AWS vs Shared Hosting – Using the Amazon Cloud Compared with a Static Server

In this article, we discuss “AWS vs Shared Hosting“, which is shorthand for comparing the use of the Amazon Cloud to host your website (by using Amazon Web Service server space), compared with the much better-known method of using a “Static Server” such as provided by any bog-standard shared hosting service.

On This Page

    1. Why use AWS for web hosting?
    2. Shared Web Hosting
    3. Simple Static Website Hosting
    4. Best Shared and Cloud Hosting Services
    5. What is Cloud Hosting vs. Shared Hosting?
    6. Which Service is Right for You?
    7.  “Shared Hosting” Providers
    8. “Shared Hosting” Providers with SSDs
    9. Free vs. Paid Hosting Services: Which is Best?

Why use AWS for web hosting?

Let’s get this first thing straight before we go on! Why would anyone use AWS for web hosting? The answer is because Amazon Web Services is often rated the highest in comparisons of web hosts. You will need to take some AWS training to use these tools properly. It’s not for newbies. If this is your first website and you’ve been doing websites for more than say 3 years we doubt that anyone other than the most “geek inclined” will want to use AWS for website building. If you are new to website creation you will do best to stay with a static server. As long as you read some reviews, talk to a few hosting companies, and read the small print, you should be able to find an excellent hosting platform.

You might even do well to consider our web hosting service EZi-Gold Hosting here!

Still here. Still, reading? Then you’ve almost definitely heard about Amazon Web Services. And, given that you’re on this site, I’m going to make the obvious assumption that you’ve heard about WordPress, too. But what you might not have heard about is combining WordPress with amazon web services (AWS) for web hosting! (More later on.)

Amazon Web Services Logo used here to illustrate this AWS vs Shared Hosting article.Why choose AWS? Choose it for speed and reliability of delivery globally, but it is also cheap and for most users it’s free. Free, until we reach the free storage limit which Amazon allows before imposing a monthly charge. It’s fast and they must make it so as the same system powers their Amazon eCommerce business. For the same reason, it has to be reliable. Reliability is one of the most important features that cloud hosting offers. Rather than hosting your website on a shared server, it can be better to host your website on an Amazon dedicated virtual cloud server which draws its resource, such as disk space, from an extensive network of underlying physical servers.

Shared Web Hosting

The Google Cloud Logo.Shared web hosting might not have the global presence of Amazon, but it does have its merits, other than of course being simple to use. Shared hosting on a reliable server architecture that is configured and designed specifically for the type of software you are using to power your application or website is fine to use. It results in perfectly adequate performance and excellent up-time for normal web pages, including eCommerce. The best online shared hosting provides page load speeds which are every bit as good as Google expects. Added speed is often available from server-level caching applications baked right into the hosting environment. Users just have to turn these additional services on, and doing so is much simpler than installing the website in the first place on AWS servers. Users of our own EZi-Gold hosting even get the best of both worlds. By using EZi-Gold Hosting you get a simple way to place your website on the cloud using a service called Cloudfront and like Amazon, use of the cloud app is free up to a limit and then the charge is very inexpensive.

Single page web apps are defined as web apps that are static and require only one single load in a browser. These need adding to AWS and this is a disadvantage of AWS vs Shared Hosting which has a CMS (i.e. WordPress free and ready to install). The following user interactions are made available through:. Html. Css. They are already preloaded in the browser.

Simple Static Website Hosting

Web hosting review AWS vs Shared HostingIs AWS Cloudfront is still the best place to host my static website? What about Google Cloud Storage, Netlify or GitHub pages? These shared hosting services all stack up, for some people and website applications, but on this page, we have no more space than to discuss AWS vs Shared Hosting. Running a simple static website sometimes makes it necessary to scale due to high traffic. In addition, shared hosting is not suitable for serving videos, whereas AWS is.

When comparing amazon web services (AWS) hosting and a typical large shared hosting provider such as Bluehost, Siteground (recommended), or Godaddy it’s like comparing apples to oranges for the most part. Bluehost is aimed at first-time bloggers and entrepreneurs looking to set up a website in a simple way.

However, AWS has so many hosting options, before even considering 3rd party options which make it easy to use AWS server space, that it’s impossible to discuss their products in this review. We’ll be focusing on AWS in general, but you’ll need to read through their provisions Amazon s3, plus their ec2 hosting offerings, as well as their Amazon AWS Lightsail cloud hosting product which is focused on the small business/non-technical market.

AWS vs Shared Hosting – Best Shared and Cloud Hosting Services

The best shared-host may be one which offers “Managed (WordPress) Hosting”. This is often a tier that offers some WordPress specific features that “shared hosting” doesn’t, as well as often being more performant for heavy WordPress sites than WordPress is. You may also see offers of a “Managed Cloud Hosting Platform”. If so take care to read the service details very carefully as “cloud” is the most overused term in hosting.

Connecting up to a system like Cloudflare can make this much easier. Hosting is a little more complicated than your domain purchase. Most first-time web designers won’t be building something which will have to deal with thousands of visitors every day, and this means that shared hosting or VPS servers will be ideal in a lot of cases.

In addition to the more popular web hosting options, we suggest you consider players like Heroku, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, Amazon web services and Digital Ocean when purchasing a node.

What is Cloud Hosting vs. Shared Hosting?

Infographic shows the concept of shared vs cloud hosting.When encountering the inexhaustible range of shared hosting plans for the first time, the cloud hosting vs. shared hosting debate can easily overwhelm site owners with the various options, configurations, and acronyms. Matching the right server portions and hosting flavours to your appetite can be daunting, but we’re happy to serve as your waiter and present this week’s specials: cloud hosting and shared hosting.

Cloud hosting vs shared hosting? You are here because you are planning on hosting your website. Want to know the difference between cloud hosting or shared hosting like GoDaddy and a cloud-based hosting such as amazon web services? OK, follow this article to have a clear picture.

How is Cloud Hosting different vs Shared Hosting? In Cloud Hosting Services the accounts get separated by entire virtual machines, and you have the complete access to a working computer. In Shared Hosting all the accounts are on one computer and must share the total resources among hundreds or even thousands of accounts.

Which Service is Right for You?

Siteground Hosting is illustrated here with the SiteGround hosting logo.Before we detail the nitty-gritty differences and similarities between shared hosting and cloud hosting services, it’s time to find the meal that best suits your taste and budget — you might be craving a burger, but do you prefer it come from a greasy fast-food joint or an acclaimed chef at a sit-down restaurant?.

The shared vs managed WordPress hosting debate comes down to the added WordPress-specific services and performance shared hosting tweaks you get with managed WordPress hosting. Managed WordPress hosting is like a concierge service for your WordPress site, whereas regular shared hosting leaves much of the work to you when it comes to backups, WordPress optimization, and more.

When comparing the cost of cloud hosting vs shared hosting. Godaddy starts as low as a fixed monthly price of $1 per month, whereas done for you AWS packages begin at a minimum of $50 and above a month. But the price offers an additional 1 terabyte of disk space, which when compared to the 100 GB GoDaddy makes the GoDaddy offer really quite small. Our experience of GoDaddy is that the headline price is always low, but you will soon become frustrated when they constantly try to squeeze more money out of you through charging for 1,001 “extras”. Extras, which elsewhere are part of the main package and are free to use. However, the headline price is always more to start with, if later you won’t get pestered to buy extras each month.

“Shared Hosting” Providers

Its drawbacks are that it can be relatively slow, especially if neighbouring sites on the same server experience traffic spikes, and tends to make relatively few server resources available to any-one Hostinger Logo illustrates the paragraph on Hostinger Shared Hosting.customer. Our top recommendation for a large (rather anonymous) shared WordPress hosting is Siteground.

If you are on a server with many active high-activity accounts, performance may be more limited as you must wait for your share of time for resources. Typically, shared hosting providers manage this by placing restrictions on resource usage on shared servers.

Think of a virtual private server as a blend of the shared hosting environment with the cloud-minded features of control and dedicated resources. The difference between virtual and cloud servers is fairly small and can be difficult to understand, but many providers opt to blend the two server architectures to take advantage of the high-availability strengths found in the cloud.

“Shared Hosting” Providers with SSDs vs AWS

If you are looking for Shared SSD hosting, you probably want fast and stable hosting overall. So it’s good to combine SSDs with VPS and dedicated servers. Also good to have are features like high-performance databases, caching, and access to a quality CDN. Solid-state drives (SSDs) are generally faster and more dependable than mechanical drives. They are important for getting the fastest hosting speeds, especially on dynamic websites such as WordPress sites. But not all hosts offer SSD storage, so you need to be careful to check the hosting plan for SSDs before you buy.

