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2018 predictions for Google

Posted on February 20, 2018 - Posted in: IT Career Training, Blog, News
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2018 might be the Chinese Year of the Dog, but it’s going to be Google’s Year of the Machine. In this year’s article I go through my predictions for 2017 and my new predicted Google focus for 2018. Want to see how I did for 2017? Read on..!

Google Assistant

Last year I wrote a piece focused on mobile and correctly predicted Google would continue to move away from big algorithm updates, and have a continued focus on the mobile index. So let’s start off with a quick recap of what I said last year.

The main thrust of the article was about mobile and how Google was going to be focusing on this to increase revenue from Adwords…

Google has access to brand new markets and a shortcut into markets they were previously struggling with. Desktop would never provide access to these as there are way too many barriers to ownership rates rising so dramatically (such as cost and internet infrastructure).

Mobile has solved a key problem for Google. 99% of revenue for Alphabet comes from Google and 77% of that comes from AdWords. That mobile traffic is key to this figure and they are going to be doing their best to keep pushing it.

And this is from an FT article on the third quarter earnings for Alphabet last year:

Strong growth in mobile search, programmatic advertising and smartphone use in Asia helped accelerate revenue at Alphabet to the fastest rate in almost five years, surpassing estimates for sales and earnings in the third quarter.

https://www.ft.com/content/4a80da12-ba8b-11e7-8c12-5661783e5589

I did focus more on Africa than Asia, which was misplaced with the amount of investment Google has placed in the Asian market and the potential gains there. However, Africa is still an incredibly important market for Google and one they invested in massively during 2017, pledging to train 10 million people in Africa in online skills.

Additionally, Google has launched and continued to progress the mobile index, with mobile SEO further splitting from desktop.

One of the other noteworthy predictions was that we weren’t going to see any major updates on the desktop index anymore. With updates instead being small and frequent unnamed (by Google) corrections.

In 2017 we saw lots of small updates detected by the community and whilst there were a few new penalties put in place, for example targeting pages that used interstitials too heavily, these were not big algorithm shifts. The days of penguins, pandas and hummingbirds are over. It makes the lines even more blurred as it’s harder to point to things and say ‘after update X we know Y is now the case’. As a result of this, I would expect decreasing amounts of consensus across the SEO world as this continues. See our Google algorithm updates in 2017 for a recap of the year’s updates.

Finally, for the recap, I also talked about ‘Peak Mobile’ in some markets with Google’s focus shifting to changing user behavior for those who already owned mobile devices…

In the UK and US smartphones have reached saturation or are at least very near that point. With over 70% penetration in pretty much all the key markets (Europe, US, China), growth in mobile is going to be relying more on changing user behavior of existing device owners. Therefore we can expect more focus from the search engines on user behavior.

Google went on to broker a deal with Apple and they switched from Bing to Google to power Siri results on iOS in September 2017.

I’ll come back to this in the next part of the article where I lay out my predictions for 2018 as I think it’s strongly relevant.

The 2017 article is worth a read and covers a few other points as well. All the information I put across was an extension of the activity that was already taking place, so it was all a pretty safe bet. This year however I am going to go decidedly off piste…

The new device

There is a battle of the machines going on between Google and Amazon, with both of them vying to get themselves in your home. Google has ‘Home’ and Amazon has ‘Alexa’. Both of these are physically little more than glorified bluetooth speakers. However that speaker is linked to their respective AI offering.

Think about the last time there was an entirely new device for you to be served content from. We had desktop, then laptop and then mobile. An honorable mention goes out to tablet as well but it’s pretty much lumped in with mobile. But that’s it. Since 1998: 3. Well that’s now 4 with Google fighting a pitched battle to get into your home in yet another format. It’s Google VS Amazon or in other words Home VS Alexa.

Google is putting increasing resources into this battle, having realized that Amazon was leapfrogging ahead with Alexa. You might think this device is insignificant for Google as it has really limited potential as an ad serving platform. Which is correct. But, it’s got massive potential as a data collection platform, and crucially with every search or query made through Alexa, which is not visible to Google. So it’s losing out on that data.

Google Home is going to become increasingly integrated with other devices and they are going to keep driving the device cost down offering different model types. I also think that Google Assistant will be released, for free, for any manufacturer to use in their 3rd party device. There were a couple of examples of this popping up with select manufacturers right at the end of last year. Google doesn’t care about the hardware, it’s about getting Google Assistant into as many homes as possible. I can see it becoming a standard integration into bluetooth speakers, especially as Google have a track record for developing and releasing products free for any manufacturer to use, Android being a great example. That’s how they came to dominate mobile search and it’s how they’ll dominate voice search as well.

Google makes a massive $0 from Android the software, but they make billions in revenue from the searches conducted on Android devices. They also, importantly, don’t have to pay handset manufacturers for Google to be the preset search on those devices.

Looking at the recent increase in the range of Alexa products, it does look like Amazon is throwing the kitchen sink at it hardware wise and this could be in a pre-emptive strike against Google releasing Assitant out to any 3rd party to use for free. Interestingly within the EU the right to data portability will mean that consumers will be allowed to port their personal data between devices. This might sound like a win for the consumer, but it could have a dark side. It’s forcing companies to put aside their differences and develop a universal data format for our personal data. Theoretically this means it will be MUCH more useful to third parties and easier to compile even bigger data pools. Also if you swap back and forth between devices you’re sharing that data in more places, adding more information to their own networks.

The machines are coming from your home

I wrote an article recently about Natural Language Processing, which we now use within our classes, which touched on some of the current limitations of these offerings. They are a long way from perfect and if you know what you are looking for, specifically the things these types of AI are typically bad at, it’s very easy to trip them up with simple questions.

One of those question types is comparisons. You can ask ‘how far away is the moon’ or ‘how far away is the sun’ and get an answer without a problem. However ask ‘which is furthest away, the moon or the sun’ and although the information is there it’s too complex for Alexa to process. It takes a leap in understanding of both the question, processing of information and expected result to be able to respond, and this is simply out of current reach.

