All posts by Dhwani Madan

I am a passionate, adventurous, and insatiate learner who loves to write about the latest technology trends. My experience working in an MNC has motivated me to understand that there are certain niche requirements for writing strategically about brands' messages towards people's interests which I've mastered over time through trial and error of many projects under various clients across diverse industries. It is my honest effort to put my experiences and knowledge of industry towards readers.
Website

Holiday Season Hacks To Refresh Your Business Website

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The holiday season spells immense opportunities for American brands and businesses as buyers are more than willing to spend at this time of the year. They usually have long shopping lists and hefty budgets for the occasion. So sellers must do everything to capitalize on the chance. Retailers and online sellers must do their bit when it comes to the readiness with the right items in stock and promotional campaigns in place. Most importantly, you must ensure that your website is ready to impress your visitors and entice them to shop.

Buyers are more than keen to shop and explore products and brands online, so paying extra attention to your website makes sense. But a holiday season refresh for your website takes more than design rework, although it is the most crucial aspect. You must create a checklist of potential updates, and get started with the project on time. Failing to get an online makeover may translate into missed opportunities, so the sooner you get down working, the better it is. Fortunately, you can do more with less to get your business website ready for booming sales. Let us share some actionable holiday season hacks to refresh it on time.

Create a realistic budget and timeline

Although refreshing a website is not as big a project as starting from scratch, it takes time and money. The best way to begin is by creating a realistic budget and timeline because they help you set an actionable roadmap for the project. Without these, you may end up shooting in the dark. Set aside a budget you can comfortably spend on the project without pinching your wallet. Likewise, you must have ample time for design and development tasks so that everything is in place before the holiday traffic surges. Last-moment work can land you in a problem because it risks slowdown and bouncing traffic. Consult your team to get expert insights and decide on the budget and timeline wisely.

Check the current trends

Besides defining the basics, you must check the current trends in website design and development. A holiday season upgrade is a chance to ramp up your online presence according to the latest trends. Moreover, you can even survey your target audience to understand their expectations and replicate them on your website. For example, you can add features like a virtual try room to your e-commerce store because buyers like the “try before buying” concept. It enhances their shopping experiences as they feel more confident about shopping for products without seeing or wearing them. Brands are in a better place to boost sales and gain a competitive edge by following the latest trends.

Prepare a design checklist

Website design is perhaps the most crucial aspect of a holiday season makeover. Of course, it should exude a festive look and feel to impress visitors as soon as they land. Preparing a checklist helps as it ensures ticking all the tasks for the project. Begin with the home page because it is the first point of contact for most visitors. You can make small changes or implement a complete makeover according to the existing look of the site. For example, you can refresh the colors and theme to add a festive element. Showcase deals and offers on the banner because it captures the maximum attention. Once you have a checklist ready, it is time to dive in.

Outsource design expertise

Another web design hack worth trying during the holiday season is outsourcing expertise. Although you can scale your in-house team for the project, the cost of hiring, training, and retaining it can press your budget hard. Moreover, finding qualified resources may take months. Collaborating with a design company is a far better idea as it gives you quick access to expertise at a fraction of the price of hiring an in-house team. Fortunately, you can find such providers across the country. So a Texas-based business can outsource services from a website design company in Texas to ramp up its online presence on time. The good thing is that they can share some valuable insights due to their diverse experience. Additionally, they bring a fresh perspective even while working with your team.

Ensure peak performance

Besides creating impressive-looking pages for your business site, you must ensure peak performance with fast-loading pages. While performance is a year-round requirement for sites, it becomes even more vital during the festive season. Buyers are pressed for time, so you cannot expect them to wait forever for your pages to show up. They will likely opt out due to the slightest delay. Moreover, they will probably never return to buy again. Even worse, they may spread the word about the poor UX of your website. Check the loading speed and address it with measures like image optimization.

Ramp up traffic capabilities

Websites experience traffic surges during the festive season, specifically on peak days like Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Buyers want to make the most of the deals, so they check websites and close conversions on these occasions. You can capitalize on the rush by ramping up your traffic capabilities sooner than later. Not preparing for the surges can affect the UX, which is the last thing you want to deal with. In the worst-case scenario, your site may crash, and it may translate into massive losses of revenues and reputation. You can address the risk by making the website capable of handling sudden traffic sites. Remember to test it with maximum loads to prevent unforeseen glitches.

Double-check responsiveness

Another essential holiday season tip for upgrading your business website is to double-check responsiveness. You cannot afford to miss out on the responsiveness factor because most shoppers prefer to buy on the go. They are likely to depend on mobile devices even more in the holidays when time is short and shopping while commuting sounds like a time-saver. Check the current rendering on mobile devices, such as tablets and phones to ensure a seamless experience for buyers. A mobile-friendly website adjusts to screen sizes and provides good visibility of products, navigational elements, and CTA buttons. Check every element to maximize conversions from mobile visitors.

Win with share-ability

Shareability is a lesser-known design upgrade, but it can go a long way in boosting holiday shopping experiences and conversions. Shoppers often want to share products with their loved ones before sealing the deals. Making your products shareable on social media outlets is a great idea. Beyond letting buyers confirm purchases with loved ones, shareability works like word-of-mouth marketing. You can actually advertise your brand and products subtly by encouraging your visitors and buyers to share them in their social circles. All you need to do is to add sharing buttons for social media on your website. You can go the extra mile by giving a discount coupon to people clicking the button.

A holiday season upgrade for your business website is the best thing you can do to capitalize on the selling opportunities. You can pick this actionable list of design and development updates sooner than later. Closing the project on time is your best as it keeps you ahead of unexpected and expected traffic spikes. Connect with experts to complete the essentials before shoppers come in huge numbers.

Software & Tools

Perks Of Salesforce Test Automation Tools

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Salesforce Test Automation is the practice of automating your Salesforce CRM’s testing to remove tedious, error-prone manual testing tasks. With the aid of software, test scripts must be created and maintained. This software may take the form of an automated testing framework, a visual programming language, or both. The Salesforce test automation tools can eliminate boring tasks, freeing up an admin’s time to work on more important projects.

Automation of Salesforce testing is a very efficient technique to test software both during development and once it is operational. The dev teams in charge of testing Salesforce have benefited greatly from the ability to automate testing. They may now carry out manual labor that is repetitious, saving time and effort that they could use on more crucial activities.

Importance Of Salesforce Test Automation

For Salesforce, automated testing is crucial for 3 key reasons:

  • Save Your Time: Human error is lessened by automation. It is unrealistic to expect testers to recall all the different combinations of variables they have tested in the past. To reduce the possibility of human error and speed up the process, Salesforce test automation executes tasks automatically on behalf of the tester.
  • Save Your Money: Salesforce customers must invest money in each new release or customization for manual testing to be productive. Once you start using automated tests, spending money on new releases will become a thing of the past because you can reuse your tests for every release, negating the need for customization.
  • Free Your Staff: Automation of tests frees up resources to concentrate on other QA process elements. The same issues won’t be overlooked again by various people thanks to automation’s guarantee of a consistent testing strategy.

Importance Of Salesforce Test Automation Tools

These tools consist of Workflow Rules, Process Builder, Flow, and Apex, among others. There is probably a tool that works best for every situation an administrator’s faces because each tool has its distinctive features, benefits, and drawbacks.

The Selenium, HP UFT, or SoapUI Pro automation frameworks can be used to create test cases using the test automation tool provided by Salesforce. Data related to the testing process, such as test case results and bug reports, are stored using integrations with Git (source control) and JIRA (bug tracking).

Salesforce test automation tools come in a variety of forms and are readily available on the market to assist you in more successfully achieving your test objectives. There are benefits and drawbacks to each instrument that make it distinct. As an illustration, some technologies may work well for automating functional tests but not for load and performance testing.

You need to be aware of your company’s needs and the different variables to take into account while selecting the best testing suite for your requirements before selecting the appropriate Salesforce test automation tools.

Conclusion:

The purpose of automation tools is to simplify the work of Salesforce Admins and even Salesforce Developers. Such tools are abundant with Salesforce, which offers you a variety of choices to meet your needs and degree of commitment. Okay uses a tool that is so user-friendly that anyone in your business can use it to speed up migrations, implementations, and upgrades. Plus, you might not have encountered a test automation tool like this before. 250+ multinational companies now use Opkey to automate their ERP testing.

