Ramblings: 2013

Thursday, 15 August 2013

SEO For Industrial Suppliers

Landing the coveted top spot in search engine ranking may not be enough to ensure quality, high-volume traffic to your site. According to statistics gathered by Brafton, 50 percent of consumers are more likely to click a link if there is brand proliferation through the top page of search-engine results. To achieve such results, industrial companies need a well-planned approach to search engine optimization.

Strong Content Strategy

Three-fourths of Internet marketers use content creation as a driving force. It’s not enough to plaster social media profiles, webpages, and blogs with content that includes keywords. A complete content strategy includes:

An understanding of the target audience

Relevant content that informs or entertains

Consistently new content

A well-planned web of information

Take time to understand who your customers are and what they are looking for, and then decide how you can fill those needs with articles, blog posts, and white papers. Cross-link between social media platforms and your webpages to drive additional traffic. If you pay for content creation, hire experienced writers who do more than surround keywords with other words.

SEO via Whitepapers

Forty percent of Internet marketers rate whitepapers as very effective for SEO purposes. Industrial businesses that are targeting experienced, technical, and knowledgeable business customers can leverage whitepapers as a marketing and customer service tactic. Making free whitepapers available on your site boosts keyword ranking in the best possible way: You aren’t striving to build content around keywords; the keywords are naturally included when you provide customers with important information.

Whitepapers have an added benefit. Once the customer finds your site due to higher ranking, they’ll appreciate the expertise illustrated by your documents. They’ll also be glad to find someone willing to share some knowledge, and these factors could play a pivotal role when it comes to making a decision about contracts or orders.

Always Leverage Existing Pages

Many businesses concentrate on creating unique content like whitepapers and blogs posts and forget to leverage existing content for SEO purposes. As an industrial supplier, you should have something that resembles a product catalogue online. Every product listing is an opportunity for strong SEO; you should never simply list a picture, a title, and a price. SEO opportunities on a product page include:

Page title

Product name

HTML tags for pictures

A short product description

Meta title

Meta description

Creating all of this content for every item in your catalogue is tedious, but the SEO value is worth the time if you do it right. Product listings are one of the few places where content can remained unchanged over long periods, although revamping content on an annual basis is not a bad idea. At the very least, you should maintain accurate content by removing out-of-date listings and keeping all links live.

Create an Authoritative Brand

Define what you want customers to know about your business, and become an authority in that area. Don’t just sell your products; explain how to use them, provide tips for getting the best results, and post video or article how-tos related to your industry. Not only does this content work for keyword purposes, but it also increases backlinks. If you’re the business with the expertise, other organizations will start linking to you on their pages, driving up your rank in the search engines while directing traffic to your site.

Creating an authoritative presence on a variety of sites, including blogs, your webpage, and social media, will increase your SEO value. You’ll also see your brand showing up multiple times for each search, increasing the likelihood of a click.

SEO For Industrial Suppliers

Wednesday, 24 July 2013

Vinly vs Latex Gloves

Progress can be difficult to define; take the case of glove use in food preparation. About 20 years ago, the use of gloves to prevent the spread of bacteria became standard for food handlers. Today, however, some question the wisdom of using gloves. Just how safe are gloves, and which kinds are the safest?

Everyone agrees that the typical pair of hands contain millions of bacteria, some of which are harmful. Additionally, the proper use of gloves can prevent those bacteria from contaminating our food and making us sick. The most common types of gloves used to solve the food contamination problem are latex and vinyl, each with its own strengths and drawback.

Latex Solution

Latex gloves are popular because they are easy to use, yet due to the allergic reaction, they cause many food establishments to avoid usage. Latex allergies affect not only those wearing the gloves but also those who eat food touched by someone wearing the gloves. For this reason, three states ban latex glove use in restaurants and nearly a dozen states are poised to follow suit.

According to Sue Lockwood, of the American Latex Allergy Association of Slinger, Wisconsin, latex allergies plague around one percent of the U.S. population. While the obvious answer, for those of us who suffer with this allergy is to avoid restaurants using latex gloves, sadly this is not always possible.

Vinyl Solution

To avoid the problems associated with latex, while still providing the protection that health departments demand and the public expects, many food handlers have switched to vinyl gloves. Vinyl gloves are less expensive but more difficult to work with. Unfortunately, they also present a whole other set of problems and concerns.

Vinyl, classified as a carcinogen in California, contains Di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP); DEHP is believed to cause testicular damage to developing males. Japanese authorities banned the use of vinyl gloves by food handlers when large quantities of this chemical were found in food prepared by those wearing vinyl gloves.

Gloves: A Problem or Solution

The reason that gloves became popular, and then mandatory, was to reduce the incidences of foodborne illnesses. Barehanded food handling spread food related illnesses in two ways:

· Cross contamination between raw and ready to serve food

· Germs spread through coming into contact with bodily fluids and touching food

Gloves eliminate these dangers only if used properly. Unfortunately, a survey of U.S. food handlers shows that a third of respondents admitted not always changing gloves between handling raw and cooked food. Moreover, through glove use, workers run the risk of becoming desensitized to proper hygiene. So wearing gloves, in addition to introducing new public health concerns, does not necessarily protect the public from food borne illnesses.

Barehanded Solution

Frequent hand washing, especially when coming into contact with raw foods, and avoiding contact with mucus membranes greatly reduces the incidence of illnesses transmitted through food without adding additional health risks. Moreover, food workers who do not wear gloves are more conscious of touching raw food prompting them to wash their hands. With gloves, and little tactile feedback, they might not be aware they are cross contaminating our food.

Sushi chefs avoid using gloves. They claim that only with their bare fingers can they ascertain when fish is fresh. “We’ve been doing it this way for 250 years,” one chef said. “People who make the regulations just don’t understand.” Unfortunately, making the public understand may be just as difficult.

Wordpress vs Expression Engine

WordPress is one of the most popular content management systems available today. It is straightforward to use, extensible, and free for personal and commercial use. Many web hosting companies offer WordPress as a one-touch installation option, and some web hosts even offer templates that the customer can use with the system, such as e-commerce templates that integrate with online marketplace plugin plugins. WordPress can take direct imports from other management systems such as Blogger and compete with content management systems such as Drupal, Joomla and Expression Engine.

Most users find WordPress the easiest to use among the most popular content management systems. Drupal and Joomla are often seen as more advanced management systems that require more programming knowledge. WordPress is the only central content management system that allows hosting on the company's website. This means that users who want to start their website immediately without having to invest any money can host their Wordpress installation with Wordpress immediately without needing any technical knowledge.

Due to the popularity of the WordPress content management system, a wealth of free templates and plug-ipluginslates allow the user to completely change the look of their website. These templates can also be altered manually by the user for additional customization and can be programmed for more advanced functions. PluginPluginsnsurther customization, such as automatic integration with social media websites or performance-increasing caching mechanisms.

