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They say that a picture is worth a thousand words, but have you ever stopped to think what your Ecommerce images are saying about the products you’re trying to sell online?

Are your photos helping your products to jump off the screen and convince shoppers to buy them?

Or, are your product images quite simply terrible to look at and a real turn-off for buyers?

With the average shopper spending less than 10 seconds on your product page, and as many as 24 million ecommerce stores out there for people to choose from, it’s more important than ever to make sure your product images are telling the right story about your product.

To help you improve your product images, we’ve come up with 5 product image tips that cover everything from how to take perfect photos, through to presenting them in the best light with some quick and easy editing.

1. Make sure product images are the right size

There’s a lot of Ecommerce platforms to choose from.

But regardless of which Ecommerce platform you use, the main thing to remember is to start with a large high-resolution file and reduce the size of the photos if you need to. And don’t forget to optimize your logo image too.

To help you make sure you’re preparing your product images to look their best on your platform of choice, we’ve done the hard work for you and researched everything you need to know about photo sizes for 5 of the leading Ecommerce platforms on the market.

• Amazon – Any images submitted to Amazon should be at least 1280px but really, they prefer the images to be at least 2560px for best results.
• eBay – Auction site juggernaut eBay suggests that your product images should measure in at between 800px and 1600px in order to make the most of their zoom-in features.
• Shopify – The sky is pretty much the limit with image sizes on Shopify (well, 4472x4472px and 20mb to be exact), but the market-leading Ecommerce platform recommends maximum dimensions of 2048x2048px for best results.
• Etsy – If you’re selling craft-inspired items on the world’s number one handmade marketplace, then you need to make sure that your product images are at least 2000px wide so that shoppers can use Etsy’s built-in zoom button.
• Magento – Another platform that automatically resizes photos for you, Magento recommend that you start with an image at least 1100x1100px in size.

If you have a small image you need to enlarge, but you don’t want to get a blurry result, you can resize your image without losing quality with ImageUpscaler.

2. Create high-quality photos of your products

Although it’s important to make sure that your images are the optimum size and aspect ratio for your Ecommerce platform of choice – it means nothing if your photos are terrible to look at.

Now, no one is expecting you to be able to shoot the next cover of Vogue magazine, but there are a number of things you should do to make sure that your photos are the best they can be – and the good news is they’re all pretty easy to do.

• Lights – One of the most effective things you can do to take great photos is to simply make sure your subject (in this case your product) is well lit. Natural light is a great start, but simple led lighting rigs like these can really take your images to a whole new level.
• Camera – Once your lighting is sorted, you’re going to want to make sure you have a decent camera to take your photos with. These days an up to date smartphone should do the trick, but if you want to splash the cash on a proper Digital Camera, then this Canon EOS 4000D is a best seller on Amazon.
• Action – When it comes to taking a photo of your product, make sure you take all photos against a plain background. You should also use a tripod to keep the camera level and balanced, take photos from a wide variety of angles, and fill as much of the frame as possible with your product.

3. Edit your product images to make them pop

Once you’ve taken professional looking photos that are a big enough size for your Ecommerce platform of choice, it’s time to think about adding a little bit of visual magic to really help your product images come to life.

Until recently, in order to edit and improve your Ecommerce images, you would have had to invest in some heavy duty (and expensive) software like Photoshop.

However, thanks to handy tools like AutoClipping.com, you can now make your images pop with just a few clicks of your mouse and next to no skill required.

AutoClipping is an easy to use background removal tool.  Simply select the background of the image that you want to delete, and the foreground of the image that you want to keep – and the software does the rest for you.

Once you have removed the background, you can then save your updated product image and upload it to your Ecommerce store. It’s as easy as that!

4. Optimize product images and increase page speed

So, by this stage you’ve taken and edited some fantastic looking product photos – and you might have even added some snappy descriptive text to help showcase all your product’s features.

You might think you’re now ready just to upload your photos and start driving traffic to your Ecommerce store – but before you get too carried away, there’s another step you seriously need to consider first: image optimization.

