Thursday, 30 May 2019

Predictions on the Future of Digital Marketing


With more than 40% growth in digital media marketing including Search Engine Optimization (SEO), the digital industry is on the rise. As we start afresh in a New Year, there awaits a brighter fortune for SEO and online promotional activities. Here’s what digital marketing experts predict about the fortune of digital marketing:
Google’s AMP Initiative
Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages initiative has created a history in the digital marketing sector. Through this newly developed project, Google aims at improving the loading time of website pages in mobile and hand-held devices. It also emphasizes on enhancing the site usage, user-friendliness, and experience of consumers, from their personal devices.
With the AMP program, online marketers especially the SEO professionals are putting more effort in boosting SEO campaigns for mobile sites. They are gradually emphasizing on higher ranking in the mobile search engines. At the same time, web developers are giving more time in making a website responsive, so that it easily fits all screen size. It can be said that the AMP initiative has forced the digital marketers to re-invent their SEO techniques and online marketing.
Latent Semantic Indexing Keywords
And to bring changes in traditional ways of SEO, marketers are now embracing LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) keywords. Such keywords are not directly connected to a particular product/service, rather, are semantically linked to the searches. For example, if a coffee brand is implementing SEO, the probable LSI keywords are “benefits of drinking coffee”, “coffee maker” etc. Thus, instead of using the brand name and its USPs directly for SEO, professionals are making more use of the generic product, in this case, coffee. In this way, they can also get diverse traffic from various sources.
CRM Applications
Gone are the days when brands tapped their audience only through their website’s query form and contact us pages. Today is the age of CRM-based applications and integrated modules. With more software development and equal progress in digital media technologies, businesses are now taking help of new-age CRM applications. With such technologies, they can track their visitors at real-time and boost conversations by syncing their chat box with individual social media account. As a result, they can follow their targets all the time and optimize brand promotion in the online sphere.
Interactive Content & Voice Search
Content is King. And, modern digital marketers are stressing on high-quality and interactive content that will not only attract audience but also engage them for a longer time span and sustain their presence, across the online platform. To achieve this, they are going beyond texts and creating visually rich and appealing content that will hit the minds and rouse interest of online visitors.
Of late, Voice Search has become a search engine and both the consumers and the digital marketing professionals are in love with it. Indeed, it’s a new way to search as well as promote brands. Also, it brings more traffic since people tend to find their desired product, at-one-go.
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Analytics and How It’s Changing Digital Marketing


Data science and machine learning are quickly transforming every industry. From fashion to finance, these technological capabilities are empowering users by giving them the opportunity to accomplish more with their time.
Before the technology of today, data scientists spent about 80% of their time doing prep work. Now, calculations that used to take weeks, and sometimes even months, can be computed instantaneously.
The ability for business owners to see, understand and utilize their analytics for the advancement of their brand has never been easier, and it’s why the future of the analytics industry is so bright. With data analytics tools, businesses can make more informed decisions about their digital strategy that will help give them an edge over their competition.
Analytics has always, and will always play a huge role in digital marketing because it helps businesses create a data-driven marketing strategy. Marketers need to know where their dollars are going and what the return to their business will be. Whether it’s likes, shares or conversions, the future of the analytics industry with artificial intelligence and data science is changing how marketers do their jobs.
Diagnostic Analytics
Diagnostic analytics comes into play when there is enough historical data to fully understand why something has happened. For example, if you ran an ad campaign with a country setting in the background, and sales did better in suburban areas over urban areas, diagnostic analytics will reveal that information to you. This is important because you can now start a retargeting campaign or segment your ads to cater to different audiences.
Descriptive Analytics
Descriptive analytics is the data collected during the preliminary stages of data collection and processing. It’s raw data that shows you where your users are going and what they’re doing there and elsewhere on the internet. With enough time and data, this information becomes historical data for your business to reference so you can make more informed decisions about the future of data analytics for your business.
Predictive Analytics
Predictive analytics is exactly what it sounds like: predictions. This data shows you what is most likely to happen based on descriptive and diagnostic analytics. This helps your team forecast how sales will do in different regions, demographics and segmented audiences. With predictive analytics, you’re able to see how campaigns could play out before you even launch them. This is helpful because your team can change and alter things until everything is perfect.
Prescriptive Analytics
Prescriptive analytics is what you’re going to prescribe your problem. How will you fix your weak spots based on all the data that’s been collected about your sales cycle? This is where machine learning and augmented analytics comes into play; these technologies can help map out your next moves.
Based on the data processing that’s happened in the previous steps, machine learning and AI can help your team by divulging how to address your sore spots. The future of business analytics is in prescriptive analytics because this is the final stage where your team will be able to solidify your strategy for the coming months.

