6 Trends That Will Rule The Tech World

As we travel past the half point of 2016, we marketers should look back at the technology trends that have already made their mark on this year! They will serve as a foundation for a smarter future. Virtual reality, artificial intelligence and smart cars have made their appearance to the main stage in 2016. This is thanks in no small part to the hardware becoming commercialized and cloud technologies making way for multi-functional computing.

Back in early January at CES, the world’s largest annual tech convention, the number of vendors dedicated to cars, wearables, robots and drones was higher than ever before. The convention was estimated to be equivalent to the size of a whopping three-and-a-half football fields’ worth of space for smart-car technologies alone!

This convention set the stage for a 2016 of technology companies expanding into new niche markets, such as healthcare and auto, as their software products and services become increasingly ubiquitous.

Based on these developments, we’ve identified six trends that will rule the tech world!

1. Virtual and augmented reality

In 2016, virtual reality finally got its chance to shine on a consumer level! Meanwhile, augmented reality continues to prove itself in the workplace. CES predicted 46 gaming and virtual reality exhibitors to attend their convention which was an increase of 68 percent from last year.

Juniper Research predicted there would be a “watershed year for VR.” So far, 2016 has seen the launch of Facebook Inc.’s FB, Oculus Rift, the first consumer-level virtual-reality headset that doesn’t require a smartphone like Alphabet Inc.’sGOOGL, Cardboard and Samsung Electronics’ 005930, Gear VR.

HTC Corp. and Valve’s Vive VR headset will also hit the market next year. The launch was postponed in December of 2015 when developers experienced a “very, very big technological breakthrough” that made the initial version obsolete, according to Engadget.

In addition to the new hardware, 2016 will also experience an increased focus on VR content in gaming and entertainment. The development of consumer-level 360-degree cameras has empowered amateur filmmakers and game designers access to virtual-reality shooting.

Meanwhile, augmented reality, which became a larger topic of discussion this year after Microsoft Corp.MSFT, showed off its not-yet-released Hololens headset at a product event. Eventually Microsoft released their newest innovating product in July.

At CES, vendors are expected to showcase real-world applications for these augmented-reality headsets. The new invention is going to enhance a person’s task on the job by interposing digital images like a map or instructions on top of objects in their surrounding environment.

2. Wearables

Apple Inc. made people feel comfortable with the idea of wearing tiny data-collecting computer screens on their bodies with the April 2015 launch of Apple Watch. In 2016, it’s expected for more players to hop on this trend, and newer devices to be more capable.

At the convention for CES, there were at least 33 exhibitors showing off wearable technology. This was nearly triple the 12 in 2015! These devices were outfitted with sensors and showcased in ways that prove their applications in health, fitness and the enterprise market.

Soon, these devices will be able to connect directly to the Internet, without needing to tether to a third-party mobile device. This will enhance the stage for embeddable wearables, such as Chaotic Moon’s biometric tattoo, or tech tats, which attach to the skin much like a temporary tattoo.

3. Smart cars

At 200,000 square feet, automotive technology set the record of having three-and-a-half football fields’ worth of space at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show!

While it still may be some time to see fully autonomous vehicles, there has been recent movement from both a technological and regulatory standpoint that might help make 2016 a stand-out year for smart-car tech.

Last December, reports suggested Google and Ford Motor Co., could join forces to create a joint venture that will develop self-driving vehicles with Google’s technology. Meanwhile in California, regulators unveiled a proposal that would require licensed drivers to be present to operate an autonomous vehicle.

It will take a few more years for cars to become fully autonomous, but 2016 will likely be a year of partnerships between tech companies and auto manufacturers as they work toward the development of fully-autonomous vehicles.

4. Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) is similar to the tech that powers Windows’ Cortana and iOS’s Siri and machine learning technology, which powers Google’s search engine. AI will continue to be incorporated into technology products. These learning technology devices will also be included in services and software in 2016 as mobility remains front and center. AI will continue to find its way into robots as well.

At CES, there were at least 23 robotics exhibitors spanning 10,000 square feet, an increase of 71% from last year. Their robots spanned everything from at-home cleaners and companions to retail assistants similar to SoftBank Group Corp’s, Pepper robot, which rolled out across stores in Japan earlier this year.

French company Blue Frog Robotics has already released pre-orders for social robot called Buddy in 2016 that claims to interact with “each member of your family.”

5. Drones

Drones covered 25,500 square feet and had 29 exhibitors at the CES convention, more than quadruple the number of vendors as last year. Drone exhibitors showcased smarter drones, such as drones with tracking technologies, or those with additional sensors to more accurately read their environment.

This comes as drones continue to move into the consumer market, with the Federal Aviation Administration predicting that more than a million of the devices could be sold this holiday season.

The FAA is expected to introduce final rules for commercial drone flight in 2016. In 2015, it moved to enact rules that require operators to register drones of certain sizes. It also approved drone research flights for a number of commercial customers, notably Amazon.com Inc., plans to launch a drone delivery service called Prime Air over the next few years.

6. Self-charging phones

New technologies – some of which were showcased at CES – were designed to enable phones to charge through wavelengths. At CES, Ossia Inc. and Japanese telecom company KDDI Corp., showcased a product called Cota, that will automatically recharge mobile phones at a distance, similar to how WiFi transmitters deliver data from routers to devices.Cota serves as a central hub, sort of like a wireless router, that pushes out targeted energy through wavelengths to charge devices without having to plug them in or place them on a pad.

This follows existing technologies that take advantage of smartphones’ wireless charging standard, known as Qi. The company Qi Wireless, for example, produces pads that charge phones when placed on them.

Other companies, such as Israeli startup StoreDot, are interested to introduce instant charging and longer-lasting batteries. The company is pledging to showcase a battery next year that would charge a smartphone in 60 seconds or less.

This Article Originally Appeared on http://digitalmarketingsapiens.com/6-trends-will-rule-tech-world/

Top 12 Social Media and Search Engine Marketing Trends In 2016

Social media and search engine marketing are the two constantly evolving trends with plenty of changes that prompt shifts in consumer and marketer behavior. In order to succeed, you should adapt to these changes and employ the latest and most effective strategies.