Technology

How Can Technology Benefit Retail Businesses?

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The retail industry globally is flourishing. And the major contributor behind this surge is digital advancement. With just a few clicks, customers can order the products- from machinery to groceries and get them delivered to their doorstep.

Similarly, technology is facilitating the customer’s in-store experience. From automated checkouts to the continuous supply of in-demand products, the integration of digital processes streamlines retail operations. Consequently, it provides excellent customer service and boosts the brand’s revenue.

That said, let’s learn how exactly the technology deployment is benefiting retail businesses.

Trending Retail Technologies Changing The Outlook Of Industry

Everyday innovations are introduced in the market that facilitates the industry’s operations. However, it is not necessary that every advancement will come in handy for your business. That’s why we’ve listed below the trending technologies that assist with the retail industry’s core functions.

1. Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is widely used to provide customers with engaging and authentic experiences. It assists retailers in addressing frequent consumer issues, boosting staff productivity, and resolving potential website errors such as payment processing and product recommendations.

For instance, AI aids retailers in stock inventory management and shelf replenishment without the need for any human assistance. This is done with the help of sensors that informs the staff about inventory and eliminates the possibility of OOS (out of stock).

Earlier, inventory management was manual; therefore, it consumed time and resources. However, thanks to AI and ML, retailers can easily manage their inventory.

In addition, AI also assists with personalized product recommendations, customer segmentation, smart logistics, and demand forecasting.

2. Customer Data

The prime aim of retail business is to cater to customers’ needs. It doesn’t matter whether the store is online or physical; they need to identify what customers are looking for and accordingly improve their service. That’s when customer data collection and analysis come in handy.

Retailers can use numerous tools and resources to conduct online and in-store market research and use the data for decision-making. In fact, a single piece of information can drive numerous conclusions.

For instance, if the demand for one product is on the rise, you can stock up the inventory, center your marketing efforts around the particular product, and even bring a similar type of product. It’ll help you learn about market trends, consumer preferences, and competitors’ policies.

You can also integrate the data collected with digital tools. It’ll boost your ROI, assist with customer retention and facilitate targeted communication.

3. Mobile Applications

Using mobile applications is becoming a pressing priority for retail businesses. It provides comfort and convenience to customers and accelerates business sales. According to IBM’s report, mobile applications account for approximately 57% of online shopping traffic.

For a retail business, these applications help gain customer data, improve brand visibility, enhance customer base and strengthen marketing strategies.

Even if you don’t have enough resources to develop your application, you can register your business on other applications to grow your business. Nevertheless, it’ll provide you with an edge over the competitors.

What Perks Do These Technologies Provide To Retail Businesses?

According to the U.S. Retail Sales Report, the industry is undertaking major shifts. It includes understanding the changing customer behavior and technology deployment. These shifts aid retail businesses in the following ways:

1. Enhances Production Facilities

Customers prefer affordable and readily available products. It caters to their needs without affecting their budget. However, as consumers become sustainable, they pay attention to brands that focus on environmentally conscious production practices.

Unfortunately, in many retail businesses, especially the one that provides mass products, the working conditions are not satisfactory and safe.

Businesses can use technology to get real-time information about production working conditions. Using these insights, they can discover the disputes and enhance the prevailing labor standards. They can also deploy the latest machinery to reduce the production load on the workers.

2. Boost Inventory Management

Did you know that calculation blunders can cause a loss of retail stocks by up to 4%? Thankfully, by using inventory control systems and data analytics, businesses can eliminate these errors. It’ll reduce the possibility of under-purchasing and over-requesting.

The system will aid in determining the accuracy of inventory requirements by using the previous sales data and evaluating consumer preferences. This way, you can restock the inventory and address the growing demand.

Not to mention, an inventory management system will reduce inventory costs. Thus, you’ll save money while ensuring that inventory is up to date.

3. Improves Customer Satisfaction

Regardless of what type of technology you integrate for the business needs, it’ll eventually help improve the customer experience and satisfaction level.

For instance, if you begin using a chatbot on your website or application, it will instantly handle the customer’s queries. The quick response time and redressal boost brand interaction and help maintain the customers.

Similarly, customers expect to be informed when an item is out of stock in the store. Instead of watching you rummage through the storeroom or dial the warehouse, they’ll like to visit the store when you have the product.

Using the electronic inventory system, you can monitor the stock level and inform the customers about product availability in real time.

4. Facilitates Forecasting

Stating the obvious, with accurate forecasting, retail businesses can operate effectively. To plan the supply chain efficiently, you need to ascertain what your customers desire and what the upcoming trends are. It also aids companies in winning over customers’ trust.

It enables them to anticipate market changes, especially during uncertain situations, efficiently. In fact, during the pandemic, the stores that got their hands on in-demand products due to demand forecasting were able to prosper.

Even now, businesses are using machine learning for accurate forecasting. This technology enhances logistics, production, and marketing, as well as facilitates relationship management with consumers and suppliers.

Demand forecasting methods based on AI are far more adaptable and flexible than their conventional counterparts. It is because ML and AI technology are seamless to work with. Thus, businesses are able to keep up with developments in client demand.

5. Advanced Shopping Experience

By 2025, more than 77 million American homes are anticipated to have smart home technology installed, making this a sizable market for retail businesses to tap into.

Siri, Google Assistant, and Alexa are just a few examples of intelligent assistants improving their speech recognition and responsiveness. Therefore, their capacity to assist clients’ shopping needs has significantly improved in the retail sector. Customers need not visit the store. Instead, they can use voice commands to place their orders and deliver them to their doorstep.

Likewise, small retailers can use options such as BOPIS (Buy online, pick up in-store) and BOSS (Buy online, ship to store) to their regular customers. Shoppers can visit the website or application to reserve the item and pay for it in advance. After that, they can visit the store to collect the order.

Note: Customers’ houses may also have other types of IoT gadgets that can be useful, such as smart mirrors. However, ensuring that these gadgets are not invasive and actually helpful for the user is the most crucial step in the process.

To Sum It All Up

Retail technologies provide opportunities for entrepreneurs to scale their businesses and attract a mass audience. However, integrating new technologies is not enough. You must understand and address the customer’s needs using the latest advancements.

Sales

How To Prepare Your Sales Team For Holiday Season?

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“Holiday sales have become a vital component of the retail sales cycle for millions of small businesses.” – Gail Goodman.

As the thanksgiving season ends, the Christmas spirit starts to take over the retail industry. For customers as well, the holiday season is lucrative due to amazing brand deals and maximum offers.

The industry shatters its previous sales record every year and enjoys the highest revenues. In 2021, the total retail sales were around 889.3 billion USD. For this year, it is projected to reach 960.4 billion USD.

That means, if you gear up and prepare your sales team the right way, your Christmas present will certainly revolve around high RoI.

Having said that, below are surefire tips to kickstart your holiday season campaign. Let’s unwrap!

Go Through Past Year’s Data

Before you begin decorating your store with a Christmassy vibe, you need to set some sales goals. It’ll help you prepare for the demand, enhance customer service and convert leads into customers.

For this, you need to look through previous years’ holiday season data and avail the following data:

  • Sales in the month of December
  • Bestseller products
  • Inventory demand
  • Effective marketing strategies

You can make nearly accurate projections for this year’s sales using the available information. And accordingly, you can kickstart your holiday campaign.

Create A Preparation Checklist

The next step is to create a checklist that includes the details of your campaign. Typically, it consists of the following information:

  • Campaign Budget
  • Product inventory that needs to be restocked
  • Order promotional material such as brochures, flyers, coupons, and cards.
  • Recruitment of seasonal employees
  • Market demand
  • Consumer preferences
  • Store decorations

It will ensure your business is ready to welcome new customers and serve their needs. However, it is crucial that you prepare this checklist as early as possible to get a lead over competitors.

Adopt Latest Sales Coaching Methods

Handling shoppers during the holiday season and ensuring they had a good experience is daunting. You need to have well-trained staff who can manage the crowd, promote the brand and ensure the smooth flow of sales pipelines.

