Tuesday, May 15, 2018
Blockchain | Marketing | Big Data | Business
What Blockchain Could Mean for Marketing
Companies are collecting more data than ever before, and are making significant business decisions based on it. Of the 4 Vs of Big Data (Volume, Velocity, Variety, and Veracity), we have now seen ample evidence of the impact and importance of the first three. A higher “Volume” of data has led to more efficient decision-making in numerous instances, such as in programmatic marketing and in banking. Research has shown how leveraging high “Velocity” data — such as data from mobile devices — has unearthed knowledge that has helped firms better understand their customers. The significant potential of high “Variety” data — data that is unstructured in the form of text, images, videos, and so on — to make better predictions has been documented in numerous academic studies. But what about issues related to the accuracy, reliability, and transparency of the data itself, which basically comprises the fourth V, “Veracity”? In the field of data-driven marketing, an answer to addressing this limitation lies in blockchain technology.
In recent years, a major pain point for brands and advertisers has been the lack of transparency and accountability in being able to ascertain how their ad dollars have been spent. Digital advertising is complex, because ensuring that the media that was purchased was actually delivered as it was intended, is non-trival today. Ad fraud is pervasive, and costs marketers and publishers a significant amount of money. Forrester reports that as much as 56% of all display ad dollars were lost to fraudulent inventory in 2016. And the cost of ad fraud globally is expected to increase to $50 billion over the next decade. A recent study into the state of programmatic advertising revealed that 79% of advertisers surveyed expressed worries about transparency, with over a third regarding the lack of visibility on third parties as one of their key concerns. It’s why we are increasingly hearing that major brands like P&G have cut their ad budgets, because their media agencies failed to give them the transparency they needed.
READ MORE >>
Companies are collecting more data than ever before, and are making significant business decisions based on it. Of the 4 Vs of Big Data (Volume, Velocity, Variety, and Veracity), we have now seen ample evidence of the impact and importance of the first three. A higher “Volume” of data has led to more efficient decision-making in numerous instances, such as in programmatic marketing and in banking. Research has shown how leveraging high “Velocity” data — such as data from mobile devices — has unearthed knowledge that has helped firms better understand their customers. The significant potential of high “Variety” data — data that is unstructured in the form of text, images, videos, and so on — to make better predictions has been documented in numerous academic studies. But what about issues related to the accuracy, reliability, and transparency of the data itself, which basically comprises the fourth V, “Veracity”? In the field of data-driven marketing, an answer to addressing this limitation lies in blockchain technology.
In recent years, a major pain point for brands and advertisers has been the lack of transparency and accountability in being able to ascertain how their ad dollars have been spent. Digital advertising is complex, because ensuring that the media that was purchased was actually delivered as it was intended, is non-trival today. Ad fraud is pervasive, and costs marketers and publishers a significant amount of money. Forrester reports that as much as 56% of all display ad dollars were lost to fraudulent inventory in 2016. And the cost of ad fraud globally is expected to increase to $50 billion over the next decade. A recent study into the state of programmatic advertising revealed that 79% of advertisers surveyed expressed worries about transparency, with over a third regarding the lack of visibility on third parties as one of their key concerns. It’s why we are increasingly hearing that major brands like P&G have cut their ad budgets, because their media agencies failed to give them the transparency they needed.
READ MORE >>
Search Engine Optimization - SEO Strategy
7 Lessons Every SEO Practitioner Needs To Learn
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a fairly forgiving online marketing discipline. It's a long-term strategy, so if you make one mistake, you'll usually have plenty of time to correct it.
On top of that, your search rankings are the sum total of hundreds of variables, so you might be able to safely miss one or two without jeopardizing the effectiveness of your campaign.
However, there are some important lessons every SEO practitioner must learn early on.
1. Don’t try to outsmart Google.
First, understand that you’re never going to outsmart Google. SEO is about understanding Google’s algorithm and working within it to provide better content for your visitors and, hopefully, earn higher organic search rankings in the process. If you try to find loopholes in that algorithm, or rely on “black hat” tactics to inch your way up the rankings, it’s only going to work against you in the long run.
