Category: SEO

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SEO

Top 7 Ways SEO Can Help Businesses Grow in 2021

Search Engine Optimization and Local listing activity have proved to be some of the most prominent ways to help your business build a brand identity. Media Search Group – A renowned SEO company India, believes 93% of Internet experiences start with a search engine. So, what happens when someone searches? 

Google’s top search results have a 33% chance of clicking. That means if you’re not number one on the page, you’ve squandered a third of potential visitors. What is even more surprising is that 75% of people do not even click on the second page of the search results.

SEO is one of the crucial elements in reaching more people when you have your business online. If you apply proper SEO strategies, you have the chance of reaching more people online than any traditional advertising. 

Can a professional SEO person help?

Any SEO company India will help you with SEO strategies that will get your business the traffic that matters. The SEO packages of these companies are also affordable for a small business, who is starting and planning to reach a substantial amount of customers. 

Top 7 Ways SEO Can Help Businesses Grow in 2021

Any SEO company India you approach will tell you about these seven tips on how you can help your business to grow in 2021: a. Core Web Vitals: Along with all other existing factors, Google recently added three new metrics to determine user experience. Known as Core Web Vitals, these new metrics will consider the loading speed, interactivity, and how stable your visual is while the screen loads. So now, your page will rank higher among many businesses similar to yours if you have good Core web Vitals. 

According to a study, 40% of visitors exit the page if the loading takes longer than three seconds. What is even more surprising is that 80% of these visitors will never return to the website. This isn’t good for your SEO ranking because it reduces traffic to your site.b. Keywords: Any SEO package you choose will have keywords research and implementation as one of the impartial parts of it. The right amount of keywords that perfectly describe your business in the right places will make your business reach thousands in no time.c. Metadata: Metadata is a crucial part of SEO strategy as it is the paragraph that appears on top when you search a topic. Well-written meta data with the right keywords will coax the audience to open your websites’ link and help your business grow.d. Back-links: When you create unique and engaging content, there is a high chance that other writers will include links to your content on their blogs and articles. Organic link-building helps a business grow exponentially when they use your content’s link in trusted websites.

Experts Tip – To fix any problem, 68% of customers would rather watch an explanatory video. The content of your website should be more than just words on a page. Photos are excellent, but there’s more you can do to increase your SEO rating.Consider adding other multimedia features such as movies, slideshows, or audio to your website. All of this can contribute to an overall better user experience.e. User experience: Improvement in user experience (UX) like fast data loading, user-friendly website, easier navigation, high-quality images makes your business grow faster. No one wants to keep visiting your website that they don’t find easy to use. f. Mobile-friendly: Make your business site user-friendly. More than half of the internet users prefer to surf the internet on mobile devices. When you make your website mobile and tablet-friendly, the visitors will navigate through it easily, and the site will have better speed.g. Featured snippets: Another one of the SEO strategies that work best for any business is featured snippets. A highlighted answer box appears on top of the google search page when you query something. Featured snippets raise your brand awareness, make potential customers click on your website. 

Takeaway

When you don’t know what you’re doing with SEO, organizations like Media Search Group, well known for being the best SEO company in India, can help you. Experts will assist your brand in reaching more customers and growing your business in 2021 with affordable SEO packages.

SEO

How SEO Audit Improves the Visibility of Your Website Online?

A successful business in today’s world is the one that is always accessible to users on the internet. You can build a WordPress website from scratch and start working on it. If your business website doesn’t show up on the search results page (SERP), it is an indication that you are losing out on many opportunities to improve the business.

But why is the website not visible on the search engines? How is it that your SEO efforts are not delivering results? To know the answer, you will need to carry out an SEO audit of the website. Contact the leading SEO company in India to run a thorough SEO audit and identify the weak points.

The SEO company will help you make the necessary changes to revamp the website and implement different SEO tactics to boost its performance. SEO audits should be a regular part of the long-term plan for digital marketing. Getting periodic reports will keep you updated and help in making better marketing decisions. The following are some significant reasons to perform an SEO audit for your business website.

  • Changing Search Engine Algorithms

Search engines regularly tweak the algorithms that analyze a website and rank it. Google is known for constantly updating algorithms to improve user experience. If you still follow outdated SEO strategies, your website will not be visible on the SERPs. You might even end up being penalized or blacklisted for following black hat SEO strategies.

A professional SEO company in India will help you understand the website’s current status and the changes you need to make to increase your online presence and reach more users.

  • Getting Insights from Website Traffic

Getting more traffic is not enough if it doesn’t convert into sales. SEO audit analyzes the website traffic to gain useful insights about the visitors, demographics, preferences, purchase history and more.

These insights help you understand if your SEO efforts are bringing the right kind of traffic or if you should change the strategies to be visible to your target audiences. SEO experts use tools, such as Google Analytics, Google Search Console, etc., to derive meaningful insights from website data.

  • Optimizing the Website for Mobile Phones

How many of you are aware that Google is now indexing your website’s mobile version before crawling the desktop version? Apart from this, the percentage of mobile searches has also gone up recently.

Your website has to be optimized for mobile phones if you want to become more visible to users. Simultaneously, the best digital marketing services focus on improving the website loading speed so that users won’t get bored with waiting for your website to load.

  • Tracking Your Competitors

Are you aware that you can track the performance of your competitors’ websites using SEO audits? Instead, we recommend you do it to know how the competitor has a better rank and online presence compared to your website.

