FCC Labels Huawei and ZTE Threat to National Security

WebProNews
FCC Labels Huawei and ZTE Threat to National Security

The FCC has formally declared both Huawei and ZTE as threats to national security.

The US has been waging a campaign against Huawei and ZTE for some time, citing concerns over their close ties to the Chinese government. The US has consistently maintained the companies, especially Huawei, serve as a conduit for Beijing to spy on governments and organizations around the world.

As a result, US officials have taken steps to ban both companies from participating in US networks, and have pressured allies to do the same. Now the FCC is ratcheting up the pressure by labeling both companies as threats to national security.

“We cannot treat Huawei and ZTE as anything less than a threat to our collective security,” Commissioner Carr stated. “Communist China intends to surveil persons within our borders and engage in large-scale, industrial espionage. Nothing short of prohibiting subsidized Huawei and ZTE gear from our networks could address this serious national security threat. After all, Chinese law does not meaningfully restrain the Communist regime given its authoritarian nature.

“America has turned the page on the weak and timid approach to Communist China of the past. We are now showing the strength needed to address Communist China’s threats. And our efforts will not stop here. The FCC will continue to take whatever steps are necessary to secure America’s communications networks from bad actors that would do us harm,” Commissioner Carr added.

The designation means that companies cannot use funds from the FCC’s Universal Service Fund to purchase, maintain or support equipment from either company.

FCC Labels Huawei and ZTE Threat to National Security
Matt Milano

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Lyft Begins Testing Autonomous Cars On Public Roads Again

WebProNews
Lyft Begins Testing Autonomous Cars On Public Roads Again

Lyft has begun testing its autonomous vehicles on California roads again.

When the pandemic caused people to stay at home, Lyft’s public testing program was suspended. As California has eased restrictions, however, the company has resumed its testing program.

“We’re excited to announce that our autonomous vehicles (AVs) are back on the road — and that during the shelter in place we continued to make progress by doubling down on simulation,” reads the company’s blog post. “Simulation is an important part of our testing program, enabling us to test beyond road miles.”

At the same time, the company downplayed any impact the temporary hiatus had.

“While road testing remains a critical aspect of our program, simulation allows us to leverage existing on-road data in many more ways, and multiple times over, to help improve and validate our software,” continues the blog. “With Lyft’s unique data and Level 5’s advancements in simulation, we believe we’re reducing the road miles needed by several orders of magnitude. Our focus on simulation over the last few months allowed us to maintain Level 5’s momentum toward our goal to improve access to safe and reliable transportation for millions of Lyft riders everywhere.”

This is good news for Lyft and the autonomous vehicle industry in general. Especially in view of the pandemic and social distancing, the demand for autonomous, driverless vehicles may see an increase for reasons few would ever have expected.

Lyft Begins Testing Autonomous Cars On Public Roads Again
Matt Milano

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Google Raises YouTube TV Price

WebProNews
Google Raises YouTube TV Price

Google has announced a price hike for its YouTube TV streaming service, following its distribution agreement with ViacomCBS.

YouTube TV has garnered mostly positive reviews as one of the premier TV streaming services available. One glaring omission was the lack of some ViacomCBS channels. In May, Google announced it had struck a deal to bring 14 additional ViacomCBS channels to the service.

While many users expected there might be a slight increase in price, thanks to the new channels, it’s probably a safe bet that few were expecting a $15 price increase. Whereas YouTube TV did cost $49.99, effective June 30, the price increases to $64.99.

“We don’t take these decisions lightly, and realize how hard this is for our members,” says the official blog post. “That said, this new price reflects the rising cost of content and we also believe it reflects the complete value of YouTube TV, from our breadth of content to the features that are changing how we watch live TV. YouTube TV is the only streaming service that includes a DVR with unlimited storage space, plus 6 accounts per household each with its own unique recommendations, and 3 concurrent streams. It’s all included in the base cost of YouTube TV, with no contract and no hidden fees.”

One of YouTube TV’s best selling points was the features and channels it provided at an exceptionally good price. With this recent price hike, however, Google may have a hard time distinguishing its service from fuboTV and Hulu.

Google Raises YouTube TV Price
Matt Milano

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Discord Pivots to Chat, Downplays Gaming

WebProNews
Discord Pivots to Chat, Downplays Gaming

Discord is working on repositioning itself as a chat platform, rather than a gaming messaging platform.

As millions of people have been sheltering in place, working from home and relying on communication tools to keep in touch, chat and video conferencing apps have become all the rage. While Discord started out as a messaging platform for gamers, it would appear it is growing far beyond that and moving into the general communication space.

In a blog post, CEO Jason Citron said the company has spent the last year finding out what mattered most to its users. Based on that information, it quickly became apparent that many individuals were using Discord to be part of an online community, engage in meaningful conversation and have a place to belong.

“You came to us and said Discord was this place. And for millions of you, it already felt like a home,” writes Citron.

“Today, many of you use Discord for day-to-day communication. You’re sharing thoughts about books, music, and art, creating servers to just be yourself and share moments with friends. Since we launched in 2015, Discord has grown to more than 100 million monthly active users. You spend 4 billion minutes in conversation daily across 6.7 million active servers. On a weekly basis, that’s 26 billion server conversation minutes across 13.5 million active servers.”

Citron then goes on to highlight the changes Discord is making to keep up with the way people are using it. These changes include improving the branding to focus on chat, making Discord “hostile to hate” and improving the onboarding experience.

It’s a safe bet that Discord will probably continue to grow and benefit from this move, especially as digital communication is more important than ever.

Discord Pivots to Chat, Downplays Gaming
Matt Milano

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How Understanding The Psychology Behind Isolation Fatigue Could Save The Economy

WebProNews
How Understanding The Psychology Behind Isolation Fatigue Could Save The Economy

Watching the effects of people’s psychological reactions to the pandemic can give us clues as to how to save the economy. Early on people were stockpiling toilet paper and hand sanitizer, but why? As the pandemic has worn on, the things people are stocking up on have changed. From toilet paper to guns and ammo, why are people choosing the things they are choosing and what can that tell us about how to save the economy?

