Category: Insights

How Much Good Will Video Content Bring To Your SEO In 2019?

Miley on February 11, 2019

Video content has become one of the most, if not the most, influential mediums on the internet. Long gone are the days where you would visit a website and find only text posts. Nowadays, everyone wants to get in on the craze of video content. The best part is that search engines have taken a liking to videos just as much as users have. With this in mind, you need to take some steps to ensure that your video will be at the top of searches everywhere.

1. Bring quality instead of quantity

The quality of a good video is what keeps viewers coming back. On YouTube, for example, the most viewed videos are those with the most effort put into them. You need to start with the basics. For starters, come up with a good premise for the video, the main theme can’t be any topic that comes to mind, it has to have a purpose. Good video quality shouldn’t be disregarded. In the age of 4K video streaming, you want to be ahead of the curb. Don’t forget about audio, either. The audio in your video should be crisp and easy to comprehend.

Driving more views and clicks to your site will require some quality content in your video. There’s no reason to go overboard and spend months on a single video. Quality over quantity is the name of the game, but don’t exclude quantity from the equation. If you have a particularly brilliant idea that can lead to a complex and long video, try splitting it into several parts. Viewers aren’t patient when it comes to waiting for videos so your content has to come out at least semi-regularly. This way it will constantly be searched and it will bring in traffic.

2. Don’t neglect social media

People are constantly talking about the influence of social media on the newer generations. The truth is that social media has an effect on everyone, not just the younger crowd. Hosting videos on social media platforms are possibly the best way to spread them across the internet. Sites like Twitter and Facebook are itching for those videos with attractive content. Facebook has started optimizing its model to better fit videos because they are preferable to photos. They are easy to share and the users do the job for you.

In order to maximize the number of clicks and shares you get from a video, it has to appeal to a broad audience on these social networks. Viral videos are what you should strive for. Social media sites are like marketing machines, if you put something good in, it’ll basically share itself. Major brands have begun investing in live videos as well. There’s something about their spontaneity that attracts users and they might not feel like it’s as much of a timewaster as a fixed video.

3. Integration is key

When it comes to making quality content, blogs have always ruled supreme. Text posts aren’t a thing of the past just yet, they’re still going strong. With video marketing on the rise, it might be a good idea to create complementary content that connects to blog posts. There’s no reason you can’t integrate a specific video that has a similar topic on your blog. This will be key in helping your content better get across to viewers. Some subtext is given by the blog post and then the video provides the heart of the content. Readers love getting a different dimension and perspective while reading a blog post.

Bridging different topics with blogs and videos is great for spreading content as well. You can adjust your blog post to match the topic of your video so it becomes much easier to share. This way, not only do you optimize the user experience, but you also get an easier medium to share your videos in. For example, say you want to share a video game review article. Making a review video to match would not only attract more users, but it would also give attention to your video channel. Either way, you can’t lose by making both.

4. Pick the right thumbnail

They say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but this doesn’t really hold up on the internet. Most people will give your video a casual glance before deciding to click it, which is why it’s important that the glance shows them exactly what they want to see. There is a near-infinite number of videos online and people simply do not have the time to check each and every single one of them. The thumbnail is going to make or break the popularity of your video.

To create an engaging thumbnail, you need to think about a couple of things. First of all, it has to stand out. Make sure it doesn’t get lost in the sea of other video thumbnails. After that, you have to decide which frame of the video represents the content of the video best. It should be an impactful moment that shows the gist of the content, without being too chaotic. Alternatively, you could just add an image that isn’t actually from the video but still represents the point accurately.

5. Focus on titles

As with anything that you share on the internet, the title is an extremely important detail. It’s the main way to find your content. This might be even more important for video content since there’s no matching text that could be used to identify what the video topic is about. In order to get people to the page, your video is in, you’re going to need a proper keyword in the title. There’s nothing more important for Search Engine Optimisation than picking the right keyword. Think of what your video represents and try to find the right word or words that would describe it best.

Search engines like Google need something to start with in order to show your video as a search result. It would be ideal if your video also had an accompanying description below it. This way you can add some more details that signal what it’s about. Don’t overdo the keywords, search engines might penalize you for it.

6. The right host

Search engines really like pages that have a fast load speed. Nobody likes waiting for something to load on their website. Unfortunately, integrating things like videos on your page could potentially slow down your blog page or wherever you host your video. There is also quite a difference between hosting your video on a site like YouTube or its alternatives.

Picking the right host could mean the difference between a quick page load and a page load that search engines recognize as slow. Make sure you test out your website on page load speed test applications before going live.

Conclusion

Platforms like YouTube have made creating video content easy and affordable. No business should go without at least one interesting video on their website. It’s a huge boost to visitors and you’ll find that search engines like Google will adore you for it. Just make sure you create unique content that caters to the masses and you won’t have to worry about your website not receiving traffic.

