The VORC score is a proprietary formula designed by Jimmie to surface the players that you really want, not the same players everyone else is trying to grab and will likely be gone by the time your pick comes up.  Jimmie steps you through your draft, round by round, giving you a list of the players that will be available to you and a VORC-ordered list to help you choose wisely.  He goes even beyond that to highlight the top three players in each round that you will probably be able to pick, based on your draft position.  

If you play multiple leagues, no problem.  There are predefined standard, PPR, and 1/2 point PPR profiles for your use, a special Tight End PPR profile new this year, and the ability to configure your own point schedules for other types of leagues.   

Jimmie says the draft is the single most important part of your fantasy season.  His draft app lets you get data-driven results without having to spend hours collecting statistics off the web and creating your own spreadsheets.  Let Jimmie be your analyst, while you have fun with your fantasy draft.  

Fantasy Football Maverick is an amazing tool that Jimmie spends countless hours perfecting.  Get an edge on your friends with Fantasy Football Maverick, because it’s more fun when you’re winning!

One of the unique thing about the EE Conference is that it’s organized completely by the community; however, every year EE’s creators, EllisLab, attend and participate along with all the other developers, marketers and business owners.  They make a concerted effort to be available to their community of users, not just at the conference but also making themselves available every day through their CMS Slack channel.  In previous years they were able to share exclusive first-looks at upcoming improvements and we’re excited to see how EE will continue to evolve.

It’s not only ExpressionEngine itself that continues to grow and evolve—an impressive ratio of the overall EE community add to the offering by making plugins they’ve developed available to others in the community.  Plugins add to the native functionality of the CMS further extending what can be done with the system. And, whilst the list of available plugins is already gigantic, it also continues to grow every year, so we expect to hear about even more new and upcoming plugins that may just be exactly the features your site needs.  Of course, even if you need functionality that isn’t already available as a plugin, ExpressionEngine have deliberately made it easy to extend with custom plugins and additions, so there really isn’t a scenario that ExpressionEngine can’t handle.

Whilst we work in more platforms than just ExpressionEngine, Xynergy and Consumer51 find the security, flexibility and usability of this CMS to be a perfect fit for many of our web projects. We are experts in building and marketing beautiful, secure, feature-rich, usable and goal-converting websites with ExpressionEngine.  If your site lacks in any of these departments, you’re not getting the most out of your site—let us know about it and we will work with you to rectify that problem.

Google Maps API (Application Programming Interface) has been hugely popular since it opened to developers in 2005.  Not only was the platform free, it was easy to use. All you needed was a little snippet of code on your website, and in return Google Maps API provided a rich variety of location-based services and applications.

And if you anticipated a lot of traffic to your website, all you needed in addition to the code, was an optional API key to identify the Google map embedded on your website.

What’s an API Key?
You can think of the API key as basically a code that helps Google identify the calling program, its developer, or users to your website. 

Google is merging their APIs (No More Keyless API Requests)
Google has recently posted an update regarding their Maps API platform that is likely to affect thousands of websites. In other words, regardless of the level of traffic your website may receive, you will need an API Key.

The 18 separate API services Google has offered is now being streamlined and consolidated. This means no more free access or a choice of various price plans, instead, there will be a single, pay-as-you-go service.

Keyless Calls will Return in Error

Without an API key, any maps you have on your website will return low-resolution maps watermarked with “for development purposes only,” or these possible errors:

 Keyless calls to any of the additional following APIs will return an error:

• Maps JavaScript API and Street View API
• Maps Static API (including Static Street View)
• Directions API
• Distance Matrix API
• Geocoding API
• Geolocation API
• Places API
• Roads API
• Time Zone API

You Need a Credit Card for the Google Maps Key Change
Besides the mandatory API key, Google is requiring you to set up a Google Cloud Platform with a billing account to access their API.

• You must add a credit card to your Google Maps Platform billing account
• You’ll get $200 free usage every month for Maps API
• You’ll only pay for extra usage

What your Monthly $200 Free Budget* Provides:

• Up to 100,000 - ‘Static Maps’ requests
• Up to 28,000 - ‘Dynamic Maps’ requests
• Up to 40,000 – User location requests, or
• Up to 11,000 – ‘Place’ requests, or
• Up to 5000 – ‘Nearby’ searches (searching for places within a radius), or
• up to 40,000 – Directions requests

*Please note! Now that your API keys have credit card billing attached to them; it’s *really* important that you restrict the usage of those keys to your own domain name and place caps on the usage you are willing to pay for. 