It’s this ability to process the information that’s already present for a more useful result which I think Google is going to try its best to leverage. Last year I touched on ‘micromoments’ which are the moments when a consumer pulls out their phone and checks information mid-decision. That point where you are walking down the street and want to know where the nearest restaurant is. These moments are incredibly valuable as they are hugely actionable – you are ready to make a decision right there and then and your next action will likely be to commit or purchase.

“Mobile has forever changed the way we live, and it’s forever changed what we expect of brands. It’s fractured the consumer journey into hundreds of real-time, intent-driven micro-moments. Each one is a critical opportunity for brands to shape our decisions and preferences.”

Source: https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/collections/micromoments-guide.htm

This is just one touchpoint where Google hopes to be able to utilize AI to better deliver on. This ‘in the moment’ advertising is the context. However, there are also optimizations of the ad served to make sure that it’s the right ad as well as the right time. For example, based on past behavior they might look at what colour ads, placement or type you have responded to best previously. They then roll all that information into one to serve you an ad at that point that is contextual (meaning served in the correct context such as a restaurant ad as you are walking down the street looking at restaurants) and personalised (as in tailored to you specifically based on past ads you have responded well to).

Use of AI allows for taking huge amounts of data from multiple different behaviors, touchpoints and importantly, patterns and roll this information into an ad.

A big part of the opportunity for marketers is how AI will help us fully realize personalization—and relevance—at scale. With platforms like Search and YouTube reaching billions of people every day, digital ad platforms finally can achieve communication at scale. This scale, combined with customization possible through AI, means we’ll soon be able to tailor campaigns to consumer intent in the moment. It will be like having a million planners in your pocket.

We’re getting closer to a point where campaigns and customer interactions can be made more relevant end-to-end—from planning to creative messaging to media targeting to the retail experience. We will be able to take into account all the signals we have at the customer level, so we can consider not only things like a consumer’s color and tone preferences, but also purchase history and contextual relevance. And all of this will be optimized on the fly in real time.

https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/marketing-resources/ai-personalized-marketing/

This is a mission statement from the Google VP of marketing, Marvin Chow, in September 2017 and I strongly believe it’s where they are going to be focusing a huge amount of effort and resources this year. Adwords is where Alphabet gets almost 80% of its revenue after all.

Taking AI a step further

Something not mentioned in the 2017 article – and where I am probably heading pretty deep off-piste – is predictive behaviour based upon modeling from using AI to process and understanding multiple user data. In other words, it’s not just looking at your past behavior but the past behavior of people like you.

For instance there are correlations between people and the products and services they like. So Google will be increasingly modeling you and trying to ascertain what you may be interested in from what type of person they think you are. On a simplistic level this is showing you ads for pet insurance after you googled ‘dog food’. People who purchase dog food also purchase pet insurance. There is a clear correlation. However things get a bit more weird when you take into account the multiple touch points. For instance you visit the vets and start getting ads for a specific pet insurance policy.

You’re already targeted based on past behavior, and that can then be combined with the ads that the people who meet other key criteria for you such as your age, gender, income etc have responded well to. Now you’re being pushed a single highly targeted product – advertising that is both contextual and personalized.

By the way, if you don’t want Google to know where you are all the time you need to go into your timeline within Google maps and turn off the tracking services. This is for both Android and iOS devices. This is the tracking on my device:

However I still continue to get notifications when I arrive or leave some places (particularly my local supermarket) asking me to ‘rate my experience’. This is without using Google Maps (I know the way to the supermarket!) so Google appears to still be tracking me through my device despite having it clearly set up not to. Which is comforting.

Following on from this, understanding people and patterns through AI will be Google’s biggest driver in 2018; it follows on perfectly from the mobile adoption focus. They need mobile adoption for tracking and will be trying to use this to their advantage.

So what do you think Google’s focus in 2018 will be?

If you think I’m right, wrong or anywhere in between please do have your say in the comments….

Do you think Google is tracking us too much?

Will AI be taking over advertising?

Does it even matter

ABCO Teaches a comprehensive program for E-commerce and search engine optimization. Call our campus today between 9 AM and 6 PM. Call us at: (310) 216-3067.

Email your questions to info@abcotechnology.edu

Financial aid is available to all students who can qualify for funding.

ABCO Technology is located at:
11222 South La Cienega Blvd. STE #588
Los Angeles, Ca. 90304

 

Build highly visible webpages today!

CompTia certification

Posted on February 18, 2018 - Posted in: IT Career Training, Blog, News
Tagged: , , , ,

The field of network administrator is experience strong job growth. The question we are asked by many students concerns how to get started in the field.

The answer, which has helped hundreds of new candidates find fulfilling jobs is the CompTia certification path.

Benefits of CompTia

CompTia certifications are vendor neutral. A holder of a CompTia certification is qualified to work on any computer. The US government, all state plus local governments, private industry and the non-profit organizations recognize CompTia as an excellent gateway to employment.

CompTia certifications

The first CompTia certification we will discuss is the CompTia A+. This certification is granted when a candidate passes two exams: one for hardware and the other for installation, configuration and security of operating systems. The A+ certification applies to individual computers or workstations. Holders of the A+ install all other types of network service devices, which includes printers and faxes. A+ holders apply for the job titles of computer service technician, help desk specialist or help desk technician. All of these job titles are listed on the main job sites.

The next CompTia certification is the CompTia Network +. The network + states the holder is qualified to install, configure, back up and secure corporate network servers. The Network + is a strong step toward the job title of junior network administrator.

The third CompTia certification we will discuss is the CompTia security +. This certification is a certificate for cyber security. Holders of the Security + know how to secure a network. This course is now a major require for employment in any company who has data to protect.

