Voice assistant study: Microsoft’s Cortana offers most answers, Google Assistant proves most accurate

Voice assistant study: Microsoft’s Cortana offers most answers, Google Assistant proves most accurate

Perficient Digital released the latest version of its now annual Digital Personal Assistants accuracy study. It compared responses to roughly 5,000 queries on seven devices including Amazon’s Alexa (Echo and Echo Show), Microsoft’s Cortana, Google Assistant (Home, smartphones), and Siri. More answers, less accuracy. At the highest level, Google Assistant performed the best, but Cortana attempted to answer the most questions. Alexa also showed improvement in answer attempts. But accuracy declined on all devices, according to the study. The chart below compares devices by number of answers attempted, which means they didn’t respond with “I don’t know that” or “I can’t help with that yet.” Three years of data show […]

The Featured Snippets Cheat Sheet and Interactive Q&A

The Featured Snippets Cheat Sheet and Interactive Q&A

Posted by BritneyMuller Earlier this week, I hosted a webinar all about featured snippets covering essential background info, brand-new research we’ve done, the results of all the tests I’ve performed, and key takeaways. Things didn’t quite go as planned, though. We had technical difficulties that interfered with our ability to broadcast live, and lots of folks were left with questions after the recording that we weren’t able to answer in a follow-up Q&A. The next best thing to a live webinar Q&A? A digital one that you can bookmark and come back to over and over again! We asked our incredibly patient, phenomenally smart attendees to submit their questions via email […]

8 Little-Known Instagram SEO Techniques for Increasing Reach

8 Little-Known Instagram SEO Techniques for Increasing Reach

Instagram is an undeniably viable platform for marketing in 2019. In fact, Instagram has officially reached more than one billion active monthly users — which means it’s now more popular than social media giants such as Twitter or LinkedIn. That’s a lot of users sitting around, waiting to see your content. So, how can you reach all of those users and create opportunities for them to engage with your brand? The answer might surprise you — SEO for Instagram. I know what you’re thinking: Can I really employ the same SEO techniques I use to optimize web pages for a social media app? Fortunately, you can. The trick isn’t shoe-horning […]

A Comprehensive List of HTTP Status Codes

A Comprehensive List of HTTP Status Codes

One day I was scrolling through BuzzFeed (as one does … ), when, all of a sudden, I got the dreaded 404 error code. As a user, I didn’t understand why I was getting an HTTP status code, or what it meant. If you’re anything like me, you’re probably wondering, Wait…What’s an HTTP status code? Simply put, HTTP stands for HyperText Transfer Protocol. Essentially, this is the protocol that facilitates communication between your browser and a web server. Whenever you type a request in your browser, it sends a request to a web server to receive, process, and send back the requested information. An HTTP status code is sent to […]

Amazon ad revenue tops $3.5 billion in third quarter, expecting strong holiday season

Amazon ad revenue tops $3.5 billion in third quarter, expecting strong holiday season

Amazon advertising revenue increased 45% year-over-year in the third quarter. Click to enlarge. Amazon advertising revenues hit a new high in the third quarter, reaching $3.6 billion. Overall, the company reported lower-than-expected profits of $2.1 billion on $70 billion in revenue for the third quarter of the year on Thursday. Amazon doesn’t break out advertising revenue, but advertising makes up the majority of an “Other” revenue category in its earnings reports. The other category grew by 45% year-over-year, but the advertising segment of that category actually grew at a rate higher than 45%, Amazon CFO Brian Olsavsky said on the earnings call. Why we should care. Amazon’s advertising growth rate […]

What is an XML Sitemap? How to Create a Sitemap in WordPress?

What is an XML Sitemap? How to Create a Sitemap in WordPress?

Are you wondering what is an XML sitemap, and how to add it to your WordPress website? An XML sitemap helps search engines easily navigate through your website content. It gives them a list of all your content in a machine-readable format. Unlike a regular sitemap that is made for people, an XML sitemap is not typically visible to your website visitors. In this article, we will explain what is an XML sitemap, and how to easily create a sitemap in WordPress. What is an XML Sitemap? An XML sitemap is a file that lists of all your website content in an XML format, so search engines like Google can […]

Permalinks: What They Are & How to Structure Them for Max SEO Value

Permalinks: What They Are & How to Structure Them for Max SEO Value

What comes to mind when you think of SEO? “Permalink” probably isn’t the first or second thing, maybe not even the tenth thing. The truth is, though, permalinks and SEO have a lot more in common than you may think, and — when done correctly — can only benefit your website in the long run. Luckily, permalinks are fairly simple to master, which is good, and vital to SEO value. Let’s get into the details of permalinks, how to create them, and using them with WordPress. What Is a Permalink? Look at the URL of this post. That’s a permalink: blog.hubspot.com/marketing/what-is-a-permalink A permalink is the full URL of a website […]