For this, using the traditional coaching models such as GROW (Goal, Reality, Option, Will), GAINS (Goal, Assessment, Ideas, Next Step, Support), and others might not be effective. Instead, you need to try modern sales Coaching models such as AOR (Activities, Objectives, Results) and ARC (Activities, Rhythm, Conversations. These models will prepare your reps for each stage of the sales funnel.

That’s not all; it’ll also provide measurable outcomes, ensuring that the staff works towards the set goals and improves their overall performance.

Draft The Marketing Plan

Once your sales reps are ready, you need to work on marketing strategies to attract prospective customers. This is undoubtedly the most important part of the holiday season campaign. Without a marketing plan, all your other efforts will go in vain.

To begin with, you need to decide on the marketing channel. It could be offline marketing using newspaper ads, radio promotions, or flyers. Or, you can focus on digital marketing- improving your website, google AdWords, social media, and email marketing.

Of course, you can decide on a mix of both channels to reach out to a mass audience and generate leads.

As it’s the holiday season, you need to plan the season’s discounts and sales. Here, the sales goal and previous years’ data will come in handy. You must also learn about the competitor’s sales strategy to boost the success of your plan.

Optimize Your Website

According to a survey, nearly 81% of consumers prefer to shop online. Even if they do not place an order, they’d like to learn about the brand’s offers and services online before physically visiting the store. Therefore, you should focus on optimizing your website.

Improve your landing page to flash the amazing discounts and offers you provide. Doing this during the holiday season gets customers into the shopping spirit and encourages them to make purchases.

Additionally, you should inspect the website’s speed, mobile-friendliness, and navigation. Optimize SEO to attract organic visitors and convert them into customers. You also need to ensure no errors or glitches when adding items to the cart or proceeding with payment.

Providing live sales reps support to your customers will also come in handy as it’ll improve brand interaction and customer satisfaction.

Stock Up On Inventory And Regularly Update Them

Running out of the most demanded items during the Christmas season is the last thing you want to happen, especially if it’s the first day of the sale. Or, even worse, you might not have the goods you originally intended to sell. Agree or not, it’s a pretty common issue due to poor supply chain management. Therefore, you must stock the necessary items to guarantee sales.

Use sales data from the previous year to estimate how much stock you’ll need on hand for the season in order to prevent inventory problems. You can also track product levels and decide what to order using an inventory management system to streamline the process.

You can also assign a sales representative particularly to keep track of inventory and restock it as and when needed. As the trends continue to change every year, your sales team can also help you know the popular product so that you can order it.

Leverage Limited Period Offers

Generally, businesses offer massive discounts to attract customers and increase their sales. However, when the store is swamped with consumers, managing them while ensuring the highest quality of service becomes challenging.

Certainly, the training of your sales team will prove to be beneficial here. However, you need to figure out a way to ease their burden while catering to the target audience’s needs.

For this, you can use limited-period offers. Instead of providing a similar discount for the whole season, you can break the campaign into small sections and provide different and limit-period discounts.

For instance, you can set the time from 5 pm to 9 pm for a 50% discount scheme. On the other hand, you can provide BOGO offers for the morning rush. It will allow you to manage the customers effectively, and the sales team will also get a break in between to energize themselves.

Make Checkout Process Seamless

It’s not a surprise that customers don’t appreciate the long checkout queues. Not only does it discourage potential customers, but it also affects the business revenue. Therefore, you must make the checkout process as smooth and quick as possible.

Train your sales team to use the POS (Point of Sale) system for payment processing. It’ll eliminate the need to manually key each transaction and improve customer service.

Similarly, your team can use the following tactics:

  • Use mobile payment devices for customers who bought just a few items.
  • Try the BOPIS (Buy online, pay in store) option.
  • Provide home delivery and payment service.
  • Appoint at least one sales rep at every location or section of the store.
  • Keep the customers engaged and entertained while they wait for their turn to pay.

To Sum It All Up

The holiday season means rush hours 24*7. Therefore, you must train your staff and define their sales responsibilities. The earlier you try the measures discussed in this article, the more revenue you’ll earn. So, what are you waiting for? Begin your holiday sales campaign now!

Marketing

Top Creative Marketing Strategies to Boost Your Business

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Imagine this: You have a unique and creative idea that can really change people’s lives. And you’ve invested a significant amount to make sure it has been developed properly. Yet, when you release it into the market, the response is lacklustre.

Why do you think this happens?

You can have the most innovative product in the world, but if no one knows about it, it likely won’t take off. Creative marketing strategies are essential for any business because they can help you stand out from the competition.

A boring old approach to advertising isn’t going to cut it anymore. Research shows that millennials value original and memorable marketing more than price points or a brand’s reputation when making purchasing decisions.

Everybody knows about popular brands like Amazon and McDonald’s. If you check out the social media pages for such brands, you’ll find it full of funny and engaging content. This keeps its target audience interested.

Your business needs creative marketing strategies so you can reach your target audience and make them aware of your brand. If you’re struggling to come up with new ideas or get stuck in a rut, don’t panic!

Let’s take a look at why this is important and how your business can implement these strategies.

Creative brainstorming

In today’s world, marketing is everything. It’s the difference between a product or service being a success or a failure. And with so much competition out there, it’s more important than ever to get creative with your marketing.

But what does it mean to be creative with your marketing? To many people, it simply means coming up with new and innovative ideas. But there’s more to it than that. It’s also about thinking outside the box, approaching your marketing from different angles, and most importantly, playing to your strengths.

One of the best ways to be creative with your marketing is to think about what you loved about a product or service in the past. What marketing strategies stood out or made an impression on you? What makes an ad effective or memorable? By thinking about these things, you can come up with fresh, new ideas that will make your marketing more effective.

Another great way to tap into your creativity is to play to your strengths. If you’re good at writing, then use that skill to create compelling copy. If you’re good at design, then create eye-catching visuals. And if you’re good at networking, then use that skill to build relationships with influencers.

Whatever your strengths may be, use them to your advantage. By doing so, you’ll be able to take your marketing to the next level and make an impact.

Take professional help

You need to hire a creative agency that will help you to beat your competition and reach new heights. The process of finding one such capable agency need not be that hard. For example, if your establishment is in New York City, all you have to do is look for creative agency New York. There might be such agencies near your workplace. If you want to expand your search radius, you can look online as well. Make a list of exactly what you want from such an agency, and go with one that aligns with your business goals.

The first thing you need to do is determine these goals. What do you want to accomplish with your marketing campaign? Do you want to increase brand awareness, generate leads, or drive sales? Once you know your goals, you can start to narrow down your search.

Next, you need to consider your budget. How much are you willing to spend on your marketing campaign? Be sure to get quotes from several agencies before making a decision.

Once you have your goals and budget in mind, you can start to look at different agencies. Read reviews, check out their portfolio, and see if they have any awards or accolades. Also, be sure to ask for referrals from friends or business associates.

When you have a short list of agencies, reach out to them and set up a consultation. This is your chance to ask questions and get a feel for their creative process. Be sure to also ask for examples of their work.

After you’ve met with the agencies, it’s time to make a decision. Choose the agency that you feel most comfortable with and that you believe will be the best fit for your brand. Then get ready to take your marketing campaign to the next level!

Content marketing

Content marketing has become one of the most important tools for businesses in recent years. By creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content, businesses can attract and retain a clearly defined audience.

Content marketing goes beyond traditional advertising, as it seeks to educate and empower consumers by providing them with valuable information. This makes content marketing an essential tool for any business looking to build trust and credibility with its audience.

When starting with content marketing, it’s important to brainstorm ideas and topics that will be relevant and valuable to your target audience. From there, you can begin to plan the format and execution of your content.

Creating a content calendar is a great way to stay organized and on track with your content marketing strategy. Outline the types of content you want to release, and make sure to stick to a consistent schedule.

If you’re not sure where to start, there are plenty of resources available to help you get started with content marketing. There are many different formats and strategies that you can use, so it’s important to find the right one for your business.

Content marketing can be a highly effective way to reach your target audience and build trust with your customers. By creating quality content that is relevant and valuable to them, you can create a loyal customer base that will stick with you for years to come.

Co-marketing partnerships

Partnering with another company brings a host of benefits, and co-marketing can help supercharge your marketing efforts. By partnering with another business, you can tap into its audience and reach new customers.

Depending on your strategy, you can also tap into their resources and expertise to amplify your message. By choosing the right partner, you can come up with a wide range of creative marketing ideas. For instance, you may want to partner with a local food truck and offer a discount to customers who order and pay with their app.

