Author Archives: ogrelogic

Website Design

Start Your Successful Dropshipping Business in 6 Simple Steps

Since you are reading this, you already know that Dropshipping is an extremely popular and successful business model for new entrepreneurs, especially if you have limited funds.

How does Dropshipping work?

It is simple, really. You have an e-commerce website where you showcase third-party products for your niche. You can be a registered dropshipper with the third-party manufacturer or supplier. Customers buy on your website but the order is fulfilled by the third-party. In other words, you do not have to manufacture or stock inventory. This cuts operational costs and leaves you free to focus on customer acquisition.

In a dropshipping business, you are responsible for creating your own website and brand, as well as choose and market the products you want to sell.

The following 6 steps will help you set up and run a successful Dropshipping business on a limited budget.

Choose a niche

You must select a specific product niche and cater to a particular target customer, not to mention you should be genuinely interested in it. Things to remember while selecting your niche:

  • Select a niche with higher margins – In a dropshipping business, your focus is on acquiring customers, in other words, you are putting in the same effort to sell something whether its retail price is $20 item or $200. So, pick a product range where you can make more money.
  • Check shipping costs – Although your supplier or manufacturer will fulfil orders and ship them to the end customer, high shipping costs can push customers away. Offering free shipping to your customers can help you attract more sales.
  • Your product must appeal to buyers who have the financial ability to make a buying decision on the spot.
  • Pick products that potential customers are already searching for. You can use Google’s Keyword Planner and trends to check common search terms related to your potential niche.
  • Build your own brand – Your dropshipping business will be more valuable if you can rebrand the products you are selling. Find out products you can white label and sell with your custom packaging and branding.

Research competition

As a dropshipping business, you will be competing with other dropshipping businesses as well as big retailers. Research how they are selling similar products. That will help you mark up your products and evaluate customer acquisition strategies.

Don’t try to pick a product that has little to no competition. That may be a sign there isn’t demand for that particular product, the shipping costs are too high, or poor profit margins.

Find a dropshipping supplier

Most dropshipping suppliers are overseas and you need a reliable one. Ensure that you can communicate well, and their turnaround time is low. Alibaba and AliExpress are some of the largest online databases of potential manufacturers and suppliers.

Build your dropshipping -commerce website

One of the most important steps in building your dropshipping business is to have a custom e-commerce website that can support your business now and later when you scale up.

There are many template-based platforms available but the problem with them is they will make you a cookie cutter website that will not be search engine friendly. Such platforms often keep increasing their fee gradually or you have to pay additionally for every feature you add. This means that despite spending time and money in making your website, it will not be easily visible to your target audience, which means your products will not sell as much and as fast as you want them to. In addition, it will be quite difficult for you to move your website to another platform, if you want to do so in the future.

On the other hand, a custom website may seem a little more expensive upfront but is a one-time expense with no hidden costs. However, you own your custom website, and it can be scaled up easily, as business grows. Another huge advantage with a custom dropshipping website is that it is unique and search engines love custom websites. As a result, you are likely to rank higher, SEO is easier and you are more easily visible to potential customers. In other words, more sales and higher profits.

The fastest way to build a successful dropshipping business is to have a custom e-commerce website built by experts who know what they’re doing, such as Ogrelogic solutions, who have been creating custom e-commerce websites for more than 6 years. Ask for a free consultation and the technical team will help you create a custom, e-commerce dropshipping website to suit your budget.

Create a customer acquisition plan

Once you have a great website and products, you need to attract potential customers. This can be effectively achieved with social media marketing, including ad campaigns.

This strategy allows you to generate sales and revenue right from the start, which can contribute to quick scaling. Social media platforms, like Facebook and Instagram, allow you to place your offer directly in front of a highly targeted audience, allowing you to compete with the largest retailers.

In the long term, Search Engine Optimization and email marketing is important. Collect emails and set up automated email sequences to offer special offers. This can help you generate revenue with your existing customer base, without additional ad spend.

Learn, Learn, Learn

Track and analyze all metrics available for your dropshipping business. Use tools, such as Google Analytics and Facebook pixel data, and track every single conversion. There is no standard advertising or marketing solution. Keep testing new opportunities, tweaking current campaigns, and optimizing campaigns.

If you need help building your Dropshipping business e commerce website, consult the technical team at Ogrelogic Solutions or call 512-559-7491 for a FREE CONSULTATION. With more than 500 satisfied clients, Ogrelogic is a team of dedicated developers, designers, quality experts, marketers and project managers that work on all the latest technology platforms and help you build a business from the start.

App Store Optimization

The Dummies’ Guide to App Store Optimization

If you are thinking of building an app or are having one built right now, you have probably heard the term – App Store Optimization (ASO).

The app store is the biggest source of potential users for your app. A Google study revealed that 48% of new mobile app discovery comes from browsing app stores. Another 34% of new app downloads result from app store recommendations.

app store

So, it’s a no-brainer that to increase your app downloads, you need to make your app easy to find, click, and download in the app stores.

It is important to know that there are more than 2.2 million apps in the Apple App Store and a whopping 3.4 million apps on the Google Play Store!

Whoa!

So, how do you make your app stand out among the millions already out there?

The answer is — App Store Optimization (ASO).

You know about SEO but what exactly is ASO?

This guide will help you understand what ASO is and ASO techniques you can use to maximize exposure and impact on app store rankings and downloads.

What is ASO?

Like SEO helps your website rank higher in Google search results, ASO helps your app appear in the top search results for relevant keywords in the app store. Needless to say, ASO can make your app more visible in the app store, increase the number of downloads and boost revenue for your app.

Metadata

Both Apple’s app store and Google’s Play Store have their own algorithms for app ranking. This means you may need a separate strategy to get downloads on these stores.

While these algorithms are based on a large number of known and unknown factors, the app stores index keywords used in your app’s metadata.

And your best bet for great ASO is to use relevant search terms or keywords in your metadata.

App store Metadata includes the app’s –

  • Title (30 characters)
  • Subtitle (30 characters)
  • Keystring (100 characters)
  • Promo Text (30 characters)
  • Description (4000 characters)

The first three are indexed by the search algorithm.

Since App store metadata brings you visibility, and each component in metadata can only be a fixed number of characters, it is best to use as many characters as possible with your metadata. Remember that terms like ‘and’ or ‘the’ are ignored by the algorithm.

Keyword Research

Keyword research is critical for ASO since app store search algorithms look for keyword combinations across your app title, subtitle, and keystring.

Out of these, the title of your app has the most significant influence on search rankings and hence, your keyword planning should always begin with the app name and subtitles. Add your brand name, and the most relevant terms for the functions, and features of your app, in the title. Think about what your potential subscribers would look for when searching for your app on the app store. You can try different keywords and test them over time.

However, avoid repeating keywords in your app title, subtitle, and keystring. Include other relevant keywords instead.

The best approach is to make a list of the app’s key features. And then list the search terms people can use to look for what your app offers. Test the keywords on both these lists to get optimal results.

The keystrings are not visible to the customer but to the search algorithms in the app store.

You have used the best keywords in your title and subtitle. Now use the remaining keywords in the keystrings.

Go for a combination of high competitive or less competitive keywords. The first get a lot of traffic but it will be tougher to rank for them. The latter, on the other hand, are less popular but it is easier to rank for them.

App Store Description

The 4000-character description of your app is the best opportunity to get users.

Search algorithms don’t directly index app store descriptions but Apple Search Ads and Google will. So, use keywords in your description too, to get more visibility and potential downloads.

App Screenshots

App screenshots aren’t a determining factor for ASO. But don’t they catch your eye when you visit the App store?

High-quality screenshots attract downloads from new users. To optimize your screenshots –

  • Don’t put too much information or text on the images
  • Clearly show the app’s main features
  • Carry out A/B testing for different screenshots

Organic vs. Paid App Discovery

Organic and paid discovery for an app is just like organic and paid search for SEO.

Organic discovery is achieved with ASO while paid is done with search advertisements.

While paid discovery gets your app quickly in front of potential subscribers, it drops as quickly when you stop running the ads.

On the other hand, ASO is a long-term strategy. When done right and consistently for a long time, your app remains visible to potential users, even without running ads.

However, regardless of the source of your downloads, they impact organic search rankings. So, if ads are driving your downloads, your organic search rankings improve automatically.

In essence, your marketing strategy should include a combination of both organic ASO and ads.

ASO Strategy

As a business, figuring out ASO on your own can be hard nut to crack. This is where experts at mobile app development and marketing companies, such as Ogrelogic Solutions, can help. They can design the right ASO strategy for your app with the right tools and resources

Companies that specialize in both mobile app development and marketing are invested in your app’s success long after your app has been launched. They are always on the lookout for the search algorithm changes and customize your strategy accordingly.

Remember that while your app is unique, it’s always competing with millions of other apps available for download. Whether you have an iOS app or Android app or both, you can stay on top of your game by leveraging app store optimization.

To speak with one of our mobile app design, development or marketing strategists in Austin, TX, write to us at info@ogrelogic.com or call 512-559-7491 right away.

Custom Website Design

Is Custom Website Design better than a Template-Based Design in 2021?

Are custom websites better (in every way) than template-based websites? That’s the question we get asked a lot. And our answer is always an emphatic… Yes!

Custom websites are (in every way) superior to template websites. One of the several reasons is that a website built with a template will ALWAYS get a much lower ranking in any search engine than a website built with a “live” CMS like WordPress.

Why?

Simply put, templates are very constraining. They limit your ability to make changes and create unique content and that can cost you a great deal, both in downtime and money.

Many business owners choose to build their websites using templates. This is a common but a bad idea. Why? Simply because… Templates are MORE work, MORE hassle and LESS profits!

In this post, we reveal the truth about website templates. We’ll show you exactly what a website “template” is, and how it limits your creativity… and your profits!

We have compiled a list of the top 5 reasons why custom websites are better than template websites. This informative post not only explores those reasons, but also reveals some of the hidden benefits of creating a custom website for your business.

What is the difference between a template-based website and a custom website?

A pre-made template is a theme that is sold to multiple businesses, has a lower cost, and is already finished. Custom website designs are unique to your company and business, and the designers collaborate with you to understand your vision and create exactly what you have in mind for the finished product.

Created just for your business

Visitors create an opinion of your website in only 50 milliseconds (0.05 seconds)!

If you use a premade theme, you are bound by the design and limitations of that template.

In the case of custom design, web designers develop a unique design based on your exact specifications, from the colors of your brand to the layout you want. You can utilize the best practices for your industry, important features used by the most competitive companies in your market segment, and quality coding.

Achieve your current and future business goals

Your custom website can not only fulfill your current business goals but also future goals. For example, if your focus changes to growth, you can add elements designed to attract more traffic to your website, and develop a loyal following.

Unique to your website

Would you be happy to have a brand identity that is exactly like another company, or your competitor?

No, right?

Then why would you use a website design that anyone else could use?

Having a template-based website that looks just like your competitor’s, can confuse your potential customers or buyers if a competitor buys the same or a similar template.

A custom website design has been created for your business, which means you can create a distinctive identity for your distinctive brand.

Can be scaled up

Many templates lack the ability to grow with your business. It may mean a complete website redesign in the middle of your growth phase.

Custom web designs make your website scalable and can handle high traffic as your business grows. Experienced custom website designers use best practices to help you with SEO and high-quality UI/UX.

You often get a single chance to impress and retain a new visitor to your website before they leave for a competitor’s site, so you need a website design that is unique, easy to navigate, communicates or provides what the visitor is looking for and works correctly.

If constant growth is a priority for you, a template design may limit your ability for any updates later.

Ongoing Support

Premade templates offer limited support since their business depends upon volumes. You may be left in the lurch if your business website doesn’t deploy correctly or you wish to correct errors. You can’t leave your business reputation and web presence to chance.

Custom website designers can provide continuous support for your changing needs. They can easily add new features, make security improvements, and any other updates to ensure your web footprint doesn’t lag behind the times.

Quality Assurance

Premade templates are not made-to-measure. They have not been tested for your business, your company’s equipment or your web host. They might fail causing you to run into hard-to-troubleshoot problems.

Custom web developers can help you deploy the website in your business and identify and troubleshoot any complications. They can also train you and/or your IT team to resolve any potential issues in the future.

One of the biggest reasons business owners look for template-based websites is the upfront cost. While Custom web designs may require a larger upfront investment, but the benefits you receive over time make them much more cost-effective.

Still sitting on the fence?

If you want to have a business website designed, or redesigned, and you want to understand the best way of going about the website design, talk to Ogrelogic experts at 512-559-7491. Ogrelogic has been featured among the Top 10 Website Development Companies 2021 and Top 10 E-commerce Website Development Companies in Austin, TX by digital.com.

SEO Myths ?

Keyword Research is More than Finding the Right Tool – Some Myths Related to It

We all know how search engine optimization or SEO works for any business to rank high on the Google charts but Is it because of the right tools or SEO is more than just using tools to get the desired results? There are lots of myths associated with how SEO works and most of the times we do not even bother to cross-check the reality to come to a practical conclusion. Listed below are some myths about SEO that have been floating around for quite some time now.

# Myth number one was when almost every business entity followed that keyword targeting became irrelevant after Google’s hummingbird. Launched in 2013, the hummingbird was a name given to the algorithm that brought about significant changes in the way Google allowed users to perform their searches. Many even followed this myth until today that targeting keywords will hold no importance, whereas the matter of the fact is the other way around. The visibility of keywords on Google’s first page very much indicates that it still matters.

Reality to this myth is that targeting keywords with high-quality content along s is something that draws the attention of the target audiences. Also, using keywords purposely in the content helps in analysing the searcher’s intent.

# Myth number two is that meta tags don’t matter. Is it true to say? Well, the reality is meta tags make your search results appear attractive where users gain attention the clicks presuming high-quality content on your website. To further explain as to what meta tags are, it includes ‘The title-tag,’ ‘The meta description,’ and ‘meta keyword and phrases. The meta tags are usually beneficial for webmasters to give relevant information on their sites to the search engines. They just pick up the desired information hidden in the meta tag and ignores the rest of it.

Hence, meta tags do matter a lot to keep you at the top of the search engine charts. So, write interesting ones to keep your business afloat.

#Myth number three is that only high-level domains would improve your rankings. Is it true? To some extent, it is true to say that a .com would attract more users than a domain name with the extensions like .ca or .biz, and. guru. This happens because most of the users are aware of the extension names with .com attached to the domains than any other.

For example, if you’re a citizen of Canada but have a domain name with the extension .com, Google will display audiences on a global scale as compared to those belonging to the same industry in Canada and having domain names with .ca as extensions. Google, in this case, will display results about the audience restricted to that region itself.

#Myth number four having an XML sitemap will boost your search rankings. Are you one of those who’ve installed Google sitemap generator to scale your search rankings? Well, doing so is not an important thing but having XML sitemaps are important while building any website. Any sitemap is a way to find more information by the search engines to track your website’s activity by the crawling method. Hence, a sitemap doesn’t affect the ranking process but will increase the visibility of your website in Google’s search index.

#Myth number five, which is commonly followed by many marketers is that Google searches for the new content and index it for boosting visibility. This myth is partially true as search engine bots are on the lookout for fresh content to crawl on it and to index it. But to do so, it may take up to 2-3 days for your blog or article to get noticed by the search spiders. So, it depends on how well you use your XML sitemap generator plugin to help Google find your fresh content update in its directories.