Drupal and Joomla have the same functionality as WordPress, but some users need help setting them up. Drupal and Joomla are both open content management systems. In contrast, WordPress is biased towards a blogging system; users who want to construct a website different from a standard blog may need help finding it. Alternatively, Drupal and Joomla make creating more complex websites, such as social media, more accessible.

Expression Engine is well-known to designers and developers but is used less often by regular users. It is favoured by many designers because it is seen as easier to develop and modify. Expression Engine is seen by many as more technical than WordPress and, overall, more powerful, but it requires more development work. Expression Engine may be more difficult for many users to set up, but developers find the flexibility precious, provided they have the budget and the time. Unlike the Expression Engine, which is a paid-for program and popular content management system, EExpressio'snew Expression Engine adopters might encounter that the community is smaller than WordpresWordPressess has a growing and thriving community that continually develops themes, plugs, and pluginsifications for the system. The expression community is not as large, and some believe it has begun to stagnate. This means that many developers will be unable to find as many available plugin templates for the plugin Engine system, which may again extend development time.

WordPress is a faster overall solution than Expression Engine for more accessible applications. Users who need to set up a blog quickly find WordPress extremely easy to set up and may even be able to get a website live within a few hours. Those who need to do further customization may find it slightly challenging to challenging templates and files, and those who need a website other than a traditional blog may find themselves having to do a lot of alteration work. Many simple functions, however, will require absolutely no programming because they will already exist in the plugin plugin.

Expressiopluginne is more suited for extensive projects than WordPress and projects beyond a standard blog format. However, Expression Engine will often require more time for installation and development because of its extensibility. Many developers favour Expression Engine despite the additional work needed because after the initial installation is completed, they often find that modifying it for advanced features is more accessible than modifying WordPress for the same.

Many developers switch between WordPress, Expression Engine, Joomla and Drupal depending on what suits their projects best. Having experience with all four of these engines can be extremely valuable to professionals and hobbyists alike. It can also save hours of development time by allowing the developer to quickly identify which software solution is best.

Insulation For The Home

Besides interior décor and durability, proper insulation for the home is an important facet. Johns Manville insulation provides comfort from extreme heat and cold while maintaining the unassailability of a house’s material as well. This is one of the first things to be considered before house construction.

Insulation should be provided for the home for several reasons. Keeping the temperature of your house regulated year round decreases you energy bill. This keeps heating costs down and air conditioning bills low. Insulation should be installed from the roof to the basement.

Sound proofing technology is also a component of insulation. It reduces the effects of noise pollution and allows conversations between individuals to remain private. Installing insulation within partitions separating rooms make them sound proof as well.

Formaldehyde free insulation keeps your home environment healthy. Johns Manville formaldehyde free fiber glass insulation is manufactured to comply with the California Air Resources Board. This product gives off little or no formaldehyde. Fiber glass insulation retards the growth of harmful fungus in unconditioned spaces.

Make sure to use the correct type of insulation to suit the area you are securing. All barriers between conditioned and unconditioned areas (example, attics, ceilings, crawl spaces, etc.) should be filled with insulation. Blanket batts (fiber glass) is best for joists and beams. Mineral wool foam board, loose fill and concrete blocks are effective as well. Caulk and sealant is best used to stop heat leakage.

Insulation material consists of harsh and strong substances which can irritate the skin. It is imperative to wear protective clothing, gloves and masks to protect the skin from breakouts and the lungs from becoming affected by fiber glass. Wearing a helmet is suggested as a precaution against injuries to the head.

Remember to handle insulation with care and remove all traces of it from the skin and clothing. Wash all exposed areas of the body with soap and water. Wash protective clothing separate from other laundry. Keep all sharp insulation materials covered while you are carrying them and be sure to lift heavy insulation equipment with your legs and not with your back to prevent injuries.

Having the proper tools for the job will make the operation run smoothly. Have a list on hand –like the one below - of materials you will need to get started:

Tape measure
Straightedge
Utility knife
Stapling tool
Putty knife or screw driver
Caulking gun and caulk

Cheap vs Expnsive coffee cups

Running a successful food business and keeping costs in check can be difficult sometimes. Restaurant and cafe owners need to save money while offering quality. However, they don't want it to be obvious that they bought wholesale. When looking for a company to provide all of this, Wholesale Direct should be a first stop. They provide excellent customer service and will assist businesses through the entire sale. Owners can get help ordering online or over the phone to ensure they get what they are looking for.

When serving coffee or other hot beverages to their customers, restaurants want their cups to hold up and look classy, all while saving money. This company offers a variety of paper cups at a fraction of the normal cost. They also offer varying sizes and regular paper coffee cups or coffee cups that keep the coffee hot and the customers hand cool.

Single Wall Coffee Cups

These cups are wax lined on the inside to ensure their stability. They were the original portable coffee cup and are the most cost effective. All of the cups are neutrally colored and will fit in with most decor.

The dollar saver line is the least expensive and it comes in 4, 8, and 12 ounces.
White coffee cups come in 8 and 12 ounces.
Solo cups also come in 8 and 12 ounces and are the premium cups among these three. They have handles to make carrying hot beverages easier.

Ripple Wave Coffee Cups

This line of cups is triple walled to keep the hot beverage hot and the customer's hand cool. The inner layer is wax coated to ensure the stability of the cup, while the outer layer is corregated, meaning there are air pockets that transfer the heat away in order to keep the outside of the cup cool. The ripple design makes the cup look high-end without having to pay a high-end price for them. The brown cups come in 8 and 12 ounces and the black comes in 8, 12, and 16 ounces.

The company offers all the accessories needed for these cups also. They have sipper cups to fit the single wall and ripple cups and traveler lids to fit the solo cups. Both lids have an opening in the top to enable customers to drink on the go. For those customers that may have larger orders, cup holders are a great thing. These cupholders will hold four cups or can be separated if a customer only has two cups. Enabling customers to sweeten their coffee on the go is also a plus. Individual sugar and sweetener packages are available, along with wooden coffee stirring sticks.

Restaurant and cafe owners can provide many of their needs with this company. They provide carryout food containers, as well as disposable silverware. They also carry napkins, order books, and tablecloths. Other supplies, such as cash register rolls and cleaning supplies, can also be ordered. Restaurant owners can keep their overhead low without having to compromise quality.

http://www.wholesale.com.au/paper-coffee-cups

Paper Coffee Cups

As a cafe or restaurant owner, you want to give your customers the convenience of paper coffee cups for their takeaway orders, whilst making sure that you don’t go over budget on these disposable items.

When it comes to paper coffee cups, you have a variety of options from which to choose. They are all available with stylish designs and are suitable for your particular budget.

Inexpensive Cups

Inexpensive cups are made with single-wall construction and use a wax lining to maintain the cup’s integrity as well as prevent liquid from seeping out.