According to a recent report by HTTP Archive, images make up a whopping 21% of a website’s page weight – which can have a massive impact on load speed. This is important because the longer your webpage takes to load, the more likely a shopper is to hit the back button and try somewhere else.

This means that in order to make the pages of your website load more quickly, you need to reduce the size of your image files. To do this you can use one of a number of image optimization websites, including:

• Compressor.io
• Tinypng
• Kraken.io

Using a dedicated tool like the ones we’ve suggested should help you reduce your file size by as much as 66% – which can dramatically improve your page load times.

5. Help your images get discovered through search

Your professional looking Ecommerce product images aren’t just a great way to encourage website visitors to buy from your store, they can also be used to help you drive traffic to your site.

Don’t believe us? Well, google images accounts for a whopping 10% of all the traffic google receives and gets more than 1 billion page views every day from people searching for images…just like yours.

This means that if you take the time to properly optimize your images for SEO, then not only will they become ‘readable’ by search engines and rank in places like Google Images, but they’ll also increase the discoverability of your Ecommerce store and drive more traffic as a result.

With the average Ecommerce store converting just 2.03% of their traffic into revenue, you could probably do with all the free traffic you can get, right?

Optimizing images for SEO is a whole other blog topic in its own right, but to get you started – and help you land some of that all-important free traffic – here are a few golden rules you should always follow:

• File Names: Make sure you give your photos a sensible and appropriate name to maximize their discoverability. This means that instead of calling your product photo something random and meaningless like 13549ax12.jpg you should call it product-name-descriptive-feature.jpg (making sure to use hyphens to separate out words).
• Onsite optimization: Depending on which Ecommerce platform you use; you should have options to add an on-page title and description for each of your images – and in some cases you may even be able to edit the alt-text too.
• Keywords: Whatever you do to optimize your images for SEO, try not to be too spammy or inauthentic with your file names, titles, descriptions, meta data and alt text. Intelligent search engines like Google can spot keyword stuffing and “black hat” SEO techniques and could punish your website with a poor search engine ranking as a result.

Conclusion

On the face of it, it sounds like there is a lot to consider when creating killer product images for your Ecommerce website.

Really though, with a little practice it comes down to a few simple rules:

• Make sure your photo looks good and represents your product properly
• Make sure your photo is an appropriate size for your Ecommerce platform of choice
• Make sure you edit your photos to help make them pop on screen
• Make sure you optimize them to help with load speed and discoverability.

We’ve included links to a number of tools and resources in this article to help you get started on your quest towards higher converting landing pages, but if there’s anything we missed, let us know in the comment section below.

About the author: Steven Macdonald is the cofounder of Kingspoint, a digital marketing agency based in Tallinn, Estonia. Since being founded in 2009, Kingspoint has helped clients increase their online sales by more than $100 million.

Original post: 5 Product Image Tips For High Converting Landing Pages

The post 5 Product Image Tips For High Converting Landing Pages appeared first on Daily Blog Tips.

When you want to succeed in the organic search engine results today, you have to focus on your website and learn what you should do to optimize it. There are many factors that can help you with that, form the technical, off-page, and on-page. All these factors and parts of a website require updating and optimizing for ultimate success.

As the year’s pass, we see a lot of people focusing more on off-page techniques, from link building to other technical factors. BUT, in reality, focusing on off-page SEO won’t work as well if you’re not putting your focus on on-page SEO as well.

SEO experts and wise practitioners know very well how important on-page optimization is, and that it needs to be prioritized. And since search engines are always evolving and updating, you need to ensure your knowledge on on-page SEO is always updated.

With all that being said, I’ll be talking more about the importance of on-page SEO, as well as the ten on-page SEO factors you should consider today.

What Is On-Page SEO?

On-page SEO is also called on-site SEO, which is the practice of optimizing one’s webpage. It has the goal to improve the website’s rankings on search engines, earning them organic traffic for more views, potential sales, and more benefits.

There are actually many ways one can optimize their on-page SEO, from publishing the quality content down to updating HTML tags, headlines, images, and the like. But the main focus is ensuring that your entire website has the expertise and trustworthiness both search engines and users will appreciate.

