Having the ability to segment your audience and understand your customers is crucial in the digital marketing world. Most of us are familiar with segmenting by gender, location, or interests through Google Analytics’ built-in reports, but these don’t always give us the insights we want and need.…
The post Scoring User Behavior for Audience Insights appeared first on Seer Interactive.
As an agency whose primary focus is building digital experiences, it makes sense that the 2016 rulings to roll out the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) would be a subject on which we need to be well-educated. We know first-hand that one of the main benefits of having a website is the ability to process data, whether it’s for eCommerce, entertainment, or a slew of other reasons.
Business owners, including WebDevStudios, and customers conduct transactions online. The laws governing those transactions directly affects our business and those of our clients. This is why we thought it was imperative to put together this article to bring you up to speed on the latest information and resources to help you navigate how this law may apply to your organization.
If you’re interested, we perform site audits and can work with you on ensuring your website and data processing are GDPR compliant.
General Data Protection Regulation is a European personal data privacy law. GDPR was approved in 2016 but had a grace period for implementation until May 2018. It will affect any business based in the European Union (EU) as well as any business with customers in the EU.
It is going to be absolutely binding throughout the EU and will have extraterritorial effects beyond its borders. The GDPR regulates, among other things, how individuals and organizations may obtain, use, store, and eliminate personal data.
It should be noted that the GDPR replaces Directive 95/46/EC, which is the current privacy law that has been around since 1995. The reason we’re bringing this to your attention is because Directive 95/46/EC is commonly found on sites across the internet today.
Disclaimer: Please note that this guide is for informational purposes only, and should not be relied upon as legal advice. We encourage you to work with legal and other professional counsel to determine precisely how the GDPR might apply to your organization.
The GDPR has been in effect since April 2016, however it had a grace period of enforcement till May 25, 2018. All organizations are expected to comply with GDPR after May 25, 2018.
If you are familiar with the current Directive 95/46/EC throw out everything you know about where it needs to be enforced. GDPR dramatically expands the scope of enforcement to include:
The second provision established an extraterritorial principle, which means that:
GDPR will apply to any organization processing data of EU citizens, regardless of the location of the organization.
Whether or not your organization is in or has servers in the EU, GDPR could apply to you if your business website contains personal data.
Please be sure to analyze what data your organization collects and whether it could contain data on EU citizens. It is also highly recommended you seek legal counsel to understand the full ramifications of GDPR to your organization.
GDPR loosely defines personal data as any information relating to an identified or identifiable individual—meaning, information that could be used on its own or in conjunction with other data to identify an individual.
Some data known to be identifiable (this is not a complete list!):
It then goes a step further and includes any data that could potentially link back to a person, such as, but not limited to:
While “processing data” is still an ambiguous concept within the stated regulations of GDPR, broadly, it can cover any electronic interaction with personal data. That could include:
In essence, if your organization is touching data of an EU citizen in any way, it will most likely fall under GDPR.
GDPR expands rather than eliminates what already exists in Directive 95/46/EC. Here are a few of the key provisions worth noting:
While we have outlined some of the major changes, GDPR has far-reaching effects. We highly recommend you seek legal counsel as to its specific impact on your organization.
GDPR introduces several new individual rights that are important. These new rights may require alteration to your organization’s service.
As always, you should consult with legal counsel to determine the effect the GDPR will have on your organization. Per GDPR if you are located in the EU or processing any data on an EU citizen it is likely that GDPR will be applicable to your organization.
It is important to understand how GDPR affects your organization as the penalties for non-compliance are staggering:
Fines can be up to 20 million Euros or 4% of your annual revenue!
Enforcement is not consistent across the board either. Each EU member state is able to enforce compliance and levy fines as they see fit. Some countries, such as Germany, take privacy very seriously and are likely to be less forgiving in their tactics.
In addition to seeking legal counsel, you should do a full audit of your site to determine where and what personal data is being processed.
Once you have identified all the areas data is collected on your site, determine what data is absolutely necessary for proper operation of your organization. If the data collected is of no real use/value, it would be an easy win for compliance to simply remove the data and its processing points. If the data is necessary, you will need to write it into the list of data collection and processing details for the user’s consent.
Next, you will need to implement measures that allow the user to provide consent, view, delete, update, and download their personal data.
Here at WebDevStudios, we are passionate about partnering with you to create a high-quality site that your stakeholder, customers, and government regulators will enjoy. We happily work with your legal requirements to ensure your website meets and exceeds expectations.
We are having internal discussions and planning sessions regarding how this might impact our customers. This has led us to work on internal solutions that we’ll be bringing to our clients based on their specific needs and requirements.
Site audits can be onerous. Let us take that headache off your hands. WebDevStudios is well-versed in site audits. We would be happy to partner with you to audit your site for personal data collection points and any other audit requirements you may have.
Get in touch with us today to schedule your site audit!
Disclaimer: Please note that this guide is for informational purposes only, and should not be relied upon as legal advice. We encourage you to work with legal and other professional counsel to determine precisely how the GDPR might apply to your organization.
Are you the type of person who loves getting into the dirty details? Here are some additional resources to dive deep into GDPR. Be sure to bring your diving gear and a flashlight. It gets murky in there!
The post What You Need to Know About General Data Protection Regulation appeared first on WebDevStudios.
Microsoft users might want to take a closer look at the company’s update to its service agreement. Set to take effect this May, privacy experts are alarmed about the changes seem to suggest that Microsoft will now have the right to review user content even without prior consent.
Microsoft says it can ban your Skype or Xbox Live account for 'offensive language' https://t.co/1RTGCk5ybB pic.twitter.com/LZ5z1krGUt
— Mashable (@mashable) March 27, 2018
The questionable changes were first reported on by Jonathan Corbett at the Professional Troublemaker site. Microsoft warned against the use of offensive language as well as the sharing of inappropriate content. The company stated that violating the modified rules could result in the closure of a user’s Microsoft account.
