How to Choose the Best Suitable diagram

(Photo by Lukas from Pexels)

In my previous post Diagrammatic Presentation of Data we have discussed different types of diagrams. Now a question may arise in your mind is that how we come to know that which is the suitable diagram in a given situation? Let see how we can answer this.

The choice would primarily depend upon few factors, such as:

1. The Nature of the Data
2. The type of people for whom the diagram is to be made
3. Simple bar diagrams should be used when changes in totals are required to be represented
4. Sub-divided bar diagrams are more useful when changes in totals as well as in components figures are required to be represented
5. Multiple bar diagrams should be used where changes in the absolute values of the component figures are to be emphasized and the overall total is of no importance
6. The multiple and sub-divided bar diagrams are used for not more than four or five components. For more than five components pie diagrams will be the best choice
7. Percentage bar diagrams are better choices when changes in the relative size of component figures are to be displayed
8. The pictogram is admirably suited to the publications of articles in newspapers and magazines or in reports 

Summary

How to Choose the Best Suitable diagram? To answer this question absolutely depends on case to case basis. I tried to give you the best way of representation of data using different types of diagrams.

As always, if you have a question or a suggestion related to the topic covered in this article, please add it as a comment so other readers can benefit from the discussion.

Diagrammatic Presentation of Data

(Photo by Fauxels from Pexels)

If data are presented in the form of diagram, it attracts the reader and it is easy to represent a table data. Diagrammatic presentation helps in quick understanding of data. 

In today's post I will discuss one-dimensional, two-dimensional, pie diagrams, pictogram and cartogram. 

First let us see what are the significance and general rules for constructing the diagrams...

Significance of Diagrammatic Presentation of Data
1. Easy Understanding	2. Attractive Look	3. Greater Memorizing Effect	4. Comparison of Data

	Components of Diagrams
	1. Title of the Diagram	5. Index of Diagram
	2. Size of the Diagram	6. Neat and Clean Diagram
	3. Scale of the Diagram	7. Simple Diagram
	4. Footnotes

Diagrams are categorized under the following heads...

1. One Dimensional Diagrams or Bar Diagrams
1. Simple Bar Diagram
2. Subdivided Bar Diagram
3. Multiple Bar Diagram
4. Percentage Bar Diagram
5. Deviation Bar Diagram
6. Broken Bar Diagram
2. Two Dimensional Diagrams
1. Rectangles
2. Squares
3. Circles
3. Pie Diagrams
4. Pictogram
5. Cartogram

1. One Dimensional Diagrams or Bar Diagrams

Bar diagrams are the most commonly used diagrams. Note: for large number of observations lines may be drawn instead of bars to save space.

Simple Bar Diagram -> If someone has to represent the data based on one variable, then the simple bar diagram can be used. 

Fiscal Year	Average Participation
2010	40,302
2011	44,709
2012	46,609
2013	47,636
2014	46,664
2015	45,767
2016	44,220
2017	42,317
2018	40,776
2019	35,703

This dataset (from Kaggle) focuses on public assistance programs in the United States that provide food, namely SNAP and WIC

The simple bar diagram of the above data is given below:

Subdivided Bar Diagram -> If various components of a variable are to be represented in a single diagram then subdivided bar diagrams are used. Note: If the number of components are more than 10 or 12, the subdivided bar diagrams are not used due to overloaded with information and cannot be compared and understood. 

Cost of grocery items (in INR) month wise	April 2021	May 2021	June 2021
Mustard oil 1 ltr	154	167	177
Atta 5 kg	128	132	137
Gobind Bhog Rice 5 kg	297	304	329
Almond 1 kg	155	167	170
Juice	130	142	147

The data is taken randomly

On the basis of above table required subdivided bar diagram is given below:

Multiple Bar Diagram -> In multiple bar diagrams two or more groups of interrelated data are presented. 

Multiple bar diagram of the above data is given below:

Percentage Bar Diagram -> Subdivided bar diagram drawn on the basis of the percentage of the total is known as percentage bar diagram. 

Percentage diagram of the above data is given below:

Deviation Bar Diagram -> For representing net profits, net loss, net exports, net imports, etc.., the deviation bar diagram is used.

Year	Sale(in %)	Net Profits(in %)
2019	5%	15%
2020	8%	19%
2021	10%	-6%

Deviation bar diagram of the above data is given below:

Broken Bar Diagram -> If large variation exists in the values of certain type of data, i.e. some values are very small and some are very large, then in order to gain space for the smaller bars of the data, the large bar(s) may be presented as broken bar.