You may opt to partner with a golf course and offer a discount to customers who tee off during peak hours. Co-marketing partnerships don’t have to be long-term commitments — you can develop a short-term “campaign” that runs for a few weeks or months.

Guerrilla marketing

This is a form of unconventional marketing that uses out-of-the-box and sometimes controversial tactics to get attention. Common guerrilla marketing methods include holding flash sales, dressing up in costumes, and setting up guerrilla vending machines.

Guerrilla marketing is nothing if not creative, so feel free to get creative with your ideas. If you want to hold a flash sale, you can hold it in an unusual location instead of your store.

If you want to set up a guerrilla vending machine, you can put it in an unusual place. Whatever campaigns you decide to run, make sure they’re safe and legal. And keep in mind that guerrilla marketing tactics can cost more than more traditional marketing methods.

Video Marketing

It’s no secret that video is one of the most effective marketing tools available. But what many businesses don’t realize is that video marketing can be used to achieve a variety of goals, from growing your audience to boosting engagement and increasing traffic to your website.

One of the most important things to keep in mind when creating videos is your audience. Who are you trying to reach with your videos? What kind of content will they respond to? Once you know your audience, you can create videos that offer tips and advice, showcase your products, or even introduce your business.

Another important consideration is your platform. Where will you publish your videos? Social media is a great option, but don’t forget about your website. You can embed videos directly on your website, which can help with SEO and increase traffic.

Finally, don’t forget to measure your results. Keep track of how many views your videos get, and see if you notice any uptick in your organic search traffic. With a little effort, video marketing can be a powerful tool for growing your business.

Product testing

Product testing is a great way to get your customers involved and excited about your products. You can run product testing campaigns on social media, your blog, and in-store.

You may also want to consider partnering with influencers to promote your product. By offering your customers a chance to test out your products, you can get feedback, collect recommendations, and generate excitement around your brand.

By product testing, you can also discover which products are the most popular with your customers and which products are underperforming. This can give you a new perspective on which products are best for your business moving forward.

Conclusion

Marketing is a never-ending process. It’s not something you do once and forget about. Instead, it’s something you need to continually work at. That’s why you need to be creative and come up with new and innovative ways to drive attention toward your business. By tapping into your creativity, you can come up with new ideas and ways to engage with your customers.

Creative marketing and advertising strategies are necessary to get your business noticed. Your marketing efforts need to be unique, memorable, and something that sets you apart from the competition. Creative marketing and advertising solutions can help you stand out from your competitors as a small business owner.

Business

Electronic Shelf Labels: Should you Consider One for Your Business

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Technology has changed many things in the retail industry. In addition to how we advertise and market our products to our target customers, it has also changed how we display product pricing in our stores.

A few years ago, shoppers had to stare at paper or plastic price tags that displayed static price figures to determine the price of a product. However, the introduction of a digitalized pricing system has called for the extinction of this error-prone and outdated labeling system.

Even as the traditional system is starting to phase out, should you implement the new label system in your retail store? Here are a few reasons why you should.’

What is an Electronic Shelf Label?

Imagine electronic shelf labels as digital versions of manual or paper labels. Like the traditional labels used in stores today, electronic shelf labels are designed to display product prices. Typically, these digital labels are placed on the front edge of retail shelving, so they are visible to customers looking to purchase products.

Once you attach an electronic shelf label to your shelves, it will be directly connected to your store’s ERP and POS to cut down pricing management labor costs, reduce pricing errors, and enable flexible pricing.

Here are a few reasons why you should implement electronic shelf labels in your business.

1. Correct pricing across channels

Gone are the days when shopping was limited to physical stores. Today, people shop online. Some even go further to cross-check the price of an item online when shopping in a physical store.

So imagine a customer walks into your store and sees the $50 price tag on a product only to check it online and discover a lower price. Do you think such a customer will trust you after the incident? Even if it was a mistake, you would still suffer the consequences.

Hence, this calls for the use of an electronic labeling system. Using this system allows you to align the product pricing in your store with online prices. When the two prices are equal, customers won’t be disappointed. In fact, they’ll trust you more.

2. Shelf edge influence

The marketing ads you put up are good sales influencers. However, they are nowhere near the shelf edge. The self-edge remains one of the best sales influencers. This is where many sales are made so you want to ensure that the figures on the price tags are correct. And to do that, you may want to switch from traditional price tags to a more flexible and digitized option. But why?

You see, a paper price tag is prone to human error. In fact, creating the tags can be a slow and hectic process. And you may have to go through the same stress if the prices change. However, with SES-imagotag electronic shelf labels, you won’t have to endure such stress. You can make the necessary changes easily at any time and any day. You can also enable instant promotions, monitor what’s working and what’s not, etc.

3. It’s pocket friendly.

As a retail business owner, it’s common to consider price when implementing a new initiative in your business.

Are electronic shelf labels expensive? While they are definitely not as cheap as paper labels, they aren’t expensive enough to rip holes in your pockets.

They are pocket-friendly, and that’s not even the best part. The best part about this tech is that it is easy to install and configure. You don’t need the help of a tech guru, nor do you need to watch a 20-minute-long YouTube video to get it up and running.

4. Boost customer satisfaction and experience

Marketing experts argue that the best way to retain a customer or build customer loyalty is by increasing customer satisfaction and experience. And what better way to do that than implementing electronic shelf labels in your store?

With these labels affixed to various shelves, customers can see information about the product they intend to buy, such as its price, origin, etc. Plus, identifying promotional items becomes easy. All these can increase customer satisfaction and in-store experience.

5. Improves your omnichannel experience

Omnichannel is indeed the future of the retail industry. In fact, based on statistics by Planet Retail, 56% of customers believe that tech plays a key role in their shopping experiences. With that in mind, how does a tech like an electronic shelf label help you build a successful omnichannel experience?

It’s quite simple. You see, electronic shelf labels help you communicate with your customers in ways that weren’t possible. This tech helps

  • Display reviews of products to give shoppers insights into what previous customers say about the product
  • Display stock levels so customers know if the product is in stock or limited.
  • Enable simple ordering with QR codes
  • Display online prices of other stores so consumers can trust you when you say your price is the best

Of course, these are just a few of the perks that come with using ESLs—there are more.

6. Traceability

Electronic labeling allows you to trace your products, whether for managing rented items, re-commerce, or rental. This tech offers customers access to all the important details they need regarding a product. These details include:

  • Origin of item
  • Rental rates and conditions
  • Perishability, “Best before” date, or indication
  • Information on consignment
  • Used or reconditioned item
  • Final sale indication
  • Information on weight, size, and use of the product

Traceability display offers customers the necessary details required to select their preferred product, thus making them more satisfied. In addition to satisfying customers, a traceability display can also lead to greater availability of in-store employees for other related problems or tasks.

7. Perishability management

Expiration dates are one of the most important details customers look out for before making a purchase. However, sometimes, it can be hard to determine the expiring dates of a product. With electronic displays, this common issue can be solved. This tech helps customers note the sell-by date of the product in the store.

It also helps the store owner directly apply discounts on products near the consumption period and automatically alter the price. This allows, for example, the store owner to decide to automate the display of 60% discounts for products that are 72 hours away from the expiring date. The display and automation of expiration dates, prices and discounts can help store managers better manage their inventory, thus increasing customer satisfaction.

8. Monitors customer movements and patterns

Want to track customer movements and patterns to understand how they shop? Easy! Simply install movement sensors on each electronic price label. The sensors can monitor customer movement and traffic around your store, offering you a detailed heat map of your retail space.

You can study the heat map to understand your in-store traffic. This information can help you with product placement, promotional areas and displays, aisle layout, etc.

In addition, the heat map allows you to determine how many shoppers passed by a particular product but failed to make a purchase. If you have a slow-moving product in an area with significant traffic, consider switching it or altering the price.

Conclusion

Even as you consider other technological initiatives for your retail store, it;’s best to consider implementing electronic shelf labels. These labels make your work easier by reducing the time and effort spent creating traditional price tags, and they also help increase customers’ in-store experience.