“In the Code of Conduct section, we’ve clarified that use of offensive language and fraudulent activity is prohibited. We’ve also clarified that violation of the Code of Conduct through Xbox Services may result in suspensions or bans from participation in Xbox Services, including forfeiture of content licenses, Xbox Gold Membership time, and Microsoft account balances associated with the account.”
But what worried privacy experts, even more, is that aside from banning users from the company’s services, using offensive language can even be used by Microsoft as grounds to conduct an investigation and go through the user’s private data. As pointed out by Corbett, the term “offensive language” is a bit too ambiguous and its definition can vary greatly between different people.
“Enforcement. If you violate these Terms, we may stop providing Services to you or we may close your Microsoft account. We may also block delivery of a communication (like email, file sharing or instant message) to or from the Services in an effort to enforce these Terms or we may remove or refuse to publish Your Content for any reason. When investigating alleged violations of these Terms, Microsoft reserves the right to review Your Content in order to resolve the issue. However, we cannot monitor the entire Services and make no attempt to do so.”
The updated rules could be particularly problematic for users of Microsoft’s gaming service Xbox Live. This is because, within gaming circles, trash-talking is normal among players.
This was pointed out by Corbett who couldn’t help but ask, “If I call someone a mean name in Xbox Live, not only will they cancel my account, but also confiscate any funds I’ve deposited in my account?”
Aside from Xbox Live, the updated agreement will also cover users of other Microsoft services such as Skype and Office. Given the scope, Corbett fears that the amended terms would allow any Microsoft staff to pry open anyone’s private data such as Skype call recordings as long as they are "investigating" something.
At the moment, Microsoft declined to comment on the issues raised related to the amended agreement.
The post Microsoft to Ban Language It Finds Offensive on Private Accounts appeared first on WebProNews.
What follows are our 10 most popular articles for March 2018, recognizing that articles we published earlier in the month are more likely to make the list than later ones.
How ...
The post March 2018 Top 10: Our Most Popular Posts appeared first on Practical Ecommerce.
It’s spring, and that means it’s time to peer into your site to find the often-overlooked items that drag down natural search performance. In our homes, we tend to put off cleaning the closets, dusting the baseboards, and clearing the spider webs out of the hard-to-reach places. Similarly, some aspects of search engine optimization we tend to put off for another day. Today is the day for SEO spring cleaning! These six steps will make your site shine, and boost its natural search performance in the process
The post 6 Spring Cleaning Tips for SEO appeared first on Practical Ecommerce.
It happens to the best of us: you’re on the up and up, your business soaring to new heights on social media, and then… radio silence. New followers are slowing down. Sales aren’t increasing. You’re asking yourself, am I doing something wrong?
I’m here to tell you, friend, it isn’t you. It’s just that sometimes, social media sucks. (And I’m not just talking about those pesky algorithms.)
You’ve hit a plateau! It happens to the best of us. Here’s how to shake a leg and get over it.
If you find the bulk of your business’s social media presence slowing down due to a lack of new followers, or a dwindling amount of engagement on posts, igniting new interest in your business’s catalogue is the way to go.
Try producing some new product photography, or teasing forthcoming products before they come out. My recommended best bet? Do a giveaway.
Giveaways are great because they show an appreciation for your community, can comfortably slide right into trending hashtags, and cater to what people go gaga for most: free stuff. Giving away one of your shiniest products is a sure way to turn heads, and introduce people to your store too.
Say you run a bakery. Considering baked goods are somewhat “evergreen” (scones have been relevant for more than 500 years, dating back to 1500s Scotland!) it can be hard to drum up new interest when there’s never anything “new” about pastries.
You could of course introduce some new treats, but maybe that’s not something you’re interested in doing. Finding a means to repurpose how you market your baked goods, however… Now that’s a different story.
Take Pi Day. Historically, it’s a made-up holiday to honor the monster of your high school math class-related nightmares, π, but more recently it’s been a chance for pizzerias and pie shops to celebrate their cuisine.
Now that isn’t to say if your bakery doesn’t sell pie, you’re dust, but taking the opportunity to market your goods based on holidays (made-up or not) provides an endless stream of content inspiration. Christmas, Halloween, Valentine’s Day… as the world turns and days on the calendar fly by, finding inspiration based on what day it is can make a big difference.
You can also get creative with whatever’s going on in pop culture: scandalous happenings in politics, big news with celebrities, you name it. Sometimes it’s as simple as going over to Twitter or Facebook and seeing what’s trending, and then riding with whatever pops into your head.
You may be thinking, “Duh, Delilah, I’ve been doing that since you started yammering at me twice a week through this blog all those months ago,” but I’m here to reiterate that, yes, again, engagement can do wonders for your marketing.
Respond to comments on your post. A simple “thank you” or string of emojis can let a person know that not only did you see their comment, but that their comment means enough to you to respond to it.
Another great way to boost engagement: engage yourself! Network with other businesses and comment, like, and just generally interact with what they put out. Showing you’re a team player willing to engage with other businesses in your industry shows how passionate you are. Better still, it gives you more face time outside your own social profiles and hashtags.
Following formulas and how-tos on how to groom your social media prowess can only get you so far, and there’s more work to be done when you need it for marketing your small business. Social media plateaus are never fun, but they’re not impossible to rise over.
Being consistent with a healthy dose of trying new things is what gets the ball rolling. And so what about a plateau? As long as your business thrives, that too will pass. Keep up the good effort and things will turn out fine.
The post Small Business Social Media Plateaus: What to Do when You’ve Peaked appeared first on SumAll.
For businesses big and small, there are countless ways to sell products and services online. Sites like Shopify and Gumroad make it easy to sell digital products using their online platforms. And, if you sell tangible products, you may have considered Amazon, as it has made it easy for just about anybody to sell products on its website. These platforms might make it seem simple to get a store up and running, but that comes at the expense of having the freedom to personalize your customer’s digital experience. Plus, the costs of these third-party platforms take a bite out of your profits. A better alternative is taking advantage of the extendability of WordPress, combined with the perfect profit-making plugins. Here are recommendations for selecting the most trusted WordPress plugins for eCommerce and business success.