If your competitor is not ranking well for specific keywords, it’s time to make the most of the situation and get your website to rank for those keywords. Running an SEO audit of your competitor’s site will give you a bigger picture.

  • Broken Links and Page Not Found Errors

If anything annoys users, it’s the “page not found” error that shows up when they open a link from the search results page. That’s the last thing you would want for your website. SEO audit will help detect such broken links and page-loading errors.

Experts from the top SEO company in India will then work on technical SEO to fix the issues and make your website ready for the digital marketing game plan.

  • Monitoring Keyword Rankings

Knowing the overall performance of the website is crucial. You should know how the website ranks for the primary keywords you’ve selected. Periodic SEO audits will make it possible to track the progress of the website over time.

You can also see which relevant keywords your website is ranking higher for and further increase the visibility. The aim is to increase your online presence and get closer to the audience. This will improve brand awareness and brand recognition.

Few Online SEO Audit Tools:

The following are some crucial Online SEO Audit Tools to help you out:

Conclusion

While there are free and paid online tools to perform the SEO audit and automatically generate reports, the top SEO agencies offer the best digital marketing services.

When you hire an SEO agency, experts will manage your website with years of experience in the field. They know which SEO tool is more suitable to carry out the audit of the website.

Experts have the knowledge and expertise to provide customized SEO strategies for the business. You will see guaranteed results when you take the assistance of the best SEO agency in the market.

SEO

How to Create SEO-Friendly Landing Pages for Your WordPress Website

WordPress is one of the biggest and most popular website building platforms in the world. So, why should you not focus on SEO for WordPress?

In this post, I’ll discuss ways to create SEO-friendly landing pages for your WordPress website. Use these SEO tips and techniques to improve the search rankings of your WordPress landing pages.

Ready? Let’s get started.

1. Use a Good SEO Plugin

The first thing you need to do to create SEO-friendly landing pages for WordPress is to install a good SEO plugin.

The most popular SEO plugin for WordPress is the free Yoast SEO plugin. This plugin will help you create SEO-friendly landing pages right from the start.

You can use it to optimize your content and meta descriptions, generate sitemaps, and a lot more. So, simply by using a good SEO plugin, half your job is already done as it will take care of all SEO aspects and will guide you to create SEO-friendly landing pages.

And, if you need more help, you can always get expert SEO services from a consultant or an agency.

2. Clean Your URL Structures

The default URLs that are generated on WordPress are often long and messy. For your landing pages, at least, you should use a clean URL structure. Ideally, your URLs should have your target keyword and should be short and clean.

But, how can you change the URLs of your landing pages?

Simply click on the “Permalinks” option in the Settings menu on your dashboard. You will see many options that you can choose from or create a custom structure, as shown below.

Image Source

The “Post Name” option is a good way to go as it adds only the post title, which usually includes the target keyword. You don’t really need a date or number for your URLs, so this option is the best way to create non-messy permalinks.

3. Create Highly-Targeted Pages Focused on a Keyword

Whenever you create a landing page, make sure that it is focused on one target keyword. You can use side keywords as well, but never target two keywords with one landing page.

You should also avoid creating multiple landing pages for one keyword as it will cause cannibalization. This means that more than one of your pages will be competing against each other for rankings.

So, what is the best way to create SEO-friendly landing pages?

Create one landing page for one target keyword and maintain a good keyword density of 1.5%-2%. Make sure that you add your target keyword to the title, headings, and subheadings without making it appear forced.

Also, try to add your target keyword within the first two lines of your landing page content. Leverage these SEO tips and you will see a significant improvement in your landing page rankings.

4. Optimize Your Meta Data for Keywords

One rule of thumb for creating SEO-friendly landing pages is to always add your target keywords to your title tags. This helps search engines understand your content and categorize it better.

One of the best practices to follow for landing pages is to use your target keyword in all of your meta content, including descriptions and titles. While many experts say that keywords in meta descriptions no longer affect rankings, it is still good for SEO.

If nothing else, a relevant and targeted meta description will help you increase your click-through rate. There’s no harm in that, right?

So, optimize your meta content for your target keyword to create SEO-friendly landing pages.

5. Use Image Alt Text

Image alternative text is basically the image description that websites use to help visually-impaired readers understand an image.

But, that’s not all they are good for!

Alt text can also help search engines understand your visual content better and get more context about it. So, insert keywords in your alt text as well to help search engines understand your content and increase your rankings.

Wondering how to add alt text?

Well, WordPress makes it really easy to add alt text. Whenever you insert an image on your page or post, WordPress automatically shows a box where you can add alt text.

Image via WordPress

Always follow this practice when using visuals in landing pages and you will see the difference yourself.

6. Optimize Your Videos for Video Search

Just like images, you also need to help search engines understand your video content better. You can do this by adding optimized video descriptions and the VideoObject schema.

Adding VideoObject schema helps search engines understand your videos and also increases your chances of ranking in video search results. You just need to provide a title, description, and thumbnail image for your videos.

Good video content combined with structured data can significantly improve your search rankings. So, if you want to optimize your landing pages, don’t forget to optimize your videos as well.

Conclusion

These are some of the best SEO practices that you should follow to create SEO-friendly landing pages for your WordPress site. Use these and see the results first hand.

So, what are you waiting for?

Start creating SEO-friendly landing pages right now. All the best!

