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BERT

Becoming Friends With BERT: Google’s Latest Search Algorithm Update

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Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (yikes! How about just BERT) is Google’s latest update to its search and SEO empire.  It promises to alter nearly 10% of all search traffic on its engine! While this may sound like the beginning of an SEO apocalypse, don’t break out your bug-out-bag and change your on-site keywords just yet.  What BERT does is remarkable and presents webmasters and site operators with both clarity and opportunity. This is because Google’s BERT is an advanced reader.

Example of words with more than one context that BERT can read.

What Google’s BERT Update Does…and What it Doesn’t Do

Google’s original premise when it came to searching the internet was simple.  Create an intuitive way to find information online. It became clear very quickly that this was too simple.  The best reality is one where someone finds information that they are actually looking for when they type a query into the box and press ‘enter’.  

Even after they invented sophisticated algorithms for ranking and multiple core updates to the process of retrieving the information that people sought, the problem that persisted was always user input.  The ultimate language barrier is having to speak all of them. In human beings, language is innate and nurtured. In machines, nothing is innate. The nuance of how we use context to understand the meaning of a sentence or phrase is very difficult to replicate programmatically.  BERT solves the word puzzle and arrives at context. 

brazil passport

Twisted Context: The Brazilian Traveler

Here is an example given by Google itself.  If a Brazilian is looking for information about how to obtain a visa to go to the United States they may type in “2019 brazil traveler to usa need visa”  

The results without BERT pertain to how an American can obtain a visa to Brazil.  With BERT, we receive the information that was desired which in this case is how a Brazilian would obtain a visa to travel to the United States.

You can see that without BERT, the word ‘to’ is being ignored or misinterpreted.  When we read it, we can guess quickly that the traveler is from Brazil and going to the U.S.A.  If we ignored that word and read the rest in order the last 4 words are “usa need a visa”.  “To” is ignored because it is what’s known as a ‘stop’ word or a word that Google’s search engine generally ignored in the past.  

Previously, Google’s search engine would read each word in order and pick out the keywords and find the most relevant result.  BERT instead searches all the words from both directions looking for relationships that give context to the initial user’s intent.  So all the “stop” words (such as the, a, an, or, of, many, is, etc) will now be used to form appropriate context and deliver more accurate and refined results.   It is actually quite revolutionary.

Will Google’s BERT Destroy My Site Rankings?

Well, the short answer is probably not.  Some of that depends on where your search traffic is coming from or more specifically, what your search traffic typed in to arrive at your website.  Google estimates that 1 in 10 search queries typed into its engine are shown results that are inaccurate given the context of the query. This means that 10% of traffic that is hitting a website due to mislabeled queries will undoubtedly drop off.  The upside to this is two-fold. One, people that are searching for information about the banks of the Missouri for fly fishing probably don’t want to see a bunch of results for all of the financial institutions that exist in the state of Missouri! It isn’t desirable traffic because unless they are giving away free money, the person who just wants to fish probably isn’t going to stay around for long on a bank website.  Two, this update won’t affect shorter search queries.  BERT will focus on long-tail queries in order to provide information in line with the appropriate context so if you’ve consistently ranked for a few keywords in your niche, those rankings will be unaffected.  

In short, while there is nothing overt to worry about with this update, it is worth mentioning that BERT is more of a harbinger of things to come in the world of SEO.  A world that Google created and has been evolving ever since the 1990’s.  

The Very Brief Version of Google Updates

Google has been evolving ever since its inception in the mid-1990’s.  While some updates have caused great upheaval, others have quietly shifted the SEO landscape in a meaningful and harmless way.  There have been hundreds of updates but here are a few that changed your (and your website’s) life.  