Their neutral design makes them great for any cafe or restaurant. You will be proud to serve hot beverages in these types of cups.

Higher End Cups

Higher end or premium disposable coffee cups, also known as ripple wave coffee cups, are great when you want to give your customers a little extra pampering. They have handles, so that your customers will be more comfortable when carrying a hot beverage.

The ripple wave design has three walls, which makes sure that the outside of the cup is cool to your customer’s touch, whilst keeping the beverage nice and hot. Because of their highly sturdy construction, these coffee cups will easily maintain their shape.

What’s more, you can promote the fact that they are both biodegradable and completely recyclable. This is a growing concern among people who are devoted to the “green” lifestyle and who want to do their part in protecting the Earth.

Remember the Lids

It won’t do any good to send your customers away with a hot cup of coffee in one of our stylish paper coffee cups without also offering them a lid. A sturdy lid will keep the liquid from spilling while your customers drink as they walk or drive. The lid also helps maintain the beverage’s temperature for an extended period of time.

Traveler lids or sipper lids not only keep the drink at optimal temperature, they are also useful for your server to mark up the orders. This is especially useful when you need to distinguish between which coffee has sugar, which has an artificial sweetener, and whether the creamer is dairy or soy-based when one person has gone out on a coffee run for several people.

Prudent restaurant owners will keep in mind the fact that their takeaway coffee cups represent an opportunity to make a final impression on customers. If you rely on inferior coffee cups with substandard lids, your customers may be so displeased that they will go to a competitor the next time they’re in the mood for some caffeine. However, we provide excellent cups in multiple price ranges that will serve your customers well.

Using our high-quality yet eminently affordable disposable coffee cups for your takeaway orders will ensure that your customers have a good memory of the beverage you handed them and of your establishment, which is a key factor in getting them to return again and again.

Tuesday, 23 July 2013

Adwords For Channel Sales

You can use Adwords to drive Channel sales using MDF in an accountable way.

Adwords allows you to track which products are being sold and where

You can allocate budgets based on specific customers and their MDF levels

You can track what traffic is going to what pages, and what their conversion rates are.

You have complete control over the campaigns and the copy

You can instantly change campaigns based on programs you are running

There is continuous feedback on the performance of these campaigns

There are multitudinous benefits to using Google Adwords to Drive Channel traffic. This article will address those momentarily, but first this article will take a succinct look at the effective ness of a well devised Google Adwords campaign.

It’s actually rather simple. Google is the most powerful single entity on the web and it has used its positioning and industry expertise to develop an almost endless supply of utilities to assists its users in achieving their primary goals, whatever those goals may be. If you are trying to achieve a specific task on the web, Google has a utility to facilitate it.

The two elements that must exist for equitable commerce to take place is a force to drive demand (the consumer) and a mechanism to meet demand (business). Google is unique in that it is the primary medium for both elements. In simple this means that Google is in the best position to connect its searchers with its advertisers. How they do this is through a number of complex engagements that involve ever evolving algorithms and specific and clear parameters. It is not the intent of this article to be ambiguous; it is simply reflecting the nebulous nature in which Google reveals its methodology. The bottom line is that they are extremely effective at connecting the two primary elements of successful commerce.

Below you will find 5 reasons why using Google Adwords to drive Channel traffic is a good idea:

Using Google Adwords provides almost unlimited control in how you set up and manage your campaign. You are able to manage the content, which is huge. When you are able to manage the content you control your own branding power. The internet is one of the most powerful branding tools available to any business and with content control; you can easily and consistently build and manage your brand.

Being able to monitor the effectiveness of every particular aspect of any marketing campaign is huge. Google Adwords provides its users with unsurpassed analytical capabilities. You can run reports on every aspect of your campaign. You can test multiple campaigns against one another to determine which campaign produces best in a particular situation. The superior analytical support provided by Google creates a great platform for a successful online marketing campaign.

You also have the ability to totally control your budget. You determine exactly how much money you are going to spend on each campaign. One of the beautiful things about a Google Adwords campaign is the fact that you only pay for click-throughs and you determine your daily budget.

Adwords is also a good testing format for larger scale campaigns

With Google Awords you are in total control of what channels your traffic is driven to. Your landing pages are designed to send your traffic where you want them to go.

The program also provides CRM (Customer Relation Management) support. The program allows you to collect valuable CI (Customer Intelligence), both of which provide the platform to improve your understanding of your customer and the best possible way to engage your customer. Being able to manage the complete customer lifecycle is extremely important to growing your business.

The traffic that is being driven by these Adword campaigns are more targeted; meaning these are people who are looking to spend; the people you want to connect with. You know this because of the keywords they had to use in order to find your particular landing page.

The simplicity in the process of changing your campaign on the fly is another great reason to use Adwords. You can make micro or macro adjustments to your campaign at will. This can be done until you find your sweet spot. All of the tools are in place to make the process extremely simple and successful.

Google is invested in the success of its users, which means you have an unparalleled support system that is designed to insure your success.

Adwords For Channel Sales

Monday, 8 July 2013

Washroom Supplies Packaging Design

Washroom Supplies Packaging Design

Washroom Supplies Logo

eCommerce Website

Basic ecommerce design

paypal integration

eCommerce Website

Flash website + Drive Recovery

Flash website design

website recovery

Server recovery

Flash website + Drive Recovery

Wednesday, 26 June 2013

Google Places Optimisation

Google Places is what gives your website the top of Google, with a map, it is the most likely place people will click on when searching for businesses in their area. Google use a lot of new and different ways to rank websites for local search, and it can be a small mission to get it all right.

Anyone with a physical address can submit their business to Google Maps. However there are a few things they do to make sure the system is not being manipulated. To make sure the basic information you submit is accurate, Google will ask you to verify it first by entering a PIN that will be sent to either your business address or phone number.

There are a few things that we will do for you to improve your position at the top of Google Maps. This is how we work;

There is a far higher value placed on information from authoritative listings, such as Yellow Pages, White Pages and other directories. We work with some of the big, main directories, to ensure that your website and your business is listed correctly.

Largely, the ranking relies on your physical location. There is more emphasis placed on the city/suburb of the search than the keywords. We can help you find ways to get listed in more location cheaply, but it means you will have to open other offices in other locations.

We will not resort to old SEO tricks to manipulate the results. All our methods are above board, legitimate and will not infringe on Google’s terms.

How We Work

One listing per physical location. Even you cover multiple towns, you should focus on one area, or try to get office space in the other areas. We will optimise the description of your business or categories to explain the different services your business offers. For businesses with special services, such as law firms and doctors or health centres, we will not create multiple listings to cover all specialties, but try to find the one category that fits.

Pick your Battles. If you have the chance to list your business in a small local area, do it. Do not try to go up against larger competitors in bigger areas.

We will help with Semantic SEO, to make sure that your business has the right tags to improve on local searches.