Thursday, 23 May 2019

Tips and Tricks to Maximize your Video Content Marketing Investment


Video creation has undeniably revolutionized content marketing. In 2017, 63% of businesses used video for marketing purposes. This year (2018), that percentage has blown past 80%, so far. A recent survey indicates the average person consumes at least 1.5 hours of video each day, with 15% watching more than three hours. This translates into a prime marketing opportunity for brands in all industries.
Creating videos that are not only engaging but relevant to your audience can be a tricky task. Here’s a look at 8 ways you can ensure you’re investing your time properly. These tips can enhance engagement, increase conversion, and provide a strong return on investment (ROI).
1. Create a Template and a Process
Your product will only go so far when you don’t have a process to spread brand awareness. Fortunately, others have come before you and have paved the way to success. You can easily follow in their footsteps. Do a quick online search for “video templates” and you’ll come across thousands of video templates and work plans that have been used by other businesses.
Video templates expedite the video creation process. In fact, some of them allow you to create a video in the same amount of time it takes to finish off your favorite latte. Templates also take the hassle out of having to be a video guru. They are extremely intuitive and require no serious training. More so, they mitigate the cost of having to hire a professional team to create videos for your brand, which can easily exceed $5,000 for a short 2-minute video.
2. Set Goals
Without goals, it becomes nearly impossible to create key performance indicators (KPIs), which are essential to measuring the success of your video marketing efforts. Examples of goals you can set include:
• Provide useful, interesting content that’s easily shareable.
• Integrate emotional and inspirational aspects into the videos.
• Always include elements of your brand.
• Get straight to the point.
3. Tell a Story
Storytelling has quickly become one of the most preferred forms of marketing. 92% of consumers want brands to target them with content that feel like a story. And did you know telling the story of your brand can increase the value of your product by a mind-boggling 20x its initial value? To create a video that tells a story, you’ll need to start by writing an engaging script that tugs at the heartstrings of your audience or connects with them on an emotional level.
4. Always Be Friendly and Conversational
The goal here is to make the video sound natural. You don’t want to make the audience feel like they’re sitting in a college lecture. Use language they can understand and don’t be afraid to throw in a little humor.
Make sure your script is short and to the point. Across most industries, we are seeing videos under 120 seconds in length to be highly favored by viewers. However, if you happen to be in the media or publishing industry, you may want to consider making a longer video on a regular basis. (Video length averages for these types of businesses often exceed 20 minutes.)
5. Don’t Forget Your Target Audience
In order to engage your target audience, you must know who they are, and this requires creating your videos according to your buyer personas.
1. Who are you targeting?
2. What are their challenges, goals, interests?
3. When do they spend their time online?
4. Which channels do they spend the most time on:
Social media, websites, blogs, or YouTube?
6. Post the Video With a Transcript
SEO shortfalls are maximized when you don’t include a transcript with your video postings. The only SEO help a video receives is from its title and category tags. When you attach a transcript to it, though, you ensure Google and other search engines are able to crawl each word spoken in the video. This boosts its SEO value and places it in front of your targeted audience.
7. Analyze and Optimize Results
You can have the best video on the whole internet, but if you don’t analyze and optimize it accordingly, your marketing efforts will be in vain.
Analyzing your KPIs will help pinpoint which parts of the video need to be tweaked and adjusted. Comprehensive analytical dashboards allow you to see view time rates, identify which videos are garnering the most views, and which ones aren’t engaging your audience.
8. Monitor Reactions and Comments
Your audience’s reactions and comments will give you a clear indication of whether or not they find your videos engaging. If you have a massive number of people commenting on videos that focus on a certain topic, you’ll know to adjust your content schedule to incorporate more videos that focus on the same topic. This, of course, requires that you analyze each video you post for comments and reactions. With the right software and analytics, you can easily monitor each video on an individual basis.
The Takeaway
Whether you’re starting from the ground up or you’ve been doing video marketing for some time now, the tips outlined above will increase engagement and conversion. As online marketing continues to evolve, so will video marketing. Staying up-to-date on the latest trends will maximize your ROI and help you stay attuned to the unique needs of your audience.