  • 2000 – Update adds the concept of page ranking, unofficially starting the concept of SEO
  • 2003 – ‘Florida’ update seeks to end the practice of keyword stuffing
  • 2004 – ‘Austin’ update introduced ‘page relevance’ and continued the crackdown on spammy  SEO practices
  • 2005 – ‘Bourbon’ and ‘Jagger’ updates seek to end link farms, low-quality links, and duplicate content across the web.
  • 2011-2015 ‘Panda’ update demotes content farms and low-quality content.  Improves ability to recognize bad practices.
  • 2012 ‘Penguin’ update continues the assault on keyword stuffing affecting 3% of all queries
  • 2013 ‘Hummingbird’ update allowed for better reading of text and queries 
  • 2015 ‘Mobilgeddon’ update enforces mobile-friendly websites
  • 2018 ‘EAT’ updates concern themselves with Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness
  • 2019 ‘BERT’ update to better understand the context of search queries. 

While nowhere near a complete synopsis of all of the iterations of Google’s magical algorithms, the timeline above shows forward motion in a singular direction.  (for a complete list, check out this excellent timeline of Google updates) All of these updates, over time, align themselves with encouraging websites to showcase exceptional content, user engagement, and SEO with integrity.

What Does Google Say about BERT?

Danny Sullivan, Google’s Search Liaison tweeted “There’s nothing to optimize for with BERT, nor anything for anyone to be rethinking. The fundamentals of us seeking to reward great content remain unchanged.”  

Changes made just before BERT were already beefing up the need for sites to contain quality content, links, layouts and more.  The overarching trend is that if you continue to supply your site with excellent articles, meaningful on-page SEO, and quality links without being spammy about it, you will attain success in Google Search.  

Do Keywords Still Matter?

Yes!  Absolutely!  Keywords and phrases are still king.  If anything, the addition of BERT interpreting context in search queries presents a unique opportunity to go after phrases that sound like conversational speech.  It means that your articles and on-page SEO can be beautiful and easy to read.  

Everything is traveling on a path towards relevancy.  If your content is genuine and polished and your information is accurate and well-presented, your rankings will improve.  BERT is about the world finding what is looking for.  

What Should You Do Next?

Well, Google states that there are 4 main factors to consider as you continue to build content on your website: “Content & quality, expertise, presentation & production, and competitive comparison” 

Here’s what we suggest:

  • Review the overall quality and effectiveness of all page content
  • Make a checklist of areas you could optimize more and places where you have over-optimized
  • Check the quality and language of inbound and outbound links
  • Research the search results for long tail key phrases with stop words and see how you can best utilize them
  • Pour over your Google Analytics site data to gleen new markets and ideas

Most importantly,look at your content with fresh eyes and ask  “does this answer the question being asked and does it answer it in a beautiful way?”. If it doesn’t, then make a few updates  and move forward until the Google Gods decide to once again roll the applecart up on one wheel.  See you on the first page of Google!

Pantone Colors Fall Winter 2019-2020 Core Colors

Pantone Autumn/Winter 2019/2020 Color Palette

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Sometimes, a little inspiration from the experts of color can help guide you in a new direction.

Published for the fashion industry by the Pantone Color Institute, this season’s report features the top 12 stand-out colors, as well as current takes on the four classic neutrals we can expect to see from fashion designers on the runway as they introduce their new autumn/winter collections.

Colors for autumn/winter 2019/20 reflect an emergence of confidence; bold and strong, a visceral palette of colors that are relatable yet display some clever tweaks for the winter season. Expressing our wide-ranging acceptance of color, combinations for Autumn/Winter 2019/2020 suggest a thirst for liberation and a desire to realize our own individualized unique identities.

“Colors for Autumn/Winter 2019-2020 range from easy and sophisticated to strikingly different and unique,” said Leatrice Eiseman, Executive Director of the Pantone Color Institute. “This palette of versatile hues builds a sense of empowerment and confidence, enabling the wearer to choose the colors that best reflect his or her mood and persona.”

About the Autumn/Winter 2019/2020 NYFW Color Palette:

Visceral hues coupled with seasonal core shades create a versatile palette inclusive of the following:

Pantone Colors Fall Winter 2019-2020 1

Pantone Colors Fall Winter 2019-2020 2

Pantone Colors Fall Winter 2019-2020 3

About the Autumn/Winter 2019/2020 Classics:

This season’s core shades are strong enough to stand alone or work equally well as a foundation for distinguishing color contrasts.