2. Two Dimensional Diagrams

In one dimensional diagrams only length of the bar is important and comparison of bars are done on the basis of their length only, while in two dimensional diagrams both length and width of the bars are considered. 

3. Pie Diagrams

Pie diagram (Pie Chart) is used when the requirement of the situation is to know the relationship between whole of the thing and its parts.

Cost of grocery items (in INR) month wise	April 2021
Mustard oil 1 ltr	154
Atta 5 kg	128
Gobind Bhog Rice 5 kg	297
Almond 1 kg	155
Juice	130

Pie diagram of the above data is given below:

For Pictogram and Cartogram we use infographics.

Summary

In this post we have covered diagrammatic presentation of data. We discussed One Dimensional Diagrams or Bar Diagrams, Two Dimensional Diagrams, Pie Diagrams and how to draw different types of diagrams.

To know - How to choose the best suitable diagram read my this post.

As always, if you have a question or a suggestion related to the topic covered in this article, please add it as a comment so other readers can benefit from the discussion.

A Technical SEO Checklist For Ecommerce Website Revamp

Revamping an e-commerce site? Don't lose domain authority or organic search traffic and conversions. This checklist will help you avoid the most common SEO consequences during your reform.

Reshaping an e-commerce site is part of the natural brand progression.

Reforms keep your brand relevant and your message up-to-date can radically improve the user experience and may be necessary to keep up with changing web standards.

At the same time, restructures can result in dumping SEO authority and throwing away organic search traffic.

Collaboration between SEO professionals and web developers is extremely important.

SEO should be a concern throughout the redesign process from beginning to end.

The following technical SEO checklist will help you keep track of the changes made during the remake to prevent pitfalls from happening.

1. Crawling & auditing the existing site

Use a crawling tool like Screaming Frog to get an index of your web pages and various important bits of Metadata that you will want to refer back to throughout the development.

Make sure to save the original crawl report. You will need this information to ensure continuity between your existing e-commerce site and the upcoming version of it.

After you complete your crawl, categorize any of the following issues from within the original crawl report, creating separate tabs in a spreadsheet or separate spreadsheet for each:

• Duplicate page titles, image alt, H1 tags, or meta descriptions
• Missing page titles, image alt, H1 tags, and meta descriptions
• Page titles too short or too long
• Meta descriptions too short or too long
• Links to 404 pages
• Links to 301 pages
• Links to any other 3xx, 4xx, or 5xx status code URLs
• Any inconsistent use of HTTPS vs HTTP or www vs non-www

You have to also:

• Check for a mismatch in the number of URLs crawled by Screaming Frog and the number of URLs indexed by Google. You can find the same by doing a “site:my-site.com” search or through Google Search Console.
• Make sure you have a valid XML sitemap and make a copy of it.
• Ensure you have a valid robots.txt file and make a copy of it.

2. Setting up the test site

In setting up the test site, help the developers to keep the following in mind during their development if required:

• Preferably, the existing site’s crawl report (the original one) should act as a base for the upcoming site. Make a copy of the original crawl report and keep notes of any changes to be made on the redesigned site, especially any URLs that will be altered or removed, inside it.
• Address any issues you faced in auditing the existing site and map the changes to the redesigned site and keep notes in the original site crawl report.
• Make sure that the test site in a non-indexed state from within the robots.txt file. You do not want Google to start exposing your pages on WIP (work is in progress) mode in the search results.
• Make no changes to any of the URL folders and filenames unless absolutely necessary. They should be as close to identical as possible, with exceptions only to deal with discrepancies and web pages you do not want to carry over.
• Any URLs that are changed should have the links (links from within the same website or domain) to them changed. You should also set up .htaccess to redirect the old URLs to their equivalent new ones, but this mustn’t be an excuse to leave the internal links untouched. Links to 301 pages lose Page Authority and create unnecessary server load on top of wasting your crawl budget. Your original site crawl data will tell you about internal linking along with the anchor text. Make note of these modifications in your original crawl report.
• Eliminate any links to pages that you are removing and make note of the changes in the original crawl report.
• If you are combining any of your pages into a larger yet single central resource page, update the internal links on your pages so that they point right to the new resource page, rather than simply redirecting or removing the links. Make note of these changes in the copy of the original site crawl report.
• Do not create “soft 404s” by replacing missing pages with redirects to the homepage or any other irrelevant page. Google has been very clear about the logic for removed pages to display as 404.

3. Crawling & auditing the test version of the site

Do a complete crawl of your test site, again using a tool like Screaming Frog that you used on the existing site. Download and save this as your first test site crawl report.