In general, there are three types of products people sell online: tangible products, digital products, and memberships/subscriptions. Each product type has its own set of hurdles. In this post, I’m going to look at these three product types and point out some of the questions you should be asking yourself before you set out on your quest to utilize WordPress plugins for your eCommerce business. I won’t be covering the generic business decisions you’ll need to make—like your return policy—but instead will focus on the questions that will determine how your online store will work.
Let’s dive right in!
If you were looking to start a business selling tangible products, such as shoes, housewares, art supplies, etc., in a brick-and-mortar store, you’d have to deal with leasing a space, getting proper licensing, buying showcases, staffing, security, and a myriad of other details. While you don’t have to deal with this same set of issues when selling online, there’s still plenty to consider. For example:
These questions are the tip of the iceberg. And, each time you answer one of these questions, it leads to another set of questions. It can be frustrating. Nobody ever said starting a business would be easy. If they did, they were probably trying to sell you something.
So, what WordPress plugin should you use to sell tangible products online? We recommend WooCommerce.
WooCommerce is an extremely powerful eCommerce platform. And, with roughly 300 add-on plugins available, it’s also quite flexible. Finding the exact set of add-on plugins you’ll need will mainly have to do with your specific shop requirements, but there’s little doubt that it can be handled by WooCommerce. Just be prepared to spend some time getting everything set up exactly the way you want. Or, hire somebody (like us) to help.
With digital products, the number of questions you have to answer declines quite a bit. Don’t get too excited. There are still plenty of mysteries to solve, but not having to deal with shipping physical products will make this process feel simple by comparison.
For digital products, you may want to sell individual items like an image or a PDF. Or, you may want to sell plugins like we do at Pluginize. No matter the type of digital product you are looking to sell, our plugin recommendation doesn’t change. For digital product sales, you need to check out Easy Digital Downloads (EDD). Powerful right out of the box, and with over 100 add-ons available, EDD is also super flexible and should be able to handle just about any scenario you can throw at it.
As a side note, if you plan to sell WordPress plugins, EDD’s Software Licensing add-on makes it easy for your buyers to update their plugins directly from the WordPress dashboard each time you release an update. WooCommerce has a similar option available that is far more complicated.
For memberships and subscriptions, it isn’t so much about what you are selling to your customers that’s important. What your customers need access to once they’ve signed up is where things can get complicated.
At it’s absolute easiest, I’ve seen WordPress used to sell memberships for groups that meet offline. The membership software was solely used as a simple way to collect monthly dues from members with no requirements for extra access to anything on the website other than the ability to manage their membership. Again, this is just the tip of the iceberg of what can be done.
Membership plugins can also make it easy to provide access to private content on your website. For some, this may be as easy as having one membership level where all private content is available to all members. But others may need something more complex with multiple membership levels, prices, and access to different content based on those levels.
For both simple and complex scenarios, my recommendation is Restrict Content Pro (RCP). With RCP, you can easily create automatic recurring memberships and provide your members access to just the right content.
One side note about creating memberships and giving users access to specific content, you may find yourself wanting to customize the menu items users see once they’re logged in. I found this plugin and this tutorial to be extremely helpful for customizing the menus for specific users and user levels.
No matter how great these recommended plugins are, they are definitely not your only options. MemberPress is another fantastic plugin for handling memberships and subscriptions, and that’s just one example. You may need to test a couple out to see which suits you best, especially if you have unique requirements and need something hyper-specific. You may even want to reach out to the authors of the plugins to see if their plugin will suffice.
Selling products can be a daunting task. However, with the recommendations I’ve provided above, your eCommerce shop could be up and running in no time. Happy selling!
The post The Most Trusted WordPress Plugins for eCommerce appeared first on WebDevStudios.
Are you looking for a guide to migrate your WordPress website domain name? If the answer is “yes”, then you’ve come to the right place.
Migrating a WordPress domain name is not an overly common occurrence. However, there are many instances where a website might be required to change its domain name.
For example, your website might be penalized heavily by Google, and you want a new domain, or you might want to rebrand your business to a new name. Everything is fine until you have a proper reason to do so.
In this article, we will focus on the tools and techniques that will allow you to migrate WordPress website domain name. Before we start, however, let’s try to understand the impact of migrating your website domain on your SEO.
One of the most common questions that a website owner has is: what will be the impact of moving the domain name on SEO?
As you might expect, Google will not respond quickly to the change in domain, and initially your search engine traffic will be impacted. With time and effort, however, your traffic will get back to normal after the switch.
To ensure that you get your traffic back, you need to follow a few simple steps. Don’t worry – we will go through them in this article. In short, you need to not only to buy a new domain, but also carry out proper 301 redirects to ensure that your SEO doesn’t get impacted any more than you can help.
Before we start, you need to do some pre-steps. These pre-steps will ensure that you don’t lose any of your work, and will also prepare the website for migration.
For the sake of an example, we will name the old site as “www.example.com” and the new site as the “www.newexample.com.” We will use these throughout the article for reference purposes.
The first step is to always create a backup of your website, including files and database. As you are using WordPress, you will find a lot of backup plugins to do the task. We recommend using BackupBuddy, VaultPress, BackWPup or Duplicator. You can also use other backup plugins or services of your choice.
Last but not least, you can also back up your website using the Cpanel or use phpMyAdmin. Only try out these manual methods if you are sure what you are doing. For the most part, it’s a good idea to stick with backup plugins unless you’re 100% confident.
Once the backup is created, you can download it to your computer, or simply store it in the cloud.
To simplify things, we’ll use Duplicator as the example plugin for walking you through these steps.
To get started, you need to install the Duplicator plugin on your old site, www.example.com. Once done, you need to navigate to the plugin page from the WordPress side menu.