Software & Tools

10 Technology Solutions to Use for Your Business

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Businesses are always looking for new ways to improve their business, and technology is the way to do that. Technology has evolved in the last few decades and can now be used in a variety of ways for businesses. More and more competition is coming up in the market, which is why you need to stay up to date about all solutions that can enhance your operations or help you achieve more success. We have talked to some expert businessmen in order to help you deduce the best technological solutions to use for your business.

Ecommerce for Your Business

Online shopping has been around for the past few decades and it is one of the most popular ways to purchase goods and services, especially since the emergence of COVID.

E-Commerce is a very important part of your business. It has evolved tremendously over the past few years, with online shopping sites becoming more prevalent.

It is important to have an eCommerce platform for your business so that you can reach a higher target audience and can sell your products and services to more people. It also makes your business more authentic and allows you to increase your profits.

The use of Payment Solutions

The use of Payment Solutions is becoming a necessity in the digital market and in the real world itself. There are several reasons for this, such as the increasing number of online transactions, more and more people opting for different cards and payment methods, and the need to simplify the process of payment.

The use of Payment Solutions has become essential for businesses in order to provide an easy-to-use experience for their customers. These solutions range from point-of-sale systems to card readers, mobile apps, and eCommerce platforms that help businesses collect payments in a hassle-free way. For example, dispensary payments can now even include the tracking of sales, which was not possible without good payment solutions. These can even help track tips and incentives under one roof.

Payment solutions have been integrated into most business processes such as customer service management and inventory management. They can also be used as a marketing tool by providing discounts or special offers to customers who have made purchases through these platforms.

The Power of Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is great for creating a brand’s online presence. It is important for marketers to have a social media strategy in place and be consistent with the content they produce.

Social media marketing is an effective way of attracting new customers and increasing brand awareness. By using social media, marketers can reach their target audience, engage with them, and build relationships over time.

The Importance of Web Design

Web design is essential to help make people more aware of your business. It helps you to stand out from the competition and increase your brand recognition.

Web design services are becoming popular in the market as more and more companies are realizing the importance of having a professional website for their business. This site should contain all information that you would like to offer to your clients about yourself, what sets you apart from other businesses, and a list of your goods and services. This helps increase your authentic nature and even your chances of being reflected in the search results.

Marketing Automation

Marketing automation is software that automates marketing processes. It is a set of tools that are used to automate repetitive tasks in order to increase efficiency and reduce costs. Marketing automation solutions can be used for lead generation, lead nurturing, lead scoring, customer segmentation, and more.

These tools are software applications that help marketers automate their marketing activities. These tools can be used for various purposes like generating leads, sending emails or text messages, managing social media channels, and many more.

Data Analytics

Data analytics is a process of collecting, analyzing, and reporting data in order to make better decisions.
Data analytics software helps you collect information from different sources such as data sets, databases, website traffic, and social media posts. Predictive analytics software can be used to predict future trends.

It is important in business because it helps companies make better decisions by understanding the needs of their customers and how they are reacting to the products or services they offer.

CRM Software

Customer relationship management software is a system that helps businesses to manage their customer relationships. This includes things like managing customer profiles, managing contacts, managing leads and opportunities, and generating reports on the customer experience.

CRM software is a great way for companies to get insights into their customers. It also helps them to improve the customer experience they provide. Businesses use this information to help them grow their business by making decisions based on what they learn about their customers.

Cloud-based Storage Solution

The cloud-based storage solution is a new and emerging technology that is becoming increasingly popular in the business world. There are many benefits of using cloud-based storage. One benefit is that it provides convenience and mobility that was not previously possible with traditional storage. Another benefit is cost savings, as cloud-based storage offers lower costs than the traditional options of on-premise or physical offsite. In addition, cloud storage offers access to data from any location, which increases productivity and also provides an easy way to share files with colleagues.

The best cloud service providers are Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive, and Google Drive.

Cyber Security Tools

Cyber security is a very important aspect of any business. With the help of cyber security tools, we can protect our data and information from being compromised by hackers.

There are many types of cyber security tools that we can use to protect our systems from malware, ransomware, and other forms of hacks. We should make sure that we are using these tools as they will greatly reduce the risk of potential attacks or breaches. It is best to hire an IT professional in order to help you deal with these risks. Make sure that your crucial business information is encrypted and protected from all threats for the sake of your company and your customers.

Collaboration and Project Management Apps

Collaboration is the key to success in any organization. It is not just about the number of employees but also about how they communicate with each other. The right collaboration tools can help you achieve this and make your team more efficient.

Collaboration and project management apps are an essential part of any business today. They help keep your team on the same page, no matter where they are located or what device they use to work from.

There are many different ways to collaborate with colleagues – from emailing, instant messaging, and video conferencing to online chat rooms – but not all of them provide a seamless experience for you and your team members.

The best apps for collaboration should be easy-to-use, offer a variety of communication methods (both synchronous and asynchronous) as well as document sharing capabilities that allow you to share files quickly and securely with anyone on your team, regardless of their location or device used for work.

It is important to improve the everyday working of your business in order to do better. Use technology to your advantage and turn your business into a bigger success.

Website

Top Essential WordPress Plugins You Should Have on your WordPress Site

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Are you questing for some essential WordPress plugins to grow your website to the next level? This blog caters to your needs. Here is a collection of the top 12 essential WordPress plugins you should have on your WordPress site!

WordPress offers a very vast variety of plugins to choose from. It can sometimes be difficult for website owners to get the right plugin for their site as you may get confused to choose which one is useful. As plugins are very important to maintain the speed, performance, and security of your website, you should have the necessary ones. So, among the collection of around 60K plugins in the WordPress directory, some are clear winners. And some of the best among them are given here in this blog. To make it sorted for you, let’s have a look at the list of 12 essential WordPress plugins to boost your site performance.

Sit tight and keep reading!

List of Top Essential WordPress Plugins you Should Have on Your WordPress Site

There are very different types of plugins available for your WordPress site like schema, performance, speed, ranking, security, etc. That’s why we have collected a mix-and-match list of some of the top rated to enhance your website growth. With the right set of these plugins, you can take your site business to the next level. So, without wasting a minute, let’s go through the plugin list with some of the important features.

Schema Pro

Schema Pro is one of the best WordPress schema plugins available in the market comprising some of the excellent features that you will need to boost your Site’s SEO. This plugin offers one of the simplest ways to implement Schema markup. You can just boost the SEO of your website in just a few taps. Also, you don’t need to be a professional coder to use this. It will help you to improve the overall performance and appearance of the website in search engine results. This will directly lead you to higher website traffic. Incorporating schema markups can be a bit confusing but with the help of Schema Pro, you can do this effectively. It offers you a very user-friendly interface to work on. You just have to follow three easy steps and you are good to go and have schema markups on your web platform.

Some Key Features:

  • Automatically map fields and add schema markup to the whole website very quickly.
  • You can get the option of real-time testing and collecting feedback altogether.
  • It is very lightweight and offers highly optimized code.
  • Now easily choose the right schema type from over 20 options at the right place without any effort.
  • By integrating this plugin, easily get high click-through rates and increased traffic.
  • Implement schema markup without touching a single line of code.

WP Rocket

Who doesn’t want to skyrocket the speed of their website?
Nobody…Right! So, our next plugin choice is there to help you with this. Yes, WP Rocket is one of the best choices for WordPress users to boost the performance and speed of their website. Once you activate this plugin on your site, it will implement different methods to enhance your page loading speed. The plugin achieves this by enabling different forms of caching, minifying Javascript and CSS files, lazy loading images, and compressing GZIP. As you know, loading time plays a good role in improving user experience, and that’s why investing in this plugin will be worth it.

Some Key Features:

  • It offers automatic crawling and makes a cache for your web pages to reduce load time.
  • It offers a free image optimization service called Imagify to give awesome speed to your website.
  • It is well integrated with Cloudfare API, and Sucuri to do a good caching set-up.
  • It is a very easy-to-use beginner’s friendly plugin.
  • It will integrate your caching solution with Content Delivery Network (CDN).

WooCommerce

If you own an e-commerce site, then you must have a good knowledge of WooCommerce. So, our next plugin on the list is WooCommerce, a widely known WordPress support for e-commerce giants. It helps you to get essential e-commerce features like product listing, management of orders, creating storefronts, etc. It gives you limitless customization options for virtual selling. You can easily sell digital files, and any sort of physical products, display reviews, and ratings, enable any kind of sorting functionality, offer subscriptions and discounts, etc. The best part about getting this plugin is getting the core features without paying a single penny. The major advantage of getting is plugin is reliability as it is made by the same company which developed WordPress CMS.