Pantone Colors Fall Winter 2019-2020 Core Colors

source: Pantone.com

Apis Productions Psychology of Color

Psychology of Color and Branding

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Colors are everywhere. They can affect our perceptions and the way we react to the world around us. Our brains respond to specific colors differently, and this can influence our mood, behavior and decision-making.

In the world of business and marketing, color psychology plays an important role that goes beyond perception.

The psychology of color has the power to increase conversion rates and establish brand identity. When it comes to branding, the right choice of color can help a brand to stand out from a highly competitive market. Take a look at some of the ways that brands have benefited from implementing color psychology.

Forging a Visual Identity

It is apparent in the way many prominent and popular brands use color to make themselves distinguishable — think about Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, or PayPal.

Each of them has distinct colors that define their brand and sets them apart from their competitors. It is not as easy as it may seem since branding takes more than just picking the brightest and boldest color in the hopes of grabbing the attention of your target market. There is more complex logic behind making good color choices.

Red is the color of excitement, so it is understandably a common choice in food, technology, and transport industries.

Psychology of color brands red

Blue, on the other hand, can communicate security and trust, which is why it is popular in the health care, finance, and energy sectors.

Psychology of color brands Blue

Attracting Your Target Audience

Brands can make use of color to appeal to specific audiences. People react differently to colors; some prefer white and abhor red while others always fall for blue and avoid yellow. Color preferences can be influenced by gender, age and cultural background.

Generally, soft colors like pink and turquoise are attractive to most women. Men choose bolder colors such as blue, green, and black. When it comes to age, bright colors appeal to young audiences while the older generation prefers cooler shades.

Branding is a tricky aspect of marketing. It requires careful consideration of important elements that can make or break your identity. Discover more about the use of color psychology for improving your brand and winning more customers in the info-graphic below.

color-psychology-branding-marketing

Apis Productions Business Intelligence

Business Intelligence: The Wisdom of the Weekly Report

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The business that masters where it has been, is the master of where it will be. A solid business intelligence architecture is the keystone of market success. Today’s world teems with opportunities for any company that wishes to enhance their customers’ experience and expand their marketing footprint towards an even larger audience. While technology dramatically alters the landscape for business owners, it also compliments the core tenet of the most successful enterprises. Know your customer.

Apis Productions Data Collection Then and Now

Data Collection: Then and Now

It wasn’t so long ago that the extent of data that businesses would collect on their customers was limited to what and when they purchased a product or service. Brick and mortars collected personal data in the form of actually meeting their customers day in and day out. Back then, knowing the needs and behaviors of a customer meant literally observing them. While these were friendly times, the ability to share and analyze most of this information was scant.

Today, our online business marketplace allows for an overwhelming amount of information to be processed by marketers and specialists all in the name of knowing your customer. Like spokes in a wheel, every company has data coming in from different sources. From sales to pageviews, email marketing campaigns to Adword and social media campaigns, you’d have to keep your head on a swivel to organize it in real-time. Fortunately, we can keep our eye on the prize and let the tech swivel for us.

Consistent reporting makes any company more productive. Google Analytics alone is used by more than 4 million businesses today with the majority being companies that employ 10-50 people. Competing, from a data perspective, is all about the right tools. So how do we get all this information into one centralized location?

Apis Productions Google Data Studio

The Hub and the Spoke: Making the Wheel Go ‘Round

There is a way to set yourself up for success when it comes to productive data analysis. While many of the tools are free, setting them up in the most efficient manner takes time and planning. With all the free products offered by Google, an easy set up begins with a Google account. Here are some of their essential tools that you should have in your business intelligence arsenal.

  1. Google Account (spoke)

  2. Google Analytics (spoke)

  3. Google Search Console (spoke)

  4. Google Data Studio (hub)

The best report is one in which all the data comes together in a central expression that tells a compelling story. The report is the hub that ties all your data to your core business. The best reports are concise, accurate, and easy to understand at a glance. With tools such as Google Data Studio, we can now bring all that data together in one place to make precise, custom-tailored reports. Let’s look at some examples!