Start by verifying that all of the issues discovered in crawling the live site are not present in the test site’s crawl data.

Now make a fresh copy of your original site crawl report, having all of the change notes, and do a find and replace operation inside it so that the URLs have the same structure as the test site. For example, replacing https://my-site.com/folder/page with https://test.my-site.com/folder/page. Save this as a testing crawl data file.

Now set the Screaming Frog tool’s crawler to “list mode” and crawl the test site using your testing crawl data file. This will check each URL individually to see if there is a matching page on the upcoming site (i.e., the test site) for every page on the existing site. Download and save this as the final test site crawl report.

To recap, at this point you should have:

• A crawl report of the existing site and a copy that you have made with notes to address any fixes.
• A crawl report of the test site and a copy of that you can edit.
• A testing crawl data file containing your existing site’s URL is edited to match the test site’s URL structure.
• A final test site crawls data file containing the results of checking each individual URL using your testing crawl data file.

You will use all these files to ensure there are no inconsistencies between the new site (i.e., the test site) and the old site (i.e., the existing site) in the following steps.

4. Matching up your content (existing site vs. up coming site)

You will need to take the following steps to ensure that the existing site and the test site line up in the approved manner:

• Address any 404 pages in your final test site crawl report first. If you noted that these pages were being removed entirely, no need to do anything. If you noted that these pages were being moved or merged, you will need to set up redirects in .htaccess. And add these 404 URLs to a spreadsheet of relocated pages; you need to make sure that all internal links to these pages will have to update at a later stage.
• If you encounter any 404 pages in your final test crawl report that are not noted as either removed or relocated, do a search for a matching title tag, meta description, or keywords on the first test site crawl report to see if there are any good matches. If not, verify that the old page is intended to be removed or if it should be present on the upcoming site but is missing accidentally and needs to be added.
• Like 404s, create a spreadsheet of any 301 pages in your final test site crawl report. While the redirects mean that the site should be operational, you will still need to ensure that internal links to these pages are updated at a later stage.
• Verify that there are no duplicate or missing title tags, Meta description tags, image alt, or H1 tags on any of the pages in your final test site crawl report.

5. Prepare redirects for all changed URLs

You will need to pinpoint any URLs that have been reformed that you haven’t yet set up a redirect for:

• Filter out the list of 404 pages from the final test site crawl report.
• Search for the Meta title of the first 404 pages on your original test site crawl. If there is a match, set up a redirect in .htaccess from the old URL to the corresponding new URL.
• Repeat this process for each 404 URL.

If you encounter a 404 on your final test site crawl that doesn’t have a matching Meta title tag, search for keywords or Meta descriptions or any unique identifier that matches.

If there are no matching pages on the upcoming site, note this in your spreadsheet and leave that 404s for the time being. In the next step, you will ensure that no internal links are pointing to these missing pages.

6. Audit internal links

Now it’s time to take care that all of the links on the upcoming site point to the appropriate page.

• You may find it now easier to run one more crawl of your test site after updating .htaccess in step 5 to ensure that all pages are either HTTP status 200 or 301.
• Do a bulk export of all of the links on the site from your crawler tool.
• If any 404 links remain, address them first. If .htaccess was applied correctly, all of the remaining links to 404 pages should be removed.
• You will need to update the links to your 301 pages so that they point to the appropriate page instead of the redirected URL.

7. Finalization & launch the revamped site

By now all crawling issues should be addressed and the upcoming site should be ready for launch, but you will want to run a final crawl before doing so.

There are a few things you will need to verify during the launch process:

• Remove noindex entirely from the test site’s robots.txt during the migration.
• Ensure that .htaccess is operating on the correct URL structure, not the dummy URL structure of the test site.
• Run a final crawl after the launch to ensure that there were no issues in migrating the test site to its live location.
• Re-upload the updated sitemap.xml file to your server.
• Re-upload the updated robots.txt file to your server.

Note: .htaccess is a fantastic way to manage all the redirects but remember that it’s essential to keep it organized, else, your site’s restructuring work will face some serious consequences. If required, consult with an SEO professional for hassle-free site migration.

Conclusion

As I said in the beginning, a collaboration between developers and SEO professionals is critical.

Make sure that you have correct crawl data on the original site as well as the test site throughout the development.

Be as clear as possible with all the stakeholders about what will create issues and what needs to be avoided throughout the reform.

Remember that this checklist is a guide. You will likely end up with a customized one base on your unique project requirement.

Keep a record of which issues have been addressed and which persist.

Nonetheless, this checklist will help you avoid some of the most common consequences brands face during site restructure.