Things that will help you achieve better ranks and long-term visibility on the search engines:

  • Avoid over-optimization of the keywords.
  • Don’t just aim for top-ranks but increased ROI because the thing that matters the most is what you will gain in the end.
  • Stay consistent to get the rankings on the search engines by reaching out to the local people and asking them to link your business to the local listing page.

There may be SEO failures and success stories but learning something new about it every day is what will help you master it in the long run.

 

Toxic Backlinks

Backlinks – Reasons that make them Toxic

Backlinks as known to all of us are links from one website to a page from another website. Most of the top search engines like Google consider backlinks as the vote bank for respective website pages. In the past few years, it is observed that backlinks tend to have high organic search rankings but is it true to say completely that they bring a difference to the overall performance of any website or boost its visibility?

The role of backlinks is to intimate the search engines that content posted on these links is authentic and that it will gain the websites more visibility. Initially, it was because of the backlinks that Google’s original algorithm (PageRank) was formed. However, over the period, these backlinks started proving toxic to the websites due to which, the organic traffic that was earned by the businesses started getting affected.

Points to consider:

Why backlinks get Toxic?

There are several reasons why backlinks can get toxic and make things miserable for businesses. The important factors that help us to understand why backlinks get toxic include:

  • Low domain trust score:despite backlinks coming in from the trusted domains, the websites show low domain scores. When such a scenario occurs it means the score may be artificially inflated.
  • Page Layout: your page link will show poor quality results if the ratio of visible text to HTML is low.
  • Cyber Security at Flaw: The backlinks coming in from hacked sites pose a real problem for the ones that are authentic. In such cases, Chrome and other browsers would display warning messages to let the users know that the content may be flawed on this website.
  • Check the Spam Score: If the website’s Spam score is 8 and above, it clearly indicates that the site is not authentic and hence generates backlinks.

How are Backlinks Created?

Do it the ‘Broken-link building’ Way

The broken-link building method works just as anyone would’ve expected it to be. It does not just enable one to create one-way backlinks but reports about the broken links on websites by contacting a webmaster. You can also replace broken backlinks and recommend other websites to increase your chances of creating backlinks for your website. There are times when the webmasters wouldn’t agree to send you backlinks, which shouldn’t bother you. Instead, try to help them by intimating them about the broken links and chances are they may send you backlinks for your websites.

Moreover, the broken-link method is always a great way to search for reliable websites on Google. The three most important ways to achieve the desired results include keyword +links, your keywords +resources, and keywords in URL: links. To ease the process, one can download and install the Google Chrome plugin called Check my Links that picks up all the broken links to overcome the problem and increase the visibility of your site to a great extent.

Creating Backlinks through Infographics

Knowing the fact that visual content is preferred more over text, infographics prove to be one of the most popular and efficient methods to gain traffic on the website while earning valuable backlinks. The use of infographics is mainly done as they are easy to understand and creates demand for the backlinks efficiently. This is one reason why the demand for infographics has increased by the day. Several brands are thus seen publishing infographics in larger numbers to gain sound visibility online.

In all of the above information, you need to choose the infographic smartly to avoid the backlinks being toxic and spoil your brand’s rapport in the market. To make it more promising, submit the infographics on various reputed portals and gain visibility.

What more you can do to Avoid Backlinks on your Websites?

If you’re new to identifying toxic links, be cautious and stay focused using the right approach. The foremost danger of toxic backlinks comes from websites with major technical problems, security flaws, and aggressive monetization. Ever since Google introduced its Penguin algorithm it started refining the good links from the poor and penalized sites having toxic links.

Search for the Contact Information

Knowing the fact that several websites have contact forms or about us pages, you can always reach out to the person in charge of the site. Nevertheless, using email over a webform is easier to monitor and follow up. However, if you don’t find any contact information on the website itself, there are specified tools to search for the contact details of a particular website.

Reviewing Backlinks is Important

Any link that can cause harm to your rankings on Google or any other search engines due to malware or viruses are said to be toxic backlinks. Therefore, reviewing each link is important to get rid of the toxicity of backlinks. Audits in such cases are the best options to avoid backlinks from cluttering on your websites.

So, before you create any backlink, check for the fact whether it is authentic and that it does not affect the rankings on important search engines like Google.

Content Marketing

7 Mistakes to Avoid for a Strong Content Marketing Model

The success of any business entity depends upon how strong its marketing strategy is. Often it is observed that there is a lot of room for action but an inconsistent master plan spoils it all, making businesses vulnerable to fall prey at hands of the peers struggling to make a mark in the competitive industry. According to Seth Godin, the popular American author, and former dot com business executive, “content marketing is all the marketing that’s left.”  

It is true to say that content marketing is an important field for businesses to bring in new leads but an equally challenging one as well. So, what best practices should be acquired and mistakes to be avoided to achieve a robust content marketing model to keep businesses ahead of the counterparts and needs to be addressed well?

Here are a few mistakes that should be avoided while planning a strong content marketing strategy:

#1 Half-hearted Planning 

While most of the content marketing strategies start strong, not many reach the desired goals. Know why this happens? Well, lack of patience and the right approach is the prime cause why most of the content marketing models collapse at the beginning of its inception. Let’s explain it this way.

Suppose, you’ve initiated or planned a marketing strategy for brand promotion and enforce necessary guidelines to have it implemented but you realize the planning didn’t fit your expectations and outcome is a failure. It happened because the team lacked passion and consistency in driving the marketing of company to the next level.

Hence, a focused and team playing staff is the key to build a strong content marketing platform for your company.

#2 Playing Quantity over Quality

Publishing irrelevant content just for the sake of it is the worst decision to keep your content marketing plan rolling. Some organizations don’t work on quality but quantity and this is where they miss out on targeting the potential customers beneficial for the growth of their businesses.

Teams are usually directionless and perform poorly because they don’t have any set of ideals and goals on which they could work a strong content marketing model. One has to be thoughtful to come out with amazing content pieces for posting on reputed marketing platforms.

The best trick to play this part safe and strong is to stay focused and keep working on posting quality content that finally becomes an asset rather than a liability in the years to come.

#3 Taking too long to implement a Great Marketing Plan

Once you achieve a great content marketing model for your organization ensure to implement it right away. The longer you take to implement it, longer will be its outcomes, which may not be fruitful for your business. As it is content marketing reaps benefits for businesses at a slow pace, if proper measures are not  implemented on time it will reduce its chances to make a mark in the competitive content market.

#4 Short-Terms Plans finds Businesses Short-Term Visibility

Anything that shows instant results may find your businesses an overnight success but will not work for a longer period. The prime cause for it is a lack of passion and zeal amongst teammates to work out stronger and fruitful strategies for building robust customer relationships. The great content marketing model aims for future relationships with customers rather than short-term success ladders. The staff must keep an eye on the latest content marketing trends and match it up with the existing model of organizations to come out with an exceptional plan that stands out.

#5 Aiming for the ‘Change it All’ at Once

As discussed previously, content marketing takes its own time to reap organizations’ monetary benefits hence changing the business model of the company completely, in the beginning, makes no sense.

#6 No Reviews on the Content Marketing Plan Performance

Practically speaking, any content marketing plan that has a lot of effort being put into should likely to be reviewed at regular intervals for making it work perfectly. However, such is not the case with most of the organizations. Once they implement a content marketing plan, they leave it lame resulting in poor performance and untimely failure.

So, why should be businesses doing a review of the implemented content marketing plan?

There are two main scenarios for the above-mentioned question:

  • If the content marketing strategy works well and gains your profit, your efforts are visible and would gain you profit in terms of branding and online visibility.
  • On the contrary, if your plan isn’t working fine, it means you need to focus on the valuable inputs for insightful gains.

All this and more is possible only if you review your content marketing strategy at regular intervals.

#7 Social Media Dependency

Social media is a competitive platform for businesses to build a strong brand image but in content marketing, it isn’t the only thing that needs to be focused upon. Each social media platform follows a modus-operandi that deal with its potential visitors seeking engagement for their businesses. Therefore, following it blindly without knowing your target audience and expecting revenue generation is not the wise thing to do. Research well before you actually implements it in your existing model.

Bottom Line 

Defining your business goals and the target audience is an extremely important step before planning any content marketing strategy for your businesses. Not only will it help you understand potential customers would give your business a deeper outlook about how it can prosper in the challenging and competitive business world.

ogrelogic app

5 Top Reasons Apps Fail

Millions of apps are available on the Google Play Store and Apple’s App Store. A user only takes a few seconds to decide whether or not s/he will download an app or not. And the large number of apps available further adds to the competition for user attention. Most businesses wonder what it takes to develop a successful mobile app.

The competition is undoubtedly immense, yet clutter is not the only reason many apps fail. Read on to understand reasons why mobile apps fail and how you can design your strategy in order to effectively meet your goals.

Poor Research

It’s easy to think that users will love your app, but it is essential to have an excellent understanding of your product’s target audience, much before development begins. Your app will succeed only if it addresses a specific user need.

During the early stages of your project, identify the product’s central demographics and create user persona. The more detailed the user persona is, the better. Include things like demographics, behavior patterns, motivations, and goals, in the user persona.

Lack of uniqueness

App stores are full of similar apps. A successful app is one that offers a unique value proposition (UVP).

To create your UVP, –

  • Draft a vision statement to create a definite sense of direction towards the end goal of the app.
  • Test your product with a prototype to identify and fix problems early, when it’s far less expensive to modify it.

Design thinking is integral to the creation of original mobile apps. It supports innovation and emphasizes on a user-centric approach to product development, which can help you differentiate your app from others in the market and build competitive advantage.

Not choosing the platform carefully

Android and iOS operate in different ways and appeal to different user groups.

Discover your users’ choice of smartphone. This is often correlated with other variables, such as income and education. This information can help you make decisions about your app’s monetization strategy. For example, if your monetization strategy depends more on in-app purchases, iOS may be the most profitable platform for your app. But if you want to use ad placements to monetize your app, Android is a better idea.

If you are developing an app for multiple platforms, you should consider platform differences too. Remember that an average user takes less than a minute to decide an app is worth using!

Poor user experience

To offer a great user experience, the app needs to be intuitive. Poor usability can be caused due to –

  • Difficulty in using the basic functions
  • App performance issues (slow or lagging)
  • Long load times
  • Long registration processes
  • Difficult to access features

Focus on creating an amazing UX so the user not only benefits from your app but also feels great about using it.

Other Reasons

Other reasons apps fail include –

  • Improper testing
  • Poorly executed app launch
  • Project delays and budget overruns
  • Many stakeholders with differing priorities

The bottom line is focusing on market and audience research, following platform-specific best practices, and thorough quality testing can make a difference a successful or a failed mobile app.

How Cloud Solutions Have Benefited Businesses?

How Cloud Solutions Have Benefited Businesses?

However, talking about the cloud isn’t something very new in the tech world as it has been trending for over 10 years now; it surely has been evolving amongst businesses every second. Although computing resources were something that found its space in the 50’s era it has, however, found a relatively newer version in the form of ‘Cloud Computing,’ speaking technically. So, what exactly is Cloud? No, not the cloud formed due to evaporated water. In the technology world, the cloud is something used by businesses to store their data using Internet services. Got confused? Let us explain it simply.

Cloud Basics

Cloud Computing is something where businesses can store data on a third-party server hosted elsewhere. This means the cloud server won’t necessarily be located in-house. The purpose of cloud computing is to help businesses store data without having to worry about the storage space in their computer hard discs. It reduced the burden of maintaining too many hardware devices used for data storage to a great extent. A live and popular example of the cloud is Google Docs. 

Have you ever observed how Google Docs work? No? Well, try using it once and you’ll figure out that the data is being saved automatically forming a cloud file that can be accessed from across the globe. All you need to have is a valid ID to log in to Google Docs and get started instantly. This is just a miniature example of what the cloud can offer. The picture is way too massive to analyze.

So, with this, we can conclude that cloud computing is a platform that enables scalable and perfectly elastic software services using the Internet as a medium.  

IaaS, SaaS, and PaaS – Three Fundamental Cloud Branches 

IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service)

As the name suggests Infrastructure-as-a-Service or IaaS is a service platform where businesses can access storage, networking, servers, and virtualization through a third party to create an IT environment suiting individual business types. Apart from managing the infrastructure, the IaaS also aims at managing other services including IP address, network connections, load balancers, billing management, and access management, etc. to name a few.  

Storage Resiliency – This particular feature is one of the most important ones out of all as it keeps the operations of cloud computing go on smoothly even if there is a power outage or failure of any equipment. The storage resilient software would help in restoring all the data during any troubleshooting due to workloads on multiple physical servers. 

IaaS or Infrastructure-as-a-Service enables users to install operating systems, deploy databases, create storage and install workloads as per their business needs. 

SAAS (Software-as-a-Service)

  • Software-as-a-Service is a Cloud platform that allows users to access data from any device with the help of an Internet connection. 
  • The web model is hosted on servers managed by third-party vendors to run the applications including codes, servers, and databases efficiently. 
  • The SaaS model helps companies to focus more on outsourcing of the IT responsibilities and reduce the overall cost of their hardware. The software developed is hosted on a cloud server, which is managed by a SaaS vendor. 

In all of the above discussions, we should not take SaaS the same as On-premise software. Both are different models. Whereas SaaS or (Software-as-a-Service) allows users to opt for annual or monthly subscriptions to access software applications from the cloud, the On-Premise model usually is when buyers own a license. They pay a certain percentage of money for the maintenance and support fees. Choosing either of them depends upon individual business requirements. 

PAAS (Platform-as-a-Service)

Platform-as-a-Service or PaaS as the name suggests is an alternative to any company’s IT infrastructure. This means, to some extent it replaces the IT model of a company with various cloud components in the form of servers, operating systems, and databases, etc. among others. 

Let’s see how PaaS works:

The cloud service provider’s hosted infrastructure with users allows businesses to access data via a web browser without disturbing the company’s existing IT model. The best part of PaaS is that it is flexible and can be deployed on all the cloud verticals including public, private and hybrid cloud models. It is extremely simple for which it takes a plus apart from service available that can be a concern for the users.  

Other Services Involved in Platform-as-a-Service Include:

  • Web Service Integration
  • Information Security Systems
  • Application Development & Designing 
  • Application Testing & Implementation

Cloud Computing – Here to StayAs Cloud computing technology has existed for over a decade now it has been one of the most rapidly changing ones amongst enterprises that have deployed cloud models on their premises. From a simple hosting service to a giant cloud platform Cloud Computing is available to anybody and anywhere in the world. Offering a perfectly scalable IT environment Cloud Computing is something that has gained attention worldwide and is evolving every second of the hour.

Tales and Fables

How Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence Evolving into Technology World?

Before we dig deep into what machine learning has to offer the future, let us understand what exactly it is? With the future holding countless prospects in the technology world, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) is gaining peak by the day. The fact is not to be denied how our lives are AI dependent. To explain it in easy words, let’s take an example about how voice search or search results on Internet provide the desired results with ease and tells us that machine learning is at work to give you the desired information. Making lives easier for people and taking the technology a step ahead is what machine learning is all about.

Next up is the fact that (ML) Machine Learning is the learning from existing data whether in written or print form. The data here is the algorithms provided, which gives users results they’re seeking. However, the meaning of AI changes as per the requirements of individual users but it is always a data-driven technology.

Some Interesting Things to Know!

Machine Learning (ML) Model should be kept simple!

As we all know that ML is learning derived from the data provided, we need to keep the model simple to come to appropriate conclusions. If you don’t have enough data to calculate or compute, keeping the algorithms simple will have you succeed the ML technology. So, play around less data for strong outcomes.

Data is What Machine Learning all about!

