Top Five Microsoft Excel Tips for Digital Marketers

In earlier days it was pretty difficult to manage data and with the introduction of Microsoft Excel things changed. There are several data manipulation possible with the help of excel as far as Digital Marketers are concerned. Following are some of the tips which can be done with the help of excel for making the process of digital marketing easy.

1. Flash Fill
Sometimes it is difficult a set of information continuously on Excel. There is a feature in Excel called Flash fill which enable sorting of data based on a particular pattern. This is especially true when the data have consistency across a series of cells. Usually Flash Fill is on by default and fills when the software recognizes a pattern. However if it is off it can be taken from files menu under options. In the advanced tab there will be a checkbox for automatically flash fill the data. If the flash filling is not working then it can be initiated from data ribbon menu. This is extremely useful when the contact list is imported from Social Media Websites or sorting the Email list taken from the subscription list.

2. Pivot Tables
This is one of most useful features of Excel which people don't use widely. Sometimes when there are a lot of data existing in the excel sheet it will be difficult to sort out which should be given importance. Pivot tables are easy for summarizing, analyzing and sorting out data based on a short set of parameters. Clicking on the table of data and going to insert Pivot Table Option and highlight what all parameters need to be analyzed. Then dragging the fields will create a pivot table in a separate sheet.

3. Goal Seek
Sometimes while analyzing data that are predicting an output from a particular formula, the user might not be sure about adjusting what value will yield a result. The Goal Seek feature of excel is a wonderful example of finding what value of a data set can affect another data set value. Sometimes expected organic visits and paid visits need to be analyzed to find out which will be going to yield the desired number of leads. Creating a set cell and selecting what if analysis from the data ribbon can make the goal seek value function to run. The target value and the current value can be find out by adjusting the parameters in the excel sheet.

4. Conditional Formatting
This feature of Excel is particularly useful for tracking the search engine ranking positions and the pagerank values for a web page. Conditional formating is used for highlighting a  value based on a condition. Depending upon the value in a cell the cell can be colored based on the period in which it stands. The Highlight cell rules can be taken from the conditional formating and used for sorting out if the ranking of a keyword is with the 1 to 10 position in search engine results page.

5. Forecast and Trendline
Forecast is done in order to predict the future values based on an old set of values. This can be extremely helpful for digital marketers for showing yearly trends based viists and conversions based old previous years results. Trendline also gives the values based on old values which can be accesed from the char line right clicking option. However Display Equation on chart should be turned on in order to see how the values vary based on old values.

Top Five Benefits of Having a Business Blogs

Business people are looking for newer ways to get more traffic to their website every day. Business Blogging is one of those ways to attract more visitors to the website and increase leads. Blogging on a regular basis and promotion over social media are less costlier than conventional advertising methods. Most of the companies who have set up blogs receive visitors daily. Statistics from business industries have told that setting up blog has increased their brand value. The following are some of the advantages of having business blogs.

1. Business Blogs boosts search engine optimization factors of the website. Providing content frequently in the form of blog is an easy way to increase the freshness of the website. New content posted on the blogs will be indexed by search engines and the increase in number of indexed pages will boost SEO
2. Blogging is an easy way to connect to new visitors. People who read blog posts regularly will be commenting and sharing via social media which increases the chances of getting more visitors. Building trust in the form of thanking customers by offering content which is helpful for them increases the loyalty of the readers.   
3. Business Blogging helps an organization in establishing as an authority. Providing content having value and giving expert opinions help the business organizations shine in their area through credible posts. people who visits the blog feel that the organization is competent in providing vital information needed for the client. 
4. Blogs which are established as one of the major providers of resourceful information will be overlooked by people who need information at any stage. This will help the business blog to be kept as reference for the professionals.  
5. Business blogging help the readers an option to share information that is updated regularly. As the sharing of content increases it altogether increases the brand value and SEO factors. 

Most Popular Web Design Trends to be Watched in 2016

With the period of time every new thing will become old and so is the new trends in web design industry. Whenever there is a web design trend going out of date a new trend will follow it. The following are some of the most common trends that is trending in 2015 and found on different websites across the globe.

Line Icons
The first implementation of line icons was followed by Apple for achieving simple minimalistic designs. The aesthetics are not lost with these kind of designs which emphasize the visual cues. The line weight consistency is used in most of the designs following line icons. In some cases thick lines are used for overall shapes while thin line shapes are used for details. Most web designers provide editable strokes designs which the customer can change accordingly.

Material Design
Material design was first put forward by Google which involved classic principles of good design combined with the new trends and usage of new technologies.

Providing unique experience across all platforms including mobile and desktop is the primary principle for this kind of design. Creating visual effects like motion shadows and 3 dimensional capabilities gave material design its uniqueness in web design.

Interactive Infographics

The trends that is dominating in the graphics vertical is the visualization of elements through interactivity. It is true that most people love infographics but as there are thousands of infographics produced every day adding interactivity to the infographics is catching the trend. As it is possible to to create interactive and animated infographics with HTML5 and CSS3 the future of infographics belong to interactivity.

Full Screen Videos

One of the limitation with flash designs was the time taken to load and browser compatibility issues. This was overcome with the latest technologies in web design which made it possible to embed full screen videos in the website. With the videos playing in the background the attention of the visitor is kept on the screen for longer times. It also creates some kind of dynamism which is unique in the case of full screen videos. These kind of full screen videos are used mainly for video tours and product demos.

The above design trends have become part of brand identity and the unique look and feel of the website.

Usage of Mobile Phones by Small Business Owners

Usage of Mobile Phones by Small Business Owners in Percentage

A recent study conducted by the website Manta have found that 80% of the Small Business Owners in United States have used Mobile Phones in their Business. And 25% used these handheld devices once in an hour. and while they are not using mobile phone the small and medium business owners are stick to computers. About 12% of them are addicted to mobile and checked their mobiles for incoming messages and emails.

Most of the Small and Medium Business owners have used mobile phones to schedule appointments and communicating with customers.

Note taking applications were used by one by third of them. This is combined with creating things to do inside the list.

Usage of Social Media were also used by one third of the small business users

Expense management, Inventory Management and accounting were used less by them

The mobile phones were used by about one by fourth of them.

It has also been found that Small and Medium Business users were frequent users of  Mobile Apps.

Also majority of the business owners suggested they love to read mobile optimized content. Responsive website designs were preferred by them over mobile devices.