Insights Startups

How Well-designed Triggered Emails Help Your App Startup Stand Out of The Crowd

Miley on February 5, 2019

#triggerwarning: If you aren’t using triggered e-mails, you’re leaving money on the table! Triggered and transactional emails are often overlooked by new companies because people tend to consider them as less important than making a good product or having a nice website and neat landing pages. However, these emails are the outer spin electrons of your marketing molecule — those emails are the everyday connection between your product and your audience. You may have to pay more attention to them, treat them gently. Good copy won’t be enough; you need a stunning design for these emails too because it’s the medium that new leads, users, or customers see first.

Credit: Shutterstock

What are triggered (and transactional) emails?

Triggered emails are a subset of a larger group of marketing emails — those which are sent based on some kind of action. It implies some level of automation and preparation. These are NOT like emails that you write to your partners or clients on the fly. The trigger could be anything. The most used and common triggers are connected to payment services and purchases. We call this little group of triggered emails _transactional emails_. These are the messages you get after you order something on Amazon: a confirmation, a receipt, shipping updates, etc. There are many different things that could trigger an email. My favorites are the Welcome emails of freemium or free-trial offering startups. This is the moment when your website visitor became interested in your product and ready to try it. The welcome email is the first “real” and “personal” communication between a company and the new customer.

The open rates of triggered emails are so high because…

They are contextually and temporally relevant to the recipients. It’s about something they did and should be close enough in time that they remember it well. If the triggered email’s subject line is well-aligned with the context (triggering event), the probability of opening the email goes sky-high. Why? It’s purely a psychological matter — we are reinforcing our own decisions about things that we’ve already expressed interest in. The timing also a helping factor here: the email comes immediately or shortly after the event that triggered it — it helps the feeling that it is connected and important. So people tend to open these emails ~70% more often than any other kind. So what prevents you from using them? Hopefully, you’re already doing some kind of automation and sending triggered emails. Now I’ll help you to get the most out of them.

Timing and context matters when sending triggered emails

It’s true. Let’s examine closely my favorite triggered email scenario, the Welcome emails. You sign up to try a shiny new tool that will help you conquer the world by reducing your time doing some horrible busywork, let’s say ……….. (pick your least favorite task, I don’t want to insult anyone). The minute you enter the app you get a welcome email (it’s often coming from the CEO of the company). How does this email look? Boring. Why? Because most of the marketers think that a plain text email will look personal. Also, there is a legend that the plain text message will land in the Primary tab (which only applies to Gmail) or easily avoid the spam folder in other email clients. Does it really serve to get into the Personal inbox — the holy Primary tab — with your Welcome message? Do you want it to be read immediately? While you are thinking about the best way and time to send out the welcome email or any other triggered message, please remember this piece of advice: immediate messages could be nice, but please do not distract people from your own context with the connected triggered email. The worst case scenario coming from an old e-commerce tale, a webshop marketer had the idea to up-sell things in a triggered email followed by the initial webshop order offering a 20% coupon code. Timing was the only problem. They sent this email before the checkout had closed. The visitors of the webshop who had seen the incoming email and had opened it before the end of checkout easily applied the 20% code and bought their very first item for 20% percent less price… That was not good for the revenue of course. Timing is important but sadly, good timing alone is not enough.

The design is the delicacy you’ve been searching for

Delivery to the Personal inbox may not be the best for marketing and product related emails. People tend to delete messages that are sent to their Personal sanctuary, but then turn out to be marketing material. In the previous example, the Welcome message is surely marketing material, but everyone will see it. Then why does everyone try to deceive their leads and fresh customers with plain text designs? Your message might be better placed in the Updates or Promotions tab (in Gmail) or to the “Other” folder, however, it has to be exceptional to stand out amongst the others. You need a hilarious copy and/or stunning design. The branded design is a must-have, but a nice design or image that drives interest is clearly the first step. If the visuals are on brand, it leverages optical continuity, while any additional creative and eye-catching thing would do the job to pin down the reader of the email and entice them to read further. A well-designed layout, a flashy image, a funny GIF — all of these could serve your goals.

Inspiring ideas of well-designed triggered emails

Let’s start with Asana and a traditional Welcome email, my favorite type. They decided to have a simple layout, with a simple picture and a really compelling button (CTA). While they help in the onboarding, they redirect the readers to their mobile apps, with the same sort of app download Block that a wide variety of companies could use at the bottom of their messages. While I promised not to show any triggering event that is connected to payment or purchase, don’t think that you’ll get away without seeing some e-commerce examples. There are numerous opportunities to send triggered emails in the e-commerce world. Check out this example from Debenhams. They send this remarketing email when looking at one of their products without buying. Why? To help you remember them when you make the final choice. As you can see, this email is not the average, nearly plain-text, triggered an email. They sent a comprehensive email with a complex layout structure and different content blocks for different little goals. You may think, that the hardest part in an email like this is to set-up the automation, but in fact, the most time-consuming part was the email design itself.