On-page SEO takes account a lot of factors of your webpage to improve its visibility in search engine results.If you don’t want to get technical you can always hire someone to perform an SEO audit  for you.

The Importance of On-Page SEO

On-page SEO is crucial to do because it will help search engines like Google comprehend what your website and its content is all about. It will identify whether the content posted is relevant to all searchers’ queries, which is what can make or break your rankings.

And because search engines are becoming even more sophisticated by the year, experts ow focus on semantics and relevance of their content for search engine results pages. This is because search engines are constantly upgrading their algorithm and smartening up their bots!

Today, we can see that Google is now better with its complex algorithms, specifically in these points:

Understanding the users look into when typing!

Delivering the most accurate search results which help meet user’s intent, from shopping, navigational, to informational content

As this continues to develop and upgrade, it’s essential to adapt to all these. How can you do so? Make sure that, your website and content, as well as its elements, are well-optimized according to all the best practices today!

Furthermore, you shouldn’t ignore on-page SEO! After all, it’s what you have full control of and can make or break your results. That’s why it’s best to put even more effort than you usually do, which can help boost your traffic and search presence.

Ten On-Page SEO Factors You Should Consider Today

Now that you’re familiar with on-page SEO, what can you do to optimize your website around it? Here are ten factors to look into

1. E-A-T Content

E-A-T is a great way to organize your thoughts and content to make it more effective. It stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness, which are the three main aspects Google raters and users would use to assess the entire webpage.

Google and other search engines always make sure that the highest-quality content is on top. With that being said, you have to make sure that you post higher-quality content compared to your competitors.

So when designing your webpage and writing content, try to follow the E-A-T order and put it into your SEO strategy.

2. Title Tags

A title tag is an HTML tag which is located in the webpage’s head sections. These are what provide the context of what that particular content or webpage is about. Furthermore, it’s features on the search engine results pages, seen as a clickable link. You also see it on the browser window which distinguishes the basics of what your webpage is about.

While it has little impact on one’s organic rankings, having duplications, leaving it missing or poorly written can negatively impact the SEO results.

3. Meta Description

You’re probably already familiar with the wonders of meta descriptions, existing even during the early years of SEO. These descriptions or meta tags can give you the opportunity t talk about what your content and webpage is in a short text. It’s displayed below the title of your page in search engine results pages.

While meta descriptions don’t directly impact one’s SEO rankings, it has the indirect attributes that help in raising traffic. By optimizing your meta descriptions, it can improve your click-through-rates and the way people see your page on the search results.

4. Content Headlines

If you want your content to perform well on search engines (obviously you do), then you need to write the interesting headline! While it does seem like such a basic task, taking your time to create a compelling headline can really make a huge difference between clocks and impressions.

That’s why you need to be strategic when writing headlines. It should spark interests so it can stand out among all the other results on the search engine, having people click yours over the others!

5. Header Tags

Header tags are the HTML elements that identify your content’s headings and subheadings within the content. It differs from paragraph text and though not that huge of a difference for rankings, it helps for your overall SEO and the users.

It makes content easier to read for users to enjoy the content. This encourages them to share the content because of how informative and enticing it is to view. Furthermore, it gives a chance to provide the keyword-rich content, which helps search engines identify your content and what it’s all about.

6. SEO Writing

SEO writing is advantageous for both search engines and your readers. And no, it isn’t just about filing in your content with main keywords then filling out the blanks right after. You DON’T produce content just for the sake of it.

Your goal should be to inform people and encourage them to share what you have to offer, based on the compelling and interesting content you have to offer. Of course, this means your content has to be backed up with authoritative content, relevant information, and trusted sources.

7. Keyword Cannibalization

People say that the more pages you own which targets keywords, the better your webpage can rank at. That’s actually NOT true at all! When you target a specific keyword among a lot of areas on your webpage, it shows keyword cannibalization, which can adversely impact your SEO.

It ends up with you competing with yourself and having bots think your page is all spam with the overuse of keywords. With that being said, look into your webpage for any keyword cannibalization instances and solve it all immediately!