Too many newcomers believe they can get away with tactics like spamming links or stuffing keywords, but it never works for long; Google’s quality indicators have always been good, and they keep getting better, which means even if you get away with a tactic now, you probably won’t get away with it later – and you may find your website with an algorithmic or manual ranking penalty that can be exceptionally difficult to recover from.
2. The same strategy won't work for everyone.
Let’s say you’re working with a single client, and you have everything in order. You’ve picked the right keywords, you’ve developed great content, and you’ve built great links to see fast growth. Now you acquire a new client, with a different brand and a different audience. Do you use the same strategy?
It’s tempting for SEO newcomers to copy and paste the same approach, but this is inadvisable; your clients (or employers) will have different goals with their SEO campaigns, different competitors, keywords, and other variables, and may respond to different variables in strikingly different ways. Learn from your past strategies, and use elements from them in your new campaigns, but avoid trying to replicate any strategy in its entirety.
READ MORE >>
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a fairly forgiving online marketing discipline. It's a long-term strategy, so if you make one mistake, you'll usually have plenty of time to correct it.
On top of that, your search rankings are the sum total of hundreds of variables, so you might be able to safely miss one or two without jeopardizing the effectiveness of your campaign.
However, there are some important lessons every SEO practitioner must learn early on.
1. Don’t try to outsmart Google.
First, understand that you’re never going to outsmart Google. SEO is about understanding Google’s algorithm and working within it to provide better content for your visitors and, hopefully, earn higher organic search rankings in the process. If you try to find loopholes in that algorithm, or rely on “black hat” tactics to inch your way up the rankings, it’s only going to work against you in the long run.
Too many newcomers believe they can get away with tactics like spamming links or stuffing keywords, but it never works for long; Google’s quality indicators have always been good, and they keep getting better, which means even if you get away with a tactic now, you probably won’t get away with it later – and you may find your website with an algorithmic or manual ranking penalty that can be exceptionally difficult to recover from.
2. The same strategy won't work for everyone.
Let’s say you’re working with a single client, and you have everything in order. You’ve picked the right keywords, you’ve developed great content, and you’ve built great links to see fast growth. Now you acquire a new client, with a different brand and a different audience. Do you use the same strategy?
It’s tempting for SEO newcomers to copy and paste the same approach, but this is inadvisable; your clients (or employers) will have different goals with their SEO campaigns, different competitors, keywords, and other variables, and may respond to different variables in strikingly different ways. Learn from your past strategies, and use elements from them in your new campaigns, but avoid trying to replicate any strategy in its entirety.
READ MORE >>
SEO | Social Media Marketing - Google Search
Social Media and SEO are often viewed as mutually exclusive marketing practices.
Sure, your tweets may show up in certain Google searches, but we know that social media links don't figure in SEO link-building (or we'd all rank for everything). Plus, unless someone is searching specifically for your Twitter profile or Facebook page, those social SERP results typically don't convert leads into customers. We also know that SEO efforts don't have the same effect on social algorithms as they do on search engines.
The main difference between SEO and social is that SEO often finds consumers when they're actively looking for something, whereas social posts are incidental, appearing while people are just performing normal social browsing tasks:
There are inherent issues in treating social like SEO and SEO like social. So what's the point in SEO marketers working with social media and community managers and vice versa?
Though it seems they're on two ends of the marketing spectrum, there is quite a bit of overlap that can benefit both sides.
Sure, your tweets may show up in certain Google searches, but we know that social media links don't figure in SEO link-building (or we'd all rank for everything). Plus, unless someone is searching specifically for your Twitter profile or Facebook page, those social SERP results typically don't convert leads into customers. We also know that SEO efforts don't have the same effect on social algorithms as they do on search engines.
The main difference between SEO and social is that SEO often finds consumers when they're actively looking for something, whereas social posts are incidental, appearing while people are just performing normal social browsing tasks:
- If I'm actively looking for an Italian restaurant near me, I'll Google nearby places, click on their Google My Business profiles, read their reviews, and make a choice based on their menus.
- If I'm just casually browsing Facebook, I may see a post from a nearby restaurant, but since I'm not actively looking for it, I could well just pass it by and promptly forget about it—even if I'm actively following that restaurant's page.