SSDs can allow greater flexibility to scale your website. A natural rule of thumb is that access to a greater number of resources will result in better performance. While shared hosting providers use the latest hardware and software techniques such as SSDs and CDNs to guarantee performance, generally speaking, you’ll get even better results with a VPS server account.

AWS vs Shared Hosting – Free vs. Paid Hosting Services: Which is Best?

Many internet service providers (ISPS) offer a basic website service free to subscribers. Individuals and organizations may also obtain web page hosting from alternative service providers. Free web hosting services are offered by different companies in the hope that once committed to using their server you won’t want the hassle of moving your account and will upgrade. The free offerings come with limited services, sometimes supported by advertisements, and are always very limited when compared to paid hosting.

When considering AWS vs Shared Hosting, AWS can be seen as free, but only if you have the skills to create websites on their server space unassisted by expensive add-on 3rd party services. AWS themselves only charges you for the resources you use, with no up-front costs or long-term contracts. AWS web hosting options offer pay-as-you-go pricing or fixed monthly pricing. The basic nature of their server configurations means they are best for static web apps that require only a single load in a web browser are referred to as “single-page” web apps. If you need add-on apps though, that’s when AWS costs can get out of control very quickly.

Free web hosting may sound like a good idea but usually, as a beginner, you won’t get the support you need. Free web hosting is not always the best choice unless you know what you are doing, and if you do know your way around setting up websites you will want the extra features of paid hosting to help you make money. So, that’s our opinion when starting you may want to play around with free web hosting, but if you are going to make a going of website creation and monetizing your efforts, paid-hosting is the way to go, even if only using a low-cost and basic account.

If you do want to try it for free, we’ve been told that 000webhost is a version of Hostinger free of charge, and they’ve been around since 2007. They don’t force any ads on their users like some other services, and they also offer paid plans. They provide up to two websites, 1,000 MB of storage, an impressive 10gb of bandwidth, with a free control panel. Nevertheless, you get what you pay for in the end. If you are serious about applying your time why not try out our EZi-Gold Hosting?

The post AWS vs Shared Hosting – Using the Amazon Cloud Compared with a Static Server appeared first on GQ Central.

How to Craft Your Own Business Logo

A business logo also allows you to succinctly communicate information about your business and differentiate you from the competition. Creating a professional logo representing your core values and mission will go a long way in selling your brand to potential customers. Here’s what you should know about making a good logo:

Logo Design

What are the Important Characteristics of a Logo?

When designing a logo, it is important to ensure that it will help you boost your reputation, connect with customers, and strengthen brand loyalty. While everyone is unique, here are some of the characteristics that all great logos share.

#1 Keep it Simple

One that is easy to read and understand is more likely to be recognizable and memorable. Since customers focus on the symbol for a short time, you will want to communicate your message effectively and concisely. Simplicity involves making sure that your image draws attention to the most important aspects of your brand’s personality. It would be necessary to focus on just a few elements so that more people understand it.

#2 Make Sure it is Scalable

A great symbol should feature a simple design that can be scaled up or down without losing its visual appeal or core message. Over time, your business needs and goals may change, making it necessary to redesign it to keep it relevant and effective. While redesigning, it has to be unique, keep colors simple, and focus on your brand’s core values. With a scalable image, you will be able to keep it current while maintaining your identity.

#3 Consider the Impact

The best logos are impactful, communicating something at a glance and leaving a positive impression. Creating a positive impression will involve communicating your personality through the right balance of visual and textual content. A memorable symbol will help you connect with customers, ensuring that they easily pick you when they have to choose between you and the competition.

#4 Maintain Versatility

For it to grab attention, it should be attractive. However, since it will be used in various situations, shapes, and ways, it should maintain the visual appeal on different media and in different variations. It should also remain legible and recognizable, regardless of where it is displayed. A versatile image in terms of size, color, and media will do a better job of exposing your company to the world.

#5 Be Sure it is Relevant

A great symbol should be relevant both to your practice and the market your company targets. To communicate your brand’s identity and personality effectively, you will have to choose the right colors, font, and symbol. When designing or redesigning, keep your target audience in mind to ensure you gain recognition, and better connect with them.

Logopg Clarks

What Makes a Good Logo?

Your image will be the first point of contact that most people have with your company. As the face of your company, you will want to create one that you feel good about and will help you achieve your goals. Whether you plan to design it yourself or hire a professional, a good symbol will boil down to great concept and great execution. Here’s what makes a good one:

Brand Identity

The visual elements of your company should help you stand out from the crowd. These distinguishing features will enable you to strengthen your brand by telling customers what you do and your brand story. As such, a good one should feature colors, font, and typeface that reflect your brand. Having a unique image will go a long way in helping you build and protect a brand identity that customers can relate to.

Brand Personality

Creating a brand personality means assigning your brand human characteristics and emotions. These include personal values such as integrity, honesty, confidence, and friendliness. It also entails a unique brand voice that helps you connect with your customers. Just like brand identity, your brand personality should be unique and consistent. A good example combines both brand identity and personality in a limited space to help you keep as few elements as possible in the design.

Professional Authority

A professional image will help you build trust and attract more customers. Professionalism will also portray you as a company that delivers values to customers through the products or services you sell. As the face of your brand identity, it should be well-designed, ensuring that you establish professional authority every time people see it. This will increase the chances of customers choosing to work with you.

Visual Consistency

Humans learn from visual cues, a factor that makes it critical to maintain visual consistency in branding. Since you will be using it across different communication platforms, you will want it to help you communicate effectively. Effective communication ensures that customers recognize your brand at a glance, helping to strengthen the connection they have with your company. A good one will promote visual consistency despite being redesigned.

Brand Loyalty

When designing, you will want to make sure that it will be widely accepted among your target audience. A good one will become more popular as your company grows, creating familiarity among customers. This will help you build brand loyalty and improve customer retention levels. However, the image should be simple, impactful, and relevant to do this.

Can I Make a Logo From Scratch?

Although symbol creation may seem like a simple task, a lot of thought and creativity goes into the process. If you plan to develop your own, you should ensure that it will have the desired characteristics and meet your needs. Below are the steps to follow:

Step 1: Define Your Brand Identity

The first step should be to understand why you need one and why the brand symbol has to be great. You will also need to have an in-depth understanding of the industry in which you operate. Also, be sure to check out the competition so that you are in a great position to develop an image that will be much better.

Step 2: Conducting Research

The next step is to research the current trends in terms of design. Next, choose your ideal design style and find the right type of image. Your design style can be classic, vintage, modern, fun, handcrafted, or a combination of the options. Finally, your design should appeal to your target audience.

Step 3: Sketching and Conceptualization

With the information you have collected, you can develop the design concept. Exercise creativity and draw inspiration from different sources as you bring your imagination to life. When doing this, you should pay attention to color and pick the right photography. These visual elements will be important in communicating your brand identity and personality. You may also want to take breaks that will allow you to reflect and solicit feedback.

Step 4: Revisions and Positioning

Once you have the first version of your design, you should seek the opinion of your colleagues, friends, and family members. You can also get feedback from a professional designer to give you a fresh perspective so you can revise and improve the design. At the end of the day, you want a unique, memorable, versatile, timeless image that appeals to your target audience and reflects your brand identity.

Step 5: Integrate the Logo Design Into Your Brand

Once you have your finished product and are happy with the design, it will be time to make it part of your brand. It will serve as the basis for branding materials such as your web design, packaging design, and business cards. You can now use your symbol to introduce your brand to the world.

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Work With a Professional

With the important role that an image plays and considering today’s competitive world, there will be no room for mistakes when it comes to designing one. The first impression that customers have of your brand will affect their decision to buy from you. Also, a poorly designed one or skipping it entirely can see you missing out on numerous opportunities. Although it is possible to develop your own, not everyone is an artist or has the time to create a high-quality product that their company deserves. As such, it’s important to hire a professional to do the job for you.

A professional designer has the skills and experience required to deliver a quality version that tells the story of your company. The designer understands that the symbol is at the heart of your branding, and will look at both its immediate and future usage. Working with a professional will not only bring the wow factor to your brand but also save you time.

Every great company deserves a great symbol. If you want to ensure the success of your company in a competitive marketplace, you cannot afford to ignore the importance of a good symbol. At BizIQ, we offer quality logo design services to help small businesses stand apart from the competition and connect with customers. Contact us today and let’s discuss an ideal design.

The post How to Craft Your Own Business Logo appeared first on BizIQ.

The post How to Craft Your Own Business Logo appeared first on Local SEO Resources.

The Shared Hosting Email Sending Limits Service Providers Won’t Tell You

Believe it or not, there are hidden shared hosting email sending limits you probably aren’t aware of as a shared hosting account holder similar to those imposed by Microsoft and Gmail. We explain how no longer does the average person have the freedom to be able to send as many emails as they wish because very soon service providers step in to stop you sending too many emails.