8. Doing Content Audit

A lot of webpage owners are more focused on creating and posting new content that they don’t bother checking their existing content. This is a huge mistake to avoid doing, as auditing your previous content can help in many ways!

It helps evaluate if your existing content accomplishes goals and gains ROI, identifies if your contents’ information is accurate and up to date, as well as helps you see what content works best for you and the webpage. Overall, content auditing helps with your strategies and should be done regularly.

9. Image Optimization

It’s best to add images to have your webpages look appealing to viewers. However, images aren’t created equal, with some slowing down your business if you add it wrongly.

That’s why you should optimize all your webpage’s images as well, as it can help with ranking opportunities, load quicker, and offer a better user experience that helps keep your conversion rates high. Make sure you add titles and alt text, too!

10. User Engagement

Your SEO’s on-page elements are just a part of the battle. You also have to win your viewers’ hearts with better user experience, from the webpage itself down to the content. Increase your user engagement to have them interact, stay, and visit again by focusing on site speed, better content, and other ways to improve the design to impress your viewers.

Wrapping It Up

When it comes to optimizing your website, you have to make sure that you have the knowledge and dedication to do so. Not only should you focus on one aspect of SEO, but in all, especially with on-page SEO. Through updating your website and following the right tips, you can begin reaching goals for your website now.

I hope that this article on the ten on-page SEO factors you should consider today helped you out! So don’t wait any longer and begin taking action on optimizing your website with your team or with companies like Joel House now.

If you have any questions or want to share your tips and experiences on website optimization, then comment below. Your thoughts are much appreciated!

Original post: 10 On-Page SEO Factors You Should Consider [2019]

The post 10 On-Page SEO Factors You Should Consider [2019] appeared first on Daily Blog Tips.

Instagram is one of the most efficient and fastest growing social networks. Brands and businesses love it and leverage it to promote and market their products and services to billions of users worldwide.

More and more brands are competing for declining customer attention whose span is now no more than a Goldfish’s at 8s. Hence, brands are going the extra mile to engage followers more.

It is important to learn how to get more Instagram followers, and even more important to learn how to engage them after you’ve got them.This we will cover in this post, but first

Why Even Bother with Instagram?

A lot of top brands have an Instagram account. 1 billion people (and counting) use it every month. Millions of businesses have an account, spending billions in ads, etc. Surely, this means Instagram is doing something right.

To put it in perspective, here are

Some Key Instagram Marketing Statistics

• 1 billion people use Instagram monthly
• Over 500 million use it daily
• 80% of accounts follow a business on Instagram
• Over 500 million accounts use stories daily
• There are 2million advertisers every month
• More than 100 million images and videos are posted daily, etc

Instagram Followers: Who are They?

These are users of Instagram that follow your account and they can see, share, like and comment on any content or photo you post.

As a brand or business, it is important to know and understand your followers. This gives you an idea of the kind of content to curate for them.

Why You Need to Understand Your Instagram Audience/Followers

It is important to have lots of followers on Instagram but more importantly, you need to understand and figure out

• who they are
• where they are
• what they like
• what they dislike
• what they earn
• how they buy/shop/spend
• how they communicate, etc

This wil form the basis of your content marketing  strategy. With this information you can easily streamline, create and curate content best suited for your audience.

The big question is

Are Your Followers Engaged? 5 Ways to Tell

1. Dwindling Likes and Comments

One of the quickest ways to spot poor engagement is the number of likes and comments. These two KPIs are directly related to engagement.

Likes and comments show if your followers are “into” your content or not. If always zero or constantly declining, then follower engagement may be poor. Some social networks like Instagram and YouTube are currently experimenting with hiding number of likes or subscribers.

2.  Clicks and Share Rate

Clicks refer to the number of users that see your post and eventually open it. Users tend to like, comment and share a really useful post.

If your click through/share rate increases, it means your followers are engaged.

3. Positive Brand Mentions

When your brand is tagged or mentioned in a conversation you didn’t start, it shows that users really value your brand and people “see” you.

This is an important KPI. Ultimately, this means followers have been paying attention to you.

4. Profile Visits

This is also important. Users who engage with your posts tend to visit your profile and also mention your page to other users who eventually check out your profile too.

