Brand mentions have become more important than ever. They have become an important part of SEO, and have a huge impact on search ranking. So it’s safe to say that brand mentions are redefining the way Google measures brand authority.

With everything going digital, even the style of marketing has changed and is very different from traditional marketing. When people mention your brand in the digital space, it becomes word-of-mouth marketing.

The mentioning of your brand by people basically involves them giving a shout out to your brand on digital platforms. This can be done in various forms like mentioning your brand in their social media posts, writing a review, or publishing a blog post. Some may be provoked by a milestone in your company, some by a case study of yours, or by an awesome thing that you’ve done such as redesigning your website theme and setting some trends along.

Why do you need to keep a track of these mentions?

By doing so, you can get a better idea of what people think of your brand and how they perceive it. Keeping track of your brand mentions will also give you a better idea of how you can optimize your backlink profile.

Let’s take a look at some of the best ways to improve your SEO rankings by leveraging brand mentions.

1. Write Guest Blog Posts

Guest blogging is one of the most successful and effective ways to build your brand. Guest blogging is also the best option for brand mentions. And it’s a cost-effective way to promote your brand.

The process of writing a guest blog post is quite simple and easy. You just need to get in touch with a website from your industry and ask them to publish your post. But remember to search for a website that has high domain authority.

There are many advantages of guest blogging which includes an increase in SEO, brand reputation, and traffic.

Make sure you publish your content on a high domain authority website. As this will have a direct impact on the search engine rankings of your site. This also affects the visibility of your brand and can help you find relevant audiences to showcase your expertise to.

Guest posts also help you build the reputation of your brand. And it’s a very well-known fact that having a good reputation can bring long-term benefits. Guest blogging is also an inexpensive way to increase the traffic for your website.

The case study of Groove is the best example of the power of guest blogging. The groove is a team of a handful of software experts with the goal of guiding small businesses with their clutter-free and easy to use the software.

They posted a guest post and successfully managed to reach more than 1 million people.

Image Source – Groove

2. Create Useful, Relevant, and Attractive Content

Website owners used to buy links to improve their SEO unnaturally. That’s why Google took strict action against this practice and introduced quality content as a ranking factor. Google created a new algorithm which ranks websites based on their content quality.

So you need to create content for your website which is unique, useful, and relevant to your niche. When you create content like this, Google will automatically find your content, thanks to the new algorithm, and likely improve your rankings.

When your content ranks better, it helps people find it faster and encourages them to talk about it and share it on their social platforms. This is how your brand can reach new heights.

But make sure to create content on trending yet relevant topics. But how can you figure out what is relevant and trending? You can use tools like Google Alerts. This tool will help you find out trending and relevant topics from your niche.

You can create alerts for trending topics from your niche. This actually cuts down the extra effort to research trending topics. It also allows you to opt for a content update strategy. This feature will provide you with a list of your old posts which you can update later on.

Image Source – Google Alerts

3. Provide Exceptional Customer Service

When you provide excellent customer service, it’s obvious that people will start talking about it. And they might even recommend your brand to their family and friends.

There is also good chance that people will talk about your brand on their personal blogs, vlogs, or on social media.

That can help you attract more potential customers to your website, resulting in an increase in your website traffic and conversion rate. But how will you stand out from other players and provide great customer service?

Here is a quick tip – never forget to acknowledge and thank customers who are writing positive reviews about your brand. Also, never ignore the customers who are not happy and have given negative feedback.

Always go back to the customer and discuss the problem with them. Then address the issue as soon as possible. And keep updating the customer about the progress in solving the issue via email or messages.

A perfect example is Samsung’s support page on Twitter, which is dedicated to providing great customer service. Support is available around the clock, seven days a week.

Image Source – Twitter

4. Always Track Brand Mentions

It’s important to track your online brand mentions as they can help you with reputation management opportunities and finding honest feedback. Tracking brand mentions also helps you gain a better understanding of how people are interacting with your brand.