When the pandemic first reached the United States, people were buying up things they thought they would need immediately – toilet paper and hand sanitizer. The hand sanitizer is somewhat obvious – officials announced early on that it was effective against the novel coronavirus when soap and water were not available, such as when you are grocery shopping. 

But why toilet paper? Think about it this way – we went from spending the majority of our days outside of our homes at work and school to spending all day, every day in our homes. That means more of our, er, daily business is being done at home than usual. Hence the need for more toilet paper. And as the supply chain failed to keep up, it caused people to panic even more about whether they would be able to meet this most basic need for their families.

Within a few weeks, flour and baking yeast were flying off shelves. As yeast became scarce, everyone you know began baking sourdough bread because of the ability to capture and propagate wild yeast. As people began to settle into the idea they might be stuck at home for a while they started to look for creative outlets that also might turn into useful information for future survival. Baking bread fit the bill.

Later came spikes in beverage alcohol sales and hair dye. People wanted to escape reality with a new hair color or cover their gray roots so they didn’t have to think about the fact they are aging. And of course imbibing has long been a staple for people bored at home wanting a diversion.

Soon that diversion turned to panic, however, and people began to stock up on freezers, meat, guns, and ammo. The threat of running out of meat in the stores became real as meat processing plants began to shut down because of massive Covid-19 outbreaks. People needed a place to store their stockpile, so freezers sold out across the country. The threat of fights in grocery store parking lots became real, and people began to plan for the worst.

Then came chickens and vegetable plants. People decided they were probably going to be on their own for food soon and they stocked up on whatever kind of food they could produce themselves.

This all took place within the first several weeks of the pandemic. Over time compliance fatigue grew and people became restless. They began to demand the government allow the country to reopen, which led to a spike in coronavirus cases. Now hospitals are reaching capacity in heavily populated areas, mainly because people were tired of being afraid and wanted to get back to their daily lives.

Understanding this psychology could help us reach a point where it is safe to reopen the economy again. Wearing masks is probably the biggest thing we can do to make it safe to reopen the economy, so encouraging people to wear masks is the first step toward reopening the economy.

Learn more about how human psychology is affecting the economy and how we can move forward from the infographic below.

How Understanding The Psychology Behind Isolation Fatigue Could Save The Economy
Brian Wallace

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New Features: Add AWeber Landing Pages to WordPress, and Much More!

A great landing page is a fantastic tool to help you grow your audience. With AWeber, you can get your landing pages up and running quickly — without design or coding skills — while saving money and promoting your products, services, or events with ease. 

Since we announced AWeber Landing Pages, we've received awesome feedback and suggestions from customers like you.

We are thrilled to announce we recently added new features to our AWeber landing pages to make it even more powerfully-simple to grow your audience.

The power of AWeber landing pages in WordPress 

With AWeber's landing page builder, you can create visually-stunning landing pages that match your site branding, integrate seamlessly with your AWeber email marketing, and can be  added easily to your WordPress website in seconds. 

Here’s how:

Step 1: Upgrade to the latest version of AWeber for WordPress plugin.

Step 2: In WordPress locate the landing page you published using the AWeber Landing Page Builder.

Step 3: Link the landing page to any page within your WordPress website. Our plugin will automatically copy everything needed over to WordPress.

Optional step 4: If you ever update your landing page in the future, simply click the "Resync" button in our WordPress plugin, and your revisions are instantly copied over your WordPress page.

 

Change all template styling options in one location

The AWeber Landing Page Builder makes it super easy to personalize your landing page to match your website, emails, and other brand assets. 

You can now set your landing page's default settings for font style, text size, text color, and link color. If you add new elements to your page, the design elements will have the default settings that you selected. 

Step 1: Click the "Design" tab under the "Page Properties" settings.

Step 2: Select your header font, body font, font color, and link color.

Step 3: Select the background of your template. Upload a new image or select a stock image from the “Image Gallery.”

 

Easily share your landing pages on social media.

The AWeber Landing Page Builder makes it super easy to share your landing page on social media. 

Fill out the page title, page description, and image you wish to share on social media. Or AWeber can pre-populate the social media descriptions for you automatically using the content that you entered on your page. You'll never have to worry that a page you share on social media will have incomplete content.

Step 1: Click the blue "Setting" button under "Page Properties."

Step 2: Under "Social Sharing" fill in the social description: page title, page description, and image.

Step 3: Publish your landing page on social media by clicking the publish button. A social share button will appear, simply click the button to share on your social media networks. 

 

Connect AWeber with WordPress today

Connecting AWeber with WordPress requires absolutely zero coding experience. It instantly provides you the ability to integrate your email marketing with your WordPress website. 

And your AWeber account includes everything you need to get started — sign up forms, landing pages, email templates, and pre-built campaigns.

Don't have an AWeber account? No problem, sign up for a free trial today!

The post New Features: Add AWeber Landing Pages to WordPress, and Much More! appeared first on Email Marketing Tips.

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Tips for Using Images on Your Blog

No more blog shaming! More and more, we’re seeing a better understanding of the power of the blog. From enterprise-level corporations to educational institutions, there is an increase in blogging, especially as WordPress continues to grow its market share of the internet. As a leading WordPress development and design agency, we place a lot of emphasis and importance on our own blog, using it as a tool to drive traffic to our website and generate leads, inform and educate fellow WordPress developers and designers, and create a sense of camaraderie among the WordPress community. So, why not share what I’ve learned as the content manager of this popular blog to help you improve yours? Today, I’d like to begin with some practical tips for using still images on your blog. There are other types of media that you can add to your blog posts, and I will address that in a future blog post, but for now, let’s just focus on still images.

Why should you bother using images on your blog?