A low number of profile visits may be indicative of poor engagement.

5. Conversion Rate

This is the ultimate indicator of follower engagement. The goal of every business is to convert followers to buyers.

Your conversion goals may be different e.g newsletter sign ups. Either way, a poor follower engagement will result in poor conversion.

Following are:

7 Simple Ways to Get Even More Engaged Instagram Followers

1. Take Time to Write Stronger Captions

Unlike Twitter, Instagram has room for longer captions, up to 2200 characters. One of the easiest ways to get followers attention is by writing meaningful content. This way, they’re captivated by your content and spend time engrossed in and engaging with it.

Take time to write well-structured meaningful captions that engage your audience. Tell your story in the most captivating way that will wow your readers and get them asking for more, Game of Thrones style.

Longer dwell time is a key indicator of engagement, it means you’ve won audience attention, which also improves the chances of your post popping up in numerous feeds.

2. Use Your Stories and Stickers Optimally

Instagram Stories (InstaStory) was introduced in August 2016 after Instagram was acquired by Facebook. It is one of the easiest ways to engage followers and get people talking about your brand.

InstaStory is so popular that over 500 million people use it daily. Your brand followers will definitely be engaged when you make use of InstaStory.

Instagram took things up a notch by adding the sticker feature to Instastory, which prompts followers to take action on your story.

3. The Question Sticker.

The question sticker is an ask-me-anything (AMA) prompt. With it followers can ask you anything about your products and services, which is great for engagement and two-way communication.

Polls and Vote Sticker

Using polls and Vote Sticker is another way to build strong connection with followers, it makes them feel valued to be seen and heard; to know their opinion counts. Want your followers opinions?  Use the poll and vote sticker.

4. Know Best Time to Post

If you want to score more follower engagement, writing good, long, and meaningful content/caption is not enough. Timing (of posts) is also key.

Take some time to monitor and study your Instagram analytics (do this by checking your Instagram Insights).

From the previous posts, figure out the period of time when you receive maximum views, likes, shares and comments then schedule your posts to appear during that period of time.

5. Make the Most of Hashtags

The importance of hashtags cannot be overstated. Hashtags make your posts stay afloat in a sea of millions of posts. They are simple to use and can make a whole lot of difference.

Figure out and use popular hashtags peculiar to your business or industry. The more hashtags you use, the higher the chances of getting more impressions on your posts. Instagram allows up to 30 hashtags per post and 10 hashtags per story.

It is good practice to use hashtags in the comment section rather than under captions. This way, your posts won’t appear spammy.

It is also important to create your own branded hashtags. Be creative as much as possible.

And lastly, avoid banned hashtags as they can get you into trouble. Simply conduct a research on the list of banned hashtags and avoid them.

7. Connect With Your Followers

Days ago, a friend mentioned a brand in a post. Thankfully, the brand replied. I felt important and heard, he said.

Take time to reply your followers when you are tagged and mentioned in a post. This gives the follower a sense of belonging.

When followers observe that you reply comments, they engage directly with your posts more.

Another way to connect with followers and get even more engagement is to reply to your DMs as much as you can. Those who (constantly) don’t are seen as snubs.

6. Conduct Giveaway Contests Occasionally

This is one of the best ways to get more awareness and engagement. You can get loads of likes, comments and tags by doing this.

“Free” sells.

By conducting giveaways, you gain brand attention and mentions. You can offer product samples and ask users to upload a photo of video of them using it. 

7. Create Posts that are Fun and Spark Conversations

Long boring posts are a turn off. Be creative; add a bit of humour, pun to your post so it stands out from the millions of other posts.

Trending issues like Game of Thrones are a conversation starter. Befriend the trend and use it well.

You will definitely get more engaged followers when you take some time to add an element of fun and creativity to your posts.

Conclusion

Instagram following is more than a number, it is about engagement.

Follow these simple steps to better engagement and share your experience with us.

Amos Onwukwe is an AWAI trained Business and Ecommerce Copywriter featured in Huffington Post, Dumb Little Man, Self Growth, Ecommerce Nation, eCommerce Insights, Understanding Ecommerce, Result First, Floship, Successful Startup 101, Small Biz Club, Small Business Bonfire, among others.