By tracking brand mentions, you can get an idea of the satisfaction level of your customers. You can also monitor your online reputation and take the necessary steps to improve your reputation. Tracking brand mentions can also help you to develop metrics to measure and evaluate the popularity of your brand.

There is no doubt about the fact that brand mentions are very important to the business. But it’s a very time-consuming task. There are tools that can help you track your brand mentions in a much more efficient and effective way.

Tools like Google Alerts are very popular and are widely used for keeping track of brand mentions. As you grow your brand, you will get more brand mentions on social media platforms. Now you cannot be everywhere at the same time, so this tool gives you regular updates on the brand mentions you are getting.

Now you know the advantages of tracking brand mentions. So go ahead and create an account in Google Alerts and it will automatically send you an alert for any mention of your brand.

Image Source – Google Alerts

Final Thoughts

It’s not possible to improve your search rankings overnight. In fact, SEO is a long-term strategy. If you want to stand out from your competition, it’s always better to stay one step ahead. And tracking brand mentions is one of the best tactics to not only improve your SEO efforts but also monitor your brand’s reputation.

There are tools that can help you track and monitor your website’s search engine rankings. You can use tools like Keyword Tracker or PRT to quickly and easily track your rankings. You can also use these tools to monitor your progress or changes in your rankings.

Do you know of any more ways to improve search rankings using brand mentions? Please feel free to let us know in the comments section below.

Internet of Things (IoT) is a transformative trend making big splashes. With the booming ecosystem of 20 billion connected devices announcing its triumph and widespread adoption on the roll in major industries, it needs no introduction. The only question is what facet of it will manifest the most, and reshape modern products, workflows, and processes. Well, this year will not be the time of IoT revolution as much as it will be the year of infrastructure consolidation, increased investment, and steady growth. The driving force behind these developments comes in the form of following prominent trends.

● Poised for growth

On the broadest level, we see that the whole IoT sector is primed for dynamic growth. More and more devices are coming online with each passing day. By 2030, we could reach a threshold of 30 billion connected pieces. The consumer segment will have the largest share of IoT installed base. Moreover, a lion’s share of the market will be dominated by businesses offering wearable devices, industrial equipment, smart/automated home tech, and high-tech cars.  Retail, supply, and healthcare sector are not lagging behind. In fact, they are expected to undergo a phase of rapid growth as well.

● Increased fragmentation

On the flipside, this proliferation breeds the so-called “fragmentation frustration”. Namely, growth in the area of as-a-service (aaS) and cloud solutions has shown that fragmentation poses a tough challenge for companies. Adoption is not really frictionless and it demands a considerable investment of resources. There are also many compatibility issues because we will have to wait a bit more for device standardization and certification to really kick in. Those who struggle will likely have to rely on leading Internet of Things agencies for everything from strategizing to custom tool implementation.

● IoT and OT convergence

Traditionally, IoT and Operational Technology (OT) were separate domains. Nowadays, however, the gap is becoming narrower. Many companies are realizing the advantage of IoT and OT teams working hand in hand towards more efficient deployment of new solutions and initiatives. What is more, OT will have a profound impact on the design of IoT apps in 2018. They will be more friendly and accessible to end users, such as field workers and plant operators. The advantage is clear: operational decisions can be reached in real-time, by those who are closest to the workflow.

● Heightened security risks

Data breaches galore raise many eyebrows and for good reasons too. Undermined cybersecurity is yet another byproduct of soaring IoT growth. As they become more complex, networks also include more loopholes that have to be addressed. And this is no task for amateurs. Attack surface is bigger than ever, cyber threats are becoming more sophisticated, and the environment is largely unregulated. It is up to users to come up with tools and measures for preserving privacy and data safety. Note also that most attacks will be motivated by financial gains and seek to exploit IoT vulnerabilities.

● Mobile gains dominance

The shift towards a mobile-first internet world is old news already, but are we heading towards the mobile-only frontier? This kind of prediction might be premature, but there are signs that mobile platforms are being increasingly used as management systems for IoT devices. Both early adopters and late-comers are transitioning and the booming mobile market will only fuel this tendency. On the other hand, IoT is likely to change the way mobile apps are made. These products will work via new modes of connectivity and lean towards the native and hybrid end of the market.

