Best Ways to Monitor a Business Website’s Performance

A website serves as a hallmark of business’s success and offerings. It requires intensive efforts, time, money, and more resources to make a website perform well. You might hire a team of qualified developers, designers, analysts and even the greatest content writers who could create a fantastic site for your business. However, you will still require the essential metrics to monitor, track, and assess performance of a site.

In this article, we have revealed the top ways to monitor performance of a site. It will help you improve ROI, allowing you to focus on core activities and processes of your business. Read along to discover everything:

Website Uptime

Measuring uptime is the most vital performance indicator for a website. Today, a large number of businesses rely on a website for making sales. If a site faces downtime, it would lose on conversions. Not only this, an unavailable website can become a perfect recipe of disaster for a small business firm, placing its reputation at stake.

Having said, website uptime is measured in percent. Businesses tend to achieve a five-digit website uptime i.e. 99.999%. In addition, businesses can check if key landing pages have optimum uptime. Keeping in view importance of website uptime, Paessler announced April 10th as the World Uptime Day.

Measuring Traffic

Measuring audience on a website is essential for almost every business. Traffic received on a website can be analyzed through tracking number of visitors using tools like Google Analytics. It allows business owners to identify the number of new and returning visitors on their site.

Through monitoring visitors on a website, a business can discover if it is growing or not. Not to mention, returning visitors represent how good a website is.

Traffic Sources

Besides identifying the number of visitors on a website, it’s essential to discover their source. It allows users to find out from where the visitors are coming i.e. Google, social media campaign, business listing, email marketing, PPC campaign, or any other source.

Google Analytics segments visitors according to their demographic, interest, and geographic aspects. Segmenting visitors helps in discovering potential of various digital marketing practices. Through this way, a business can improve their website traffic and to have more conversions.

Bounce Rate & Avg. Session Duration – Traffic Recipe

As per rule of thumb, more a user stays on a website; more are the chances of conversion. On another hand, if a user bounces back immediately after landing on a page, it means that he/she found something interested and proceeded or didn’t find anything useful at all. Measuring bounce rate and avg. stay duration of site can help small businesses make their site more user-friendly and engaging.

Though the visitors may not make a purchase on a site immediately, but more they stay on a website, they are more likely to make a purchase. Many times, small businesses make mistake when building online reputation by overlooking upon technical factors of a website. Lower bounce rate and increased avg. stay duration improves ranking of a website on search engines including Google, improving online visibility of a business.

Conversion Rates

Now that you know about how to discover source of the visitors and how to keep the bounce rate lower while increasing the avg. stay duration of a website, you should know if they are taking an action that you want.

A visitor might download a file, request a quotation, send query, or make a purchase. To make a visitor take one of the actions mentioned above or even more, you can place a well-defined CTA such as Download, Get Started, or Learn More. Google Analytics can tell how many users click on a specific CTA assigned with a goal.

Conclusion

Businesses can measure a website’s performance through ways mentioned in this article. The above-mentioned ways help a business identify if a website is performing up to the mark or not. With the right set of tools, monitoring a website’s performance becomes easier and effective.

The post Best Ways to Monitor a Business Website’s Performance appeared first on The Blogging Painters.

7 Questions about Paint Colors with The Voice of Color: PPG Paints

We recently reached out to PPG Paints, to see if they had any tips they could give us on selecting paint colors for your home and the process on how they selected their most recent Color of the Year, Black Flame.

Dee Schlotter, Senior Color Marketing Manager, was kind enough to answer our questions.

Now, we realize selecting something as big as the Color of the Year as a pretty daunting task. We asked Dee to describe a little bit about what is involved in the process.

 In February 2017, PPG had more than 20 of their global color stylists gather together, this one being the eighth consecutive PPG Global Color Forecast workshop. During the three-day meeting, this group discussed societal and regional trends, as well as overarching consumer insights to determine the following year’s color trends forecast, as well as the 2018 Color of the Year. Because of its ability to represent a variety of different events, consumer personalities and feelings, Black Flame was chosen as the PPG PAINTS® 2018 Color of the Year on the final day of the event. Dee went on to say that they forecast this color to resonate with their customers across multiple industries because of its versatility and relatability to current consumer cravings. Black Flame represents new beginnings, comfort, solace and strength.

Dee Schlotter, Senior Color Marketing Manager

 

There most certainly had to be other colors in the running for this prestigious title, so we asked what they were. Dee gave nothing away though, saying:

“Determining one single color is difficult, and sometimes the final color choice is heavily debated. We did have another color bubble to the surface that was popular in home décor, but it didn’t resonate with our other themes and trending materials as much as Black Flame.”

Still curious about the process, we asked if the workshop used recent analytical data trends in actual purchases or if it was more of a “feel” for the direction they see color and design trends headed in their selection process. Dee made sure to point out that PPG knows that they influence trends as much as trends influence them, and their forecasts represent and connect to consumer feelings and preferences.

They use a wide variety of sources and societal influences to gather their information.

