Are you planning your content marketing strategy?  If yes, SEO is the primary objective. Expert marketers work in a way that’s something like this –they have an SEO plan, a list of premium keywords, they start to blog actively and have the website optimized. There’s also a plan for on and off page SEO. The majority of marketers don’t find this to be a problem.

Time, however, is a concern. Also, the weekly tracking often makes you guess, cross your fingers, pray and also consult informative blogs to learn about the advanced SEO trends and tricks. Maximizing leads and high-end website visits are essential. Hence, your content marketing plan requires some help. Also, if you get to see that your competitors and other market players are ranking above you, then there’s work that you need to do.

One thing that you should also consider is going through an audit – you can even use a free SEO audit tool. That will help to keep you on the right track during this process.

So, do you want to improve your website ranking and outshine your competitors? If yes, you can refer to the seven useful SEO tips discussed below.

1. Carry out a competitor analysis

The strongest SEO tactics to increase your website ranks is conducting extensive competitor analysis and research. The first step is to recognize the principal competitors, either through geography, industry, keywords or any other essential aspects. An in-depth analysis will enable you to discern areas where your competitor is doing better than you. It will help you know your weakness. Any competitor analysis that you conduct should include the following activities:

• Keyword analysis
• Content analysis
• Link building analysis

Additionally, tools such as Ahrefs, SpyFu, and SEMrush are useful in website optimization.

2. Evaluate your back-links

Back-links are an essential aspect of a sound SEO strategy. But not every back-link is equally created. Few links will naturally perform better than the rest. Hence, managing performance is essential. It is useful in narrowing down on many other kinds of back-links that are important. Alternatively, you can also understand the websites that are essential for generating high-end traffic.

Are there a few links that are not adding value to the search ranks? If yes, then it is essential to do away with these links. You can use tools such as Aherfs and Majestic that are useful in conducting an in-depth back-link analysis for the website. Want to get professional assistance on this? You can reach out to names like LA SEO Kotton Grammer if you are in Los Angeles and others, to have access to expert guidance.

3. Mobile optimization

The mobile search market is expanding rapidly. Also, marketers have been anticipating for long that mobile might become more impactful than desktops. Back in 2017, mobile took the lead. Today, it records for over a half of global web traffic.

There have been several criterions for mobile development. It is not just essential for websites to look decent. Sites also need to load quickly; else the online visitors will bounce off to other websites. Opting for a stripped-down version of HTML, Google asserts that the AMP optimized web pages generally load 85% faster. Hence, if your site is not optimized for mobile, it’s crucial that you do it today.

4. Make use of a safe HTTP

When you shift to Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) for encryption, you automatically witness many advantages. Some of them are listed below:

• Privacy and security: By securing communications between servers and users, the scopes for third party damage or interference reduce significantly. The outcome is high trust from both web browsers and users. And you get to see the warning signs when you browse through the non-HTTPS sites.
• Enhanced rankings: With the growing trustworthiness, the majority of websites that have shifted to HTTPS will witness an increase in their search ranks. You can also expect to see a vast number of traffic and referrals gradually. Google recommends secure sites more than the others.

According to statistic, after mid-2017 about 31% of web domain has shifted to HTTPS. And this number has been increasing ever since. It is because secure communication protocols are becoming significant around the globe. Right after you shift to HTTPS, there might be a dip in the search result performance and site rank. It is because of the modifications you make to the URL base. It is for a short span of time, and you’ll witness increased website ranks soon.

5. Optimize the web page speed

The internet speed has increased. Hence, there are high expectations concerning the website performance from all the mainstream users. Based on a study by Adobe, about 40% of the users are going to move away from a website if it takes excess time to load.

Want to boost the website loading time? There’s a lot you can do for the same for example choosing the fastest web hosting provider out there so that your server-side related loading speeds are top notch. And the majority of this is easy to implement. For instance, resort to high-compression for your pictures to minimize the load time. You might also want to make use of a Content Delivery Network (CDN), which enables your global users to have access to your web content.

6. Voice search optimization

As you attempt to optimize mobile devices, incorporating a better voice search functionality is a smart call. The primary objective of the same is to concentrate on the voice search that is the source for “Featured Snippet” as Siri, Google Assistant, and Alexa that will read out data from the sources.

7. Making use of structured data

The website crawlers have gotten more advanced and gained expertise over the years. However, what is apparent to a human user is entirely vague to a machine. The outcome is, occasionally, the site crawlers might make mistakes or overlook a data when your website is indexed. The solution, therefore, is to make use of structured data.

Making use of structured data is formatting your site code to an identical layout. When the search engine crawlers index your website, they will be able to gather precious information. It is because it got designed in the expected format.

The online market space is getting flooded with new companies and brands every day. Every company wants their brand to outshine the other market players. Everyone wants to experience increased website ranks. And to be able to witness this consistently needs serious work. You can opt-in for the above-discussed SEO tactics that are tried and tested and are meant to enhance the website rankings.