● Data processing remains a challenges

Staying on top of the immense influx of data across channels is a daunting task, which lies beyond the capacity of human workers. Companies will have to step up the game and use more refined and cheaper methods of processing big data. In this day and age, trends like edge networking and hardened legacy frameworks are a necessity more than anything else because they lead to less network demand and operating costs. And to really harness value from vast data pools, businesses will seek to employ advanced (AI) analytics and machine learning tools capable of real-time data streaming.

● Conclusion

Despite noticeable growing pains and a handful of hurdles, 2018 paves a promising trajectory for gains in connectivity. From there, we can see IoT only going up and up. It is slowly becoming the backbone of consumer value and mainstay of the business growth across industry sectors. Yet, the full potential of this technology is still being realized. We will need even more powerful analytics, machine learning, and AI systems to support rapidly expanding IoT space.  One thing is for certain, though. We are witnessing the emergence of large inroads that will carry this cutting-edge technology to grow and evolve beyond imagination.

References:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/danielnewman/2017/12/19/the-top-8-iot-trends-for-2018/#514e3ff267f7

https://www.statista.com/topics/2637/internet-of-things/

https://www.cio.com/article/3246630/internet-of-things/6-internet-of-things-trends-that-will-dominate-2018.html

https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2018/01/04/the-internet-of-things-iot-will-be-massive-in-2018-here-are-the-4-predictions-from-ibm/#8a71fe8edd33

http://www.digitalaptech.com/3-ways-iot-is-changing-the-future-of-mobile-applications-development/

In a time where it seems that everything is linked to technology: our homes, our cities and of course, ourselves, it is no surprise that there is a view to introducing such practices to something that many of us travel along every day: roads.

Smart roads, much like smart homes and smart cities, have been devised to aid commuters in making their journeys a much more interactive experience.

The plan is to revamp the way we see our highways and streets to provide live feedback on traffic, weather, and road conditions and find solutions towards harnessing and generating solar energy to help usher in the age of autonomous vehicles.

Benefits of Smart Roads

Everybody, at one point or another, has experienced the loathsome drag of sitting in traffic that stretches as far as the eye can see. We have all found ourselves coming across an unexpected delay that disrupts the journey and leads to apologetic phone calls explaining that arrival may be a little bit later than expected.

Smart roads look to eliminate such issues. There are those digital road signs which inform you of slow traffic in the next ten miles, there are those that warn to slow down due to motor accidents, but this technology is painfully outdated and there is no guarantee that everyone will pay attention when passing them.

So, what if you could receive this information directly to your vehicle way ahead of time and suggesting alternate routes without the grating whine of Google Maps telling you over and over again to turn around? Having traffic information sent directly to your dashboard will warn you ahead of time if you need to make adjustments to your route.

Another positive is the ability to generate solar energy to help light the way, as well as aid the charging of autonomous cars to reduce battery loss.

The emphasis on green, renewable energy has encouraged people to look towards alternative methods of transport such as carpooling, public transport, or cycling. This is not always possible for long commutes, though, and so there are still many cars on the road that produce carbon emissions every day, to and from destinations.

Using solar energy will allow for a reduction in such emissions. As more people adopt electric or autonomous cars, the added bonus of charging-while-driving offered by smart roads will demonstrate a reduction in harmful gases polluting the air every day.

Challenges in Transition

There are however challenges associated with making the transition from traditional roads to smart roads. Currently, the primary reason is that not enough people own cars that would benefit such adaptations.

While there has been a surge in purchases in the last four years, there are just 150,000 owners of electric cars registered in the UK. It is not yet viable for governments to implement smart roads across the country because the market share does not suggest such actions would be a sound investment.

As autonomous are not yet commercialized, the cost to undertake these changes would not be beneficial. As attractive as a self-driving car might seem to some, there are still doubts regarding their safety. The recent Uber accident has brought many people back down to earth and made them realize that even though we have the technology, a driverless future is still far from reality.