Here are 12 social media and search engine marketing trends taking place so far in 2016 and what you should do to stay ahead of the curve:

1. Mobile optimization is a must!

In 2015, mobile generated more traffic than desktop and laptop search. Typically, everyone used their smartphones or tablets to find information online. Business owners must cater to the needs of their mobile audience to generate leads and increase conversions.

If your website still isn’t optimized for mobile, then you might be at risk of losing potential consumers

Be sure you use responsive web design to provide the best user experience to your visitors regardless of the device they’re using.

2. Voice search introduces huge changes in keyword research.

Digital assistants have become more popular among mobile users over the past couple of years, their success has risen due to their much improved functionality.

Siri, Now and Cortana are making the lives of users so much more convenient. However, this presents a new challenge to marketers as they must now optimize for voice search.

People use different search terms when speaking versus typing. Voice searches lean toward long-tail keywords, so be sure to include these terms to increase your chances of ranking.

3. Local SEO will be crucial.

With the launch of My Business, Google places even more importance to local SEO.

There has been a fair share of significant changes in how Google presents search results for local terms. Different search elements are used to provide immediate information regarding local businesses.

It is imperative to have your business listed on Google to improve search visibility. Google My Business is a great place to get started, it allows you to control multiple accounts from one central location.

4. Social posts receive higher rankings.

A clever move for businesses is ranking their blog posts and universal assets (videos, images, news, etc.) on the results pages. Don’t forget to rank your social posts as well.

Many marketers are already utilizing social media to gain more visibility in search engines. When customers enter your company name, you must make sure that your social media profiles are seen on the first page. This should be further leveraged for your reputation management and monitoring. Various social media sites also now encourage long form content, most notably Facebook with their revamped Notes feature.

5. App store optimization is crucial.

One study shows that in 2015, 52 percent of time spent online was on mobile apps. This shouldn’t come as a huge surprise, as people tend to prefer using apps over surfing mobile websites due to better functionality.

If you have a business app, optimizing for the app store is crucial to enhance visibility. A large amount of apps get created every day, making it more difficult than ever to stand out.

It’s vital to use in-app analytics as well to measure conversions, click through rates and app open rates.

6. Learn the new on-page SEO.

When talking about on-page SEO, what immediately comes to mind are content optimization, internal linking and improving site structure. There are more factors to consider to ensure that your on-page SEO is in check. These include click-through rates, engagement, social signals and relevant content. By measuring these important site metrics, you can see which areas of your site needs to improve.

These are also used by search engines when ranking web pages, better yet look beyond conventional on-page SEO strategies and be sure these factors are included in your next optimization campaign.

7. Sell on social media.

Different social media sites have enabled advertisers to sell directly on their platforms. Facebook and Pinterest, in particular, have introduced “Buy Now” features. This serves as a fantastic opportunity to reach your target audience and increase conversions. It’s a win-win situation since social media users can now buy products without even leaving the app. Without question, more social platforms are willing to follow this method in 2016.

8. Enhancements in in-app functionality.

It’s amazing how much you can do without ever leaving the app. Developers continue to create innovations and include new functionalities to their apps.

Facebook, for instance, introduced a lot of new features last year such as Instant Articles and automatic video playing when scrolling. They are now creating their own digital assistant.

Twitter, Instagram and other platforms refuse to fall behind, promising to have plenty of things in store for their users. By making improvements in in-app functionality, conversion rates are set to skyrocket, so it’s essential to make enhancements in your app to experience a boost in ROI.

9. Take advantage of new publication options.

Facebook created a game-changer when they launched Instant Articles, as mentioned before. This is their way of presenting users with content while ensuring that they wouldn’t leave the app. Instant Articles load measurably quicker than regular web links, thus improving user experience.

Major publishers are now using this feature to reach their target audience. Twitter is about to release a similar feature called Project Lightning. Be sure to check out these new publication options and see how you can utilize them to generate new leads and improve conversions.

10. Videos will continue their dominance.

YouTube still receives a massive amount of hits per day. Facebook receives 8 billion

video views daily as of November 2015. These two facts alone prove how much online users love watching videos. Plenty of studies also show that content within videos have higher engagement rates compared to those that only contain plain text.

Take the next step and find ways to present information to your audience through entertaining videos. Trying to rank these videos on the results pages can also drive a significant amount of traffic to your website.

11. In-the-moment content is bound to remain popular.

 

By nature, social media are “in-the-moment,” with users eager to share what they’re doing as of the moment. Over the past couple of years, live streaming has become very popular. Periscope, the most popular live streaming online platform, allows users to record a short moment of their lives and share it

Snapchat and Instagram have already jumped on the bandwagon. This could mean huge changes in how you use social media. Accustom your business to something new and consider posting in-the-moment updates and take advantage of the fact that millions of online users love this kind of content.

This could mean huge changes in how you use social media. Instead of scheduling posts in advance, you might want to consider posting in-the-moment updates and take advantage of the fact that millions of online users love this kind of content.

12. Dark traffic will eventually become clear.

If your company uses Google Analytics, then you know how frustrating it is trying to decipher dark traffic—the kind of traffic whose source you do not know. Analytics simply includes it under direct traffic. This can affect your marketing campaigns. As a marketer, you want to know as much as possible about your audience.

Thankfully, dark traffic has gradually come to light over the past few months. Digital marketers are expecting that this year will mark the end of dark traffic. This will be possible with the help of analytic tools getting more precise information regarding their source.

This Article Originally Appeared on http://digitalmarketingsapiens.com/top-12-social-media-search-engine-marketing-trends-2016/

5 Marketing Strategy Questions That Small Businesses NEED to Answer

What is the difference between confident entrepreneurs who lead growing businesses and business owners who are trapped in survival mode? It’s simple. A successful business almost certainly has a clear marketing strategy that guides their decision-making and makes everything they do more effective.

Unfortunately, many small business owners get caught up in maintaining their day-to-day business and forget to set aside time for strategizing. Selecting tactics takes time but will improve their performance overall.