It is the data that you enter in the machines that machines learn about and derives the results accordingly. This means that (ML) machine learning is not possible without the data. Also, the authenticity of data fed to the machines gives valid results. So, ensure to have a good algorithm rather poor one to make the ML a successful process.

Have Data Transformed Smoothly using ML

Some theories believe that machine learning has a limited option to select and tune the algorithm but in reality, that is not the case. With the increasing interest of companies to hire data scientists ensures the cleansing of data that would help in transforming it smoothly to make it machine learning compatible.

Avoid Creating Biased Loops using Machine Learning (ML)

When we talk about biased loops, we want to draw attention to the fact that ML is an extremely sensitive field and that it can bring in a lot of biases within its model. This means machine learning can sometimes generate a date, which is bias friendly and is likely to affect people’s life. Therefore, be careful while training the new data is mandatory to keep things flowing smoothly.

Listed below are a few applications that enable machine learning and Artificial Intelligence (AI) in daily lives:

Speech Recognition 

One of the most popular technologies is “speech recognition.” This enables a software application to recognize verbal language to convert it into the text. The role of the machine learning application here might correspond to a set of numbers that represent the speech signal. What we can do is segment the incoming signals into parts containing different words. By doing so, each part represents the speech signal with the different workforce and time-frequency bands.

Image Recognition

Yet another commonly used machine learning application is image recognition. If you might be wondering what exactly image recognition is, it is the process of identifying and detecting objects/things in the form of digital images and videos. For example, our smartphone comes with the feature of face recognition that allows it to identify the face of a person authorized to unlock the device without having to even touch the screen or feed in the passwords. The example can further be classified into two categories:

Face detection

This feature is usually seen on smartphone consoles and aims at recognizing the face versus no face present. There might be a separate category for each person in a database of several individuals.

Character Identification

Character recognition is an interesting way how computers recognize the alphabets in the written and printed form to change it into texts computer can understand.

Prediction 

When we talk about prediction analysis in machine learning, we simply want to focus on how machine learning and artificial intelligence combine to provide predictive analysis. This means your machine will be focusing on delivering an outcome that would determine the next best action or in case of banks where the probability of any loan is computed to show desired results.

Conclusion

Technological innovations are such that come and go and look out for newer ways to deal with the masses. With the growing interest of companies in Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI), there are several prospects of it to be used in various industry verticals that prove to be beneficial to all.

Top 7 Android Apps

Top 7 Android Apps that Google Insist On Trying

Given the fact that Android is an open-source operating system written in Linux, it has great potential to evolve as an independent technology. Designed primarily for smartphones and tablets the Android operating system evolved gradually without any misses reaching to unimaginable heights in a very short span of time. What we get is a vast platform where one can explore their creativity to come out with user-friendly apps for their daily activities.

Listed below are top 7 Android Apps, which you may find it interesting to use:

# Ablo – Make New Friends & Explore the World

Albo

If you like talking to new people or getting along with newer communities around the world interests you, ‘Ablo’ is the app that may keep the fun element rolling. If you’re wondering what the app does, it allows one to know the people from different countries well. Not only you can speak to them in their language and enlighten yourself about their culture at any time of the hour but feel at ease when you’re traveling to their land. Get it right away from the PlayStore and have fun using it as much as you wish to.

# Boosted – Manage your Time Well

boosted

Are you always concerned about improper time management that hampers your daily activities? Well, if you do, ‘Boosted’ productivity and time tracking app will surely help you handle such concerns to a great extent. The app not just focuses to keep a track of your work but would give you a detailed analysis of the time spends on each activity and how you can boost it for future performances. All this is tracked using intuitive technology, which gains users deep insight into their daily activities.

# Vedantu – Learning app for classes 6-10

vedantu

Knowing that e-learning is a booming industry across the globe has brought several learning apps together make the life of children simpler and fun-filled. With ‘Vedantu,’ you can give children aged 6-10 a wholesome educational experience, which stays with them forever. The app focuses on an interactive online tutoring platform, which allows teachers to provide teaching lessons to the students on virtual platforms. The app supported on the Android OS is designed on the virtual learning environment named WAVE, which technology is built in-house.

# MashApp – Post Video Punch lines

mashapp

MashApp is anything that gives comedians a chance to explore their creative side by posting videos of the jokes or ironical comments and increase their social network. Socializing with humor has become one of the booming industries and with android apps like ‘MashApp’, it is a phenomenal way to maximize the fan following. The app uploads the comic content in the form of short videos and track responses from the followers, which to bond along by giving funny responses.

# Smarter – Brainstorming and Mind Games

smarter

If you think regular brainstorming helps you boost your intellectual side then try on the ‘Smarter’ app to give your urge a meaningful start. This app is designed to get you indulged in mind games under a wide range of categories including memory, logic, math, accuracy, etc. among others. Give your memory a brushing by installing the app on your android phone or tabs and get started instantly.

# Appy Weather – your Personal Weather App

Appy Weather

This app will satisfy your urge to check the status of the weather every now and then. It is not like any other app, which gets monotonous with the usual statistics and a boring looking interface; rather it summarizes the weather status for the users in few fun lines that are simple to read and adds loads of fun whilst keeping a track of the weather.

# Swoot – Podcasts with Friends

swoot

‘Swoot’ is for all those who wish to get along with friends and watch their favorite shows, seasons, and much more than though podcasting technology platform. The app can be downloaded on smartphones and get started working on it instantly. If you love to stay in touch with your friends and mates, ‘Swoot’ is something that will help you stay entertained right through.

Why Android OS is Preferred More than any other OS?

The prime reason why android OS is preferred is that it allows several apps to run at the same time on android supported devices. The second most important fact is that it allows easy integration of Google products such as Gmail and YouTube to have flexible user accessibility. The android industry is extensive and still evolving every second of the hour to give engineers a platform where they can explore new verticals to create unique apps that are useful for a variety of purposes. So, without wasting any single second download the above-mentioned apps on your android consoles to start using it and experiencing how android industry has taken the world to a toll.

 

Wearable Technology

Five things you need to Know about Wearable Technology

For most of us, wearable technology might sound a new thing to explore but it isn’t as new as it sounds. The inception of wearable technology happened in the 13th century that invented the eyeglasses to provide a clear vision to those suffering from blurred vision issues due to deficiencies and also to protect our eyes from foreign elements. Even the Nuremberg eggs (the portable and wearable clocks) invented in the 16th century was kind of a wearable device that was worn around necks until wristwatches came into play so on and so forth.

In this article, we would try to enlighten readers about a few interesting things on the wearable technology platform that is evolving every second of the hour to bring about suitable changes in today’s dynamic business environment.

What is the Relevance of Wearable Technology?

After smartphones, wearable technology is the next big innovation. Therefore, it has huge relevance in today’s dynamic technology world. Let us see it this way. Any technological device, which we wear to keep a track of specific things like health, locating routes to make our lives simple and easy, has been relevant in the past, present, and it surely will have relevance in future, provided right approach is taken to promote is benefits. As wearable technology is not restricted to just one kind of industry, it enjoys a great potential to conquer the global market requirements while reaching out to the maximum customers.

Where is it Applied?

Wearable technology is used to run on devices for a wide range of things. These are divided primarily into three industries including health, textiles and consumer electronics and as Forbes contributor Unity Stoakes writes “We’re already seeing sensors that improve quality of life, enable home diagnostics, make virtual health and remote monitoring possible, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.”

Healthcare Wearable Technology  

If you’re aware of wearable tech. devices in this category you know what we are talking about. The health wearable apps have enabled people to keep a track of several things including measuring heart rate, tracking the number of steps, etc. among other features. The devices used in this category include fitness trackers and smartwatches.

Textile Wearable Technology

When we talk about textiles, we focus on innovative clothing that is worn to give an interesting look to the outfit. It is also referred to as e-textiles where a battery or light is embedded in clothes to give impart special effects.

Wearable Consumer Electronics 

One of the booming wearable consumer electronics is seen as implantable devices. These are usually used for medical reasons like tracking contraception, insulin levels, etc. to name a few.

Market Impact

Wearable technology is evolving rapidly with several businesses working around new strategies to incorporate technological innovations in this segment. The wearable technology market has thus shown a rise in the statistics of consumers using these devices over the past few years. It has also enabled the scope of exploration for the engineers to come out with something new. The impact across markets hence has been such that users’ expectations to receive more useful information and better search results on wearable devices to meet their daily ends efficiently and making lives simpler is what is focused upon.

Is Going to Stay?

Of course, it is going to stay until a similar technological innovation surpasses the unique features and advantages of wearable technology. However, there are many speculations about whether wearable technologies stay?  The foremost challenge that one can foresee for the wearable industry is whether it gathers a sustainable customer engagement. It has been observed that many wearable electronics are short-lived due to a lack of customer engagement. The reasons could be anything like a bad quality device, less user-friendly and extremely challenging to sync with the smartphones, reduced battery life, UX issues and not so appealing designs, etc. Now, if we’re able to convince customers for everything that they didn’t like, the future of wearable technology is not fading easily.

Role of Customers 

The role of customers is important in making any technological innovation as a hero. If businesses fail to create impactful devices, which users enjoy wearing and using it daily chances are they wouldn’t positively respond to your creation. But if the wearable device technology or any other technology is strong functionally and physically that caters to the users’ demands and needs, your business model will take no time to reach unimaginable heights to conquer the users, their lives, habits or behaviors.

 

ogrelogic

Digitalize your Business with Top-six Marketing Tools Trending in 2019

While most of the businesses strive to become digital marketing leaders, we leave behind certain loops that could have helped us oversee how extensive and expansive digitalized platform could be to leverage businesses and transform them into brands for a global online presence. If only you knew about how the best digital marketing tools can help you achieve the desired goals, you may have scaled your businesses to the next level altogether.

Nevertheless, if you’re really seeking to make a mark in the competitive business environment and scale your marketing strategy to the next level, following digital marketing tools will help you achieve desired goals:

1 HubSpot – The all-in-one Marketing Tool

HUBSPOT

HubSpot is one of the most popular platforms to market your brands globally. Bring all the online marketing concerns under one roof and frame a strong marketing structure with the versatile marketing tool that gives hassle-free integrations, round the clock customer support, etc., and an efficient digital platform, etc., to name a few.

If you’re a beginner and wish to market your business without investing too much on the tools, HubSpot offers free tool services to set up the web forms, popup forms, and live chat software to generate leads. Furthermore, the CRM tool can also help you build strong E-Mail marketing campaigns to analyze the visitors’ behavior closely and derive results accordingly.

However, for those who already have a knack of it can opt for the paid services, which involves use of advanced marketing automation that not just manage your content marketing tasks like content creation, social media postings, and tracking E-Mails but enable you to reach out to your potential customers with ease.

2 HootSuite – Stay Up to Date with your Social Network Channels 

HOOTSUITES

With HootSuite’s idea to help businesses stay up-to-date for tracking and managing their social network channels have given them a strong platform to scale their brands to unimaginable heights. This social media manager will allow you to keep a track of all your postings on different social media networks and increase viewership instantly. Create custom views and see how your brand is performing and keep the boat sailing amidst a challenging business arena.

3 Ahrefs – Enables Keyword Research Easy 

AHREFS

When it comes to performing efficient and quality SEO results, one name that rules the digital marketing industry is Ahrefs. It is not just the only powerful SEO tool on the market but a solution that would help businesses become SEO leaders. Refine your keyword search by performing a number of steps if you’re using Ahrefs. These include steps like the backlink and site audits, extracting new links, extensively researching the keywords, validating new keywords, and tracking the existing ones.

Believe it or not, using Ahrefs will only make you an efficient player in the dynamic and highly competitive SEO market.

4 Canva Business – Earn you Top Ranks on the Social Media Platforms

CANVA

Canvaknown to most us as a web-based design app built to create interesting posts to make graphic designing easier for people. It is, however, one of the top-used digital marketing tools trending in 2019 that has a couple of things in store for the businesses who are struggling to make a mark in the market. While Canva can be compared to the Adobe Illustrator, it is one of the best tools that allow users to drag and drop the pictures, shapes, icons or fonts for creating unique images that speak for your businesses to engage the audiences globally.

5 Google Adwords – Expand your Target Audience 

google adword graph

Try using Google Adwords if you’re serious about making a mark on Google’s search engine result pages. The Google Adwords is a payment model based on two major factors including pay-per-click and pay-per-call. Your Google AdWords accounts would host the Google Keyword Planner that enables users to perform extensive research on keywords that you want to add to the advertisement campaign. Adwords also allow you to set budget caps to limit your expenses.

Those businesses that use AdWords as the prime source of their revenue generation are likely to survive for longer as compared to those who rely on the organic search results. Reach out to the target audience via displaying your products or services on Google’s results pages and get tones of visitors online.

6 Google Analytics – Track Insights and Measure your Advertising ROI   

Google Analytics

Even if you are a marketing genius and are likely to expand your business without Google Analytics knowledge in your kitty, you surely are missing out on one of the biggest things trending in the business world.

Working on Google Analytics platform will have you keep a track of certain things like who is visiting your website, from where and how much time visitors spend on your website, etc. Apart from all this, there is a huge scope of setting up goals to track conversions, create improved e-commerce setup, and track events to review how your viewers behave. Using Google Analytics is by far one of the most important things that any business needs to incorporate in their business models. Not only will they achieve desired goals in set durations but will have an eye to foresee risks, threats, strengths and opportunities for better business prospects

Are you going through a mental block as to which digital marketing tool would make your things smooth business-wise? The listed marketing tools if incorporated in your business model would leverage your brands with a view to gain more viewers and establish a strong online market presence across the globe. It is high time you navigate through each of the tools and make it part of your business model for a brighter future ahead.

Five Thanksgiving Marketing Ideas for Businesses

Five Thanksgiving Marketing Ideas for Businesses who wish to make it Big!

With the upcoming month making an entry into some of the important events like Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Small Business Saturday, chances are you may scale-up your businesses to a level unimagined for. Seasonal marketing strategies are what we will focus on in this section to help you leverage businesses to a profitable category. Here are some interesting facts to read:

 

  1. The Power of Social Media 

 

Update your social media accounts by creating smart posts and showcase logos of your brands using affordable photo-editing tools like the Canva and PicMonkey to promote special events and seasons. Updating your profile pictures with seasonal items like leaves, a pumpkin, turkeys, etc., will not just buy you views from the followers who you were associated with a few years back but can also help you connect with them for repeat-business.

 

  1. HashTags Work Well

 

Hashtags play a pivotal role in engaging your followers across all social media platforms. Show a personalized touch while reaching out to the followers. Encourage them to share their favorite Thanksgiving memory (#thanksgivingthoughts) or maybe you could add a funny element to the hashtags by asking them their biggest Thanksgiving disaster (thxbutnothx) or (Thanksgivingnightmares).

 

  1. Bridge-Gaps with Thank-You Notes

 

We often don’t get to meet our potential customers in person or even talk to them on the phone. Sending them a short thank you note on the phone will help you bridge gaps and strengthen bonds for future business prospects.

 

  1. Live Demos on Themed Events

 

If you’re a small business entity let’s say for example you sell ‘greeting cards,’ hosting live demos on “how to create?” Thanksgiving or Black Friday cards will help you get closer to your customers in a big way. This is a great way to market your brand as visual live demos connect better than anything else.

 

  1. The “Give-Away” Trick  

 

Customers are always on the lookout for deals and offers by businesses and what could be more propelling than planning give-away items on account of special events like Thanksgiving. You could always give-away free product samples or services to increase your followers and establish a strong customer base across the globe.