You can find him on Twitter @amos_onwukwe

Original post: 7 Simple Ways to Get Even More Engaged Instagram Followers

The post 7 Simple Ways to Get Even More Engaged Instagram Followers appeared first on Daily Blog Tips.

When it comes to your blog’s position within search engine results, there’s far more than just sheer luck at play.

Search Engine Optimisation is a skill that any content creator – professional or amateur – should develop in order to make their content as discoverable as possible. It involves making certain tweaks to your blog and its content in order to improve their position and visibility online.

While SEO and content marketing experts have developed specialist tools to launch your posts as far up the ranks as possible, there’s also a great deal of groundwork that you can do yourself for free. Here, I’ll provide a few useful tips to help you improve your blog content SEO.

1. Carefully Curate Your Posts

One of the most vital parts of SEO is to make sure that every piece of content you put out is worthwhile. It doesn’t matter how much technical optimisation you undertake if you’re not posting things that are unique, useful, accurate, relevant and up to date.

Don’t stray from your blog’s theme – however tempting it is to comment on developments in the world beyond your usual subject matter.

You should keep an eye on what’s going viral within your blog’s specialist field. Trending topics are far more likely to achieve hits – and providing a distinctive, expert angle on those topics will help you to stand out from other bloggers, so make sure that you research thoroughly!

1. Improve Both Readability and Accessibility

That’s the subject matter of your posts optimised – but what about your approach to the main body of text?

All the information you include in each post needs to be totally relevant and very concise. Try to avoid “filler language” wherever possible – that’s the fluff that bulks up your word count but doesn’t actually include any relevant information that moves the piece along.

Paragraphs should be no longer than three lines long. Remember, an online audience is more likely to be “scanning” your post for vital nuggets of information than studying it in great depth, so the readability of your content is vitally important.

Include headings and applicable, visually pleasing images and infographics where possible to break up the text and keep things interesting. Make sure you have permission to use all pictures before you add them!

Accessibility to your blog and across all your posts is a vital SEO step. Always link internally to content you’ve created in the past that is relevant to your current post’s subject matter. This improves access to more of your work for both audience members and search engines.

You should also link to your blog content regularly on your social media platforms, as this will increase traffic and inbound links – making you more discoverable still.

Before you post anything, however, you should first ensure that you are not duplicating content that already exists across your blog. If there are too many similar topics, keywords or repeated chunks of text, you may be penalized by search engines and sent way down the ranks.

1. Keep on Top of Trending Keywords

This area is perhaps one of the most famous elements of SEO and it’s also surprisingly easy to achieve.

There are a number of very useful free tools available that will help you discover exactly which keywords are the most popular within online searches. Again, it’s very important that all these search terms are completely relevant to the subject of your content.

Tools you may consider using include Ahrefs, SEM Rush and Google Adwords. But there are plenty more available. You might even use tools such as Answer The Public, Google search suggestions and Google Trends to pick out important keywords. Some will allow you to focus on particular countries – and even regions – meaning you can target a more local audience if required.

There are two main types of keyword phrases – short tail and long tail.

Short tail search terms are between one and three words long, and will help you to access a wide audience that is seeking out information falling roughly into the same field as your content. For example, “SEO tips” might be a high-performing short tail phrase for this page.

Long tail keyword phrases help you to zone in on a more specific audience by providing more detail of the subject matter. For example, “blog content SEO for beginners” will allow you to attract those who are looking for more specific types of information.

Long tail keywords are particularly valuable to those who are interested in content marketing for their blog, as they will help to draw in audiences that are far more likely to convert into sales leads.

Use keywords everywhere – in headings, subheadings, meta-descriptions and tags as well as in the main body of your content.

Whatever you do, be sure to insert those keywords in a way that is natural and easy to read. Stuffing a piece with jarring phrases that do not work together in a grammatical sense feels lazy and salesy and is often off-putting for an audience.

Before you create new posts that are properly keyword optimised, it’s definitely worth making the effort to re-optimise blog content from past pieces too – that way your whole blog will perform consistently.