At the end of the day, strategies are absolutely necessary for businesses that want to improve their functionality and grow. Owners need to realize that their marketing strategy is their foundation for creating awareness, generating interest, closing new sales and contributing customer engagement. Fulfilling all of these strategies will almost guarantee some sort of improvement for one’s business as well as gaining an advantage over their competitors. Another thing for business owners to take into consideration is their marketing strategy guides their company culture, their products and services mix and their pricing.

Not only should business owners consider their marketing strategy but there are other things that can craft a successful strategy. However, these five key decisions have helped small business owners grow their sales and create sanity in their business.

In order for business owners to have effective tactics, grow their business and have sanity in their working environment, they have to decide on the single, simple answer to each of these five marketing strategy questions. Of course, they cannot change their minds and instead stay committed to their answer.

Focus plays a huge factor and is always the difference maker between a business that grows profitably and one that never seems to gain any momentum. Instead of hoping that next email is going to work better, business owners should develop a clear focus and a realistic strategy.

1. Ask yourself who is your target customer?

The first decision in any marketing strategy is to define your target customer. “Who do you serve?” always needs to be answered clearly before you can execute any tactic effectively. What this means is you have to say “no” to other potential customers who might buy from you but who are clearly bad fits for your narrow focus. It may appear as a non-ideal thing to do, but it takes time to develop the discipline, but business owners can’t do effective marketing without it.

Focusing on a well-defined target may make you uncomfortable at first, but stay the course and follow through.

If business owners are spending time and money on marketing but your efforts are not driving enough sales, the problem is almost always that you haven’t narrowed your target market definition enough to be effective. The narrower a business owner defines their market eventually they can focus on those that they can best serve, which leads to more efficiency for an owner’s business.

2. What is a business owner’s category?

Their category is simply the short description of what business they are a part of. What few words would someone say to describe an owner’s business?  For example, Starbucks is “high-quality coffee” Chipotle is “fresh Mexican burritos.”

Most business owners can’t resist over-complicating their company descriptions. This leaves people unsure of what you actually do, which can weaken their marketing effectiveness. Here’s a simple rule: If someone can’t clearly remember a business owner’s category description a month after meeting them, they were never clear about what the owner’s business does in the first place.

Clearly defining the category can amplify a business owner’s marketing and sales efforts. Think of what it would take to be the best – the leader – in your category. You’re not the leader? Then narrow your category definition (or your target market focus) until you are the leader. A focused laser can melt steel at a distance, but the same light undirected has no effect. Be laser-like in your focus.

3. What is your unique benefit?

A business owner’s unique benefit should highlight the one (or two) main things of their product or service that actually delivers (benefits) that targets what their customer really wants, not a long list of all the things their product does (features).

4. Who is the competition?

When someone is searching to buy a solution to a problem, they will quickly make sense of the alternatives to compare against, your competition. However, most entrepreneurs have not specifically defined who their real competition is and don’t focus their messages to create clear differentiation for their buyers. This frustrates the buying decision process and makes business owners marketing efforts appear weaker.

Business owners should have a clear mind about who their biggest competition is. If you are a tax accountant, is your competition really the other tax accountants in town? Or even other CPAs or financial planners?  DIY tax software? Doing taxes manually?  National tax accounting chains? Each competitor type would create different comparisons, so it’s ideal to narrow it down to one or two main competitor types.

5. What does your marketing strategy statement look like?

When you put the five key decisions of marketing strategy in a sentence form, it looks like this fill-in-the-blank statement:

An owner’s company name is the leading category for target customers that provides unique benefit. Unlike competitors, your company does unique differentiator.

Try it for yourself: Fill in the blanks to create the marketing strategy statement for your own business. Get some perspective from employees, friends and best customers. List all the possibilities and then make some decisions. You should feel clarity and power coming through. It will also show you a few things you could stop doing in your business that would create more focus.

Hopefully be realizing answering these marketing strategies you will see why it makes no sense to Tweet, to send a broadcast email or build a new website if you are not clear about your marketing strategy that has laser-like focus? Doing these tactics without a road map, your marketing strategy, will not deliver the right customers and will give you fewer sales than if you had invested the time to implement a focused marketing strategy.

Creating a clear marketing strategy is not what companies do after they become well-known, it’s what small companies do to grow and get bigger in the first place.

If you need help creating or executing your company’s marketing strategy, reach out to Digital Marketing Sapiens in San Antonio, Texas at 210-582-5842.

This Article Originally Appeared on http://digitalmarketingsapiens.com/5-marketing-strategy-questions-small-businesses-need-answer/

7 Social Media Marketing Trends for Your Business

1. Video content

There are many ways for businesses to utilize video content in their marketing strategies. For example, using educational videos can give businesses the opportunity to instruct their audience as well marketing to them. Explainer videos allow viewers to learn how to use your company’s product. Pinterest, for instance, offers an explainer video that demonstrates the benefits of using its social network. As for entertaining videos, keeping your audience entertained and engaged is important. Using short videos that have a purpose for viewers to share is effective.

2. Paying for exposure

Business are increasingly paying to advertise on social networks. Part of the reason is that organic social reach – those shares you can receive from family and friends – are not as effective in marketing as they once were.

Paying for advertising has the ability to allow you to reach a specific demographic rather than just relying on organic social reach alone. When businesses use Facebook’s advertising platform, for example, you have the opportunity to market to a particular age group, location and other parameters. On the other hand, while a Facebook post may reach some people who are interested, it can easily be shared with people who are outside your demographic and have no use for your product or service.

3. Social shopping

Patterns from previous years indicate selling via social networks is likely to increase this year. To some degree, it already has. For example, the Internet Retailer’s Social Media 500 report said that social commerce rose 26 percent from 2013 to 2014.

Another interesting statistic is that the ecommerce platform in Q2 of 2014, less than one percent of revenue could be attributed to social recommendations. By the time Q2 of 2015 arrived, that figure had increased 151 percent!

In addition, Business insider reported that ecommerce referrals by way of social media had increased nearly 200 percent between the first quarters of 2014 and 2015.

