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.

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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

 

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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.

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Loxon® Self-Cleaning Acrylic Coating

NEW SELF-CLEANING EXTERIOR COATING FROM SHERWIN-WILLIAMS EASILY SHEDS DIRT TO KEEP PROPERTIES LOOKING FRESH

CLEVELAND (April 2, 2018) — Sherwin-Williams is announcing the launch of Loxon^® Self-Cleaning Acrylic Coating, a product specifically engineered for exterior, above-grade masonry to provide a clean and attractive look with high-performance protection. The self-cleaning formula easily sheds dirt with rain or water contact and provides advanced durability, water shedding, wind driven rain and dirt pickup resistance.

“This new masonry coating is great for pros getting ready for the upcoming construction season, when updating or creating new outdoor spaces are top of mind,” said Steve Revnew, senior vice president of product innovation, Sherwin-Williams. “Sherwin-Williams developed Loxon Self-Cleaning Acrylic Coating to help contractors and property managers avoid costly repaints and extensive cleaning, resulting in improved efficiencies and high satisfaction levels.” 

In addition to stucco, masonry and cement board, Loxon Self-Cleaning Acrylic Coating can be applied directly to bare or previously coated concrete that is at least seven days old, has a pH of 6-13 and in temperatures down to 35 degrees Fahrenheit. Meeting the most stringent VOC regulations, the new product will be available in a flat sheen in a wide range of colors at Sherwin-Williams stores nationwide this spring.

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COLORSNAP MATCH FROM SHERWIN-WILLIAMS

TAKE THE GUESSWORK OUT OF COLOR MATCHING WITH COLORSNAP MATCH FROM SHERWIN-WILLIAMS

New portable matching tool connects to app, streamlines color-matching experience

CLEVELAND (Jan. 29, 2018) — Sherwin-Williams unveiled ColorsSnap Match, its new handheld color-matching tool aimed at helping everyone from painting contractors to designers, remodelers and homeowners with quick and confident color-matching. The new device connects to Sherwin-Williams free ColorSnap Match app via Bluetooth^® to deliver a streamlined experience and make it effortless to scan any surface or fabric to find corresponding Sherwin-Williams colors.

“We’re excited to get this product in the hands of professionals and consumers to give them an easy and affordable color-matching experience. This tool is lightweight and portable, making it convenient for on-the-go color matching,”
 Jeff Winter, vice president of residential marketing at Sherwin-Williams

The new device enables users to scan colors from any item or texture, including paint, textiles, carpet, tile, apparel, accessories and more, then instantly find the closest Sherwin-Williams paint color. ColorSnap Match will also save scans, and match and show Sherwin-Williams color palettes, making color selection portable and convenient.

The ColorSnap Match paint-scanning device is available in Sherwin-Williams stores nationwide for $69.99, and the ColorSnap Match app is available for both iOS and Android devices. For more information, please visit colorsnap.com/match or speak to your local Sherwin-Williams store representative.

Ask Sherwin-Williams^TM

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.

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Zipper Rollers

 

McCauley Tools had modest beginnings. In 2005, while painting their house for the market, Garth and Kim Getchell were pulled into an intriguing conversation with seasoned painting contractor Pat McCauley who demonstrated a rough prototype of a unique painting tool that, at first, simply sparked the interest of the Getchell’s: then, their excitement.

Veterans of 25 years of commercial contracting with their own 30 member painting crew, Garth and Kim immediately recognized the potential of this creative device and acquired the company. After an exhaustive research and development period, this exciting time culminated in the first patented flexible extension arm painting tools – The Brush Flex and Mini Roller Flex.

Over the years Garth and Kim Getchell have worked hard to make McCauley Tools a solid, reliable, cutting edge company. Dedicated to their work, they put the needs of professional and DIY painters first and foremost.

Thanks to Garth for providing the Zipper Rollers to our Product Feedback Team. The have been using them out in the field and will report back soon. If you have used the revolver, feel free to fill out the review form below and let us know what you think!

If you would like to learn more or order, head over to their site, McCauley Tools

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The Revolver

Marketing 101: Ideas for Promotions in the Painting Industry

Every business needs marketing in order to get well-known and effectively stand out in the crowd. Without eye-catching marketing strategies and campaigns, there’s no chance that any business will reach success anytime soon. The same goes for the painting industry. The fact of the matter is that every house or condo owner will need an exterior or interior paint job sooner or later. Sure, young people and new couples may try to do it themselves, but when their DIY paint job doesn’t turn out like they wanted it, they’ll call for professionals to fix the mess they’ve made.

That’s why you need to market your painting business and let people know that you have the best services available at their disposal. Mix a bit of traditional and digital marketing to let people know you’re the leading business in the painting industry. Here are a few promotion ideas that will boost your marketing efforts.

Good Old Advertising

Traditional advertisements are still a powerful way of promoting your business, especially for less digital industries, such as painting businesses. In addition, you don’t have a niche-specific target audience. Instead, every homeowner is your desired customer and that’s why local advertisements can prove much more effective in promoting your business than other marketing strategies. Based on your budget, you can advertise in the local newspaper, billboards, TV stations, radio and Yellow Pages.

You can also print out leaflets and brochures that you’ll hand out to people on the street. It’s a good idea to target neighborhoods with older building and homes – 10 years old or older, because they’re most likely in need of a new paint job. Improving awareness and visibility in your local area will give your painting business the necessary push to help it grow and expand further.

Use Direct Mail

Direct mail is another traditional marketing method where you design and tailor your message specifically for your potential customers. The main reason this marketing method is so effective is because it avoids all the noise in the digital world and goes straight to the consumers. However, this method is a bit costly, since you need to print out and mail material, but once it hits the mark, your business will get the desired attention. There is the risk of people oftentimes throwing direct mail into the garbage because they consider it spam.