I think a lot of entrepreneurs, CEOs, and general experts assume that a thorough knowledge of their chosen subject matter is enough to keep their blog interesting. It’s not. A successful blog post should not only be informative and accurate, it has to be engaging, captivating, and friendly to the reader’s eye. To not include those objectives in your blogging strategy could seriously be a turnoff to potential readers. By using images on your blog to tell your story, you can reiterate your point, invoke emotion, and add visual appeal. Delivering your message and information without images will appear like nothing more than a wall of text to your reader, much like this plain, ordinary wall below. You don’t want your content to leave this impression, do you?

Begin with a Featured image.

In WordPress, the Featured image is the main image of your blog post, normally placed at the top. Consider it your intro image. As an example, see the image at the top of this blog post, behind the title and my author image and name? It’s my featured image.

Depending on your editor (Classic Editor or Block Editor) and your theme, how you add your Featured image (sometimes called the Header image, again, depending on your theme) will vary. Whatever you do, don’t avoid the opportunity that using a Featured image offers your blog. It sets the tone. So, be sure to select one that complements your blog post topic. This article you’re reading right now is about blogging. As such, my chosen featured image includes a person typing on a laptop while drinking coffee, because who isn’t drinking coffee while blogging, right?

Consider placement.

Don’t scatter your images haphazardly. Think of the presentation of your blog post much like your living room. When you invite someone over, you clean it up and make it look neat, don’t you? (Your mom certainly hopes you do!) Keep your blog posts looking tidy by considering where and how you place your images.

When using images on your blog, be thoughtful. Center the image if you’re trying to emphasize a point, but to support one, think about placing the image within a paragraph and wrapping the text around the image. Wrapping text around an image sounds tricky, I know, but WordPress makes it super easy. When you add media to your blog post, you can select to align left or align right and the text will automatically wrap around your image. That’s it! Super easy.

Create a gallery.

Photo galleries seems a little weird and intimidating. For me, I’ve found the most appropriate time to use one is when I’m referring to several different people within a blog post, but if you have a series of photos from an event you would like to share, WordPress’ Gallery option could also come in handy then, too.

Below is a photo gallery example of our WebDevStudios (WDS) leaders. All I did was use WordPress’ Create Gallery option, then continued to Add to Gallery, and selected my amount of columns, based on the amount of photos on my gallery. Voila! I have a nifty photo gallery.

Identify people.

Let’s go back to that Gallery I just inserted into this blog post. Below each one, there is a caption that includes the name of the person and their title. Don’t just insert a person into a blog post without identifying who they are and what they do. You can’t assume the person reading your article will put two and two together and understand that when you mention Jim in your content, you’re referring to the guy in the photo. Identify the people in the photos as though you’re introducing them to your readers.

Keep your images accessible by using Alt Text.

Alternative Text (aka, Alt Text) is the description you write for each image you use in your blog post. This is not the same as the WordPress Caption. A caption identifies the image. Alt Text describes the purpose of the image. Moz breaks down Alt Text like this:

• It aids in web accessibility by providing your website visitors who use screen readers to access the web with information about that image. For example, the Alt Text I wrote for the image of the wall above literally says, “A photo image of a red brick wall and nothing else.” This lets the blog reader who is reading this blog by using a screen reader understand the purpose of that image.
• The Alt Text will appear in case you have an issue with a broken image. (Please try to avoid that error!)
• Alt Text also helps search engine crawlers index the image appropriately.

Still images are more than photos.

I, personally, prefer photographic images for blog posts, but icons and illustrations can complement your content just as well as photography. However, pick one category of imagery and keep it consistent per blog post. Don’t mix it up. Charts and graphs are images, too, and they may do a better job at conveying your message than a photo of a cup of coffee can. So, just stay consistent within a blog post but don’t limit yourself, either.
 
 
 

But, where do you find images?

When it comes to charts and graphs, you may have to make your own, and that’s not a bad idea. Branded infographics can go a long way, especially if that image is shared by others in your industry. However, when searching for photographic images, icons, and/or illustrations, there are websites available that allow you to use uploaded images free of charge. We have a tendency to use Pixabay and Unsplash for our blog, but at Buffer’s blog, they wrote up a list of 24 places to find free images. You will never be at a loss for images.

Size matters.

Don’t bloat your WordPress website by adding 16MB images. Images that aren’t optimized are a real website speed killer. I prefer to compress and optimize images before loading them to the WDS media library. My rule-of-thumb is to keep them under 1MB each. However, there are WordPress plugins that can help, too. Read this article at WP Beginner for best practices for image optimization.

Speaking of size…

The sizes of the images displayed within your blog post matter, too. Generally, WordPress gives you the option of inserting an image that is Thumbnail, Small, Medium, Large, or Full Size. Choose what works for you, but keep it consistent. As I said earlier regarding placement, remain tidy. Varying the sizes of your images within a blog post could come off sloppy. Be thoughtful.

With WordPress, your media options go beyond still images, but if you haven’t been using images before in your blog posts, hopefully this article will help get you started. Looking to hire a team to add a blog to your current website? Contact us! We’ll even show you how to use your new WordPress site, including adding images to your media library and blog posts.

The post Tips for Using Images on Your Blog appeared first on WebDevStudios.

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Koji raises $10 million so you can remix games and interactive content for social media

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Koji raised $10 million for its platform for creating interactive social media posts. It's a remix tool that you can use to make games and videos sharable. Read More

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Google Data Studio: What Is It, What’s Working & What’s Missing

This post was originally written by Seer alumni and published in June 12, 2017.
It was updated on June 30, 2020 by Aniqa Anwar.

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What is Google Data Studio?

Google Data Studio (GDS) is a great, free data visualization tool (note my use of the phrase data visualization tool, as opposed to business intelligence tool here) that lets you build interactive dashboards, and customized, beautiful reporting.…

The post Google Data Studio: What Is It, What’s Working & What’s Missing appeared first on Seer Interactive.

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Google advanced search: Six powerful tips for better SEO

30-second summary:

• Google advanced search helps you get granular with your searches and deliver hyper-focused searches with the help of search operators (or a combination of them).
• For example, you can search for articles published in the last week by your competitors or discover internal linking opportunities you might’ve missed.
• In this how-to guide, Venngage’s Aditya Sheth outlines six Google advanced search hacks you need to know to master Google search and become a better SEO.