The reason for this growth is that “buy buttons” had been showing up on social networks such as Pinterest and Twitter, which allowed customers to purchase from these sites directly.

It’s incredible to think how much of a difference it can make when social networks include “buy buttons” on their sites and actually have people purchase a certain product right then and there. It’s not strange to think so, since most of the time people are on social or professional networks majority of the day.

4. Marketing Automation

Marketing automation is a software platform designed to help businesses market across multiple channels simultaneously. It is able to alleviate the need to perform repetitive tasks such as sending emails or marketing on social media sites.

This is something small businesses should consider using as some form of marketing automation software to keep up with the growing amount of content they will need to deliver to their customers and prospects.

Numerous options are available, but choose the one best suited to your needs and that won’t break your budget.

5. Facebook’s dominance

There’s no question that Facebook has made its mark in 2016 as the most dominant social media platform.

For those that didn’t know, Facebook’s fastest growing age demographic is people over the age of 55, it’s also the most commonly used amongst Internet users ages 65 and older, up from 45 percent in 2013.

Business owners should consider focusing their marketing efforts to those people who are 55 and older through Facebook.

6. Search

While most people are still using search engines to find information, many are foregoing this route and are performing searches on social media sites instead.

Part of the reason is that users are growing weary of text-heavy search results and gravitating toward visual content such as images or videos, each of which you are more likely to find on social media.

Users also search on social media because they know that they will receive information such as feedback, comments, and reviews from actual users more so than with a search engine. Internet users actually become discouraged searching through search engines because of all of the results it has to offer, when some people just want an answer or a link to the answer at an instant.

Needless to say, search engines are not going away anytime soon, it is important for small businesses to strategize about how they can be easily found both on search engines and in social media.

7. Mobile Marketing

Businesses are aware that having a mobile-friendly website is not a new concept. Marketers have been acknowledging how important businesses need to optimize their sites for mobile users. Nowadays, mobile-optimization is considered the norm and no longer an item to place on the back burner. Mobile searches have surpassed desktop searches, no one could imagine for that to happen, but it did. As a matter of fact, in 2015, Google’s algorithm started to penalize sites that were not optimized for mobile devices.

If your business is interested in implementing any or all of the trends above, reach out to Digital Marketing Sapiens in San Antonio, Texas at 210-582-5842.

This Article Originally Appeared on http://digitalmarketingsapiens.com/7-social-media-marketing-trends-business/

The Texas Restaurant Association Marketplace; Day 2

It was a beautiful day in Houston, Texas as thousands of attendees and exhibitors made their way to the 2016 TRA Marketplace, organized by the Texas Restaurant Association. Business owners, distributors, and other innovators from all over the state came together on June 26 – 27 to share treats, ideas, and industry-changing innovations.

Digital Marketing Sapiens was fortunate to grab a booth and showcase our latest technology: The One Question Reputation App.

Designed to grow your customer base with online reviews, this powerful tool is an on-the-spot one question survey that allows the customer to leave a positive or negative review while in the restaurant. Positive feedback makes it onto Google, while negative feedback alerts a manager on duty so that the service can be corrected.

Several restaurants and distributors found this technology incredibly useful for their business, especially when looking for the best approach in satisfying their customers and gaining new ones.

But our app wasn’t the only highlight of the event. Appearances by Coca Cola, Monster, Nathan’s Famous, and several other drinks and eateries left plenty of stomach’s satisfied. Keynote speakers on stages around the exhibition, the Craft Beverage Garden, and the Technology Pavilion were a few areas that made this TRA event beyond successful.

The TRA Marketplace is the perfect spot for gaining valuable insight and practical advice, whether it’s from the Education Idea Center, or the TIPS stage. As an annual event, the Texas Restaurant Association will be hosting their marketplace in Dallas and San Antonio in the years to come.

By Ramil Rodriguez, Digital Sapien

This Article originally appeared on digitalmarketingsapiens.com

How to Perform Technical SEO Audit like a Boss!

SEO is dead. SEO is not what it used to be in [Insert Year Here]. You might have come across a number of articles discussing these or similar topics. What has actually happened is Google’s take no prisoners approach towards spam has made it harder for the sites to rank using run of the mill SEO tactics. Over last few years SEO has finally started heading towards achieving the synergy between what the user/visitor wants to see and what a search engine like Google wants to see. Google’s mission statement reads, “Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”.

“Useful” is the keyword here. Just throwing a bunch of $$$ at building links to your site doesn’t drive rankings anymore. Stuffing your content with keywords doesn’t help either. What does work is creating value and delivering an experience to both the users and search engines. And it all starts with a thorough technical audit of the site to make sure that there are no bottlenecks affecting user experience or crawling of the site. In this article we will walk you through the exact steps that we follow here at DMS. Let’s face it, we do add some secret sauce to it; drop a line if you want us to work our magic on your site.

Note –

• We have also put together an awesome template on Google Drive for you to use while you are auditing your site. The template is designed in such way that once you are through with all the steps you will have a clear set of action items for you or your dev team to work on.
• The audit assumes that you have set-up and verified search console (Google Webmaster Tools) account for your site(s). If you have not, please visit search console and follow the instructions to verify your site.
• The audit also assumes familiarity with tools like XENU and Screaming Frog. If you haven’t used these tools before, visit our tutorials here and here.

Show me the Awesome Technical Audit Template Already!

Enough talking, let’s get our hands dirty, shall we?

Disillusionment Audit

The Disillusionment Charm makes you blend in with the surrounding, making it impossible for anyone to spot you or to communicate with you. The charm was used intentionally by Professor Dumbledore and, the fan favorite, Lord Voldemort when they didn’t want to be found. If you are wondering why people just can’t find your website even after all the links that you have built, maybe, the answer is you have, however unintentionally, cast a disillusionment charm on your site. The step mentioned below help you cast a counter charm and make the website more visible to search engines and users alike.

1. txt File

The Robots.txt file controls how the search engine bots can access a site. There are two major reasons why every site should have a properly configured Robots.txt file.

• To make sure that all the pages that need to be indexed are available for search engines.
• To make sure that the private/sensitive pages do not get indexed accidentally.