Wrap-up

Fortunately, there are tools like Chamaileon.io that you can use for designing emails and templates, quickly and easily. With a drag-n-drop editor and ability to tweak complex elements, an email design like the above can be done in hours. To identify the right events you can use as triggers, I suggest talking with your colleagues and holding a brainstorming meeting.

Insights

Tips for Boosting Output through Technology

Miley on January 30, 2019

In theory, in order to increase one aspect of your output, you would have to sacrifice something else. We’re either talking about more time, more money or more resources. Well, one of the ways to get a productivity boost without making a sacrifice of any sort is to get more efficient tools. Nowadays, these tools (either software or hardware) are either free, inexpensive or give an amazing ROI. Here are five such ideas.

To-do list apps

The first thing you need to understand is the importance of making a to-do list, on paper or in-app. No matter how focused or dedicated you are, it’s impossible for you to keep track of absolutely everything and there are some things that must, eventually, slip your mind. With the help of a to-do list, this can easily be avoided. The reason why it’s better to do this on an app than on paper is a simple efficiency. No waste of paper, no fear of forgetting the list (who leaves their home without a phone?) and an extremely easy way to alter it. This also helps you avoid difficult handwriting, crossing items off the list with a pen and much, much more.

Project management tools

Managing a project is difficult enough even without all the various technical issues that you have to deal with, time and time again. With adequate software on your side, it’s fairly easy to see how a project management tool could help you assign tasks, share information, make public announcements and even exchange files within the team. Even though diagnostics shouldn’t be the main objective, keep in mind that with a reliable project management tool available for all types of servers, you’ll also be able to keep track of all changes made on the project. Should a mistake happen somewhere, it’ll be easy to trace back to it. Moreover, even though casting blame shouldn’t really be your thing, going for a project management tool can at least help avoid unjust accusations.

Dual monitors

Source – Pexels

Previous two items on this list were software-based, which is why it’s now important that we mention at least one hardware solution to the issue of productivity. The first thing that comes to mind is the concept of dual monitors and the ways in which this can improve your productivity. For designers, writers and, overall, content creators, this can allow more insight into what they’re currently doing, as well as the ability to look at resources while working. For programmers, the advantages are even greater. Furthermore, this is a one-time investment, unlike software subscriptions that you might be forced to make every month. In other words, getting an additional Samsung monitor for your office is a course of action that will, beyond doubt, yield a great ROI.

Noise-canceling earbuds

Source – Pexels

The problem with noise lies in the fact that it’s often just impossible to ignore it. If there’s a visual distraction in the office, you can just not look at it but if there’s something making noise and you can hear it from where you sit, there’s not much you can do. Make no mistake, in the office, there’s always something making noise, even if it’s just people typing, breathing or walking by. Most likely, on the other hand, you’ll also hear appliances humming, coworkers chit-chatting, while it’s not unlikely that the outside noises, like traffic, might also end up being an issue. Fortunately, all of this is avoidable with the use of noise-canceling earbuds.

Time-tracking apps

Finally, when it comes to the issue of productivity, time is one of the most misused resources there is. One way to improve this is with the help of time-tracking apps. Sometimes, these tools will use the alert system to help you stay on track. At other times, they will provide you with a better analysis of how you use your free time. The latter allows you to deal with this situation in whatever way you see fit. Either way, your productivity is bound to experience a serious boost.

Conclusion

Boosting output through technology is not only possible but it is also simpler and more frugal to achieve than you might have expected. With just a couple of apps and peripherals, you can make a massive difference in both your performance and job satisfaction. In other words, this is a competitive edge that’s so easily obtainable that it would be outright negligent not to do so.

Insights

Designers Trend: 6 Must Have Bathroom Accessories

Miley on January 29, 2019

While the bathroom may be the most ignored area in the house when it comes to style, design, and maintenance. It’s also one of the most used rooms not only inside the house but in most places.

You may think that the bathroom is the simplest and least expensive area to revamp and refresh, but in fact, it’s one of the most challenging areas to update. Your bathroom may not be the most attractive area inside your house, but there’s no doubt it’s the most used room by your guests and family, at least more than the regular small storage unit.

If you’re planning to do an overhaul of your bathroom but don’t have enough time and budget, you don’t have to worry as there are a lot of simple and cost-effective ways to make the ideal bath for your household. Here’s the list of essential accessories you can install for your bathroom.

Update Shower Curtain and Liner

If you have old accessories and you’re planning to do a little update on your bathroom, then purchasing new ones should be included in your list. If you think your shower and tub is unattractive because it’s old, you can install an opaque type of curtain for quick concealment.

However, if you have a presentable and alluring shower, consider installing a sheer curtain to make it more elegant-looking and to add brightness to your bathroom.

Bathroom Art

While you spend most of your time in your bathroom, there’s no need to stare at blank walls anymore. Just by adding a little artwork would significantly improve the overall look of your bathroom. Not only the appearance but the ambiance.