On This Page

  1. Office365 email sending limit
  2. Outlook.com limit
  3. GoDaddy (Workspace email accounts) send limit
  4. Rackspace email send limits
  5. BluelueHost Email is Not Unlimited
  6. DreamHost email limit
  7. Yahoo! Mail Plus email sent limit
  8. Yandex.mail sending
  9. Host Gator limits on email spending
  10. What are the email sending limits?

Office365 email sending limit

Office 365 has some unusual limits on the number and size of messages you can send or receive. Office 365 has some restrictions on emails and how many you can send, but some are not calculated the usual way. Study your Office 365 email send limit and you’ll see what your limit is.

Here is a scenario which all email service providers are desperate to prevent. The account of a user gets hacked. The account starts sending 100,000s of emails. The email server operators reason that if they restrict that user to 100 emails per hour (or any arbitrary limit), they can control spam bursts like this to a great extent.

Outlook.com limit

If you’ve been offline and busy working your outbox might have over 30 messages. When outlook reconnects to office 365 servers it’ll try to send those messages as soon as it can so it’s possible that the ’30 per minute’ limit will be breached (depending on the size of the emails and speed of connection).

The same sort of restrictions apply when sending emails from a web site/domain hosted on shared hosting. Email send limits for web hosting are normal, and the rules may say things like; “o more than 10 messages per second”. All mass emails must be compliant with their mass mailing policy.

Head over to Google Apps support pages for more information on sending and receiving limits. Having trouble managing a large number of emails? For example, Hiver’s shared mailbox will make have email management rules.

GoDaddy (Workspace email accounts) daily emailing limit

Cheapest shared plan highlights: Sending limit: 500 per hour. Limit type: per hosting account. Email accounts allowed: 10 on the cheapest plan, 1,000 on the largest plan. Because GoDaddy’s limit is calculated on a per-Cpanel-account basis, the number of email accounts you create won’t have any bearing on the number of emails you can send – you are still limited to 500 per hour or 12,000 per day.

Web-based GoDaddy email accounts holders can type the prefix “email. ” along with a domain name into a web browser address bar to access a GoDaddy webmail or workspace email account. Limitations for such web-enabled email accounts apply to incoming and outgoing mail size, an email’s total number of recipients and the account’s storage size.

Rackspace email send limits and More!

Know Your Mailing Cap! image is about Shared Hosting Email Sending LimitsHowever, to prevent spam, many web host providers enforce email send rate limits to their customers. The goal of this article is to show you the email send rate limit and options for most popular web host providers, such as GoDaddy, Fast Servers, Hostway, Rackspace, iPowerweb and more.

Gmail has certain email sending limits in place and you are only allowed to send a limited number of email messages per day. If you exceed the daily quota, google may temporarily disable your Gmail account without any warnings and you may have to wait for up to 24 hours before you can regain access to your Gmail mailbox.

Msn Hotmail email send rate limit & restrictions. The following restrictions apply when sending emails from a Hotmail account. Hotmail email send limit – no more than 100 recipients per day. Hotmail other SMTP limits – outgoing messages sent via Hotmail can not exceed 10mb per email (including attachments).

BlueHost Email is Not Unlimited

Bluehost email send rate limit – the default limit is set to 50 emails per hour. The limit may be raised by contacting the Bluehost support team and explaining why you need the send email limit to be lifted.

However, when sending mail from a different address, the original account’s message limits are applied. Rule 5: if you are sending emails through Google script, like in the case of Gmail mail merge, the daily sending limit is 100 recipients per day for free Gmail accounts.

Google Gmail email send rate limit & restrictions. The following restrictions apply when sending emails from a Google Gmail account: Gmail email send limit – no more than 500 recipients per message for the Gmail web interface, or max 100 recipients if you are using an email client software.

DreamHost Email Limit

You have to know this. Especially if you do email outreach. Each email service provider has its own email sending limits. The limits may be daily, hourly, and sometimes also per minute. If you’re sending cold email campaigns without being aware of your email provider’s limits, your email account may get blocked before you know it.

All of this may actually lead to a poor experience for your users, and an increase in support requests for you. I Shared Hosting Email Sending Limits featured image.suspect the new 150mb limit is not due to Microsoft endorsing the use of email for sending big files.

If you’re sending your cold emails using tools like Woodpecker, which sends emails from your own mailbox (your own SMTP), the limits of your email service provider are the ones to keep an eye on when setting up your cold email campaigns.

Yahoo! Mail Plus email sent limit

Yahoo mail other SMTP limits – max 10mb per message for the free yahoo mail service, or 20mb per message for Yahoo! mail plus. Yahoo mail SMTP restriction expiry method – n/a. Lycos mail – email send limits & restrictions.

This can be caused by several things such as. Maximum email numbers per hour: by default, Bluehost limits each customer to send a maximum 150 email per hour. In a day-by-day situation, when sending out business emails, this number won’t be a problem.

Woodpecker does not internally limit the number of emails you send a day, but your provider does. Sending too many emails a day (or sometimes even too many an hour, or a minute) may cause your email account to be blocked, i.

Yandex.mail email sending

Yandex.mail email sending limits also exist like Gmail.com which is limited to a set number of emails/day. However, we also know that the sending limit from a G-Suite account is 2,000 emails/day. So the question becomes: if you’re sending from your g suite account via the g suite SMTP relay, are your limits 2,000 emails/day or 10,000 emails/day? What’s the answer? I don’t know, but we’ll be testing this in our labs and publishing our findings in a future blog post.

Also a maximum of 200 test emails per account in any 24 hours. For most people, the test sending limits are more than adequate however if you reach your sending limits, you now know why 🙂.

Host Gator email sending limit

Per day: I couldn’t find direct info about Bluehost’s daily sending limit. Per hour: Bluehost allows for sending max 150 emails per hour with a frequency of 70 emails per 30 minutes. Additional good-to-know: Bluehost hosting says you can increase the hourly limit once you have a valid reason for doing that.

To see how this works, please see this VBulletin plugin. Email rate throttle in Vbulletin. Additional information:. It should be noted and often is not, that when you see email “limits” (if your host even advertises them) that your regular sending patterns, like replying to your buddy George about tonight’s dinner reservation counts as one email.

A mailing list larger than 5,000 requires a dedicated server or VPS hosting solution from host gator. Dividing the list into smaller ones is not permitted. Such limits shouldn’t worry you, though, as sending such quantity of emails is against the very idea of cold emailing.

What are the email sending limits?

How service providers step in to stop you sending too many emails.You won’t be able to send any kind of email from this account for 24 hours or more. If you know the limits, and set up your delivery time and the number of emails sent daily per campaign according to those limits, your campaigns will be smoothly sent as planned and your emails won’t be considered spam– provided that you’re not sending poor quality content without any personalization whatsoever.

There are several limits to consider when sending an email. These limits include those affecting the number of emails that can be sent as well as the size of the emails (including attachments) that are sent over our network.

Com based on factors, such as. Your email account’s age (if it’s less than 30 days old, your email sending limits are lower). How often you use your outlook. Com account (the more often, the better your reputation gets).

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9 Tips for Online Reputation Management for Doctors

Modern consumers use reviews before using any kind of business. A positive brand identity can be destroyed in just a few strokes by one or two bad reviews. Although you cannot please every patient, you do need to stay on top of your online reputation. Learn more about dealing with online reviews and managing your brand without hiring a full public relations firm.

Reputation Management Tools

What is Internet Reputation Management?

Internet reputation management is about shaping the information that appears online. Specifically, it involves monitoring content that is posted that may damage your brand or personal reputation. Over 92% of consumers use online reviews to judge a brand, which means that anything your patients post about your office or level of care is being used to determine whether to make an appointment with you. Although you can’t prevent unhappy people from posting negative reviews, you can try to solve problems before they become big issues.

How Can I Protect My Online Reputation?

Online reviews aren’t going anywhere. You can’t stick your head in the sand and avoid your online reputation. Many doctors wait until they have an online reputation problem before seeking reputation management.

The time to think about your online reputation is now. Prospective patients are looking for you online.

You can’t afford to ignore your online reviews. Here are some strategies to employ to manage your online reputation without losing focus on patient care.

1. Assess Your Current Reputation

You can’t fix what you don’t know. The first step is to take a look at where you are today. You need to look at what patients are saying about you. Google yourself and check your reviews on Yelp, Healthgrades, RateMDs and Angie’s List, among others. You’ll gain a lot of valuable information. Before you start asking patients for reviews, make sure your office is providing a good experience. If you’ve already got a bad reputation, you may want to hire a management company who can lay a good foundation to change the profile.