 

So, let this November win you good market base across your niche and help you establish a brand image that you were aiming at all these years.

facebook messenger

Brands Get Better Connectivity with Customers with Facebook Messenger’s 3 new Feature Launch

Amidst all the social media hustle Facebook recently launched three new features for Messenger to keep brands well connected to their customers and establish a strong user base worldwide. To make communication more viable the three new features included are “icebreakers” for maintaining business profiles, “Click to Messenger ads” updates, and replying to messages from a business that comes handy for the users.

 

Icebreakers – Help Brands to Reduce Friction While Communicating with Clients

Sources at Facebook say that “Icebreakers help businesses reduce friction in starting a conversation by surfacing common questions or topics of interest.” Explaining the feature more, it offers users the option to click on a common FAQ — like “Can I check the availability of the product?” or “Where is your store located?” the messages sent will receive an automated response.

 

Click to Messenger Ads 

This particular feature is good for companies having multiple Facebook apps connected to the Messenger platform. How? Well, the idea behind this feature is to give leverage to companies to select a single app at a time, which they want to use for their “Click to Messenger ads” feature. However, there is no official announcement as yet by the company about when would the complete thing be available, but said the “first phase” of the solution is available with an improved platform in some weeks from now.

 

Users Enjoy Multiple Reply Options

The last and an equally important feature from Facebook Messenger are reactions and message replies, which enable users to take advantage of during conversations with brands while communicating with them on the Messenger platform. So, if you might be wondering what these reactions are, this nothing but a set of emojis, which are used to react to a response from any business.

In conclusion to this, the message replies also allow for threaded conversations to help businesses overview the exact message a user is responding to. Facebook writes “This adds more clarity to the conversations and helps businesses respond to inquiries better.”

Facts on How to Advertise on Tik Tok

Facts on How to Advertise on Tik Tok

While most of the marketers are awaiting Tik Tok’s full launch of the platform for more ad options to connect to the users worldwide, it’s rapidly growing market in the west shows uncertain prospects for many. However, could Tik Tok be a possible social media marketing platform is still under several notions? Nevertheless, some facts will enlighten you about how to advertise businesses on Tik Tok:

 

Bid for Ads

 

Talking about biddable ads, most of the social media networks have a self-serve platform that allows the marketers to set-up and run their ads themselves. In the case of Tik Tok’s beta version that was launched early on in April 2019, the “managed service platform” did bring biddable ads space to the limelight but still required reps to run the ads. This is why users cannot still access its bidding platform as a whole.

 

The in-feed video ads on Tik Tok are based on three important products including CPC (Cost per Click), CPM, and CPV (cost per view) (6 seconds), which marketers look forward to branding businesses on this platform. Below are a few things that provide an overview of how it is done.

 

Branding through Videos

 

When a user opens the app, the message of your brand appears instantly appears focusing on the message that you wish to spread to reach out to the users. However, the con behind this part is that Tik Tok allows only one advertiser per day, which needs to be optimized for a full swing.

 

Hashtag Challenge 

 

This is yet another way to advertise on Tik Tok that flaunts the natural tendency of the users to share the content on it. This accounts for Tik Tok’s representative to coordinate with the brand for around 6 days until the ad campaign comes to a completion.

 

No matter what Tik Tok has in store for its millions of users across the globe, it surely has bright prospects for social media marketers to use it as a strong tool.

Performance Analysis on Local Search

Service Area Businesses – Performance Analysis on Local Search

Any legitimate local business that has a great reputation in the local area to not appear on the local search is not a rare thing. This happens due to Google’s unfair ranking game that appears on the local listings. As per market statistics, the service area businesses are categorized into seven verticals including business entities doing repairs, plumbing, construction & roofing jobs, landscaping, cleaning, locksmiths, and tradesmen. Each of these vertical doesn’t account for the appearances in organic SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages). Therefore, it undergoes two methods of direct search and discovery searches so that the business appears in Google’s local search.

There is a tremendous increase in the direct searches for businesses listed in the above-mentioned categories as compared to the discovery searches. People tend to search for only plumbers or locksmiths and that too during emergencies, so, naturally, they would hardly build any physical presence online to lead to consumers knowing directly who to turn to.

 

Are Consumers Seeking Service Area Businesses on Google Maps?

Well, despite a low viewership percentage, it is astonishing that consumers do look out for service area businesses on Google Maps. This happens due to the consumer’s sole belief to locate service-area businesses with ease, one need to search for the proximities. Let’s explain it through two overviews:

 

Views on Search: A business is found by the customer via Google Search that consists of local pack results from search.

 

Views on Maps:  In here, a customer found the business via Google Maps.

So what is that causes service-area businesses still lagging when it comes to the local searches apart from the infrequency of use? There may be endless reasons for this notion but the most important one is the fact that service area businesses haven’t yet optimized themselves on the search engines.

 

Measures Taken for Service Area Businesses to Appear on Local Searches

  • Use Google My Business to optimize your businesses on local search listings.
  • Asking for reviews about your business will help gain online visibility in no time.
  • FAQs about your services in Google My Business Q&A’s would help to reach out to maximum customers while building a strong customer base.
App Store Optimization - Ogrelogic

Improve the Visibility of your Apps with ASO (App Store Optimization)

Gaining visibility of your mobile app is difficult as millions of apps struggle to make their mark on the popular app stores (like iTunes, Google Play, and Windows Store) for the iOS and Android platforms. The mobile app publishers often face challenges to optimize mobile apps on the popular app searches and therefore, seek efficient solutions to overcome such barriers. ASO or App store optimization is the key to build a strong marketing presence of your mobile apps in the competitive business world.

 

How ASO Works?

 

If you aren’t aware of how app store optimization works, the foremost thing you need to understand is that marketing experts focus on generating increased ROI from app stores, and ASO offers leverage to mobile apps to scale new heights in the online business market. The app rankings, however, are based on the user-value signals like (reviews, ratings, and engagement) or brand scale to give a transparent picture.

 

Advantages of ASO on the overall scalability of the Apps include:

 

  • Brands experience strong online exposure while reaching out to maximum customers.
  • With positive apps reviews and ratings, the rank of your app is likely to improve with more and more users installing it on their mobile consoles.
  • Engage audience to the apps.
  • Acts as an additional marketing channel that makes brands efficient to search for more business prospects.

 

When it comes to the key ingredient missing from many ASO marketing delivery approaches, it is the organic search optimization process that is integrated at the app stores within the closed boundaries of the marketing world.

Some more facts about ASO and how it is beneficial for the mobile apps to make a strong marketing presence of its own:

 

  • The keyword triggers are used by App stores to ensure you do thorough research on the best keywords to use and optimize it at regular intervals.

 

  • The kind of product page that you’re present about the app store has a big impact on the conversion rate values.
Branded Vs. Unbranded Search - Ogrelogic

Branded Vs. Unbranded Search – An Analysis

While we understand how to rank websites for both branded and unbranded terms it is important to first know about the significance of organic search for the marketers. Marketers believe to build a domain authority that helps them capture the share of search online. But is it the only thing to keep everything transparent? Not really. As per statistics, Google conducts approximately 3.5 billion searches daily. However, the challenge comes in when a marketer has to figure out ways about where the customers will most likely to search for unbranded versus branded keywords.

 

Ranking in the top-notch search engines like Google is no game as it depends on the businesses how well are they educated about the trending SEO techniques. To talk about branded and unbranded searches, both play an important role in any business to play safely while establishing themselves as brands.

 

Unbranded Search Results find you New Businesses

 

When we say an unbranded keyword search, we are referring to search terms that do not belong to any established brand. The keywords are used to search for results are generic. For example, a Google search for “Best restaurants with parking Facility” or “Schools with Experiential Learning in NY” would provide potential results earning new business prospects.

 

As unbranded keywords are observed to show higher search volumes as compared to the branded ones, it is a great chance for budding entrepreneurs to identify their strengths in the form of keywords and sketch strategies helpful to earn you a rank.

 

Branded Keywords Re-generate Business

 

Coming to investing in the branded keywords has shown proven results where users know what they are looking for as compared to the unbranded searches that at times go in vain. Therefore, it makes sense to revise your paid search budget and focus on newer strategies that reap monetary benefits.

 

However, profitable business strategies depend on how you as an entrepreneur understand your customers as they now know what they’re searching for.

Learning Artificial Intelligence

Learning Artificial Intelligence for Brighter Business Prospects

If you’re seeking a business opportunity in AI (Artificial Intelligence) here are a few things that you must consider before getting started.

 

Your Competitors are Best Examples to Enhance AI Learning Process

You wouldn’t ask your peers directly to learn the basics of artificial intelligence but following the best practices that they’ve been pursuing will help you learn the technology. Search your competitor websites to find how they use artificial intelligence in their businesses. By doing so, you will be able to present a wider picture of how to go about implementing AI in your business model.

 

Why AI is Essential for Businesses?

AI can prove to be a profit reaping methodology for your business. The foremost use of AI is to improve the quality of communication with customers and helping them with efficient solutions to prosper in the competing business industry. Your AI can monitor the alerts provided for assessing various facets of the state of your business.

 

Do your Research Well before Exploring and Comparing the AI Vendors

Before comparing the vendors available online, you need to first plan a strategy for your own company and see if AI would fit in your business model efficiently. Following are few things that you should analyze before exploring and comparing more AI options:

  • Check for whether your existing business model is ready to develop new AI based initiatives.
  • Do you have AI proficient developers or experts who can initiate a plan and working AI model?
  • AI implementation requires a lot of time. Check for whether your existing business model has enough bandwidth to commence the AI process efficiently.

 

Keep yourself Updated of the Future AI Trends

Artificial Intelligence is a wide stream that has been evolving at a rapid pace. So, keeping in line with the upcoming trends including performance improvements, cloud computing, and advances in the AI techniques are important steps that will lead you to become an AI expert in the years to come.

Basic Tips on Digital Marketing

Basic Tips on Digital Marketing any Entrepreneur should know

The strength of any business entity to sustain its peers is to work out plans with a strategic approach. But, sometimes it, so happen that even the strongest strategies fail to reap benefits. So, even if you’re a CEO of a successful business entity or a budding entrepreneur, having hands-on experience in digital marketing is a must.

 

Do your Homework! 

Often, the business owners plan strong advertising campaigns to improve brand awareness for generating leads. But, they miss out on the basics, which might have itself been the potential leads. Now, what these basics are? The basics here, are referred to knowing the smallest factual information about digital marketing industry that involves having knowledge of the SEO, content creation, E-Mail marketing, SEO (Search Engine Optimization), and Pay per Click advertising.

Hence, performing a thorough research analysis of the subject (digital marketing) to master the challenges and risks involved will help in carving a niche of your own and play a sustainable business game.

 

Skills Required 

If you’re running a digital marketing company, three core areas from Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and social media to email marketing, are essential to understand for driving a successful future in the same. Ensuring all these requirements meet at the time of hiring fresh talent in your organization will help you shape your organizational structure efficiently.

 

Win Clients! Win Deals!

Engaging in robust customer relationships on the digital marketing platform before closing the deals serves as the most important thing in for an entrepreneur to grow as a businessman. Learn to tweak the wording of an email campaign, amend the imagery for a banner campaign or reach out to a potential online advertising partner, this is how you would build a strong clientele across the globe while establishing a strong base worldwide.

Scale-up Rankings on Search Engines with Voice Search!

Scale-up Rankings on Search Engines with Voice Search!

Talking about ‘Voice Search’ in particular, there are ample speculations as to whether the fledgling technology is here to stay or would merely make a mark in the digital technology world. The views and perspectives are different and so is its understated nature. Taking statistics from the last few years, the use of voice search smart speakers has risen to a whopping 118 million in the US. However, this figure is growing by the day with changing trends in the technology world and an eagerness amongst the general public to access voice search smart devices in a few simple clicks.

 

Future of Voice Search!

In the current scenario, it has been observed that two in five adults in the US and globally make use of the voice search. As per the data provided by Google, around 20% of the search results come out to be voice searches. This indicates about the fact that businesses too can access potential customers using voice search technology to stay ahead of their peers and enjoy a number one spot in the competitive marketing industry.

 

Types of Voice Search

Voice search is primarily of two types. One that supports the smart speakers in the form of Google Home, Amazon’s Alexa, Microsoft’s Cortana, and Apple home and the other in the form of apps for smartphones like Siri by Apple and Google Assistant for android platforms. Enabling search result accessibility with approximately 95% accuracy in the latest voice search consoles while performing daily activities smoothly and efficiently is what voice search environment offers businesses and to the public in general.

The market analysis done by many experts recently claims voice search to be the next generation technology environment that will boost the scalability of existing and new businesses to great leaps and bounds. Until then, let’s explore different realms of the technology vertical to transform it into a revolution amongst the fast-moving and challenging business world.

Services of digital Marketing

Things to Know Before Hiring Services of a Digital Marketing Agency

Every marketing agency works on a simple fundamental thing and that is to generate sales of any business entity. Whether big or small, the focus stays the same for all kinds of businesses. So, if you’re a budding entrepreneur and come across digital marketing agency offering marketing services for your business promotion, here is what you shouldn’t miss to check out on before you hire its services.

#Do your Homework

Researching well before you enter into any bond with a marketing firm is important. A good digital marketing agency would understand your business model before framing the right marketing strategy for its promotion. After all, it is the marketing agency that will take your business to the next level and therefore it should be well versed with all the latest marketing strategies to give businesses all that is required to generate sales.

Working on platforms like content marketing, video marketing or E-mail marketing, and PPC are few out of several areas a digital marketing firm works. If all this and more is taken care of, rest assure your business is in the right hands.

#Get Along with the Marketing Team

To get the maximum from a digital marketing company, get along with the marketing team well. They are the ones who would be responsible for promoting your services and gain a robust online presence. So, frequent meetings with the team would make you feel at comfort with their policies. It would also help the team to understand your perspective as a client while bringing in transparency at both ends.

#Value-for-Money Marketing Services Not Always the Best

Let us explain this with an example. Suppose, you’re business talks about selling mangoes in your area and the digital marketing agency you just hired for business promotion is spreading marketing campaigns in a foreign land where everyone loves to eat apples. What would be the ultimate end result? Obviously, it would be a failed marketing despite offering value-added deals. Bottom line, even if the marketing firm offers value-added services to its customers doesn’t really make it efficient and professional enough to get the desired results for your business.

So, the next time you plan to market your business keep all the above-mentioned points in mind and make the most of it. Happy marketing until then!

Google Ad (Adwords) is Here to Stay - Trends to Follow in 2019!

Google Ad (Ad words) is here to Stay – Trends to follow in 2019!

So, what is that one thing that’s driving Google Ad words to scale up unimaginable heights in the year 2019? Is it the PPC automation? Yes, it is. To a great extent, automation is one trend that is seeking spaces to outgrow its branches across the digitalized environment Google and other search engine biggies are offering its potential users. But how far will it exists despite all the odd peers that it undergoes over human intelligence is yet to experience? In the meanwhile, let’s ponder upon some of the latest trends pertaining to Google Ad words.

Increased Mobile Usage – Optimize Google Ads

Ever since the mobile market evolved our daily lives, e-commerce has diminished a lot of conventional modes of doing businesses across the globe. With mobile usage increasing by the day, the Google Ad words will surely continue to grow amongst the target audience. It not just optimizes your business but earn rewards as well.

Frame Crisp Market Strategy

It is extremely important to understand how well your marketing services are sailing in a highly competitive business environment. The Google Ad word service is sure to stay but it’s not just the only thing that adds to the overall revenue. If you’re an entrepreneur you must be well versed with the several phases of the buying cycle including paid ad searches or videos on Facebook among other such channels that generate the growth of any company.