Introduction to Statistics - Types of Data

Hey readers, hope you all are doing safe and strong in COVID-19 pandemic time. Since my post on Introduction to Statistics - Measurement scales and statistical tools, here in my today's post I will describing and summarizing types of data.

What we call data in Statistics - the values of different objects collected in a survey or web services or databases, flat files, other sources such as RSS feeds or recorded values of an experiment over a time period taken together constitute what we call data in Statistics. Each value in the data is known as observation.

Classifying statistical data below,

1. based on the ways of obtaining the data
1. Primary data
2. Secondary data
2. based on the characteristic
1. Quantitative data
2. Qualitative data
3. based on the nature of the characteristic
1. Discrete data
2. Continuous data
4. based on level of measurement
1. Nominal data
2. Ordinal data
3. Interval data
4. Ratio data
5. based on time component
1. Time series data
2. Cross sectional data

Lets get a brief concept of each type of data.

Primary data

Data which are directly collected from the main source by an investigator or survey or questionnaires or agency or by anyone and these people are first to use these data. Primary data example, suppose a class teacher wants to know the mean weight of students from class eight of a particular school. If he collects data related to the weight of each students of class eight of that particular school by contacting each students personally then data so obtained by the class teacher is an example of primary data for the same class teacher.

Secondary data

Secondary data collected by an investigator or survey or questionnaires or agency or by anyone from a source which is already exists. That is, these data were originally collected by an entity or person and has been used by them at least once. And now, these data are going to be used at least second time. Secondary data example, considering the same example as discussed in case of primary data. If the class teacher collects the weight of the students from the record of that particular school, then the data thus obtained is an example of secondary data.

Note: In both the cases (primary data and secondary data) data remain the same, only way of collecting the data differs.

Quantitative data

Data are said to be quantitative data if a numerical quantity is associated with each observation. Here interval or ratio scales are used as a measurement of scale in case of quantitative data. Data based on the following characteristics generally gives quantitative type of data. Such as weight, height, ages, length, area, volume, money, temperature, humidity, size, etc. Quantitative data example, weights in kilogram of students of a class.

Qualitative data

Qualitative data is related to the quality of an object/thing, i.e. if the characteristics or attribute under study is such that it is measured only on the bases of presence/absence then the data thus obtained is known as qualitative data. Nominal and ordinal scales are generally used as a measurement of scale in case of qualitative data. For example, if a company want to do a survey for a newly launched product and if the characteristic under study is 'satisfaction' then the objects can be divided into five categories as Highly satisfied, Satisfied, Neutral, Dissatisfied, Highly dissatisfied.

Discrete data

In discrete data, if the nature of the characteristic under study is such that values of observations may be at most countable between two certain limits then corresponding data are known as discrete data. Discrete data example, number of employee present in an office in a particular day may be 80 or 150 or 500 and so on, but cannot be 80.34, 150.54, 500.67, etc. 

Continuous data

Data are said to be continuous if the measurement of the observations of a characteristic under study may be any real value between two certain limits. Continuous data example, data obtained by measuring weights of the students of a class also form continuous data because weights of students may be 42.676 kg, 39.585 kg, 45.238 kg, etc.

Nominal data

Data collected using nominal scale is called nominal data.

Ordinal data

Similarly data collected using ordinal scale is called ordinal data.

Interval data

Similarly data collected using interval scale is called interval data.

Ratio data

Similarly data collected using ratio scale is called ratio data.

For more details with examples of nominal data, ordinal data, interval data and ratio data follow this post Measurement scales and statistical tools.

Time series data

If the purpose of data collection has its connection with time then it is known as time series data. In time series data, time is one of the main variables and the data collected usually at regular interval of time related to the characteristic(s) under study show how characteristic(s) changes over the time. Time series data example, yearly expenditure of a family on different items for last three years. 

In time series data, if the purpose of the data collection has its connection with geographical location then it is known as Spatial data. For example, number of goals saved by a goalkeeper in different matches in Europa League 2021 versus different teams. 

And if the purpose of the data collection has its connection with both time and geographical location then it is known as Spacio Temporal Data. For example, data related to audience of different matches in Europa League in 2010 and 2018 will be Spacio Temporal Data.

Cross sectional data

Type of data which is collected at one point in time is known as cross sectional data. Cross sectional data example, such as income or expenditure of a family, salaries of all employees of an organization.

Summary

In this article, I reviewed the use and types of data. I also showed different examples. Thanks for reading. I hope this article helped you to understand the use and types of data. We covered classification of statistical data based on the ways of obtaining the data, based on the characteristic, based on the nature of the characteristic, based on level of measurement and based on time component.