Product development and design are essential for ensuring that you can actually produce and sell the products you make. Oftentimes, products are designed and produced in a way to maximize quality. In order to achieve that, tight tolerances are focused on during the development process. What exactly are tight tolerances in product development? Tolerances are variables in the design, usually concerning the dimensions of a specific product.

In layman’s terms, it’s a plus or minus here and there that are allowed in product design. Tolerances influence the overall design of the products, as well as its manufacturing and quality control. In some cases, tight tolerances are absolutely necessary to ensure that the product can perform appropriately. However, strictly leveraging tight tolerances isn’t mandatory in every case. What’s more, they will only increase the production costs. Therefore, here’s how increasing design tolerance can actually cut costs.

Determine the functionality of a product

The functionality of a product determines how it will be designed and produced. In some cases, tolerances of even a single decimal can mean the difference between a functioning product and a failed one. That is only the case if product functionality depends on tight tolerances. However, materials used in the manufacturing process also play a role in determining acceptable tolerances in product design. In other words, not every part of the product needs tight tolerances, but in most cases, the entire product is based on strict requirements.

For instance, a product with a certain number of components requires a tolerance of ±0.001 because there’s a specific way component must fit together. But, a separate part is also automatically specified using the same tolerances, even if the part does not interact with the others or may not need the same tolerances. That’s why it’s important to determine the functionality of the product and which component – if any – requires a tight tolerance to function.

Consult with a manufacturer

Creating a product design eventually comes down to tolerances that are numbers on paper. You may think that those tolerances are absolutely necessary, even if that’s not the case. Tolerances are influenced by the materials used in production, how they’re made during manufacturing and the sensitivity of product features to variations in design. That’s why it’s important to have an experienced manufacturer on board that can help you determine if there’s room to increase the design tolerance or not.

For example, if you’re developing a design for electrical components, you should consult with an electronics manufacturer. That way, a manufacturer can go over your design and help you determine the acceptable increases intolerances to help you cut costs. Electronics are produced by the IPC (Association Connecting Electronics Industries) standards which allow certain tolerances in product design. Your manufacturer will know how to best implement those tolerances, without compromising the product’s functionality and quality.

Understand the costs of tight tolerances

As mentioned before, product developers and designers focus on tight tolerances in order to ensure product quality. The reality is that tight tolerances do not always influence quality, but they are always expensive to implement. You need to consider these costs before insisting on tight tolerances. For example, tight tolerances require more precise tools and higher grade materials, which cost a lot more. The tighter the tolerance is, the more it will cost you. In addition, tight tolerances require more processing, which increases the costs of the machinery used and labour.

Moreover, you need to pay for a close inspection to determine whether the tolerances are within the acceptable range. What’s more, if you cannot implement tight tolerances on your own, you may need to outsource the process, which will cost you more. In the end, you end up paying for precision that may not be required. That’s why it’s important to actually determine if tight tolerances are mandatory for your products. If you don’t need such tolerances, you should take the opportunity to implement more appropriate variables and greatly reduce the costs of product development.

Don’t relax tolerances too much

In an effort to cut costs, increasing the design tolerance is quite beneficial. However, relaxing the tolerances too much involves certain risks. For example, the product components may not fit well together if tolerances are too extreme. In addition, your customers may disapprove of increased tolerances, if you haven’t consulted with them beforehand. Also, you may need to repeat the manufacturing process and redesign your products if you’re not careful with tolerances.

That will only skyrocket your costs. Instead of focusing on tight tolerances or relaxing them too much, you should focus on implementing quality assurance and tolerance analysis. That way, you’ll be able to determine exactly which variables are acceptable for your product design. In addition, you’ll know exactly where to apply strict tolerances and, of course, how much you can increase them to cut costs.

Product design is important for the manufacturing and quality of the products. However, ensuring product quality doesn’t always rely on implementing strictly tight tolerances. Tight tolerances are only required when there are specific needs and functionality requirements. Other than that, you can consider relaxing the product design tolerance and save yourself a lot of money during the development process.

About the author:

My name is Raul, editor in chief at Technivorz blog. I have a lot to say about innovations in all aspects of digital technology and online marketing. You can reach me out on Twitter.

The customers’ journey is an important thing to keep track of in today’s market. Customers who are happy with their journey with your brand are more loyal – and more likely to make future purchases than those who aren’t. You also have the ability to build better relationships with the customers through a positive customer experience.

Naturally, the customers’ journey doesn’t stop when they make a purchase. Offering good customer support and aftersales services is also an important thing to do. To improve customer support, here are some of the strategies you can implement right away.

Keep Track of Support Requests

One of the worst things you can do when providing customer support is not keeping track of customers’ requests properly. This usually leads to the customers having to explain their issues again, which is extremely annoying for them.