Relying completely on the Google Adwords may have you lost on potential business prospects. So, have a thorough idea of how you can

Re-engineer Ads for Better Visibility and Greater Revenue Percentages

Studies have proved that if you re-engineer the already existing ad campaigns of your existing or new businesses, chances are that your business will scale up heights in no time at all. It might be an effort for businesses to re-think all over again and invest an ample time for framing a new marketing campaign, but it does work!

Video Marketing – Best Tool for Google Ad Words

With more and more users getting inclined to the video platform, Google Ad words already have its share to conquer the digital media world. It has been one of the best marketing mediums for businesses in the year 2018 and surely one of the best in the upcoming year as well.  What you get is increased CTR, message association, purchase intent, and increased ad recall. So, go for it now!

social media services

This is how social media calculates your video ad views

Video is constantly becoming a big business for social media platforms. When you look at social media giants benefiting largely from video ads – Facebook video ad revenue contributing to 30% of its total ad revenue and Twitter and Snapchat attributing to more than half of its ad revenue to video, you realize the potential that video ads bring to the table.

However, this does not mean that it’s the right time to jump headfirst into video advertising. Lacking basic yet prime knowledge on how video ads work, you will more than likely set yourself up for failure when running video ads.

Let’s Understand Video Ad Views
According to the Media Rating Council (MRC) and IAB, video ad is considered viewable when at least 50 percent of an ad’s pixels are visible on the screen for at least two consecutive seconds. While some platforms have adapted this strategy but there are many more that haven’t done anything about it.

Let us discuss how few major social media platforms count video ad views:

Facebook and Instagram

Facebook and Instagram count video views for both story ads and in-stream at 3 seconds. But, advertisers are also free to buy video ads on either a CPM basis or ThruPlay basis. Ads running on CPM basis are counted when one pixel of the video ad comes into the view. On the other hand, ThruPlay only charges advertisers when a video ad plays up to 97 percent or up to 15 seconds.

Google and YouTube
Google and Youtube
Ads running on YouTube and Google Display Networks are skippable TrueView ads. These ads only count when a user engages with the ad or watches 30 seconds of the video ad, or the entire duration of the ad if it is shorter than 30 seconds.

Twitter
Twitter
Twitter has adopted the MRC standard and it counts ads when 50 percent of the ad is viewed for 2 seconds or more, or when a user engages with the ad.

Snapchat
Snapchat
Snapchat ads are counted when the ad is viewed for at least 2 seconds. Moreover, Snapchat ads run full-screen with sound on.

LinkedIn
Linkedin Video Ad views
LinkedIn’s video ad views are similar to Twitter but not exactly the same. For LinkedIn’s sponsored content, video view is counted when 50 percent of the ad is in view for 1 second on desktop and 300 milliseconds on mobile devices.

Knowing this information is crucial as it will help you make informed decisions when bidding for video ads, measuring views, and creating reports. With many social media platforms expanding their bidding options and reporting metrics for video ads, analyzing and comparing results across different social media platforms can be a challenge. This is why you, as an advertiser, need to be aware how each platform counts and charges video ad views.

Mobile App Development Trends in 2019

10 Amazing Mobile App Development Trends in 2019

2019 can be an incredible year for your business leveraging the power of mobile apps. Today, we discuss 10 amazing mobile app development trends that you will have to look out for and implement in your current or next mobile app development to offer remarkable services to your users.

  • Cloud Service

The market for cloud market has grown tremendously in 2018 and will continue to grow in 2019 as well. Cloud services have continued to offers with the facility of using cloud based storage that does not impact their device’s internal storage. Apps like Dropbox and Google Drive are some of the popular apps that have been providing cloud services to a majority of mobile users. The cloud computing market is only supposed to grow in the future and 2019 is the right time to use this to your advantage.

  • Mobile Transactions and Payments

At CES 2018, Google introduced the all new Pay app that introduced a simplified mobile payment service. Google explained how the Google Pay app saved the payment information of users to speed through checkout and offering a peace of mind to its users. It’s not just Google that has developed an amazing mobile payment app, but there are many other mobile transaction and payment apps out there in the market, making their mark. You could join this league too by creating an easy money transfer or mobile payment app that caters to the needs of your users.

  • AI and Machine Learning

With smartphones getting smarter on a consistent basis, it is safer to say that even mobile apps aren’t held back. Technological innovation and advancement in mobile app development have led to the birth of many smart apps that leverage the potential of AI and machine learning. A great example of an app that uses the power of AI and machine learning is the Starbucks’ “My Starbucks Barista” app that uses verbal instructions to place an order for you. Similarly, you can make your app stand out by using the power of AI and machine learning to create groundbreaking apps.

  • In-App Gesture Control

Gestures have become a part of smartphone world these days. But, there is one area where gestures are excelling is within apps. Implementing gesture control within an app allows the app to be less cluttered, easy to use and offers a seamless interaction.

  • The Market of Wearable Apps is Growing

With the market of wearable devices growing, business opportunities in the wearable app market are viable. For now, it is safe to assume that people, who use wearable devices, mostly care about fitness tracking apps. If you are developing a fitness app, why not create an app that runs of wearable devices too? The market is growing and your app could be the next big thing that could create an innovative breakthrough.

  • Android Instant Apps

Android Instant Apps are those apps that are readily usable without having the user to install them on their smartphone. However, it is important to understand that Android Instant Apps only run on devices that are running on Android 5.0 or higher. Instant Apps prevent the hassle of the user installing apps on their phone and can right away test them with a tap.

  • AR in Mobile Apps

AR in mobile apps adds the right amount fun that one can expect from smart applications and mobile games. Most people believe that AR can only be used in mobile games but it can only be further from the truth. In fact, mobile apps can also be rightly used for practical purposes. A great example of an AR app that brings practicality into the play is Google’s Translate app, which launches the camera app to translate text in real time. Not only is the app fun to use but also very useful and engaging. Now that you know how AR can have a positive impact on users, 2019 could be your year to create an app that blows through the market.

  • VR in Mobile Apps

Just like AR, VR or virtual reality apps can be expected to grow in the mobile app marketplace. VR apps do a phenomenal job in creating computer-generated three-dimensional images or environment that users can interact with in seemingly real or physical way. Implementing VR in your mobile apps can be a clever way to keep your audience engaged and make them come back for more.

  • Full-Screen Experience

With mobile screens becoming larger and bezel-less, it is a new playground for app developers to present interesting and immersive apps to their potential users.

  • Building Lite Apps

If you have used the “Lite” variants of the Facebook and Twitter, you may already have fallen in love with it. Lite apps are smaller in size and consume comparatively less battery than bigger apps. Another great thing about lite apps is that it consumes less RAM and computing power.

Implementing the above mentioned mobile app development trends in your next app can take your mobile app to a whole another level. If you are looking for a reputed mobile app development company in Texas, visit https://www.ogrelogic.com/. We can help deliver innovative mobile app solutions that can help propel your business in the right direction.

OgreLogic Blog Image

4 Real Estate App Trends That Can Make Your App Succeed

Real estate as known to us today is no longer an offline business. The real estate industry has now landed on the pages of the internet and dedicated mobile apps. Many people think that real estate apps can soon replace real estate agents, this is not true! On the contrary, real estate app development can be a great investment for real estate agents as per the current trends.

The interest in real estate app development has increase significantly. A lot of real estate apps are emerging in the mobile app market. So, let us find out the current app trends that can make your real estate app a surefire.

  1. Database

You need to have a database ensuring that the app is constantly updating with new and updated data. Today’s customers heavily rely on mobile apps and if the apps do not work as intended, they won’t use it anymore. App developers should find ways to implement a reliable database that keeps updating information of properties seamlessly. Remember, databases are at the heart of your mobile apps and choosing the right one will be critical to your app’s success.

  1. An Advanced Search Functionality

It’s not a recommendation to have advanced search functionality in your app it’s a requirement. A filter property option can make it easier for clients to navigate the app and choose a property. Filtering data can also make the app look more organized and enhances the user experience. You can separate the properties based on different criteria like location, type of property, price range, and much more.

  1. Use Graphical Representation of Data

Users are naturally more drawn to the graphical representation of data than that of the long description. While you can include both graphs and description but also make sure that the app is not loaded with too much info.

Additionally, while including a map for a respective property, try to include neighboring areas such as landmarks, parks, schools, traffic, commute, etc.

  1. Include a “Like” Button

A “like” button not only keeps the preferred property in a place for the client but also tells the realtors what a client prefers and suggest similar properties. As a new property is updated in the database, a push notification should be sent to the client when the new property matches client’s preference.

So are you thinking if it’s the right time to invest in a real estate app development? It certainly is! The competition will soon increase and when it does, make sure you are at the top. We at Ogrelogic can help you with designing a dedicated real estate mobile app that satisfies all the current trends.

Call OgreLogic in Austin, Texas at 512-808-5536 Today! OgreLogic’s mobile app developers and designers, online marketers and analysts solve real problems through research, design, and execution.

Responsive Website Design

5 Reasons why Businesses Love Responsive Website Design

With the exponential increase in the use and popularity of mobile devices, you cannot not have a website designed to adapt to mobile and other devices.

The easiest to achieve this is responsive website design.

But, what’s a responsive website? How is it different from your existing website?

Simply put, a responsive website is a mobile friendly website. The website is designed such that it adapts to the size of the screen being viewed on. Whether the users are on a laptop or a mobile phone, they wouldn’t notice a difference between the two.

Why is it important to have a mobile responsive website?

There are several reasons why businesses love responsive web design. Here is a look at the most important ones.

Increased Traffic

Mobile is more mainstream than ever. You simply can’t afford to ignore the mobile users. And why would you create two versions of your website (for desktop and mobile users) when you can have just one responsive website that is ready for all devices.

By 2021, more than 50 percent of all retail e-commerce is expected to be generated through mobile commerce. A responsive website ensures you retain mobile viewers and benefit from this mobile commerce boom.

Lower Cost and Website Maintenance

A responsive website may seem expensive upfront but the maintenance costs of two websites add up to much more than a responsive website. In short, a responsive website is a more cost-effective option for a business.

In addition, mobile responsive websites take less time to setup and are easier to maintain than maintaining two separate websites. Responsive websites can also offer customized location-based offers to drive even more traffic to your website.

The time and other savings allow you to focus on other important areas of your business. If you are looking for a place to start, you can seek the help of the web design team at one of the leading responsive website design companies, OgreLogic in Texas.

Matchless User Experience

You may have a great website but if it is not responsive, it would get distorted on mobile devices. The text may become jumbled, images would not align and users may have to scroll unnecessarily to get to the information they need. If navigation and search is a pain for users, they would either abandon it or never return.

To enable a seamless user experience, it is best to go for responsive web design.

Screen Size Adaptability

Another benefit of good, responsive design is its adaptability to various screen sizes. It puts you ahead of competition as it positions your website to seamlessly fit to smartwatches, IoT devices, mobile phones etc.

Improves your SEO Efforts

Responsive websites have a better shot at higher ranking in SERPs. Responsive design and high-quality content will make users stay longer on your site and rank better on search engines. Google recommends a responsive website design pattern.

In other words, responsive web design not only saves you lots of money, maintenance and time, it also helps you attract and retain more business in the long run.

If you are looking for mobile responsive website design, call OgreLogic in Austin, Texas at 512-808-5536 Today! OgreLogic’s web developers and designers, online marketers and analysts solve real problems through research, design and execution.

App Development

2018 App Development Trends

Mobile is more mainstream than ever. 2017 was a great year for the app economy and 2018 is set to be another phenomenal year. All kinds of businesses now depend upon web and mobile apps to meet customer demands and boost existing revenue.

Following the current trend, 2018 holds promise of bringing more cutting-edge techniques in the field of Android app development. Here is a quick look at the top trends that are likely to emerge this year.

AI

AI will leave an imprint both in the making of mobile apps as well as in boosting their capabilities. Using advanced analytics, machine learning and cognitive interfaces, AI will provide businesses powerful insights to improve user experience and boost bottom lines. Bigwigs like Google, IBM, Facebook have already started acquiring startups with expertise in Artificial Intelligence.

AR, VR

AR and VR apps have been revolutionary in the entertainment industry. While Samsung Gear VR, Google Cardboard and Oculus Rift are hugely popular, AR games like Pokemon Go and myNav need no introduction. Already dominating the App Store, these mobile games are just a glimpse of the immense potential of AR technology, that can be utilized to influence consumers and enhance ways of doing business.

IoT

Nest and ecobee have shown us how smart and interactive our homes can be. Future homes are integrated homes. Integrations require complex mobile platforms and backend infrastructure to communicate and share data between all devices for a unified experience.

Various healthcare, education, retail, travel and other businesses are using mobile connectivity and applications to access IoT ecosystems. IoT solutions need a dedicated application enabling users to manage smart devices, that is, IoT friendly apps.

Mobile App Security

In keeping with the above trends, the security of the smartphone has become more even more critical than ever before. Apps with built-in security features will be one of the most sought after in the app space. Coding for iOS is moving from Objective-C to Apple’s own programming language, Swift. This year will see more app developers adopting Swift for better UX with more security features.

If you are looking for custom Android and iOS app development, call OgreLogic in Austin, Texas at 512-808-5536 Today! OgreLogic’s web developers and designers, online marketers and analysts solve real problems through research, design and execution.

Social Media Advertising

Mobile SEO Trends – 2018

As we move further into 2018, here are some mobile SEO trends that would continue from the last year and the new ones that are emerging and are here for stay for some time.

For those who are excitedly waiting for the launch of Google’s mobile-first index, it could well be this year!

Progressive Web Apps (PWAs)

PWAs will continue to grow bigger in 2018.

For those of you who are new to mobile SEO, PWAs are websites that have the features of a native app but live on the web. Web apps can easily function as PWAs by adding a couple of extra files and a little more functionality.

This points to a shift from native app development to PWAs. Android’s treatment of PWAs are almost the same as native apps and you would soon see them in the Google Play Store. Google has also begun to move many specific-interest web resources into PWAs, such as Sports, Traffic, Restaurants, Weather, Maps-Go and Weather PWA.

What makes PWAs unique is eliminating the need for deep links from the websites into the apps and from apps to websites. This was a challenge for large businesses that don’t have similar app and website content.

Since PWAs will be available in Google Play with native apps, Android users likely won’t be able to discriminate between the two. Google may even start preferring PWA content over deep links, just as they have done for AMP content.

As more PWAs appear in Google Play and are indexed on the web, it could become easier to add app logos to SERPs for both Android and iOS. This will improve the appearance, CTR and engagement of the PWA links.

App Store Optimization

Recent changes to the Google Play app algorithm show an improved focus on app performance, efficiency, engagement and reviews as compared to the importance of app metadata. We may see a merging between Google Play and regular SERPs.

With the addition of PWAs to the Google Play Store, native Android apps will be up against PWA websites in terms of performance. However, it will also mean that PWAs may be subject to ranking fluctuations based on user reviews and star ratings.

So far, Apple was not open to allowing Safari to support PWAs, but last year, Apple made it clear that Safari would soon support the Service Worker files that make PWAs so useful. This endorsement of PWAs may indicate that the next Safari update may start supporting PWAs.

Cross-Device Convergence

Another big trend this year could be cross-device convergence. With an increasing number of connected devices and a blurring line between app and web merges on mobile, 2018 could see a merge of desktop and the Internet of Things.