After you open the plugin, all you need to do is click on the “create” button to start the process of duplicating your website. After you provide the name of the package, it shouldn’t take more than 2-3 minutes for the backup to be complete.
Once done, you can download the package and secure it for the next step. For the sake of the tutorial, we will name the package “thekey.php”.
The next step is to connect to your new site (www.newexample.com). You can use FileZilla to connect. After connection, just copy the the backup file, “thekey.php” into the root directory of the new website. You should be able to now access the website by typing the URL in your browser.
https://ift.tt/2uA9k6u
You need to change the URL and the file name accordingly for the above URL to work. Once done, you will now see a Duplicator Installer screen where it will ask for basic information such as the database.
Ensure that you check the “Table Removal” option and also ensure that the database on the new website is empty.
Next, you need to click on the “I have read all the warning and notices.” By clicking the “Run Deployment” option, the deployment process will now start.
After the initial installation process is completed, you will see another screen which is the “Update” screen. In this screen, you need to enter the old domain name and the new domain name. The plugin will try to guess the old and new URLs, but you should double-check to ensure that both values are correct.
The final step is to wait for the process to complete. After the completion, you can now log in to the WordPress admin panel using the old credentials and check if everything is working fine. The plugin also tries to prompt you to create a new backup which you should consider that you can always revert to the first instance if something goes wrong from here onwards.
You can also delete the installer file and clear your directory for any unnecessary files. You also need to re-initiate the permalinks by going to “Settings” -> “Permalinks.”
With all the backups loaded into the new website, it is now time to tell Google that your new site is ready. To do so, you need to set up permanent 301 redirects using a simple .htaccess file hack. This hack is also used when switching a website from HTTP to HTTPS in WordPress.
You can find the .htaccess file in your wp-admin or wp-includes folder. It is a hidden file, and you might to search for hidden files if you are not able to locate it. After you locate the file, copy and paste the below code to make the magic happen.
#Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.newexample.COM/$1 [R=301,L]
Don’t forget to replace newexample with your new domain name.
With redirection complete, it is now time to tell Google about your new domain.
You need to use Google Search Console to let Google know about the change. Go to the left-hand menu and click on “Change of Address.” You can follow this simple guide by Google for step-by-step instructions.
Migration a website domain name is not a simple task. You need to carry out the steps with caution and concentration.
We hope you found this guide useful. If you are not sure how to proceed with the whole process, it is always advisable to hire a professional to do it for you. Also, don’t forget to share your opinions in the comments section below.
Over the past few years, more people have turned to online shopping instead of brick-and-mortar stores because of convenience. In 2017, eCommerce businesses accounted for 9.1 percent of US retail sales during the fourth quarter, higher than the 8.2 percent share f the previous year.
Amidst online sales growth and positive prospects of eCommerce, nearly half of the industry’s revenue comes from Amazon. This prompted other online retailers to tap into artificial intelligence, or AI, in gaining an edge over the eCommerce giant through personalized shopping experience. In utilizing AI for their businesses, retailers gain critical analytical data on consumers, allowing them to improve customer experience.
From effective marketing strategies to efficient sales process, here’s a look at how using AI will benefit online retailers.
Most sales online begin with a search, and if the results displayed are not relevant, this can prompt customers to look somewhere else. Keyword-based search is the usual method for websites to return a list of items based on entered words and description. However, this might not be the most accurate way to generate relevant results.
To address this, a visual search engine powered by AI allows customers to send an image instead and discover similar products on your website. High-end retailer Neiman Marcus first announced said feature on its mobile app in 2015, recognizing the customer’s need to find related results based on photos.
Image via Neiman Marcus website
Feedback, whether posted on social media or review sites, allows businesses to quickly gain valuable insights about their products. Although 40 percent of sales and marketing leaders acknowledge that word of mouth is crucial to a brand’s success on social media, less than half of these companies use this information for their customer analytics.
By using AI and natural language processing (NLP), retailers can sift through every online feedback, be it positive, negative, or neutral, to learn more about customer expectations and respond accordingly.
AI-powered recommendation engines filter relevant information from numerous data about a buyer’s interest, preference, and behaviors on the site. Based on timely insights gathered, an online merchant suggests items uniquely patterned after your recent activity and past purchases on the site.
This shopping experience mimicking the personal feel of brick-and-mortar stores translates to customer satisfaction and spending. In fact, retailers with personalized strategies have observed sales growth of 6-10 percent, two to three times faster than others that don’t, according to Boston Consulting Group study.
Chatbots and virtual shopping assistants, powered by AI, provide direct and quick customer engagement. For eCommerce businesses, chatbots can be used to automate customer service messages, send order-related information, resolve issues, and interact with clients in real-time. By using NLP to understand meaning and context of your customers’ messages, these virtual assistants can take on your brand’s personality and voice in creating human-like interaction.
Image via livingactor.com
In a survey done by Oracle on 800 sales and marketing leaders, about 80% want to use chatbots in their businesses by 2020 as a way to automate some processes and improve customer experience.
Prior to social media, sales strategies include cold-calling and ad placements in the hopes of targeting the right market. These days, AI is used to gather patterns and numbers to help businesses convert queries to actual sales through data-driven feedback.
Nowadays, people turn to social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram for shopping inspiration—a trove of data for AI companies like Yotpo to utilize in developing digital marketing tools. With proper use of user-generated content, customers discover products in a subtler, more natural way.
“Artificial intelligence programs can scan through millions of events to find patterns and correlations that we just would not notice on a day to day basis. So it might notice a correlation between sending a specific pitch deck to prospective clients before calling them results in better conversions,” Uzi Shmilovici, chief executive officer of Base CRM, explained.
Digitally native retailers have recognized the importance of creating personalized shopping experience through the use of AI as a way to give them an edge over others offering the same products. By leveraging AI-driven innovations, smaller eCommerce businesses, as well as bigger retailers like Amazon, get the leg up in attracting and retaining their customers.
