Sharp Innovations Blog
Your Core Web Vitals are The Next Search Ranking Factor
August 31, 2020
Why You Need a Post-Pandemic Strategy
August 11, 2020Now more than ever, small businesses need to dedicate time and effort to search engine optimization. SEO is one of the best and least expensive ways to get your company’s website in front of people searching online for the products and services you offer.
You’ve likely already been hit hard by the pandemic. If you’re deciding how to intelligently allocate your marketing budget, SEO must be top of mind. It’s a low-cost way to improve your rankings on Google, Bing, and other search engines for the keywords and phrases your customers are typing into the search fields. It’s not complex.
Adobe Flash Player is Retro, But Not in a Cool Way
July 15, 2020Adobe will stop distributing and updating Flash Player after Dec. 31 of this year. That gives web developers, businesses, educators, and consumers less than half a year to integrate to open standards like HTML5, WebGL, or WebAssembly. In fairness, Adobe sent a warning about this change back in July 2017.
Adobe Flash is used for animations, mobile games, embedded web browser video, and other applications. A lot of website visitors (end users) don’t ever run into issues with Adobe Flash Player anymore because these websites have already integrated open standards and deprecated Adobe Flash Player plug-ins. Artists may produce Flash graphics and animations using Adobe Animate (formerly known as Adobe Flash Professional).
Video is King: The Importance of Video in Content Marketing
July 1, 2020According to impactbnd, 7 million people in the U.S watch online videos every day and by merely mentioning the word “video” in the subject line of an email, the click-through rate increases by 13%.
Video content truly is king. As brands, businesses, and individuals create compelling content that engages and informs, they should consider the power of video and its ability to also influence the audience.
Sitemaps: Pointing Search in the Right Direction
June 24, 2020The web is always changing in one way or another; Languages evolve and mature, design trends come and go, SEO “best practices” become “bad practices”. It’s easy to get caught up in what’s new and exciting, but one tried-and-true tool to improve your online presence that’s been around for over 15 years is the Sitemap. Sitemaps are XML files – usually automatically generated by a third-party website or built-in tool with your CMS – that simply list all page URLs and allows you to include information specifically to aid search engines like Google and Bing crawl, or scan, your website.
Touchless Apps Show Your Customers They Come First
June 16, 2020It’s encouraging to see local restaurants reopening, making the most of any outdoor seating to expand capacity while also maintaining strict social distancing regulations.
Protecting your customers is priority No. 1 for any restaurant hoping to resurrect itself from the COVID-19 shutdown.
The next priority is showing the customer you can do that.
Excuse me, I think Your Data is Showing
May 26, 2020With the ever-expanding use of digital web applications, sites, and services for branding, customer and user engagement, and internal functions like time tracking and employee communication, there is an equally increasing amount of data continuity loss. Businesses need to be on the alert.
Few business owners, employees, or even webmasters are aware of the expansive indexing ability of search bots used by the top search engines. It is easy to find companies that have saved private lead data, internal documents, and customers’ personal data to the web if you know how to use search modifiers.
2020 CPNJ Reader Rankings Nominee
May 1, 2020Sharp Innovations is so thankful for our amazing client base who took the time to nominate us as a Top 5 Web Design and Development Firm in the region.
It is an honor to be recognized for the time and effort our team puts in on behalf of you and your businesses every day. While a nomination is appreciated, it never is a goal. We have found that everything falls into place if we stick to our organization’s mission to honor God as a team through integrity and dedication to our clients, partners, and team members.
How to Use Google Reviews to Your Advantage
April 15, 2020A couple weeks back, Google temporarily halted publishing Google My Business reviews, replies, and new listings reportedly so that Google support staff, forced by the COVID-19 quarantine to work remotely, could dedicate efforts toward “reviewing new listings, claims, and verifications for critical health-related businesses.” (Search Engine Journal)
Google has returned those features and we encourage every business owner to take advantage of them, most especially the GMB reviews. Google reviews can boost the trust customers, and Google, has in your business. You should encourage your customers to offer feedback through GMB reviews. They’re a digital version of “word of mouth” recommendations, a friend telling a friend about the great service your company offers.
Important COVID-19 Update
March 17, 2020We’ve Deemed Our Customers as Essential
By now you’ve likely heard Governor Tom Wolf strongly urging PA residents to close all nonessential businesses in the state for at least two weeks due to the coronavirus pandemic. If you’re a client of ours from another state, you can learn more about the coronavirus quarantine here.
Although Sharp Innovations qualifies as an essential business, we will be out-of-office for the duration of the quarantine to ensure the safety of our staff, their families, and the community.