Portfolio Personaltouch

2. Launch Your Own Website

A website can be one of the most effective tools in your online reputation management toolkit. You control what goes on your website and can focus on the positives. With good website management, it should be one of the first search items when people look for your practice. It’s the first impression that most patients will get. Start a blog under your name to engage with potential patients. It’s good PR for your practice and your name. Offer to guest post for other businesses. Look for opportunities to have other organizations present your business and link to you. If you have a chamber of commerce or work closely with a non-profit, you can leverage those connections to help your online reputation.

3. Embrace Online Platforms

Your patients are reviewing you, whether your profile is on a particular platform or not. Get one step ahead by completing online profiles to provide information about your expertise, education and specialties. Make sure your office information is up-to-date and consistent with what’s on your website. You’ll need to take a proactive approach to your online reputation to turn the tide in your favor. If you haven’t claimed your Google My Business listing, make sure that is part of your strategy. Think of Google as a business card that needs to be professional. The GMB listing can provide a lot of information about your practice for potential patients at no charge to you.

4. Treat Every Patient as a Potential Reviewer

Every person who comes into your practice can go home satisfied or not. One negative review can go much farther than a positive review. Before you ask patients for reviews, you need to make sure that your customer service is excellent. Every patient deserves respect and compassion. Everything you say could go online. Reputation management is even tougher for healthcare providers because HIPAA limits what you can say. Your patients aren’t bound by the same rules.

8 Ask For Reviews

5. Ask Patients for Reviews

Whether you have hundreds of reviews or just a few, you need to get patients giving you current reviews. Again, you’ll need to be proactive and ask. Many times, people will leave a review if you make it easy for them. However, you should never ask for positive reviews as that can go against the terms of service. You’ll simply need to request that your patient leave a review. Here’s a few suggestions:

  • List a rating site on your appointment card and ask patients to leave a review.
  • Add links to your website for key rating sites to make it easy for patients to click through and review your office.
  • Send snail mail to patients asking for reviews.
  • Add links to your auto-email signature.

6. Monitor and Respond to Reviews

You are going to receive both positive and negative reviews; it’s just a fact that you won’t be able to please everyone. Ideally, you’ll receive more positive than negative reviews. The more positive reviews you get, the less likely people will notice the few negatives. Still, you can’t ignore them. Some rating sites let you respond to reviews. Without violating HIPAA, you can address problems and show prospective patients that your office cares about their experiences. You will have to be creative, but with carefully crafted messages that direct the patient to send you a private message for your office to discuss the situation, you may be able to turn the tide.

7. Do Not Create Fake Reviews or Get Mad at Negativity

Whatever you do, don’t ask family or employees to create fake reviews. This will backfire on you and potentially destroy your reputation. If you have a tarnished reputation, don’t fight fire with fire. You must take the high road when addressing negative press. You can’t sue to remove negative reviews. A Manhattan dentist sued patients for leaving bad reviews. The press reported that he was extorting money. It turned a bad situation into a worse one. Stay calm when addressing negative reviews. Make sure that you listen to valid complaints.

8. Showcase Your Practice

Along with your website, you should be on social media, such as LinkedIn and Facebook. Your social media profiles need to be part of your online reputation management strategy. You will want to post regularly to gain followers. Patients will be looking for information about your practice online.

Your social media presence is a great place to show off your brand and practice. You can include what your business does to support the community, which is always great PR. Use Facebook to demonstrate your expertise by posting seasonal information for your area. Many doctors use social media to combat misinformation by linking to the CDC or other reputable health organizations. You can also use social media for reminders or announcements, i.e. – don’t forget to stop by and get your flu shot.

YouTube is another popular platform that your practice can use to boost engagement with potential customers. Most people don’t realize that YouTube is the second most popular search engine after Google. Younger patients prefer videos. You may be able to reach a new audience by focusing your efforts through YouTube.

Keep your professional social media professional. Don’t let your private life seep through your professional accounts, no matter how seemingly harmless. Set your personal accounts to private. Don’t post personal photos of your home, your family or your fun times on your professional accounts. Watch posting your personal opinions, too. Anything you post online may be online for a long time, even if you delete it. Don’t negate the good you’re doing by being anything but polite and professional online.

9. Hire a Reputation Firm

Online reputation management can take a lot of time and persistence. It goes hand-in-hand with your online presence and content marketing strategy, but it does involve some different tactics.

It can make sense to outsource this aspect of your business. A firm that understands how to use the technology to monitor your reputation can let your practice react quickly to negative reviews or incidents. A good reputation firm can also help your practice identify trends in the industry and can help you get ahead of negative press when you become aware of lawsuits or other problems.

There are many ways to manage your online reputation. Some are bad practices, like leaving fake reviews or buying reviews. Instead of putting your reputation in the hands of an inexperienced practitioner, an online firm that takes a proactive approach can help you avoid problems. You can’t erase bad publicity, but you can put enough positive press around your practice to have some insulation against negative reviews.

Smart Tools for Your Practice

Online reputation management needs to be part of your marketing strategy. Remember that you’re involved in a marathon. It may take a few weeks to start ranking higher in search and to see more positive reviews. If your staff doesn’t have the extra time and knowledge to manage your online reputation, outsource it to BizIQ. We have the tools and experience to help you earn the online reputation you deserve.

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How to Communicate with Your Customers During the COVID-19 Crisis

Nothing beats a friendly smile, a kind word or even a wave when it comes to customer satisfaction. Unfortunately, during the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s nearly impossible to offer your customers any of these things! Many small businesses have shut their doors, and those still open are hiding their friendly smiles behind a protective mask. Businesses need new ways to show their customers they appreciate them, and that they’re listening.

As with most aspects of the pandemic, the solution to small business success is online. Online is where you’ll find new opportunities to communicate with your customers—you just need to know where to start. Here’s a look at some of the most popular communication mediums and how to leverage them for your business. All data courtesy of Sprout Social and Oberlo.

People On Devices

Facebook Icon

Facebook, for the Socialites

  • About 69% of U.S. adults use Facebook daily
  • 83% of women and 75% of men use Facebook
  • More seniors use Facebook each year, along with fewer teens

Facebook gives you the most functionality out of any social platform out there, with an abundance of communication options. Chat with customers in real-time, respond to their comments, exchange messages and more. There are even shop plugins for different ecommerce platforms and tap-to-contact tools for phone and email. Facebook is the gold standard for social communication. It’s the easiest way to open up channels of two-way, direct-to-customer communication. It’s the next best thing to greeting them in person.

Instagram Icon

Instagram, for the Visual Crowd

  • 67% of people 18-29 and 47% of users 30-49 use the platform
  • There are 116 million daily active users in the U.S. alone
  • 39% of people making $30–74k use Instagram

Instagram’s booming popularity is what makes it a must-use platform for brands. Communicate to your customers not only through engaging visual posts, but also through stories and saved stories. There are even options for selling products with tap-to-view and tap-to-buy features. The uncluttered nature and direct delivery of visual messaging is what makes Instagram so effective as an ad platform. People also spend a tremendous amount of time scrolling through Instagram each day, which means plenty of opportunities to engage with people, even if they miss your initial post.

Twitter Icon

Twitter, for the Information-Seekers

  • 48% of Twitter users live in urban or suburban areas
  • 32% of Twitter users have a college degree or higher
  • More than 64.2 million people in the U.S. check Twitter daily

Twitter might not seem like an ideal platform for customer communication—after all, your messages are limited to 288 characters. But twitter has immense, undeniable exposure opportunities, making it a great outreach platform for small businesses. High usership in urban and suburban areas means your customers likely aren’t far from you. Deliver quick-hitter messaging to get plenty of face time with your target audience each day.

Tiktok Logo

TikTok, for the Meme-Lovers

  • 41% of TikTok users are between 16 and 24
  • 56% of TikTok users are male, 44% are female
  • TikTok users spend an average of 52 minutes per day on the app

TikTok exploded in popularity almost overnight and has since become a global phenomenon. What makes this platform so valuable is the learning algorithm that powers it, which is designed to show people more of what they watch in ways that don’t overload the user. This means followers of your brand will see your posts, but not in a way that oversaturates them. Combine that with the fun features TikTok offers and it’s easy to produce appealing content that’s just a few seconds long. Though it lacks two-way communication, TikTok’s popularity makes it a must-use platform for connecting during COVID-19.

Chatbot Icon

Live Chat, for Instant Gratification

  • 51% of consumers are more likely buy from a company offering live chat support
  • 20% of shoppers prefer live chat when contacting a retailer, over email or phone
  • Live chat has a customer satisfaction rating of 85%

There’s no substitute for customer service. If you can’t be there to give someone a great in-person experience, live chat is the next best alternative. LiveChat lets you preserve the human element of the customer experience and can improve a person’s interaction with your brand. Instead of wandering aimlessly with unanswered questions, customers can pop up the chat and get in touch with you instantly. Instead gratification is a powerful tool that can lead to everything from sales to referrals. Just make sure you’re timely with your chatting—prolonged chats or robotic replies will weigh against you.