Author Bio

Gaurav Sharma is the founder and CEO of Attrock, a results-driven digital marketing company. Grew an agency from 5-figure to 7-figure revenue in just two years | 10X leads | 2.8X conversions |  300K organic monthly traffic. He also contributes to top publications like HuffPost, Adweek, Business 2 Community, TechCrunch, and more.

Social connectsTwitterLinkedIn & Instagram

SEO

Not All Traffic Is Created Equal: Measuring The Importance of Traffic Sources

We all want maximum traffic coming from the major search engines like Google. And for that, you need to have a steady stream of good and relevant content. Now, not everyone is aware of what good content actually means. Luckily for everyone, there is a plethora of ways to create traffic towards your website. Also, this extensive list is always growing. It is no small feat to achieve business growth these days. So, we need all the tools we can get our hands on. The digital realm is highly resistant to the real world’s problems like pandemics, shutdowns, financial recessions, etc. Online purchases are very popular. Whit the advent of broadband internet, online shopping has taken a major portion of the commerce pie. In this article, we will go over the most important factors on how to maximise traffic to your offerings.

Digging through the data

There are plenty of free tools online used for tracking website analytics. But, it is only with credible ones that you are able to see accurate interpretations. Traffic sources, keyword quality and volumes, the number of viewed pages are just some of the metrics to take into equation. These variables help greatly in crafting an appropriate SEO campaign. It is about providing value within your website to any potential customers. Also, analytics will help you increase your conversion rates. Before we move on, a conversion rate is a ratio between the individuals that view your content and the ones that move past that. These are our customers, that will pay for our products and services. The key is to make the conversion process as appealing and convenient for them as possible. In short, make it effortless for a potential customer to do what you want them to.

Infusing value into content

SEO-focused content boils down to a simple rule. You need to answer questions that people are seeking answers to online. This way, you provide potential customers value. This is offered in exchange for their time and attention are given to us. The better and more concise you answer these questions, the higher your SEO rankings will be. What is the first thing people do when a question pops up in their head? Everyone has a phone in their pocket. So naturally, they Google it. The better your answer to their question is, the higher your link will be in the Google search results. That is what SEO boils down to. The closer you are to that number one spot at the top of the list, the more traffic you will receive. But, make sure to answer questions that are relevant to your chosen industry and niche.

SEO rankings in the context of providing value for revenue

Before you create a meaningful SEO campaign, you need to know how to measure keywords and rankings. The most basic way to analyse specific keywords is to look at search volumes. Keyword difficulty is another very important metric. But, these are only small fractions of a larger equation. Not everyone that views your content is going to buy your products. Remember the conversion ratio we mentioned previously? That would mean a one-to-one conversion ratio, which is never possible. Tie your keywords to commercial goals such as revenue. In short, your keywords need to be as specific as possible. Many businesses make the same mistake of being too general with their content. And by extension, their offerings are misconstrued. In the digital realm, it is never good to try and be a jack of all trades. Be specific in your content and keywords, your viewer base will be more solid.

Tracking the competition

You need to be analytical. Try and look at what the competition is doing. What are doing right, and what mistakes are they making? First things first, know who your competition is. Inform yourself about what your top competitors are. There is a reason why they are on the top. What are they doing right? Can you emulate that? Could you even improve upon it? The beauty of the digital era is that you do not need to make a breakthrough in science for your business to succeed. All you need to do is improve upon what is already there. If you offer a slightly better deal, you will rise to the top of the SEO rankings, in time. Start easy. Identify the five top competitors to your business. Dissect their SEO campaign. What are they focusing on? Try to improve upon their traffic generation strategies.

Track your conversions

We now have a basic understanding of keywords and rankings. And now, we need to invest time and effort into Google Analytics and set up our goal conversions. You need to connect the relevant keywords to your targeted audience. This will, in turn, generate traffic to your website. Now, what that might be, depends on your chosen industry and niche. This is where little creativity and personal effort comes into play. Tracking the right metrics is where most companies fail. Even worse, some companies set certain goals looking at irrelevant metrics. Try and avoid this, do your research. One of the most important metrics is when customers give you their contact information. That is one of the things that really count. Any action that implies that a person is no longer a passive observer, but a paying customer is tracked by Google Analytics. Track the right metrics for your company.

Make content that will always be relevant

The best bang for your buck is content that will always be useful. That means it is relevant as long as possible after the initial publication. Many forms of content tend to fulfill this condition. F.A.Q.’s (Frequently asked questions), tutorials, reference guides and product reviews have a very high shelf life. These and many more tend to bring in a steady stream of traffic, leads and shares over a long timespan. If your content can generate these avenues of traffic for multiple years, consider it a success. As long as the information is good and up to date, you are good. Choose topics that will not inherently be redundant once new information comes into circulation. SEO specialists are masters in finding subjects that will hold water the longest. Make your content provide lasting, compounding value. This way, you will also educate new customers and attract external links.

Update old content

On the other hand, why let old content go to waste? Do not let such work go to waste just because a couple of details are outdated. Old blog posts, reviews, etc. need minimal effort to update and make relevant again. After doing the SEO dance for a while, you will undoubtedly have a large number of old posts. The form of this content does not matter. What does matter is that the work is already done and it takes just a small touch to make it relevant again. Try and find these posts. Update any obsolete information, for whatever reason. Add multimedia content like images, audio clips and videos. Add links and repair broken ones. The latter is the most common SEO ranking killer. Analyze the latest SEO trends and modify old content to fit the new mold. And sometimes, posts can be merged for the optimal effect.