Our final CompTia certification is the CompTia Linux +. Linux is an open source operating system. Linux has many flavors or versions, which makes it difficult for cyber criminals to attack. In addition to Linux having different flavors, those flavors can be modified, which makes the job of cyber crime very difficult. The CompTia Linux + is required for many companies who use Linux as a background operating system.

#ABCO #Technology teaches each certification listed in this brief article.

Call our campus between 9 AM and 6 PM Monday through Friday. You can reach us at (310) 216-3067.

Email your questions to: info@abcotechnology.edu

Financial aid is available to all students who can qualify for funding.

ABCO Technology is located at
11222 South La Cienega Blvd. STE # 588
Los Angeles, Ca. 90304

Get certified in CompTia today.

8 tips for boosting the speed of your WordPress site

Posted on February 16, 2018 - Posted in: IT Career Training, Blog, News
Tagged: , , , ,

Chances are you’d not have waited for this page to load had it taken a second or two longer.

That’s the best known fact on the Internet today. users expect web pages to load very fast as soon as they click on a hyperlink.

Slow loading web pages can become the leading cause of high bounce rates, low user engagement, lost traffic opportunities, and abandoned sales journeys. Here are some numbers to put things in perspective.

◾47% of users expect a web page to load in less than 2 seconds.

◾40% of online shoppers abandon a web page if it takes more than 3 seconds to load.

◾A 1 second delay in page loading can lead to a 16% dip in customer satisfaction, a 7% dip in conversions, and a 11% dip in page views.

What’s more, ecommerce websites associate fast loading with increased revenue, and the reverse is also true.

The calling is clear: your websites need to load super quickly to sustain and nurture audience attention, avoid high bounce rate, and prevent abandoned sales.

If you have a WordPress site, there are a number of easy and effective methods you can begin using today that will significantly increase your site’s loading speed.

Use grids and floats instead of nested tables

It’s surprising how many websites still continue to use nested tables, in spite of the negative impact they have on page loading speeds. Here’s what a nested table code looks like:

………

Such coding adds additional burden on the browser, delaying complete loading of the content. Instead, use non-nested table structure as follows:

……

More importantly, use floats and grids to enhance loading speed. Here is a basic float example:

Basic float example

Sample text

Sample text

Reduce the number of HTTP requests

A web page consists of several components – style sheets, Flash components, images, scripts, and more. To deliver content rich experiences, you need to opt for entire Page Speed Insights Optimization process.

More the number of elements per page, more the number of HTTP requests made for each of these, resulting in longer page loading time durations, which could hurt your conversions. Yahoo estimates that almost 80% of page loading time is accounted for the time spent in downloading the different elements of the page.

Use the HTTP requests checker tool to find out how many requests your page makes.

Luckily, you can reduce HTTP requests without ruining your web design. Here’s how:

◾Combine files: Use scripts and external style sheets (but don’t have more than one script and CSS file each.

◾Image maps: Use contiguous images instead of several image blocks, to reduce the number of HTTP requests.

◾CSS Sprites: Combine multiple images to a sprite, and call the sprite instead of each image. When the sprite contains images from internal pages also, the internal page load times improve, because the content is already downloaded before the user reaches there.

◾Make smaller Javascript blocks inline.

◾Convert images to Base64 coding using an encoder; because it transforms an image into code, the HTTP request is prevented.

Break comments into pages

Your most popular content posts could also be the ones loading the slowest, because of the hundreds of comments on the page. You can’t block comments, because they are conversation starters and link builders for you.

How do you manage, then? WordPress offers a very smart solution – break the comment stream into pages.

In the Dashboard, go to Settings. Under the section Other comment settings, you can tweak the settings for how many comments appear on a page, and which page is displayed beneath the article.

Upgrade to the latest PHP version

Upgrading your website every time a new PHP version is launched can be a bit of a headache. But it’s worth your time and effort. The same scripts could run almost 25-30% faster on newer PHP versions; imagine the kind of website loading time improvements it can bring for you.

PHP Classes published an extensive experimental study, which highlighted that scripts ran significantly faster on PHP 7.1 as compared to previous versions.

Gzip compression

If you use Google’s Page Speed Insights tool for a quick analysis of your web pages, it’s likely you will find advice to use Gzip compression. This compression enables web servers to compress heavy website content elements.

The compression is so effective that it could reduce your page size to 30-40% of its initial size. Dolloped speeds, because of this, could increase to three or four times their previous speed.

For many webmasters, installing a Gzip compression plugin continues to be the best option. W3 Total Cache plugin, apart from all its amazing features, also offers HTTP compression.

Other options are:

◾Ask your web host if it offers Gzip compression.

◾Manually enable Gzip compression via .htaccess (this guide by Kinsta explains how to do so)

Don’t let ad scripts and pop-ups spoil user experience

Chances are you run at least some form of pop-up to optimize conversions. As beneficial as these might be for your website’s monetization strategies, they may also be causing significant damage in terms of higher page loading times.

To take control and strike the perfect balance, you need to know the third-party scripts running on your website, their source, and their impact.

I recommend Pingdom’s Website Speed Test for a thorough analysis of each file and script from a webpage. The tool will tell you which script takes the most time to load.

Gauge the effectiveness of your pop-ups; do away with non-performing pop-up plugins, as they’re only slowing down your page. OptinMonster is one of the most reliable pop-up plugins, helping you optimize conversions without killing speed.

Install a caching plugin

Caching plugins can be a blessing for your website; these plugins create static copies of your webpage content, and instead of making to and fro queries to the database, use the static versions to immediately showcase the web content to users. Since you ordinarily won’t update your web pages daily, caching proves to be very useful for almost all web pages, always.

Among the many caching plugins you can use, WOT Cache Plugin enjoys a lot of trust and popularity. Among its many features are:

◾Combines CSS and Javascript files

◾Leverages the power of page caching and browser caching

◾Utilizes lazy load to massively improve the page load time

◾Helps with database optimization and removes query strings from CSS/Javascript files

◾Saves a lot of bandwidth by reducing the file size of the webpages.