Prominent Smart Road Nations

Wanting to stay ahead of the curve and demonstrate a willingness to start thinking about the planet, there are a number of nations that are committed to working on, developing and eventually introducing smart roads across their land.

Thoughts immediately go to the likes of the USA, the home of prominent electric vehicles like Tesla, but it is not just Elon Musk and his merry band of geniuses, as well as Smart America, who are focusing on such developments. Just recently, Sweden introduced their first smart road that charges electric vehicles while driving.

The road itself is merely a pilot scheme covering a two-kilometer stretch just outside Stockholm, but should it prove successful, it shows that this technology can be effective and might even prompt more people to invest in electric cars.

Smart Roads in the United Kingdom, http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/5251763

(Copyright Bill Boaden and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.)

Countries such as the UK have also been planning for smart roads for some time and have recently begun to implement these in 2017/2018 as seen above. In 2015 testing for charging-while driving began to solve the long commute issue. Another country that appears to be leading the way is China, which has been working on their first-generation smart road products that include solar panels generating energy.

New Road, New Technology

Solutions to adapting our roads from the old ways to the new may not entirely remove the potential for road damage, but they can help in other ways. Solar energy is now cheaper to develop than ever before, and using this to help power streetlights and road markings will reduce the amount of electricity needed to be produced.

Norway is working on fiber-optic technology to install under the surface that records information about passing traffic to provide real-time updates to drivers and help them understand what to expect during their journey.

Sweden’s aforementioned smart road utilizes charging strips along the roads, assisted by a robotic arm that connects to such strips while driving. It is not that the driver can sit back and relax – they are still responsible for steering – but the charging strip will help them avoid needing to stop and charge during long journeys and keep the car powered throughout.

Linking the roads themselves to vehicles through the Internet of Things will make the typical travel experience much more interactive. Traffic updates, roads that honk, renewable energy are all aspects that can be considered for inclusion.

A Road To The Future

Technology is always looking for solutions to make our lives easier. Smart roads have the potential to be just what weary commuters are looking for. Autonomous vehicles working in tandem with smart roads would allow for some extra sleep on the way to work, help towards fixing the environment and perhaps even solve congestion issues on busy highways.

While there is certain to be delays and issues with the installation of smart roads, finding the right systems that benefit both the driver and the planet will help other nations adapt and develop similar technologies for their own use. Countries such as the USA, UK, Sweden, Norway and China have already begun, should their methods prove successful, the rest of the journey could be easy riding.

A lot is written about the effect that the streaming era might have on television. The widespread assumption is that a growing variety of streaming options are giving birth to a generation of “cord-cutters” who will ultimately dismiss television (and perhaps movie theaters as well) entirely. The data backs up the idea. A 2017 analysis revealed that while the transition is somewhat slow (a predicted decline of 1.5% a year in cable subscriptions over the next decade), it is happening. The notion of conventional viewing entertainment may look very different in a matter of years.

What we don’t spend as much time writing or talking about however is that the emergence of “streaming” as its own portion of the Internet is also spawning new entertainment industries altogether. It allows those who enjoy television, film, gaming, etc. to have more control over what content they access, and in some cases, it even enables closer interaction with that content.

The clearest examples of this can be found in some of the newer streaming options that have become available to consumers. YouTube TV may be the first that comes to mind – a platform that essentially operates as a more comprehensive version of Sling, providing a variety of cable channels, as well as a very robust DVR system to its users. However, while YouTube TV is certainly one of the more competitive alternatives to cable, it’s also a fairly basic concept already. It’s an adaptation more than a new concept.

We can look to more niche streaming options as indications of new industries, per se. For instance, one of the most recent to come about is ESPN+. Faced with a rapid change base of consumers with a variety of different preferences, ESPN introduced this platform not as an app version of its TV network, but rather as a sort of catch-all for interesting, streamed sports content. Users signing up for the service can enjoy everything from live games to, for instance, a new exclusive program in which ex-NBA star Kobe Bryant breaks down the tactics of a recent basketball game. Again, it’s less a version of the ESPN you can get with a basic cable package (or YouTube TV or Sling for that matter), and more an alternative form of streaming sports content.