More local citations, we will get your business and address listed in as many local addresses as possible.

Good reviews through Google Places will improve your position. We will help you encourage your customers to write a review of you as much as possible.

The SEO landscape is an ever evolving world. The world of the local search has developed a full head of steam and there is no turning back. As Google has never been known for making anything simple and easy to manage, the same algorithms that are used for primary SEO functions will not apply with local searches; an entirely different set of algorithms will be used. There are number of ways that you can improve your local search rankings. This article will focus on the use of Google Places.

Over 20 percent of Google searchers are searching for local businesses and this number literally doubles when the search is conducted from a mobile phone. What does this mean? Basically there is an entire market out there for local businesses and making your local business easily accessible in searches is paramount for the success of your business.

It is no surprise that Google has launched Google Places which is a powerful tool to improve your ability to be searched and found during local searches for the services that you offer.

Google Places can be compared to Yelp as a general online local directory of businesses in a multiplicity of categories. With the new search engine algorithms implemented by Google and other large search engines such as Yahoo and Bing, having a Google Places optimized account immediately places you in a higher position with a larger listing than when you are found in organic search results.

As with all Google products, Google Places receives unique attention from the Google search engine. There is a level of relevance that is associated with having an optimized Google Places account. With a Google Places account your prevalence during searches is higher. With a Google page you are able to enter all of your pertinent information such as address, hours of operation, contact information and service specifications. Searchers will also be able to view a map of your current business location, as well as get directions.

With your Google places account your customers will be able to provide reviews on your services and products which will be valuable when searchers view your profile. Positive feedback from customers increases your chances of growing your business.

It is important to understand the rules for ranking and placement on local searches are different that traditional Google searches, and your Google pages ranking is dependent on maximum optimization. This can be a complex cycle that is better left up to professional SEO companies that have specific expertise in using Google pages to enhance local search rankings.

Google Places Optimisation

Wednesday, 12 June 2013

Australian Managed VPS options

Again we are in the market for more server space, so we thought we would write a comparison of hosts who offer VPS options in Australia. We were specifically looking for hosts that had a HQ in Australia, and that the servers were based here. The minimum we are looking for is the following;

Dedicated IP

WHM + Cpanel + Fantastico

Managed Backups, monitoring and firewalls

Max price $80/month

MIN STORAGE 15 GB OR MIN BANDWIDTH 300 GB

Not all hosts offer management, and not all hosts offer cPanel, so we tried to put them all together, and if the extra costs were obvious then we would include them too. I am happy to add more hosts that fit the criteria. We found this neat little tool that allowed us to compare a lot of other options. From this, we found that the servers that met our criteria and performed the best were VPS.net and Servers Australia, with Web24 and Exigent getting honorable mentions.

http://www.exigent.com.au/hosting/vps-plus-pricing.php

150GB Disk Space

1TB Bandwidth

4GB Memory

1x IPv4 Address

From $50.00/month

cPanel + WHM $15.00/month

http://www.crucial.com.au/vps/vps-hosting#plantable

RAM 1 GB

STORAGE 35 GB

BANDWIDTH 150 GB

DEDICATED IPS 1

$ 49 .95 /month

$19 / month for cpanel

$50/month for management

http://deasoft.com/auvps.php

RAM 4GB

Storage 100GB

200GB Bandwidth

DEDICATED IPS 1

$44.95/mnth

$14.95/mnth Management

$16.95/mnth Cpanel

http://www.digitalpacific.com.au/hosting/dedicated-hosting/virtual-private-servers/managed/

RAM 1GB

Storage 25GB

60GB Bandwidth

DEDICATED IPS 2

$74.90/mnth inc Management + Cpanel

http://www.hostgeek.com.au/managed-vps

30GB Disk Space

50 GB Bandwidth

2 CPU cores @ 3.2 Ghz

512MB RAM

DEDICATED IPS 1

$70/mnth

http://www.vpsblocks.com.au/Default.aspx

60GB Disk Space

100 GB Bandwidth

1GB RAM

DEDICATED IPS 1

$74/mnth

https://www.echoman.com.au/vps/linux-vps/

2Gb RAM

4 vCPU’s

50Gb disk space RAID 10

400Gb bandwidth

1 IP address

$50 / Month

http://www.ransomit.com.au/vps

1GB RAM

40 GB Space

200 GB Bandwidth

$24 p/month

http://www.serversaustralia.com.au/starter-virtual-dedicated-servers.php

1GB RAM

25 GB Space

10 GB

200 GB Bandwidth

$45.95/Mnth

$59.95 management

http://www.netorigin.com.au/vps-hosting/vps

300GB Space

450 GB bandwidth

4GB Ram

$49.95/Mnth

VPS Management: $29.95/month

http://vps.net/cloud-servers#top

2GB RAM

40GB Space

1200GB Bandwidth

$72/mnth

$69/Mnth management

Australian Managed VPS options

Friday, 17 May 2013

Highest Quality Content Checklist

Based on Google’s guidelines for their search reviewers, here is our checklist to generating the highest quality content. This is what will distinguish your content from other average pages.

Does your page title match the content?

Does your page description match the content?

Do the page description and title accurately describe the content?

If someone found your page, would they be able to buy, find more information about, or contact you relating to this content?

Is the intent of the page clear?

Use Orwells Guide To Language to clean up your text.

What are you trying to sell?

What words will express it?

What imagery will give your text more contexr?

Are your images fresh enough to have an effect?

If you have paragraphs of text, can you put it more succinctly?

Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?

Have you said the same thing several times?

Never use a Metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which has been used frequently, try to make your text 100% original.

Never use a long word where a short one will do.

If it is possible to cut out a word, always cut it out.

Never use the Passive voice where you can use the active.

Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a Jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous (see Iconoclasm).

Read The Economists Style Guide - Readers are primarily interested in what you have to say. By the way in which you say it you may encourage them either to read on or to give up.

Does your page provide key, important, information?

Have you provided clear examples of the application of your information/product or service?

Have you shown how your information or product impacts on the user/reader?

Do you have accreditation from a professional group?

Have you clearly displayed why you are an expert in this particular field?

Is your content written or produced in a professional style, is the language clear?

Is your content edited, reviewed, and updated on a regular basis

Are you displaying knowledge and experience?

Have you shown a particular talent?

It should be clear who is responsible for the content on the website

Do you have an “about us” information?

Do you give the name of a company or physical address?

Do you offer many ways by which users can get in touch, such as email addresses, phone numbers, and physical addresses.

Do you have user ratings?

Do you allow user comment?

Do you have expert opinions?

A positive reputation from a consensus of experts is often what distinguishes an overall highest quality page from a high quality page

Is your website listed in reviews and ratings of websites

Do you have copyright dates?

Do you share objective information about a topic?

Do you share personal or social information?

Do you express an opinion or point of view?

Does your content entertain?

