Why Google Glass is Not that Much Impressive Compared to Smart watches
It was in June 2012 that Google introduced its much-hyped Google Glass at the Google I/O Conference, which many industry observers pointed as a ‘beginning’ in developing wearable smart devices. But the internet search giant released it to the developer community in April 2013. Since then, the device has been mired in controversy, but it has also been successfully used in the areas of journalism and medicine. A year later we saw Google stopped its sale and said that it will no longer sell the “current iteration” of its smart glass. In this article, we will look into reasons why Google is not that much impressive compared smart watches introduced by other tech companies such as Motorola, Sony and Apple.
Introduced At the Wrong Time
Before wearable technology to become an inseparable part of our daily life, it needs to come a long way to go. There are many concerns among users, as well as non-users, about how a smart device such as Google Glass can be used in public settings. Here are the few key reasons why this device probably didn’t take off very well.
- Google Glass carried a hefty price tag of $1500
- Initially, Google Glass was available only to a small community of app developers
- Many users of this device found the voice and touch UI more difficult
- Google Glass lasts only three-to-four hours of battery life
According to BBC’s technology correspondent Rory Cellan Jones, he tried out Google Glass and found that the camera on the device “looks OK” but in overall, the device made its users look absurd. In the BBC article, he wrote that Google has tried to present this announcement as just another step in the evolution of an amazing innovation. But he further added that “Google Glass is dead, at least in its present form”. Now the question remains whether the tech giant be able to resurrect it. According to recent news reports, Google has hired Ivy Ross as the design head of Google Glass and she has been given the difficult task of taking that device from the geek crowd to the mainstream.
Challenges Faced By Google’s Smart Glass
Google Glass faced several challenges ever since its launch, in terms of usability and software. One such challenge was that developers chiseled the software and modified Google smart glass to be used for unintended purposes like taking a photo by winking. Also, users often raised issues regarding privacy and the ability of the smart glass wearers to record anything in their view. Due to these issues, casinos, bars and other establishments banned people wearing Google Glass in their premises. Some of the criticisms faced by Google Glass include:
- The image quality is not that good compared to today’s smartphones
- Device wearers often complained of disorientation from viewing a screen in the air
- The device requires constant internet connection via Wi-Fi or a smartphone
- Drivers show poor reaction time when they wear the smart glass
Whether Google Glass Need More Development
It seems that Google is planning to introduce an improved version of its smart glass as the sale of “present iteration” of the glass is put currently on hold. According to experts, there is an ample scope of wearable technology on the market, but it requires to effective marketing campaign at a price point that appeals to a wider set of users. With better features, Google’s smart glass will find real-time application in areas like education, medicine, law enforcement and entertainment.
In an article published on Warracle.net, case studied of Google’s wearable device has seen promising particularly in the sports context. The device is currently being used in case studies for golfers to be able to better judge the elevations, wind speed and distances to the hole all while leaving their hands free from the golf club.
The internet search giant is currently working on apps for its wearable device that would be effective with Google Glass and thereby making it a must-have for customers. Currently, the world is not ready or willing to embrace wearable technology such as Google Glass, but in the near future, we will definitely see an advanced version of Google’s smart glass on many faces.
Google to Rollout New Penalty Algorithm to Track Down Doorway Pages
A Few days ago, Google announced on their official blog site that they are readying up a new algorithm to their doorway classifier to better ‘handle’ doorway pages in their search result pages. In short, the internet search giant does not want to rank doorway pages in their SERPs. For your information, doorway pages are web pages that are created for spamdexing in which the search index of Google or Yahoo search engine is inserted with results for particular phrases with the purpose of sending site visitors to a different web page. They are also known as portal pages, bridge pages, gateway pages, entry pages, jump pages, etc. Google classified these spammy pages under black-hat SEO as they redirect users without their knowledge and use some form of manipulative tactics.
Google’s Latest Stance on Doorway Pages
According to the official blog, Google says that they have been monitoring websites that try to intensify their search visibility without adding any unique, clear value. These ‘black-hat’ SEO campaigns manifest themselves as web pages on a site, as a number of domains, or a combination of that. To improve the quality of search engine results for users Google will soon launch a “ranking adjustment” (or penalty algorithm) to better address these types of spammy pages.
Google will start rolling out the new algorithm update shortly and those websites that have created doorway pages may feel its impact severely after the gradual rollout. Google is asking the question to all webmasters that whether their site has a doorway page. For that, the company has pointed out the following questions for those are having this doubt about their website.
- Even when the content presented on the web page is very specific, whether your web pages are intended to rank for generic search terms yet?