You will learn to adorn such arts such as treated canvas prints. You can also install oversized processed canvas prints as these are water resistant and cost-effective. Also, you can do customized printing as some of these art printers can laminate such arts for water resistance.

Add More Mirrors

Image Source

Mirrors are an asset in the bathroom. If you’re a homeowner and loves to have a bright ambiance in your bathroom area, then adding a simple mirror can be your solution. If your bathroom has enough space, then consider installing floor-to-ceiling mirrors.

It won’t only brighten your area, but it can also expand the room more than a coat of white paint could. On the other hand, if you’re a practical homeowner that wants extra storage for the bathroom, consider installing a wall mirrored cabinet. Wall mirrored cabinets provide storage space while not taking up room space.

Lighting Fixture Renewal

There’s a vast variety of cost-effective lighting fixtures available in the market nowadays. Consider replacing outdated lighting fixtures as some of it tends to have dysfunctional wiring and can be defective.

Leave the electrical projects to the professionals of bathroom design service. If you’re a DIYer and know how to deal with electrical problems, then it shouldn’t be difficult to handle.

Be unique when upgrading your lighting fixtures. There are several styles, and designs for bathroom lighting trends and these include light bars and hanging pendants. A suitable choice is a LED lighting fixture as they are more energy efficient and cost-effective.

Install Innovative Storage Solutions

Image Source

Bathroom essentials need bathroom storage. Look beyond home improvement stores and consider installing extra bathroom storage for your essentials. You can install bedside tables as storage for your soap, shaver, shampoo, etc. Also, you can have a mini bookshelf in your bathroom. Reading is a good activity and having books nearby can be handy in the bathroom.

A Little Splash of Nature

The bathroom can be a place where you spend most of your time relaxing and making yourself comfortable. Consider putting a houseplant or a leafy arrangement inside your bathroom to have a nature-like ambiance in the area. It adds more warmth and can make your bathroom a bit cozy.

Takeaway

You spend time in the bathroom more than you could imagine. If you’re a homeowner, it’s always essential to take good care of your household, including your bathroom. Make your bathroom presentable like the other areas of your house. Consider the list of accessories above to make your bathroom comfortable as it can be.

Development Insights

Bitcoin Investment: Tips for Maximizing Returns

Miley on January 24, 2019

If there is one alternative investment that has been solidly gaining traction in recent years, it is bitcoin. A lot of people are now taking advantage of the potential of this cryptocurrency to deliver profitability. However, there are also uncertainties that could make some proceed with hesitation. That being said, the rest of this post briefly outlines some of the best things that can be done to maximize the return of your bitcoins.

Find the Right Trading Platform

One of the best ways to earn money from bitcoin is through trading. Basically, what this means is that you will buy the cryptocurrency at a low price. When the price is high, you can now sell it and earn a profit. To do this, you need the right bitcoin trading platform. Find one Stock Apps that is reliable and trusted by many, making it possible to have lots of buyers when it is time to sell.

Host an ATM

There are tons of ways to maximize profits from bitcoin, including offering complementary services. A bitcoin ATM is one of the perfect examples of the latter. They even offer an online bitcoin ATM locator, which will make it easy for users to find an ATM that is nearest their current location. Almost any existing space can be used for the ATM machine.

With the variety of the options for a bitcoin trading platform, one of the best that you should not miss is https://www.coincloudatm.com/.

Short Sell your Bitcoins

Shorting bitcoin is one thing that can work when the market is down, and you want to earn a profit. Although, it should be noted that this is a strategy that is best done only by the more experienced investors since it is quite complicated. Many exchanges are already making this possible, but a lot of novice investors may end up doing it incorrectly, which makes the risks high.

Hold on for Dear Life

It is inevitable that there will be a crash in the cryptocurrency market, especially in bitcoins. When things go south, this does not mean that you should lose hope. In one article from Forbes that tackles how crypto investors can profit from a crash, the Hold On for Dear Life strategy has been recommended. Also called HODL, this simply means that you should wait and see. You do not have to do anything in your bitcoin. Let it become idle in your chosen platform and hope for the best.

Conduct a Thorough Research

This is perhaps the most important from the points that are raised in this post. You need to be knowledgeable about the ins and outs of bitcoin to make it a profitable alternative investment. When you are armed with the right knowledge, it will be a lot easier for you to grow your cryptocurrency.

While there are lots of people who are investing in bitcoins, not all of them are fortunate enough to craft their own success stories. With this, take note of the things that have been mentioned above to increase the likelihood of maximizing returns.

Development Insights Products SaaS

How Robotics Is Improving Businesses

Miley on January 24, 2019

The impact of robotics on modern manufacturing is immeasurable. Though industrial robots have seen use in factories for decades, their capacity for complex tasks have grown by a considerable margin, and they’ve continued to develop at a steady pace. Manufacturing aside, other industries have enjoyed the benefits as well.