Bonus tip: Seek help from your web hosting service provider

It makes sense to move to a dedicated hosting plan, so that your website gets all the resources it needs to load in a jiffy, always. Ask your web host as to what help it can provide you to improve your website speed.

Most web hosts are willing to offer their technical expertise to help you pluck the low hanging fruits in terms of your website’s speed issues. This, in turn, benefits them, as the load on their servers reduces.

Particularly, ask for their advice on optimizing mobile website speed, because the impact of slow loading is much severe on mobile devices.

Concluding remarks

Every few milliseconds of improvement in your web page’s loading speed could bring tens of percentage points of improvements in its traffic and conversion rates.

Start with these easy and practical tips, most of which will result in almost immediate improvements in page loading speed for your website.

ABCO Technology teaches a comprehensive program for web development. Call our campus between 9 AM and 6 PM Monday through Friday at: (310) 216-3067.

Email your questions to: info@abcotechnology.edu

Financial aid is available to all students who qualify for funding.

ABCO Technology is located at:
11222 South La Cienega Blvd. STE #588
Los Angeles, Ca. 90304

 

Building fast loading webpages today!

Kodak creates crypto currency

Posted on January 22, 2018 - Posted in: IT Career Training, Blog, News
Tagged: , , , , ,

Shares of Eastman Kodak stock were soaring Tuesday after the company announced a new #cryptocurrency initiative.

The company unveiled a licensing partnership with Wenn Digital to launch an image rights management platform called KODAKOne and a photo-centric crypto currency called #KODAK Coin.

The stock price opened at $3.10 a share Tuesday and rose as high as $7.65 after the announcement was made at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. When the stock market closed at 4 p.m., shares were trading at $6.80.

In a release, the company said the KODAKOne platform will be an encrypted, digital ledger of rights ownership for photographers to register both new and archival work that they can then license for use.

The company describes KODAK Coin as “a new economy for photography,” which will allow photographers to receive payment for licensing their work immediately upon sale, sell their work confidently on a secure block chain platform.

The system will be open to both professional and amateur photographers.

Initial reactions from financial analysts were mixed.

CBS Marketwatch said Kodak was “boarding the block chain bandwagon,” hoping to capitalize on the crypto currency trend to boost its stock price.

Bloomberg said, “The move comes as investors snap up virtually any asset related to digital coins or the block chain technology that underpins them — no matter how tenuous the tie.”

The Financial Times was more blunt in its criticism, calling it “Kodak’s last desperate bid for relevance

Encryption, which has been a part of information technology for 25 years is now experiencing an expansion of its use. Bitcoin has been the number one crypto currency out of 1375 different encrypted currency chains. Now that Kodak has entered this market we have 1376. This writer believes Kodak’s entry will gain in popularity because it is focused upon a specific industry, which is photography. Could Kodak’s new currency be the beginning of a new trend, where different services have their own currency? This appears to be the new reality.

#ABCO #Technology teaches classes in encryption in our cyber security program. Call our campus between 9 AM and 6 PM Monday through Friday. Call today at: (310) 216-3067.

Email your questions to: info@abcotechnology.edu

Financial aid is available to all students who qualify for funding.

ABCO Technology is located at:
11222 South La Cienega Blvd. STE #588
Los Angeles, Ca. 90304

 

Encryption is opening up numerous opportunity. Join #CyberSecurity today to learn more.

Google pulls Adwords reviews

Posted on January 19, 2018 - Posted in: IT Career Training, Blog, News
Tagged: , , , , , , ,

Google has withdrawn ratings from Adwords extensions. So you will no longer be able to add these to your ads. Why are they taking this action and does it signify a wider problem with ratings? More importantly, does this mean local results or seller ratings

#Google #AdWords allows you to add something called extensions to your ads. Extensions are additional pieces of information that are free to add and can boost your click through rate. Some examples are:

•Sitelinks
•Call outs
•Structured snippets

If you’re not already using extensions, then you should be! It’s a great way of increasing CTR (by around 10%) and at a point where more advertisers are using them than not, you’re going to be hit increasingly hard if you’re not using them.

Unfortunately, like many things with Google, you can suggest what you want them to show but they decide whether or not they want to show it.

Reviews Extensions

Google didn’t source these reviews themselves. You added them, linking to the source, and the Adwords team just reviewed them before they were allowed live.

Although Google have given little reasoning behind why they have removed them, it seems it might just have been a badly designed system.

For a start on Google’s part it has got to be resource intensive, with team members having to click through, find reviews with matching text and approve. Although it’s likely this was partially automated, if even only a tiny percentage required manual review then it would be a large drain on resources.

This brings us to the next issue: legitimacy. Could you just make the reviews up? Well yes, you could. If you wanted to add a fake review to your site, then include it in the site link there is little Google could do to tell. This is the problem with pretty much all reviews and leads me on nicely to the final point.

Was the review representative? The reason why we trust a review from an unknown source is that it correlates with many other reviews. With this system you could just cherrypick whichever review you wanted, so even if the product is terrible someone, somewhere, is bound to like it and leave a good review. Which you can then legitimately use in your adwords extension.

Finally, you might be clicking on an ad for a product but for the sitelinks reviews, Google encouraged you to utilise those which reflected the site as a whole:

Reviews should focus on your business as a whole, as opposed to a review about a specific product or service. This makes the reviews relevant to just about all of your ads.

So you the user could well think that a general review such as “Absolutely excellent, will be purchasing again” is about the specific link they see in the ad. But it’s not, it’s about the site as whole and may be validating an otherwise awful product.

Does this mean there is a wider problem with reviews?

Reviews themselves have come increasingly under attack. If like myself you use shopping sites such as Amazon and have been doing so for a while, you’ll have seen what I mean. There are so many fake reviews, paid-for reviews, and reviews created by third-party companies paid to create them.