Apis Productions Data Chart

Apis Productions Data Chart

The 3 Second Rule

When you look at a report you should be able to stare at one element and understand what it means in 3 seconds. This is why graphics like charts, pie graphs, heat maps etc. are so useful. Data should be presented without the need to explain it. Not only does this practice make for a more beautiful document, it also allows each member of your team to get on the same page quickly.

Know what Data you want to Collect

Here are some key fluid metrics to consider.

  • Users – How many people are visiting your website every week?

  • Sessions – How many of those users returned?

  • Session Duration – How long are people engaging with your site?

  • Bounce Rate – How many people leave after visiting only one page of your site?

  • AdWord Clicks – How many people have clicked on your google ad?

  • Email Campaigns – Which campaigns received the most click-throughs?

  • Geography – Where in the country and the world are your visitors from?

  • Channels – Are your visitors coming from Facebook? Or from organic search?

  • Devices – Are your visitors finding you on their phones, desktops, or tablets?

  • Revenue – How much money did your customers spend and what did they buy?

This is far from a comprehensive list as it is possible to connect spreadsheets of just about any data to your report. This means that any software you currently use that export data as a csv file can be shared with your centralized report and sent to your inbox on schedule. Let’s talk about that for a moment.

Scheduling Weekly and Monthly Reports

Gone are the days of compiling all your spreadsheets to manually create a status report for your business. The ability to compile information from all these sources is a remarkable convenience in and of itself. The fact that you can have these reports self-update in real-time means that when they are scheduled to go out to everyone on your team, the new data will reflect the current status without you ever having to tell it to.

While your Google Analytics continues to track user events on your website the report remains current. After you save new data into a running spreadsheet, the report remains current. When an email in your campaign is opened, the report remains current. Boom. Your weekly and monthly reports have been automated. Obviously, this saves an enormous amount of time and effort. Now you can focus on the story the data is telling you so that you are prepared for your next update meeting.

Data Analytics Steers the Ship

Data about our business, clients, and customers come from every angle. Some of the information is important and some of it may seem irrelevant. (although, if you think about it long enough, then it all becomes consequential) It’s one thing to know if clients are visiting your services page on your website and quite another thing to know how long they stuck around once they got there. Keeping your customer engaged is proof that you are addressing their needs.

Once you have all of this information, the story begins to tell itself. Where do your company’s goals resonate with your customers’ needs? Where can you be more articulate in your commercial offerings and where are you being too verbose? The answers to these questions always hide in the data. With solid, visual reporting, however, they will emerge from the informational morass and point your team in the right direction.

Customer data really does steer the ship. It allows you to promote and capitalize on the most popular products and services and gives you the information you need to know which ones to ditch or incentivize further. From a website perspective, it allows you to better hone your messaging on pages that are underperforming. It helps you meet the needs of your clients in the most engaging manner. Analytics provides a running scorecard that tells you exactly where you are and where the trend is heading. This is how you avoid the iceberg and sail into more favorable seas.

Use Analytics to Define Your Goals

Once you have your first comprehensive report, you can use this information to set goals for every aspect of your business that you are tracking. Some of the tools mentioned earlier can help with this task. In Google Analytics, for example, your web team can create, set, and track goals concerning how your customer is interacting with your site. For example, you could tell Analytics to record the number of times somebody on your website clicks from one page to another, how often they leave their shopping cart with unpaid items still in it, or whether or not they read your services page. If you are running a promotion, you can track how successful you were at getting customers to click on the banner to check it out.

You can probably see by now that the flexibility of this information system will require some prudence on your part. You want to hone in on what data matters most without leaving any stone unturned. Spending time in the set-up phase asking the right questions will result in better and simpler reporting down the road. After a few reports, and a few tweaks, you’ll have a consistent and reliable weekly report that sheds light on the most important aspects of your business.