In the hospitality, food and customer service industries, robots have proven indispensable in the day-to-day responsibilities of employees and business owners. Additionally, many executives in management positions use today’s technology to delegate their smaller duties, allowing them to focus on more pressing matters.

So how do these changes manifest? What do modern robots look like, and how are they improving businesses across the country? In this article, we’ll explore the subject in greater detail, touching on three different industries and how they’ve implemented robotics in their current practices.

Robotics in Hospitality

Customer service has always been the keystone of the hospitality industry. After all, the definition of “hospitality” is the warm, friendly reception and entertainment of guests. With this in mind, it seems strange and somewhat counterintuitive to replace a hotel’s staff with cold, unfeeling robots.

Yotel has shown this isn’t the case, and their use of robotics doesn’t substitute staff but supplements them. When a guest walks into the lobby at their Times Square location, a team member helps them with a touch-screen kiosk. After checking in, a robot takes and safely stores their luggage.

Robotics in Manufacturing

When most people envision a production line — such as those in automotive factories — they often picture pneumatic robot arms. While these robots have applications in the auto industry, they see use in many different factory settings, making a broad spectrum of everyday items.

While their functionality is impressive, how they function is just as extraordinary. Check out the following infographic.

Infographic source: https://www.quincycompressor.com/how-a-pneumatic-robot-arm-works

Robotics in Food Service

Automation has streamlined the food service industry for business owners and customers alike. Beyond self-serve kiosks, new machines have replaced outdated dishwashers, saving almost 10 hours of labor per week which employees would have to spend cleaning spatulas, bowls, and other food prep utensils.

Fast food chains have also found a use for robot arms, similar to those employed in manufacturing, but repurposed prepare meals. Little Caesar’s recently patently a robotic arm which can spread the dough, add toppings and place a pizza in the oven. It’s safe to speculate even greater changes are on their way.

The Future of Robotics

It’s challenging to grasp the influence of modern robotics on the enterprise. In hospitality, manufacturing, food service, healthcare, agriculture, and even law enforcement, technology has simplified and reshaped the responsibilities of the American workforce. Moving forward, one thing is clear.

The current trajectory of robotics has placed us on a path toward even greater and more inflexible reliance on technology. While it represents an incredible opportunity for growth, small businesses and large corporations should consider the implications of automation. It might have unintended consequences.

That said, it’s important to approach the future with optimism. Technology is evolving in new and exciting ways, and it’ll be exciting to watch what happens.

Insights

Why Manufacturers Should Move to the Cloud

Miley on January 24, 2019

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems are digital software packages that facilitate the integration of business operations and departments to provide shared data, reports, and other resources. They’re essential to streamline processes, improve productivity, and reduce costs. Clearly, then an ERP system is a necessary tool for manufacturers to stay competitive in today’s marketplace. A software package that utilizes cloud computing capabilities – even more so.

There are several choices in enterprise resource planning systems out there, and Sage provides a variety of top-selling solutions that help discrete manufacturing and process manufacturing companies do more for less. Hiring more staff and purchasing additional hardware to handle larger capacities is only going to balloon costs. Cloud-based ERP software helps save while streamlining. Here, you can learn about the latest business management software options available, and why manufacturers should move to the cloud today.

Sage Business Cloud combines multiple integrated products that can help small businesses to enterprises with their management needs. It can be customized to suit your specific needs and it can be adapted to change with you as your business expands and evolves. Expert consultants can assist with the installation, adoption, and training processes, so your teams know how to integrate and use the new system right from the start. Plus, helpful and responsive consultants like IWI Consulting Group provide extra self-teaching resources and ongoing customer service that is personalized to your current and future needs.

A cloud ERP solution allows manufacturing and other types of businesses to collect, analyze, and access company-wide data remotely. Manage inventory, sales, and orders. Increase insight into the supply chain and see where there are inefficiencies. The cloud allows for increased accuracy because data is saved, shared, and backed-up in real time. Executives to agents on the ground have access to the same information, and sales teams can work from anywhere there is a connection. Sage Intacct specifically allows for accounting, financial, and operational insights.

Some other ways cloud ERP systems can help include:

Adopting a Lean Manufacturing Philosophy. Your business operates within a flood of spreadsheets. Every department has its essential data to track and utilize on-the-job. Managing this volume of data in multiple places can go beyond a hassle and take up precious time. Printing sheets, hand-tallying, re-entering data, and handling a physical volume of information produces even more waste (some of it environmental).

Cloud ERP automates data entry and shareability and helps you scale and shift production. View customer orders in the same place and batch quicker. Cut the fat and move to lean manufacturing processes with better use of equipment, staff, and materials. Overtime is slashed with ERP adoption, and unexpected orders and other changes can be quickly processed.