So – to get off to a flying start when it comes to blog content SEO – remember to:

1. Curate your posts, ensuring that they are relevant, unique and likely to draw an audience by keeping an eye on trends
2. Hone the readability and accessibility of all content (remembering to regularly include internal links and do away with duplicate content)
3. Keyword optimise in a natural, engaging way wherever possible

If you complete these steps, it’s highly likely that you’ll quickly see a difference in your blog’s search engine ranking.

This article was written by Tino Triste, Search Strategy Director at Tecmark.

Original post: 3 Ways to Optimise Blog Content so it Ranks Well on Google

Technology has changed the way we live. A few decades back, we couldn’t even imagine making a video call to a person sitting in another corner of the world. With every technological advancement, mankind is treading towards greater development. From smart gadgets to machines, every invention has leveraged the human lifestyle. 

There’s no doubt in asserting that technology has placed the world right into our palms. Gone are the days when people used to learn about the world through newspapers or books. Now with smart gadgets, everything is just a few scrolls and clicks away. Whether you want to know the weather of another country or order something online, technology has made seemingly everything possible. 

Amazon Alexa: The Futuristic Technology

Human assistance devices are one of the revolutionary inventions of all time. Assisting humans in their day-to-day lives and helping them complete certain tasks, these human assistance devices are a great help for humans. Amazon Alexa is a virtual assistant by the Amazon. It was introduced in 2014 when Amazon launched its Amazon Echo which was primarily a smart speaker. It deemed to control your music and other smart commands with your voice. Gradually with the advent of technology and some tweaks, Amazon Echo emerged as a smart service for controlling smart home appliances with your voice commands. From lightbulbs, humidifiers, TV to thermostats, you can manage your smart devices with Echo speakers. 

Amazon Alexa Revolutionizing Business Space

Not just effectively assisting the households, Amazon Alexa is also revolutionizing the business realm as well. Alexa has powered a major corporate house and e-commerce development company in ways you can never imagine. Irrespective of the size and structure of the business, Alexa skills can streamline your business proceedings and extend an automated workspace for you. There are several businesses in the industry that have already adopted Amazon Alexa as their virtual assistant device as relished its multiple perks. Do you want to know what Alexa can do to your business, then read on…

There are plenty of Amazon Alexa skills that are used to make things easier. For businesses, as well, there are a set of Alexa skills that everyone must be acquainted with.

If you haven’t yet heard about the Alexa skills and commands, you can use to amplify your productivity, wait no more and read on to discover those amazing skills:-

Track Track Track

You would be surprised to know how good is Alexa in tracking things for your business. Alexa has a to-do list command that helps you keep track of your events and add these events to Alexa. For instance, you can just “Alexa add 5:00 clock appointment with the client”, Alexa will immediately recognize your voice and add the event to “to-do-list”. Not just adding, Alex will give you a regular notification regarding the event till you command Alexa that the event is completed. You can use this Amazon Alexa skill to put up reminders and make a comprehensive to-do-list. Trust Alexa, and it won’t forget anything you say. 

Manage Travel Itineraries

Are you witnessing issues managing your business trip? Alexa can help you in that area. If your business is engaged in frequent business trips to different places, it comes important to keep track of such trips and manage them efficiently. This Alexa skill help business people to interact with Alexa in their natural language in order to plan or book a trip. It also helps in getting alerts from travel agency regarding any flight delays, cancellations, terminal changes, etc. You can also customize the skill and integrate weather updates, driving directions, site maps, etc. Don’t forget that you can even book a cab through Alexa to get to the airport. 

Control Conferences

Conferences are important for managing business and managing conferences can be a daunting task. There might be several conferences going on at the same time in your office, and it becomes difficult to keep track of everything. Don’t worry, Alexa does the work for you. With this Alexa command, you can join a meeting. If you are unable to attend the conference for some reason, you can integrate the essential components of a conference like remote controllers, dialers, mobile apps, room displays, etc., to Alexa skills. The in-built artificial intelligence will smarten up your conference room and make it more efficient than ever. 