This problem has been created by the effectiveness of reviews, if customer is purchasing a third party product through your site you’ll want to make sure that the best products are shown first. This means using reviews to help weight products in how you rank them. Which in turn means vendors are more and more incentivized to have the best reviews possible. Which is fine, except that not all vendors have great products, but they still want great reviews.

So what’s the solution? What about other ratings-based extensions?

Reviews as part of AdWords extensions are in principle a great idea, but there some real fundamental issues with these which need to be resolved. AdWords needs to strike a balance between what the advertisers – who are after all paying for that advert – want to display and what is a fair representation for the consumer.

These means really they should be looking at a more independent source of reviews or way of gathering these. This is what they do with both seller ratings and consumer ratings.

Seller ratings are an automated (opt out) extension which look like this:

These are shown on search network text ads, or as an abridged version in Google shopping results. Seller ratings show a star rating and text snippet which they gather from a long list of third party review sites and they only show in certain circumstances;

In most cases, seller ratings only appear when a business has 150 unique reviews and a composite rating of 3.5 stars or more.

Consumer ratings are another automated extension and are taken directly from Google customer surveys which they ran for specific industries. So, these will only appear on certain results where they have data:

Google also use a star rating in reviews within local results and although having these linked to a Google account negates some of the problems, they are still pretty open to abuse. Many businesses only have a small number of reviews, meaning just one or two added from friends or family accounts might be all that’s needed to influence a consumer’s decision.

AdWords needs to use a service which is more long standing with a large number of reviews already present and which have their own controls in place to ensure these are legitimate, much like they do with their seller reviews extension. However, even dedicated review sites have massive problems with this. Like the guy who made his shed the top rated restaurant on trip advisor. In short you can’t trust reviews.

Adverts fall under advertising guidelines in both the UK and US where if ads are misleading they have to be removed. Publishers who regularly break these rules or are deemed to be not doing enough to prevent misleading ads can be fined. So AdWords must adhere to a higher standard than the sites it would be taking the source content from, hence the potential problem.

So was Google right to remove them and will we be seeing them again?

In my opinion reviews are becoming less of a trustworthy metric. The ability of bad actors to place them has far outstripped that of companies to ensure they are legitimate. This might be down to the cost / benefit being vastly different from both sides. For an individual company a set of good reviews could be the difference in zero revenue for a product, or $1000’s. So spending several hundreds or even thousands just on ensuring they have good reviews is well worth it. For a review site though, they simply cannot afford to spend anywhere near an equivalent amount on checking the reviews for an individual product. In short there is a lot more total effort going into making fake reviews than there is in removing them. Google tries to negate this with automated extensions by using a wide variety of sources, or their own survey results which they have more control over.

The way the Reviews extension was implemented in AdWords was pretty much asking for trouble. Then again, while there are better ways, I still don’t think there are any that are ‘good enough’. We’ll have to wait and see what Google does in the longer term and if it decides to make any changes in the organic results or to the other automation tools on their site.

#ABCO #Technology teaches courses for E-commerce and web design. Contact our campus between 9 AM and 6 PM Monday through Friday at: (310) 216-3067.

Email your questions to: info@abcotechnology.edu

Financial aid is available to all students who can qualify for funding.

ABCO Technology is located at:
11222 South La Cienega Blvd. STE # 588
Los Angeles, Ca. 90304

Building successful webpages today!

iPhone X Explained

Posted on November 6, 2017 - Posted in: IT Career Training, Blog
Tagged: , , , , ,

Apple departed from its traditional preview strategy for what it bills as its most important new iPhone in years, prioritizing early access to the iPhone X for YouTube personalities and celebrities over most technology columnists who traditionally review its new products.

Apple provided the iPhone X to a small number of traditional testers for about a week, while limiting most others, The Wall Street Journal included, to a single day with the device before reviews could be published. About a half-dozen personalities on Alphabet Inc.’s YouTube video service were granted time with the device before its release.

The company seeded the iPhone X to at least three influencers with different audiences: actor Mindy Kaling, who shared her thoughts with Glamour; 12-year-old developer Alex Knoll, who showed off the device on Ellen DeGeneres’s television show; and political journalist Mike Allen, who included insights from his tech-savvy nephew in Axios’s morning newsletter.

Apple Is Designing iPhones, iPads That Would Drop Qualcomm Components
Apple Watch Hits Cellular Snag in China
.
Traditional publications and tech outlets that in past years received review models for a week of testing were given the iPhone X fewer than 24 hours ago, resulting in crash reviews and first-impression takes from USA Today, the Washington Post, the Verge and others.

In the U.S., BuzzFeed, TechCrunch and Mashable were given a week with the iPhone X, as were the Telegraph and the Independent in the United Kingdom. The device also was given for a week to outlets in Japan, China, Australia and other countries. Steven Levy, among the handful of people to test the first-ever iPhone, spent a week with the iPhone X and posted his “first look” impressions on Backchannel, part of Wired Media Group, a day before most other publications..

The change in strategy meant the iPhone X, which hits stores Friday, got less testing than most of its predecessors before reviews could be published. The handful of reviewers that received the device for a week largely praised its full-screen display, facial-recognition system and smaller physical size. Removing the physical home button meant people would have to adjust to how they operated the device, they said.

iPhone X Review: Testing (and Tricking) FaceID
The number one new feature on the iPhone X is its facial recognition system. WSJ’s Joanna Stern put it to the test with masks, costumes and identical triplets.
Crash reviewers largely echoed those sentiments, adding the caveat that they could discover issues after they spend more time with the device. Most pledged full reviews for later in the week.

The review strategy is “unusual,” said Jan Dawson, an analyst with Jackdaw Research. “It’s possible Apple wanted some reviews out early and those would be the more enthusiastic ones.”

He said YouTube reviewers tend to be more positive when given early access to devices, and that most reviews aren’t overly negative.

“Unless Apple felt like there would be some bad elements in the reviews, why would you hold back?” Mr. Dawson asked. “Why would you be selective about who gets it first?