Put in the work

Organic traffic is the best kind of traffic. That being said, it is very difficult to obtain naturally. You need to put in a lot of effort, time and originality. You will need to boost your efforts with some kind of SEO strategy. Now, what that strategy could be is up to you. It depends on your industry, niche and expectations. You will need to leverage all the various tools at your disposal. Utilize influencers, social media, keywords, link building, etc. The more tools you master and utilize the more traffic you will attract to your website. An SEO strategy is not a set-it-and-forget-tip type of deal. It changes regularly. That is because SEO trends tend to shift often. You need to adapt to stay relevant. Organic traffic will come, but it is always for the best to supplement it with some other avenue.

SEO is the new, and by far, the most relevant marketing tool. Any modern company would be wise to invest in it. More conventional forms of marketing are still relevant, make no mistake. But, especially in times of crisis, online marketing is the most resilient and far-reaching. Learn what types of activities attract the most visitors to your industry and niche. Then, figure out what works best in converting those views into loyal, paying customers. Learn the type of language that creates discussion and engagement. Try and implement a tactic. See how it affects your traffic. If you can, implement one at a time. If you do multiple, you will not be able to attribute the outcomes, positive or negative, to any particular one. Make these digital tools work for you, today.

How Accountants Can Use Digital Marketing and SEO
SEO

How Accountants Can Use Digital Marketing and SEO

Did you know accountants hold the top spot when it comes to their importance to small businesses?

As a matter of fact, entrepreneurs believe your profession plays a vital role in the success of their business, which is why it comes before attorneys, bankers, and insurance agents on their priority list.

But, this statistic doesn’t mean that your accountancy firm will have clients line up and knock on your door by simply being there. While word of mouth is a decent tactic for attracting new customers, it’s crucial to take a more proactive approach when it comes to generating new business opportunities.

Luckily, digital marketing and SEO can help you spread the word about your accountancy and bring a lot of traffic.

Here’s how to leverage their benefits to improve your visibility and gain a competitive advantage.

1. Make the Most of Your Website 

53% of people will research a product or service before they decide to purchase, which means establishing an online reputation is a must. And even more so if we bear in mind that your clients will trust you with managing their finances.

In other words, your website should exude reliability, expertise, and credibility.

Having a visually appealing website that loads fast and is mobile responsive is a start in the right direction. Stats corroborate this, as 38% of people stop engaging with a website with an unattractive layout and content, while 94% of website first impressions are design-related.

Opt for a clean, decluttered design that makes it easy for your potential clients to find your contact information and descriptions of the services you offer. Besides that, your home page should feature engaging options that allow visitors to explore more about your accounting firm, find out about the experts that work for you, read customer testimonials, schedule an appointment, and list helpful resources.

The point is to keep your potential clients on your website for as long as possible and get them to convert, that is, to book a call with you or subscribe to your newsletter.

2. Build a Strong Online Presence Through Blogging  

Producing superb content consistently is something that is key to your digital marketing efforts.

By focusing on the topics relevant to your audience, you’ll be able to attract visitors to your website and engage them. For example, managing steady cash flow is one of the biggest challenges of running a business, so it’s a good idea to discuss viable methods of staying in the black.

Similarly, as more than 50% of small business owners think tax preparation is complicated, addressing this issue and talking about how they can reduce their tax bill will score you a loyal audience of potential clients.

Besides, blogging is a great way of establishing yourself as an authority in the field, and that’s something that will bring you a lot of qualified leads. It’s only logical that entrepreneurs want only expert advice when it comes to their finances, which means that sharing your expertise will help you win more clients.

Finally, generating high-quality content on a regular basis will fuel your social media and email marketing activities, and result in boosting your online presence.

 3. Increase Your Google Rankings Through SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a digital marketing practice that will help your website rank higher in Google search results and make it easier for your potential clients to find it in an avalanche of search results.

“The best place to hide a dead body is page two of Google.” This quote perfectly sums up the importance of SEO, as most people never scroll past the first page, while less than 1% actually click on any result on the second page.

Investing in SEO for accountants is a surefire way of attracting qualified traffic to your website and generating new business opportunities.

The first two steps that we discussed are also a part of this strategy. Having a well-designed, user-friendly website and relevant content won’t be of much use unless you leverage SEO and vice versa – there’s no use trying to optimize a slow, poorly-structured website or thin, low-value content.

After you ensure that your website loads fast, as well as that it’s mobile-responsive, you should focus on making sure that Google crawlers can easily access it, understand the content, and index it. This means adding meta tags, fixing broken links, eliminating duplicate content, and making it secure.

Another important segment is doing keyword research and including the relevant ones to your content, meta tags, page titles and descriptions, and other relevant page elements. It’s crucial not to overdo it, as the point is to help both Google and your potential clients find relevant content.

Link building is an SEO practice that will improve your website search engine visibility and build up its reputation. What you should do is try to earn links from authoritative websites that will in a way vouch for the quality of your content by linking back to it.

4. Don’t Neglect Social Media

Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn can be leveraged to expand your reach and additionally strengthen your online reputation.

You can use social media channels to promote your content and engage your prospects and existing clients.