Apis Productions Business Intelligence

One Report, Endless Opportunities for Growth

In conclusion, the ability to compile a fresh, easy to understand report on a regular basis will help you steer your business toward a path of consistent growth and impeccable customer engagement. With the right tools and the right team beside you, your compass will always guide you towards a path of success.

Google Search Console Analytics

Google Search Console: Part Two – Analytics

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In part one of our blog relating to the Google Search Console, we showed you how to set up GSC and verify your website. Now, let’s see how to connect Google Search Console to your Google Analytics.

The Google Search Console reports in Analytics provide information about the performance of your organic-search traffic. You can see data like user queries and the number of times your site URLs appear in search results (impressions), along with post-click data about site engagement like bounce rate and e-commerce conversion rate. This combination of data helps you optimize your site for the most profitable traffic.

Before you can see the Search Console reports, you need to:

Add your site and verify it with Search Console.
If you have not yet used Search Console, you need to add your site to Search Console to begin collecting search-query data for the SEO reports in Analytics.
Configure SEO reporting within Analytics.

To see the reports:

Assuming you already have a Google Analytics account, sign into your Google Analytics account, and select the website in your list that you want to connect with your Search Console account. If you don’t have a Google Analtyics account, get one!

Click Admin in the bottom left side.

Navigate-to-the-Admin-Area-of-GA

In the Property column, click “All Products” under the Property Column.

Click-All-Products-in-GA

Then click Add.

add-search-console-settings-connection-to-GA

You can now see the websites in your list. Remember, the URL in the setting for Both Google Search Console and Google Analytics need to be identical.

link-your-GA-site-to-GSC

Select the property with the identical URL and click Save. (You might need to navigate to the Google Analytics, or Google Search console settings to confirm that the URLs are identical.)

your-site-settings-need-to-be-identical

And then click OK.

Now you can access your search console reports under the Acquisition » Search Console » Queries:

Search-Console-Google-Analytics

Based on what types of information you want to view or track, you can choose which reports to view. For an in-depth article how to go about this, see our blog post Track Those Visitors.

Google Search Console Part 1 Apis Productions

Google Search Console: Part One – Setup

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Since Google is the number one search engine in the world, you naturally want to rank high in their SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).

What is Google Search Console (GSC)?

Google Search Console (GSC) tells you everything that you wish to know about your website and the people who visit it daily. For example, how much web traffic you’re attracting, what are people searching for in your site, the kind of platform (mobile, app, desktop) people are using to find you, and more importantly, what makes your site popular.

Who should use Google Search Console?

Anyone with a website! From generalist to specialist, from newbie to advanced, GSC can help you.

Business owners: Even if you won’t be using GSC yourself, you should be aware of it, become familiar with the basics of optimizing your site for search engines, and know what features are available in Google Search.
SEO specialists or marketers: As someone focused on online marketing, GSC will help you monitor your website traffic, optimize your ranking, and make informed decisions about the appearance of your site’s search results. You can use the information in GSC to influence technical decisions for the website and do sophisticated marketing analysis in conjunction with other Google tools like Analytics, Google Trends, and Google Ads.
Site administrators: As a site admin, you care about the healthy operation of your site. GSC lets you easily monitor and in some cases resolve server errors, site load issues, and security issues like hacking and malware. You can also use it to ensure any site maintenance or adjustments you make happen smoothly with respect to search performance.
Web developers: If you are creating the actual markup and/or code for your site, GSC helps you monitor and resolve common issues with markup, such as errors in structured data.

GSC offers tools and reports for the following actions:

  • Confirm that Google can find and crawl your site.
  • Fix indexing problems and request re-indexing of new or updated content.
  • View Google Search traffic data for your site: how often your site appears in Google Search, which search queries show your site, how often searchers click through for those queries, and more.
  • Receive alerts when Google encounters indexing, spam, or other issues on your site.
  • Show you which sites link to your website.
  • Troubleshoot issues for AMP, mobile usability, and other Search features.

How to Use Google Search Console

If you already have a Google account, great! If you don’t, get one. Head on over to the Google Search Console page and sign in.