As always, if you have a question or a suggestion related to the topic covered in this article, please add it as a comment so other readers can benefit from the discussion.

3 Common PPC Mistakes & How To Avoid Them

Not only beginners make mistakes, here I am sharing a general idea of the most common fails that experienced PPC professionals make and how to avoid them from now on.

Whether you’ve just started with PPC or work in the online ad industry for years, you feel embarrassed about a mistake that you’ve never thought you could make. After all, making mistakes is part of our human nature. But repeating mistakes is not.

Every PPC professional (beginner or expert) is guilt-ridden of making at least one mistake at some point in the ad campaign. Whether it was important or not, it’s good to identify it to make sure you’re not repeating it.

I’ve decided to focus on the most common mistakes you can make when it comes to PPC (as I personally experienced them). So here’s a checklist of the mistakes you need to avoid.

1. Wrong targeting and bidding

An important part of a successful PPC campaign is the right targeting. Just because you have the ideal demography and/or target audience in mind from previous campaigns doesn’t mean that you can guarantee future success.

The wrong audience selection for a particular campaign cannot bring the desired results, that’s why you need to be watchful when setting up your targeting options based on whatever your campaign objective is.

For example, you can limit your audience by selecting to use the option of ‘target and bid’. This option allows you to target the people who are on your retargeting list without wasting your budget on users who wouldn’t meet your criteria. However, it’s common to overlook this approach to use the ‘bid only’ option that can lead to confusing results, from lower traffic to expensive ads to lesser ROI.

Another way to make a targeting error can occur if you’re not excluding the people you don’t want to reach. If you are remarketing to a particular audience and you don’t restrict your options, you risk paying more without seeing the desired outcome. Similarly, if you choose to create multiple audience lists for your remarketing, you may risk reaching the same audience several times, which will increase the overall cost of your campaign.

Solution: Create a plan for your targeting and double-check all the options to ensure that you’re optimizing your audience as planned as possible. Keep an eye on your campaign once it starts to observe the initial results.

2. Wrong use of keywords

Most PPC professionals focus on keywords to find out new opportunities for better ROI. How often do you assess your keyword strategy though?

Commonly, some campaigns perform better than others, but it’s still useful to assess the results.

For example, you may be focusing on keywords that are too broad. This can be a good idea, but it can also a more expensive choice. You can test long-tail keywords as a more economical alternative that can lead to improved results in competitive industries.

Another common mistake is to pay no attention to the use of negative keywords. It’s easy to overlook them, but this can also affect your campaign results. Use them as part of your strategy to filter out the keywords you don’t need to avoid paying for unwanted clicks on your ads.

Last but not least, many businesses forget to bid on their own branded keywords. It may sound puzzling or unnecessary, but if your competitors bid on your brand’s keywords, then you may miss on prospects who were searching your business by using branded keywords.

Solution: Pay close attention to your keyword selections and find the ones that work better for your plans.

3. Inconsistent messaging

A profitable PPC campaign requires a great landing page. However, it’s common to design a landing page independently from the PPC ads, which leads to several possible inconsistencies:

• Design
• Copy
• Focusing on different goals
• Different personas

Your landing page should be an extension of your PPC ads. There needs to be a connection that starts with design and UX and moves to the brand, the messaging, and the KPIs.

For example, you cannot have a successful PPC campaign that focuses on increasing sales without having a landing page that doesn’t facilitate a “buy now” option.

Similarly, you cannot target a millennial without testing your landing page across all devices, especially smartphones.

These mistakes can also adversely affect your Quality Score from Google that has to do with the relevance of your ads and landing pages concerning the selected keywords. This could risk paying more to reach your target audience and it’s a mistake that you don’t want to repeat in the future.

When it comes to messaging, your PPC ads should not trick your target audience to click on something irrelevant to them. You need to create a path that is simply understandable and helps to take the next steps seem logical. It’s about applying psychographic analysis of the user to blend UX and advertising for generating the optimum results.

Solution: The next time you’re about to design a landing page, match it with your crafted PPC ads and ensure that the copy and the design are consistent and relevant to the keywords that you are competing for. Use the landing pages to guide your visitors on a journey that will bring them closer to your campaign objective.

Summing-up

The best way to avoid making common PPC mistakes is to optimize your strategy depending on your requirements. Pay close attention to your goals and adjust the targeting, the bidding, the budget, and your copy accordingly.

What’s key is to understand all the important factors that can damage your PPC campaign’s performance to ensure that you minimize the risks of any possible mistakes.