“PPG also knows that it’s not simply about one color, but rather a combination of trending colors to create an overarching, and all-encompassing color story that resonates with our broad range of customers” 

Having named Black Flame their Color of the Year right before 2018, we asked how it’s been received by customers so far. We wanted to know if naming a color showed a spike in purchases or if it was already a pretty popular color.

“Bringing a color to the surface from the more than 2,000 colors in the PPG Paints palette always generates interest and favorability. In 2017, tinting of the Color of the Year increased by 300 percent from the previous year” 

She also went on to explain that the most interesting place that they have seen this color used is on interior doors. From closets, to room doors, to interior doors that lead to the exterior, Black Flame provides notice and weight. Because it’s a super modern, yet classic color, this color can also be seen on the exterior of many homes as well.

Not only does the workshop pick the color of the year, but they also work on the color trends and themes of the year as well. The 2018 PPG Global Color Trends palettes has 4 themes to it, to which they’ve given them their own names – The Retreater, The Dream Weaver, The Commoner, and The Brave. The PPG brand develops this palette each year to help inform design and color choices for professional customers, from professional painters to designers and architects.

If you’re any bit as curious as we are, we had to know how colors got their names and what the process looked like. We imagine it had to be pretty fun. Dee agreed that it was a fun process for them! She went on to explain that their best inspiration often comes from the input of others. They’ve had a few interactive social media threads, where they’ve posted colors that sparked conversations, which gave some interesting responses and some new ideas. Dee even went to her son’s elementary school a few years ago to get some ideas from the kids there, as they often have no filters and sometimes come up with the most unique names. PPG even holds internal naming contests for its employees. Another resource Dee sighted was nature books and magazines as they usually include color references.

Lastly, we asked what advice they would give to a homeowner trying to find the color they will love for their upcoming paint project. Dee knows that colors are personal for each homeowner, but had some basic suggestions to help make the process easier. The first thing she recommended is to consider the flooring, fabrics and window treatments, as well as if they plan to change any of them. Then, selecting a complementary tone can be chosen from the other colors in the room or the home. They should choose several paint swatches that will coordinate or complement the colors within decor items. Dee recommends holding swatches next to furniture, flooring, and window treatments for a better visual of how the paint will appear against these items, instead of up against the wall, for a better understanding of how it will look in the space. Once they’ve picked a few colors, they should paint a swatch on the wall, so the homeowner can see the color against different lighting throughout the day and evening.

Textbook Painting is based out of Lakewood, OH. They service the greater Cleveland area for all interior and exterior painting, power washing, and deck staining. If you’d like to read the complete interview with Dee Schlotter, head over to their blog at https://www.textbookpainting.com/.

 

 

Editors note:Photos provided by PPG

 

The post 7 Questions about Paint Colors with The Voice of Color: PPG Paints appeared first on The Blogging Painters.

NEW AUGMENTED REALITY FEATURE FROM SHERWIN-WILLIAMS

VISUALIZE PAINT COLORS ON ANY WALL IN REAL TIME WITH NEW AUGMENTED REALITY FEATURE FROM SHERWIN-WILLIAMS

Instant PaintTM experience now available for free in Sherwin-Williams ColorSnap® Visualizer app CLEVELAND (April 25, 2018)

The most innovative update yet to Sherwin-Williams powerful ColorSnap

Visualizer app allows customers to easily use cutting-edge augmented reality to make faster and more confident color selections. The Instant Paint feature of the app is available now for iPhone and Android.

“Using emerging AR technology, this new feature virtually transforms a space before picking up a brush,” said Meghan Vickers, Sherwin-Williams e-business marketing director. “Instant Paint provides a fast, seamless way for homeowners and professionals to build confidence during color selection.”

With Instant Paint, smartphone cameras instantly recognize walls in a three-dimensional space. Customers simply tap on any wall in their camera view to “try on and see” any of Sherwin-Williams 1,500 colors on walls in real time.

Users can easily try different color options, create custom palettes and share results in a variety of ways. As one of the first apps in the paint category to use Apple and Google’s latest AR platforms, ColorSnap Visualizer continues to lead the way in helping customers get the right color on walls quickly, smoothly and accurately.

Instant Paint is part of the English version of the ColorSnap Visualizer mobile app. It is available for North American customers with an iPhone 6s or newer running iOS 11, or Android users with AR-compatible smartphones. Customers with earlier devices can still quickly see how a color will look in their space by uploading a photo of the space and digitally painting the walls.

The ColorSnap Visualizer app is available now from the Apple and Google App Stores. For more information about Instant Paint and the ColorSnap® Visualizer app, visit Sherwin-Williams.com/ColorSnap.

Ask Sherwin-WilliamsTM

For more than 150 years, Sherwin-Williams has been an industry leader in the development of technologically advanced paint and coatings. As the nation’s largest specialty retailer of paint and painting supplies, Sherwin- Williams is dedicated to supporting both do-it-yourselfers and painting professionals with exceptional and exclusive products, resources to make confident color selections and expert, personalized service at its more than 4,200 neighborhood stores across North America. For more information, visit sherwin-williams.com. Join Sherwin-Williams on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram.

The post NEW AUGMENTED REALITY FEATURE FROM SHERWIN-WILLIAMS appeared first on The Blogging Painters.