I have to come clean on something: I’m lazy.

While being lazy may not be a virtue, it does come with an unseen advantage: It allows you to look for creative ways to get things done without necessarily spending more time.

And as an SEO, I’m always looking for ways to get more done without working longer hours. Essentially: aiming to accomplish more with less.

One way to do more with less is to look for tools, tactics or even hacks that help you cut down time wasted and get more done, faster. 

One of my favorite hacks ever? Google advanced search.

But what is it? In simple terms, the Google advanced search helps you fine-tune your searches to find exactly what you’re looking for. 

This is an especially useful skill if you want to quickly pull up small-bits of information without always having to rely on tools like Ahrefs, Moz, or SEMRush to do it for you.

In this how-to SEO guide, you’ll use advanced search operators to:

• Find duplicate content that could be hurting your site’s rankings.
• Uncover a gold mine of guest posting opportunities in your niche.
• Discover missed internal linking opportunities.

Before we dive into the meat of this guide, first things first:

A mini-crash course on advanced search operators

To keep things simple, we’re going to cover four operators I, as an SEO, use most often.

The first operator is the site search operator. What this allows you to do is retrieve results from a single website. All you have to do is type site:[any website] into Google.

For example, If I enter site:semrush.com, I will only see results pertaining to SEMrush:

You don’t need the http://, https://, or www prefixes when using the site operator.

That’s not all, you can even use a keyword in addition to the site operator to find if that site has written any content around that keyword.

Let’s say I want to find whether we’ve covered the keyword “infographic” on the site. I’ll enter “site:semrush.com infographic” and this is what comes up:

I personally use the site operator very frequently as it limits my search results to a single domain. Keep this operator in mind as we’re going to be relying on it later.

The next operator you’ll find useful is the quotes or exact-match (“”) operator. What the exact-match operator does is limit your searches to exact-match phrases only.

For example, here is a normal Google search (notice the number of results):

And now the same phrase wrapped in quotation marks: 

 

Notice something different? 

Compared to a normal Google search, exact-match queries will only show you results where your keyphrase has been mentioned exactly as it is (and not a variation). 

This operator is especially powerful to identify if your site has any duplicate content that could be sabotaging your rankings (more on this later).

Last but not the least, we’re going to learn the dash (-) and plus (+) operators to perform laser-targeted searches. 

What the dash (-) operator does is excludes certain keywords from appearing in the search results. So if I wanted to read about the topic of search engines but not search engine optimization, I’d use the following query: 

 

By using the “- optimization” in my search, I’ll only see results about search engines and not search engine optimization.

The plus (+) operator, you guessed it — does the exact opposite. You can use the plus operator to add words to your original search and show you a different set of results. 

For example, here’s a query I entered in Google search:

What did I do here? I used the site:, dash and plus operators in conjunction to show me articles that closely relate to search engine marketing but not SEO on the Search Engine Watch blog.

Venngage

There are many search operators out there (too many to list in fact). You can find a much more comprehensive list of search operators on the Moz blog.

But for simplicity’s sake, we’re going to stick to the site, exact match, dash, and plus operators in this guide.

Six Google advanced search tips for better SEO

Using the Google advanced search operators above, you can access exactly what you’re looking for and spend less time searching for it.

Advanced search can come really handy especially when you’re just starting out and don’t have the budget for expensive SEO tools.

Imagine all the endless possibilities that lie in wait for you as an SEO; if only you got better at googling. Well, it’s easier than you think. I’ll show it to you:

1. Conduct basic but insightful competitor research

Conducting competitor research on Google is really easy. All you have to do is use the “related:” search operator followed by a website URL. 

“Related:” allows you to find sites that are closely related to a specific URL. You can use related to identify not only direct competitors but also indirect peripheral competitors that you might’ve missed in your competitor research.

Not only that, the related: operator also helps you understand how Google is categorizing your competitors and your website.

Let’s look at what Google returns if we search for competitors related to Venngage

I already know the first three results are our direct competitors, but the last two are surprising because they seem to be indirectly competing with us (and I wasn’t even aware of them).

We’re an online infographic maker tool while both Column Five Media and InfoNewt appear to be done-for-you agencies. Google has identified and categorized them as sites related to Venngage which is an insightful find.

Don’t dismiss this advanced search hack because of its simplicity. Try it for yourself and see what Google comes up with. You might just come away with a better understanding of the competition as it pertains to SEO.

2. Stalk your competitor’s content strategy

Sticking to the topic of competitor research, here’s a cool way you can spy on your competitor’s content strategy: combining the site operator and Google’s date-range filter.

Let’s try this on one of our direct competitors: Piktochart.

To limit my search to only blog-related results, I’ll use Piktochart’s/blog subdomain instead of their website. And by the looks of it, they have 790 pages on their blog. 

I can use the date-range filter (click on tools and filter by date) to further drill down these results to identify what content they published in the last month only. Here’s what comes up: 

This not only tells me Pitkchart published four new articles last month but also gives me insight into Piktocharts’ content strategy and the keywords they’re targeting.

You can find even more data by filtering the results by days, months, or custom time periods. 

I can even include exact-match (“your keyword” in quotes) keywords to find out how much content Piktochart has published on any given topic, which is a clever way to uncover their topic cluster strategy. 

Let’s take content marketing as a topic for example

Using the site operator in conjunction with the date filters on Google search gives you information on: 

• How much content your competition has published till date
• How often they publish new content in a given time period
• What kind of content they publish at a certain point in time
• How often your competitor has written about a given topic

Pretty cool right? 

3. Unearth a gold mine of guest posting opportunities 

If your goal is to drive quality traffic back to your website, pick up high-quality backlinks, boost your website’s domain authority and even rank higher on Google — guest blogging will help you do all of the above.

Anybody that tells you guest blogging is dead is either lying or in on it. Guest blogging still works, even in 2020.

Now that we’ve briefly covered how important guest blogging really is, how do you uncover guest blogging opportunities in your niche or industry?