Newsletters, for Those In-the-Know

  • Email has an unbeatable ROI of as much as $1 spent to $42 earned
  • 80% of small businesses rely on email as a customer retention tool
  • Messages with personalized subject lines get a 50% email open rate.

The age-old way to engage customers, newsletters have been a staple in direct marketing since they were considered printed collateral! During a pandemic, more people are checking their email for information, which means your email is more likely to get read by its recipient if you take the time to make it relevant. While it can be a great sales tool, look at it as a source of information and an opportunity for engagement. Provide up-to-date information about your business, drop some educational tips and maybe include a passive sales pitch. What matters is that people take the time to open and read your newsletters.

Voice Search2

Focus Your Messaging Where Your Customers Are

Whether you choose to maintain an active presence on all these platforms or concentrate your efforts where your key demographics are, online communication needs to be a top priority. A thoughtful comment or a simple emoji are the new wave and smile—at least until the pandemic dies down and doors reopen. For now, get to know your audience in a digital space and communicate with them in the medium where they’re most comfortable.

Remember that quality of quantity is the best approach for meaningful communication. You can send three emails a day, but that doesn’t mean someone will read them. Make your communication meaningful and build relationships through it.

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7 Social Media Changes You Must Make in this COVID-19 World

Rawhide Posts 1Between stay-at-home orders, mask mandates and the general fear accompanying a pandemic, fewer people are willing to venture out into the world right now. For brick-and-mortar small businesses, that means fewer opportunities for face-time with customers. Many small businesses have shut down, and even more face the need to adapt. The solution for both is one you’re already familiar with: social media.

In lieu of face-to-face interactions and in-person experiences, small businesses are leveraging the power of social media to connect with their customers. Posting new products on Instagram and taking phone orders. Tweeting discount codes to encourage customers. Even sharing Facebook funnies to keep people engaged. Social media has become invaluable during COVID-19.

To get the most out of your social platforms in this ‘new normal,’ it’s worth taking a look at how you might improve your online interactions. Here are seven tips from our social experts for how to optimize the social experience for your loyal followers.

1. Update Your Social Profiles

If you plan on doing business via your social platforms, make sure they’re updated with relevant information. Start with your NAP—name, address and phone number. Then, move on to hours of operation, contact methods and any other relevant information that might help people get in contact with you.
Visitors to your social profiles should find consistent information that’s accurate and helpful. Make it as easy as possible for people to interact with you if they so choose to. It’s also wise to go back and clean up your feeds and bios. Get rid of old posts that didn’t perform well or that performed negatively, and keep your about sections relevant.

2. Listen to What Your Customers (and Competitors) Say

One of the simplest ways to make sure you’re a relevant contributor is to put out content people care about. Listen to what your customers and competition say and produce or curate content that aligns with it.

Answer questions. Educate. Provide information. Give people a reason to interact with your content, rather than pass it up as they scroll. Look at your post analytics to see what types of posts get likes, shares and comments. Then, scroll your competitors’ recent posts to see what performed well for them. Use this information to generate better-performing content.

3. Make Your Posts About Your Customers, Not About You

One of the biggest advantages small businesses have is their community roots. Big businesses just can’t relate to the community like a small business can. Use this to your advantage and post content that’s relevant to your community and the people in it.

Make your posts about things your followers care about—things that might affect them personally or that they feel strongly about. Let them know that you care about them, beyond their affiliation with your business or their willingness to spend money with you. Connect with people on social first as individuals, then as followers, then as customers.

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4. Dial-In and Clean Up Your Graphics

Social media is largely a visible platform, which means your graphics need to be on-point at all times. From your profile picture to the top banner on Facebook and Twitter, to every single photo you share on your Instagram feed, your graphics need to be crisp and polished.

Beyond that, make sure your imagery is relevant and, if it’s branded, a good reflection of your business. Avoid generic images or low-quality formats, which can cheapen the visual experience people have. To really take things to the next level, work with a graphic designer to create your own original graphics, stylized specifically for your brand.

5. Try a New Posting Schedule or Post Format

When and what posts have a major impact on what people see and how they react? If your posts haven’t been getting the traction you expect from them lately, switch it up! Try posting some original content instead of another generic meme, or share an infographic instead of another longform article. Use social analytics to see which posts get the most engagement and when they’re posted, then create a posting schedule that’s built on proven successes. It’ll take time, but a data-driven approach like this is one you can use to promote real, measurable increases in engagement.

6. Educate and Connect; Don’t Sell

Too many small businesses use social media as a sales tool. While it can be a valuable selling platform, that’s not its primary function. Social media is about connecting and brand building, as well as developing trust and credibility with your followers. Make sure your posts reflect that. If they’re self-promoting or too heavily weighted in sales messaging, you’ll turn people off. Turn your social feeds into a place that promotes conversation, not direct sales. You might just find that passive brand building creates more sales than active marketing!

7. Repurpose Your Winning Posts

Why reinvent the wheel? Take a look back at the posts that performed the best for you and find a way to reintroduce them into your posting schedule. This goes for any media that’s gotten traction for you in the past—blog posts, YouTube videos, emails, etc. if people responded well to something, it means the message resonated with them. These positive examples shouldn’t go to waste! Alter the presentation without disrupting the core message and you’ll double-down on something you know works.

Social Media Management

Be More Mindful on Social

Put all these suggestions together and it adds up to optimized profiles that are engaging and exciting—profiles people pay attention to. If you’re trying to turn former foot traffic to online impressions, put these tips to work and watch your social media metrics. It won’t be long until you see an uptick and start to enjoy more meaningful interactions with the people who support your business.

Don’t forget, this is foundational brand building work! Even long after the pandemic is over, your efforts to cultivate great social media profiles will pay dividends in the customer relationships you form with people.

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Google Drive Free Storage – Top Tips to Make the Most of Google’s Best Gift

Make no mistake, your Google Drive Free Storage has to be Google’s best gift to everyone online no matter what you do. So use these top tips and make the most of it while it’s free!

On This Page

  1. How to Get 100GB of Free Google Drive Space on a Chromebook
  2. How to get Google Drive unlimited storage
  3. Unlimited Google Drive storage option
  4. How to get unlimited Google Drive storage with a G Suite account
  5. Google Drive PC app shut down
  6. What Is Google Drive, Exactly?
  7. Here’s how much storage is available on your Google Drive, and how to upgrade to Google One for more storage space
  8. How much storage is available on a standard Google Drive
  9. If you want more storage on Google Drive, upgrade to Google One
  10. How to use Google Drive
  11. What is Google Drive? How does it work?
  12. How to upload and download Google Drive files
  13. How to organize and delete files on Google Drive

Drive is more than just a file synchronization service or a suite of office software. Google has bigger plans for it. In addition to its proprietary software, Google offers dozens of third-party applications through Drive. These are apps that let you make diagrams, edit photos, build 3D models, make sketches, and more that at GQ Central we haven’t even tried out yet! Files created within these apps will be saved and synced to your Drive account, just like any Google app.

How to Get 100GB of Free Google Drive Space on a Chromebook

Most Chromebooks come with 100gb of free space on Google drive, but you don’t just get it for logging in to your new Chromebook with your Google account.

Yes. You get 100gb of google drive storage free for two years with all new Chromebooks, but you need to do this.

There are plenty of other Google Drive competitors, too – but not so free. For example, Box, SugarSync, Mozy’s Stash, Apple’s iCloud, Adobe’s  Creative Cloud, Yandex, and Microsoft’s SkyDrive, which recently added for-fee storage tiers and reduced its free space from 25gb to 7gb for new customers. Unless you want to go your own way New Chromebook owners, we recommend that you just go and get your extra Free Google Drive Space!

How to get Google Drive unlimited storage

Image depicting free storage on Google Drive conceptually in the clouds.Although you get unlimited storage for your photos (terms and conditions apply), you “only” get 2 TB maximum to play with via Google Drive on any payment plan.

Get an “Edu” domain email account and you will get unlimited Google Drive Storage. Of course, you need to be a student to have such an e-mail address and if your school/college has allotted you one, make use of it to the fullest your Google Drive free storage by storing as many files as you want on Google Drive.

Unlimited Google Drive storage option

If getting more storage is your ambition, your options break down as follows. If you need a significant amount of storage, the cost of storage between Dropbox vs Google Drive is similar.

Google Drive is the best cloud storage option for high-end use. Personally, while I’ve used all these storage services, google drive is the one I use every day.

