An FAQ is often seen as a tool to reduce the workload of the customer support team. It is also used to show that you are aware of the issues a customer might have and to provide an answer to that.

Do you really need an FAQ?

Usually, if you need to answer a lot of questions from users in an FAQ, that means that your content is not providing these answers and that you should work on that. Or maybe it is your product or service itself that’s not clear enough? One of the main criticisms of FAQs is that they hardly ever answer the questions consumers really have. They are also lazy: instead of figuring out how to truly answer a question with formidable content — using content design, for instance — people rather throw some random stuff on a page and call it an FAQ.

That’s not to say you should never use an FAQ. Numerous sites successfully apply them — even we use them sparingly. In some cases, they do provide value. Users understand how an FAQ works and are quick to find what they are looking for — if the makers of the page know what they are doing. So don’t make endless lists of loosely related ‘How can I…’ or ‘How to…’ questions, because people will struggle to filter out what they need.

Answer real questions by real users

It has to be a page that’s easy to digest and has to have real answers to real questions by users. You can find scores of these if you search for them: ask your support team for instance! Collect and analyze the issues that come up frequently to see if you’re not missing some pain points in your products or if your content is targeting the wrong questions.

So don’t hide answers to pressings questions away on an FAQ page if you want to answer these in-depth: make an article out of it. This is what SEO deals with: provide an answer that matches your content to the search intent.

Questions and answers spoken out loud?

Google is trying to match a question from a searcher to an answer from a source. If you mark up your questions and answers with FAQ structured data, you tell search engines that this little sentence is a question and that this paragraph is its answer. And all these questions and answers are related to the main topic of the page.

Paragraph-based content is all the rage. One of the reasons? The advent of voice search. Google is looking for easy to understand, block-based content that it can use to answer searchers questions right in the search engine — or by speaking it out loud. Using the Schema property speakable might even speed up this content discovery by determining which part of the content is fit for text-to-speech conversion. Find out more about what’s powering conversational search.

How to build an FAQ page in WordPress via Yoast SEO content blocks

The best way to set up a findable, readable and understandable FAQ page on a WordPress site is by using the Schema structured data content blocks in Yoast SEO. These blocks for the new block editor – formerly known as Gutenberg – make building an FAQ page a piece of cake.

All the generated structured data for the FAQ will be added to the graph Yoast SEO generates for every page. This makes it even easier for search engines to understand your content. Yoast SEO automatically adds the necessary structured data so search engines like Google can do cool stuff with it. But, if nothing else, it might even give you an edge over your competitor. So, let’s get to it!

1. Open WordPress’ new block editor

   Make a page in WordPress, add a title and an introductory paragraph. Now add the FAQ structured data content block. You can find the Yoast SEO structured data content blocks inside the Add Block modal. Scroll all the way down to find them or type ‘FAQ’ or ‘structured data’ in the search bar, which I’ve highlighted in the screenshot below.

2. Add questions and answers

   After you’ve added the FAQ block, you can start to add questions and answers to it. Keep in mind that these questions live inside the FAQ block. It’s advisable to keep the content related to each other so you can keep the page clean and focused. So no throwing in random questions.

3. Keep filling, check and publish

   After adding the first question and answering it well, keep adding the rest of your questions and answers until you’ve filled your FAQ page. In the screenshot below you see some questions filled in. I’ve highlighted two buttons, the Add Image button and the Add Question. These speak for themselves.
   
   Once you are done, you’ll have a well-structured FAQ page with valid structured data. Go to the front-end of your site and check if everything is in order. If not, make the necessary changes.
   
   

A video showing how to use the Yoast 

Individual feature settings pages

 One of the most significant changes in Yoast SEO 20.0 is the new, intuitive layout of all the individual settings pages. Each setting now has a clear and concise explanation, making it easy to understand what it does and how to use it. The new interface also includes insightful links to give you more context on optimizing your website for search engines. This makes it much more user-friendly for those who are new to SEO.

Like a breath of fresh air

Yoast SEO 20.0 is a game changer

Overall, Yoast SEO 20.0 is a major step forward in developing the plugin, and we are confident that it will help you achieve your SEO goals more easily. The new interface is cleaner, more intuitive, and user-friendly. It’s now easier than ever for you to optimize your website for search engines. We are excited for you to start using the new interface and see it for yourself.

Thank you for choosing Yoast SEO. We look forward to helping you improve your website’s rankings with our new, super-modern settings interface. And remember, this is only the beginning!

Do tell us what you think in the comments below!