Some Key Features:

  • You can integrate it well with more than 140 region-based payment gateways.
  • You can sell any kind of product digital, physical, and downloadable.
  • You don’t have to pay any transaction fees if you are not using a third-party payment processor.
  • You can choose from a vast variety of themes and plugins.
  • It is very easy to use and set up.

Rank Math

The next super choice on the list is Rank Math. This is one of the newest addition to the list of SEO plugins, but it is so good that it made its place in the top-rated category very soon. This plugin is based on a game-like algorithm to well optimize your content. Each post under this is prioritized as per its degree of optimization on a scale of 1-10. It has some default SEO modules to enable or disable them as per requirements. Rank Math will assist you to boost local SEO, picture SEO, WooCommerce SEO, and many more.

Some Key Features:

  • You can get the support of around 15 schema markups.
  • You can easily use default SEO audit tools support.
  • You can get advanced recommendations about the content.
  • You can use default SEO modules.
  • It has integration with the search console.

Elementor

Elementor is one of the famous page builder plugins for WordPress. You can use a number of page elements with a drag-and-drop interface. So, this way you can create your website without any coding capabilities by just dragging and dropping. Elementor is compatible with almost every WordPress theme, but still, be watchful to choose any elementor-ready theme. If you are a beginner to owning any website, then Elementor is a very recommended plugin for you.

Some Key Features:

  • It has a very intuitive drag-and-drop builder to ease your website-making process.
  • It has features like amazing overlays, animations, hover effects, box shadows, etc.
  • It has over 100 pre-made page templates to offer you.
  • You can have access to over 90 widget options.
  • It has very good compatibility with Gutenberg editor and many other WordPress plugins.
  • You can access over 300 blocks.

Updraft Plus

As you know creating backups in the world of websites or any other web platform is a must. That’s why our next plugin on the list enables you to achieve this very easily. There are many plugin options available in the market for this, but Updraft Plus is a good choice. It lets you recover your lost data or get the website’s older version in case of any glitches. With just a within clicks, you can create and restore backups. You can also schedule routine backups very easily. As you know backup tools are essential, so this is a must-have plugin for your WordPress site.

Some Key Features:

  • You can effortlessly create manual or automatic backups for your site.
  • It lets you store your backup on cloud storage services.
  • Easily restore your website within minutes.
  • It also offers you various simple data transfer options like email and FTP.
  • It also offers database encryption in its premium version.

Yoast SEO

As SEO has very much important in this digital competitive era, our next plugin Yoast SEO is also a good choice for that. Yoast is one of the best SEO plugins for WordPress. It is one of the best WordPress plugins that allow you to achieve a good ranking in Google search results. It offers you templates to get titles and meta descriptions for your web pages to craft your content as per SEO guidelines. It will also make your content more readable. More than 80% of users scan through posts and pages, so the more readable and accessible your web pages are, the more click-through rate you will get.

Some Key Features:

  • Using keywords and meta descriptions, you can easily optimize your posts and pages.
  • You can easily check your content for optimization and make improvements as required.
  • It offers you time-to-time tips to make changes in the readability of the content.
  • It offers a very nice keyword strategy to work on.
  • You can easily cover on-site and on-page SEO.

Akismet

Akismet is one of the good anti-spam and automatic-backed WordPress plugins. It will help to thoroughly check the contact forms and comment submissions to check for any suspicious entries. It will keep your blog clean, spam-free forms, and your overall website very good-looking. Akismet is very easy to install and activate. After getting it on your site, it will automatically handle the rest of the work. It will review each and every comment to let you block or unblock every comment. If you want to make your website spam-free, then go for this plugin undoubtedly.

Some Key Features:

  • It offers some notable features like comment status history check, statistical data check, comment discarding, etc.
  • One of the best suitable options for spam comment prevention.
  • It will display URLs in the comment body to know about misleading links.
  • It will permanently delete the bad spam messages at once with its discard feature.
  • You can also set the Akismet to store the spam messages for 15 days before discarding them.
  • You can also integrate it with contact form plugins to prevent spam on form submissions.

JetPack

If you want to super-pack your website with some super features, then the JetPack plugin is for you. It is developed by the people who made WordPress, that’s why it is one of the well-maintained WordPress plugins. It offers the capabilities of many plugins, so you can say it is an all-in-one kind of plugin. JetPack provides various features for the smooth running of your website from enhancing site security to optimization to increasing user engagement. It will also let you add various other services like social media buttons, email subscription services, etc.

Some Key Features:

  • It offers you powerful analytics to monitor Page Views and Search Queries.
  • It will also track downtime and tells you whenever your site is slow.
  • It will prevent your blog’s login page from brute forcing through hackers.
  • You can easily incorporate social media buttons using this plugin.
  • It will let you auto-publicize your blog posts on Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, etc.
  • You can also give a subscription button to your users to subscribe to your daily blog posts.

Smush

If you think of the good performance of any site, images play a very crucial role. If you don’t have good image optimization, then you may face a slow-loading website that may harm your business growth. It’s very important to optimize every single image on your web pages. But you know, doing this manually can take a lot of time. That’s why we have our next plugin called Smush. This plugin will automatically compress your images throughout your site when you upload them to the media folders. This way your website will quickly load in front of your users with smaller image sizes.

Some Key Features:

  • It uses a lossless compression technique to compress your images.
  • It has a bulk smush option to compress images at once.
  • It will process various image formats like JPEG, PNG, GIF, etc.
  • When you load any new image to your website, it will compress it automatically.
  • You can change the size of images as per your requirement very easily.

W3 Total Cache

The next option is the W3 Total Cache plugin for caching your website. Caching is defined as the way of storing website content in the browser of the user so that they can access the data faster and faster every time. W3 Total Cache reduces the loading time to enhance the speed of the site. As your site get a faster speed, you can boost your search engine rankings and conversion rates. Getting your website speed faster should be your highest priority as a website owner and W3 Total Cache helps you to achieve this effortlessly.

Some Key Features:

  • It will eliminate the need to re-download the redundant data on the browser window of the user.
  • Create static caches automatically for every single page.
  • It reduces server resources to reduce page load time.
  • You can also integrate it with Content Delivery Networks (CDN).
  • It may take a little bit of time to set up but once you do it, your websites will load very quickly.

WPForms

The last pick on the list is WPForms, one of the popular WordPress form builder plugins in the market. This is a very beginner-friendly tool to add forms to your website. You can easily create forms with its code-free drag-and-drop builder. This will allow you to add any form field you want in any order. You can get basic contact form features in its free version like form fields, email notifications, CAPTCHA, etc. While its premium version gives you much more flexibility and interesting features.

Some Key Features:

  • It offers a very easy-to-use and beginner-friendly drag-and-drop interface.
  • It offers over 300 default form templates.
  • It integrates well with famous marketing and payment platforms.
  • You can get different features like form landing pages, conversational forms, geolocation tracking, GDPR-friendly, login forms, etc.
  • You can use a free WPFroms lite version if you need just simple solutions.

The Rub: Do Improve Your WordPress Website With Plugins

That’s all for this blog!
You very well know, it’s almost impossible to run any WordPress website without any special features and functionality. And you can easily achieve this by adding plugins to your web platform. Whether you want to improve website speed, increase user engagement, compress images, add social media buttons, or have a backup, this mix-and-match list of plugins will surely help you to achieve this. If you give such features to your users, then obviously your user experience will be enhanced. This means high user engagement and a wider audience.
You can get these plugins from the WordPress directory or WordPress.org very easily. You should choose the required plugins as per your business requirements. These 12 essential WordPress plugins are some of the best you should have on your site.
If you have any other option in mind, feel free to share your idea here. Still have queries in mind, feel free to connect with us…We will serve you happily!
Hope you had a great read!

Technology

7 Big Data Trends That Will Rule In 2023

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A single internet user produced approximately 146,880 MB of data every day. This data will accumulate to nearly 94 zettabytes by the end of this year. What’s more surprising is that if internet use remains consistent (which is likely to be the scenario), the data volume will touch the mark of 149 zettabytes by 2025.