Alternative cloud storage options like Dropbox and Google Drive are also available. Apps for Dropbox are available for all platforms and buying an app came with 2 GB of free storage.

How to get unlimited Google Drive storage with a G Suite account

For businesses, with a Drive Enterprise account, they get unlimited storage for $8/active user/month. For businesses, with G Suite account it’s $6/user/month for 30 GB, and other $12 to $25/user/month plans include unlimited storage.

May, 2020 · unlimited google drive storage will cost $60/month with a business G Suite account with 5 users, making it $40/month cheaper than the 10 TB basic Google Drive Plan, saving you $500/year or $2,500 , and by default, Google gives you 15 GB of space to use for everything associated with your account.

Google Drive PC App Shut Down Tip

Here’s a tip which could be important for you. If you plan to use Google Drive as a storage facility for all the photos you take with your phone or tablet, then it is important that you shut off the “sync over metered connections” or “background app refresh” setting from the Google Drive app on your mobile device.

For Macs and Windows PCs, Google offers two apps: backup & sync for use with a personal Google Drive account and Drive File Stream for G Suite accounts.

Once you complete the setup and sync your pc, you see a computers tab in the Google Drive web and mobile app interface.

What Is Google Drive, Exactly?

Typical Query: “Recently I purchased an LG G6 phone. The first time I opened google drive it offered me a free 2-year 100 GB Google Drive promotion.

Google Drive is a free product from Google that’s two products in one. Google Drive is like having your own hard drive that follows you everywhere you have internet access. You can access your files by a web browser, computer, or device. You can store anything! What is more, it is available to anyone right from their Gmail account.

Creative drawing showing free storage on Google Drive as if it was suspended above the earth.Google Drive is a cloud-based program to create and share documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and more. Drive syncs to the cloud so everyone’s always accessing the most up-to-date content, and its sharing features and access controls make working with external ad agencies and vendors simple and secure. This popular cloud-based file storage and word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation software. Google Drive fits into the productivity suite from Google and shows how to navigate the interface. Using Drive helps to organize, sync, and locate your Drive files. It makes it easy to store your own created and edited documents, spreadsheets, presentation slides, and drawings. You can even how to create a form or survey directly in Google Drive.

Install and use the offline Drive client to sync files to your computer. Share files with collaborators and set permissions for viewing, editing and commenting.

Any Google Docs you create, which are stored on your drive, don’t count against that storage limit. I’ll even show you how you can convert your existing Office documents into Google Doc format, saving you room on your drive and giving you benefits, such as sharing your files with other people and working on them together.

If you don’t have one already, you’ll need to get a Google account before proceeding with Drive. It’s free to sign up, and doing so will give you smooth, synchronized access to all of Google’s services.

Here’s how much storage is available on your Google Drive, and how to upgrade to Google One for More Storage Space

You’ll need to pay a fee if you want more than 15 GB of storage, but whether you choose to do so will not affect your ability to use the service. Downloading Google Chrome doesn’t hurt either, given the popular web browser features several extensions and tools that integrate well with Drive. Paid Google storage plans apply to multiple services across Google’s Cloud. For example, adding more storage to your account gives you more space for Gmail, Google Photos, and general file storage in Drive.

For up to 2 TB or you can upgrade your drive space with varying prices.

How much storage is available on a standard Google Drive Free Storage

Google Drive comes as standard, with 15 GB of free space, which is far more than dropbox’s initial free storage offering of just 2gb.

Gdoc file. As a bonus, Google recently announced the availability of 10 GB of storage in Gmail, up from the standard 7 GB “to celebrate the launch of Google Drive.

If you want more storage on Google Drive, upgrade to Google One

You can start out with the included storage amounts available with Onedrive and Google Drive, and then upgrade if you end up needing more storage space at a later time.

While dropbox was the original online storage unit, google drive has quickly caught up, offering more space with its free accounts, access to file creation tools that dropbox just doesn’t have and more upgrade options for additional storage.

When you need more than the 2 GB or 15 GB that Dropbox and Google Drive offer, respectively, you can upgrade to paid storage.

How to use Google Drive

Cartoon illustrating Google Drive free storage conceptually in the clouds.Once you’ve signed up (or logged into your existing account), you can access Drive via your browser or the dedicated mobile app, which is currently available for both Android and iOS.

To upload a document to Drive, click the Upload files button under New or My Drive, and select a file from your computer. Google Drive is great for personal use, but what sets it apart from other cloud services is its powerful collaboration tools. If you need to work remotely with someone on a project, you can share a document with them and make changes together in real-time.

Photos you place in your Google Drive storage will also appear in Google Photos by default.

Drive uses google ai to predict and surface what’s important for you in. Real-time.

Ultimately, cloud computing has increased productivity in businesses with services such as google drive allowing employees to connect through the cloud and work on documents or spreadsheets at the same time.

Downloading Google Chrome doesn’t hurt either, given the popular web browser features several extensions and tools that integrate well with Drive.

What is Google Drive? How does it work?

There is still obvious work to be done on Google Drive for iOS, but I would still recommend it, especially for anyone looking for mobile Google Docs access.

This works for both individual files and entire folders. On mobile devices, it can be more convenient to leave the files in the cloud and just open them when you need them, but there are some situations where you’ll need to find that google drive download button.

Cloud-based services are the future. Google Drive, social networking sites like Facebook, Linkedin, webmail, and many online business applications all are cloud-based services.

How to upload and download Google Drive files

And google drive enables you to share files and folders by inviting others to view or download all the files.

Go to drive. Google. Com. You’ll see “my drive,” which has your files and folders you uploaded or synced, including any Google docs, Google sheets, Google slides, and Google forms you created.

However, you cannot view or edit google forms, or access any of the other files you may have uploaded or saved to drive, E.

How to organize and delete files on Google Drive

Diagram shows the  cloud-computer storage concept.Move: copies files to the target and then delete files from the source. Using Move, users can set a folder in Google Drive for archival, and move older documents to that folder from their drive account.

Tip: When you “trash” files they stay there until you empty the trash manually. So, if you need to release more space always check that you have deleted all unnecessary files still hanging around in your trash box.

Google drive stores more deleted files and has more detailed change trackers. When multiple people are editing, copying, and transferring files, you need a way to keep track of who’s changing what.

Additionally, the Google One app and website are also getting a new storage management tool that makes it easier to view files across Drive, Gmail, and Photos, and delete ones that are no longer needed, making more space.

The post Google Drive Free Storage – Top Tips to Make the Most of Google’s Best Gift appeared first on GQ Central.

How to Get Extra Traffic from Google Through Voice Search

Sci-fi movies like Back to the Future and 2001: A Space Odyssey predicted a lot of crazy things. But they also got one thing right: voice-enabled technology. Instead of walking around a space station talking to Hal, people are querying an Amazon Echo while they cook dinner or asking Siri where the nearest dry cleaner is while they drive. It’s almost ironic that today, more people would rather speak their search queries than talk on the phone with a customer service rep!

This growing reliance on the convenience of voice-search is something small businesses need to take note of. Google processes search queries differently than typed ones, and how your website is optimized might determine whether you show up in voice queries vs. typed searches. Needless to say, it’s time to start optimizing for the former.

Voice Search

Here’s a high-level overview of what small businesses can start doing to make their site more appealing for Google as it processes an increasing volume of voice searches.

Look at Visitor Device Statistics

If your business is set up for Google analytics, navigate to the segment that shows visitor device type. This is a great place to start looking at what technologies people use to visit your website. You might find that 80% of your traffic comes from smartphones or that 63% of your smartphone visitors are iPhone users vs. 27% Android. This knowledge is power, because it shows you what types of devices you need to optimize for. It’s a good baseline for understanding how people find you online.

Optimize Your Content for Semantic Voice Search

A voice query is different from a text query, semantically-speaking. Here’s a look at the same search typed vs. spoken:

  • Typed: “24-hour dry cleaner Austin”
  • Spoken: “Hey Siri, where’s the nearest 24-hour dry cleaner?”

Spoken queries are more structured and complete, and they tend to take the form of a question. This goes back to intent. Voice queries usually happen in real-time. Someone is doing something right now and they need an answer immediately. To make sure they find your site, you need to optimize your content and formulate a reciprocal structure. Simply put: answer questions.

Answering questions not only moves your content higher up in SERPs, your answer might become eligible as a featured snippet. Featured snippets are quick answers to simple questions that appear at the top of search results. They’re part of Google’s move to become an answer provider, rather than a search platform. As voice searchers ask questions, Google provides answers in the form of featured snippets. If the featured snippet comes from your content, expect to see a ton of traffic.