- Are they an integral part of your website’s user experience, or is the purpose of SEO and directing visitors into the actual usable or relevant portion of your website?
- Without creating unique value in content or functionality, are these webpages made solely for drawing affiliate web traffic and sending users along?
- Whether useful aggregations of products, locations or any other items are duplicated, and that already exist on the website for the purpose of capturing more search traffic?
- Does your webpage appear as an “island”, and is that page impossible or difficult to navigate to from other parts of your website? Are links to such a web page from other pages within the website or network of websites created just for search engines?
Google’s new Mobile-friendly Algorithm is Bigger than Penguin or Panda
According to a representative of the Google Webmaster Trends team, Google’s new mobile-friendly ranking algorithm which is readying for launch on April 21st will make an impact on Google’s search engine results which is more than Google Penguin and Google Panda update. She revealed this at the SMX Munich and also added that the new algorithm will make a significant impact on the mobile search results. It is not only impacting the mobile search results and even so, it will have more of an impact than Penguin or Panda algorithm update.
Many industry experts are puzzled by what Google representative just said at the conference. Few of them say that the new algorithm may impact about forty percent of mobile search queries, whereas panda impacted about twelve percent of all queries (in English) and Penguin was closer to four percent of global search queries across desktop and mobile platforms. Others say that across desktop and mobile platforms, the impact will be larger than Penguin and Panda algorithms. We know that the mobile-friendly algorithm only impact mobile search results, so many industry experts assume that Zineb is talking only about the impact only on the mobile search.
Furthermore, she did not disclose the percentage of queries going to be impacted by the Google’s new algorithm. It is believed that about fifty percent of all searches done on Google search engine are on smartphones and tablets. Whatever the case, if you possess a mobile site for your business, then you need to start working on it and optimize it for Google’s new mobile-friendly algorithm and its future updates.
Google Will Start Showing Mobile Apps Ads in Google Play Store
It seems that Google will introduce paid search in Google Play Store as the internet search giant announced via Android Developers Blog (on 26th February) that they are going to launch a pilot program which will allow mobile app developers the ability to promote their apps directly within the Google Play Store. These mobile app ads will initially be made available to advertisers already running search ads on Google search, will also be shown against Google Play search results. That is, these ads won’t appear randomly in other sections of its mobile app store, like category pages are stuffed in the middle of its Top Charts page. Instead, advertisers will be able to bid on advertisements that match a particular search query such as “coupon app” or “hotel app”, for example.
The Advertisers’ mobile app would then appear at the top of the ranked search results returned from Google Play Store, where it looks exactly the same as any other result except for the fact that it will be flagged as an “Ad” that appears under the mobile app’s name. As explained in the blog, Google’s hundred-billion searches each month have an improved content discovery for users and advertisers alike and now the search ads on Google Play will do the same for publishers of mobile apps. Specifically, the pilot program will better allow newcomers and small app developers the chance to compete and gain visibility in an app store that Google claims to have over a million applications.
Pilot Testing of Mobile App Ads
As of now, there are few details being provided as it is only now entering the testing phase of its pilot program. For the time being, the ads will run just in the latest Play Store version on Android-based smartphones, not on tablets or desktop. Also, at first, only a small number of users can actually see the newest ads in their mobile device. It is acknowledged that potential advertisers were chosen automatically and allowed to take part in the pilot program via email, and those who chose to do so are not actually paying for their ads at this time. Instead, the pilot period is meant to allow the app developers and users alike a time to test and provide feedback on a number of things, such as the mix of ads, how many ads are shown in the search results, how many keywords are targeted, and to what extend these Google Play ad campaigns will influence the Top Charts’ algorithms in the future, among other things.
The latter item must be given top priority, as an app developer purchasing app store ads could be very easily boost their downloads at a rate that would otherwise push their mobile app to the top of the Play Store’s charts. But that would not necessarily mean their app had grown popular with users, but rather that they had paid for the visibility and clicks. It will be also interesting to see how the internet search company addresses click fraud in the new store, as competitors may try to consume through each others’ advertisement budgets.
Many industry experts believe that there is no way for advertisers or app users to opt in these testings at present. Google hasn’t revealed how long this testing program will be conducted, nor will it give a broader time-table for a public beta or public launch. It also would not confirm how many advertisers are in the initial pilot testing.
In addition, beyond being the means of choosing advertisers for the trials, there is no connection between search ads on Google search platform and those on Google Play Store at this time. It is unclear if in the future, however, current search advertisers will be given priority to join the advertising program on Google Play when it opens up to more participants.