This will certainly help businesses learn about their target audience and provide them with better-quality products and services. However, the use of big data is not limited to customer experience and service.

It aids the evolution of cloud software- helping Latin American organizations track and analyze the company’s data in real-time. Hence, they can make appropriate modifications to their prevailing working practices.

Moreover, as different industries are gradually adopting AI and ML, learning about the big data trends for the upcoming years has become the need of the hour. It will assist the entrepreneurs in drafting plans in the current landscape while keeping the big picture of BDA (Big Data and Analytics) in mind.

So, let’s begin.

1. Natural Language Processing

AI, the Internet of Things (IoT), big data, and machine learning facilitate technology and human interaction. And the major role in its success is played by Natural Language Processing (NLP). It allows humans to interact with the smart systems in human language. You can take the example of voice assistant programs and devices for better understanding.

It assists the user in availing the high-quality information without indulging in exotic codes or keywords.

For businesses, NLP aids with sentiment analysis. Simply put, it provides insights into how customers honestly feel about the brand at different parameters. These can range from income, location, education demographics, and more.

Nevertheless, to use NLP to its full potential, businesses need to deploy their best resources. That means they need a separate team of qualified data engineers to streamline the process of the data pipeline, mining, lakes, and automated reports.

Now, there are two ways to attain this task. First, to recruit new data engineers and analytics and set up an entire system. This time-consuming process may affect your budget if you are a small enterprise.

Second, you can outsource a Latam software development company and use its resources for your company’s benefit. It will help save money while integrating the company data to get valuable insights. Not to mention, outsourcing enables you to utilize the company resources to the best of your ability and gain a competitive advantage.

2. Revolution of DaaS

You might have already heard or learned about SaaS (Software-as-a-Service), which is associated with delivering applications (services) to the end-users on demand. All your email services to video streaming platforms are a part of SaaS.

Likewise, businesses are now utilizing DaaS (Data-as-a-Service) to their advantage. It is an information supply and distribution model that works on the cloud. Ironically, DaaS is not a new concept.

According to statistics, the global DaaS market size was 43.06 billion in 2021 and is expected to reach the mark of 455 billion by 2030. The estimated compound annual growth rate is 39.40% (2020-2030).

A few real-life instances where you will likely encounter Data-as-a service are purchased music, image files, and videos from online sources. Nevertheless, the product catalog, map data, and financial data services have given a new shape to this service.

The best part is that data is kept well-secured throughout the collection and distribution process. Businesses can further outsource their data to others and assist in better customer understanding and service delivery.

Tip: By integrating SaaS and DaaS, a company can easily gain a competitive advantage.

3. Aids Climate Change Research

The debates on climate change are often heated and never-ending. However, using big data, renowned organizations such as The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) can resolve the constant arguments. They can further encourage different countries to work together for a common cause.

It is because climate change research is supported by factual information- free from human biases. It will facilitate the implementation of data-driven and climate-conscious decisions to save the planet and create a common ground.

As carbon emission is reported to be the root cause of ozone depletion, research centers, as well as businesses, can use the collected insights to lower carbon footprints. Of course, it is easier said than done. However, the first step to streamlining climate change research has been initiated thanks to big data.

Are You Wondering?

Why should businesses care about climate change?

Taking into consideration the prevailing conditions- drained resources, rising population (8 billion for now), poor food quality, submerged oceans, and more, businesses are left with no choice but to implement eco-friendly practices immediately. For this, they need accurate reports about climate change.

4. Facilitates Data Governance Initiatives

Did you know that 70% of businesses failed to fulfill customers’ requests for “copy of personal data records”? This request was a part of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) regulations. Consequently, businesses had to pay fines and other penalties.

Since then, data governance initiatives have continued to mobilize globally. All business sectors that work with big data are now subjected to more consistent compliance.

This accelerates customer trust in the brands as well as facilitates online payment transactions. Of course, the pandemic has played its fair share in hastening these initiatives, providing power to the customers.

Simply put, customers can now restrict the data, especially from businesses not complying with the GDPR regulations. At the same time, if a company is credible and keeps the customer data safe, they gain trust. It enables them to use the data wisely and for the right purpose.

5. Need Of Cybersecurity

As the saying goes, “with great power comes great responsibilities.” To leverage big data, it is critical for businesses to take appropriate data safety measures. Moreover, considering the data theft statistics, it has become even more critical to boosting cybersecurity practices.

According to the reports of Statista, the average data breach cost in the US is approximately 9.44 million dollars (as of 2022). Whereas the global average is 4.35 million U.S. dollars.

IBM reports also affirm this information, as a data breach is the most expensive in the United States.

That’s why in the upcoming years, i.e., 2023 and beyond, industries need to look for possible loopholes in their cybersecurity measures and resolve them on an immediate basis. Remember that time is of the essence when dealing with customers’ private data. It would be wise to understand the commonly reported issues as given below and eliminate the risks.

  • Limited cloud storage
  • Distribute network framework
  • Non-relational databases
  • Untrained employees
  • Social engineering risks
  • Security misconfiguration and more

Additionally, businesses, irrespective of their industry or size, should invest in reliable cybersecurity software to cater to their rising needs. All these solutions will ensure that confidential information is protected and customer trust is retained.

6. New Growth Areas

Big-budget companies have already used business intelligence solutions and custom software for their day-to-day operations. This is done by understanding the business requirement and analyzing the collected data to resolve the potential issue.

The frequent updates of these solutions now enable them to scale the old and new customers and reach new heights.

These solutions can streamline regular business operations effortlessly, from advertisement to social media management, supply chain management to customer support.

However, where can you get accurate data that suits your specific organization’s needs? The answer is from data provided by customers via landing page behavior patterns, geographical origins, customer transactions, consumer feedback, and video feed of store branches.

Moreover, you can deploy new analytic tools to gain insights that are not readily available. That, too, as quickly as in real-time.

Perhaps, it won’t be wrong to say that there are numerous ways to collect data for a business. Conditioned, companies must be vigilant about information use and provide only limited access.

7. Facilitating The Field Of Medicine

Businesses are keen to contribute to the welfare of people. Health-related absences, payments, and other work-related concerns become less burdensome when the population is healthy.

The fact that healthcare costs in the US alone currently represent 17.7% of GDP is a concerning statistic (CMS, 2019). Thus, it stands to reason that the medical industry is one of big data’s most popular applications. Plus, its importance will only increase, given the rise of both common and rare human diseases worldwide.

Alas, many scientists believe that by compiling all of the world’s medical histories, medical breakthroughs will happen more quickly and earlier than anticipated. Finding a medium ground between private and public research organizations is difficult because patents are thrown around everywhere and slow down the quest for fresh discoveries.

Clinical record data is expected to reach 170 exabytes in 2019 alone, with an average annual growth rate of 1.2 to 2.4 exabytes. Indeed, it takes some effort to navigate all of those enormous zeroes and ones, but the benefits are well worth it.

To Sum It All Up

The development in the field of Big Data and Analytics is yet to reach its full potential. That means there will be more ways in which different industries and businesses can reap the benefit of the data available and provide engaging experiences to their respective audiences.

Nevertheless, the need for high cybersecurity also prevails along with the new trends and developments. Industries and businesses have to ensure that all the information collected is kept safe and only authorized parties have access to it.

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How to Write Blog Posts for SEO That Actually Help Your Website Perform?

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How wonderful is it when your hard work on a blog post bears results in the form of high traffic and SEO rankings on the website? While this scenario seems ideal, it won’t be possible if you do not know what steps to take to optimise your posts. Writing and optimising skills are necessary to attract the audience’s attention, induce them to share your content, and increase rankings.

Simply publishing your blogs isn’t enough to grab the top rankings on the search results page. Similarly, doing the following things won’t let your website reach its true potential:

  • Overusing the keywords
  • Not focusing on readability
  • Using incompatible media, etc.

The list of SEO blog writing best practices to keep in mind while writing blog posts to rank is exhaustive. I remember the time when readability used to be my enemy, and I wouldn’t pay attention to it. It declined my reach, and only a limited audience could see and engage with my blogs. However, I achieved the desired results when I started paying attention to this aspect and combined a few other changes in my style.