Here are a few advanced search queries you can copy and paste into Google

• Your Keyword “guest post opportunities”
• Your Keyword “guest post”
• Your Keyword “submit guest post”
• Your Keyword “submit blog post”
• Your Keyword intitle:“write for us”
• Your Keyword intitle:“guest post guidelines”

If I’m looking to guest post for sites in the design space, for example, I’d use the following query:

Sites bookmarked. Guest post pitches sent. Fingers crossed. 

Try out these search queries for yourself and you’ll be able to build a respectable list of sites to contribute for.

Brian Dean has the most exhaustive guide on guest blogging I’ve read (it includes a huge list of search operators that will help you find even more guest posting opportunities).

4. Discover hidden opportunities for internal linking

Internal linking plays a small but important role in the ranking factors that determine how well you rank on Google.

Irrespective of how well-designed and easy-to-navigate your site may be, a great internal linking structure can make all the difference when it comes to driving traffic from one post to another across your entire blog.

Internal linking also creates topical relevance by creating supporting content for the main topics of your website.

A few weeks ago, I published a mammoth webinar guide on the Venngage blog. I wanted it to start driving traffic to the post and rank for high-volume keywords immediately.

I got to work by finding out where I could link to our guide internally from as many relevant posts on our blog as possible. All I did was use the site operator and the keyword “webinar”: 

Boom! Barring the first result, I found 47 internal linking opportunities with a simple search. And all it took was a few seconds.

You can even use this search query: site:www.yourwebsite.com/blog intext:”your keyword” to pretty much do the same thing.

This advanced search hack won’t be as useful if you’ve recently started blogging, but it will come in handy if you manage a huge blog that already has a lot of existing content.

5. Find duplicate content on your website

Duplicate content is content that appears on more than one location on your website and can confuse search engines when it comes to deciding which page to rank higher. 

In short: Duplicate content can hurt your website rankings and it’s a technical SEO issue you cannot afford to ignore.

To show you an example of duplicate content, I’ll use this small piece of copy from the Apple Airpods product description on Walmart: 

Using the site operator, I’ll paste the copy into Google using the exact-match operator. Here’s what I come up with: 

The same piece of copy shows up on six other pages on Walmart. Things could be a lot worse but still, not ideal.

But if I were to search for the same piece of copy across the web (not just Walmart) using the dash operator, this is what comes up:

The same piece of copy appears on ~19,000 other websites (excluding Walmart). That’s a lot of duplicate content. 

Duplicate content is especially a major issue for website blogs with 1,000s of pages or ecommerce sites with the same product descriptions. 

6. Find missed content opportunities

One of the last search operators I’ll cover is the “filetype” operator. 

Filetype can help you find non-HTML content on your site, such as Word Documents or PDF files. This content is often valuable, but not search optimized. And traffic to it doesn’t show up in your Analytics.

To use this search operator, simple type in “site:yourwebsite.com filetype:pdf” like so: 

Then look at that content. Have you published it as HTML content? Is it search optimized? Is there an opportunity to make it a valuable, rank-worthy and trackable webpage?

PDF files are often the rust of the internet, added to sites because the content manager doesn’t have an easy way to publish actual web pages.

They should always be an alternate (print-friendly, download-friendly) version of HTML content. They should almost never be the only version of a piece of content.  

Your turn to master Google search

Congratulations! You’ve officially made it to the end of this mammoth guide. 

Google is far more powerful and robust than we realize or give it credit for. 

Knowing what to search for and how to search for it with the help of Google advanced search operators will help you harness Google’s true power and in turn, grow your site.

As SEOs, our job comprises running SEO tests, tinkering with Google’s algorithms, and staying on top of the latest search trends.

Google advanced search is not only a fun skill that you can learn over the weekend. It can help you uncover opportunities hiding in plain sight and help you be more effective at your job.

The real kicker

Google is and always will be free. The know-how to fine-tune your searches will help you become a better SEO and pay dividends over the long term.

Has using Google advanced search in your day-to-day made you a better SEO? Which search operators do you use most frequently? Did I miss any advanced search tips? Drop them in the comments below.

Aditya Sheth does Content & SEO at Venngage. You can connect with him on Linkedin or find him on Twitter @iamadityashth.

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8 Best Business Phone Services in 2020

Communication is integral to the proper functioning of any business – and what method of communicating is more fundamental than human speech?

Despite the rise of text and email in business communications, nothing really beats the ease of being able to simply dial up a colleague or client, make a personal connection, and talk things out.

Although video conferencing is gaining popularity, it's often viewed as more intrusive than phone calls. In fact, phone calls are still the go-to method:

A recent BrightLocal survey found that 60% of consumers prefer to contact businesses by phone.

But even though the telephone is a staple of modern communication, it has by no means stayed the same over the past hundred years. Today, voice over internet protocol (VoIP) services offer a low-cost and high-tech alternative to traditional public switched telephone network (PTSN) solutions. In short, VoIP services push your voice through the internet instead of a traditional phone line.

In this guide, we’re going to go through eight of the best VoIP business phone services. We’ll let you know how much they cost, what features they come with, what makes them great, and what makes them not so great.

If you want to get straight to our top picks, scroll down to the section right below. But be sure to read the whole guide if you want to get an in-depth look at the top offerings in the space and some tips on how to choose the best business VoIP provider for your needs.

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Best Overall Option: Nextiva

Nextiva is a giant in the VoIP industry, and if you’ve heard of it, you’re probably not surprised to see it making our top slot. Nextiva offers a high-end VoIP experience with a robust and reliable network, some great features, and a very affordable price to boot.

Nextiva was rated the number one business phone service provider in 2020 by US News and World Report, and 94% of Nextiva customers said they were satisfied with their experience. Customer satisfaction rates like that are almost unheard of!

When looking through Nextiva’s options, you get the feeling that the company has thought of everything. Plans come with desktop and conference room phones, making it one of the few VoIP services that include hardware.

Plus, Nextiva has a whole suite of video conferencing tools too, making it a fantastic all-around communication package.