The post 5 Ways Artificial Intelligence Benefits eCommerce Businesses appeared first on WebProNews.
Compared to a typical, mobile-optimized web page, progressive web apps may give mobile shoppers a better browsing and buying experience while helping online sellers earn more sales and profit. It is for these reasons, progressive web apps — PWAs — may be the next phase of mobile web optimization
The post Are PWAs the Future of Mobile Commerce? appeared first on Practical Ecommerce.
In the midst of the fallout of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Facebook recently announced that it will put an end to its Partner Categories program. The move effectively cuts off third-party access to the social media giant's data.
Facebook utilizes data from third-party data collectors to augment its own data pool for ad targeting. The company also allowed advertisers to target consumers using data collated from several sources, including Facebook, the advertiser itself and third-party services like Acxiom and Experian.
Third-party data has been useful to companies and advertisers that do not have their own customer data. However, the Cambridge Analytica affair proved that Facebook has very little control over how these data collectors get their data, which makes using it is quite risky.
Facebook turns off ad targeting tool based on third-party data https://t.co/mtlykpM93e pic.twitter.com/FcJ9ZVmHci
— Ad Age (@adage) March 29, 2018
In a truncated statement attributed to Facebook's product marketing director Graham Mudd, the company wanted to inform advertisers of its move to shut down Partner Categories, a feature that allows third-party data providers to offer their targeting straight on Facebook. And while the company says it's a common practice in the industry, they believe this step “will help improve people's privacy on Facebook.”
The Partner Categories program started in 2013. It was borne by a partnership between the social media platform and big data brokers.
At the time of the program's launch, the company assured its users that they're very serious about privacy. But in light of what happened with Cambridge Analytica, it seems Facebook is re-evaluating its stance. Aside from the announcement about third-party access, the company has also updated its privacy control settings.
The move to restrict access to user data stems from Mark Zuckerberg's promise last week. Facebook's founder said in a post that the company has “a responsibility to protect your data, and if we can't then we don't deserve to serve you. I've been working to understand exactly what happened and how to make sure this doesn't happen again.”
[Featured image via YouTube]The post Facebook to Cut Off Third-Party Data for Targeted Ads appeared first on WebProNews.
We all know the benefits of a great blog. A perfect blog will help to build your brand’s reputation by grabbing readers’ attention and showcasing your site as a credible source of information. If you have it automated with your e-newsletter, a blog is also a great way to keep your brand top of mind with subscribers. But beyond these media benefits of a blog, it can also be a powerful inbound marketing tool.
Time and again, content marketing has proven to be massively effective in driving customer engagement and lead generation. Quality articles with optimized metrics for ranking, delivered on a consistent basis, will build up your domain authority and web traffic over time.
We compiled a year’s worth of content marketing data from our clients’ projects and analyzed it against several keyword research tools and content optimization tools. We then had that data analysis reviewed by a statistician who holds a Master of Science in Statistics from Texas A&M University. The results show which tools are most effective in determining the probability of ranking, and what measures you can take to improve the quality of your content.
The following are four of the most important things to keep in mind when you’re launching a competitive content marketing strategy.
Yes, I’m sure you already knew that keywords matter. But it can’t be said enough: Find keywords that suit your niche and are competitive enough to rank. SEMRush is a brilliant platform for digging into your site’s statistics (i.e., organic traffic, ranking keywords, backlinks, etc.) and investigating competition. Check out a competitor’s site with similar traffic to your site to see what keywords they’re ranking for.
Next, take some of those keywords and plug them into a keyword research tool (like SECockpit by Swiss Marketing Apps or KWFinder by Mangools) to check the competition score and monthly search volume. This will not only give you an idea of the metrics you should be aligning with your own site but may even give you some specific keywords to steal and target right off the bat.
There are three things you always want to keep in mind when performing your keyword research. Two of them were already mentioned. You want to find the right balance of (1) monthly search volume, (2) competition score, and (3) competitors’ domain authority.
SECockpit and KWFinder have both proven to be excellent tools for determining these metrics. Based on your site, these metrics may change, but here is a general rule of thumb that we’ve found to be highly competitive for most sites:
With these generalized metrics, you should be able to find some great keywords to target.
Remember to always use that target keyword near the beginning of your article title. For example, if your keyword is “hot cocoa recipes,” the title could be “10 Hot Cocoa Recipes to Impress Your Date This Winter” as opposed to “Impress Your Date This Winter with These 10 Hot Cocoa Recipes.” Also, aim for titles with less than 60 characters.
There’s no getting around it: Hire quality writers. Ask for their portfolio, give them a test assignment, and take the time to read through their material. Building a strong relationship with an awesome writing team makes a world of difference. Think about it: You want articles that people will actually stop and read (and, ideally, share on social media). Plus, Google scans for readability. Grammar, spelling, and flow are very important.
A great way to test your writers’ abilities is to ask them to use HemingwayApp. This (free!) platform demands simple, easy to read sentences. The focus is on clarity. Aim for a Grade 9 or less. If it’s in your budget, it definitely doesn’t hurt to have an editor review and fix up your content as well.
Word count matters too. We’ve found that articles should be at least 1000 words each. First—and this might seem obvious—1000 words provides a more in-depth look at a certain subject. Google sees that and decides that it’s a more valuable article than, say, a 500-word piece.
Second, you’ll be able to keep readers on your site for a longer period of time. Try breaking up the article into sections with headings, subheadings, and lists where applicable. Great stock photography and customized infographics will help you present your content in a palatable format. GIFs and YouTube embeds can be good too, but be careful because these can potentially slow down the loading speed of your site on readers’ devices.
A strong relationship with an awesome writing team makes a world of difference to your content marketing.
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No one wants keyword stuffing. It reads terribly, it makes your brand and website look awful, and Google is too smart for it. If your article reads like gibberish because you’re trying to shove in a bunch of keywords, then you’re not helping your chances of ranking and building up your domain authority. Instead, try a content optimization tool like CognitiveSEO or MarketMuse.