City Page Map

Optimize Your Local Listings

Google has prioritized local search for years now, and they’re continuing to make inroads in providing local solutions to area customers. Small businesses that optimize for local search and directory listings will get favorable treatment for Google as it processes voice search queries.
Again, question and answer play a big part in this. If someone asks their voice assistant for a “dry cleaner near them,” it automatically triggers a local search—the “near me” portion of the search is a dead giveaway. If you’re a dry cleaner in the immediate area of that searcher, Google will show your business first—especially if you’re in requisite local directories.

Local listings also factor into voice search by way of mobile optimization. As mentioned, voice searchers tend to be mobile searchers, asking for answers while they’re on-the-go. This means their current location matters at the point of query. To provide relevant search results, Google will take the location data of the searcher and apply it to aggregated local listings. If your profile is current, expect to get more visibility for proximal searches.

Consider AMP-Friendly Pages

Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) are simplified pages that are lightweight and have rapid load speeds, making them great for loading on smartphones with poor internet connections. Google’s algorithm has shown a preference for AMP when returning results for mobile users.

Sensing a pattern yet? If voice search correlates to mobile and AMP correlates to mobile, it’s reasonable to expect that AMP-friendly content will help you rank better for voice searches! Optimizing your content for semantic search and answers to voice queries is a start—AMP-ing that content is the second, essential step in getting it in front of people. Google’s preference for these pages and for providing featured snippets is a recipe for getting your content to the top of SERPs for mobile, voice-based queries.

Consider Searcher Intent

Intent is everything. If you know what people are searching for, you can do your best to address it specifically. The beauty of voice search is that people will literally tell you what they want. “I need a 24-hour dry cleaner” or “where’s the nearest Mexican restaurant” are intent-backed searches, as opposed to vague strings of typed keywords. Recognizing intent can help your business better-position content that ranks.

For example, if you’re seeing lots of searches for “24-hour dry cleaner,” you might choose to start optimizing content around that concept. Blog posts about “emergency stain removal” or “dry cleaning for third shift” might become popular pieces for your site. Moreover, you might leverage the “24-hour” element into your GMB description or your social media profiles.

When searchers take the time to speak their needs, make sure you’re listening. Then, optimize your content to provide them with answers and solutions. Google will notice, and so will visitors to your site.

Voice Search2

Voice Search is the Next Evolution of Digital Interaction

Amazon has sold more than 100 million Alexa-enabled devices. Apple says that about 500 million people interact with Siri on a regular basis. Voice-enabled search isn’t a thing of the future—it’s something that’s happening right now. Small businesses need to consider the power of tapping into this growing segment of online search to capitalize on the traffic it brings.

Follow the above tips to start optimizing your digital presence for voice search. Every improvement is one step closer to convenience for searchers who prefer to talk their way through a search, rather than type it in.

The post How to Get Extra Traffic from Google Through Voice Search appeared first on BizIQ.

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Google Web Stories WordPress Plugin

On This Page

  1. Google Web Stories WordPress Plugin
  2. Should You Download Web Stories WordPress Plugin?
  3. Why Businesses Can’t Ignore Google AMP Stories
  4. What are AMP Stories?
  5. Why Should You Use AMP Stories?
  6. Examples of Google AMP Stories
  7. Parts of an AMP story
  8. Use AMP to create visual stories on the web.
  9. The benefits of Web Stories
  10. Check out Web Stories on the web

Google Web Stories WordPress Plugin

The plugin is in beta and it does not have all the features. There may be bugs in it. However, it may be useful to create a staging site to familiarize yourself with the plugin and be ready when the full featured plugin becomes available. Google announcement of wordpress plugin https://google. Github. Io/web-stories-wp/beta/ google overview of web stories https://amp. Dev/about/stories/ google developer support page for google web story https://developers. Google. Com/search/docs/guides/enable-web-stories.

In order for google to pick up on the amp version of your articles, you have to modify the code of the article page. The original article must have the following tag, which is an amp canonical tag: if you want all of the amp code you need all from one page, click over to the amp-wp github page and select the “download zip” button. Then, install this code on your wordpress site just like any wordpress plugin. Alternatively, you can also download the following code from amp directly and save it to a file with a. Html extension.

Should You Download Web Stories WordPress Plugin?

To get started, you will need to make sure that you are running the amp wordpress plugin and that you have the latest version of gutenberg installed on your website. You’ll also want to check the “stories” box to enable amp for stories from the amp “general settings”.

google web stories

The google web stories plugin is still in beta testing while they work out the glitches but it’s expected to fully launch later this summer. In the meantime, you can download the web stories plugin directly from their site as a zip file. To upload into wordpress, just go to pluginsaddupload plugin and select the file. Make sure to click activate once you’ve uploaded it. Once it’s installed, you’ll be able to find it in the left-hand sidebar of your wordpress dashboard under “stories”. Here you create new stories and see all of the ones that you’ve already published.

Why Businesses Can’t Ignore Google AMP Stories

Amp was created by google to put mobile first in search engine results pages and across the web. Amp stories are similar to instagram stories , and tons of well-known companies are dominating the internet with them. If you think you can ignore them, you’re wrong. Billions of mobile pages are powered by amps. Those pages load twice as fast as before because javascript code isn’t allowed to slow them down. There are plenty of reasons to use amp stories. They can help improve your storytelling efforts, boost page speeds , improve your site’s creative design, and help seo efforts.

Google is launching a developer preview of something it’s calling “amp stories,” which are two words that only make sense if you’re obsessive about what’s happening with the way we consume content on our phones. So you might be tempted to ignore the whole thing, but don’t. Understanding what’s happening here will get you ready for what could be a major change to how your google search results are going to look later this year. Luckily, the basics are actually pretty simple. We’ll start with the second part, “stories. ” if you’ve been using snapchat, instagram, or any number of facebook properties, you know what a story is. It’s a full-screen display of content you can swipe or tap through.

What are AMP Stories?

Google’s amp stories features allow publishers to create content that is very similar to instagram stories, designed with mobile websites in mind. But the content created with amp doesn’t get added to an app. Instead, it’s placed right in search results pages. Amp is an open-source project that was created in response to the fact that mobile users now spend more time on apps than in websites. 77% of their time, to be exact, according to statista data. With amp, content loads extremely fast, which helps keep mobile users on those pages and off of their apps.

Instead of regular search engine results, users receive a swipeable story that’s easy to navigate. The ux is somewhat similar to the popular dating app, tinder. Amp partners include cnn, mic, wired, the washington post, mashable, and people. Beyond loading at lightning fast speeds, amp stories can also be shared in the same way news articles are shared. Here’s a breakdown of how they work.

Why Should You Use AMP Stories?

Today, javascript can be used on almost any web page to modify any portion of it. But it also slows the loading and rendering of pages. And since page speed is so important (we’ll talk more about that later), that’s something you want to avoid. Amp only allows for asynchronous javascript to run on pages, meaning that the javascript code won’t block any other code present on your site. Javascript written by the webmaster is forbidden on amp stories, and interactive pages must only contain custom amp elements.

Some of your competition is probably consistently using amp. If you aren’t, you might as well be accepting defeat. On the other hand, if you start using amp protocols before your competitors, you’ll differentiate yourself as a frontrunner in your industry. Why? because amp features can help you tell stories, and storytelling is powerful.

Examples of Google AMP Stories

Want to create a better, more engaging experience for mobile visitors to your wordpress site? google web stories help you create unique, “snackable” stories for your mobile visitors. They’re a vertically optimized, swipeable form of storytelling that’s great for people on the go – i’ll show you some examples in the next section. With the new google web stories wordpress plugin, you can easily start using web stories on your wordpress website – no code required. You’ll be able to build your stories using a simple drag-and-drop interface and publish them anywhere on your site.

From the examples on google’s github page , each story will likely use either an image or a video in the background with text laid on top to help grab the attention of viewers though there are no hard rules on how creators can use the plugin. Unlike other wordpress plugins , web stories has taken an almost completely custom approach for creating content within the cms with its own drag-and-drop editor, custom urls and a dashboard for editing stories as well as finding templates. The beta of the plugin also contains eight starter templates to choose from which can be used for beauty, cooking, diy, entertainment, fashion, fitness, travel or well being content.

Parts of an AMP story

Traditional amp content relies solely on text, but the new and improved format includes videos, animation, and images to give users a full experience. For publishers, you can: embed your stories across apps and websites access stories via both desktop and mobile tell stories without needing to have a ton of technical knowledge the best part? amps are free for everyone to try. Let’s examine all of the parts involved in completing an amp story.

There are three parts to an amp story: the story, the page(s), and the layer(s). Huge media sites like cnn are using amps to share breaking news, while other sites are using them to share their long-form or video content. And the reactions to amp are positive overall. Most people are calling it the next big thing of 2018. Publishers love it. To get started creating amp stories, download the code, run a sample page, create your cover page, add more pages and animating elements, create the bookend, and validate your html.