How does the Robots.txt file work?

User-agent: *Disallow: /

Explanation –

User-agent: It refers to the bot that is trying to access the site.

*: It means the directive applies to all the user-agents.

Disallow: It means the bots should not visit the pages/directories mentioned here.

/: It means that the bot is not allowed to access any of the pages on the site.

Typically only the disallow directive is used followed by a directory path (for example, /don’t-go-here/). A webmaster can specify different access permissions to different bots based on their user-agent string.

How to verify if it is working as expected?

• Try to access the file manually – Visit http://yourdomain.com/robots.txt and make sure that the file accessible.
• Login into your search control account. Navigate to Crawl = > Robots.txt Tester in the left pane. You will see a window similar to one below.

Enter your important pages in the box (highlighted) and click test. You need to make sure that all your important pages are accessible to the bots. The snapshot below shows the expected results.

1. XML Sitemap

Simply put, an XML sitemap is collection of all the pages in your site. It helps in improving the indexation of the site and also provides information about site hierarchy to the search engines.

How to verify is the sitemap is working as expected?

• Try to access the file manually – Visit http://yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml and make sure that the file is accessible without any errors.
• If the sitemap is missing, you can use a free tool like the one here or here. Click here for a comprehensive list of XML sitemap generator tools.
• Login into Search Console and navigate to Crawl => Sitemaps in left pane. Check if there are any issues with the sitemap(s) that you have submitted or submit one if you haven’t already.

Pro-tip: Run the pages listed in XML sitemap through Screaming Frog to make sure that there are no 301 redirects or 404 error pages present.

1. HTML Sitemap

An HTML sitemap is again a collection of all the important links in the site. A well-defined HTML sitemap helps visitors in locating content on your site.

How to check if HTML sitemap is working as expected?

• Try to access the file manually and make sure the page is accessible.
• Pro-tip: Run the pages listed in HTML sitemap through Screaming Frog to make sure that there are no 301 redirects or 404 error pages present.

1. Canonicalization

Canonicalization refers to making sure that each pages/file on the site is accessible through only one URL.

How to make sure the Canonicalization is working as expected?

Check if the pages on your site are accessible through multiple URL combinations. For example,

• http://www.yourdomain.com/
• http://www.yourdomain.com/index.html
• http://yourdomain.com/
• http://yourdomain/index.html

Serving same content through multiple URLs results in duplicate content issues and neither search engines do not like to be presented with duplicate content every now and then.

How to fix Canonicalization issues?

• Set preferred domain – Login into search console. Navigate to Site Settings (click the gear icon) and in the preferred domain section select the option you want.
• Set-up 301 redirects – Once you decide on your preferred domain make sure that you redirect all the other variations to the preferred one. For the example mentioned above,
  • http://www.yourdomain.com/ – Preferred Domain
  • http://www.yourdomain.com/index.html – 301 redirect to preferred domain
  • http://yourdomain.com/ – 301 redirect to preferred domain
  • http://yourdomain/index.html – 301 redirect to preferred domain
• Use of Rel=canonical directive – Make sure that each page on your site points to itself through Rel=canonical directive. Refer to the screenshot below to see it in action.

A self-referencing canonical also helps in combating scrapers and/or avoiding duplication issues if you make use query parameters for tracking or other purposes resulting in multiple URLs serving same page content.

To learn more about various canonicalization issues and their solutions click here.

1. Meta Robots Tags

These tags are included within the page code and act as directives to control behavior of search engine crawlers at page level. There are 4 different combinations of meta robots tags.

• <meta name=”robots” content=”INDEX, FOLLOW”> – Default tag, assumed to be present even when not explicitly defined.
• <meta name=”robots” content=”NOINDEX, FOLLOW”> – Asks the crawlers not to index the page but to follow all the pages linked from it.
• <meta name=”robots” content=”INDEX, NOFOLLOW”> – Asks the crawlers to index the pages but ignore (nofollow) the pages linked from it.
• <meta name=”robots” content=”NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW”> – Neither page is to be indexed not the links are to be crawled.

What are the implications of incorrect meta robots tags?

• An incorrectly specified meta robot tag might cause the page to drop off the search engine index or might affect crawling and indexing of the pages linked from it.
• An unintentional (NoIndex, NoFollow) tag on the homepage might cause the entire site to fall out of search engine index.

How to verify if the tags are working as expected?

• Fire up Screaming Frog tool.
• Set the mode to Spider and enter the site you want to crawl.
• Once the crawl gets completed, navigate to “Directives” tab and click “Export”.
• Open your exported CSV file and look at the “meta-robots” column to verify that you have setup the tags correctly.

1. 4XX Errors

These errors refer to requests that cannot be fulfilled by server due to some errors or bad syntax due to the fault of the client making the request. Hence these are also known as Client Side Errors. There are number of 4XX errors with 404 being the most common when it comes to website usability.

Having large number of 404 errors is generally considered a bad thing as it negatively affects user experience and also impacts proper crawling and indexing of the site.

How to check and fix 404 errors?

Run a XENU scan and check if any 404 errors (both internal and external) are present in the site.

Login into Search Console and navigate to Crawl => Crawl Errors to see if Google have encountered any errors on the site.

List out all the 404 errors and see if appropriate redirects can be setup for those.

1. 5XX Errors

These errors refer to some issue on server side due to which it is unable to fulfill the request. These are also known as Server Side Errors. A large number of 5XX errors indicate low uptime on server side.

How to check for 5XX errors?

Login into Search Console and navigate to Crawl => Crawl Errors to see if Google have encountered any errors on the site.

1. Site Depth

Site depth refers to how many times a user will have click to reach a particular page from the homepage. The closer a page is to root (homepage) the better its chances of getting crawled and receiving link juice or pageviews.

How to measure page depth?

• Fire up Screaming Frog.
• Set the mode to “Spider”
• Enter your domain name and wait for the crawl to finish.
• Click on “Site Structure” in right hand corner. You will see a window similar to one below.

See if there are alternatives to the URLs that are 4 or more clicks away from the root.