The unusual approach comes in an iPhone release year marked by anomalies. For the first time, Apple released a trio of new handsets at its big fall launch event—the iPhone 8, 8 Plus and X. It also increased prices on its suite of new phones and staggered the launch with the iPhone 8 hitting stores Sept. 22 and the iPhone X hitting stores six weeks later.

The iPhone X arguably is the most important iPhone in a decade. Apple billed the device the smartphone of the future, and investor anticipation of strong sales has helped send the company’s stock up more than 45%. Its success has taken on increasing importance amid lackluster sales for the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus.

At $999, the iPhone X is the highest-priced major smartphone ever. It is expected to be in limited supply after production issues over the summer delayed manufacturing by at least a month.
Advanced preorders began last week, and early demand quickly pushed shipment times for the device to five to six weeks from the day of an order—more than double the wait for last year’s iPhone 7.

 

If you want to learn how to build applications for Apple’s iPhone X along with other smart Phone, it’s time to contact ABCO Technology. You can reach our campus between 9 AM and 6 PM Monday through Friday. Call us today at: (310) 216-3067.
Email all questions to: info@abcotechnology.edu
Financial aid is available to all students who can qualify for funding.
ABCO Technology is located at:
11222 South La Cienega Blvd. in STE # 588
Los Angeles, Ca. 90304
iPhone X is the smart phone of the future. Build applications for it today!

CompTIA Security + Information

Posted on October 24, 2017 - Posted in: IT Career Training, Blog
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CompTIA’s Security+ is a well-respected, vendor-neutral security certification. Security+ credential holders are recognized as possessing superior technical skills, broad knowledge and expertise in multiple security-related disciplines.

While Security+ is an entry-level certification, successful candidates should possess at least six months of experience working in the areas of network administration and network security. Candidates who want to obtain this certification should consider first obtaining both the A+ and Network+ certification. IT pros who obtain the certificate possess expertise in areas such as threat management, cryptography, identity management, security systems, security risk identification and mitigation, network access control, and security infrastructure. The CompTIA Security+ credential is also approved by the U.S. Department of Defense to meet Directive 8140.-M requirements.

The Security+ credential requires a single exam, currently priced at $311 (discounts may apply to those who work for CompTIA member companies, and to full-time students).

IT professionals who earned the Security+ cert prior to Jan. 1, 2011 remain certified for life. Those who certify after that date must renew the certification every three years to stay current. To renew, candidates are required to pass the most current Security+ exam, pass a higher-level CompTIA exam or complete 50 continuing education units (CEUs) prior to the expiration of the three-year period. CEUs can be obtained by engaging in a variety of activities, such as teaching, blogging, publishing articles or white papers, and participating in professional conferences and similar activities.

Job Outlook for CompTIA Security +

The US Department of Labor states job candidates who have a certification in cyber security, which includes the CompTIA Security + will experience job growth, which is 15% ahead of regular information technology positions in the industry. Organizations large and small are looking for network administration candidates who have a cyber security certification.

The CompTIA Security + certificate informs potential employers that you have the skills to protect their network.
ABCO Technology teaches a comprehensive program for cyber security. One of the courses in this program is the CompTIA Security +. Our next class for CompTIA Security + begins on October 24, 2017.

If you want to obtain a fulfilling career in cyber security, it’s time for you to contact ABCO Technology to receive more information about this cyber security career opportunity. Call our campus between 9 AM and 6 PM Monday through Friday. You can reach us by telephone at: (310) 216-3067.

Email your questions to: info@abcotechnology.edu
Financial aid is available to all students who can successfully qualify for the funding.

 

ABCO Technology is located at:
11222 South La Cienega Blvd. in STE # 588
Los Angeles, Ca. 90304
Cyber security is a growing field, get trained and certified today!

Cyber Security, your Pizza orders aren’t safe

Posted on October 20, 2017 - Posted in: IT Career Training, Blog
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Pizza Hut’s customers had their online accounts compromised.
Cybercrime is growing at such a rapid rate, even companies selling products as safe as pizza are under cyber-attack. The increase in cybercrime to this level continues to create more cyber security jobs.

Pizza Hut told customers by email on Saturday that some of their personal information may have been compromised. Some of those customers are angry that it took almost two weeks for the fast food chain to notify them.

According to a customer notice emailed from the pizza chain, those who placed an order on its website or mobile app between the morning of Oct. 1 and midday Oct. 2 might have had their information exposed.

The “temporary security intrusion” lasted for about 28 hours, the notice said, and it’s believed that names, billing ZIP codes, delivery addresses, email addresses and payment card information — meaning account number, expiration date and CVV numbers — were compromised. Would you like to be that special person who saved your company from a devastating cyber-attack?

A cyber-attack of this level could only occur if the network administrators didn’t use or have the correct cyber security skills.
The media fails to report that most cyber-attacks occur over time. Before the attacker intruded into Pizza Huts network, a great deal of time was spent in making login attempts, port scanning, analyzing for network weaknesses and stealing passwords. The activity could have been detected if the company had the right tools in place. The fact Pizza Hut was attacked for 28 hours clearly demonstrates someone in cyber security failed to do their job. You could be the network administrator who picks up where those cyber admins left off.

The skills we are talking about in this article involve cyber security. Courses including CompTIA Security +, Certified Ethical Hacker, Linux Fundamentals and Cisco Certified Network Associate will create a library of cyber skills, which will help any network administrator implement cyber security policies.

A thorough understanding of the computer and network servers is also required for this job. The network administrator must think of any network as an electronic eco system. Maintaining such a mindset will go a long way towards preventing the type of cyber-attack, which occurred at Pizza Hut.

If you want to have an exciting career in cyber security, please contact ABCO Technology. Reaching our Los Angeles campus is easy. We are available by telephone from 9 AM to 6 PM Monday through Friday at: (310) 216-3067.