CognitiveSEO is fantastic for making this step super easy. You put your target keyword and title in, then drag and drop the entire article. It will break the keyword optimization into three parts: (1) Keywords you already use, (2) keywords you should use, and (3) keywords you should use more often.
It is a useful tool for working through the article and naturally integrating more keywords. It will even show you a “keyword stuffing” score, so if you’re getting a bit too ambitious, you can rein it in. Boost that content performance score to increase your probability of ranking.
MarketMuse works similarly, and we’ve found both tools to be very beneficial for optimizing content rankings.
Note: In the MarketMuse vs. SERPFox graph, Negative MarketMuse Score was used instead of MarketMuse Score because of the ascending nature of MarketMuse Score (higher is better) versus the descending mature of SERPFox Ranking (lower is better).
A good publisher will be familiar with SEO techniques. They’ll take your perfect article and format it nicely with the images you’ve chosen. Here’s a quick checklist for the publishing stage:
It’s always a good idea to save your article to draft mode and have someone else look over it before publishing. More often than not, you’ll find a few last-minute changes to make.
With these data-determined metrics and the best tools available, your articles will have a much higher chance of ranking in Google. The more quality content you have on your blog, the better, so get to it!
With two or three posts per week using these techniques, you’ll start to see your traffic and domain authority growing at an exponential rate within the coming year.
The post The 4 Content Optimization Rules You Can’t Afford to Break appeared first on Convince and Convert: Social Media Consulting and Content Marketing Consulting.
Google Analytics is a tool that can provide invaluable insights into what’s happening on your website, your levels of traffic and engagement, and the success of your campaigns.
If you’re a newcomer to Google Analytics, however, the array of different reports available to you can be a little overwhelming. Where should you begin? Where can you find the most useful data about your website?
Google Analytics standard reports are the preset reports listed down the left-hand side of your dashboard, divided into the segments Real-Time, Audience, Acquisition, Behavior and Conversions.
The information that appears in these is preset by Google Analytics, and gives an insight into the data on every part of your site, from your audience demographics to the channels through which they find your website.
In this series, we’ve set out to tackle the ambitious task of explaining each segment of Google Analytics and the standard reports they contain. Last time, we looked at Real-Time Reports and how they can be used in your marketing and SEO campaigns.
In this instalment, we’re going to look at Audience Reports: what you can learn from them, and how you can get the most out of the data that they offer.
As with Real-Time Reports, the secret to what these reports do is in the name: they tell you more about your audience, the people who are coming to your site.
The Audience section of Google Analytics is an extensive one, with no fewer than fifteen sub-sections sitting within it, most of those with several different reports.
We won’t cover each one in exhaustive detail in this guide, but will give a quick whistle-stop tour of the main sections and look at some ways that you can use these reports to maximum effect in your marketing campaigns.
The Overview section shows you your website’s current audience at a glance. It’s not in real-time – you need Real-Time Reports for that – but nevertheless presents a useful snapshot of the current audience metrics on your site, with information on users, unique users, sessions, page views, bounce rate and more.
The default time period is set to a week, but you can use the calendar drop-down in the top right corner to adjust it and view metrics over a longer or shorter period. You can also use the buttons just below that to view hour-by-hour, day-by-day, week-by-week or month-by-month stats (note that the last two of these will only work if the time span you’ve selected is more than a week/month).
This report gives you an insight into the number of unique users who have visited your site over various time periods – 1 day, 7 days, 14 days and 28 days.
This report is most useful for understanding the success of a promotional campaign while it’s running. As Google’s Analytics Help text for the Active Users report advises:
“If the numbers are consistently in line with your expectations, you’ve found your sweet spot.
“If the numbers are below expectations, reevaluate your marketing efforts to see whether you’re targeting the appropriate audiences, and whether your ads are winning auctions.
“In cases where you have a lot of 1-Day Active Users but the numbers drop off for longer term users, that can signal things like problems with a new release, or that initial enthusiasm isn’t translating into long-term engagement. For example, lots of users might be downloading an app but are finding that it doesn’t really meet a need they have or that it doesn’t capture their interest.”
The Lifetime Value report for Google Analytics was first tested in the first quarter of 2016 (as reported by Search Engine Roundtable at the time) and was rolled out fully in early 2017, although as I write this, the report is still in beta.
The report is geared towards Google Analytics users who have an ecommerce website, and is only available if you have activated ecommerce tracking on Google Analytics.
The Lifetime Value report allows you to filter by the date on which a certain user was acquired, making it possible to analyze users acquired during the most recent day-long, week-long or month-long campaign. It also allows you to compare various different Lifetime Value (LTV) metrics, including:
For a more in-depth examination of how these metrics are calculated, have a read of Optimize Smart’s ‘Measuring customers’ lifetime value in Google Analytics for mobile app and website users‘.
A cohort of users is any group of users that is segmented based on a date. For example, a cohort could be a group of users with the same acquisition date (technically in GA this would be the Date of First Session), or a group of users who completed their first transaction during a specific time period.
To configure a cohort report, there are four main selections you need to make:
Cohort type: This is the date that you want to base your cohort on. A little frustratingly, GA currently only gives one option for this section – Acquisition Date. However, it is possible to use report segmentation to get some additional insights, such as segmenting by traffic source or campaign.
Cohort size: This is the time window that you want to use for your cohort type: e.g. by day, by week, by month.
Metric: This is the actual data you will see presented in the report. You can choose from aggregated metrics such as pageviews or revenue, or per-user metrics such as sessions per user or transactions per user.
Date range: This is the date range used to construct the cohort; you can choose from the last 7 days, last 14 days, last 21 days or last 30 days.
For a much more detailed guide to using cohorts in Google Analytics, check out ‘Understanding the Google Analytics cohort report‘ by Analytics Talk.