1. Blocked Resources

These refer to the support files (JS, CSS, images etc.) that Googlebot needs in order to fully render the page.

Why does it matter?

Blocking these resources can affect Googlebot’s ability to crawl and index the site. The page layout will also differ substantially from what the user is able to view.

How to fix this issue?

Login into Search Console and navigate to Google Index = > Blocked Resources in left pane. See if Googlebot has highlighted any resources that need to be unblocked. Update and verify the robot.txt file to make the resources accessible to Googlebot.

1. Cloaking/SPAM Detection

Cloaking refers to the practice of showing different content to users and search engines depending on user agents. Cloaking can be intentional or an unwanted result of website getting hit by a spam attack.

Why does it matter?

Search engines recommend providing exact same content to both users and crawlers. Any attempt at cloaking, when detected, results in penalties and/or substantial ranking drop. When the website gets hit by Pharma or other types of spam, the spammers make use of user-agent strings to provide spam version of the site to search engines and clean version to user. This makes it difficult to detect the attacks until the webmasters get notices in Search Console.

How to detect cloaking or SPAM?

• Use UA Switcher plugin for Chrome to mimic different user-agents while visiting the site’s pages.
• The Plugin has an extensive database of different user-agents that can be spoofed to check and verify the pages.

Yule Ball Readiness Audit

Now that you have rid your site of the disillusionment charm and are ready to receive crawlers and visitor, it is time to make the site more presentable. The action items covered below will help you in improving user experience and site usability.

1. URL Audit

URL audit refers to

• Friendliness- Are the URLs straightforward, meaningful and short wherever possible? A simple Screaming Frog crawl can tell you if the URLs are friendly or not.
  • Run a Screaming Frog crawl.
  • Export the URLs to a CSV or Excel file.
  • Look for long, unwieldy URL strings.
  • Create friendly URLs and set-up appropriate redirects wherever required.
• Use of word separator – Check if the site is using hyphen (-) or underscore (_) as word separator. It is recommended to use Hyphen as search engines tend to consider as space rather than a connector like underscore.
  • Run a Screaming Frog crawl.
  • Export the results to a CSV or Excel file.
  • Filter for underscores.
  • Check if the URLs that are using underscores can be changed to Hyphenated version.
  • Make sure you take a look at other factors like number of links to the page before making the change.
• Keyword Usage – Check if the URLs contain your target keywords. It is recommended to include your most important keyword in the URL as it clearly highlights the page context to the crawlers as well as the visitors.
• Consistent Linking Pattern – Make sure that you follow either Relative or Absolute addressing across the site and don’t mix and match randomly.
  • An absolute address refers to full URL path including the domain name. Relative addressing refers to only the directory path and does not include full domain name.
  • We recommend using absolute addressing instead of relative.
• Canonical URLs – Also make sure that only Canonical version of the URLs is used for internal linking, be it through main navigation or content. This saves unnecessary redirection delays.
  • Run Screaming Frog crawl.
  • Navigate to “Response Codes” tab.
  • Export data to CSV file and check for internal 301 redirects.
  • Replace the redirected URLs with their destination URLs.

1. Main navigation

Usually displayed at the top of your page(s) and contains links to your internal pages.

• Check if all the important product/services pages are linked from main navigation.
• In case of large sites check if all the major directory index pages are linked from main navigation.

1. Breadcrumb Navigation

The term breadcrumb comes from the fairy tale Hansel and Grethel. They used breadcrumbs to find their way home when they were left alone in the woods. Breadcrumb navigation refers to a prominently placed navigation trail to help users understand where they are in the site and the corresponding site hierarchy.

How do Breadcrumb help?

• Clearly defined hierarchy of navigation path makes it easier for visitor to locate where they are browse upwards easily if required.
• In a content heavy site or an Ecommerce site, breadcrumb navigation helps in improving user flow between various pages.

1. Fold Analysis

Search engines recommend placing important blocks of content above the fold. Google actively looks at the layout of the page and rates sites based on above the fold user experience.

Why does it matter?

Users come to the site looking for information or the services/products that they are interested in. If the area above the fold is dominated by ads or doesn’t really have much content it results in bad user experience and, more often than not, a bounce.

How to verify content is visible above the fold?

• The easiest way to do that is by manually visiting the site and checking if the content is visible at least partially.
• Tools like Where is the fold help in checking the site for multiple screen resolutions at once.
• Getting a list of typical screen resolutions from Google Analytics and combining that with where is the fold tool would be the best way to confirm if the site content is visible above the fold.

1. Meta Tags

Meta tags contain the information that is generally displayed in search results. Meta tags (title and description) can and do influence the Click through Rate (CTR) to your site.

How to detect Meta tag issues?

• Run a Screaming Frog Crawl.
• Export the results into a CSV or Excel file.
• Look for pages with duplicate or missing Meta tags.
• Look for pages where titles are longer than 60 characters and descriptions are longer than 150 characters.
• Login into Search Console. Navigate to Search Appearance = > HTML Improvements and check if Google has highlighted any Meta errors.

How to fix Meta tags?

• Make sure that each page has unique title and description.
• Make sure to use your most important keywords in the title and description in a left loaded manner.
• Avoid stuffing or repeating same keywords again and again in title and description.

1. Header (H1) Tags

Header tags (H1, H2, H3 etc.) are used to define heading and hierarchy within the page content. H1 tags has the highest weightage and should be

• Unique for each page.
• Used only once per page
• Different from Title tag (recommended)

Why does the H1 tag matter?

H1 tag is the most important heading on your site. You can think of it as the digital equivalent of front-page headline on a newspaper. Being the most visible element on the page, H1 tag plays an extremely important role in retaining user attention and highlighting context of the page.

How to identify and fix H1 tag issues?

• Run a Screaming Frog crawl for the site.
• Export the crawl results in either a CSV or an Excel file.
• Check for pages with multiple H1 tags.
• Check for pages where H1 tag is same as Meta title tag.
• Check for pages where no H1 tag is present.
• Check for pages with duplicate H1 tags.

1. Structured data

Structured data refers to special snippets of code that are added to the page code. The markups vary depending on website context and can refer to recipe, videos or a local business.