There are inherent issues in treating social like SEO and SEO like social. So what's the point in SEO marketers working with social media and community managers and vice versa?
Though it seems they're on two ends of the marketing spectrum, there is quite a bit of overlap that can benefit both sides.
SEO | SEO Tips | Web Hosting
Five hosting factors that can affect the SEO of your website
The web hosting service you use has a major impact on your SEO efforts, and there are some hosting issues that can actually have a significant (negative) effect on your SEO.
So what are these hosting issues that deserve attention? Read on to find out.
1. Slow Website Speed
The website speed is a ranking factor made official by Google; unfortunately, many of us only work on improving the website design without focusing on choosing a fast hosting service. Then there are others who neglect all efforts all together and use redundant scripts, huge images, and third-party elements that load slowly.
That being said, it is crucial to design your website without using too many scripts, such as animations, webfonts, third-party widgets and the like. Beside this, you should also choose a fast hosting service to minimise website loading times. It would be a wise idea to prefer VPS hosting in comparison to shared hosting.
Check your website speed using Google Webmaster Tools and Pingdom Tool’s website speed test.
2. Website Downtimes
Is there something worse than a site that loads at a snail's pace? Yes there is. It’s a site that doesn’t load at all. Website downtimes are almost always related to some issues with the web host. It could be due to the bandwidth limit being exceeded, or the hosting service’s servers going out of order.
Not only does this give a bad impression to your audience, but it also severely affects your search engine rankings. If the downtime continues for a few days, Google removes the website from its index.
Even if the site comes back online before that, it gets flagged as unreliable and gets a ranking well below its previously-secured position.
3. Database Connection Failures
‘Internal Server Error’ is yet another type of error message that can be displayed to your visitors. It can carry a number of meanings; however, as far as WordPress sites are considered, it just means that the database cannot be accessed. In some cases, the error message is more self-explanatory and displays a message ‘Database Connection Failed’.
This results when a database is being accessed by too many users at the same time. For instance, it may be that a video or an article has gone viral on social media and more people are now interested to read or watch it on your website.
A tool is available for WordPress that can be used to cache popular postings on your site so that a connection to the database is no longer necessary. This tool is called WP Super Cache. This, however, is just a temporary fix – eventually, you will have to upgrade your hosting to a dedicated server or consider going for reliable Linux virtual server hosting.
READ MORE >>
The web hosting service you use has a major impact on your SEO efforts, and there are some hosting issues that can actually have a significant (negative) effect on your SEO.
So what are these hosting issues that deserve attention? Read on to find out.
1. Slow Website Speed
The website speed is a ranking factor made official by Google; unfortunately, many of us only work on improving the website design without focusing on choosing a fast hosting service. Then there are others who neglect all efforts all together and use redundant scripts, huge images, and third-party elements that load slowly.
That being said, it is crucial to design your website without using too many scripts, such as animations, webfonts, third-party widgets and the like. Beside this, you should also choose a fast hosting service to minimise website loading times. It would be a wise idea to prefer VPS hosting in comparison to shared hosting.
Check your website speed using Google Webmaster Tools and Pingdom Tool’s website speed test.
2. Website Downtimes
Is there something worse than a site that loads at a snail's pace? Yes there is. It’s a site that doesn’t load at all. Website downtimes are almost always related to some issues with the web host. It could be due to the bandwidth limit being exceeded, or the hosting service’s servers going out of order.
Not only does this give a bad impression to your audience, but it also severely affects your search engine rankings. If the downtime continues for a few days, Google removes the website from its index.
Even if the site comes back online before that, it gets flagged as unreliable and gets a ranking well below its previously-secured position.
3. Database Connection Failures
‘Internal Server Error’ is yet another type of error message that can be displayed to your visitors. It can carry a number of meanings; however, as far as WordPress sites are considered, it just means that the database cannot be accessed. In some cases, the error message is more self-explanatory and displays a message ‘Database Connection Failed’.
This results when a database is being accessed by too many users at the same time. For instance, it may be that a video or an article has gone viral on social media and more people are now interested to read or watch it on your website.
A tool is available for WordPress that can be used to cache popular postings on your site so that a connection to the database is no longer necessary. This tool is called WP Super Cache. This, however, is just a temporary fix – eventually, you will have to upgrade your hosting to a dedicated server or consider going for reliable Linux virtual server hosting.