But besides promotional activities, companies have been using social media for customer service purposes too. Given that 1 in 3 people in the world uses at least one social media platform, it’s obvious that you can use these channels to get in touch and interact with your target audience.

By leveraging social media’s interactivity and its potential to make communication instantaneous, you can answer your client’s questions, provide them assistance, and resolve their potential issues, thus offering exceptional customer experience.

If you implement customer service chatbots to your social media platforms, you can even ensure 24/7 support, which can tremendously improve customer satisfaction and help you build trust and loyalty with your clients. In order to take your accountancy firm to the next level, it’s important to tap into the power of digital marketing and SEO. These strategies will open the door to a larger client pool and help you create more business opportunities.

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Top Technologies Driving Laboratory Efficiency and Accuracy Forward

For decades, clinical laboratories have played a significant role in advancing patient care within the nation’s healthcare system. Through effective testing processes, clinical laboratorians generate accurate results that support doctors and other medical experts in making appropriate diagnoses and treatment plans for their patients. As new diseases, strains, and the global spread of life-threatening illnesses increase, rapid testing and diagnosis become more apparent.

Laboratories around the world have stepped up to the challenge by adopting technologies that enable them to work more efficiently to support the growing demand for improved diagnostics and patient care. Continue reading to learn more about technological trends in clinical laboratories.

Cloud Technology

The adoption of cloud technology in clinical laboratories has worked to streamline lab processes, create controlled environments, and disseminate information in real-time. Advanced lab equipment comes with features that automatically record testing data and store it in the cloud allowing technicians, scientists, and other associated parties to access pertinent medical information quickly. 

Assisting scientists and technicians in maintaining a controlled environment, the integration of cloud technology in advanced lab equipment immediately alerts teams when issues arise in the testing or experimental stages. Such alerts provide teams with the support they need to accurately monitor and adjust processes as necessary to generate accurate results.

 Modern laboratories are also adopting cloud based test equipment tracking solutions to gain visibility into their disposable and non-disposable items ranging from expensive testing equipment to instruments and disposables such as laboratory reagents. This software helps ensure reliable reservations of equipment required for testing and enables timely preventive maintenance and calibrations to make sure everything is always in top-notch condition. Also, alerts can be set for important events such as expiring equipment leases or low stock levels of materials so testing cycles are not stretched out due to such shortages.

Lastly, cloud technology features allow scientists to share information in real-time with project contributors from virtually anywhere. The data can be accessed remotely, making it easier to collaborate with other employees and laboratories for improved productivity. 

Improved Equipment Designs

New technologies have enabled designers to create more efficient lab equipment compact in size with advanced capabilities for more efficient lab and testing processes. Microfluidic cell sorting, for example, can be done on a compact system, performing various functions, and helps to eliminate the need for traditional flow cytometry lab setups with simple, easy to use technology. Such innovations save laboratories money, time, and space.

Automation

The use of lab equipment to automate testing and experimental processes have been an ongoing practice for most clinical labs. As technology continues to advance, current equipment designs include features and automation tools that save time and improve efficiency in laboratory processes. The use of automation in laboratories reduces the need for manual tasks previously performed by lab technicians eliminating many daunting and repetitive steps in experimental studies resulting in authentic results in record time. Scientists and technicians are now able to focus their attention on critically analyzing data. 

Sustainability

As the general public becomes increasingly concerned about the environment, industries across the board have taken great strides to do their part to reduce their carbon footprint. Realizing the extensive amount of energy used to operate labs, scientists and lab workers have begun utilizing resources that support a more eco-friendly and sustainable work environment

Many laboratories reduced their carbon footprint by improving their recycling efforts by properly and safely disposing of used supplies, equipment, and containers. Consequently, in purchasing recycled materials for experiments, testing, and lab processes, laboratories have also been able to save a significant amount of money. 

A new concept, referred to as open labs have also become an increasingly popular method for laboratories looking to reduce their carbon footprint. With technological resources like compact equipment, cloud technology, and automation features, sharing space, equipment, and data amongst other labs cuts down on waste while saving money. 

The investment in more efficient lab equipment has also improved sustainability within the industry. Newer models require less energy to operate without compromising the accuracy of results. 
At a time when the world is in the middle of what could be the worst threat to public health in history, clinical laboratories are needed in the fight. From increased testing and rapid results to the development of vaccinations and treatment options, scientists and lab techs around the world will ultimately save humanity. As such, laboratories need to continue to adopt technology trends such as those described above to deliver the most accurate results as quickly as possible.

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How to Set up a Print Server on Linux

After years of working as a support technician, I can tell you one of the most frustrating pieces of technology out there is the printer. When they work, they are an indispensable tool in the office. When they don’t work (as it often happens), they are a never-ending point of frustration.

This is especially true when your printer is attached to a Windows machine that can cause any number of problems, without rhyme or reason. Getting that shared printer back up and running can take some time. Or you might wind up having to call in support. 
To make matters worse, printer problems don’t just plague end users. This almost universal bone of contention causes problems for every level of the user, even all the way up to JavaScript developers, like those at BairesDev.

Fortunately, there’s a way for your business to avoid the headaches brought about by sharing printers from desktop machines. That solution is to deploy a Linux printer server. Once you have such a server up and running, you’ll find it will serve you without fail (so long as the hardware and your network don’t become a problem).

Outside of reliability, the fact that you’ll be using open source means the only cost for you is the hardware. 