Why does it matter?

These snippets provide additional context to the search engines and the reviews/ratings also show up in search results and have been proven to influence to CTR positively.

How to check for structured data?

Use Google’s structured data testing tool to check if your set-up is working as expected. You can also login into Search Console and navigate to Search Appearance = > Structured Data to see if there are any issues that need to be fixed.

1. Thin Content

Content plays an extremely important role in achieving good ranking positions in search results. Having in-depth content related to central page theme is one of the major ranking signals and also helps in retaining users on the page by helping them achieve their search objective.

Thin content refers to content pieces of inadequate length that do not fulfill user’s search objectives and more often than not result in a bounce.

How does thin content affect?

• Search Engines tend to ignore pages with thin content. The crawl/indexation frequency for think content pages is usually very low.
• Pogosticking effect – Even if the page gets ranked for some reason, the users don’t stick around and immediately go back to search page resulting in short click. Short clicks usually indicate low quality and result in ranking drop.

How to identify think content pages?

• Run a Screaming Frog crawl on the site.
• Export the crawl results in a CSV or an Excel file.
• Navigate to column “word Count” and look for pages with less than 250 words.

How to fix thin content pages?

• Define a central theme for theme for your page.
• Do thorough keyword research and find out related terms around the central topic.
• Go through search suggestions and Q&A sites to get a gist of what is being asked for related to your central topic.
• Identify top competitors and analyze their content.

1. Duplicate content

Duplicate content might refer to within the site duplication or content that plagiarised from external sites.

Why does it matter?

Search Engines do not like duplicate content. If your page(s) has duplicate content the chances of getting good ranking drop substantially. A duplicate content does not necessarily need to be plagiarised content. The site might also accumulate duplicate content due to canonicalization issues, shared content across subdomains or even regional sites sharing same content.

How to identify duplicate content?

• Use com or similar tool to identify if the content is present of any external source.
• Use com to identify within the site duplication.

How to fix duplicate content pages?

• Define a central theme for theme for your page.
• Do thorough keyword research and find out related terms around the central topic.
• Go through search suggestions and Q&A sites to get a gist of what is being asked for related to your central topic.
• Identify top competitors and analyze their content.

1. Page Speed

Page speed refers to time any webpage takes to fully render when requested.

Why does it matter?

• Google considers page speed as a ranking factor. [Source]
• Nearly half the users expect the sites to load in less than 2 seconds. [Source]
• With more and more people browsing the web using mobile devices, it is imperative for the webmasters to improve site loading speeds.

How to improve page speed?

• Head over to Google page speed insights or http://webpagetest.org/ to measure your pages’ loading performance.
• Note down and implement the recommendations or share with your developer for implementation.

The action items described in the audit and the checklist should help you in identifying and fixing any issues that might be affecting your website’s visibility in search results. You should also be able to significantly improve the user experience.

If you find the audit helpful, please show us your appreciation by sharing it on social media. If you want to receive our blog posts via email, subscribe to our mailing list.

By Onkar, Digital Sapien

This Article originally appeared on digitalmarketingsapiens.com

The Texas Restaurant Association Marketplace; Day 1

Digital Marketing Sapiens is fortunate to be taking part in the TRA Marketplace Event from June 26 – 27 in Houston, Texas. As the second largest foodservice trade show in the United States, it was easy to find the best-tasting treats across the state.

The event is being hosted at the George R. Brown Convention Center, and is the perfect place to find all the best tasting eats, innovations, and conceptions (and don’t forget about all the delicious samples! Who needs lunch?)

Check out this ultra-stuffed bacon cheeseburger surrounded by hot fries prepared by J&B Group. This was only one of the many decadent creations at the event.

This tradeshow has a booth for every restaurant looking to improve their service, from our One Question Reputation App to a high performance tortilla & tamale machine.

The entire team made sure to take some time away from our booth to explore, and we were nothing short of impressed! We were surrounded by tasty treats, an exclusive lounge, a hall full of thought-leaders, and did we mention awesome food-sculptures?

Here’s is Ramil getting ready to devour a tall stack of oversized pancakes! Nothing this digital sapien can’t handle!

The TRA Marketplace is the perfect spot for gaining valuable insight and practical advice, whether it’s from the Education Idea Center, or the TIPS stage. My favorite part about these areas is that they offer a closer look on the restaurant & food industry, as well as the new technologies that are improving the market overall.

But the trade show hasn’t ended just yet! Digital Marketing Sapiens will be there tomorrow. Located at Booth 2119, we’ll be continuing to showcase the One Question Reputation App, a powerful tool that can grow the customer base in your restaurant. Come by and see us!

This Article originally appeared on digitalmarketingsapiens.com

How To Use Instagram To Market Your Business

Instagram is a social media platform tailor made for reaching young audiences with photography and videos. About 90% of the 150 million users on Instagram are between the ages of 18 and 35.

Instagram, unlike most other social platforms, is primarily focused on images. This different strategy has many benefits for businesses and marketers!

When setting up a campaign, here are some of your options:

• Clicks To Website is an campaign setting where, when your image is clicked on, viewers will be directed to a specific part of your website.
• Website Conversion is an option where your audience is measured by how many people take specific actions on your website.
• Mobile App Installs gets people to install your apps.
• Mobile App Engagement focuses on getting more activity on your mobile app for those who have it.
• Video Views encourages more views on a selected video using specific demographics
• Reach And Frequency tracks a campaign’s reach within a specific niche audience that it is targeted towards.
• Mass Awareness provides impressions and placement at the top ad position.
• Page Post Engagement gets people to engage with your photo.

With so many different ways to take advantage of Instagram, it is a great outlet to reach your target audience and spread your awareness. But how exactly is your message viewed on Instagram?

1. Photo Ads: A photo ad is an advertisement comprised of a single photo. This acts as a snapshot of your company. In your bio, you can include your information, along with a call-to-action. It’s simple and clean!

2. Video Ads: A video ad is similar to a photo ad but, instead of a still photo, it has a video with sound for up to 30 seconds. It is a great way to have a quick, engaging commercial reach people who are interested in visual content.