Lower IT Costs. Keeping antiquated systems and maintaining an IT department to do so is costly. Updating and upgrading old hardware systems and paying the staff to handle it is unnecessary with cloud ERP. Free yourself with cloud software that updates itself because it is managed by third-party providers like Sage. Don’t sit idly by waiting for patches and updates to download. And stop trying to troubleshoot an old, buggy system.

Increased Security. Cloud-based systems provide increased security versus on-site systems and servers. Professional third-party vendors are required by law to protect the security and privacy of its clients. There is no need to run an in-house security audits. Sage ensures your system is running at peak efficiency as part of the package and contract.

Save time and money, increase efficiency, cut waste, and open your manufacturing business up to new opportunities and growth with a cloud-based enterprise resource planning system.

If you are struggling to find the right candidates to help you move your ERP system into the cloud, a specialized supply chain and manufacturing recruiting firm like SCOPE Recruiting might be able to assist.

Insights SaaS

Azure Certification from Microsoft – Benefits and Learning Path

Miley on January 21, 2019

The recent developments in large-scale cloud services have changed the modes of IT service delivery to a large extent. Well, known cloud platforms from the world’s leading providers like Microsoft, Google, and Amazon are constantly evolving, which has a big impact on the IT industry as well as the IT professionals.

When it comes to information technology businesses or other sectors dependent on IT, any decision to adopt technology or upgrade it has an immediate impact on the performance, cost, security, delivery, and customer satisfaction. High level of decision making, design, and implementation, and administration skills are required to manage these sophisticated IT-centric industries. The frequent and fast changes in technologies are creating skill gaps in the IT marketplace, which is the major problem enterprises are finding while tapping the opportunities.

Lately, with a large number of organizations across the globe adopting cloud technologies, there is a huge demand for skilled professionals in it. One can enjoy high salaries and a wide range of opportunities in cloud computing if they become experts to manage the fast-changing cloud computing environments. For the cloud career aspirants, MS Azure certification is one great way to achieve this necessary skill-set.

About MS Azure

As admired by the industry, one specific skill which recruiters are looking for while hunting for cloud computing specialists is Azure Certification from Microsoft. Owing to the growth in the cloud sector, job opportunities for MS Azure certified professionals had increased drastically over the last couple of years.

As per a press release by Microsoft, nearly 1000 customers are signing up for Azure suite daily, which can be projected as about 3,65,000 organizations adopting the technology each year.
Considering the Fortune 500 companies, about 57% of them have implemented Azure.
The cloud revenue of Microsoft had increased by 104%.
UK government had given an official accreditation to Microsoft Azure, and US government also backed it for government offering.

All the points towards the future potential of Azure to create a huge number of job opportunities in the coming years. It is easy to learn and adapt, and also a highly efficient tool to handle the traditional tasks like designing, deployment, and management as well as to meet the needs of the future big data environments.

Azure in business IT

As we have seen, Azure is a cloud computing solution and to be more precise, and it offers an advanced cloud platform which helps the organizations to build, deploy, and operate managed services wherever they want to. The major competitors of Azure are AWS (Amazon Web Services), and Google Cloud.

There are two handy models of Azure services as:

Infrastructure as a service (IaaS), in which you let the provider (Microsoft) handle your networking and computing needs.
Platform as a service (PaaS), where you add the cloud capabilities as a platform only to your existing network and manage it your own.

With Azure, Microsoft provides the clients with access to the service directory which is constantly building. This now includes:

Virtual machines – You can use the pre-existing templates or create your machine images to prepare Windows or Linux virtual machines and host any apps and services in these virtual machines.
Application services – Deploy new enterprise applications and gain instant and scalable access to it with minimal risk of downtime or data loss.
Active directory – Better manage the authentication, group policy, and security settings, etc., remotely.
Storage – Secure your critical business data with the solid infrastructure by Microsoft, all at an affordable cost.
SQL DB – Enjoy unlimited SQL relational database from Microsoft without the need for any on-premise software or hardware.

Why use Azure?

The primary benefits of hosting critical business solutions using Azure as SAP Business One include:

1. High flexibility

In fast-changing market conditions, you may experience a positive spike in your favor with a demand for more efficient technology solutions at any time. In such situations, Azure has it all covered well. You may design and launch innovative services at any time in lightning speed with the scope of scaling up storage and processing capabilities instantly.

2. Save cost

There is a very limited upfront cost for migration, and when it comes to maintaining hardware and that of energy consumption, you will reduce the overall costs. As the cloud providers offer security administration, the security costs are also covered. With enterprise-grade cloud services, you need to pay only for the availed resources, which can be scaled up or down at any point.

3. Services to meet any needs

Azure offers a huge number of à la carte services. You may search the Azure service list first when you have the need of any service or business app next time. Even on thinking of a customized app, there is no need to start from the very scratch as many of the apps can be integrated into the already existing framework and custom tailor meet specific needs.