For instance, if you have a map-centric site like our client NM Summer Food, understanding your web traffic and how it relates to your Google mapping is extremely important not only to your budget but to providing an essential service to your users.

How Do I Setup My Account to Get my Google API key?

We’ve found despite the simple directions given by Google to obtain an API key; the task can be a little difficult to navigate. With that said, here are their instructions:

• Login to your Google account.
• Go to the Google Cloud Platform Console.
• Create or select a project.
• Click Continue to enable the API and any related services.
• On the Credentials page, get an API key.

Still Need Help?

If you’re utilizing Google Map API services and are unsure whether you have an API key, please contact Xynergy for guidance. There’s also this useful Google calculator tool that helps you figure out at what level to set quotas. If you are in need of an opinion from one of our professional web designers, please request a quote, and we will contact you shortly.

References:

1. https://developers.google.com/maps/faq
2. https://cloud.google.com/endpoints/docs/openapi/restricting-api-access-with-api-keys-openapi
3. https://mapsplatform.googleblog.com/2018/05/introducing-google-maps-platform.html

This change isn’t surprising as mobile web traffic continues to increase (and has started to outperform desktop traffic) – it was only a matter of time before Google responded to this reality.  But as with many of Google’s announcements, it could mean your site’s rankings change drastically depending on your current setup.  Because this shift means Google are now looking at mobile sites first, having a strong mobile strategy is clearly important and this is the main takeaway for most website owners: have a mobile-first marketing strategy for your website.

If your website isn’t mobile version at all, then that’s a huge problem for the reasons already touched on in this post.  The impact is that your site will not only miss out on mobile searches, but now the rankings will start to drop all around.  The vast majority of our clients already know this because Xynergy has been recommending responsive design for years and have ensured all our clients have a mobile friendly site.  Now however, the additional challenge comes to start thinking of mobile users first and change your marketing strategy accordingly.  If that’s something you need help with, let us know and we can help.

Jimmie Maverick was already dominating his fantasy leagues using just a spreadsheet and his proprietary ranking algorithms, when he decided to take his dream online.   Collecting player statistics and tracking status changes can be a full-time job before you even think about making your draft picks. So he built an app for that. The web app automatically sorts through all the statistical data available on the players and sieves it through Jimmie’s special ranking funnels to build a list of the top players from which to select.   Using his app, Jimmie and his friends spend a lot less time updating spreadsheets, focusing instead on ever-better ways of evaluating the players. A strong draft leads to a strong finish in your leagues. Don’t get caught at the bottom this year!

Click Fraud can be simply defined as repeatedly clicking on an advertisement in order to increase revenue for the site that is hosting the ad, or increase cost of running the ad for the advertiser.  These false clicks have been theorized to be generated from third parties, competitors, bots, or even click farms (people hired specifically to generate false ad traffic / impressions).  Anyone advertising online has probably assumed that there is some type of inherent risk, but mostly assume that whoever is overseeing the ads will have security in place to protect them from fraud.  However, large search engines such as Google, who profit on every reported click, have very little incentive to eliminate this type of false traffic.  Furthermore, users of AdWords and other advertising platforms, have virtually no way to check the legitimacy of their clicks. 

Perhaps the most recent scandal involving ‘click-fraud’ revolves around Plaintiff Gurminder Singh.  Singh had recently become suspicious of the Google reporting he had been receiving and decided to conduct his own investigation.  Singh discovered a trend while looking at his AdWords reporting, which included an increase in clicks, but an overall decrease in final conversions.  These numbers alone made Singh suspicious of potential ‘click-fraud’.  Singh tested this theory by creating two separate ads for his next campaign.  The first ad was a legitimate advertisement for his business, while the second ad contained nothing but gibberish.  Alarmingly, the first ad cultivated 68 clicks, while the second gathered 64 clicks.  This put the ‘click-fraud’ rate of his ads at an alarming 48%.  A surprising fact when you consider that Google claims that ‘click fraud’ only account for 10% of all AdWords clicks. 

Google has run into issues regarding ‘click-fraud’ in the past, paying nearly $90 million to settle a claim in 2006 involving Lane’s Gifts & Collectibles.  As recent as 2017, Google agreed to settle a class action suit that totaled $22.5 million for fraud that was discovered between 2004 -2008.  The most unsettling fact is that the problem doesn’t appear to be any closer to being solved.  Back in 2007, infoworld.com estimated that the average click-fraud rate was close to 15.8%.  Later, in 2017, Adloox performed a similar study, and estimated that the rate had jumped to 20.5%.  With nearly 10 years to solve the issue behind ‘click-fraud’, it appears that Google may be losing the race.