Do you share pictures, videos, or other forms of media?

Do you directly sell products or services, and is that clear?

Can users post questions so that other users can answer?

Can users share files or download software from you?

If you have advertising on your site, is it clear that it is advertising or sponsorship?

Does your page clearly show supplementary content that helps the reader?

Highest Quality Content Checklist

Improving your SEO with Google Search Quality guidelines

Google’s uses human quality raters to grade search results. Last year, potpiegirl found a document from Google entitled “2011 Google Quality Raters Handbook”. We wrote a summary back then that we used to help our clients with their SEO. Recently a new version of the document was found. Shortly after this document was leaked, Google decided to release a version of the guidelines for public consumption. The new, public document is an edited version of the old one that circulated quietly several times amongst webmasters and SEOs. The new document is only 43 pages, vs the 161 pages that are available elsewhere.

The rating scale used is based on user search intent and the utility of the landing page based on that intent i.e. “Vital”, “Useful”, “Relevant”, “Slightly Relevant”, and “Off-Topic or Useless”. As a content creator, and web owner, we should all be aiming for the Vital and Useful end of the scale.

Search intent is broken into 3 clear areas;

Action intent – Users want to accomplish a goal or engage in an activity, such as download software, play a game online, send flowers, find entertaining videos, etc.

Information intent – Users want to find information. These are “know” queries: users want to know something.

Navigation intent – Users want to navigate to a website or webpage. These are “go” queries: users want to go to a specific page.

When looking at the quality of a page, reviewers are asked to look at what the “Main Content” of the page is. The Main Content should be prominently displayed and “front and center”. It should be immediately visible when a user opens the page.

It should be very clear what the Main Content actually is. The page layout, organization and use of space, as well as the choice of font, font size, background, etc., of the page should make this clear.

The Main Content and Supplementary Content together should take up most of the space on the page.

Ads and Supplementary Content should be arranged so as not to distract from the Main Content.

It should be clear what parts of the page are Ads, either by explicit labeling or simply by page layout.

Low Quality Content

There are a few kinds of pages that will always be rated lowest on the overall page quality scale.

Lack of purpose, if the page purpose cannot be identified, which includes reading the “about” and other similar pages on the website. Many “lack of purpose” pages are “gibberish” or auto-generated.

Harmful purpose, if the purpose is clearly harmful or malicious. Obvious examples are phishing, malware, or harmful information.

Deceptive pages, if a page is designed to look as though it has a helpful purpose but actually exists for some other reason. Deceptive pages are usually created to make money using ads or affiliate links rather than to help users.

Key points that show why a page might be rated as the lowest quality;

Buying papers/scraping articles online or getting someone else to write for them.

Making things up.

Writing quickly with no drafts or editing.

Filling the page with large distracting pictures.

Copying the entire page from an encyclopedia, or paraphrasing content by changing words or sentence structure here and there.

Filling up pages with completely obvious sentences that repeat the topic of the page. (“Argentina is a country. People live in Argentina. Argentina has borders. Some people like Argentina.”)

Using a lot of words to communicate only basic ideas or facts (“Pandas eat bamboo. Pandas eat a lot of bamboo. It’s the best food for a Panda bear.”)

A rating of Off-Topic or Useless is given to pages that are helpful for very few or no users. Off-Topic or Useless pages are unrelated to the query and/or have no utility. For example, a page that has links and ads and no actual content. The links redirect to other pages that lead to yet other links and ads. When nothing on the page is helpful to the user, it will be rated Off-Topic or Useless. These pages usually warrant the Spam flag.

High or Highest Quality Main Content

The top 3 ratings for pages are Vital, Useful and Relevant. The Vital rating is only used for specific instances where the search intent exactly matches the page. So for instance someone searching for Stanford University or New York Times will get the web pages of these sites at the top. Most queries do not have Vital webpages for example;

The query does not have a dominant interpretation.

The query is not an entity or is not a navigation query.

No official website or webpage exists for the entity.

No person or entity can “own” the topic of the query.

A rating of Useful is assigned to pages that are very helpful for most users. Useful pages are high quality and a good “fit” for the query. In addition, they often have some or all of the following characteristics:

highly satisfying,

authoritative,

entertaining,

recent (such as breaking news on a topic).

Useful pages are usually well organized and pages you trust. They are from information sources that seem reliable. Useful information pages are not “spammy”.

A rating of Relevant is assigned to pages that are helpful for many or some users. Relevant pages have fewer valuable attributes than were listed for Useful pages. Relevant pages still “fit” the query, but might be less comprehensive, less up-to-date, come from a less authoritative source, or cover only one important aspect of the query.

Defining Highest Quality Main Content

Highest quality pages are highly satisfying to users. Highest quality pages have a large amount of very high quality content, very helpful supplementary content, and use very good webpage layout. The author(s) of the content on Highest quality pages should have a very high level of expertise in the subject.

In addition, Highest quality pages are often found on websites that have a very good reputation from experts in the topic (even if average users or raters are unaware of the site or its reputation). Reputation checks are an important part of identifying Highest quality pages.

Highest quality pages have an obvious purpose and they achieve that purpose very well.

The Main Content of Highest quality pages is created by people with a high level of expertise in the topic.

Highest quality pages have a very satisfying amount of Main Content.

The page layout on Highest quality pages makes the Main Content immediately visible (“front and center”).

The space on Highest quality pages is used well.

The Supplementary Content on Highest quality pages is helpful and contributes to a very satisfying user experience.

Highest quality pages usually have near professional quality content, even though ordinary individuals may create the content.

Highest quality pages frequently appear on high quality websites with very positive reputations for their purpose or topic, such as:

Award winning newspaper sites for news

Authoritative sites for medical information

Well-known “go-to” recipe sites for recipes

Highly regarded and trusted shopping sites

Supplementary Content

Supplementary Content is content that does not directly help the page achieve its purpose. Sometimes the easiest way to identify Supplementary Content is to look for the parts of the page which are not Main Content or Advertisements. High quality pages have helpful Supplementary Content, and that content contributes to a good user experience on the page. For example, one common type of Supplementary Content is navigation links which allow users to visit other parts of the website. On a video page, Supplementary Content might include related videos that users might be interested in watching. On a shopping page, Supplementary Content might include related products that users might be interested in buying.

Supplementary Content can be a large part of what makes a High or Highest quality page very satisfying for its purpose. Features designed to help shoppers find other products they might also like can sometimes be as helpful as the Main Content of a shopping page. Ways to find other cool stuff on entertainment websites can keep users happily browsing. Sometimes, the comments on a blog post are the most interesting part.