Apart from the above, Azure also features fully managed services, quick disaster management, remote access management, etc., which makes it a highly flexible and user-friendly platform for business administrators. As the adoption rate of Azure is going up, the industry requires more skilled and knowledgeable Azure experts to handle the tasks at various types of IT settings.

Azure training

For beginners, Microsoft Official Curriculum could be a good option to start with the basics of Azure. Microsoft directly offers some support to IT professionals with some eBooks etc. through the MVA (Microsoft Virtual Academy). Over time, Azure certification had undergone several improvements too. Now, the certification path of MS Azure is more modular with the need to develop IT infrastructure management skills, especially Windows Server. Some exams aimed at Azure certifications are:

Exam 70-533 – Implementing Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Solutions
Exam 70-532 – Developing Microsoft Azure Solutions
Exam 70-534 – Architecting Microsoft Azure Solutions

You will also find many other certification exams closely related to it like Exam 70-473, Exam 70-475, Exam 70-744, Exam 70-413, Exam 70-414, Exam 70-246, Exam 70-247 related to public and private cloud administration and Windows server infrastructure administration, etc. to hone your skills.

Development Insights SaaS

How Is It Possible To Create A PHP Development Environment In Androids?

Miley on January 10, 2019

Google offers the open wide space for the web developers to let them provide their applications on Google play for public downloads. However, in the case of Apple, it is totally under firm guidelines and there are many requirements to meet. However, people, most of the developers’ think that only ios can help them to do the best kind of coding. But what if Apple comes with a lot of restrictions whereas Google offers ease? One should prefer the option that comes with ease. All there is a need is to create an atmosphere which let the PHP develop enabled in Android applications.

Moreover, we all are well known to the fact that there are approximately 5 million web developers who are well-versed with PHP and can work with PHP at the utmost level. So, why to not to give it a try to convert those web developers into potential Android app developers by enabling just creating the perfect environment for PHP development in Androids. Besides that, while creating the environment-friendly for PHP you ought to have the software that is helpful for the coding. For instance- Termux that lets you run all the terminals.

Here are the few ways to create your android app using PHP

1. Editing the text is the mainspring

The foremost step is to choose the best text editor as it is the foundation for the developer’s community. Although, there is a presence of many text editors but finding the best is no so hard. But the most popular two are the Emacs text and Vi/Vim, which are often competing with each other. However, the most preferred is Vim due to its existence for a long time in the market.

Not just the existence decides everything when it comes to making a choice for the text editor. The other impressive factors comprise of reliability gained by the years of excellence, the charityware, and it highly customizable and extensible. Besides, due to its numerous plugins, it is highly handy to edit the codes on the text editor.

What can be expected from a text editor? In addition by all these valid features, it is way better than Emacs, so the editor war is of no use when the best is known. So, use Vim for the androids where it is called as Vim Touch.

2. A help for PHP developers-

It is undeniable that Java has been and still continues to be the most predominant language for development of Android applications. Even though there are various ports present for app building like Python, HTML, and Ruby etc, but the Java gives outstanding performances that are not reachable by other ports.

But when it comes to using PHP in android, it will facilitate the best PHP developers who are keen to bring PHP into androids. Besides, it can compete with the development environment of Microsoft Windows 8 that has multiple programming languages enabled to build apps. Therefore, it will be really intriguing to see developers having a PHP enabled environment for native apps in androids.

3. Use lamp as server configurations

For your information, the lamp stands for the Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP which comprises together and make the LAMP. The lamp is really popular among the PHP web applications and PHP developers. However, you must choose the appropriate server like one is Palapa web server. The main perk of such a server is it handles the weedy CPUs very well and keeps their functioning top-class. Besides, all the constituent part must be current and up to date for the best experience. While considering Palapa as the desired server, you will get a web interface that can enable to find out various aspects of web server eventually. Basically, you ought to find the best server just like one Palapa that comes with all the latest versions.

The inclusion of PHP in android is a perk for the system

Android apps can be developed from various way outs like python, CSS but why not with PHP? This issue was previously addressed well and solved now by the inclusion of PHP has done it. Moreover, it becomes so easy for the developers to take the app development by setting up the android app with PHP.

So, simply replace your Macbook pro with the Android device when you don’t want to carry something expensive or maybe some extra burden. Thus, it can be said without any confusion that PHP inclusion in Android is good and it can facilitate those upcoming or already existing more than 5 millions app developers for the whole system.

Author Bio

Gravatar A/c: https://en.gravatar.com/sonalmehta9

Sonal Mehta is a Content Lead at SoluLab, a leading Enterprise Blockchain, Enterprise Mobile Apps and Web design and development company, started by ex-vice president of Goldman Sachs and ex-principal software architect of Citrix. SoluLab Inc provides full spectrum, 360-degree services to enterprises, startups and entrepreneurs helping turn their dreams into awesome software products.