Best Budget Option: Phone.com

If your priority is keeping costs low, Phone.com is worth your careful consideration. This company is able to keep its services affordable by offering flexible plans and, unlike the other services we looked at, they offer two types of plans: pay-per-minute plans and unlimited plans.

This allows businesses that don’t use their phones very often to save some money by shelling out for a pay-per-minute plan, while businesses whose employees have their elbows permanently bent in a ninety-degree angle can opt to pay more for unlimited minutes.

In short, Phone.com doesn’t force you to pay for more than you need. With plans starting at just $9.99/month, it’s one of the cheapest providers around. But of course, it still packs a punch with features like premium hold music and call analytics, depending on what plan you sign up for.

Best Freelancer and Solopreneur Option: Grasshopper

Not every business needs a desktop phone and dozens of extensions. Freelancers and solopreneurs sometimes need a business phone service just like any other company does, even if their needs are slightly different.

Grasshopper caters precisely to this demographic. Unlike many of the other services on this list, this company doesn’t focus on desktop phones. Instead, it provides a mobile app that makes it easier to run your business from your smartphone which, for many solopreneurs, also happens to be your personal phone.

For example, if you miss a call, you can have Grasshopper send an automatic text to follow up so that you don’t lose the client to someone else. Or, if you find yourself getting caught off guard picking up business calls when you’re in personal mode, you can ask Grasshopper to alert you when a call is business-related so you can move to a quiet area and prepare yourself to make a great impression.

Unfortunately, Grasshopper is a bit on the pricey side, especially considering that it doesn’t come with any hardware. Still, if you’re a solopreneur or freelancer, this is one business phone system that’s definitely worth looking into.

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Business Phone Service Features Overview

Before we go any further, here’s a quick overview of some of the features of the services we’ll be reviewing:

8 Best Business Phone Services

1) Ooma

Ooma Highlights:
* Website
* Pricing: Starts at $19.99/user/month
* Best for: Traditional office environments

Ooma is a well-established VoIP provider with a long track record of customer satisfaction. For the past seven years, PC Magazine voted Ooma the number one business VoIP, and that should be enough to make anyone give it some careful consideration when looking for the best phone service for their business.

Ooma markets its offerings as “big business features at small business pricing” — and they’re not lying. Ooma includes:

• Extension dialing
• Virtual receptionists
• Hold music
• The ability to keep your old number
• The ability to use the Ooma mobile to make and receive calls

For all this, Ooma charges $19.99/user/month. This fee stays the same no matter how many users you have, which keeps the pricing simple and free of unwelcome surprises as you grow your business.

All this sounds a bit too good to be true and, unfortunately, it is: Ooma doesn’t include the cost of hardware in its standard pricing. When you figure that in, Ooma doesn’t end up being as cheap as it seems. For example, its Business Phone Starter Pack costs $99.99 and comes with one Ooma base station and two wireless extensions, which are compatible with existing analog phones. Other packages that include actual phones are more in the $200 range.

That said, it is possible to use Ooma exclusively with the mobile app, which would eliminate the need for hardware. However, if that’s what you’re looking for, you may be able to find better and cheaper options for your needs.

Assuming you do go all in with Ooma, you’ll be happy to know that they provide superb customer service. Plus, they are known for having an easy set-up process, so between the ease of use and the helpline, you should be sailing smoothly after the initial financial investment.

2) RingCentral

RingCentral Highlights:
* Website
* Pricing: Starts at $19.99/user/month
* Best for: Small-to-medium businesses (SMBs)

RingCentral is no small fry in the VoIP space. Touting over 2 million users, it’s clear that the company is doing something right.

While there’s a lot to like about RingCentral, one of its best points is that it has quite a few different plans available. Simply put, that means that users have options and won’t be pigeonholed into having to decide between plans that have either far too much or far too little. Plus, plans can be customized to include additional features like vanity numbers and international toll-free calling à la carte.

RingCentral offers four different plans, each building on the former:

Essentials:

• Starts at $19.99/user/month
• Maximum of 20 users
• Provides 100 toll-free minutes/month
• Unlimited domestic calls (U.S. and Canada)

Standard

• Starts at $24.99/user/month
• No users maximum
• Provides 1,000 toll-free minutes/month
• Unlimited audio and video meetings (maximum of 4 video participants)
• Unlimited internet fax
• On-demand call recording

Premium

• Starts at $34.99/user/month
• No user maximum
• Provides 2,500 toll-free minutes/month
• Video conference participant limit increased to 100
• Integrates with Salesforce and ZenDesk
• Automatic call recording

Ultimate

• Starts at $49.99/user/month
• No user maximum
• Provides 10,000 toll-free minutes/month
• Video conference participant limit increase to 200
• Automatic call recording

And no matter which plan you choose, you’ll have access to some features like:

• Unlimited SMS
• iOS and Android apps
• HD voice
• 24/7 customer support
• Call log reports

For most users, the deciding factors will be the number of toll-free minutes you get each month and how many people you can have on a video meeting at the same time. If you’re planning to use your VoIP very rarely, the Essentials plan should serve you well. But if you’re looking to use RingCentral for enterprise applications, you’ll need to go with one of the higher plans.

Overall, RingCentral provides a reliable VoIP service that can be tailored to each business’s needs.

We’ve helped Fortune 500 companies, venture backed startups and companies like yours grow revenues faster. Get A Free Consultation

3) Vonage

Vonage Highlights:
* Website
* Pricing: Starts at $19.99/month/line (bulk discounts available)
* Best for: Businesses that want a longstanding service

If you watched TV at all during the early 2000s, then Vonage may stir up some feelings of nostalgia for you. Back then, they were perhaps the best-known internet phone provider, thanks to its quirky commercials. But although the company was focused on residential VoIP in its heyday, they have since pivoted to concentrate on the more lucrative business phone market.