As more information moves to the cloud, the transition from one device to another will become seamless where the state, history and status of the interaction on all devices will be maintained simultaneously. Developers’ focus would move to testing data integrations of one app across many different devices, from testing multiple, device-specific apps on multiple devices. scared

You can see glimpses of this convergence when you look at the changes that came with Windows 10. The desktop OS looks much more like an Android phone. Microsoft announced in December ‘17 that Service Workers, push notifications and local cache will all also be enabled by default in Microsoft’s new Edge browser. PWAs and Android apps are already there in the Windows app store.

Incorporating different types of potential search results into an index is not easy. A mobile-first index will mix together websites, apps, PWAs and other data sets that may not have URLs, and this is where structured data markup will come in.

Google may organize the new index with unique identifiers, including web URLs and app URIs. But, for content without a unique identifier, like an asset in a database, Google may allow “Dynamic Links” as their unique identifier to allow indexing.

In short, exciting times ahead!

If you are looking for web and app development or digital marketing geniuses, call OgreLogic in Austin, Texas at 512-808-5536 Today! OgreLogic’s online marketers, web developers and designers, analysts solve real problems through research, design and execution.

UI UX Development

9 UX Tips your Mobile App can’t afford to Miss!

Mobile has rewired the web. It has offered us the world in our palms, with just a finger touch. But, sometimes mobile apps fail to impress people. The user leaves the app to never return.

This failure is often related to mobile app development. The mobile app development process requires the collaborative effort of app designers and developers, researchers and many different experts to create a great user interface that allows a great user experience – a great user experience to everyone who uses the app.

However, a small gap or a pitfall can ruin the user experience despite the wonderful design. In fact, there are some common pitfalls that often go unnoticed during app design and development.

But first you need to know why users delete their mobile apps. The average app retention metrics are not really good because of the following reasons –

  • App not considered safe
  • Data usage crosses a certain limit
  • App is slow to load
  • Lack of updation
  • Too many colors and fonts create clutter
  • The messaging part is annoying, as it is constantly happening.
  • Lack of options, such as search
  • Boring functionality doesn’t allow the user to do much

Now that you know the reasons that may be turning users away from your app, here are some highly effective tips to help you get rid of these issues and build an app that offers excellent user experience.

User Engagement

We can’t talk about engagement without mentioning user interface design (UI). The UI is what attracts people to your app in the first place. Do not overdo it but make sure that it catches the eye and stays in the user’s mind.

Maintain a constant intuitive flow to keep users engaged from when they visit to the final purchase. Processes, such as ‘Log in’ and ‘Sign Up’, should be fairly simple. Do not overwhelm the user with too many questions at this stage as this may result in them leaving it mid-way.

App Icon

Have you ever wondered why the Facebook icon is so simple? People can relate to simple things with ease. Design a simple yet beautiful icon for your app. It should be distinct and unique so that people know it from other apps.

Test your app’s icon across different kinds of wallpapers so that you know it would look good, regardless of the wallpaper or the background.

Splash Screens

Splash screens can be time consuming. Before implementing a splash screen, check how it would help your app. Let it stay if it helps people relate to your app, but if it’s making the user feel like a waste of time, the app doesn’t need it.

Content Legibility

Content matters. At the same time, your user should be able to read and understand it. The content should be legible, clear, precise and to the point. For example, check whether one needs to zoom in to read the content. If it can be read it without zooming, that’s a perfect job.

Forms

All forms must be easily understandable. Organizing the dimensions of the input field to ‘Auto Correct’ and ‘Auto Complete’, any forms should be able to clearly show people where they are now and what the next step is.

White space

The negative space or white space or the space without any content is now as important as content itself!

White space attracts user attention and keeps your design clutter free and attractive. It also guides the user to where they should be looking, saving them from random clicks to directing them to CTAs with ease.

App Navigation

Navigation is an integral part of the UX. Your app should offer a natural, intuitive flow for the user to access. Your navigation should be able to move in the direction of the user’s hands.

Layout

Which layout are you using? Is it portrait or landscape? Plan it by putting yourself in the users’ shoes.

Ask yourself –

  • What will they use the app for?
  • Where will they be using the app?
  • How much time do they have to use the app?

Thumb Rule

When designing a mobile app, remember that your user is using a 5-inch smartphone, in portrait orientation, and navigating with one thumb to –

  • Swipe up to load more
  • Swipe up to move down the list
  • Tap to vote
  • Swipe down to go to the main menu or to refresh
  • Swipe across

That means you need to consider the use of thumb gestures to improve the user experience, while designing your app.

To know more about app development, talk to Team OgreLogic, one of the best android and iPhone app development companies in Fayetteville, Arkansas; Memphis TN; Kansas City, MO; Dallas, TX and Tulsa OK. OgreLogic is your natural strategic partner providing game changing mobile apps, responsive web design, virtual resourcing and content focused digital marketing services.

CRO vs SEO

CRO vs. SEO – Brothers in Arms or Rivals?

You feel elated when you see your website traffic going up, don’t you? But if the increasing page views don’t contribute to conversions or your bottom line, well…..

Simply getting organic traffic with keywords doesn’t get you more sales or revenue.

This is why you need CRO or Conversion Rate Optimization, apart from SEO.

Simply put, CRO is targeting very specific industry keywords to get more qualified visitors who are highly likely to buy.

But this does not mean that you skip SEO! After all, you need visitors to convert, right?

In fact, CRO and SEO should work together by filtering through the conversion funnel and driving profitability.

What should I do?

If this feels like a Catch-22, you are not alone.

At OgreLogic, we understand your problem. That’s why we bring you a step-by-step guide for a handshake between conversion rate optimization and search engine optimization.

Step 1 – Content Marketing and Link Building

Your website and its content should add value to your target audience or customer’s life. If you can do this, you would be able to build trust and gain authority.

Wouldn’t it be annoying if every blog post you read was meant to goad you to buy a product or service?

It would, in fact, reduce sales.

So how can you drive sales, without shoving your product in the face of anyone who reads your content or visits your site?

Two words – EDUCATE and HELP.

Educate your target audience about what is happening in the industry or how the products can help them. And, help them overcome a problem they may be facing.

Some visitors will read your blog posts and articles. Some may comment on your post or share it on social media or look up what you are offering. Most would just read passively and leave.

All you should do at this stage is to offer, first time visitors on your site, a content upgrade or a lead magnet in exchange for emails. This will help you build a community that will also become a source of repeat traffic.

But you might still be wondering…

So how does my business benefit by offering free content? It’s not even telling people to try a free sample?

Giving value for FREE to your target audience is the beginning of a great relationship. Your prospects may be moved deeper inside your funnel and become activated.

Without trust, no one would buy your offering, online. And when you offer something valuable for free, that’s a deal clincher!

When you publish high-quality content, build backlinks, consider conversion optimization and perform SEO of your website, it rapidly builds your website’s credibility in the eyes of your target audience as well as Google.

At the same time, you should also carry out SEO of your website at this stage to help search engines easily index your website.

As you perform SEO and market content, the traffic through website optimization will increase. In other words, you save money, otherwise spent, on paid online and offline advertising budget.

Step 2 – SEO and CRO

Once you have created brand-building content and built relevant, authoritative backlinks, you would see a traffic surge on your website.

This traffic will help you get conversions.

Website traffic alone is not the last word for your success. There is no point in getting traffic if most of your visitors bounce off within the first few seconds of their arrival at your site.

SEO will get you ranking for keywords. But once you have traffic, you need to focus on smooth navigation and great user experience so that your potential customer can find what s/he came to find on your website.

If you are worried whether CRO will interfere with your SEO efforts and you may lose search engine based organic traffic to your website, READ ON.

If you look at the factors influencing a webpage’s ranking ability, that would include –

  1. Keyword and On-Page
  2. Content Quality
  3. Domain Authority
  4. Page Authority
  5. User and Usage Data
  6. Spam Analysis

Now, changes made to pages for CRO usually only affect number 1, 2 and 5.

But these changes would improve user engagement, time spent on-page and conversions because the search engine user is now more interested in your page.

Step 3 – Think Long Term

Don’t just focus on increasing your conversions. You need to think long-term.

Offering value and a good experience to your customers will also lead to an increase in customer loyalty and conversion optimization. That’s why user experience optimization should be as important as conversion rate optimization.

If your website doesn’t have as much traffic as you want it to have, start by creating superb content and SEO. Start a dialogue with your potential customers. When your target audience reaches you, they should be able to follow the conversion path for them. Combined together, this gives you conversion optimization.

So instead of worrying about CRO vs. SEO rivalry, find out how you can marry them together to give your business a boost. To know more about CRO and SEO, talk to Team OgreLogic, one of the best digital marketing companies in Fayetteville, Arkansas; Memphis TN; Kansas City, MO; Dallas, TX and Tulsa OK. OgreLogic is your natural strategic partner providing content focused digital marketing services, game changing mobile apps, responsive web design and virtual resourcing.

animated web development

The 5 Keys to unlock your SaaS Success

Failed SaaS product offerings are not uncommon. If you are a CTO responsible for developing new technologies, you know how it feels when your SaaS product is a miss instead of a hit you expected it to be.

Why do SaaS Projects Fail?

SaaS projects fail primarily due to –

  • Not being able to keep up with change
  • Not being in control, especially with the rapid rise in outsourcing and cloud services
  • Failure to keep up with innovation while keeping the costs in check
  • Instability and outages due to complexity and colossal systems, processes and applications integration
  • Cyber security
  • Feeling overwhelmed in responding to regulations and audit issues

How can you become a SaaS success story?

Here are five most important keys to SaaS success.

Customer is still KING

Do not make the mistake of measuring your outcomes by how well your product functions and performs, alone.

What you are looking for is customer acceptability. Customers are looking for reliable platforms which they can trust and interact on while saving time.

IT is the Business

Your IT department is a business in itself. From managing objectives, resources, budgets and ROI to create game changing products, you are not only supporting a business – you are the BUSINESS.

Keep Your Eye on the Stack

While business wisdom is essential, don’t forget the stack and architecture. It is vital that you have complete knowledge of each and every little detail of your SaaS product development process (for example, how vendors fit into your portfolio) to prevent project failure.

Take Calculated Risks

You can make a difference if you are willing to take a risk on new technologies, solutions, partners and investors. However, when you increase your risk tolerance for new players, you also need improved vendor management to manage the new vendors.

Evolve to Grow

Continuous innovation and improvement are what make successful CIOs. If you can take your capabilities, such as processes for new product introduction or customer fulfillment, to give your company a competitive edge, you can make it to the top.

Last but not the least; do not forget to play to the strengths of your team. Build internal leadership; identify business and functional leaders who can advance your company’s culture, foster innovation and an attitude for success.

To know more about custom software and app development, talk to Team OgreLogic, the leading best software development company in Arkansas, Kansas City and Springdale. OgreLogic is your natural strategic partner helping you create game changing mobile apps, responsive web design, virtual resourcing and content focused digital marketing services.

SEO for small business

Harnessing the Power of SEO for Small Businesses

If you are a small business owner who wants to use SEO to boost business, here is a quick guide from Team Ogrelogic, one of the top SEO companies in Springdale, Arkansas.

With limited budgets, marketing, especially digital marketing can be a challenge for small businesses. However, your business’s organic listings can help to build trust with local customers and strong, SEO or search engine optimization can prove a great marketing tool for your small business.

Why SEO?
What is SEO all about? Is it keyword research? Is it about building an optimized website? Does SEO involve content marketing? Can SEO create a credible image of your business for potential customers?

Yes.

And more.

SEO began with optimizing keywords within the page and in the meta data and using exact match anchor text in links to rank higher. It worked then.

In 2017, SEO is more than simply Search Engine Optimization. Google is now looking at the relevance of your content. There are different types of SEO and affected by many factors. An experienced SEO company can help you identify the one that is important for your business, depending upon your industry, the geography where you operate, and your SEO SWOT.

A search engine is more than a search engine. It is a tool that offers the best answers to the users’ questions.

If you want your small business to succeed in this search landscape, you need to do everything you can to be that ‘Best Answer’. Provide whatever information your potential customers need to make a decision. This will also drive the clicks towards becoming customers.

SEO for Small Businesses
For a small or medium business, SEO focus should include –

• A fast, well-structured, mobile-friendly website
• Relevant, informational content rather than just keywords showing why a customer should choose your brand or offer
• Local SEO
• Building authority with links
• Building credibility and buzz with online PR and media

Since it involves a neatly designed strategy, understanding your current situation and marketplace is essential to SEO success.

In some cases, combining PPC and SEO can deliver the best results for small businesses. PPC can give bring you quick results at a cost, and as your organic visibility builds through SEO, you can reduce paid search marketing.

Having said that, there is no doubt that the sooner you start investing in your SEO strategy, the sooner you can benefit from this highly effective marketing tool.

To know more about SEO and how to make the most of it, talk to Team OgreLogic, one of the best SEO companies in Springfield, MI; Kansas City, Springdale, Arkansas. OgreLogic is your natural strategic partner providing SEO, SMO, game changing mobile apps, responsive web design, virtual resourcing and content focused digital marketing services.

mobile marketing services

Watch Out for these 5 Mobile App Development Trends this Year

From waking up to an alarm, organizing daily schedules, watching videos, chatting with friends, buying stuff, sharing files and so on – more than 2 billion people worldwide use mobile apps daily.

Mobile apps development and usage continue to experience the upward trend as 2017 crosses its halfway mark. Here is a look at mobile app development trends that we are going to witness in the second half of the year.

Google Mobile-First Index

Google began the AMP Project more than a year ago. Google has announced that they are going to make their index mobile-first. This can change the Mobile app development trends completely.

Google AMP supported web apps will load faster on mobile devices and reduce bounce rate. It will benefit publishers with increased ad visibility and more visitors.

Popular Versions of Reality

Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality have already made forays into everyone’s lives with games like Pokémon Go devices like Samsung Gear VR. AR app development will continue to rise this year.

If AR and VR are here, how can AI be Far Behind?

An increase of more than 300% is expected in investment on artificial intelligence this year as compared to last year. Google, IBM, eBay, Facebook have already started acquiring startups who are good at Artificial Intelligence. That should be a telltale sign of the evolution of AI apps.

Cloud Driven Mobile Apps

Cloud apps are expected to drive most of the total mobile data traffic by 2019. Powerful mobile apps such as OneDrive and Google Drive are only a glimpse of the great apps that will directly fetch data from cloud and take minimum space in your smartphone internal memory.

MicroApp Trend – Not so Micro Any More

MicroApps are on the rise. They provide a highly focused, task-based functionality that allows users, to access, interact and close the app, with great efficiency.

Enterprise companies are the biggest adopters of MicroApps, as components to integrate in a single installable app to fulfill workstream-level needs for employees.

To know more about app development, talk to Team OgreLogic, one of the leading iPhone app development agencies in Fayetteville, Arkansas; Memphis TN; Kansas City, MO; Dallas, TX and Tulsa OK. OgreLogic is your natural strategic partner providing game changing mobile apps, responsive web design, virtual resourcing and content focused digital marketing services.

Ogrelogic

What features make a great smartphone app?

As of March 2017, the number of apps in the Google Play Store was 2.8 million. This intriguing fact was presented by Statistics portal Statista. But, in spite of this staggering number, a majority of apps failed to leave an impact on the target users. The reason is straightforward: They don’t evolve as per the changing trends.

If you are in the plans to develop an app for your business, you ought to know the latest trends for maximum returns. Every renowned software development company from Arkansas, Missouri, Texas, and other regions usually guides you about these current trends.