Content Marketing Tricks Part - 1


Developing a blog and producing high-quality content for social media while running a business at the same time can be a difficult process. As an entrepreneur, knowing a few content marketing tricks can go a long way to not only save hours of your time but also to grow your business with minimum effort.
Most small businesses hesitate to invest in a content marketing strategy since it can be a very time-consuming process. Although, it’s actually one of the most effective strategies you can use to grow your business as it brings 3 times as many leads and costs 62% less than other traditional marketing strategies.
If you’re looking for a way to make the most of your time and get better results out of your content marketing efforts, here are a few tricks you should follow.
Set Specific Goals
All your content marketing efforts will go to waste if you don’t work toward a specific set of goals. To consistently grow your business, you need to work to achieve the right goals.
For example, choose a set of goals that promote growth instead of achievements. Instead of creating a content plan to get 1000 visitors per day to your blog, create a content that generates 1000 leads per month.
The key to reaching these goals and sustaining your business growth is to measure the content marketing ROI (return on investment) of your campaigns. And yes, even the ROI of your blog posts can be measured.
Collect and analyze your content marketing ROI and upgrade your content plan goals at least quarterly to keep your business growing throughout the year and product the content with a purpose.
Repurpose Old Content
After spending hours creating a great blog post, don’t just publish it and forget about it. There’s much more you can do with that blog post. Make the most of every piece of content you create by creating different types of content out of them.
Use your blog posts to create short YouTube videos, infographics, and social media posts. Republish your blog posts on other platforms like LinkedIn and Medium to reach new audiences. Another great way to repurpose your blog posts is to create slideshows highlighting the key points of your article. Then you can share the slideshow on a platform like Slideshare, which generates over 80 million visitors per month, to get more traffic to your website.
Rather than creating 5 blog posts every week, why not create 2 great blog posts and convert them to 5 different content formats? It’ll help you save the time that goes into producing new content and get the most out of your existing content.
Segment Your Email Lists
When you’re using your content to generate leads and grow your email list, many different types of people will subscribe to your list and become potential customers. As your list gets bigger, it will get more difficult for you to target specific audiences through your email campaigns. The solution to this problem is to implement proper email list segmentation.
With list segmentation, you can save a great amount of time by easily creating effective email campaigns targeting specific groups of people. For example, you can create list segments to separate returning customers vs. first time visitors to send different email campaigns to both audiences to increase open rates and conversions.
Instead of wasting your time creating email campaigns that nobody wants to open, you can use list segments to get more results out of every single email you send to your subscribers.