READ MORE >>
SEO Tips - Increase Website Traffic
How to improve website traffic through latest SEO techniques
Staying on top of search engines is the key need of every business and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) plays a huge role in doing this. Performing a good SEO is not everyone’s cup of tea because it demands a lot of research and the experimentation. You must be knowing that the Google’s algorithms constantly get updated and hence, this demands us to stay in the same page by tuning our businesses with latest SEO techniques so that we don’t diminish with the advancement of technology. This article intends to provide you end-to-end details about how Latest SEO techniques can benefit every business in increasing the website traffic consistently.
For this, we will discuss two important points:
In this digitized and technologically advance era, a good SEO can get you higher ranking in search engines, more traffic in your website, more leads and ultimately more sales as well as a better growth rate. Let’s dive into the very first topic.
How to Improve Relevant Traffic?
In the early days of the digitization, website owners could rank high in search engines by adding a good number of search terms to their respective web pages. But now the Google algorithm is totally changed and it is not possible to fool around by using some simple tricks. This means that SEO is now more crucial as well as complex than just adding the right words to your content.
Staying on top of search engines is the key need of every business and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) plays a huge role in doing this. Performing a good SEO is not everyone’s cup of tea because it demands a lot of research and the experimentation. You must be knowing that the Google’s algorithms constantly get updated and hence, this demands us to stay in the same page by tuning our businesses with latest SEO techniques so that we don’t diminish with the advancement of technology. This article intends to provide you end-to-end details about how Latest SEO techniques can benefit every business in increasing the website traffic consistently.
For this, we will discuss two important points:
- How to improve Relevant Traffic?
- SEO Techniques to Increase the Website Traffic
In this digitized and technologically advance era, a good SEO can get you higher ranking in search engines, more traffic in your website, more leads and ultimately more sales as well as a better growth rate. Let’s dive into the very first topic.
How to Improve Relevant Traffic?
In the early days of the digitization, website owners could rank high in search engines by adding a good number of search terms to their respective web pages. But now the Google algorithm is totally changed and it is not possible to fool around by using some simple tricks. This means that SEO is now more crucial as well as complex than just adding the right words to your content.
Two Most Important Factors in SEO:
- Website Keywords- Incorporating relevant keywords in the title, header tags, body copy, etc. is one of the most basic things that anyone can do. These keywords help your target customers to know what your business or website is all about, it will display page whenever anyone searches relevant topics using those keywords. For this, long-tail keywords, as well as location-based keywords, are important.
- Website Content- Be it your website content, blogs, articles or any other relevant content, make sure that you are using the keyword stuffed content. Quality content should be preferred above the quantity (word count) of the content. Write fresh content, link them internally and keep yourself updated about latest trends.
SEO Tools - Google Search Optimization Tips
6 Free SEO Tools You Should be Using
You don’t need to be an expert marketer to optimize your website and blog posts for search engines. Anyone can quickly learn to take care of website SEO and research for keywords, as long as you have the right tools in your SEO toolkit.
Below are some of the best tools you can use to optimize your blog posts for SEO, analyze your competition, find low-competition keywords, link building, and much more.
If you’re new to search engine optimization, these are the tools that you must have on your side. The best part is they are free to use. Pick your tools and get started on building continuous organic traffic to your website.
1. Yoast SEO
Optimizing a website for search engines requires covering a lot of areas, like writing meta descriptions, inserting the keywords, creating XML sitemaps, and more. Yoast SEO is a free WordPress plugin that makes all these tasks simple.
Using the plugin, you can easily optimize the pages and blog posts for keywords, write meta descriptions, and even improve the readability of your blog posts.
How to use it
After installing Yoast SEO, it will automatically scan your blog posts and give you suggestions on how to optimize them with keywords, how many times you should mention your keywords, and how to enhance readability.
Yoast will also generate an XML sitemap and integrate with Google Search Console for easily managing your site.
2. UberSuggest
How do you find the right keywords to optimize your blog posts? This is a dilemma most bloggers and marketers come across. Sure, you can use Google Keyword Planner to find keywords but it only offers very limited information.