Through this blog post, we discuss some trends and features related to app development.

Cloud technology

Almost every tech professional or someone associated with the online world is aware of cloud technology. In simple words, it is a technology of retrieving information and resources from the internet using web-based applications. This technology is now being integrated into the smartphone apps. Why users love it? This is because these apps fetch data directly from the cloud and acquire minimum space in the smartphone.

Search Option

Gone are those days when ‘Search’ meant only Google or Yahoo. With the content in the websites and apps increasing at an exponential rate, the search option is now inevitable. When the content becomes abundant in an app, it becomes difficult for the users to find the relevant information. A lot of news-related and e-commerce apps have already included a search option.

Responsive design

Responsive design means the ability to adjust the layout as per the screen size of the device. This is now an inevitable feature of website designing in the current scenario. To expand the reach of your app, you must include this feature during app development, too. A smart way to achieve this feature is to develop apps using technology that allows the app window to automatically adjust as per the screen dimensions.

Updates

We have already discussed that evolving is the key to thriving in the market. To fix bugs and enhance functionality and features, you need to update your apps regularly. Make sure the updates don’t cost the users a lot of space in their smartphone, else they will start looking for alternatives. Take user feedback into consideration while designing updates for your app.

More Touch & Less keyboard use

Typing seems suitable when screens are big, like that of a tablet. When you are developing a universal app, make sure the users don’t have to type much. They (the users) will prefer touch-based experience over typing, as it saves time and makes the app easy to use.

The Bottom Line:

A great app idea, when combined with these features, will translate into maximum yields. If you are outsourcing your app, discuss these requirements with your software development company. We, at Ogrelogic, are also capable of integrating these features while developing a smartphone app. These and several other attributes have helped us become best Software Development Company in Arkansas. Our software development services are also popular in regions like Dallas, Texas; Tulsa, Oklahoma; Kansas City, Missouri; Memphis, Tennessee; and Fayetteville, Arkansas.

You can also contact us to know what other features can be included in your already existing app or how to upgrade it. Call us to get a free estimate: (512) 808-5536

Mobile App Development

Top Monetization Models for Android Apps

Development of Android apps is not difficult anymore. There are various app development companies from Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma, and other regions that successfully do it on behalf of your business. What is important is to ensure that you can monetize the app profitably.

Through this blog post, we discuss different monetization models for Android apps.

In-App Advertising

It is the easiest and most common way to generate revenue through mobile device apps. You just need to make sure that the app is a hit among target users. Positive reviews and app store optimization play a vital role to promote your app. Major mobile ad platforms include:

* Banner ads – Traditional form of online advertisement that you can place within User Interface (UI) of your app.
* Interstitials – Advertisements placed at entry/exit points of your app. Use of videos, images, and links to websites is popular in this format.
* Surveys – You receive a certain amount of money for every survey completed by a user through your app.
* Notification ads – Users receive ads via notification without the need to open the app.

Paid apps (Direct sales)
The users have to pay a certain amount to download the paid apps. Otherwise, only a description, screenshots, and a video will be available to them. The app needs to be highly useful to convince the users to purchase it. In this model, too, the role of marketing team becomes crucial. You also need to integrate several features that are not available in the apps available for free.

Freemium
Business intelligence firm App Annie in 2014 reported that around 50 percent of apps downloaded through Google Play are freemium ones. In this model, the users can download the app without any charges, but they have to shell out money to enjoy premium features. The popular games, including Candy Crush Saga and Clash of Clans, are some examples of the freemium mobile apps. Freemium apps and games are popular among users who hate getting interrupted by ads. In fact, a lot of apps have a feature to remove ads if users pay for premium version.

Subscriptions
This is somewhat similar to the freemium model. The users have to pay for a subscription associated with an app. This concept is popular for newspaper and magazine apps that offer live feed by charging some amount on a monthly basis. Strong and regularly updated content is what makes this monetization model a success.

M-commerce apps
With smartphone screens getting bigger and individuals spending more time on mobile devices, m-commerce is expected to dominate the online shopping market soon. Just like e-commerce, you need to make sure the products you are selling through apps resonate with the lifestyle of target customers. The premium research service of Business Insider, BI Intelligence, predicted that m-commerce market would touch the mark of 284 billion dollars by 2020.

The Bottom Line
At the end of the day, it is the design of the app that decides the fate of monetization model you have selected. And to create a multi-feature, user-friendly app, you need to choose the best app development company. A lot of businesses from Arkansas consider us as the best Android app development company due to the quality of the services we offer. Our services extend to other regions, too, such as Memphis, Tennessee; Dallas Texas; Fayetteville, Arkansas; Tulsa, Oklahoma; and Kansas City, Missouri.

You can consider us as your partner in earning money through a clean, error-free app. Call us to discuss your app-related requirements: (512) 808-5536

iphone application development

Factors to keep in mind before developing an iPhone app

Do you know that around 224.8 billion apps were downloaded in 2016? This is what online statistics portal Statista mentioned in a report. This number is expected to reach 270 billion dollars in 2017. iPhone apps have a significant share in this figure. This is indeed a positive trend for those who are planning to develop their own iPhone app.

To make your app a hit, you need to keep certain factors in mind. Every reputable Phone app development company from different states, such as Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, etc., follows these factors during the development process.

A proper plan is mandatory
Entering the development phase without a proper plan will rarely result in success. Planning ensures you are not committing any error that can completely jeopardize your app. It is always advised to be aware of what you expect from an app and how to achieve it.

Compatibility with multiple iOS devices
You can’t expect your app to penetrate in the market if it is not compatible with different iOS versions and devices. By keeping the aspect of a particular device in mind, you can deliver premium UI experience to users. The wise idea would be to avoid features that don’t seem to fit into your app.

Test! Test! Repeat!
The positive reviews of users largely depend on how much time and energy you have invested in the testing phase. A lot of problems might occur at unexpected stages while using an app. And you don’t want your users to uninstall the app or write bad reviews due to some minor bugs. An iOS app needs to pass through unit testing, integration, and debugging phase before it is being published in the app store.

Think like a user
Various “Great App Ideas” fail because they are not user-friendly. It is not necessary that if you understand the concept of your app, your users will too. You need to create as clean and friendly app as possible. Make sure the users completely understand every feature and enjoy it to the fullest.

Iphone App development at Ogrelogic
At Ogrelogic, we follow all these factors religiously to ensure the end product meets the demands of our clients. This also ensures that the app makes the life of an end user easier in one way or the other. This approach has helped us become a popular iPhone app development company in Arkansas. A lot of our clients also contact us from different regions like:

  • Dallas, Texas,
  • Memphis, Tennessee,
  • Kansas City, Missouri
  • Fayetteville, North Carolina
  • Tulsa, Oklahoma
  •  

    Share your vision with us, and we will convert it into a full functioning iPhone app. Call us today for a free quote: (512) 808-5536

Seo algo update

Google is Definitely Not Playing Dead with Possum

You thought you have understood how Panda, Penguin and Panda work? Now behold(what SEO guys are calling) the POSSUM algorithm! It is a local algorithm update that happened this September.

There are indications that this update impacted ranking in the 3-pack and Local Finder. Another update followed, which impacted organic results. The update may have been aimed to diversify local results and prevent spam from ranking.

Here are a few patterns that have emerged so far….

The Local Filter Has a Mind of Its Own

Earlier, if Google filtered out your website organically, it affected your ranking adversely.Since the update, many businesses that link to pages, filtered organically, are ranking high. For instance, a business was using a certain URL on the Google My Business listing. That page was getting filtered organically. Now the same business is experiencing a great spike in ranking. That is the power of the local filter now.

Good old Google is smarter than you thought!

A local filter applied to the local results andsieved out sites that shared phone numbers or domains. So a doctor with two separate listings as apractitioner and one listing for the practice itself would only appear once in the local results. This happened since duplicate content is filtered out by Google.

So if searched for a workers compensation lawyer in Phoenix, you get some results in the Local Finder. Out of these, some are using the same address and are all workers compensation lawyers. One would show and others would be filtered. But now you can see the most of the filtered ones if you zoom in on the map in the Local Finder.

At the same time, a business with two different listings (different names, phone numbers, websites and different addresses) would show up only once if they are in the same building (even though they have different addresses due to different suite numbers).

That means Google is not just filtering by looking at your address you enter in Google My Business, it is filtering based on affiliation as well as address.

Outside city limits?

Businesses that are located just outside the city limits have been finding it challenging to rank for any keywords that include that city name. Come Possum and such businesses rose in the ranks magically.

The Game Changes with the Searcher’s Location

The physical location of the searcher is more important than it was before. If you make the same search from two different locations, you may see different results and rankings. The farther you go from a city,the business is in, when searching, the more zoomed out the map gets, and the more a listing from the city may drop.

There’s everything in the Name

So far you were seeing similar results for “digital marketing agencyAustin”, “Austin digital marketing agency” or “digital marketing agency Austin TX”. The update changes that. Now you would see different results for even similar looking keywords searched.

A listing that gets filtered for one query can appear back in the local results when the state abbreviation is added.

Rankings are seeing a lot of changes these days. Google may still be testing the waters. The changes may stay or revert back.

The team at OgreLogic is looking for more changes and trends. If you find any, do share with us OgreLogic. We are a team of brand specialists, marketing gurus, thought leaders and development masterminds who spend every waking hour devising mechanisms and techniques for businesses to grow upon, around the world.

video marketing

The Ultimate 5-Step guide To Use Facebook Live As A Video Marketing Tool

Facebook Live allows anyone to broadcast live videos from their mobile directly to Facebook news feed. And with that, Facebook has handed marketers another great tool to communicate with the customers.

To make effective use of this simple yet awesome tool, there are a few things marketers need to consider so that they can engage the followers and customers better. We are sure, by now, you know how to broadcast on Facebook Live. The feature allows you not only to broadcast a video live but also allow followers to replay it later; you can block and unblock users, and more.

The real question is how to analyze the performance if your video. Facebook lets you analyze –

  • Peak live Viewers
  • Minutes Viewed
  • Video views
  • 10-second views
  • Unique viewers
  • Average percentage completion
  • People reached
  • Reactions, comments, shares

Each of these metrics can be further explored to see how it changed over time, represented graphically.

How to make the most of this amazing tool is what marketers are trying to figure out and strategies are evolving as we go. Here are a few quick tips from the video production team at OgreLogic, one of the top digital marketing companies in Austin.

Keep Telling ‘EM Who You Are

Just as you introduce yourself in the beginning, don’t forget do so in the middle and other times during the broadcast. This is for the benefit of viewers who may keep joining later as they spot you in their news feed. That makes it important to reintroduce yourself and the purpose behind the broadcast.

Testing… One, Two, Three…

If you are new to Facebook Live, test your live video with “only me” in the privacy settings.

Keep Them Hooked

Since the videos in the news feed autoplay but in stay muted unless turned on, it is absolutely important that your video catches the attention of the viewers visually, right from the beginning. At the same time, remember that people will keep joining as they find you in the news feed. So the engagement has to be kept high throughout the video.

There is another interesting fact not many people know about Facebook Live. Facebook now has algorithms to track when viewers turn the audio on, when they turn to full screen and more. This makes more engaging videos rank higher up in news feeds.

The best way to engage with your audience is to call out their names. Since you can see who is commenting, in real time, you could address them by name and that really scores high with the viewers. You could answer their questions or share if someone made a joke.

Unstructured Is Cool

Since Facebook is not a formal platform, it is okay to let your hair down and let the video flow spontaneously, say experts at OgreLogic, the reputed video marketing agency in Austin. That is, in fact, the edge you get with Facebook Live as compared to recorded videos and that is what keeps the viewers glued to the screen.

Like And Share

Ensuring that viewers like and share your video is the most important part of the activity. Since viewers are with you, you could ask them to like and share a couple of time throughout the video.

As social media sites come up with more ideas like Facebook Live, the applications are limited only to the imagination of the marketer. Be innovative, don’t be afraid to experiment a little and embrace the platform you are using.

To know more on how to make the most of video marketing for your brand or to talk to an expert, visit one of the leading video marketing agencies in Austin at ogrelogic.com.

Mobile App Development

5 Steps To choose The Best Mobile App Development Company

There are apps and there are apps. So how do you make sure that the company you choose to get your app developed from is a good one? Here are some tips to choose the right mobile app development company.

Know What You Want

Yes, it may sound obvious, but not many businesses set out with a clear understanding of what they exactly want the mobile app to do. Understanding your own requirement would certainly help you narrow down your mobile app development company search. Do you want an iOS, Android or Windows App;Native app or Hybrid app? Who are the users going to be? Who are you targeting? Answering such questions will help you be more specific and closer to getting the app developed.

Check The Company’s Portfolio

Find out how long the company has been developing mobile apps? Have a look at their portfolio. Have the mobile app development company you been considering experienced in the kind of application that you want to develop. The previous work will give you a glimpse into the company’s skill and experience.

Check Transparency

Check whether the mobile app development company is open enough to share constant communication regarding your app. There should be a continuous feedback loop and a system in place for the client to be able to communicate with the company properly.

The company should be prompt and transparent in their communication. There should be a mutually agreed upon policy to communicate through mails, Skype, phones or in-person meetings.

Check Cost Effectiveness

Building within your budget is important but that doesn’t mean you grab the cheapest offer available. Lay emphasis on a high quality app that would fit within your budget. Too-good-to-be-true may actually be untrue.

Is The Company As Excited As You About The New App

An enthusiastic team is a sign that they would actually treat the entire project as their own. Some companies are willing to create a prototype before building the actual product. Some companies would offer you add-on services that are not part of the standard package. Decide on terms about what happens if they not deliver on or before the deadline.

At OgreLogic, our comprehensive app development abilities are well-versed in designing and supporting apps across various mobile platforms. Continuous support ensures your app stay up to date and best in class.

To know more about one of the best mobile app development companies, visit ogrelogic.com.

Mobile App Development Company

Spilling The Beans On SEO – 6 Surprising Facts

Online success equals being found. Hence, SEO or search engine optimization rules. Everybody does it but few understand it. Poor understanding of how it works can hit your rankings; even push you to bad practices.

HOW DOES GOOGLE WORK?

When someone looks up a search term, Google searches matching and relevant pages (based on hundreds of factors) and presents them to the user. One such factor is Page Rank which depends on how many incoming links (spam links are filtered) your page has from other sites. The best links are content based links, say SEO experts at search engine optimization company in Austin, OgreLogic.

HOW DOES INDEXING AFFECT ME?

Google creates an index of all the pages and the content on it. Key content such as Title tags is what people base their decision to visit your page. Ensuring that your title tags, alt tags and other content if fully optimized for the keywords you want to rank better for. A quick tip –  instead of the title tag ‘Home’ for your homepage, use a title tag that tells about your products and services.

DO INBOUND LINKS MATTER?

When other sites drive people to your page, Google respects it (provided it is not spam!) and ranks you better. When you publish content that is shared often, you indirectly drive more traffic to your site.

HOW CAN I IMPROVE ON-PAGE SEO?

As the name suggests, on page SEO factors are the elements of the page itself – title tags, URL, and content. When every page of your website is optimized for the relevant keywords, you rank better.

HOW MUCH IS ENOUGH?

Stuffing too many keywords into a blog post or an article could turn it into spam and ruin the reader’s / user’s experience, thereby defeating the purpose. Instead write content that would be helpful to the user with appropriate keywords used wisely.

HOW DOES GOOGLE RANK ME?