Now, take a look at these steps and learn how to set up Google Search Console:

Step 1: Add a Search Console Property
Before you can start using Google Search Console you have to add something to track.

Google calls this a property and it can be either a website or an Android app. For this tutorial, we’ll be working with websites.

Click the “Add a property” button near the top of the homepage. Choose “Website”, then type in the name of the property (URL) and click the Add button.

google-search-console-1

Step 2: Verify Ownership

Google needs to make sure you actually own the website you’re trying to set up. You’ll be presented with a few possible methods for this step. The easiest way is with Google Analytics, assuming you have that set up on your site. If you need help with any portion of this step, give us a shout. We’ll be happy to help!

Search_Console_2

If you can’t do it that way and you’re not tech-savvy, the easiest way is probably to choose the HTML tag method. 

Search_Console-3

After selecting the HTML tag option, copy the meta tag provided, then paste it in your SEO plugin in WordPress. We’ve used YOAST as an example. It looks something like this:

Search_Console-6

Click “Save changes”

Next go back to Webmaster Tools and click “Verify.” You should have a confirmation message of a successful verification.

In our next part of the Google Search Console series, we’ll go over sitemaps as well as how to integrate your Google Search Console into Google Analytics so they talk to each other.

 

Google My Business Apis

Take Your Google My Business Listing to the Next Level

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In our last post, we told you about a free platform called Google My Business (GMB). To review some of the basics, check out our article here. 

Make sure you have added all the primary profile elements of your GMB listing (address, business hours, phone number and website address) and then take some time to enhance your listings with photos and a brief description of your business. You can make all those edits and additions from the Info section in your profile. 

GMB Info Section

Now, let’s take your listing to the next level!

Posts

Google My Business (GMB) posts show up in your business’s Knowledge Panel (the right section of a search engine results page on a desktop view or often the top of a mobile view). You can use a Google My Business post to promote your next event, to share information about your latest sale or to cross-promote your most recent blog, just to name a few ideas. There is a seven-day lifespan on GMB posts except for a live event promotion, which will get automatically pulled once your event ends. Space in a GMB post is limited to just 300 words, so make sure you have a clear call-to-action and a catchy headline, and include an eye-catching image to increase your click-through rate. Google My Business Posts

Read more about GMB posts on the official Google page here.

Insights

The insights section of Google My Business shows you how people are finding your business online and provides you with analytics about your listing. There’s some really interesting data here so make sure to check it out. You can see exactly what queries people type into Google to arrive at your listing. You can also see whether your customers used regular Google search to arrive at your GMB listing or if they searched via Google Maps to find your GMB listing.

You can also drill down and see what actions people took on your Google My Business listing such as a visit to your website, a request for directions and calls to your business. Once you see the calls and visits coming directly to your business via your Google My Business, you will be more motivated to enhance your listing! Note: To be able to track activity on your Google My Listing entry within your Google Analytics account, use UTM tracking.

GMB Insights

Reviews

As we all can attest to, reviews are a crucial factor in determining whether we will trust and try out a new business. Multiple platforms and websites are dedicated to eliciting reviews from customers and publishing them online. Google is one of the primary players in the review market, and they have created a set of recommendations for replying to reviews. You can access those here. 

Timeliness is key in responding to reviews. You can set up an email alert to be triggered whenever someone submits a review via your Google My Business listing.

Questions & Answers

In 2018, Google added a Q&A section to GMB listings. Customers can post direct questions about your business and services. Again, you can stay ahead of the conversation and set up to receive an email notification when someone posts a question about your business. Make sure you are getting those notifications by checking in your Settings section. You and your team should reply to questions as quickly as possible.

Messaging

People looking up your company on Google can now directly text you via the GMB app. Once you download the app, you’ll be able to message with customers who are actively viewing your listing. Read more about messaging here.

Bookings

If you operate a business that uses an online booking platform, you may benefit from integrating that platform with GMB’s bookings tool. People typically want to be able to take an action right from the spot on the web where they find info about your business. Read more about how to integrate your booking tool with GMB.

social google places Blog

Keep Your Business Info Up-To-Date

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If you haven’t claimed and verified your business, get started with this link.