Meet UberSuggest. This tool will help you find the best keywords to rank higher on Google without having to deal with too much competition. UberSuggest will even allow you to search for keywords in Google Search for the web, YouTube, shopping, and images as well.
How to use it
All you have to do is simply enter a keyword or a search phrase into UberSuggest and it will give you a detailed analysis of the keyword instantly.
In addition to finding out the monthly search volume for specific keywords and the difficulty of ranking, the tool will also provide you with a list of keyword suggestions, which will help you find more keywords related to your search.
You don’t need to be an expert marketer to optimize your website and blog posts for search engines. Anyone can quickly learn to take care of website SEO and research for keywords, as long as you have the right tools in your SEO toolkit.
Below are some of the best tools you can use to optimize your blog posts for SEO, analyze your competition, find low-competition keywords, link building, and much more.
If you’re new to search engine optimization, these are the tools that you must have on your side. The best part is they are free to use. Pick your tools and get started on building continuous organic traffic to your website.
1. Yoast SEO
Optimizing a website for search engines requires covering a lot of areas, like writing meta descriptions, inserting the keywords, creating XML sitemaps, and more. Yoast SEO is a free WordPress plugin that makes all these tasks simple.
Using the plugin, you can easily optimize the pages and blog posts for keywords, write meta descriptions, and even improve the readability of your blog posts.
How to use it
After installing Yoast SEO, it will automatically scan your blog posts and give you suggestions on how to optimize them with keywords, how many times you should mention your keywords, and how to enhance readability.
Yoast will also generate an XML sitemap and integrate with Google Search Console for easily managing your site.
2. UberSuggest
How do you find the right keywords to optimize your blog posts? This is a dilemma most bloggers and marketers come across. Sure, you can use Google Keyword Planner to find keywords but it only offers very limited information.
Meet UberSuggest. This tool will help you find the best keywords to rank higher on Google without having to deal with too much competition. UberSuggest will even allow you to search for keywords in Google Search for the web, YouTube, shopping, and images as well.
How to use it
All you have to do is simply enter a keyword or a search phrase into UberSuggest and it will give you a detailed analysis of the keyword instantly.
In addition to finding out the monthly search volume for specific keywords and the difficulty of ranking, the tool will also provide you with a list of keyword suggestions, which will help you find more keywords related to your search.
SEO | Optimize Page Speed - Web Development
How To Optimize Page Speed To Master SEO
Keyword research, engaging content and link building are at the top of everyone’s search engine optimization (SEO) to-do lists, but page speed is an equally important factor that is often overlooked. Marketers shouldn’t lose sight of page speed, as Google has been using it as a determining factor in search results since 2010.
Until recently, these speed factors were only applied to desktop searches. That will no longer be true after Google announced that page speed will be a factor for mobile search results beginning in July.
The following are some basic tools and guidelines to get you started on building a faster website that ranks higher and provides a better user experience for your visitors.
Establish a Baseline.
Before you start improving your page speed, establish a baseline to find out where the biggest opportunities are. Google provides a PageSpeed Insights tool that analyzes webpages and assigns them scores up to 100 for both mobile and desktop. It also suggests optimizations that can improve page load times.
Once a score has been established and opportunities have been identified, progress can be made toward blazing-fast load times.
READ MORE >>
Keyword research, engaging content and link building are at the top of everyone’s search engine optimization (SEO) to-do lists, but page speed is an equally important factor that is often overlooked. Marketers shouldn’t lose sight of page speed, as Google has been using it as a determining factor in search results since 2010.
Until recently, these speed factors were only applied to desktop searches. That will no longer be true after Google announced that page speed will be a factor for mobile search results beginning in July.
The following are some basic tools and guidelines to get you started on building a faster website that ranks higher and provides a better user experience for your visitors.
Establish a Baseline.
Before you start improving your page speed, establish a baseline to find out where the biggest opportunities are. Google provides a PageSpeed Insights tool that analyzes webpages and assigns them scores up to 100 for both mobile and desktop. It also suggests optimizations that can improve page load times.
Once a score has been established and opportunities have been identified, progress can be made toward blazing-fast load times.
READ MORE >>
Sunday, May 6, 2018
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)