Requirements

First off, you need to have a printer that supports Linux. At one point in time, this was a challenge that caused many users to avoid the Linux print server. But that’s all in the past. Today, it’s fairly easy to have a Linux printer. To find out what printers are supported by Linux, check out the OpenPrinting site

With your supported printer at the ready, you’ll need to make sure it’s connected to your Linux server. 

You’ll also need to have a Linux server available. I’ll be demonstrating with Ubuntu Server 18.04, as that’s one of the most user-friendly Linux server distributions on the market. Do note, however, that Ubuntu Server 18.04 installs without a GUI, so you’ll be working from the command line.

Finally, you’ll need a user with sudo privileges.

And that it’s. Let’s get to work.

Installing the CUPS printer server software

The first thing to take care of is the installation of the CUPS printer server software. CUPS stands for Common Unix Printer Server and has been around for some time. 

To install CUPS, log into your Ubuntu server and issue the command:

sudo apt-get install cups -y

Once the installation completes, you’ll need to start the CUPS daemon and configure it to start at boot (otherwise you’ll have to start it manually anytime the server goes down). To start the CUPS daemon, issue the command:

sudo systemctl start cups

 To enable the CUPS daemon at boot, issue the command:

sudo systemctl enable cups

Configuring CUPS

With CUPS installed, it’s time to configure it. Only a few quick changes need to be made within the configuration file. To open that file for editing, issue the command:

sudo nano /etc/cups/cupsd.conf

The first change you need to make is the line:

Browsing Off

Change that to:

Browsing On

Next, you need to configure CUPS so that the web-based manager is accessible from within your Local Area Network (LAN). Look for the line:

Listen localhost:631

Change that line to:

Port 631

For our next trick, you’ll have to make sure that CUPS is listening on all network interfaces. Look for the following section:

<Location />

  Order allow, deny

</Location>

Change that to:

<Location />

  Order allow, deny

  Allow @LOCAL

</Location>

Finally, you’ll want to add access to the CUPS web-based admin console. Look for the section:

<Location /admin>

  Order allow, deny

</Location>

Change that to:

<Location /admin>

  AuthType Default

  Require valid-user

  Order allow, deny

  Allow @LOCAL

</Location>

If you do opt to make the web-based admin console available, you might want to lock it down to allow only a specific user. To do this, you would change the line:

Require valid-user

to

Require user @SYSTEM

Save and close the cupsd.conf file. Restart the CUPS daemon with the command:

sudo systemctl restart cups

If you opted to lock down the admin console to a specific user, you’ll want to create that user with the command:

sudo useradd -g lpadmin cupsadmin

Set the new user’s password with the command:

sudo passwd cupsadmin

With that configuration, you can point a browser to https://SERVERIP/admin (where SERVERIP is the IP address of the machine hosting CUPS). You will be prompted to log in with the cupsadmin user and the password you set above.

Share the printer via Bonjour and IPP protocols

You’ll want to make sure your printer is visible to your LAN via Bonjour (for macOS desktops) and IPP (for most other desktops). To make this work, you’ll need to install the avahi daemon with the command:

sudo apt install avahi-daemon -y

Once installed, start and enable the daemon with the commands:

sudo systemctl start avahi-daemon

sudo systemctl enable avahi-daemon

Open the firewall

If you happen to have the UFW firewall enabled on the Server, allow Bonjour and IPP printer traffic through with the command:

sudo ufw all 5353/udp

Connecting your printer

At this point, everything is ready for desktops to connect. How you connect the desktop to the printer server will depend on which desktop you are using. For example, with Pop!_OS Linux, I can go to Settings > Printers, and (as long as the necessary drivers are installed) the new printer will automatically appear (Figure 1).

Figure 1

Our printer on the CUPS printer server is now available for connection.

Conclusion

And that’s all there is to set up a reliable Linux printer server. The only hiccup you will run across is if you have entities outside of your LAN (such as third-party JavaScript development companies). To allow those groups to use the printers connected to the server, you’ll need to employ a VPN. Otherwise, your printer server is ready and should serve you without fail.

DevelopmentInsightsSEO

15 of the Most Effective SEO Tips for Beginners

As a beginner, you need to realize that there is no other golden opportunity to improve the website rankings in the popular search engines like Google or Yahoo other than SEO service. Of course, there are many options available to achieve better rankings, but guest post service provider helps you to design a reliable framework for your website that is 100% safe and secure!!

 

Important SEO tips for beginners

 

1. Page title and descriptions:

 

When it comes to any content, page titles are very important aspects to consider. It is an impression that helps you to grab the attention of the visitors. Be short and informative…!!!

 

2. Post blog that visitors love to read & share:

 

Nothing would bring vast changes to the rankings of the website other than the guest blog. You need to provide great content to drive high traffic rates and engage more audiences. With the help of guest post outreach, you can promote the brand worldwide!

 

3. Keyword research:

 

 

 As a beginner, you need to perform more studies on keyword research to make the site appear on the first page of the search results.

 

4. Improve on-page elements:

 

Of course, on-page elements might be small, but you to concentrate on the elements like title, header tags, etc to have a great impact on your website’s page. 

 

5. Identify and fix SEO issues:

 

Identifying and fixing any SEO issues will help you to run the website smoothly. 

 

6. Improve page loading speed:

 

SEO helps you to load the page of your website much faster and make your site appear on the first page in the search results. 