Still, it won’t hurt to try out direct mail, especially since it holds great potential. You can design a catalogue of your previous work and include discounts and personalized offers. Also, make sure you create a message that will describe your work and your offer in the best and most convincing way possible, so that it has better chances of getting people interested.

Check out SendOut Cards here for follow up ideas!

Try Partnering with other Businesses

There are plenty of other businesses in the vicinity that are trying to stay on top of their game. These non-competitive businesses may be the key to mutual growth and prosperity. You can partner up with other business and combine resources, as well as marketing efforts to promote each other more effectively. For instance, local carpet cleaners, plumbers and electricians can add you to their advertisements and word-of mouth recommendations, and in return you can do the same for them.

Maintain an Online Presence

As beneficial as traditional marketing can be for less digital industries, there’s also a benefit in taking a digital approach. Creating an online presence can help expand your reach, as well as your influence. A good way to do so is to leverage social media platforms and build your presence on networks such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

That way you can showcase your work and promote your business to online audiences. This will help grow your customer base and may even help grow your business outside the local area you’re currently operating in.

 

The painting industry requires good marketing like any other industry. Without good marketing, there’s no valid way to promote your business or to attract customers. However, if you’re creative and innovative, you’ll be able to develop an effective promotional campaign that will not just make your painting business well-known, but successful and profitable as well.

My name is Alex Williams, born and raised in beautiful Sydney. I am a journalism graduate, and a rookie blogger trying to find my luck. Blogs are the perfect opportunity for presenting yourself to wider audience, getting the chance to showcase my expertise and receiving recognition. I am a regular contributor at BizzMark Blog.

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5 Ways Auditing your Blog will increase Organic Traffic

If you are looking for ways to strengthen your blog’s web presence, a full-fledged SEO audit can do wonders. SEO stands for search engine optimization and helps to send relevant and contextual signals to search engines that allow increased visibility of your blog through keywords.

But the world of SEO is quite complex and before deciding to implement any strategy, you should have clear goals. This is when an SEO audit can help you immensely. It not only updates you about your competitors, but also provides you a way to overtake them in search results. SEO auditing is an excellent benchmarking tool that can add a lot of valuable followers to your blog.

Once you have decided to run an SEO audit, choose a reliable SEO audit tool that can help you figure out strategies to increase the organic traffic of your blog. There are many available in the market such as Growth Robotics, SEO Auditor, Seomator and others. An SEO audit covers the current rankings, competitor comparison, keywords, meta data, formatting, coding, content and links of your blog.

Let us take a detailed look on the ways in which an SEO audit can increase organic traffic for your blog:

1- Increased conversion rates

If you are running an e-commerce business through your blog, increasing conversion rates might be one of the biggest challenges that you face. An audit can help you restructure your website design, landing pages, calls-to-action and content so that you can maximize conversions.

An SEO audit can help simplify the process of restructuring your website through proper planning, testing and analysis of the current SEO rankings of your blog. These changes can help you reach maximum organic traffic, consequently increasing the overall conversion rates of your blog.

2- Better SEO

SEO is one department that you can’t ignore, if you aim to run a successful blog. If you follow an organized content marketing strategy, you can see up to 2,000% increase in blog traffic and upto 40% increase in revenue, according to a research by Marketing Sherpa.

But the secret behind a successful content strategy depends on good SEO. With Google making more than 500 changes to its algorithm per year, it is difficult to stay on top of the game. This is why, an SEO audit will evaluate your SEO and give relevant suggestions to improve content quality. High quality content can help you provide a better user experience, hence, increasing bounce rates and repeat visits on your blog.

3- Enhanced functionality

There is nothing more off putting than a poorly designed website. If you fail to provide a user-friendly interface on your website, you can lose a lot of traffic. And, according to a recent research, it takes even less than two-tenths of a second for a customer to form his first impression of your website. This is why, it is important to convey reliability and professionalism through your website’s design. A website audit can pinpoint areas of improvement so that you can redesign the structure and content to increase your blog’s functionality and organic traffic.

4- Relevant content

Click here to get yours!

Technical terms such as bounce rates, time on site, page views, etc. are extremely important but at the end of the day people will re-visit your blog only because of high quality content. If you have relevant and unique content to offer, nothing can stop the traffic from coming towards your blog.

A website audit will help you identify the most trending topics so that you can design your content accordingly. It can also help you come up with content presentation ideas like words, images, video, channels, etc. Your content strategy will be much more focused after the audit and you can produce content that your followers want to see. A happy user will increase overall organic rankings in search engines automatically.

 

5- Better organic search visibility

If you want to increase your blog’s SEO rankings, you have to decide some criteria in which you want to rank it. A good way to make this happen is by maintaining a strong keyword strategy. Once you have understood the competing market in detail, you can redefine your SEO strategies that incorporate targeted keywords within all the content of your blog.

Google analytics can help you decide what your website should rank for, based on your blog’s current content and on-page optimization. A website audit can help you include better keywords and will provide a strong SEO research. Use this information to amplify traffic towards your website and also include it in your offsite blog marketing channels.

Conclusion

With so many benefits, it has become necessary to invest time and money in a website audit, so that you can increase organic traffic towards your blog. The everchanging search environment needs an expert approach, and even small changes can create a strong impact on your blog’s SEO performance and conversions.

So, start thinking about performing a website audit soon!

Audrey Throne is a mother of a 2-year old and a professional blogger by choice. Throne is passionate about health, technology and management and blogs frequently on these topics.

Find her on Twitter: @audrey_throne.

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