Friday, 17 May 2019

Long Island Kitchen Remodels and Bathroom Renovations Part - 1


When it comes to boosting the value, and livability, of your home, kitchens and bathrooms are the ideal places to invest. These rooms are where most families spend the majority of their time, and are also where prospective buyers want to see upgrades and modern finishes. If you have been considering a Long Island kitchen or bathroom remodel or renovation, our team at Apollo Contracting is here to help. We’ll guide you through all of your options, from tile and flooring, to cabinetry and fixtures, to ensure that you will absolutely love the final results. You want these high-traffic areas to be pleasing, efficient, and easy to clean, and with the right materials and design, you’ll enjoy all of those things, and more.
If you’re ready to make the best investment in your home with a kitchen remodel or bathroom renovation, reach out to us today to schedule your kitchen or bathroom estimate.
Apollo Contracting Corporation is one of the most respected family owned general contractors on Long Island. Over the course of our more than 40 years in business, we have established a reputation for remarkable customer care and extraordinary service. We proudly offer a full complement of general contracting services, and tailor our engagements to satisfy your home improvement needs and preferences. From siding and windows to kitchens and baths to full house builds all of our services are performed with precision and attention to detail. We at Apollo Contracting only employ the latest and best techniques, utilizing high end materials, products and equipment to ensure that we fulfill our unique, substantial expectations for our work.
It goes without saying that we strive to provide exceptional value. We fully understand that deciding whether to engage a contractor for a project is a significant investment decision for a homeowner. When making this decision, please know that all of our staff here at Apollo Contracting possess over two decades of experienced craftsmanship. Please also know that when we work on an engagement, we partner with you to achieve your goals as we believe in teamwork. We listen to your needs as they too become our needs. We always will treat your home as if it is ours. If you are considering home improvements, and would like to gain ideas and discuss options with a dependable Long Island Contractor, please call us at 516-433-0200 or visit our showroom here in Bethpage.
At Apollo Contracting, our general contractors strive to make any facet of home improvements as easy as possible. Chris, John, Larry or Sia will be at your house daily, ensuring that all is running smoothly and to your liking. Feel free to visit our Long Island office and showroom anytime to discuss projects and view photos of some of our projects and read many happy customer testimonials as well as products that we have on display. We complete every project with pride and our customers, who often become long-time friends, are always impressed with our work as our craftsmen and mechanics are specialized in certain trades, whether its projects to exteriors like siding and windows and extensions, or complete kitchen and bathroom renovations so the attention our detail is specific. Once you’ve selected us as your General Contractor, our friendly and exceptional service, our reliability, our attention to detail and our experienced carpentry work will be very evident and appreciative.
Apollo Contracting Corporation is committed to assisting you in adding value, energy efficiency, and appeal to your home. When you hire us as your Long Island general contractor, Apollo Contracting will accomplish this with precise craftsmanship, timely work and continued service. You’ll get the most joy out of your Long Island home with our top-quality products, expert technique and installation and customer service. Apollo Contracting Corporation will be more than happy to work with you or an architect to complete your project; our staff wants the final product to be exactly to your liking, as we treat your home as if it is ours.

Thursday, 16 May 2019

Benefits of Using WordPress Part - 1


WordPress has Market Share
Have you heard the rumors that WordPress is just for “blogging websites”? While this may have been true a decade ago, this understanding of WordPress is completely false. In fact, of the top 100K websites in the world, Builtwith shows that WordPress owns about 28% of the market.
Why does this matter? Well, because it creates other benefits of WordPress (like support) that I’ll talk about more down the list.
WordPress is Widely Supported by Agencies
Another great benefit of WordPress, because of it’s market share, is that many, many, many agencies providing professional web design services use WordPress to develop their client websites; or have at least used in the past. Now, don’t get me wrong, this doesn’t mean that all agencies will do an amazing job with WordPress, but at least you aren’t having to travel far and wide to find someone who can help.
Additionally, there are great resources out there like Codeable for finding a WordPress developer in a pinch.
Great Hosting Options
As WordPress has evolved over the years, a few great hosting providers have decided to specialize specifically in WordPress. For instance, WPEngine, as its name suggests, does precisely this and their offering is amazing.
Whenever a business chooses to niche it makes it easier for them to become superior in their market. WPEngine is one of the best options on the market for WordPress hosting simply because they made their business much simpler by not hosting other platforms. Here are some features I love about WPEngine:
• Automatic daily backups with one-click restore
• Incredible security – they’ll even notify you if any of the plugins your website is using have known vulnerabilities. It’s easier for them to keep their hosting secure because they really know the WordPress platform.
• Speed – with WordPress being their only platform, WPEngine has been able to hyperfocus on speed and even has caching software ready to use out of the box
You Can Create Custom Themes on WordPress
In addition to purchasing a theme, organizations can also hire an agency to build a custom WordPress theme. By going this route, you’re still using a sophisticated framework with innumerable features built in, but you’re also extending it and creating a design that’s on brand.
Instead of asking “what can this theme do and can we make this work?” you can ask “what do we want to do with our website?”. With custom WordPress theme development, there really aren’t much for restrictions… you can pretty much do anything and that’s a huge benefit of going with WordPress.
WordPress can be made Really Secure
Though it’s true that WordPress sites can be hacked – after-all, the bigger the market share, the bigger the target – but another benefit of WordPress is that there are many fairly easy-to-implement strategies for making your WordPress site very secure.
In general, strong passwords, keeping your software up to date and choosing a solid hosting company will remove the lion’s share of risk for your company. But after that, there’s still a plethora of security measures you can take.
WordPress is Search Engine Friendly out of the Box
In addition to creating content easily, another benefit of WordPress is that it has great Search Engine Optimization (SEO) out of the box. This is important because more than just creating quality content, you want to make sure that your content can actually be found by search engines like Google.