How Can I Develop My Personal Brand Online?

Recruitment processes are becoming more and more digital and employers are looking for talent online. As a job seeker, it's essential for you to have strong visibility online to get noticed, and eventually, get hired.

So the million-dollar question is now, how can you develop your personal brand online? Here are my top 10 verified tips on how do I made my personal brand stand out to help you kick-start your online journey.

I. Optimize your social media accounts

Each social platform provides you with an opportunity to showcase your personality and achievements. Take some time out to complete your Facebook "About Me" section, Twitter Bio, and LinkedIn profile with details on your education, skills, and interests.

Pro Tip: Take your social to the next level.

II. Start blogging

Blogging is an outstanding way to exhibit your knowledge and position yourself as a subject matter expert. It's a digital record book that highlights your expertise and your passion.

Pro Tip: Improve your blog-writing skills.

III. Your online education

There's no better place to showcase your online certificates than by adding Google or Facebook under the "Education" section of your LinkedIn profile, to help you stand out and attract potential employers. Who knows, an employer may notice your profile even before posting a job advert!

Pro Tip: Check for free courses offered by Google, Facebook, and Twitter, etc.

IV. Participate in online forums

From Wiki Answers and Quora, to LinkedIn and Facebook Groups, to Reddit and Yahoo Answers, participate in online forums and Q&A platforms. This not only helps showcase your expertise but also network with industry experts and build your online reputation.

Pro Tip: Enhance your networking skills.

V. Stay up-to-date

Be it your social media account or online forums, share important stories and talk about the latest news within your industry. Join conversations on Twitter or LinkedIn using the hashtag (#) feature to participate in trending conversations, and blog about current topics.

Pro Tip: Share relevant content.

VI. Build your own website

A website with your own brand name makes an incredible impact on your online visibility. It establishes a single destination where you can add all your accomplishments. Your employer can easily access everything they need to know about you in one place, with one click.

Pro Tip: Contact us.

VII. Make the best use of the internet

Make optimum use of social media by sharing appropriate content to build both your personal and professional profile. For example, if you're a Digital Marketer, use content-based platforms like SlideShare and YouTube to showcase your presentations, infographics, documents, videos and build your fan base.

Pro Tip: Dive into the world of the web community.

VIII. Begin vlogging (video + blogging = vlogging)

Vlogs are blogs in video format where you record videos of your speech or demonstration and publish them. With your knowledge and expertise of your industry, vlogging on popular networks like YouTube allows you to strengthen yourself as a thought leader.

Pro Tip: Expand your understanding of videos.

IX. Cite your work samples

Include your work samples to your professional accounts like LinkedIn to demonstrate your skills and accomplishments. Whenever you add a new job experience, also add pertinent links to your work examples and professionally present them. Add notable work that will showcase the depth of your competencies.

Pro Tip: Learn the art of presentation.

X. Become an authority

 
No matter which platform you choose to boost your online visibility, positioning yourself as a subject-matter expert (SME) is common yet essential for all.

Pro Tip: Start gaining expertise by networking with your peers.

A personal brand is the exclusive combination of talents and experiences that create who you are. It is how you present yourself to the domain. Effective personal branding will distinguish you from the competition and let you build a professional relationship with prospective clients and employers. I hope this will clear you about what is a personal brand and why is it important?

That's all for now. I have shared 10 proven ways on how I have developed my personal brand online. So, good luck to you!

How Do Beginners Start Social Media Marketing?

Hi,

As a social media account manager (in an agency) for local businesses, it might wonder you to hear me say what I’m about to say. However, here it goes:

The truth is that for most small businesses, hiring an agency to handle your social media activities is not your best move.

Here’s why:

In most cases, without advertising (a.k.a. investing money) to support your campaigns, social media marketing generally has the lowest and slowest ROI of all digital marketing efforts. Therefore, it costs a lot to do social media marketing through an agency.

Unless you’re a reputed brand, or already have a dedicated customer base, chances are that there are much better ways for you to be allocating your marketing/advertising budget.

Unlike with SEO and digital PR - where it usually makes more sense cost-wise to hire an agency rather than set up an in-house team - it’s totally possible to manage your social media on a DIY level.

This is especially true if you’re able to train internal resources. Plus, the tools that are required to manage and monitor your social media marketing efforts are much less expensive than in the PR or SEO sphere.

The bottom line is, you might not need an agency to manage your social media marketing. Chances are, you just need the right strategy. That’s why I always try to educate and/or train my social media clients especially those who are reasonable.