Email all questions to info@abcotechnology.edu
Financial aid is available to all students who can qualify for funding.

ABCO Technology is located at: 11222 South La Cienega Blvd. in STE # 588
Los Angeles, Ca. 90304.

Cyber security is a growing field in information technology. Train for a cyber security position today!

How to ensure your local Search Engine Marketing campaign is working for your business

Posted on October 16, 2017 - Posted in: IT Career Training, Blog
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For local businesses, having a strong presence in local search results is fundamental to those all-important conversions

Just to be clear, a “local business” refers to any business that has either a physical location that offers face-to-face contact with the customer, such as a showroom or shop, or one that offers a face-to-face service within a certain area.

When it comes to local search, it’s simple: if searchers can’t find you on the web, then frankly, you are web invisible. It’s the way of the modern world.

It’s all very well dominating the SERPs for your more general target keywords, but if you fail to rank highly for location-specific terms then you are missing a great opportunity.

When users are searching for a local term, they are far more likely to be looking for a service or product. Hence why the conversions on local search tend to be higher, and why you need to ensure that your local search engine marketing is on target for your business.

Of course all the usual SEO 101 knowledge applies. Offer an unrivaled user experience, nail your on-site optimization, provide exceptional content and build quality links.

Those fundamentals will set you up for ranking well for local search terms, but there are extra steps you must take to differentiate yourself from the competition and really bolster your local SEM strategy.

Local business listings

The first place to start is with local business listings. Ensure that your business is included in all the major directories (Yell, which is the UK’s local directory, Yelp, Thomson Local, etc.), as well as any industry specific ones. Some listings may already exist, and it may just be a case of claiming your business so that you can take ownership of the listing.

We recommend keeping track of all your business listings in one comprehensive spreadsheet to save you repeating or forgetting any entries. It also enables you to be consistent (more on this in the next point) in your information across all listings.

Remove all duplicated entries, as multiple listings for one business or location can become confusing, both to potential customers but also to Google. And we certainly don’t want to be confusing the Big G.

Be thorough but don’t be reckless. Avoid spammy directories as these could have a detrimental effect on your SEO. Deploy a spot of common sense to identify the spammy directories but if you are really unsure then it’s worth checking the spam score via Moz’s Open Site Explorer or via other similar tools.

Google My Business

So this technically falls under business listings, but it’s so important we’ve given Google My Business its own subheading. Arguably the most important business listing because, well, it’s Google. Remember to implement the following:
◾Claim your business via a verification process
◾Include accurate information: contact details, location and opening hours
◾Carefully select a small number of highly relevant categories to represent your business
◾Ensure up-to-date branding, such as in any images of logos or premises
◾Use high quality images to represent the business

Be comprehensive and accurate in the information you provide in order to strengthen your Google My Business profile and improve your chances of being featured in Google’s three-pack.

For further information, have a read of Google’s guidelines on representing your business. Don’t forget to also cover off the equivalent for Bing and Yahoo with Bing Places and Yahoo! Local.

NAP consistency

NAP consistency sounds a like a fancy term but the concept is very simple. NAP stands for Name, Address and Phone number, although it is sometimes expanded to NAP+W to include website address too. As mentioned above, it is crucial that your business information appears consistently across the web.

This is particularly important to consider if your business has changed address, contact details or even rebranded. Any mentions of your business will need to be checked and updated to ensure accuracy.

Simply google your business name (do the same with your previous business name if you have undergone a name change) and work your way through the listings. Maintain a spreadsheet of your progress so you can keep track.

Reviews

Reviews can bring both utter joy and absolute misery to any business owner. Unfortunately you cannot simply ignore them, as reviews are indeed used as ranking signals in the eyes of the search engine. This is especially true for your Google My Business reviews.

Not only are reviews important in terms of local rankings, they are also key in terms of click-through rates. According to a recent study by BrightLocal, 74 per cent of consumers say that positive reviews make them trust a local business more.

Apart from providing the most incredible customer service you can muster, how else can you seize some control over your reviews? No, this isn’t about getting your mum, brother and great-nan to write a review for your business. It’s about a bit of gentle encouragement and managing a bad customer experience before it reaches the review stage.

It is also important to check the rules and regulations of each review platform, as they all have very different policies on asking customers for reviews and responding to them.

We’ve had several students who have received a negative one-off, anonymous review for their business or website that is either quite clearly spam, or in some cases, a bitter competitor or personal enemy. These situations can get a bit sticky, but sadly there isn’t an awful lot you can do.

Generally people won’t be deterred by one bad review, and the best course of action is to encourage other happy customers to get reviewing. This will push the bad review down and push the average star rating back up.

Many review platforms allow you to reply to reviews. This can be a good opportunity to set the record straight but you have to be careful about it. For this reason, sometimes it is best to get someone who is not as emotionally invested in the business to either write the response or edit it before it gets published. Be professional, remain calm, and kill them with kindness.

Location pages

If you don’t already have location pages on your website, then you could be missing a valuable opportunity to target all the relevant locations. For each key location that your business operates within, create a page dedicated to that location on your website. This is easier if you have a unique physical address in each location, as it is important to include as much location-specific information as possible.

Where there is a physical location, be sure to include an interactive map and images to further enhance the page. If you do not have separate physical addresses, try including testimonials and case studies relevant to each location.

This will help you to avoid duplicating content across your location pages; it’s a fine art to differentiate the copy, but do it right and it can have seriously good effects on your local SEM strategy.

Schema markup

Once you have your location pages set up, the cherry on the cake is schema markup. The whole concept of structured data can sound very daunting to markup newbies, but it’s easier than it sounds. Schema markup simply helps search engines to understand what your website is about.

This is particularly important for local information, as it will help those spiders crawl your location pages and you’ll benefit as a result.

According to a study by Searchmetrics, pages with schema markup rank an average of four positions higher in search results. Now that’s a pretty good incentive. Get your head around schema markup and you’ll have that crucial advantage over your competitors in the local search results.