Use AMP to create visual stories on the web.

Web stories immerse your readers in fast-loading full-screen experiences. Easily create visual narratives, with engaging animations and tappable interactions. The web story format (formerly known as amp stories) is free and part of the open web and are available for everyone to try on their websites. They can be shared and embedded across the web without being confined to a closed ecosystem or platform. Web stories provide content publishers with a mobile-focused format for delivering news and information as visually rich, tap-through stories. Web stories offers a robust set of advertising opportunities for advertisers and publishers to reach a unique audience on the web with immersive experiences.

Web stories are built with visually rich media, and whether you utilize pictures, videos or gif assets is up to you. Images and videos expand to visually fill the readers’ screens, providing a smooth and fully engaging experience. Amp allows you to specify the file type to account for the user’s network connection and browser capabilities.

The benefits of Web Stories

The benefits offered by google web stories plugin is on multiple levels. Hence, i have meticulously divided and explained them in 2 categories –.

Now that you have learned about the google web stories plugin for wordpress, it’s time for you to try it for your site. I for one have used it and liked it very much. Not to forget, the benefits and feature-set offered by this plugin is just the cherry on the top. I am quite sure that you will find it very useful. !! however, you must also keep in mind the fact that the plugin may have a few bugs and issues.

Check out Web Stories on the web

The essence of any kind of web story revolves around images used in it. With the help of images, you can create a unique story-telling experience for your readers. Luckily, google web stories plugin for wordpress allows you to either add images from your media library or via directly uploading it. In addition to this, you also have the liberty to include videos and gifs in your web stories. Note – don’t forget to check out the key points to remember while using videos in your stories (mentioned below).

Google web stories are nothing more and nothing less than a new visual narrative data format that google has started to show in usa search results. Their main function is to give users a full screen interactive experience. Here you can see how it is shown in the desktop version, though the data format is made taking into account the mobile version. That is why i want to invite you to check this url from your mobile device so you can judge its content.

did you see the new google web story i created above!!?? i think it’s super cool and is going to be an amazing new tool to help content creators grow their blog traffic. How? let me explain… information consumers are spending less and less time reading traditional content and attention spans are getting shorter creating a need for more easily consumable content. As a result, there has been a shift to creating more “snackable” content as google likes to call it. And google web stories might be the answer.

Formerly known as amp stories, google has released a new version of stories that are delivered as an accelerated mobile page (amp) technology, called web story. This integration with amp is important as it is able to deliver content on mobile devices at lightning speed. Google has noted that next year, changes to the search engine’s algorithm include on-page speed performance creating highly engaging content quickly will play a huge factor.

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How Google Web Stories Work

On This Page

  1. Web Stories for WordPress
  2. Get Ready to Tell Stories on WordPress
  3. Open Web Stories with Google Web Stories Player
  4. Load a Web Story from a publisher’s website
  5. How Google Web Stories work
  6. Google Web Stories WordPress Plugin for More Traffic
  7. What are Google Web Stories?

Web Stories for WordPress

The plugin is in beta and it does not have all the features. There may be bugs in it. However, it may be useful to create a staging site to familiarize yourself with the plugin and be ready when the full-featured plugin becomes available. Google announcement of WordPress plugin https://google. Github. Io/web-stories-wp/beta/ google overview of web stories https://amp. Dev/about/stories/ google developer support page for google web story https://developers. Google. Com/search/docs/guides/enable-web-stories.

To get started, you will need to make sure that you are running the amp WordPress plugin and that you have the latest version of Gutenberg installed on your website. You’ll also want to check the “stories” box to enable amp for stories from the amp “general settings”.

Get Ready to Tell Stories on WordPress

The google web stories plugin is still in beta testing while they work out the glitches but it’s expected to fully launch later this summer. In the meantime, you can download the web stories plugin directly from their site as a zip file. To upload into WordPress, just go to plugins/add upload plugin and select the file. Make sure to click activate once you’ve uploaded it. Once it’s installed, you’ll be able to find it in the left-hand sidebar of your WordPress dashboard under “stories”. Here you create new stories and see all of the ones that you’ve already published.

 

As I already mentioned earlier that Google has released the beta version only right now for public use, but you can actually download it and use it to try it out. Right now, google web stories WordPress plugin is not available in the WordPress repository which is obvious considering it is only a beta version. But you can download it from google’s official GitHub repository where they provide a beta version for everyone to try. Check out google GitHub repository & download the plugin.

Open Web Stories with Google Web Stories Player

Google’s amp stories features allow publishers to create content that is very similar to Instagram stories, designed with mobile websites in mind. But the content created with amp doesn’t get added to an app. Instead, it’s placed right in search results pages. Amp is an open-source project that was created in response to the fact that mobile users now spend more time on apps than on websites. 77% of their time, to be exact, according to Statista data. With amp, content loads extremely fast, which helps keep mobile users on those pages and off of their apps.

That’s google for you: just when you thought you’d mastered all of the popular forms of content, the tech giant starts providing support for an entirely new type of content you can add to your arsenal. At least that’s how WordPress users might see google’s release of the web stories for WordPress plugin, which is currently in open beta. If you’re not familiar with web stories, a type of content that resembles the story format that’s extremely popular on social media, don’t worry. This article will help you catch up on web stories and figure out whether they’re something that should interest you. You’ll learn:.

Load a Web Story from a publisher’s website

Traditional amp content relies solely on text, but the new and improved format includes videos, animation, and images to give users a full experience. For publishers, you can: embed your stories across apps and websites access stories via both desktop and mobile tell stories without needing to have a ton of technical knowledge the best part? amps are free for everyone to try. Let’s examine all of the parts involved in completing an amp story.

Web stories immerse your readers in fast-loading full-screen experiences. Easily create visual narratives, with engaging animations and tappable interactions. The web story format (formerly known as amp stories) is free and part of the open web and are available for everyone to try on their websites. They can be shared and embedded across the web without being confined to a closed ecosystem or platform. Web stories provide content publishers with a mobile-focused format for delivering news and information as visually rich, tap-through stories. Web stories offer a robust set of advertising opportunities for advertisers and publishers to reach a unique audience on the web with immersive experiences.

How Google Web Stories work

Creating a google web story is super easy! first, head over to the app in your WordPress dashboard to create a web story. There are several out of the box templates to work within the dashboard to get you started or you can create your own! add images from your library or upload images that you want to use. Vertical images work best. Your stories can also include video, though they recommend a maximum of 15 seconds. Also, videos must have captions if there is talking so that viewers can read if they are unable to listen.

Web stories is an interesting way to publish content for your WordPress website. Stories look like magazine pages and work as a slider. They even integrate well with the WordPress navigation structure and with Divi’s layouts and modules. They work well with mobile devices. Google’s web stories WordPress plugin looks and feels like graphics editing tools like canva. It’s simple and easy to use. If you’re interested in an easy way to create simple content that looks great and improves your SEO, I recommend taking a look at the web stories WordPress plugin.

Google Web Stories WordPress Plugin for More Traffic

The web stories content and design are a good fit for blog content on WordPress websites. The plugin integrates them into your WordPress website and helps bring in traffic through the web story format. They even help improve your SEO and rank high in google search, google images, google discover, and the google app, making web stories a great way to improve WordPress traffic.

We want to hear from you. Have you tried the google web stories WordPress plugin? let us know about your experience in the comments below. Featured image via jemastock / Shutterstock. Com.

What are Google Web Stories?

It’s no secret that Google will link to amp versions of web pages over traditional ones any time that they’re available because Google prefers them. Because of this, every amp partner has used the feature of the service to suit their strengths. The most commonly known amp adapters were news organizations since they could use amps to get information out quickly and effectively to searchers. Some publishers have even written amp stories over the exact same kinds of content (with the same cover photo):.

Amp was created by Google to put mobile first in search engine results pages and across the web. Amp stories are similar to Instagram Stories , and tons of well-known companies are dominating the internet with them. If you think you can ignore them, you’re wrong. Billions of mobile pages are powered by amps. Those pages load twice as fast as before because javascript code isn’t allowed to slow them down. There are plenty of reasons to use amp stories. They can help improve your storytelling efforts, boost page speeds, improve your site’s creative design, and help SEO efforts.

The benefits offered by google web stories plugin is on multiple levels. Hence, I have meticulously divided and explained them in 2 categories –.

Now that you have learned about the google web stories plugin for WordPress, it’s time for you to try it for your site. I for one have used it and liked it very much. Not to forget, the benefits and feature-set offered by this plugin is just the cherry on the top. I am quite sure that you will find it very useful. !! however, you must also keep in mind the fact that the plugin may have a few bugs and issues.

The post How Google Web Stories Works appeared first on GQ Central.