Vonage offers three different plans, each of which has different prices depending on the number of lines you choose:

Mobile

• Only allows calls to and from mobile devices and laptops or desktop computers
• Designed for remote teams and businesses that don’t require desk phones
• Pricing:
  • 1-4 lines: $19.99/month/line
  • 5-19 lines: $17.99/month/line
  • 20+ lines: $14.99/month/line

Premium

• Allows calls from all types of devices, including traditional phones
• Designed for businesses with traditional office environments
• Pricing:
  • 1-4 lines: $29.99/month/line
  • 5-19 lines: $27.99/month/line
  • 20+ lines: $24.99/month/line

Advanced

• Includes additional features like visual voicemail and call groups
• Provides a dedicated team for set up and onboarding
• Pricing:
  • 1-4 lines: $39.99/month/line
  • 5-19 lines: $37.99/month/line
  • 20+ lines: $34.99/month/line

But Vonage’s plans are much more flexible than this list would have you believe. They offer a smorgasbord of add-on features to choose from, including visual voicemail, call recording and toll-free numbers.

Plus, they make it easy to purchase the hardware you need by providing you with a large selection of phones that have been tested for compatibility with Vonage. However, if you already have the hardware in place, they will work with you to make sure you can get your current setup working with their service.

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4) 1-VoIP

1-VoIP Highlights:
* Website
* Pricing: Starts at $14.97/extension/month
* Best for: Businesses that want pay-as-you-go options

1-VoIP is the most flexible VoIP service on this list, and it’s pretty cheap to boot, with a starting price of $14.97/extension/month.

Unlike many of the other providers on this list, 1-VoIP offers a “pay as you go” or “metered” option for phone service. Instead of paying a flat monthly fee for more minutes, you can opt to pay $0.02/minute in addition to the base $14.97/extension/month price. This works out pretty well as long as you keep your usage to 200 minutes per month or less (after this point, you’d do better upgrading to a higher plan).

1-VoIP offers three different plans:

Metered:

• Starts at $14.97/extension/month
• Pay for what you use at a rate of $0.02/minute

Corporate

• Starts at $19.97/extension/month
• Better deal if you use more than 200 minutes per month

Professional

• Starts at $24.97/extension/month
• Includes hardware costs

No matter which you choose, every 1-VoIP plan comes with the same standard features. And that’s great considering there are over 40 of them. They include:

• Configurable caller ID
• Digital queues
• Custom hold music
• Voicemail

Unfortunately, 1-VoIP doesn’t have a mobile app, but you can use ZoiPer Softphone (a third-party app) to get all the same features (picking up and making calls, etc.) that you would have if 1-VoIP did have a mobile app.

Overall, 1-VoIP is a very good choice for businesses that need flexibility or aren’t sure how much they’ll be using their phone. According to its site, they have some of the highest customer ratings in the VoIP space, so if they’re to be believed, that’s a very good sign that you’ll likely have a good experience with their service.

5) GoToConnect (formerly Jive)

GoToConnect Highlights:
* Website
* Pricing: Starts at $29.95/user/month (bulk discounts available)
* Best for: Businesses that also want video conferencing

GoToConnect is a new offering that combines GoToMeeting’s audio and video conferencing capabilities with Jive’s VoIP phone service. The result is a one-stop communication package that provides everything most businesses will need to communicate effectively. It’s also entirely cloud-based, which may make it easier to maintain your hardware.

Overall, GoToConnect strives to be all-inclusive. Unlike other providers that price their services based on the features you select, GoToConnect bases its pricing entirely on how many users you’ll have. GoToConnect’s prices are:

• 1-4 users: $29.95/user/month
• 5-9 users: $25.95/user/month
• 10-24 users: $23.95/user/month
• 25-49 users: $21.95/user/month
• 50+ users: $19.95/user/month

As you can see, the more users you add, the less you'll pay.

And GoToConnect offers all the same features regardless of how many users you have. There are over 80 features, so there’s no doubt that this is one of the most complete packages on the market.

Some of GoToConnect’s features include:

• Call routing
• Caller ID
• Custom hold music
• International calling
• Wait time announcements

GoToConnect also stands out from the competition by offering features that are specifically designed for call centers, such as pre-call announcements, wait time announcements and unlimited call queues. It’s one of the only companies that seems to be making an active effort to appeal to the needs of call centers.

Overall, GoToConnect provides a high-end business phone experience. Compared to other services we’ve covered, it’s a bit on the pricey side, with a starting price that’s double 1-VoIP’s lowest-cost option, for example. That said, if you need a service that’s jam-packed with features, GoToConnect is definitely worth a look.

We’ve helped Fortune 500 companies, venture backed startups and companies like yours grow revenues faster. Get A Free Consultation

6) Grasshopper

Grasshopper Highlights:
* Website
* Pricing: Starts at $26/month
* Best for: Freelancers and solopreneuers

Unlike some of the other options on this list, Grasshopper is a pretty small company with a fairly modest offering. Whereas RingCentral has over 2 million users, Grasshopper has served just 350,000 “happy customers.” However, a small user base can sometimes be a plus: With fewer users, the company can dedicate more time and effort toward each individual.

Most of the options we’ve looked at so far are geared towards traditional office setups with desk phones. However, Grasshopper is a better fit for freelancers, solopreneurs and small teams who are planning to use their mobile devices to conduct business. Its main clientele is people who want a separation between their personal and business phones, but still want to use their mobile devices.

For example, real estate agents might want to give out their Grasshopper phone number to clients so that they can be easily reached without having to give out their personal number or carry around two phones all the time. It also alerts you when an incoming call is business-related so that you don’t get caught unprepared when you pick up the phone expecting a personal call and quickly realize that it's a potential client.

Grasshopper offers two services: Grasshopper and Grasshopper Connect. The main difference between the two is that Grasshopper Connect doesn’t just unify your business phone service; it also lets you view calls, texts and emails from one place.

Unfortunately, Grasshopper doesn’t come cheap. With a starting price of $26/month, it’s definitely a bit on the pricey side, especially considering that they don't offer any hardware. Grasshopper’s pricing is as follows:

• Solo: 1 number, 3 extensions, starting at $26/month
• Partner: 3 numbers, 6 extensions, starting at $44/month
• Small Business: 5 numbers, unlimited extensions, starting at $80/month

Keep in mind that with any plan you’ll be treated to some innovative features, like auto-texting, which can automatically send a text to any missed calls to try to prevent them from taking their business elsewhere. Overall, a great business phone system for solopreneurs, freelancers and small businesses.