Most people think that Google ranks them on the basis of factors like search keyword density and on-page SEO but that’s not true! These don’t even make it to the top 10 list. What actually matters is page link authority features, page level social, page and domain keyword usage etc. It means there’s more to ranking than keyword density. Incoming links and shares on social make your page rank higher.

The leading SEO Company based in Austin, OgreLogic, helps you identify what’s missing in your digital marketing strategy and understand what needs to be done to transform it and build your brand. To understand how, visit ogrelogic.com.

Content Marketing Services

Make The Most of Your Existing Content

Content marketing does not just mean churning more content by the minute and throwing it on social media. Content has been here for a while. Think about how much content you have already created in blogs and articles. Since you have created so much already, it makes sense to bring it out, dust it and polish it for different formats and send it back again for a successful second round. Plus it saves you money on new content creation!

Here are a few ideas from one of the top content marketing companies in Austin , OgreLogic, on how you can reuse your existing content to your advantage.

Repurpose Existing Blogs

Pick up several blogs that talk about related concepts or topics and combine them into a relevant article, especially the ones that didn’t get many views or shares, the less read ones. You could create lists, tips and guides that provide valuable content to your readers. Adding links to each topic in the guide can provide you different ways to promote your content.

Turn Words into Pictures

A picture is worth a thousand words. Convert the existing content into visually appealing infographics, slide shares or a picture album with tips/headings (as captions) and links to long-form content. Tools like Canva caninstantly turn written content into bite-sized visuals. Add video content to posts.

Or you could do the opposite. Transcript podcasts and webinars with quirky headings to create written content instantly.

Follow Trends

Take out several articles or blogs where you had spoken about an upcoming trend. Compare it to what is actually happening. Update with new information and data that would be of interest to your readers. Updating old content can also increase the traffic you obtain from organic SEO and the leads you generate on those posts.

Pronged Digital Marketing Strategy

Top 3-Pronged Digital Marketing Strategy For 2016

2016 may be a game changer for digital marketers. Ever since mobile overtook desktop traffic in 2015, businesses are frantically working towards designing and optimizing for the mobile. It seems only the other day when the ball dropped in the Times Square and we are past a quarter of the year but the tone for2016 seems to be set. The leading digital marketing agency in Austin, OgreLogic, says that have shifted their digital marketing strategy to MOCROP – Mobile apps Optimization, Conversion Rate Optimization and Personalized content.

MOBILE APP OPTIMIZATION

The customers, fortunately, have millions of apps available to him/her at the Google Play and iTunes stores. Many businesses, on the other hand, unfortunately just jumped on to the app bandwagon without defining what the app was supposed to do for their business or brand. Goals? KPIs? Duh! Nevertheless, apps are going to bring in huge amount of business this year. As businesses and digital marketers, we need to clearly define the role of the apps specifically in the overall marketing efforts and for the brand, in general. Mobile App Optimization thus becomes the prime focus, according to the top digital marketing agency in Austin , OgreLogic.

PERSONALIZED CONTENT

Talking of optimization brings us to the second big issue of content personalization. You want the customer to stay, you deliver something that holds value and makes sense to him/her. Simple, isn’t it? But we are still a long way from delivering data-driven, personalized content although the movement started last year. Digital marketers that catch on to this quick will be able to deliver the magical results businesses expect, says the digital marketing team at OgreLogic, Austin’s best digital marketing agency.

CONVERSION RATE OPTIMIZATION

CRO or Conversion Rate Optimization is going to be the Holy Grail of digital marketing this year. Businesses and marketers are changing strategies to “convert” the ever eluding customer. It is time marketers’ start focusing on how a conversion takes place when it does rather than shooting in the dark. Decisions will become highly data driven and not just on making the customer trickle down the funnel. And that includes the other two parts of our strategy – content personalization and mobile optimization – this year, say experts at the leading digital marketing agency, OgreLogic at Austin.

Top Digital Marketing Strategy

6 Awesome Tips TO Make Your Mobile App Stand Above The Crowd

How can you stand out from millions of apps on Google Play store and App store? How can you make an app so valuable that it is used regularly by your customers? Which apps come up on top and stay on top? One of the best mobile app development and marketing agency at Austin, OgreLogic brings you tips from the best apps to learn from.

DOES YOUR APP SOLVE APROBLEM?

Great apps solve problems for their users or address their pain points. Someone wants to learn a language but hates the commute to the class. Duolingo is there to help you. Want a taxi come to you? Get Lyft. When you create innovative mobile apps to solve problems that haunt the user, it stays with them and the customer base grows bigger with word-of-mouth. For great user acquisition and retention strategies for your mobile app, get in touch with Austin’s leading mobile app development company, OgreLogic.

REWARD PEOPLE TO REFER YOUR APP TO FRIENDS

Reward the existing customers to bring more people to the app and get them to use it. This starts a chain reaction and turns your customers into your brand ambassadors. It is a great way to broaden your customer base without burning a hole into your marketing budget.

BACK YOUR APP WITH CONTENT

Blogs and videos about your app tagged with the right keywords can go a long way in promoting your app. Content can be a great way to tell people how your app solves their problem. Top mobile marketing agency OgreLogic has a great content team to back your mobile app up.

CROSS PROMOTE

If you have more than one app in the same category, say gaming, use one app to promote the other with a CTA button.

APP STORE OPTIMIZATION (ASO)

Use ASO to improve your app’s visibility in the app store. Choose the right keywords and don’t forget them to add them to your app’s title if you want to rank higher on a particular keyword. For amazing app store optimization strategies, call the best mobile marketing agency from Austin , OgreLogic.

MEASURE ENGAGEMENT

Use analytics to measure who is using your app, how often and how long do they use it for and what leads to long term retention. This information can be instrumental to improving your app and targeting it better.

Content-Marketing

3 Best Kept Secrets To Create Winning Content

Inbound marketing thrives on content creation, say experts at OgreLogic, the leading content marketing company in Austin. Companies across the globe are using content marketing successfully to boost sales, build brands and establish a bond with their customers. Content can include:

  • Blogs and articles.
  • Videos
  • Infographics
  • Webinars
  • White Papers, E-books etc.

Content creation can be a great tool to communicate to your clients or customers directly about their concerns, your advice to them and industry insights. Original and engaging content can help you build a great rapport with your customers. It can also add to your search engine optimization efforts by making you more visible on search engines with more stuff to share. Businesses who have not yet harnessed the power of content creation can greatly benefit from these amazing tips from one of the best content marketing companies in Austin, OgreLogic.

THREE WORDS – KEYWORDS, KEYWORDS, KEYWORDS

There is no use in creating content no one is looking for. In inbound marketing, you want to be found, when someone searches for your kind of product or service in your location. This means you should understand thoroughly who your potential buyers are, what they are looking for and where they go looking for information, where they hang out on the web etc. OgreLogic content marketing team at Austin also advises you to put tools like Google Analytics to use to find out what people are looking for on the search engines. Creating fresh, engaging content around these keywords can give a great boost to your inbound marketing efforts.

CONTENT IS MORE THAN BLOGS

Blogging gets you results, is a fact. At the same time, experiment with different forms of content. An interesting infographic could prove more useful than a verbose article. Quizzes, online polls, checklists, infographics, video, podcasts or webinars are used very effectively to present content by one of the best content marketing teams at OgreLogic, Austin.

AVOID ‘SALESY’ CONTENT

The content you create will be any good only if it holds any value to the potential customer. Educative, informative and entertaining content always wins over content that is only created with an intention to sell. Promoting your product or service makes sense only when it solves a problem or makes the potential buyer’s life easy, points out the top content marketing company in Austin, OgreLogic.

Digital Marketing Strategy

Boost Your Social Media Marketing Strategy With These 5 Amazing Tips

There has been a lot of hue and cry over social media marketing over the past few years. Businesses have achieved good inbound traffic with it but when it comes to leads, they are mostly left wondering. The value of social media marketing is undeniable as is evident from these marketing statistics from HubSpot –

  • 43 percent of all marketers have found a customer via LinkedIn
  • 42 percent marketers say Facebook is critical or important to their business.

So, what is the trick to generate more leads from social media? Social media optimization experts, at leading social media marketing agency at Austin, crack the social media marketing strategy code for digital marketers.

BUDGETING

Social media optimization is a great inbound marketing tool but you need to decide how much you want to put in paid advertising or sponsored content. Like any other marketing spend, you need to plan your spending and the outcomes you are looking for, say experts at social media optimization company, OgreLogic.

GET AN EXPERT

You may have dabbled in posting stuff on Facebook but if you want great results with social media marketing for your business, do hire an expert. Austin’s top social media marketing agency, OgreLogic, have a dedicated team to design and execute your social media optimization strategy.

GO MOBILE

More and more people are accessing the web and social media on mobile devices. This means your social media activity should now be designed for the mobile. The top social media optimization agency at Austin, OgreLogic‘s social media marketing and content creation team work closely to get the best SMO outcomes for your business.

ADDRESS CUSTOMER CONCERNS

Comments from your clients and customers are a great source of market intelligence. Use them to gauge what works and what doesn’t. Address their concerns and use it as valuable feedback to improve your offerings.

DON’T BE AFRAID TO EXPERIMENT WITH DIFFERENT CONTENT FORMATS

Engaging content such as live video can make interaction with your target audience more interesting and fruitful. Social media is the perfect platform to use diverse content formats such as quizzes, polls, video and more. Ask your social media marketing agency in Austin “for great strategies to harness the power of social media to generate business and build your brand.”

Mobile App Development

Behind The App – 3 Ideas Give Your Mobile App An Edge

More than 2 billion smartphone users are expected worldwide in 2016. With mobile traffic surpassing desktop traffic in 2015, the app is no longer just another medium to engage customers. It is now vital to your business’s digital survival. If you do not have a mobile app, you are missing out on a big customer base. A well designed native app for the user’s smartphone is definitely better than a mobile enabled website in terms of user experience.Mobile app development team at OgreLogic, Austin gives you a sneak peek into what goes on behind creation of a great mobile app.

The good, bad and the ugly

Visit the App Store and Play Store regularly to study the app market. How is your app doing? What are the users saying about it? Customer reviews can give you important feedback about how to improve your app. Now look at the most successful and the not-so-successful apps. What are the current trends? Why did a particular app become a super hit and why did the other hit rock bottom? Asking questions like these will give you valuable insight into consumer behavior and market dynamics.

Measure, measure, measure

The key rule of digital success is to track and measure the performance of your app. Google Analytics can help you make important decisions on how to improve your app, says OgreLogic,Mobile Marketing agency at Austin. Mobile Marketing agency at Austin.

Communicate with the users

You have a business and you created an app for the user to access it. Having conversations with your users can help you understand the user experience closely to enhance your app for the user. Interaction would help them bond better with your brand too.

Content Marketing Services

4 Quick Ways To Add Spice To Your Content

We are human. We love to talk and hear others do so. Posts, blogs, infographics, images and videos, all satisfy this basic human need. Since our mind thinks in images, visual content scores over all other forms of content. Photos and videos are the best form of content because visual is how we make sense of the world around us. We at OgreLogic, Austin’s leading content marketing agency, share 4 simple tips to supercharge your content marketing strategy, share 4 simple tips to supercharge your content marketing strategy.

Images

High quality, context appropriate images added to your blog or article catch the viewer’s attention instantly. Animated GIFs are an innovative way to showcase otherwise boring statistics and figures.

Layout

Font and Formatting is visual too.To be honest, most content is visual (unless it is audio). The font type and size, spacing, paragraph size, headings and sub-heads, bullets and numbering, everything is visual. Ignoring any element can cost you in a big way. Shares, comments, likes, re-tweets, all depend upon how interesting your content is, say content marketers at OgreLogic, Austin.

Video

Our lives are about stories; we live in them. How-to videos, teasers, interviews, innovations such as Facebook’s auto playing videos have made it hard for the viewer to miss your content.

Infographic

Interesting infographics appeal to the child in all of us. Content in an infographic unfolds as in a story and keeps the reader engaged till the end. Tedious content such as data and figures suddenly starts making sense when presented visually as in a chart, graph or infographic.

Visual equals more engagement and more set of eyes looking at what you have to say. Enrich your content with an eye-catching visual and watch your business grow.

Social Media Optimization Tricks

ENGAGE – 6 Top Social Media Optimization Tricks

If SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the ignition, SMO (Social Media Optimization) is the accelerator for your brand. Social media optimization can catapult your business to the next level, say our SMO ogres at OgreLogic Social Media Marketing Agency at Austin.Here’s our SMO mantra that never fails: E.N.G.A.G.E.

E– Engaging content– Quality is better than quantity when it comes to content. Rich visual content always scores over other forms. It is easy to share and goes viral in no time. Schedule your postings and spread it out over relevant platforms. To be able to engage without selling is an art. Stir up conversations with compelling questions, share credible statistics, quote from your content and use it as a post, grab attention with a teaser are some of the few examples of content that wins.

N– Network building – To win in the long term, it is imperative for brands to have an ongoing relationship with the users. Identify platforms where your users are. Build communities. Find out their pain points and help them achieve their goals.

G– Goal clarity– You should have a well-defined social strategy and clear outcomes planned before you reach out on social media. Through social media optimization, you can build brand recognition, drive website traffic, generate leads, drive sales, and build long term relationships.Define your short and long term goals.

A – Actionable Content – Make effective calls to action. The calls-to-action need not be direct every time. At Ogrelogic social media optimization agency, we just want to nudge them a little, not push. Asking people to click, share, discover more, free trial and learn more… you do need a call to action but indirect CTAs also drive sales in the long run. In fact, they are better since the user already has a relationship with your brand.

G – Gauge – To understand what works where, you need to find out information like which posts drove maximum traffic and which social media campaign was the most effective. Measuring the effectiveness of your social media strategy is important to set future goals and get more value for your dollars.

E – Execution – As in any other business, the key to any great strategy is execution. Keep a track of what is being posted. Does it match your SMO mission? Who is posting what? How shareable is your content? Review analytics. Make tactical adjustments along the way.

Importance Of Visual Media

Importance Of Visual Media

The human mind thinks in images, hence, the idiom, “seeing is believing.”We, at Ogrelogic, believe that integrating visual content in your marketing campaign is the golden key to stay on the top of your game in the digital era. You only have a few moments to catch the eyeballs of the short attention span web user. With engaging infographics, picture stories, interesting images, cute videos, funny memes and contextual comics, your brand can leave a lasting imprint on the viewer’s mind. Our experts at Ogrelogic advise you to set your target audience into action by telling a seamless story instead of just bombarding the visitor with an assortment of images and videos.

Even in traditional marketing, storytelling has proven to be the best method of getting the message across. Visual imagery involves the viewer in the storytelling experience. That makes visuals the content of choice if you want your customer to bond with your brand. Photos and videos make your website info and product/service features easy to recall. Team Ogrelogic, the leading Digital Marketing Company in Austin says, “To grab the attention of the web-trotter, the best idea is to have a combination of text and graphics.”A single interesting infographic could present a lot of content which is easy on the eye, rather than page after page of tedious text.Visuals go viral in no time, so sharing and engagement is considerably higher than any other form of content. Visuals send your marketing message across without being in the face of the viewer.  On Facebook, videos posted per person in US alone has increased by 94% from 2013 to 2014, and is on the rise in 2015.  With more than one million users, 300 hours of videos are uploaded on YouTube every minute.

A picture is worth a thousand words. Learning by seeing is the mantra of the day as consumers shift preferences from text to photo. Research predicts that 74% of all Internet traffic will be video in 2017. Visuals are no longer the icing on the cake, they are the cake itself and more.