 

7. Make use of social media platform:

 

When you are ready to use social media platforms, you can find a massive audience reach and high traffic rates to your niche. 

 

8. Understand the importance of Anchor Text:

 

With the help of anchor text, you can influence the website that you are linking to and you can grab the attention of the visitors much faster. 

 

9. Link building:

 

Link building is the most imperative aspect of SEO. You need to build a link that is relevant to your niche to strike skyrocket hit on your business. 

 

10. Make your site mobile friendly:

 

If you do not provide a smooth browsing experience for your site, then it may decrease your website rankings and so it is essential SEO tips for beginners to enhance the user experience. 

 

11. Content marketing:

 

 

Content marketing is an important aspect of SEO. When you offer great content, sure visitors will help you to promote the website. 

 

12. Stay updated:

 

  One of the most important SEO tactics to consider for beginners is to discover and post updated content on your site to generate organic traffic rates. 

 

13. Keep your eyes on your competitors:

 

 It is always important to keep your eyes on your competitor’s website so that you can come to know what type of services they are providing. 

 

14. Image optimization:

 

Make use of attractive images to enhance the user-experience and focus on page load speed as well.

 

15. Verify your external links:

 

External links are significant for SEO. All of these SEO tips help you to verify that your SEO tactics remain efficient and successful.

 

This was an introduction about SEO, but there are a lot more details to work on when you dive in. If you need professional help, you can always get in touch with SEO experts. They will provide you with detailed information or offer their services.

DevelopmentInsightsMartechSaaSSEO

How Odoo Can Cover All Your Needs

Each business carries a large amount of data that needs to be generated on a daily basis. As technology continues to grow more complex every day, it has made it harder for business owners to find an efficient solution to keep all employees up to date on sales and purchase processes.

Having an excellent customer relations team is a major part of a successful business and that can be difficult when you need to focus on the challenges of owning your own company.

Odoo can help solve all your business problems by integrating your customer relationship management software and enterprise resource planning together to improve your business and your staff’s productivity.

Here are the top advantages of using Odoo for your company:

1. Real-time access to important data

There are a lot of complications that can happen when your system is not integrated fully. When your employees are processing a purchase without having the most updated information, you could risk leading them to making a big mistake that will cost customers a lot of money.

Having a fully integrated CRM and ERP system will always give your employees fast access to information that gets updated immediately to ensure that you won’t have to run into any problems with customers, inventory, shipments, payments, returns, order history, and more.

2. Save money by reducing IT costs

When you are using two different systems instead of one means that you are spending double the cost on everything including IT costs and hours of training your employees to use both programs.

Integrated ERP and CRM will create one platform to use for everything, which means no more expensive maintenance cost for two separate systems and wasting your money on individual platforms.

3. Get rid of unnecessary data entry

Combining ERP and CRM into one system that will have all of the information that you need can eliminate the unnecessary data entry work that has to be done twice on each system.

You can enter the data once on an integrated system and it will show on ERP database as well as CRM without accidentally duplicating it. This also applies if an account needs a custom field to be added and when the data is removed or edited from the system.

4. Allows your team to be more productive

Your CRM system is focused on sales and providing customer support and ERP is for shipping and billing information, inventory data, warehouse, and more. Both systems depend heavily on each other to avoid making any mistakes, which can slow down your employees’ productivity when they have to double check every information before confirming a purchase.

It is especially a hassle for your staff when they are in the middle of an important sale process that has to be done as quickly as possible. By integrating both systems you will improve the customer’s experience with your company by making it easier for your employees to collaborate through the platform and giving them the ability to track all operations.

DevelopmentInsightsProductsSaaSSEO

A Handbook on “Go Agile”!

Agile is a procedure by which a team can deal with a project by separating it into a few stages and including steady coordinated effort with stakeholders and consistent improvement and emphasis at each phase of the task. It starts with clients laying out how the finished result will be utilized and what issue it will resolve.

What is Scrum???

  1. Scrum is a subset of Agile. It is a lightweight process framework for agile development, and one of the most widely used one.
  2. It’s not a process or methodology.
  3. Easy to understand.
  4. Based on Empiricism which means that scrum artifacts should be transparent to everyone in the team.

Principles of Agile

  1. To fulfil the client through right on time and continuous use of important software.
  2. To cater to changing requirements, even late in app development
  3. Delivering working software frequently.
  4. Stakeholders work with the scrum team together throughout the project so as to avoid any communication gaps.
  5. The most efficient way of communicating information within the team is face-to-face conversation.
  6. The progress of work is measured by working software.
  7. Continuous attention is paid to technical excellence.
  8. Due to the self-organizational team structure, the best architectures, designs, and ideas come up.

Empiricism

  1. Transparency:- All artifacts of the process should be visible to the stakeholders and the scrum team. Due to transparency, they can inspect the current state of the project and take necessary action if needed.
  2. Inspection:- Having regular inspections of artifacts will help the stakeholders to incorporate changes in order to achieve the goal.
  3. Adaptation:- Improvements can be made by adjusting the process based on the inspection results.

Scrum is Iterative and Incremental

First one – Incremental

Second one – Iterative

Incremental:- This type of development is to build small increments of the entire product. Each increment adds more features to the product. After multiple increments, you will get the complete product.

Iterative:- This development is to build something, take some feedback, and then refining to make it better. This will keep happening until we receive the product of good quality.