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Insights

10 Tips for Choosing the Best WordPress Hosting Provider

Miley on January 3, 2019

WordPress is an open source software that has caused an internet storm in the recent past due to security, robustness and its simplicity to set up and customize. WordPress has been beneficial for many content management websites, e-commerce stores, blogger websites and other website development needs. Businesses from many different industries have adopted the use of WordPress, including Shopify, TechCrunch, Mashable and New York Times.

As often as businesses may be shifting to WordPress because of the earlier mentioned benefits, whenever it comes to WordPress hosting, each business takes a different route. Businesses have different needs, and there’s no one-fits-all solution for their WordPress hosting needs.

The WordPress Hosting business is very competitive. Despite the intense competition, some WordPress hosting companies will offer average service while others are remarkably good service. To settle for one may be daunting. In this article, you will find 10 tips you should consider when choosing the best WordPress hosting provider.

Security

Security is at the top of the list. Cybersecurity should be your first consideration when faced with a challenge of choosing a managed WordPress hosting provider. You will need to do a background check on their security history and protocols. A good WordPress hosting provider shouldn’t have a history of DDOS attacks and phishing. They should ensure they use the latest internet security measures, such as encryption and web application firewall.

For instance, CanSpace a Canadian WordPress hosting company offers web application firewall across its entire packages for WordPress hosting. The company is also GDPR compliant, meaning that any information you share with them cannot be shared with non-compliant third parties.

Support

Support is an important factor to consider. For any unexpected reason, your website may experience challenges or even go down temporarily. Since the servers aren’t physically near you, you may need the support of a WordPress host to troubleshoot the problem. The level of support that a host provider accords to a customer will matter at this moment. A 24/7 customer support, available in different languages, is highly recommended.

Additionally, your hosting provider customer support needs to be proficient in WordPress, and able to provide you with solutions within the shortest time possible. To gauge a WordPress host company’s level of support, check their help documentation.

Speed

Server performance has a direct impact on the speed of a website. A server with inadequate RAM space or that experiences a lot of load from other websites may affect the speed of a website that shares the same server. Slow speed has an impact on the page ranking of a website on search engines. A slow website doesn’t attract visitors, since they are prone to bypassing the content.

Photo by StockSnap on Pixabay

Scalability

The success stories of many businesses have similar properties, such as limited resources, few employees, minimal web traffic to business conglomerates, a high number of employees, high revenues and so on. Therefore, a WordPress hosting company should offer room for business growth by providing an allowance of infrastructure resources. Jankus from cmswire argues that it is important to have a partner that supports your growth.

Hosting features

The list of features that your WordPress hosting provider accords you plays a role on how convenient you will rate their service. You should consider the number of domains and email accounts with which they provide you. A WordPress hosting provider that gives you multiple email address and domain names would be preferred over one that gives you a limit. There are hosting companies that will give their customer a free domain name for a year, which is a good offer. Other things to consider are storage space, bandwidth and backup policies.

Type of hosting

In deciding the type of hosting you need, you will be required to choose between WordPress-managed hosting and self-managed hosting. The latter is when the host provider distances himself and only does the hosting for you, assuming that you will handle the setup side yourself. This means you will need to configure the mail server to FTP, handle the server’s operating system and much more.

With WordPress-managed hosting the host provider will handle every aspect of your WordPress from configuring your email server, backups, WordPress updates, server operating system and more. You will need to do very little when setting up WordPress. CanSpace WordPress managed hosting would best suit busy businesses that would like another entity to handle their WordPress hosting and businesses that are looking for secure WordPress hosts.

Uptime

Website downtimes are annoying, and you wouldn’t like your business to fall under that category of websites that have frequents downtimes. Therefore, your WordPress host should have robust checks and balances that ensure that there is no server downtime, and monitoring is on a 24/7 basis.

Reputation

A WordPress company that has been offering excellent services for a substantial time is most likely to have good reviews and a stellar reputation. Although this shouldn’t be the only parameter to consider, it at least sheds some light on which host provider you should trust. The level of customer satisfaction as manifested on independent online forums will give you a clue of what to expect. You can also look for Cloudways review and other hosting providers like Hostgator before making your purchase.

Pricing

In deciding which WordPress host provider you will choose, you may need to consider the pricing. “You get what you pay for” is a phrase that perfectly applies in the web hosting industry. It is so common for WordPress host companies to advertise cheap plans, only for clients to end up frustrated after subscribing to a plan. Avoid falling into the trap of cheap service, resulting in frequent downtimes, lack of support and other letdowns. Conduct a proper scrutiny of what is entailed in every price package.

Ease of installation

A WordPress host company that gives its users a one-click installation would be ideal for those who are new to WordPress. It gives users time to focus on other elements of the websites.

The factors mentioned above are important when assessing a service provider you might want to use for your WordPress hosting service. The true judgment of the level of service offered can be measured best by actually trying the service. Therefore, if a WordPress host offers a trial period, consider it before subscribing for their premium services.