With these stories in mind, the question becomes, “How can advertisers protect themselves from click-fraud?”  While there is no silver bullet to protect from all fraud, there a warning signs that fraud may be occurring on your campaigns.  Taking these simple steps can help you be aware of possible fraud, avoiding costly ad spend on useless traffic: 

Beware of a sudden spike in ad clicks – This is hard to determine if you have only been running your campaign for a few weeks, or if you own a seasonal business.  However, if you have been running a campaign that performs consistently, then experiences a rise in clicks, you may want to start investigating where those clicks are originating from, and how they are affecting your conversion rates. 

Look out for low conversion rates – Not every campaign is going to convert at 50%, but the conversion rates on a well-built campaign should be reasonable.  If you’re not sure what an acceptable conversion rate should be, there are several sites that contain this type of information specific to your industry.  A low conversion rate could either mean that your landing page is not properly targeted, or you are receiving bot traffic.

Try different ad platforms – Google is not the only player when it comes to paid online advertising, they are simply the largest.  We have run several successful campaigns using Bing, and Yahoo in the past.  These campaigns may not receive as many impressions as Google can offer, but they operate at a fraction of the cost, and still see high conversion rates.   Keep in mind, these alternative platforms can be prone to ‘click-fraud’ as well, so keep a close watch on your active campaigns.

If you are currently running a pay-per-click campaign, or are considering operating one in the future, it can be beneficial to team up with an experienced digital marketing team.  Most digital marketers will have encountered ‘click-fraud’ or low click-through-rates before, and will have strategies in place to keep your campaigns running smoothly.  If you are considering pay-per-click as a way to advertise your business, we are here to help.  Please contact us for further information.

Sources for this article are listed below, as well as other articles for further reading:

http://www.siliconbeat.com/2017/05/12/google-makes-billions-by-failing-to-properly-police-rampant-click-fraud-on-ads-lawsuit-by-vacaville-man/

https://www.infoworld.com/article/2664142/security/much-ado-over-click-fraud-statistics.html

http://www.adweek.com/digital/is-facebook-winning-the-battle-against-ad-fraud/

https://computer.howstuffworks.com/click-fraud.htm

UTM codes are like bread crumbs that tell you how your customers found you.

Essentially, UTM codes tell the story of how your traffic is coming to you. They are little pieces of code that you add to your website’s URL before you share them on another platform. When someone clicks on that URL with the added UTM codes you can figure out how people are getting to your site. Breaking it down even further, you can also use these UTM variables to track the finer details, like how much revenue you get from your Twitter bio.

Create a strategy through UTM codes to help you identify which campaigns are most effective.

An example of UTM codes is highlighted in yellow underline in the URL below. The codes are at the end of your URL to help you track the success of your content on the web. If you’ve noticed the question mark before the code, don’t worry—it doesn't affect anything on the page. The question mark is only there so whichever analytics program you use will know whatever source or overall marketing channel as part of a certain campaign that your traffic came through.

To help you get started with a campaign with UTM codes, here are five questions your UTM links must answer and examples of what UTM codes can track:

1. Source: Where’s your traffic coming from?
   Ex: utm_source=Facebook
2. Campaign: Are you running promos in your campaign? If so, group all content in one campaign in your analytics.

Ex: utm_campaign=25percentpromocode

3. Medium: What type of marketing medium will your link be featured in?

Ex: utm_medium=socialmedia

4. Content: How is it getting to you? Discover the different types of content that point to the same URL from the same campaign, source, and medium codes.

Ex: utm_content=sidebarlink or utm_content=headerlink

5. Term: Which PPC keywords are most effective? 

Ex: utm_term=marketing+software

After you’ve spent months making an awesome product, wouldn’t it be great to not only generate more traffic but to know where those users came from for better targeting? Here’s the good news, you don’t have to do it alone. Our team can help you create a strategy (PPC keywords, content, marketing channels and social media) and tag your links at the very beginning before you launch your campaign. Plus, we’ll help you save time and effort when you’re trying to analyze your tracking later.

Click here for guidance on building targeted Google URLs with UTM codes that not only help deliver customers and prospects; but increase your revenue.

Focusing on local SEO helps businesses rank high on Google for online searches of products and services. And being ranking number one is of course desirable. But being ranked number zero is even better.

Google’s Search Algorithm can Rank you Higher than Number One

So how can zero be your hero? Because Google’s search algorithm now makes it possible to rank you much higher than number one through their Featured Snippet which ranks above the number one listing.