3. Carousel Ads: A carousel ad brings a lot more to the table than a photo ad! A carousel ad can have multiple pictures, letting viewers swipe back and forth between the images, and a call-to-action slide that takes you to a website so you can learn even more!

The question is then, aside from ads, how else can I grow my business using this social media platform?

Social media contests are often times very successful. On Instagram, you can help your client base grow because of the surplus of likes, follows, and comments. Have followers post pictures with your hashtag, like a picture and comment, or do a series of tasks!

Remember to reference your Instagram accounts on other social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Yelp, to help lead prospective followers to your account.

Another great way of growing your audience on Instagram is sharing it in person at your locations! There is no better way to grow an audience than by simply telling someone in person to join you on Instagram. Reminders can be sent out too using emails or post cards as well!

Instagram is a very powerful tool as it creates a connection between a picture and a product to the consumer. With over a 150 million people on Instagram, it is a great resource for those who want to show off what they’ve got and grow an audience!

By Sahil Maherali, Digital Sapien

This Article originally appeared on digitalmarketingsapiens.com

The Importance Of Having An Easy And Usable Website

Having a user friendly website is an important necessity with the new page of digital marketing. User friendly websites are necessary to help turn browsers into customers. A usable website must be:

• Easy to navigate through
• Familiar to other websites
• Consistent throughout the page
• Prevent errors and dead pages
• Must be clear to read and images crisp
• Flexible and Effective to the need of the browser

As for a business it is important to have a website that is user friendly and usable across all platforms to different types of users. Mobile users and desktop users are very different and it is important to have a website on the web that functions well for those who use their computers.

Avoiding Clutter And The Importance Of Simplicity

When creating a website it is important to avoid clutter. Visitors will not stay long on a website with an overwhelming amount of information and difficult to sort through. A website should be simple, easy to navigate through, and have a eye compelling image to capture the viewer.

Fitts’s Law

The concept of Fitts’s Law is an important concept when it comes to website designing. When UX (User Experience) designers help design a website they take eye tracking case studies to see how they can make the website more effective for users.

 

A simple case study example is the idea of the “Baby Face Text.” In this case study it proves that if the child is facing the text it will help lead to view reading the content on the page instead of focusing on the child. Other case studies such as “F-Shaped Patterns” mentions users who focus on the left side of the screen compared to the right side. In this case, it makes it easier for UX Designers to help create an effective website for their clients.

Familiarity To Other Webpages And An Easy Sitemap

Even though every person wants their webpage to appear unique, it is important to have consistent characteristics to other webpages. Many webpage designers should want their users to have a conscious guidance on how to navigate through a webpage without finding trouble. For example, 96% of webpages on the web have a navigation bar on the top of the screen to help navigate through the different pages on the webpage. This ties into having a helpful sitemap as it helps visitors cut to any page they need to get to. Having an adaptable sitemap with search engine optimization helps increase the rankings of your page.

Constantly Updating And Being SEO Friendly

Constantly updating your website is an important factor in helping your webpage stay up to date with information and help serve to your service or business’s ability. Social Media can easily link back to your website always bringing in new traffic as you update your website about raising awareness and conducting sales. Another important reason to constantly update your website is to be SEO Friendly! When Google Search Engines scan words on a webpage, they develop a list of keywords that will help your page in search rankings to increase its viability to those searching. Being SEO friendly helps you take advantage of that in which you can insert key words repeatedly, as long as it makes sense, into your blogs and updated writing. This is done to constantly stay at the top of search engines when people google keywords relating to your business.

The importance of having a usable and easy website cannot be emphasized enough as many businesses fail to convert visitors into consumers due to poor website management. Your webpage should give the customers a chance to learn more about you and the efforts you make into creating a user friendly webpage.

By Sahil Maherali, Digital Sapien

This Article originally appeared on digitalmarketingsapiens.com

Finding A Balance Between Hard Selling And Soft Selling

Often times, businesses have trouble balancing hard selling and soft selling. We all want to make sales but we don’t want to run people off accidentally! Before deciding on the best plan of action, it is important to understand the concepts of hard selling and soft selling.

Hard Selling

What is it? A hard selling is often considered as a very aggressive technique. When making a hard sell, you push the client to buy in to your business, often repeatedly. Over social media, an example of a hard sell is constantly asking fans to “like” your page or share a link.

Why is it Important? Hard selling is important because, the majority of the times,potential customers do not know what they need until they are prompted to think about it or are given a clear route to get your product or service. A clearly worded call-to-action is a great way for your business to direct customers to a service that they need. Even if they do not need the service immediately, they will remember your brand and message when needed the product or service such as house repair, credit scores, or even a new watch.

Soft Selling

What is it?Soft selling contains a lot of hints and connections. With soft selling, the business will provide solutions to their problems in a discrete way, while also portraying content is that appealing to those who follow the social media sites.

Why is it important?As much as we want to tell a client about our products or services, we must understand that they do not need it every moment of every day. Building relationships is the most important way to create loyal customers! Soft selling is also a great way to help entertain, educate, or emotionally connect with your clients as well causing those bonds to be even stronger.

Many times, businesses only use one type of selling technique. Over 67% small businesses only use the hard selling method. This can result in the loss of possible connections and future clients. Clients often times feel that a page with hard selling seems excessively aggressive and somewhat rude. While on the other hand, businesses that use only soft selling might be growing a base but there is no call-to-action to convert engagement into sales.A call-to-action is one of the most important parts of social media marketing, as it creates a connection between the content you post to the services you offer.

The best ratio of both together is the “80/20” rule. The 80/20 rule suggest that 80 percent of your content on your social media page should be soft selling and 20 percent should be hard selling. This creates a call-to-action on a regular basis, along with something which is not excessively shared on your social media page. The 80/20 rule often times is argued for different variations such as the 75/25 or 60/40 rule. This depends on your type of business as well. It is important to organize your postings and thoughts to reach out to every person who follows your social media accounts.

By Sahil Maherali, Digital Sapien

This Article originally appeared on digitalmarketingsapiens.com