To populate this report with data, you first need to define an audience within Analytics. To do that, you should enable Demographics and Interests reports, then create an audience.
You can use one of the preconfigured audiences available within Analytics, or create one from scratch. An audience might be as general as “current shoppers” (including users who have >0 product views, and excluding those who have >0 purchases) or as specific as users who have viewed the detailed page for [Product x], and then returned within 7 days to purchase.
Finally, publish your audience to Analytics by adding Analytics as a destination for that audience. The Audiences report will display data for your audience(s) from the point at which you create the report onwards – it isn’t available retroactively.
Once this is all set up, you can view Acquisition, Behavior and Conversions metrics for the audiences you have defined, and respond to their performance with actions like:
To populate this report with data, you need to first enable the User-ID feature in your property settings. Once set up, this report allows you to isolate and examine individual, rather than aggregate, user behavior.
For each client or user ID, you can view the following initial data:
Then after drilling into the ID, you can see the acquisition date and channel for that user, along with an activity log detailing which actions that user took on your site during each session. You can use the Filter by menu to add and remove data types, and expand and collapse individual sessions as necessary.
You can use the User Explorer report to more closely examine any noteworthy behavior that you spot within a particular segment, to get a more detailed understanding of what might be going on.
By examining individual session behavior, you can also see when your users fall short of completing certain goals, and remarket to those users with specific information related to their experiences. Additionally, you can personalize your customer service and offer informed guidance based on the context provided by the User Explore report. Just remember to tread the line between “helpful” and “creepy”!
The Demographics section in Google Analytics gives an insight into the age and gender of your website audience, and how different age and gender groups behave differently on your site.
Google cautions that, “Demographics and interests data may only be available for a subset of your users, and may not represent the overall composition of your traffic” – so bear in mind that this data may not be present for the whole of your audience, depending on whether or not it can track them via a DoubleClick cookie or Device Advertising ID.
The Overview report shows you the age and gender breakdown of your audience at a glance, with age divided into 18-24, 25-34, 35-44, 45-54, 55-64 and 65+ bands. In the top right corner of each graph, you can see which percentage of users on the site this data represents.
The Age report gives a breakdown of how those different groups interact with your website – their average bounce rate, pages per session, session duration, and completion rate of any goals and conversions you’ve set – and the Gender report does the same for gender.
The graph at the top of the report allows you to view how many of each type of user accessed your site on any given day – so if you’ve been executing campaigns to drive a specific demographic (e.g. women aged 18-24) to your website, you can assess how successful that has been over time.
They say psychographic data, rather than demographic data, is where it’s at these days. If so, the Interests section of GA Audience Reports is where you’ll find your most valuable information. Google uses a variety of data points taken from places like Gmail, app messages, internet browsing habits and YouTube history to make a guess at each user’s personal interests.
GA splits up interest data into three categories, each with its own report: Affinity, In-Market and Other.
Affinity Categories: Users who have a general interest in the topic in question – Google describes the interest level of these users as “Lifestyles similar to TV audiences, for example: Technophiles, Sports Fans, and Cooking Enthusiasts”.
In-Market Segments: Users who have “product-purchase interests” in the topic in question, akin to a buyer who is at the bottom of a purchase funnel and ready to convert.
Other Categories: This category provides the most granular view of your users’ interests. For example, says Google, “Affinity Categories includes Foodies, while Other Categories includes Recipes/Cuisines/East Asian”.
These reports display similar data to the Demographics reports, with users segmented by interest area instead of by age group or gender.
So what is interest data good for? If you’re an advertiser, you can use it to more effectively target ads based on specific interests. If you’re a publisher or otherwise publish content marketing to your site, you can get ideas for content topics based on what your users are most interested in.
You can also segment your report to get an insight into how these interest categories align with other demographics or behaviors. For example, below I’ve segmented the Other report by the 18-24 age group, revealing which interests are most prevalent among the youngest age group on Search Engine Watch.
Apparently SEW’s younger readers are more into Bollywood than SEO…
The Geo section contains reports on the language and location of your website visitors.
In the Language report, you can view Acquisition, Behavior and Conversions for site users who speak different languages – particularly useful if you run an international business, or have been thinking about diversifying into international markets, as you can get an idea of which language markets it would be most worthwhile expanding into.
The Location report features a virtual map of your users’ locations, which is useful for targeting search and social ads. You can zoom in on data at the city level, which allows local businesses to know if their marketing efforts are driving traffic and conversions from the right regions, and is also useful for publishers who want to create locally-focused content.
The Behavior section allows you to break down your audience by how often they visit your site, and the duration of that visit. You can learn how many times on average a visitor comes to your website, how many days tend to elapse between sessions for repeat visitors, how long visitors remain on your site and how many pages they visit whilst there.
If you’re a publisher, this is valuable data on how ‘sticky’ your website is and how successfully you’re managing to retain visitors. If you’re aiming to create more engaging content, you can track these metrics to gauge the success of your efforts, keeping an eye out for an increase in returning visitors or the duration of an average visit.
If you’re in ecommerce or sales, you can use this data in conjunction with Goals in order to learn what visitor behavior typically leads to a conversion.
Do you score the most conversions on the user’s first visit, or on subsequent visits? If the latter, what can you do to make your visitors more likely to return and convert?
The Technology section of GA Audience reports reveals which browsers, operating systems and even network providers your audience is using to access your site.
This information can be useful if your business creates online extensions, software or applications, and you want to know which browsers and operating systems to make them compatible with.
You can also use it to work out where you should be allocating your technical resources – if only a small fraction of your audience uses Opera, for example, it’s probably not worth putting a lot of time and effort into making sure that your website is optimized for that browser.
If you’ve been in two minds about whether to optimize for mobile (though by now we hope we’ve persuaded you that it is worthwhile!) or want the data to back up an argument for a mobile site/app, head to Google Analytics’ Audience => Mobile section.