Calendar and Scheduling 

Alexa skills work with every calendar and contact provider. Whether you want to schedule a meeting to mark your calendar for a special event, this Alexa skill will help you make things easier for you. If you are using multiple calendars and contact providers, you can simply integrate them and create a custom Alexa skill according to your requirements. With this skill, Alexa can tell you the availability of a person from your contact list and schedule a call as well at the earliest. Knowing the availability of the person, Alexa will automatically schedule a meeting, call, and conference, enabling maximum productivity. This way, you can schedule your things accordingly. 

Content Marketing

Alexa can surprise you with the skills. Have you ever thought Alexa can help you enhance customer experience? If not, then you must know that this customized Alexa skill has helped businesses boost their customer relationship by offering high-quality content regarding product and services. Thoroughly analyzing the market, and understanding the customer requirements, you can customize Alexa skills to generate creative content. This Alexa skill also helps in maintaining consistency in the voice of your brand. Personalized Alexa skills and customer-oriented CTAs has helped businesses in boosting their website conversion rates. Alexa skill is focused on marketing your product and services through interactive and innovative voice content. 

Smart Inventory Management

It’s true that inventory management is one of the daunting tasks to manage in business. Whether small or large business enterprise, inventory management is an important task to accomplish. Consider replacing your traditional methods of inventory management with voice-activated inventory management. Amazon Alexa is revolutionizing the way businesses manage inventory. Alexa skills can empower you to access and control inventory information anytime, anywhere. Though Alexa cannot help in prepare reports, it will read those reports to you, so that you can manage inventory on the go. Seek assistance from Amazon Alexa whether you want to make any changes or instruct your employees regarding any transformations in the inventory system. 

Task Management Application

There are different tasks involved in a business, and it becomes essential to manage these tasks. Alexa skills will help you manage your tasks in the most efficient manner. Using voice recognition, you can seamlessly add tasks to your to-do-list and decrease the use of smartphones. Alexa is easily compatible with all your task management applications, so you can directly integrate them to manage your tasks on the go. Alexa will take data from your task management applications and precisely remind you of the important events and constantly updates you regarding any changes in the same. 

Expense Management

Just like task management, managing your expenses is also an important process. Alexa, with its artificial intelligence power, will help you track and manage your finances as well. This Amazon Alexa skill will enable you to know the unpaid bills, the status of your budget, your expenses and savings, financial goals, etc. If you think Alexa can only remind you regarding the bill and let you know about your financial obligations, then Alexa might surprise you here as well. Amazon Alexa is beyond just a voice to your bank account, and it will also provide you with credible financial advice by monitoring your current bank data. Isn’t that amazing?

Customer Support

Customer support is the most crucial element of your business that creates a credible position for your brand in the market. Amazon Alexa skill can be customized to help customers by providing them voice assistant round the clock. On the basis of your products and services, you can create Amazon Alexa skills to address your customer queries and issues. This Amazon skill is created to register customer issues and develop a service request at the backend system. Not only providing your business with a seamless way to receive customer request, but this Alexa skill also enables you to reduce the response time and enhance customer satisfaction. 

Virtual assistant devices have made our lives simply better. Amazon Alexa is one such amazing smart device that takes voice commands to control smart home appliances. It was no sooner when Alexa incepted into the business world and started extending its assistance to boost the efficiency of a business. 

Undoubtedly, this artificial intelligence-powered device has changed the way humans interact with machines. It is quite surprising how Amazon Alexa has acquired a place in the business realm. We are just scratching the surface of Amazon Alexa skills, and there are a lot of hidden potentials that this intelligent device can extend to businesses. 

The above mentioned were a few of the skills and commands everyone must know to handle their business proceedings in the most efficient manner. 

Learn these skills and make Alexa a prominent part of your workspace and make it even more flexible and automated.

Ravi Sharma is the Co-Founder & CEO of Webomaze. He is a young entrepreneur helping various businesses world-wide to have better online presence through a great website, mobile app, and strategic digital marketing. He is highly enthusiastic about advanced web development and search engine optimization. He is a traveller and loves to explore new places.

Original post: Best Alexa Skills That Will Actually Surprise You