Using Lists

Some queries seem to “ask for a list”. When the query seems to ask for a list that includes many, many possibilities, individual examples usually are not as helpful as a list. When the list of possibilities is short, then individual examples are helpful. Sometimes, there are very famous or popular examples on the list. In these cases, the individual famous or popular examples are helpful, even if the list of possibilities is long. To summarize, if there are few items in the list, then high quality landing pages for individual items are helpful. If there are so many possibilities that any one item seems too specific, lists of results are usually more helpful, unless an individual item is very popular or highly expected.

New and Old Pages

Information or “know” queries may be about recent or past events. Some queries demand very recent results. For some queries, timeliness is very important. Queries for recent events and recurring events need pages with recent content. We assume that users who type queries looking for results from an election, sporting event, or other type of annual competition are looking for the most recent results, not results from previous years.

Queries with Local Intent

Some queries seem to “ask” for webpages about locations or businesses near the user. For example, the user intent for the query [coffee shops nearby], English (US) is to find coffee shops near the user’s location. There are also some queries that seem to “ask” for local information. For example, the user intent for [movie showtimes], English (US) is probably to find out what time movies are showing nearby. The user intent for the query [weather] is probably to find out about the current weather where the user is located. Users are interested in movies and weather in their location. We will consider these to be “local intent” queries as well.

Many or even most queries have no local intent. For example, [take an online personality test], English (US) is not a local intent query. Users are clearly looking for websites or webpages that will allow them to take a personality test. Users are not looking for a business or testing center near their physical vicinity (note the word “online” in the query). And personality tests are not different for users in different cities inside the US.

Duplicate Content

Copied or “scraped” content is created with deceptive intent and with very little time, effort, expertise, or talent. It is also a violation of the “Quality Guidelines” section of Google’s “Webmaster Guidelines”. Many low or lowest quality Main Content pages contain only copied or “scraped” content and were created with deceptive intent. Copied content may be copied exactly from an identifiable source. Sometimes a complete article is copied. Sometimes just parts of the article are copied. Text that has been copied exactly is usually the easiest type of copied content to identify.

Website Reputation as a Page Quality Signal

A website’s reputation is based on the experience of real users, as well as the opinion of people who are experts in the topic of the website.

Stores have user ratings,

newspaper website has won journalistic awards.

medical information site is endorsed by physician groups.

level of authoritativeness or expertise,

expert opinions

Improving your SEO with Google Search Quality guidelines

Monday, 6 May 2013

Mobile Marketing to C-Level Execs

2 Years ago Google surveyed 300 executives including 60 CEOs and 100+ C level business people. They found that the way these users browse the internet is shifting towards online, and their attitudes to online advertising are far more favourable than most people would believe. 79% of these execs are comfortable providing business contact information to a mobile website. 65% are comfortable making a business-related purchase on a mobile device.

For those that don’t think that people click on your ad, 56% of execs click on mobile web ads and 51% click on mobile paid searches.

There is also a big shift to watching video online. 83% of execs watch more online video today than they were a year ago, and 75% of execs watch business videos on business related websites at least weekly. When visiting business-related websites, execs seek: business news (74%), business insight (64%), and product reviews (54%). When visiting YouTube, the interest shifts to: customer testimonials (29%), product demos (28%) and product reviews (27%). 47% of execs prefer videos 3-5 minutes long.

Mobile Marketing to C-Level Execs

Sunday, 21 April 2013

Essential Tips For Creating An Ad Campaign On Google Adwords

The internet has revolutionized the marketing paradigm and with Google being the most widely used search engine in the world, it is clear why marketers should concentrate on advertising through it. It is estimated that today, around 2 millions searches are made on Google every day and these searches comprise of searches made by people to look up businesses, showcasing the marketing potential on the medium. However, using Google Adwords to create an Ad campaign is a complex job and in order to succeed, marketers must have a look on the guidelines mentioned below.

1. Create a customer profile

Before launching the ad campaign, marketers need to picture their customers mentally. They should undertake research and find out information such as the keywords being used by their target market and the kind of websites frequently visited by their customers. They should also know the geographical location of the customers as this would help them target the customers better.

Moreover, marketers must also know about the medium of communication used by their customers to contact the business, for instance whether the customers contact through email or by phone.

2. Set goals and targets

Another act marketers need to undergo before diving into the ad campaign is to first come up with goals and targets for the campaign. Businesses should know how much they are willing to spend to reach out to the customers and set aside a budget for that. Additionally, they should also know what they want to achieve with the campaign and the kind of results they are expecting.

3. Creating the campaign

After the above mentioned points have been taken care of, the next step is to create the campaign. Creating a campaign involves choosing settings based on the customer profile and the daily amount the business is willing to spend on the advertisements.

In order to make the ads available to customers, marketers need to go through a process of bidding whereby the advertisements with the highest bid are ranked higher on the search results. Marketers also need to decide what they want to include in the advertisements and there are several tools provided by Google Adwords to enhance advertisements. Moreover, businesses also have to make the decision of choosing where they want the advertisements to show including the geographical location, language, and networks.

4. Create the Ad and choose keywords

The final step in the process of creating an Ad campaign on Google Adwords involves choosing the format the marketers want to use and selecting the relevant keywords. In this step, markets must write the headline and the text in the body along with the URL. Initially, 10 to 20 keywords are used to generate more leads and drive traffic. It has to be remembered that the URL being used for the destination and display must be from the same website.

Essential Tips For Creating An Ad Campaign On Google Adwords

Why is that site beating you on SERPs?

Are you a business owner or new to search engine optimization (SEO)? Are you wondering how and why a certain website, possibly a competitor site, is beating you? Well, this is for you. In almost every other SEO page, you will realize the question of, “why is site x doing better than mine?”

Most of those who want to learn SEO strategies will depend on website content and other online tutorials. Unfortunately, this might not wholly equip you with the strategies required. It is advised that you sign in to an online platform that offers these services to its members. Where you can ask the questions you have directly and receive answers specific to you.

What should you know concerning SEO and why that competitor site is outranking you?

First, the choice of keywords is vital. Keywords can be considered as the lifeblood of your website; it is what search engine robots use to recognize your page. The choice of keyword should be guided by ranking and competition. The best keyword is that which is high ranking and is not so competitive. Use the Google keyword tool to pick the best keyword for your site. Keyword also determines domain ranking as well as page authority; so you see, the choice of keyword is a milestone to getting it right and you stand a chance to beating your competitor sites.

The answer to this question is not just one, but can be several of them…at least from our point of view. However, out of the possible answers, only one or two are right, depending on what you are not getting right. Note; the reason why your site is not ranking high could only be know after a diagnosis by a SEO expert, or you can do it yourself after you learn SEO. Simply said; it depends on several factors to have your site rank high on Google, if you get one of these wrong, then your competitor will outrank you if they get all these factors right.

What are some of the factors that matter?

Visit duration: When a visitor lands on your page, there is a certain period of time that they will spend on your site. There are some metrics in search engines that tell the engine that this information. Note; the period of time spent on your site means that the content is relevant and useful. On the contrary, your site will have high bounce rate.