If you search the internet, you surely find hundreds of free training manual on the social media marketing from the professionals which explain all of the processes and tools that are useful to manage social media accounts, so that you can get the most out of your social media - all while keeping it in-house and on-budget.

But the reality is, you will never come to know -

• How to use social media to expand your reach and grow your audience
• Best practices for each social channel from the nitty-gritty of what to post and when to use advanced techniques for engaging with influencers
• How to use Twitter as a PR tool to get major media coverage
• How to create, manage, and promote hashtags (and when not to use them)
• How to beat the dreaded Facebook algorithm changes with Facebook Groups
• How to manage and harness communities from LinkedIn to Instagram
• The best tools for measuring ROI
• And MANY more!

And unfortunately, the actuality is no one will share their secret sauce with you for free when you are likely to become their competitor on social media. Do a Google search and formulate/follow a strategy for social media is really valueless and can cost you a lot of money.

So the best way to deal with this crisis is by taking the help of a consultant - a professional social media consultant. That’ll help you achieve your business goals by staying within your budget and stipulated time frame. That way you can channelize the good things towards your goal.

Summary for your memory:

• Selfish prejudice feeds the ego. Don’t point fingers at others and fail to learn from failures. If you don’t know anything, take the help of others where it is required. Too much confidence leads to bad decisions.
• Pessimism makes things seem less fruitful than they are. Do positive thinking exercises and start by taking small steps towards the goal. Don’t let opportunities go for unreasonable fear of loss.
• Fundamental outsourcing work-related error causes us to blame others (read as social media account managers) for their mistakes and external factors for our own. Don’t judge, rather find out the reasons behind slipups used by your niche.
• Gambler’s fallacy is when we draw false assumptions from historical data. Beat this by continually updating your expectations and communicating with your social media manager. Keep a sensible standard that holds to reality. Think forward, not backward.

Good luck!

Partha

What Can You Do With Google Optimize?

Want some proven tactics for getting the most out of Google Optimize? Understanding the power behind a tool like Google Optimize, paired with the fact that Google Optimize only makes things easier, is a great way to see what’s working on your website, and what’s not, so you can continue to grow and improve.

In this post, I’ll share some easy-to-follow tips for getting the most out of Google Optimize so you can make the best A/B tests possible for your website.

1. Understanding the role of Google Optimize

You may not know what Google Optimize is, or fully understand what it’s used for. But to get the most out of what it offers website owners, even those with no website development skills, it’s critical to have at least a basic understanding of it.

Google Optimize is a free A/B testing and customization tool brought to you by Google to help you decide what’s working on your website, and what’s not.

It’s built right on top of Google Analytics so anything you do with Google Optimize can be seen easily in your Analytics dashboard. So you can easily create A/B tests for your website hassle-free through it.

Google Optimize is perfect for small to medium-sized businesses looking to make factual changes to the website pages and grow their conversion rates and overall visitor satisfaction and doesn’t require a ton of know-how.

If you want to boost sales and create better content for loyal followers, you’ll ask your webmaster/online marketing team to set up Google Optimize on your website and get started with it right away.

In fact, if you need help, on how to use Google Optimize to run A/B tests for free on your website, just post a comment on this blog with your contact details. I will get in touch with you accordingly.

Okay, now that you understood that Google Optimize is important, let’s begin with how to make it work for you and your business.

2. Lookout for the correct data sample size

If you’re going to run A/B tests on your website using Google Optimize, make sure you have enough site traffic coming to the landing page you want to test. This is the only way you’ll get the most accurate results.

You don’t want to spend time making changes to a web page (unless absolutely necessary) that most site visitors, no matter where they come from - direct traffic, organic search results, pay-per-click ads, social media referrals, or even affiliate programs - don’t visit often.

The key is to target web pages with high traffic volume that have the potential to bring you lots of conversions.

To do this, log into your Google Analytics accounts and go to Behavior » Site Content » Landing Pages.

Here, you’ll see a list of all your web pages through which visitors entered your site and helpful data such as the number of sessions, average session duration, conversion rate, and even bounce rates. To see which pages have the most traffic, just set a date range and see which one gets the most traffic.

You can also use Optimizely’s sample size calculator to start with. Put in your current conversion rate, plus the increase you want to see and see how many pageviews your landing page needs to get to acquire reliable results.

3. Assess the right things

The point of conducting A/B tests using Google Optimize is to take certain decisions easier for you and find out ways you can get more conversions. But there’s more to split testing than randomly choosing an element to modify and measuring how it affects on site’s visitors' behavior.