Also, of interest, Google used the Play Store ads announcement to offer an update on its payouts to Android app developers. Google said in its I/O conference last year that it has paid out five billion dollars to app developers in year prior, and toady it says that number has climbed to seven billion dollars.
Top Five Google AdSense Alternatives for Monetizing Your Website
We know that Google AdWords is the popular ad platform where every business around the world pays money to display its ads in Google search results. It is through Google AdWords the internet search giant earns its major revenue. Instead, if you want to monetize your website by displaying others’ ads, then you can create an account in Google AdSense.
Google AdSense platform delivers Google AdWords to individuals’ websites. Google then pays website owners for the ads displayed on their website based on user clicks on ads or on ad impressions, depending on the type of ad. If you are looking for good alternatives for Google AdSense for monetizing your website, there are many companies that offer services similar to Google AdSense. Also, many of these ad platforms will produce great results when compared to Google’s ad platform. Here are the five alternative ways to generate revenue from your site without relying on Google.
Revenue Hits
Revenue Hits is a performance-based ad network, which means that the company will pay for CPA, CPM and CPC based results. Revenue Hits has an interesting platform that leans from ads so if you give them a try make sure to keep their ads running for two to four days to get the best outcomes. Another important thing to note is that they have different monetization mediums available. Here you can create sliders, banner ads, buttons, pop-unders and many more. The company pays on a NET 30 basis and they issue payments through wire, Payoneer and PayPal. You can create an account in Revenue Hits just in a few minutes.
Adversal.com
Adversal is another great alternative for Google AdSense and they have good banners and the click-through-rate and revenue adapts to get the best results for your website. The ads put up by Adversal are said to be so good and generate good CTRs and many consider it as a worthy replacement of Google AdSense. Adversal works decently with other languages and once you created an account, it will be approved within a nick-of-time and AdSense have Pop under/CPM ads as an option. For the approval of your Adversal account your website needs a minimum of 50,000 page views per month, but they have proven to work really well.
Propeller Ads Media
It is one of the biggest pop-under networks available these days. Propeller Ads began working on 2011 and quickly developed into one of the biggest networks with great CPMs. The ad platform specializes in monetizing websites for videos/movies, entertainment, games, finances, dating, software and more. If you have got of a website under one of these categories, you could make more money with Propeller Ads than compared to Google AdSense. Propeller Ads have also got banners but the pop-unders work better, and if you have got decent mobile internet traffic, this ad platform work very closely with ad networks that monetize apps and mobile services leading to high returns and CPMs. Just like Revenue Hits, Propeller Ads pays on a NET 30 basis and they have a great fill rate for developing countries such as India, South Africa, Brazil, Singapore, etc.
Tribal Fusion
When you hear the name Tribal Fusion you may think that it is a small network, but in reality they are not. The ad platform works on a CPM basis and you need a lot of traffic to get accepted, for instance 500,000 unique visitors to your page per month. This is a great alternative for those working with viral websites or websites that already experiencing huge web traffic surges. There are some other similar ad networks but Tribal Fusion can be considered as one of the best.
BuySellAds
If you are thinking of selling ad spaces on your website but have no clients to claim on, then BuySellAds is the right ad network for you. BuySellAds allows you to sell a space unit to many customers depending on the kind of traffic they really want. So, if your blog site has space for 5 ads, then you can display them here and wait until someone wants to buy your advertisement. While this is revenue making strategy, this can also means that you need a good quantity of online visitors and webpage views if you want to be appealing on BuySellAds. The ad network pays 75 percent of the revenue generated and you can get your payment through PayPal twice a month, without any starting limit.
You can use any one of the above ad platforms if you are have started to feel that your tie-up with Google is not generating enough revenue as you expected. Or, you can switch over to anyone of these networks if you are not comfortable with the stringent guidelines of Google AdSense.
How to Develop a Unique Writing Style for Your Blog Articles
We know that web content development has now much improved due to the influence of SEO and user search experience. Blogging is the most preferred content strategy that most businesses use in their website promotional campaigns. With Panda and Penguin algorithm updates, monitoring Google’s search network, content developers now focus on creating blog articles that are informative, relevant and visually appealing.
When it comes to content developers, some are natural writers and they are able to write an attractive, informational and reader-friendly text in a matter of minutes. There are others who lack that skill and will take more time to develop it. According to industry experts, attractive writing is a matter of talent and with much practice you can also develop it. Here are few valuable suggestions you can use to upgrade the style of your text and set up an interesting blog.
Requires a Lot of Readings
You should read a lot if you want to develop an attractive writing style. Reading blogs, magazines, novels and other publications will inspire you to write your own awesome content. It will teach you how other people make their sentences and build their paragraphs. It teaches you how to use jokes and how to play with language. Finally, lots of reading allows you to create an intuitive feeling about what makes an appealing and readable text.