A simple IT solution is all you need to manage customer requests better. A help desk software is a great foundation and will lead to better – and more efficient – customer support. The help desk software then acts as a way to manage your customer support efforts.

The IT industry has used help desk software to provide invaluable services to their customers. Today, other industries are using the same approach to deliver the same level of user experience across their customer base.

Service-Minded Employees

The next challenge to tackle is employee development. You can’t expect to offer good customer support without employees who are serious about offering the best customer service. Training and development programs are how you reconfigure employees to have a more service-oriented mindset.

You can start by strengthening the customer service skills of key employees. The most important skills to develop are empathy and patience, good product knowledge, the ability to mitigate customers’ complaints intelligently, and good worth ethic in general.

These skills can be further supported by the good understanding of customer touchpoints and how every part of the customers’ experience can be improved. Even bad customer experience is an opportunity; through good customer service, those disappointed customers can become your most loyal ambassadors.

Focus on Interactions

The incredible solutions you deliver are important, but how you deliver them is even more important. You want to make sure that the good aftersales experience you provide is the experience the customers see and feel too.

The way to do this is by ensuring customer support is delivered in a timely and pleasant manner. You can establish policies to allow the customer support executives or officers to do just that while staying within the boundaries of SOPs.

The way executives interact with the customers’ matters too. Offer a more personalized approach, listen to what the customers really want, and don’t be afraid to admit mistakes. Admitting your mistake even before customers launch their complaints is a powerful way to ensure that the customers always have a great customer experience.

Combined, these strategies will substantially improve customer support and the overall customer journey. Add sincerity to the mix, and you have the perfect recipe for offering stunning aftersales service that keeps customers coming back for more.

Digital Kanban boards are taking the tech world by storm as the software helps teams to prioritise tasks and improve efficiency in the workplace. Kanban might have started off as a physical board, but the digital version of the software is becoming very popular and it is something that you should consider investing in if you want to improve how your team works. In this article, we are going to take you through some of the reasons why you should invest in a digital Kanban board and the benefits that this piece of tech can bring to you. Keep reading if you’d like to hear more about this.

What Is Kanban Software?

Kanban software comes in many forms with many different companies giving their own take on this sort of organisational structure. With Kanban software, you input tasks onto the board when they first are confirmed. From here, tasks move across the board depending on their level of completion. This means that tasks can be prioritised, and staff efficiency levels can be monitored. Make sure to learn more about Kanban software before you invest in this piece of technology to ensure that it is right for you. You can learn all you need to know by reading Kanbanize’s guide “Kanban Software: Explore the Opportunities“.

Easy to Use

With an online Kanban board, you can create it to work for the type of project that you are completing. Every team is different and so the fact that this type of system is so easy to use makes a huge difference. When you first download the software, you can choose the type of layout that you want, and you’ll find it really easy to add new cards and move them along the board when you need to. This type of technology is a lot easier to use than a physical board that will require you have to write on cards or print them out. With an online Kanban board, you can edit the cards in a matter of seconds.

Great for Teamwork

If you have a large team then you will love this benefit of using an online Kanban board. When you put the different tasks on the board, your whole team can see it and they can grab a task and get it done. You don’t need to worry about things slipping through the cracks as Kanban doesn’t allow for this. If you invest in this software, you won’t need to inform your team of what they need to do and when it needs to be done by because they’ll already know. You’ll save yourself time on having meetings and sending out emails and you’ll be able to get your work done more quickly.

Remote Workers

One of the best things about Kanban software is that it can be used by any member of the team no matter where they are. As long as they have access to the software on their computer or their mobile phone app, they can view the board online and get started. This works really well if you have remote workers or you don’t have the main office. You could also consider getting rid of your office and having your staff work from home. They’ll be able to stay connected using the Kanban board online and you can still get your work done effectively.

Improve Efficiency

If your team struggle with getting things done on time, you’ll find that having an online Kanban board can totally change the way they work. The system works well to improve efficiency and you’ll be able to identify the weak points in the company. Perhaps someone is not getting as much work done as you’d like, maybe you could use this information to try them on another task or analyse what they did well. Making use of a Kanban board can really help you to understand how your team works and you’ll be able to get your projects done on time.

Reasonably Priced

When it comes to Kanban software, you don’t even need to fork out a lot of money to get help with your business. This piece of tech is reasonably priced and if you find a good one, you might even get a free trial to see if you could really benefit from this type of software. Don’t be afraid to have a look around at what is available online in order to really improve how your businesses flow.

Final Thoughts

If you are thinking about investing in Kanban software, then you’ll find that it is actually a really good idea. There are a lot of benefits and you will see your business start to shine as you improve the way in which your team works. The systems are easy to use, and you’ll get to grips with them reasonably fast so make sure to try it now.