In other areas, streaming platforms are also enabling fans to take part in the action rather than simply choose what action they’re seeing. Most notably, live streaming has become a very significant part of the online betting Singapore and others in that industry. Through platforms like YouTube and Stitch, as well as those dedicated to specific sports, games, or activities (like, say, horse racing or poker), live streaming is able to create a gaming experience that’s almost as good as being in the thick of it. In this instance, not only can fans choose their content and access it live – they can use that real-time access to make informed betting decisions on the content, should they so choose.

Taking all of these developments together, we begin to see the emergence of new industries spinning would-be television content (or in some cases events that are simulated or would never have been on TV before) into specialized and/or interactive entertainment. Streaming platforms, ultimately, have the power to give each individual almost exactly what he or she wants out of viewing entertainment. And we’re starting to see things moving slowly but surely in that direction.

Time and Tide wait for none and so is the case with the increasing trend of purchases from an eCommerce website.  According to an estimation, there have been 1.66 billion people from across the globe who made the online purchases from a different eCommerce website. Based on this trend, there has been a projected growth of 4.48 trillion USD by the year of 2021. Obviously, these figures are capable enough to enchant the big names to go live to expand the reach of the customers but it is equally important to ponder over some criterion that makes your eCommerce website development a successful and fruitful venture be it the user experience or the overall performance of your website when it goes live.

Here are some intuitive tips that will definitely help you create a custom e-commerce website of your dream.

• Enchanting Design responding exactly to the visitors:

The simple message that I wish to convey here is that while you are planning to create an eCommerce website, it is inevitably crucial to take care of the Responsiveness of your website be it to a mobile device, desktop, or a tablet. It has to be so mainly because, according to a survey, 62% of mobile devices users have preferred to make their purchases through Smartphone in the past few months and the same trend are still expected to grow in numbers.

Hence it is more advisable to equip your website responsive using effective CMS platforms to make your website Smartphone user-friendly in order to grab a maximum number of customers for the products or services you are offering online.

• Checkouts:

The most successful online businesses are expected to have the complete details of the visitors visiting their websites and for it, they need to create an ideal checkout funnel with which one can access to the information of the visitors for future follow-up and/or for the communication of new products launches.

However, every customer may not prefer to register at your website or may avoid the filling up process. And hence, it would be ideal to design the Purchase Process in such a way that the customer is required to fill the necessary details and creating an account on your website (guest purchase).

• Ideal Site Search Options to glide through the website:

It is interesting to note here that when a visitor lands on your website, he would first prefer to go to the Search Option to select the product of his/her choice. Hence, it is desirable to equip your e-commerce website with Product Search Option with automated details filling facility which will ease the comfort of the visitors. This functionality will definitely reduce the pain of their search in terms of the size of the product, color, category, price range, availability etc.

• Strong Security Checks:

Before you boost your e-commerce website marketing strategy, this aspect is very crucial to be taken care of. Because every individual making an online purchase expects that his/her personal information relating to his debit/credit card, bank account number, and password are secured with proper encryption of the data he is submitting online. For this, your website is required to be equipped with SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) which ensures the encryption of the data. This feature on your online website will help you earn the trust and loyalty of your customers.

• Well Optimized Performance:

What if your e-commerce website does not act as it is expected to perform. It is the most common experience of major website handlers that when it takes too long to load a website, then the possibility of the switching over to another is always greater. And you need to take care of this element mainly because of the multi-tasking trend prevailing among today’s mobile devices users.

This load time issues can be eliminated by:

• Combining the CSS files to boost the speed of the website in respect of the load time your website is taking.
• In the same, graphics or images should be compressed to a comparatively small size as it would also help in reducing the load time.
• Proper management of the data transportation between the website server and database server.

There is a law in economics, that as the demand increases, the price for the same goes down and I would love to add to it considering the current mindset and time that as the Demand increases the multiplicity of choices increases and every business needs to cope with this with an ideal e-commerce website that matches rightly with the expectations of an end-user.