Being ranked zero offers three great things for your online presence: First, it brings a huge amount of credibility to your website. Secondly, it shows that you’re an authority. Thirdly, Featured Snippets have high click-through rates.

Here’s an example of the power of Featured Snippets from a search for “What is a heavy lift rocket?”:

As you can see from the example above, Featured Snippets always (at least for now) come before traditional organic search results. Thus, the number “zero” ranking. Even the “People also ask” box is above the first organic search result. So really top organic searches are number three and not number one.

The Power of Featured Snippets

Featured Snippets can contain an extracted answer a display title, and a URL. They may also have an image, bulleted lists, and simple tables. So how powerful are featured snippets in an organic search?

A recent study by Ahrefs found significant results when it looked into the effects of a Featured Snippet on traditional organic searches. According to the study, when there are no Featured Snippets in an average search engine results page (SERP), the top organic search result will get about 26% of all click-throughs. But when a Featured Snippet is present, it pulls 8.6% of the click-throughs away from the top organic search result. Meaning the number one ranking result got less than 20% of all click-throughs.

Featured Snippets Answer Questions and Draw in Customers

Putting it another way, Featured Snippets are nabbing some of the traffic which would have traditionally gone to the top organically ranked sites. Plus, Featured Snippets also reduce the total amount of clicks on a given page—raising the percentage of non-clickers from about 25% to about 30%.

The biggest takeaway I’d like you to get from this blog is that Featured Snippets aren’t going away. In fact, Ahrefs’ research found that approximately 12.29% of all search terms are accompanied by a Featured Snippet in search results. With that said, they’re becoming an important feature for businesses who want to increase their click through rates.

Still not convinced? A 2015 case study from Search Engine Land in August of 2015, tracked the loss of a Featured Snippet for a client on a competitive keyword. Unbelievably, the client lost over 39K click-throughs due to the loss of that Featured Snippet.

What can your Business Highlight in a Featured Snippet?

Creating a Featured Snippet means understanding what your audience is looking for and creating the right keywords to ensure you are number zero in Google search results. If you need guidance, the experts at Xynergy can help you increase your local SEO ranking and create the right words for a Featured Snippet.

Click here to start helping your customers and prospects in their buying decision and ignite your sales.

So how do you monitor your app’s performance? 

Let’s first distinguish between the types of monitoring that are available to you.  Depending on the nature of the app and how you roll, some ways may be more meaningful than others.  Quantitative analytics, which relies heavily on statistical observation and calculations, is quite often what people think of first because it is the easiest way to measure performance.  But reality is not always about the bottom line.  That is where qualitative analytics comes into play.

A good example of basic quantitative analytics would include the kinds of statistics you can get from the stores:  number of app installs, number of first opens, number of crashes, number of uninstalls, total dollars spent, number of in-app purchases.   Then there are the numbers you can get from within the app, using a tool like Firebase, such as screen view counts, content selection counts, session counts, events per session, and any custom events you wish to track.

You can also get qualitative analytics from the stores, in the form of reviews.   Store reviews prioritize a rating system from one to five stars, because it is easy to get a user to make that snap decision that the app is really good (4 - 5 stars), so-so (3 stars), or gosh-awful (1 - 2 stars).  So even though it is a quality judgement, it is encapsulated in a numerical system that is dead easy to understand and monitor. 

But once you have that crowd judgement from your users, the big question is, why did they rate the way they did?  And you can often find the answer in the written reviews, which are much harder to get, because it takes precious time from your user to write a review.  You should pay close attention to the reviews, because someone cared enough about your app (in marketing lingo, this is called “user engagement”) to write to you about it.   Apple’s App Store now allows you to respond to reviews, so even a negative review can be an opportunity to have a conversation with someone who wants to use your app.

Another type of qualitative analysis is available before you even release your app publicly.  Both stores offer the ability to beta test your app before release, but using the distribution channels of the store.  Apple calls this feature TestFlight, and it allows you to define a beta population whom you can invite to test your app and provide unstructured feedback on it.   You will also receive basic installs/crashes kinds of information.  We recommend at least one round of TestFlight before you publicly release your app, since it can take time to get a bug-fix release into the store.

If all this sounds like it takes a lot of time and attention, you are right.   

Many business owners, with the best of intentions, can keep up with this for a month or two before being diverted to other more pressing matters.  Unfortunately the way to leverage analytics into insightful business decisions is by constant, focussed attention to and interpretation of the data.  Xynergy’s analytics team has years of experience in doing just that, and because we work with a variety of companies and individuals, we have broad experience in understanding and interpreting analytics data.