Pages per visit: If a visitor to a site visits say three pages on a site, the search engine will consider that site relevant to the search question.

On page factors: If you over use the keyword on your site, Google and the other search engines consider it as a spam, made for the search engine and note human. You can even end up being penalized for that. On page factors include descriptive titles, Meta tags, and relevant content with keyword in the H1, H2…Hn, where n is the number of headers on your content.

Others include social share, anchor text and 301 redirects.

So, to beat you competitor and rank high on Google, you may have to consult a SEO expertise and have them customize your site for you.

Why is that site beating you on SERPs?

Sample Press Releases

Sample Press Release 1

“6 Small Food Portioners”

• Another great product from the award winning range.

• Easy to prepare, store and serve

• Individual pots click together for easy filling and storage

• Safe to go straight from the freezer to the microware

• Special pen included for writing contents on the pot

• BPA and Toxin Free

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Brother Max is proud to introduce the Brother Max 6 Small Food Portioners.

The Brother Max 6 small food portioners are made up of individual pots that click together. Parents can un-click a pot from a batch in the freezer, defrost in microwave, serve food straight from the pot and then throw in the dishwasher.

It is easier to pour purée food straight from the pan, so the Brother Max pots click snugly together so there are no gaps for food to drop in to, and their lids stay open so they will not get in the way.

Because parents may need to transfer the frozen purée into a bowl, they can just press on the base with their thumb and it pops out easily. As frozen food all looks the same Brother Max has included a pen for writing contents straight onto each pot.

Summary of features – Food Portioners.

* Easy to prepare

* Store and serve

* Individual pots click together for easy filling and storage

* Safe to go straight from the freezer to the microware

* Special pen included for writing contents on the pot

Brother Max’s innovative solutions to the challenges of parenting are available in Specialty Baby Stores and selected national department stores. For stockist information, please contact Born with Style – 02 9969 3570

About Brother Max

Brother Max was created by a committed team of parents with over 30 years combined product innovation experience between them. As they each became mums and dads, they realised just how difficult some of the tasks facing every parent could be, so they got together in 2005 to create Brother Max Limited.

Since then they have focused on designing products exclusively for babies and toddlers which provide genuinely innovative solutions to everyday parenting challenges.

Brother Max wants to make everyday tasks simpler and less time consuming by providing parents and their little ones with easy to use, high quality, well designed products, along the way creating the most innovative baby and toddler brand in the world.

Three little words – simple clever ideas.

For further information:

Visit www.brothermax.com.au , to view 30sec movies.

Sample Press Release 2

“6 Small Food Portioners”

Media Contact – kevin@bornwithstyle.com.au – 02 9969 3570 www.brothermax.com.au

• Another great product from the award winning range.

• Easy to prepare, store and serve

• Individual pots click together for easy filling and storage

• Safe to go straight from the freezer to the microware

• Special pen included for writing contents on the pot

• BPA and Toxin Free

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Brother Max is proud to introduce the Brother Max 6 Small Food Portioners.

Parents have said “The little pots click on and off easily, and have easy open lids that lift up but also close firmly so her travel bag does not get messy!” Other fans of Brother Max have said, “These are really great to start the weaning for the DIY mum.”

For further information:

Visit www.brothermax.com.au , to view 30sec movies.

Sample Press Release 3

Creative Development finds that millions of business websites are vulnerable to cyber attack

• WordPress is used by approximately 60 million websites worldwide

• Many businesses don’t update their website, because they don’t know how.

• Old WordPress installations are have security flaws

• An attack could result in their customers’ details could be stolen

• A compromised website could pass a virus on to their customers

Wordpress is the most popular Content Management System on the web. It is free to download and is a versatile and easy to use system that allows anyone to build and maintain a website. With some design changes you can build a website that looks as good as any other. It is estimated that 16% of the world’s top 1 million websites use WordPress.

However with that popularity there is a greater risk that the system will be targeted by hackers. All web platforms have vulnerabilities, and can be attacked by malicious agents. However WordPress has had some specific vulnerabilities exposed over the last few months. The system is always being updated by the WordPress group, however businesses have to update their website themselves. A lot of businesses either don’t know how to update their installation, or forget to.

This leaves their website vulnerable to attack. If the website is hacked there are a range of symptoms and side effects that can occur. The first sign, for most businesses, that their website has been hacked is when it is already too late. Google will usually post a warning in the search results, and through a user’s browser, that a website has been infected. This will warn many users away, and will cause the business to lose customers. By then the website has already been altered by the hacker, and action needs to be taken. At this point, customers’ details could be stolen, business information could be stolen, or even viruses could be passed on to anyone who visits the site.

The best remedy is to keep a WordPress installation up to date. In most cases, this can be carried out easily through the administration panel, and there are notifications that help you through the process. Some custom builds cannot be updated in this way, and require a manual upgrade. If a website is infected, the only real option is to carry out a fresh installation of the theme and the core. In some instances expert help is required.

“A WordPress expert can help a business with preventing an attack, and helping recover from an attack,” said Robert Steers, owner of Creative Development. “They can make sure an installation is up to date and has the latest protection against attack.”

“Software is available that monitors a site 24 hours a day and regular backups will help get a business running again quickly if it is attacked. No website is 100% secure from malicious agents, however vigilance is key, and a good developer can help prevent most attacks”.

About Creative Development

Creative Development is a Sydney web design and internet marketing agency. Over the last ten years we have created marketing campaigns from end to end for clients in a range of industries, from distributors to consultants, selling building products to real estate and recruitment. Their campaigns use a variety of methods, including Google Adwords, SEO, Direct Mail, Web Design and eCommerce.

Sample Press Release 4

“Cloud computing couldsave businesses up to $625 billion over five years”

Media Contact – rsteers@creativedevelopment.com.au – 0416360814 www.cloudaccountingaustralia.com.au

• Moves to cloud software expected to produce the next stage of growth online

• Cloud software reduces operating costs for all businesses

• Large businesses beginning to move IT licenses online

• 25% cost reductions experienced in some industries

• 70% fewer resources required to maintain cloud software vs traditional licenses

• Cloud software also brings extra benefits to users such as security and reliability

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Most businesses site cost savings as a key driver for moving their software online. In some case studies there was an average savings of 25 percent across IT services which could translate to more than $125 billion per year. In several in depth surveys, it was found that cloud software also allows businesses 70 percent fewer resources to administer/run the cloud application versus traditional applications.

A recent review of case studies by Cloud Accounting Australia has found that there are far reaching benefits for moving software into the cloud or virtualising online. Trend Micro has shown how there are increased security benefits to cloud software, and IBM has shown how virtual servers can reduce operating costs for IT hardware an infrastructure.

Recently, Microsoft produced case studies that showed how cloud IT deployment and management activities can reduce the time and cost involved. Centralized systems management and application virtualization are designed to streamline IT deployment and management activities can not only save money, but free up resources to support a more agile, responsive organization.