Google themselves recommends never changing the overall meaning of your site’s landing page to see what ups and downs happen. In fact, they use the following example: Your variant pages should maintain the spirit of the content on your original pages. The variants shouldn't change the meaning of, or users’ general perception of, the original content. For example, it is considered abusive if a page focused on higher education programs is modified to appear as a casino membership program sign-up page to some users.

This will confuse site visitors, get you varied results, and start segmenting your audience in a way that does not solve the purpose of doing an A/B test.

Not to mention, it's bad practice to “cloak” one web page as something entirely different in an effort to boost your SEO rankings.

It’s best to keep the page variants you test similar in nature but diverse enough to make a difference in site visitor behavior.

Some of the most common A/B testing ideas you can consider to boost conversions:

• Are your visitors not scrolling down enough on your long landing page? Then, you might test using a video on a small landing page against a long web page.
• Add a live chat option to your checkout pages to see if it generates more revenue.
• Test whether validating your form fields will help generate more sales-qualified leads.

4. Use Google Optimize for pay-per-click campaigns

It is typically suggested that you only test one page element at a time. That way you always know exactly what’s happening on each landing page and which version of the page variants site visitors like the most.

However, Google Optimize is great for running a lesser-known A/B test type on your website called multivariate test.

This type of split testing is preferable when you test multiple elements on one landing page to see which version of your web page converts the most. It also shows you exactly how people interact with your website page once they land on it.

Landing pages usually have clearly defined calls to action, minimal page elements for tracking user behavior easily. This makes creating the test and seeing the results, easier to do. Even if you need to change several elements onto the page.

For example, test things like:

• Form lengths and their corresponding labels
• Images and their arrangements or positions
• Headline copy and length
• Calls to action buttons, shape, copy, and colors

If you are really serious about your Google Optimize A/B testing and plan to do split testing continues to make improvements, consider setting up some landing page best practices based on test results that you and/or your team can follow every time you create a new landing page.

Lastly, remember that the more elements you test at once, the longer you’ll need to run the Google Optimize test to make sure you get the best chance to validate the results. As a rule of thumb, you should aim to test between 2 and 4 variants at a time to maintain a good balance in your optimization process.

5. Test on desktop first

You know that having a mobile-friendly website is now a must these days. But for those just starting out with Google Optimize and A/B testing, it can be easier to emphasize on desktop screens first.

When you start making changes to your site’s landing pages, chances are likely that the mobile version is going to get a little messy especially if you do not have much idea about responsive web design.

For example, some of you still operating different versions of websites for mobile and desktop devices.

If you want to avoid dealing with this fiasco at first, then try finding out how people on desktops react to your changes on to the landing page, and target the A/B test towards desktop users only.

Then, if you find positive results from the changes, go back and change the mobile version to match.

Exceptions are, if your website audiences predominantly are coming through mobile devices, then target A/B test towards mobile users only.

6. Don’t make changes during an ongoing test

One of the biggest mistakes you can make while A/B testing is changing things (i.e., the test case design) halfway through the test.

It’s easy to get excited about the early diagnosis of the results. And it’s tempting to want to apply those findings right away and start testing new/modified ideas that you have.

If you don’t get the optimum testing duration and start making changes too early, you’ll end up adding variants to your test which may twist the results. There’ll be no way to know which changes in elements are having a positive effect on website visitors, which are turning them away, and which are irrelevant.

7. Never stop experimenting

Okay, so you’ve successfully run your A/B test using Google Optimize and you have a clear direction - what worked and what not!

But don’t stop there.

Once you know what works on your website, and what people are looking for once they land on your page, you can start focusing on new A/B tests to see if you can fine-tune things for an even better outcome. Just be sure to record your analysis so you can keep track of changes, results, and site data.

And don’t worry if your test doesn’t produce positive results. That’s okay!

In fact, many experts, confirm that only 1 in 6-8 A/B tests actually produce significant results.

That’s the reason we A/B test, and like doing so with an easy-to-use tool like Google Optimize, that works seamlessly with any online businesses. When you find something that doesn’t work, you just make changes and try again. Eventually, you’ll succeed. Having said that, remember to apply your logic while conducting tests and don't overdo anything.  

And there you have it! You now have some tested strategies for making the most out of Google Optimize.

If you want to run an A/B test that involves 2 separate landing pages to see which one converts the highest, try out a redirect test using Google Optimize.

Let me know if you’ve found some exceptional ways to encourage people to convert, be sure to share your experience by commenting on this post that is sure to get people to take action.

And don’t forget to follow this blog for more helpful Google Analytics tips.