The Scrum Team

  1. The Product Owner.
  2. The Development Team.
  3. The Scrum Master.

The Product Owner

The product owner is liable for augmenting the estimation of the product and work of the development group.

  1. Clearly describing the Product backlog items.
  2. Responsible for managing the product backlog.
  3. To ensure the PBI is visible and clear to all.
  4. To ensure the requirement is understood by all to the level it is required.
  5. Accountable for building high-value products.
  6. Ordering of Product backlog items to achieve the best goals.
  7. Responsible for understanding and answering all questions pertaining to the product domain.
  8. Responsible for tracking the release progress.
  9. Liable for making and dealing with the release plans.
  10. Liable for making and building up the product vision.
  11. Enhancing the estimation of work done by the development team.

The Development Team

The Development Team comprises experts who accomplish crafted by conveying a conceivably releasable Increment of “Done” product at the end of each Sprint.

  1. Cross-functional and self-organizing.
  2. Participates in all scrum events.
  3. Responsible for creating the product increment.
  4. Collaborates with the Product Owner for optimal value.
  5. Responsible for identifying and eliminating technical debts.
  6. Liable for creating and coordinating the sprint backlog.
  7. Responsible for implementing good engineering practices.
  8. Helps product owners in backlog management by explaining the technical constraints.
  9. Answerable for learning all the functions required to convey a product increment.
  10. Answerable for following the advancement of the sprint.

The Scrum Master

The scrum master is responsible for ensuring that Scrum is understood and enacted by all. He ensures that the scrum team adheres to Scrum practices and rules.

  1. He is a servant- leader to the scrum team.
  2. Responsible for building the product fast by eliminating impediments.
  3. Goes about as a change agent that builds the productivity of the scrum team.
  4. Mentors the development team for self-organization and cross-functionality.
  5. Helps the product owners prioritize the work and teaches stakeholders value-based prioritization.
  6. Facilitates Scrum events as requested or required.
  7. Finds and teaches techniques for effective product backlog management to the product owners.
  8. Enables workers and partners of the association to comprehend and institute Scrum and experimental product development.
  9. Assists with streamlining the outside connection with the scrum group to amplify the value created.

Scrum Events

All occasions are time-boxed occasions, with the end goal that each occasion has a maximum duration. When a Sprint starts, its span is fixed and can’t be abbreviated or extended.

The remainder of the events may end at whatever point the explanation behind the event is accomplished, ensuring an appropriate proportion of time is spent without allowing waste at the same time.

The Sprint

The core of Scrum is a Sprint, a time-box of one month or less during which a “Done”, usable, and possibly releasable product Increment is made.

  1. Sprint Planning:-  A time-boxed event that occurs at the beginning of every sprint where the team determines the product backlog items they will work on during the sprint.
  2. Daily Scrum:- It’s a brief time-boxed occasion for the development group to synchronize exercises and make an arrangement for the following 24 hours.
  3. Sprint Review:- This is again a time-boxed event that occurs at the end of every sprint to inspect the increment and adapt the product backlog if needed.
  4. Sprint Retrospective:- This occasion gives a chance to the team to review itself and make an arrangement for enhancements to be done in the following sprint

Scrum Artifacts

Scrum Artifacts speak to work or incentive to give transparency and chances to investigation and transformation. Artifacts have been planned with a reason that everyone has a similar comprehension of the artifact.

  1. Product Backlog:- An arranged rundown of everything that may be required in the product which is the single wellspring of necessities for any progressions to be made to the item. The Product Owner is liable for the Product Backlog, including its content, accessibility, and ordering.
  2. Sprint Backlog:- The arrangement of Product Backlog things chose for the Sprint alongside an arrangement for conveying the item increase and understanding the run objective.
  3. Product Increment:- The whole of all the Product Backlog things finished during a Sprint and the estimation of the additions of every past Sprint is called item increase. 
  4. Product Backlog Refinement:- The ongoing product backlog refinement takes place within each sprint to refine items to be ready for future sprints.

Scrum Values

  1. Commitment:- It is a team activity where you and your team are accountable to work together and confirm your team commitments. The scrum teams must be committed to progress and stick to the goal of the project.
  2. Focus:- Once the requirements are clear and the target is set, one should be goal-oriented which motivates you for delivering faster and better.
  3. Openness:- Colleagues ought to be open about their work, progress, what they realized and the issues they are confronting. Additionally, you ought to be available to work with partners, perceiving people to be people, and not resources, robots, or replaceable bits of equipment.
  4. Respect:- As a piece of the Scrum group, you should regard partners, their choices, and their experience. You should regard your partners by not building anything in which individuals are not intrigued. You have to similarly regard your clients by settling their issues.
  5. Courage:- Flexibility to change shapes the bedrock of any Scrum project and to acknowledge a change, fearlessness is required. Scrum is tied in with facing challenges and discovering an improved arrangement. The Scrum group is permitted to consider various ways to deal with the workshop the best and most proper arrangements. So as to execute new things to the undertaking, we have to disclose these new plans to the group for which you would require fearlessness.

Author bio

Radhika Sethi is a tech enthusiast with specialization in Digital Marketing. She is passionate about technology, internet marketing, big data, and writing. Currently working in Affle Enterprise, a chatbot development company. Reading novels, traveling, researching new online marketing trends are some of her areas of interest that keep her rejuvenated.