HTTP vs HTTPS


Many websites use HTTP. However, back in 2014, Google recommended that sites switch to HTTPS. Until then, only sites with e-commerce pages really bothered to use HTTPS. As an incentive for switching over, Google announced that it would be providing HTTPS sites with a minor rankings bump, in effect punishing sites that did not switch over by giving an edge to competitors that did.
Now you’re probably wondering – why is it so important that you switch over to HTTPS? Is it really worth the hassle to do so? What even is the difference between HTTP and HTTPS? Will using one over the other affect your SEO efforts at all? The following guide will break everything down for you, not only answer these common questions but giving you a much better understanding of HTTP vs HTTPS in general.
What Is HTTP?
HTTP stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol. At it’s most basic, it allows for the communication between different systems. It’s most commonly used to transfer data from a web server to a browser in order to allow users to view web pages. It’s the protocol that was used for basically all early websites.
What Is HTTPS?
HTTPS stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure. The problem with the regular HTTP protocol is that the information that flows from server to browser is not encrypted, which means it can be easily stolen. HTTPS protocols remedy this by using an SSL (secure sockets layer) certificate, which helps create a secure encrypted connection between the server and the browser, thereby protecting potentially sensitive information from being stolen as its transferred between the server and the browser.
The most important difference between the two protocols is the SSL certificate. In fact, HTTPS is basically an HTTP protocol with additional security. However, this additional security can be extremely important, especially for websites that take sensitive data from its users, such as credit card information and passwords.
How HTTPS works? The SSL certificate encrypts the information that users supply to the site, which basically translates the data into a code. Even if someone manages to steal the data being communicated between the sender and the recipient, they would not be able to understand it due to this encryption.
But in addition to adding that extra layer of security, HTTPS is also secured via TLS (Transport Layer Security) protocol. TLS helps provide data integrity, which helps prevent the transfer of data from being modified or corrupted, and authentication, which proves to your users that they are communicating with the intended website.
Users can identify whether a site uses HTTPS protocol by the web address. The very first part of the web address (before the “www”) indicates whether the site uses HTTP or HTTPS protocols.
If you’re looking at the main difference between HTTP and HTTPS, HTTPS obviously has a big advantage. After all, wouldn’t you want your site to be as secure as possible? The thing is, if you don’t have an e-commerce page and you’re not accepting potentially sensitive information from your website’s visitors, then you might be thinking that switching over to an HTTPS site isn’t that necessary and that doing so is a bigger hassle than it’s worth.
However, the security advantage isn’t the only benefit of using HTTPS. In fact, switching over to HTTPS can end up boosting your SEO efforts as well. The following are a few ways in which HTTPS can help to improve your SEO:
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