Update your business information

When information about your business changes, update it with Google My Business. Keeping your account up-to-date makes sure that Google has the most accurate information to share with potential customers. In some cases, Google may not accept changes if they believe they’re inaccurate.

Here are the types of business information that you can update with Google My Business:

  • Business hours
  • Physical address (If you change your address, you’ll need to complete the verification process again to confirm the new address.)
  • Phone number
  • Category (What kind of business do you run?)
  • Website

You can also add new businesses to Google My Business. 

Add owners and managers to share responsibility

By adding owners and managers to your Google My Business listing, you can delegate responsibility to other members of your staff while keeping ownership of the page.

There are 3 kinds of users:

  • Owners: listing owners have the widest set of privileges and access, and can make high-level administrative decisions like adding other owners and managers or removing the listing from their account. 

  • Manager: a manager can do most of what an owner can do, like edit business information, manage Hangouts (which let you hold video calls with customers), and view Insights about how many people are viewing and interacting with your listing. You might make a trusted staff member a manager of your listing to help keep your information and web presence up-to-date.

  • Site manager: a site manager can interact with customers on behalf of your listing by posting pictures and responding to reviews. Friendly, tech-savvy members of your staff might make good site managers.

A site manager sign-up link can be found in the Business Profile of claimed chain locations on Maps and Search. New users who sign up for Google My Business, as well as existing users who try to access claimed chain listings, can verify as a site manager. The sign-up link makes it easier for franchise owners and store managers to manage listings for locations they own or operate.

Site managers will be verified by Google to make sure their profile data is accurate. Owners can still manage user access through their Google My Business accounts.

When signed in to Google My Business, a site manager can request to upgrade to listing manager or owner of a verified listing. The listing owner can approve or deny the request.

You can remove owners and managers at any time. Learn more about owners and managers

Source: Google

 

 

 

apis blog cta

Call-to-Action Examples that Really Work

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source: HubSpot

Think about all the times you’ve signed up for things in your life. Did you once download Evernote? Dropbox? Spotify? Maybe you’ve even taken a class on General Assembly. Each one of these signups is likely a result of an effective call-to-action (CTA). It’s really important to guide your visitors through the buying journey using strategic CTAs.

Think about it: If you hadn’t been drawn in by the copy or design of the CTA, or been guided so eloquently through your sign-up process, you would probably use a lot fewer apps and websites than you do now.

Here are a few different actions an audience can get called to carry out:

Sign up.
In this type of CTA, the audience might be invited to sign up for a free trial, an online course, a future event, or even a software product. It all depends on the CTAs context on an ad or website.

Subscribe.
This CTA doesn’t commit a person to a purchase. Rather, it invites them to receive updates from the company. “Subscribe” CTAs are common to company blogs, for which the business wants to develop a readership.

Try for free.
Nearly every company website has a free trial offer today. Each of them are CTAs of this variety, and they allow people to demo a product before deciding if it’s worth the cost to them.

Get started.
This CTA can drive a variety of behaviors for a company, from a free trial to virtual reality experience.

Learn more.
Sometimes, all you want is to give your potential customers a little more information so they’re prepared to buy something. That’s what this CTA is for.

Join us.
Do you manage an online community. Is your product built on collaboration between users? You might find yourself placing “join us” CTA somewhere on your website.

The above types of CTA all serve a designated purpose, but keep in mind the language they use can vary. And today, marketers everywhere have put some creative spins on their calls to action to generate the leads their businesses depend on.

These call-to-action examples are broken out into three categories:

  • Simple and effective CTAs
  • CTAs with great call-to-action phrases
  • CTAs that balance multiple buttons on one page

1. Evernote
CTA Button: Sign Up
“Remember Everything.” Visitors can immediately understand that message the moment they land on this page. The design on Evernote’s website makes it super simple for users to see quick benefits of using the app and how to actually sign up to use it. Plus, the green color of the main and secondary CTA buttons is the same green as the headline and the Evernote logo, all of which jump off the page.

evernote-cta

2. Dropbox
CTA Button: Sign up for free
Dropbox has always embraced simple design with a lot of negative space. Even the graphics on their homepage are subtle and simple.