Making Your Text More Reader-friendly
For making your text more attractive to your audience, you need to make some necessary changes to your writing pattern. For instance, try writing shorter sentences instead of longer ones as long sentences tends to be hard on people who read from a computer/mobile screen. You need to look at the way your sentences are composed. Try to alternate the sequence of words and the grammar of English allows for all kinds of variations in word order. For example, “At Gescis, we provide Penalty Recovery services” can be written as “we provide Penalty Recovery services at Gescis”, but also as “Penalty Recovery services is given at Gescis”. In this way, varying in the composing of your sentences can make your text more attractive. If you tend to use a word very often then try to use synonyms. There are some people who use the word ‘and’ or ‘too’ very often. Rather, they can mix it up with words such as ‘moreover’, ‘also’ or ‘as well’ could make the text that much more attractive.
Use of Metaphors and Expressions
Another great way to ‘spice’ up your text is the use of metaphors and expressions. For instance, if we say ‘someone is cold as ice’, we all know we do not literally mean the person is made of ice. Using expressions or metaphors can make your text clearer and more fun to read. Your audience will instantly understand what you mean, if you use well known metaphors and expressions. Make sure that when your metaphors in your blog post, it does not go too much.
Not all Blogs are Alike
When you are writing a blog post for your website, you need to decide upon whether to make the blog formal or informal. Usually blogging allows for an informal style, however, not all blogs are like and not all bloggers are alike. Many professional bloggers write in an enthusiastic manner, and they change their writing style based on upon blog requirements. They think an enthusiastic style that fits their audience. You need to keep in mind about your brand and your audience and decide upon an informal or formal style to address your readers. So, you need to use a writing style that is suitable to both you and your blog post.
Make Sure Your Text is Any Good
You can ask your friend, colleague, or your neighbor to make sure that your finished text is any good. If someone gives you fair feedback, you will be able to make large improvements in your writing skills. Another way is using a reliable software tool such as the Hemmingway-app which is now available as a free online version. You can put a section of your text in the app, and it analyzes your text immediately. Also, it analyzes, among other things such as whether or not your sentences are too long or too difficult.
When you write for your brand or for general information, you need to give importance to your writing style as it helps making your blog post more interesting, fun, useful, and shareable via social media.
Latest PPC Advertising Trends You Need to Watch Out For in 2015
According to Search Engine Journal, over the course of 2015 PPC advertising industry will witness a variety of changes to the services offered by popular search engines Google and Bing, which will impact their PPC advertising customers around the globe. Many of these changes have to do with shifting trends in the online marketing and paid search industries, in terms of the strategies used by search engine developers and user behavior aspects.
A vital paid search strategy requires constant tuning to be responsive to the rapidly changing market conditions. Those who are not updating themselves about the current developments happening in the PPC industry may actually left behind in the market competition over the coming year. Here are the important PPC advertising trends you need to watch out for in 2015.
Increasing Demanding For Mobile Ad Clicks
With the huge popularity of smartphones and tablets, businesses have started investing on mobile PPC in recent times. Also, with customers in the US spending around 2-3 hours per day on their mobile, content is becoming more optimized for these devices, and online marketers are making huge efforts to attract major chunk of mobile search traffic to their website. According industry experts, it is time for PPC advertisers to get more mobile clicks in 2015 and in the future.
The content in your landing will fail to take advantage of the benefits of mobile marketing if it is not geared up for promoting conversions. When designing pay-per-click ads for mobile internet search, it is important to remember the customer will land on a page in their mobile device’s web browser, which presents unique challenges to advertisers and marketers. To get the most out of the paid search advertising on smartphones and tablets, landing pages should include features that streamline the user’s mobile experience. Most importantly they should be fast, and if a landing page takes too long to load more than a few seconds then user will definitely leave that page. Other important aspects include content that gets straight to the point, clickable phone numbers, short form representations, readable and minimalistic graphic design approach.
Personalization in Ads Targeting Campaigns
It is reported that Bing Ads is set to introduce persona targeting this year which enable PPC advertisers to track the performance of their ads very effectively. Also, it allows PPC advertisers to know about site visitors and how each one of them interacts with it based on some pre-determined parameters. Bing can help paid-search clients retarget their most profitable customers by analyzing how customers use a website, based on measures like what content they access and whether they are returning users.
PPC advertisers can use data from social media to supplement the information from customer interaction and give them a deeper look at their target audience.