Ensuring your local search marketing strategy is up to speed shouldn’t be difficult or convoluted. Follow the above steps and obey the usual SEO rules. With some hard work and perseverance, you’ll start dominating those coveted top spots and see your conversions skyrocket in no time.

ABCO Technology teaches a comprehensive program for web design, which includes search engine marketing and social media strategy. Call our campus to receive information about this program or other classes. Call us between 9 AM and 6 PM Monday through Friday at: (310) 216-3067.

Email your questions to: info@abcotechnology.edu

Financial aid is available to all students who can qualify for funding.

 

ABCO Technology is located at:
11222 South La Cienega Blvd. in STE # 588
Los Angeles, Ca. 90304.
Build highly successful websites today!

Four Top tips for guest blogging

Posted on October 14, 2017 - Posted in: IT Career Training, Blog
Tagged: , , ,

Many people still rely on guest blogging as an ongoing part of their link-building strategy.

If you analyze this for a moment, getting links through guest blogging is much easier than getting links through some other channel.

So it’s no wonder that a lot of bloggers and SEO experts still favor this method. The main question is, are these guest post links still safe and viable?

The answer is yes.

It is very possible to build our link portfolio by contributing on authoritative websites. However, there are certain rules that we need to follow in order to avoid any issues with Google.

Guest blogging 101

One of the beautiful things about guest blogging is that it gives us the opportunity to score some great links from high-tier websites.

To be honest, we probably couldn’t have gotten those links with any other method. This is why guest blogging is always worth bearing in mind as a link-building strategy.

But, we need to be very careful when choosing the websites we guest post for.

Although guest blogging can be carried out on a large scale, you should probably avoid it. This method is optimal in small dosages while cooperating with the biggest domains.

Google trusts authoritative domains. If they notice that your links are coming only from reputable sources, they will not impose a penalty. However…

1) Be Careful not to overdo it!

The biggest problem with guest blogging is that people tend to overdo it.

Your articles should be coming from various sources, with different anchors. If your only source of inbound links is from guest articles, Google will notice this pattern and you will soon get into trouble.

Instead, you should choose your battles carefully. You need to diversify your link profile.

If you already decide to do some guest posting, make sure it counts. Otherwise you’ll waste all that time you spent building up relationships and writing your posts – with only a Google penalty to show for it.

2) Focus on quality

This is where most people go wrong.

Google assesses the articles from which you are getting links. If the article is of high quality, your link will also be regarded as a quality one.

This makes sense, right? After all, why would anyone bother creating a great piece only to place crappy links throughout?

So when you put together a guest post, make sure it’s a good one.

After creating their own article, people try to promote it by writing guest posts. These guest posts will usually be of much lower quality and they will have the same regurgitated content which you published on your own blog.

By doing this, not only are you getting a devalued link, but you are also endangering your original piece. Google will flag up the regurgitated versions of your article as possible duplicate content. And because there are any number of similar, low-quality pieces out there online, it may conclude that your article is low-quality as well.

Everything you create has to be unique and to provide value to the reader. When you write a guest post, ask yourself: would I link to this piece?

If the answer is yes, you are in the clear.

3) Add images, links and formatting

As I mentioned, each guest post you make needs to be distinctive. Even if you are employing this strategy on a larger scale, at least make sure that everything you create is a separate entity.

One of the best ways to differentiate articles is by using varied formatting.

Blogs always have use different fonts and that is something you have no control over. But you have the ability to break up paragraphs and add things like bullet points, subheadings, block quotes and more. These increase the readability of your piece, and also make it easier for search engines to crawl it and interpret the content.

Another way to improve the look and layout of your text is to add images and other media.

Do not be shy and don’t wait for the website editor to insert them for you. Instead, be proactive and use your own images. Add a couple of them if necessary. If they make sense and the text looks better because of it, the editor will be more inclined to ask you for additional guest posts.

You can even go the extra mile and write titles and alt text to optimize the images for SEO – the editor will thank you, as it will save them the effort, and it will improve the overall SEO value of your piece.

Lastly, we come to links.

Now, editors usually allow one link in your bio, or one link within the article. Most of them do not like it when an author writes a piece with numerous links pointing to different websites.

However, if the editor allows it, make sure to add some highly relevant links that will make the article even more authoritative.

4) Vary your anchor text

You are trying to rank for a certain keyword. In an attempt to rank, you try to spam the same anchor text over and over.

This strategy is pretty much obsolete. Instead, just as with everything else that we’ve mentioned so far, make sure to diversify things.

Anchor text should vary.

When people place links with purely editorial value, without trying to cynically rank for a specific keyword, they will rarely link with the exact same phrase every time. This is highly unnatural behavior and can get you in trouble.

Instead, make sure to use different phrases. Place links in different sentences, with different anchors. Focus on writing naturally and place your link accordingly.

Conclusion

Guest blogging is NOT dead. As far as we know, there is no Google system or algorithm that will penalize the creation of such articles.

Nevertheless, it is better to be conservative. Like always, it comes down to whether your link profile looks natural. There should be no indication that you are purposely trying to push a keyword (even if you are).

People usually think about guest blogging in terms of links. However, you should observe it from a different perspective. By using this strategy, not only should you get links, you should also get some good exposure.

Your articles should promote your skills as well as your blog.

By placing emphasis on this, you will be able to accomplish much more with guest posts and as a result, links will start coming from various sources without you forcing them.

ABCO Technology teaches a comprehensive course for web development, guest blogging and search engine marketing. Call our campus between 9 AM and 6 PM Monday through Friday. You can reach us at: (310) 216-3067.
Email your questions to: info@abcotechnology.edu

 

Financial aid is available to all students who can qualify for the federal funding.
ABCO Technology is located at:
11222 South La Cienega Blvd. in STE # 588
Los Angeles, Ca. 90304
Start building successful websites today!

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