Thanks to that simple design and negative space, the blue “Sign up for free” call-to-action button stands out from everything else on the page. Since the CTA and the Dropbox logo are the same color, it’s easy for the visitor to interpret this CTA as “Sign up for Dropbox.” That’s one effective call-to-action.

dropbox cta

3. OfficeVibe
CTA Button: Subscribe
Here’s a slide-in call-to-action that caught my attention from OfficeVibe. While scrolling through a post on their blog, a banner slid in from the bottom of the page with a call-to-action to subscribe to their blog. The best part? The copy on the slide-in told me I’d be getting tips about how to become a better manager — and the post it appeared on was a post about how to become a better manager. In other words, the offer was something I was already interested in.

office-vibe-pop-up-CTA

4. Netflix
CTA Button: Join Free for a Month
One big fear users have before committing to sign up for something? That it’ll be a pain to cancel their subscription if they end up not liking it. Netflix nips that fear in the bud with the “Cancel anytime” copy right above the “Join Free for a Month” CTA. I’d venture a guess that reassurance alone has boosted signups. Also, you’ll notice again that the red color of the primary and secondary CTAs here match Netflix’s logo color.

netflix-cta

5. Square
CTA Button: Get Started
To achieve effective CTA design, you need to consider more than just the button itself. It’s also super important to consider elements like background color, surrounding images, and surrounding text.

Mindful of these additional design components, the folks at Square used a single image to showcase the simplicity of using their product, where the hovering “Get Started” CTA awaits your click. If you look closely, the color of the credit card in the image and the color of the CTA button match, which helps the viewer connect the dots of what to expect if/when they click.

square-cta

We hope you can see just how important little CTA tweaks can be. It’s a good idea to experiment with your CTAs.

Website Architecture Basics

Website Architecture Basics

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Methods for organizing your content

When building a new website, or redesigning an existing website, it is crucial to start with a review of the content architecture. The success of your website is heavily dependent upon how easy it is to find content and how it is organized.

As part of our series on Website Redesign principles, we’d like to share our methods for how to start what can seem like an overwhelming exercise. And the larger the website, the more daunting this can feel. We have 4 methods we use – 2 are good old pen/paper and the other 2 are digital.

Large Scale Paper & Post It Notes

For the visual thinker, this method is ideal and can easily be used for small as well as larger sites where you need to have an easy process for moving content around. The idea is to use a large sheet of paper for each section of the website. Then put each page title on a sticky note. With the spectrum of colors now available with sticky notes, you can easily color code types of content (i.e. secured content could be identified as a specific color, etc). You now have an easy way to see how your content is structured and if the balance between your sections is logical.

Large Scale Post It Notes

For deeper navigation, you can create sub-levels if needed (note the “Underwriting” section is separated out here):

Notecards

Notecards can be used in a similar way to the post it notes, but can also be helpful for identifying key information on each card such as image ideas, key information, functionality notes, etc. Cards are also ideal when splitting up the project with a team where different team members are managing full sections of the website.

Notecards

Visual Hierarchy

While there are several software programs for this type of visual hierarchy charting, PowerPoint is one of our favorite go-to applications for familiarity and ease of use. Creating a deeper level navigation structure is easily accommodated with this method as well. The options for notating variations and characteristics are endless using these digital tools. Just be sure to create a coding system that is easy to follow (for example, putting the secured pages in a different color box).

Here’s an example:

Visual Hierarchy

Worksheet Content Listing

Regardless of whether or not we use one of the above methods, we always setup a worksheet content listing eventually. While this method is more challenging for visual people to really get a sense of the website layout, it provides a means to record the crucial details. As we build the website pages, we will highlight which pages are completed and ready for our clients to review. Other notes such as whether the page is secured or if there are notes about specific layouts or content are also added.

Here’s an example:

Worksheet Content Listing

 

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