Popular social media site Facebook is also launching similar advertising program which allow advertisers a more comprehensive look into the personalities of their target audience. By using Facebook profile data, its advertising program users will be able to focus their ads specific to certain groups of their target audience. This kind of unrestricted access to personal preference and desire information is unprecedented. It offers a whole new limit of opportunity to those paid search advertisers who understand enough to utilize it.
Search is Now More than Just Keywords
Google and Bing are trying hard to improve their search platform by making search results more responsive and thereby better user experience. They accomplish this feat by attempting to understand searcher’s intent as opposed to solely the words in the request. Many industry experts believe this as a beginning of a move towards what Google refers as semantic search. The internet search giant is trying to benefit those websites with the high-quality content and penalize those with ad-centric content. So, advertisers will have to carefully to monitor their keyword density even if they have some importance in this ever-changing SEO landscape. It will also be important to continue to insert links within pieces to make for a more interactive and informational user experience.
There are other trends in PPC advertising trends to watch out for in terms of content, online video and social media. It is up to businesses to choose which type of advertising they want to include in their marketing campaign this year, and how much they are ready to invest.
Do You Need Proof to Show that Email Marketing is a Worthy Strategy
For the past few years, email marketing is taking a back seat as most marketers find it not effective compared to social media marketing and search marketing strategies. Also, they believe that people who receive emails from marketers do not open it as most people think that they are unimportant and not interesting. It is not a deniable fact that social media gets a lot more attention than email marketing. There are those in the online marketing industry who claim that email marketing is no longer effective in customer conversions. But there are some companies which have proven it is wrong and email marketing does have some potential if it is used in the right way. Here are the three real-time examples from some of the reputed email management firms that have utilized its potential.
When Handled Appropriately Email Newsletters will be Effective
Most people say that email newsletters are junk, nothing new and contain only sales information. There are companies which see email newsletters as another tactic to push sales, even though many people sign up for a newsletter are not looking to actively participate or make a purchase decision. This kind of email marketing tactics can often result in low sign-up volumes, high subscriber abandonment rates, and “newsletters” that are light on content.
Garden & Gun which is a popular Southern lifestyle magazine demonstrated in a case study for Emma, which is an email management service provider that email newsletters can be highly effective if it is handled appropriately. The magazine has a diverse readership and it focuses on everything from a Southern heritage and culture to fine dining and trends in agriculture. Also, Garden & Gun magazine and its website have gained a loyal reader community thanks to its quality journalism. As a print publication, the magazine print only six times a year and they use email to stay in touch with their readers and drive more online traffic to their site.
According to Emma, the Southern lifestyle magazine managed to increase its email newsletter readership by 40 percent since the tie-up with Emma three years ago. Before that, the subscriber base of the average newsletter is shrinking 30 percent every year. For Garden & Gun, Talk of the South is a source of their revenue and they were highly targeted and relevant to the magazine’s readership.
Combination of Email Marketing and Social Media Strategy
Just because an email strategy might not be as “cooler” as social media doesn’t mean that both can’t play nice. In fact, combining email strategy with strong social media tactics can be effective as it did for the popular blog site DIY Natural. The blog site founded by Matt Jabs remembers that even in the website’s early days, it was attracting a great deal of traffic, a fact that forced Matt to seriously consider social media for expanding his reader base, and how email strategy could help him in generating revenue from his blog.
Matt said that he combined social media with email marketing, and thereby allowed him to make a transition from a passion project into full time business enterprise. As the site’s traffic and an email list grew, their social media list grows consistently and organically. Their Facebook page has acquired about 80,000 likes and still counting. Matt says that the major factor for the website’s success is their commitment to quality content.
Perfect for Small Business Entities
According to many experts, another stubborn misconception about email marketing is that a business organization needs an entire marketing section for handling effective email campaigns. Those who utterly believe that fact will find it wrong when they look into the success made by a small and family-owned business enterprise Goat Milk Stuff, which make products from goat milk. According Goat Milk Stuff co-founder P J Jonas, email marketing has given a huge boost to their business and the company has grown beyond trade shows and small craft fairs, and their commitment in offering customized and outstanding service to customers.
Jonas along with her husband Jim diligently collected emails during trade shows and they wanted to expand without compromising their company’s approach and family-friendly values. And it seems that email marketing allowed them to do both. Jonas and her husband sent some newsletters where they gave customers an option of which special they wanted, either free shipping or a 20 percent discount. They discovered that some customers always select the discount. So, they utilized this information and altered their specials. Jonas and Jim managed to operate a highly successful email campaigns that offer their customers genuine value while keeping things simple.
If you are a small business owner and want some email marketing ideas to increase your customer base, then you can approach professionals who are good at this and devise a campaign based on your valuable inputs.