This post aims to leave you with the essential gems that helped me to master the writing and optimising skills for SEO blog posts. Know what you can do to attract, retain, and repeat the target audience’s visit to your website:

1. Begin with planned keyword research

If you know your target audience well, you might think of guessing what they would be searching for and plan a topic accordingly. Get the guesswork game out of the box if you truly wish to captivate their search intent.

Example-

Look into the actual keywords they are searching for that align with your needs. For instance, you are a tourism website, and your blogs aim to enlighten your audience about new vacation places. In the end, you prompt them to book their travels with you. While this seems rosy and ideal, what would you do if you knew your target audiences weren’t even interested in such topics?

Keyword research tips

Consider the following research tips for keywords selection and stuffing:

  • Find the gap

A wise move is to bridge the gap between your audience’s demands and the available resources and fill it accordingly.

  • Expert assistance

Content creators and SEO experts rely heavily on keyword research based on search engine data. It helps them outline the topics that their audiences search for the most on the internet and the keywords used frequently. Based on this data, they can form content strategies and build an engaging audience.

  • Utilise keyword research tools

Several keyword research tools, like Semrush, provide information about keyword search volume, competitor analysis, position tracking, etc.

  • Writing assistant tools

Moreover, writing assistant tools let you know the language tone, readability, etc., so you can optimise it to your audience’s taste.

  • Choosing focused keyword

Also, your focused keyword should be the one with less competition and high search volume.

  • Related keywords search

Further, find the Latest Semantic Indexing keywords related to the focused keyword at the bottom of the Google search for the focused keyword.

  • Natural wordflow with keywords

While writing use keywords in the content, do not overuse or add them unnaturally. It will look odd, and search engines can detect them.

2. A blog title and section headings that instantly hit

Next, when you begin writing, create an effective title for the blog post that immediately captures your audience’s attention. You should also include the focused keyword in the title naturally for SEO purposes.

A title that is relevant to the user’s search query will appear at the top of the search rankings. It prompts users to tap on the result and visit the page, improving the click-through rate, website traffic, and related SEO metrics. You can use the heading analyser tools available online to see where your blog title lies.

Further, divide your topic into segments and give each one a catchy heading. Headers allow Google’s web crawlers to understand your post better. These crawlers skim the blog through the H1, H2, H3, and H4 tags, and so on. Each heading and sub-heading should help the crawlers and the readers to know what the underneath content will discuss.

Breaking down the blog structure into paragraphs, bullets, and pointers with attractive and concise headings enhances the content’s understanding and readability. Using high-intent keywords in the sub-headings is better for SEO.

3. Content Optimisation for Featured Snippets

Featured snippets provide clear and relevant answers to the user’s search query. For instance, when I search “how to optimise website speed,” the featured snippet provides a point-wise guidelines from a website that are directly related to my query.

You can earn a featured snippet on Google by answering user queries briefly but clearly. A very well-example is when the search term is “How to sleep peacefully at night,” you can put this question in your H1 or H2 tag and provide as many answers as possible in a numbered or bulleted list.

Also, you must put a part of that question in your blog content in the beginning before beginning to explain the points. Use actionable words to begin your sentences to give an impact and prompt users to act. Moreover, if the search query is to define something, write a description of no more than 58 words to earn the featured snippet.

4. Remember: There’s a human at the end

With so many technical guidelines to optimise search engine rankings and do well, it can be easy to forget that the end user is a human and not a robot. The technical elements are there to assist the end user in satisfying their queries completely. Therefore, your content needs to keep their requirements, personas, likes, dislikes, etc., in mind.

If you’re wondering what it is like- put yourself in your target audience’s shoes.

  • Detailed answers to their inquiries
  • Visual aids for better engagement and interest in reading throughout
  • Ability to skim the post and understand its contents
  • Organised subheadings that go with the flow and do not create a mess

These are just general highlights of what your content should be like for the user. Further, you should keep the following things about the user and blog writing in mind:

  • Defining target audience

Define their personas, motivations, challenges, and interests

  • Address their points

Form content around the potential topics they find interesting and helpful.

  • Use automated tools to your benefit

Utilise the tools as means to your ultimate needs. Technical SEO tools can help you assess where you stand SEO-wise, whereas content writing tools can help create engaging, concise, and human-friendly content with correct grammar. Some tools also offer metrics that measure how users engage with your content, the time they have spent on the page, where they scroll on the site, etc.

Therefore, keep your path clear with content for human users as the end goal.

5. Apply keywords in the meta description

Are you publishing your blog posts without meta descriptions? Then, let me tell you that you are losing the most exposure possible on the search engine. Among the various things like headings, sub-headings, snippets, keywords, etc., add meta description to the list.

Meta descriptions are brief descriptions (two to three sentences) right below the title. Google crawls your content and considers meta descriptions for search rankings. While writing meta descriptions, keep the following things in mind:

  • Keep it as short and concise as possible.
  • Do not compromise its relevance with the blog post.
  • Add one or two keywords.
  • Keep it catchy, exciting, and standing out from the other similar posts to grab the user’s attention.

If you’re using a content management system (CMS), you might find the meta description boxes in-built, so you won’t have to go far to use the additional function.

6. Internal and external linking is a must

  • Internal linking

Internal linking means linking to other posts, pages, or blog posts on your website. It enables the search engine to form an accurate sitemap through which the ultimate user discovers about you and your creditworthiness.
A user stays for a long time on your website through internal linking to valuable content. The bounce rate reduces and potentially enhances the conversion rate. However, keep the following things in mind while considering internal linking:

  • Natural anchor text

Anchor text is where you will put your link to a relevant old post or web page. What you do is highlight the text where you wish to place the link, right-click, and insert the link. The link should not be placed desperately over an irrelevant anchor text or a spammy call-to-action like ‘Click Here.’

  • Descriptive keywords

Your anchor text keyword should be descriptive to let users understand what they will find when they will tap the hyperlink. For instance, Download the SEO guide clearly indicates what you’ll get on opening it.

  • No force-fed links

Ensure not to force-feed links, meaning linking to your top products, bestsellers, favourite pages, or discontinued products that are not relevant to the subject matter of the blog post. Instead, choose those links that will further enhance the user’s knowledge of the current subject matter and enrich the points you made in this post.

  • External linking

Like internal linking, consider adding a contextual relationship with blog posts of other high-authority websites. External linking benefits in a way that the user gets to expand their knowledge base and know that you have researched well before writing and publishing your blog.

Compelling research-based statistics from influential websites work well in your favour. It supports and builds your argument and makes it convincing and concrete. Consequently, you win the user’s trust.

7. Image compression to speed up the process

You must be putting images and related media with your blog posts to enhance the visual appeal. Further, humans stay interested in content that contains pictures with a brief summary of the post, a connected image, etc. However, putting images can affect the loading speed by slowing it.

Fast loading speed boosts user experience, which large and heavy images restrict. Several tools and applications are available that can help you compress images over 100 kb in your blog post. You can narrow the causes of slow loading speed by relying on metrics like Google’s PageSpeed Insights with free analysis and recommendations.

8. Add alt text to your images

Alt text explains what the images are to help Google and the visually impaired audience understand why it is in the post. For instance, you are writing about coffee blends and adding a picture about types of coffee drinks. The Alt text will state “the different kinds of coffee blends and drinks.” In this way, you have also added the keyword coffee blends into the mix.

9. Create longer posts that are scannable

Although the attention span of humans is decreasing, shorter blog posts do not serve well in SEO. Longer and more detailed blog posts are preferred by Google and related search engines.

Keep your blog at a minimum of 300 words but balanced. Long articles are easier for Google to crawl and find what it is all about through clues.

However, there is a downside to long-form blogs too. For instance, readers may get overwhelmed by the content size and length. There’s an easy solution to fix this issue and ensure the reader stays tuned till the end.

Break the blog into smaller chunks, bite-sized and scannable pieces. Make the long sentence short by breaking it into two. Similarly, keep one paragraph of three to four sentences only. Further, grab the user’s attention by using numbers and bullets wherever possible. It should be easy to skim through, especially on mobile.

Bottom Line

Writing SEO blog posts is an art, science, and profession. You need to focus on developing engaging, entertaining, and informative content and apply appropriate SEO techniques like those mentioned above to achieve the desired results. Even if you can’t achieve the number one rank for each blog post, aiming for it will benefit you in this competitive world.