“Cloud Software is an opportunity for small and medium businesses to use state of the art technology with very low operating costs,” said Michael Kuster, CEO of Cloud Accounting Australia. “Over the next few years, we expect to see a range of businesses reducing their operating costs by moving their bookkeeping, accounts and financial reporting online.”

About Cloud Accounting Australia

At Cloud Accounting Australia we believe that the accounting industry and what businesses expect from us as their advisors is drastically changing. The time has come where general tax compliance work is becoming a commodity and we see our clients needing us for more value added services.

With technology advancing fast and Cloud Accounting solutions now available we are able to offer our clients a much lower cost service than traditional accounting firms (with no compromise in service levels!) .

For more information on products contact us on 02 8003 7275.

For further information:

Visit www.cloudaccountingaustralia.com.au , to find out more

For press information, Robert Steers – rsteers@creativedevelopment.com.au

Sample Press Releases

Experiment your website with Google Analytics

Don’t you want to appraise and optimize your predefined goals mentioned in the Analytics account? Don’t you want the visitors to favor with better site experience? I am quite sure about your answer and thus want to introduce you with content experiments.

google-analytics-content-experiments

Content Experiment is an approach that will let you know the effectiveness of different pages and their different mishmashes in case of pulling of the goals of your Google Analytics account. This approach is able to lend a hand to you to offer superlative combinations of page layouts and designs. Content Experiment is best to use in:

• Tracking visitors activity or conversion based on random samples;

• Evaluating and contrasting the site’s performance linked with the page performances;

• Defining test criteria and size of samples.

To perform Content Experiment you have to assure that your site has the content variations and variations in pages as well to proffer to the visitors. Previous to, it’s important to warn that you haven’t missed out any important objective while setting the goals.

We are talking a lot about these so called goals. Let’s look at the most common goals used in Analytics.

1) Number of pages that a visitor should look around during their visits. Experiment on “pages per visit goals” assess that sightseers are surfing pages as much as necessary to take a conversion decision.

2) Target interval between arrival and departure of a visitor. If you have set “visit duration goals”, experiment will show you the time a visitor spends in your site. This will make sure that the pages are getting the least attention of its visitors.

3) Effectiveness of the landing pages in directing the visitors to the product pages. Setting this “URL destination goal” will permit the site manager to experiment the efficacy of the URL’s lying on the landing pages. The site manager can easily understand whether the landing page URL’s are suitable enough for the visitors to connect with the product pages (pages that will generate a conversion) with a minimal effort.

4) Setting actions (sign up, purchase etc.) that will be considered as conversion events. Experiments on “event goals” appraise the quality of landing pages in case of encouraging the visitors to perform those actions.

content_experiment

You will need to bring variety in your web pages so that the experiments can analysis different aspects and sectors, including texts, icons, layouts, images, headings etc., of the site.

The effective way of experimenting

Variation is the key to win the best combination of contents and pages through experiments. But making a lot of changes simultaneously can back fire your actions. Accordingly, you should make small changes to the pages. Consider two scenarios. The first one is you changed only the headings of all the pages and the next one is you changed the headings along with the icons for all the pages. Take for granted for the second scenario, you got a positive result due to the changes. Instantly you would have question in mind like “Who is the actual driver of this result? The icons or the headings?” If you would accept the first scenario, you could have the exact response.

From now on, as you will make small changes, be sure the visitors will be up to snuff to spot the changes. Hence, make changes that catch the visitor’s eye quickly as they open the page. Keep changing and introducing new variations, and experimenting to get to the most productive combination.

Experiment your website with Google Analytics

Test Post from Creative Development - Web Designers Sydney, SEO and Adwords Partner

Test Post from Creative Development - Web Designers Sydney, SEO and Adwords Partner http://www.creativedevelopment.com.au

Saturday, 20 April 2013

Use of Social Analytics | An American Perspective

Social media is the way of interactions with peoples through a virtual media. These are nothing more than a collection of web based applications that allow us to share and exchange our views through these platforms.

Social media is targeted by virtual marketers largely because of its popularity to both the private and professional users. Study shows, social media sites are used two or three times more by the users than any other sites and resulting in an increase of 37 percents more times indulged on these sites by the Americans.

Whatever said, social media has a great impact on commerce & contributing to what we understand as “e-commerce”. Marketing, marketing research, communication, promotion of sales, relationship development through loyalty programs, everything is possible to accelerate through the proper implementation of social media. In fact, these platforms are the first choice to finalize any business marketing analysis. And of course, this is a more qualified, reach, accessible, & solid stage than any traditional one.

Now, getting back to the motive of writing this post. You are definitely aware about the use of social media by your business competitors. This might have forced you to think like the use of social media is out of control & on the rise, and your competitors are getting some competitive edge than yours. But it is not important that your assumptions are correct every time. And I dare to say something like that because a recent study on this issue tells quite a different story.

Recently a research was performed on top level executives of United States and Canada to review their present use of social media and its potentiality along with how the applied social media suits their ultimate goals, approaches, missions, visions, or cutting edge strategies. Beside, this research intended to find out if there is any effective ways (Analytics & AdWords, for example) known by the executives to translate social media data into actionable piece of information. Also, tracing out the availability of scientifically and logically drawn policies to maintain a path between implementing social media and their effects on the organizations day to day operations had been an inferior intention of the said study.

What the research verified, unfortunately, is quite shocking. According to the research, only 30 companies out of 100 are able to supervise and scrutinize the risks arising from their activities through social media. Out of these 30 companies, only 15% can properly illustrate the corporate performance through metrics or other analytical tools of Google Analytics.

The research found some overwhelming information also. Among the participants, only one-fourth of the top level executives have heard about, and sometimes used, different reports of Google Analytics platform. Around 60 percents executives using this channel to interact with clients, around 35 percents to research, and around 50 percents executives to advertise only.

Interpretation of these statistics shows the actual scenario of current use of social media in business organizations. No doubt, the employees especially the decision makers of an organization are at least using different social media. But what is the benefit if they don’t even have any general knowledge of what a Multi Channel Funnel or a Cost Data Metrics are? They can’t use the simplest reports like Conversion Report or Social Sources Report. So, how does this narrowed use of social media can bring optimum results?

As this survey indicates, there is serious paucity of professional social media engineers and therefore the executives are missing “expert’s guidelines”, making the use of social media only for names.

The case is so serious when the research gives the idea that about 60 percents of the executives are bringing social media into play for only personal uses. While the organizations are exposing to more risks, it’s may be the high time to think twice before applying this only for craze.

Use of Social Analytics | An American Perspective

Social media is the way of interactions with peoples through a virtual media. These are nothing more than a collection of web based applications that allow us to share and exchange our views through these platforms.

Use of Social Analytics | An American Perspective