7) Nextiva

Nextiva Highlights:
* Website
* Pricing: Starts at $21.95/user/month
* Best for: Enterprises

Out of all the providers we’ve looked at, Nextiva provides one of the most robust and reliable networks around and is a leader in the VoIP business phone space: They have connected over 1 billion calls, were rated the #1 business phone service in 2020 by US News and World Report, 94% of the businesses that have used Nextiva said they are satisfied with their service, and 90% of their customers say they’d recommend it to others.

So what makes Nextiva such a popular service? It offers enterprise business phone service at a very affordable price. Plus, it has great features, comes with the hardware you need, and has a very reliable network.

When you sign up with Nextiva, you’ll get:

• Desk phones
• Conference room phones
• Apps to manage your phone, text and email communications
• A mobile app
• Integrations with CRMs like Salesforce and HubSpot

Nextiva offers three plans, the price of which depends on the number of users and the features provided. Here are the plans and some of their features:

Essential:

• Starts at $21.95/user/month (discounts available for annual subscriptions)
• Unlimited calling within the U.S. and Canada
• 1,000 toll-free minutes
• Unlimited audio conferencing for up to 4 participants
• Google and Outlook integrations

Professional:

• Starts at $24.95/user/month (discounts available for annual subscriptions)
• Unlimited business SMS
• 2,500 toll-free minutes
• Unlimited audio conference calls for up to 40 participants
• Unlimited video conferencing
• Team messaging
• Call recording

Enterprise: 

• Starts at $31.95/user/month (discounts available for annual subscriptions)
• 10,000 toll-free minutes
• Unlimited audio conference calls with unlimited participants
• Call recording
• Audio and video screen sharing
• Zendesk, HubSpot, Salesforce, and ServiceNow integrations
• Voicemail transcriptions

Each of these plans builds on the last, so if something is in the Essential plan, it will also be included in the Professional.

8) Phone.com

Phone.com Highlights:
* Website
* Pricing: Starts at $9.99/month
* Best for: Budget-conscious businesses

Phone.com differentiates itself in three ways:

• It’s cheap
• It’s HIPAA and HITECH compliant, so it’s a natural choice for medical professionals and businesses
• It’s the only service on this list that’s capable of dialing 911

With plans starting at just $9.99/month, Phone.com is the cheapest VoIP phone service you’ll find. It also provides a good deal of flexibility with its pay-per-minute options.

Phone.com divides its pricing into two subgroups: pay-per-minute plans and unlimited plans.

The pay-per-minute plans have the following prices and features:

Base:

• $12.99/month ($9.99/month if paid annually)
• 300 minutes/month
• 1 local or toll-free number
• 5,000 SMS messages
• Over 40 features, including call queuing and voicemail to email

Plus:

• $19.99/month ($14.99/month if paid annually)
• 500 minutes/month
• 2 local or toll-free numbers
• 10,000 SMS messages
• Additional features like premium hold music and automated voicemail-to-text

Pro:

• $39.99/month ($29.99/month if paid annually)
• 1,000 minutes/month
• 3 local or toll-free numbers
• 20,000 SMS messages
• Additional features like call analytics and 300 call recording minutes

The unlimited plans all have unlimited monthly minutes and unlimited user extensions:

Base:

• $29.99/extension/month ($24.99/extension/month if paid annually)
• 1 local or toll-free number
• 5,000 SMS messages
• Call forwarding

Plus:

• $37.99/extension/month ($32.99/extension/month if paid annually)
• 2 local or toll-free numbers
• 10,000 SMS messages
• Premium hold music

Pro:

• $59.99/extension/month ($49.99/extension/month)
• 3 local or toll-free numbers
• 20,000 SMS messages
• Call analytics

Despite their differences, all of these plans come with the same set of base features, such as:

• Fax-to-email
• Call routing
• Audio conferencing
• Voicemail-to-email
• Dial-by-name directory
• Auto attendant

As a whole, Phone.com is best viewed as a very good budget option. A good portion of the testimonials on its site mention that Phone.com is more reasonably priced than other comparable services and, luckily, they don't seem to sacrifice any quality to reach this low price point. Instead, it simply gives users a variety of options to choose from so that they won’t have to pay for more than they need.

We’ve helped Fortune 500 companies, venture backed startups and companies like yours grow revenues faster. Get A Free Consultation

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How to Evaluate VoIP Business Phone Services on Your Own

In this guide, we’ve looked at eight of the best VoIP business phone services, but this list is by no means exhaustive. So if none of these options quite fits the bill, how do you go about evaluating other phone system offerings?

You can start by asking yourself these questions:

How large is my business?

Business phone systems often design their offerings with a certain type of business in mind, be it a solopreneur, small business or an enterprise. While many services offer different plans for different business sizes, some services are simply better equipped for one type.

When looking into VoIP providers, evaluate how their services might fit into your business. Does it provide enough extensions? Is the number of minutes sufficient for your needs?

How much phone time do you anticipate?

Business phone services tend to price their plans partially around the number of minutes provided. If you and your employees are constantly picking up the phone, then you’ll likely need a provider that offers unlimited plans. But if making calls is a rarity, you may want to go with a metered or pay-per-minute option.

What’s my budget?

It should come as no surprise that staying within budget is essential. Some providers are simply priced more competitively than others, so you’ll have to consider how that fits into the bigger picture. For example, can you afford more features? Or will you be better off with fewer features but a lower price tag?

What features are absolutely essential?

Every business has its own unique needs to consider. Some businesses will require phone services that have desktop phones, while others will fare just fine with a mobile app. Make a list of the reasons that you need a business phone service in the first place, and score each option on how well it meets those needs.

As with most decisions, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Business phone services come in many different shapes and sizes, so you’ll need to find the one that fits best into your larger business strategy.

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