In the Overview report you can see Acquisition, Behavior and Conversions data for desktop, mobile and tablet users – which can also allow you to learn, for example, if your bounce rate is significantly higher on mobile (which might indicate a poor mobile experience) or whether more users are completing purchases on a desktop device.
The Devices report then provides you with incredibly specific insights into the devices your audience is using to access your website, down to the make and model of the device.
If you’re developing a mobile app and are unsure about whether to produce it for Apple or Android, or want to test your mobile site using the most common devices wielded by your users, this is the report to look at.
In this section, you can create a custom Audience report using your own chosen variables, metrics and dimensions.
As the scope of this series is standard Google Analytics reports (not custom), I won’t go into detail here about how to get the most out of this report, but Econsultancy has a solid beginner’s guide to creating a custom report in Google Analytics if you want to get to grips with the basics.
Benchmarking reports are only available if you have benchmarking enabled on Google Analytics, but once you do, it gives an extremely useful insight into how your website audience and performance compare with other companies in your industry.
Google allows you to get extremely granular with the industry categories, providing a list of more than 1,600 to choose from. You can further refine the data by geographic location and traffic volume, allowing you to compare like for like with other websites of the same size and location.
The Users Flow report is a fairly unique-looking report that doesn’t immediately resemble any of the other standard reports in Google Analytics.
As the name implies, it is useful for studying and trying to understand the “flow” of users through your website – the path that they typically take from page to page. It also highlights where users drop off – so you can isolate where exactly users might be getting stuck or losing interest, and take steps to remedy it.
A drop-down menu in the top left allows you to view user flow by location, language, browser, mobile device, and other custom data dimensions.
This view can be particularly useful for ecommerce marketers to understand the path that users typically take to conversion, as well as for publishers seeking to understand which articles bring the most users to the site, and where users typically navigate after reading them.
How do you make use of Google Analytics’ many different Audience Reports? Do you have any novel applications to share? Leave a comment, and stay tuned for our next instalment on Acquisition Reports!
I’m fascinated by all there is to know about productivity, creativity and doing the work we love. So I’m pleased to share with you my first ‘featured-creative’ post in a long time: an interview with writer Chris Fox.
Based in Mill Valley, California, Chris is the author of over thirty books (he’s not yet forty), both non-fiction, and fiction, mostly in the science fiction genre.
Apart from being one of the most productive writers I know, he’s also hugely helpful for other writers and creatives regarding the craft of writing, writing efficiently, and making a living out of creative work.
I found Chris through reading his book ‘5000 Words Per Hour’ after one of my regular Amazon book-buying sprees. As someone keen to accumulate more written words in my pursuit of being a more prolific writer, it was a title I couldn’t ignore.
The main idea in this book is that you can train yourself to type fast when you work on improving over time. You can even reach the unfathomable level of five thousand words per hour if you work at it.
You need to get comfortable with the idea that you will not use a lot of the words in your book, story, or article, but the key thing is getting lots of words down.
You become more creative and free this way too, especially when you time yourself and you are focused on typing fast. After this, you go back in and edit and polish it off.
Though I haven’t yet manage to hit those numbers without my hands turning blue, it is a concept that made me realise how you can put an insane amount of words down each day, while maintaining a high quality of creative work.
Through putting out more books via the self-publishing route, he is able to live the dream of earning good money doing something he loves.
He plans to write up to nine new novels this year (2018) alone.
Having read and enjoyed several of his other books, including many lessons he’s shared through his content, I asked him some questions to uncover more.
I found his daily routine especially interesting. It’s the kind of routine that sets winners and achievers apart…
I’ve been full time since 2016, but what stopped me for a year before that was fear. The income is inconsistent, and giving up my day job terrified me.
I had no idea if I could make a go of this but finally decided to try. I’m glad I did.
The hardest thing is consistency. Some days the words come easy, but many days you have to fight for them.
It takes work — with no boss — but only you can motivate yourself to get it done. If you’d rather slack off, there’s no one to stop you.
I find that setting up pre-orders is the closest I can get to having a boss. It keeps me writing on a schedule because I know the book has to be done by a certain date.
I’ve always been a fantasy reader. I grew up playing Dungeons & Dragons and reading every fantasy novel I could find.
I liked science fiction, but not as much as fantasy. As an adult, I was drawn to science fiction, because I like understanding how and why things occur. I like science.
I’ve never stopped liking magic though.
Yes, and I really enjoy it. I read a mix of other science fiction, documentaries, and books on various scientific concepts so I know them well enough to write.
I have a very strict routine. I go to the gym at 5 am and spend an hour playing that day’s scenes in my head as I work out.
Then I come home and write to about 11 am, until I hit my quota. After lunch, I switch over to more business-related tasks and do things like taxes, payroll, or advertising.
The actual writing is less than 50% of the work and not nearly the hardest part.
I think every author needs to decide for themselves. It’s far more difficult to find a lucrative publishing deal than to self-publish, but I still see people doing it and making great money.
I think long-term you’ll see most successful writers go hybrid with some ‘trad pub,’ and ‘self-pub’ work.
Understanding my audience. If you know who they are and where they hang out it’s much easier to get your book in front of them.
After that, your cover is going to be what determines whether or not you sell.
Income changes month to month, and you can have dramatic swings. On paper, that sounds okay, but as someone used to getting a steady paycheck, this required a big mental shift.
Reading, watching TV, and long, interrupted hikes. I let my brain play, and am always fuelling it with new entertainment.
I never had one, but I do think a mentor can dramatically shortcut the time it takes to finish your first book.
Understand that this is going to take a massive amount of sustained effort. Many of us assume that because we like writing it will be easy, or fun.
It is occasionally fun, but never easy.
If you really want this, then fight for it, but be aware that it will always require a lot of hard work.
Playing Dungeons & Dragons, spending time with my wife, and hiking.
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Read Chris’ fiction, as well as books about making a living from writing on Amazon, and follow him via his site.
