Top Search Engines of 2017

A lot of people don't need hundreds of search engines, especially people who are less tech savvy. All of the internet users want a single search engine that delivers below features:

• More relevant and accurate results
• Uncluttered, easy to read interface and view
• Helpful options to broaden or tighten a search

Let us see how these below search engines serve the best to the internet users who are searching for information over web.

1. Google Search:

Google is obviously the king of search engines, and is the single most used search engine in the world. Without any doubt, Google is fast, relevant, and the largest single catalogue of web pages available since few years now.

2. Google Scholar Search:

Google Scholar is a very special version of Google. This search engine is useful for the people who are preparing and taking part in debates. Google Scholar focuses on scientific and hard-research academic material that has been subjected to scrutiny by scientists and scholars.

3. Yahoo! Search:

Yahoo! is not only a search engine but it has some other features also like; news aggregator, a shopping center, an email service provider, a travel directory, a horoscope and games center, and several other features.

4. Bing Search:

Bing is Microsoft's product competing with Google, and considered as the second-most-popular search engine today. Bing used to be MSN search until it was updated in summer of 2009. Bing is growing and integrated a lot of search features.

5. DuckDuck Go Search:

Initially, DuckDuckGo.com used to look like Google. But there are a lot of things that make this  search engine different.

DuckDuckGo has some salient features, like 'zero-click' information. It means all of your searched answers are found on the first results page. DuckDuckgo offers disambiguation prompts that helps to clarify what question you are really asking. Additionally, the ad spam is much less than other search engines. It doesn't keep any private search results data into their servers as it is very much concerned about the privacy and security of internet users.

6. Dogpile Search:

Dogpile was better than Google in early 90's because it was considered as the fast and efficient choice for web searching. Later on, a lot of things got changed in the late 1990's, Dogpile faded into obscurity, and Google became king.

7. Yippy Search: 

Yippy is a Deep Web engine that searches other search engines for you. Unlike the regular Web, which is indexed by robot spider programs, Deep Web pages are usually harder to locate by conventional search.

8. The Internet Archive Search:

The Internet Archive is the best loved search engine for longtime Web users. The Archive has been taking snapshots of the entire World Wide Web for years now, allowing you and me to travel back in time to see what a web page looked like in 1999, or what the news was in earlier times, the stories maybe 2 decades ago.

9. Webopedia Search:

Webopedia is one of the most useful websites on the web. Mostly people from technology background love this search engines as it serves a lot of the search purposes of those techies. Webopedia is an encyclopedic resource dedicated to searching technology terminology and computer definitions.

10. Baidu Search:

Baidu, a Chinese search engine, offers a lot of services for websites, videos, multimedia files, news, translations and other useful functions, as well as global mapping service Baidu Maps. Baidu was established in 2000 by Robin Li and Eric Xu. Both of the co-founders are Chinese nationals who studied in Peking University and worked overseas before returning to China. In December 2016, Baidu ranked 4th overall in the Alexa Internet rankings.

11. Yandex Search:

Yandex is a Russian-established web index. This has turned into an exceptionally well-known internet searcher in Russia and also popular in few of parts of Europe as well. This search engine has 55-65% market share of total Search market in Russia.

12. Wolfram Alpha Search:

Wolfram Alpha is essentially a computational learning motor that figures any information. But it  desn’t mean that this web crawler is fundamentally for math nerds.You can even get some information about any reality, and this will give you the appropriate response.  It has got an incredible processing feature that makes this web index additionally pulls your answer quickly.

13. Ixquick Search:

Ixquick is one of the the best search engines if you are looking at the privacy of users. With Ixquick neither of the points of interest of your list items put away and no cookies are utilized. You can even set inclinations. However, you have to reset that following 90 days as they will be erased after that on the off chance that you are dormant for this internet searcher.

14. Ask.com Search:

Ask.com was initially called as Ask Jeeves. This web search engine is still especially the main decision for some clients in the USA. It represents 3% of the aggregate. The prevalent of indexed lists are as yet not that sufficiently much to fulfill the searchers' needs.

Conclusion

If you are looking at overall featured search engine, Google would be the best search engine, but when you’re looking for its alternatives with higher privacy and security, then I would prefer DuckDuckGo. I personally like DuckDuckGo over other search engines. I'd like to know your thoughts on the search engines, in case I have missed mentioning anything here. Also leave your comments below.

SEO Features That eCommerce Platform Supports

In case you want to think of choosing an ecommerce platform to power your online store, it’s important to consider search engine optimization (SEO) features in your eCommerce selection process. It doesn't matter how experienced you are with SEO, you may or may not end up with ability to control elements of your site that are essential to your ranking success in search engines.

Now let’s see the following features that your ecommerce platform should have. This post will make it easier for you select a home for your merchandise that is capable of dominating search effectively.

Unique and Independent Title and URLs

It is very much needed to avoid issues with duplicate content and on the other hand, you have the best chance at ranking for certain keywords and phrases. So it’s best to make sure you can control these metadata elements at the page level. Few ecommerce platforms don’t allow you to have this control that means you have a generic title in every single page on your shop.

Blogging platform should be integrated

Because it’s the best way to publish rich, dynamic, link-worthy content on your domain, blogging is an integral part of ecommerce marketing today. Businesses that blog 11 or more times per month receive two to three times the traffic compared to those who blog less often or not at all.

Canonical URLs

Canonical URLs allow your content to be syndicated in various places online, while telling Google to pay attention to only one URL. It helps Google to determine the page you want rank, with syndicates using the tag to convey to search bots that you deserve all the SEO juice. This solution is also useful in cases where you want to use multiple URLs for the same product category.

301 redirects

In case, you are using multiple domains, then you’re going to have to spend some time setting up canonical URLs or 301 redirects to forward users and search engines to the right place. If you don’t, you’ll detract from the user experience and risk losing ranking with the search engines because you’re sending traffic to broken links.


robots.txt files should be edited

Robots.txt file allows you to tell search bots which pages and directories to ignore when crawling your site to index it for the search engines.



Therefore, it will depend on what your budget is, and what your ecommerce products are and according to that you have to select your platform. You need a platform that is helpful for SEO. You have to get it ranking to bring in organic traffic.

How to choose an eCommerce platform?

Since last 10 years, E-commerce has been growing steadily in popularity. Online sales got hiked up nearly 15% last year across the board, and they’re predicted to only increase in the future. If you are going to start a business and selling products or services, an ecommerce site would be best suited in this online sales growth.

If you want to start a new business, that would be always challenging, but moving away from the traditional store outlet to an online space can be a little daunting; especially with so many options for you to start with. Because of various options, choosing an ecommerce platform is so difficult for many business owners. If you want to figure out what your store will need as you grow and keeping up with trends is a challenge, but it is much worth. You have to think and find ways ahead of time and that will help you choose a platform an easier process to achieve online success.

1. Payment:

The utmost consideration while searching for an ecommerce platform should be the price and payment. If you are a small business and a newly started or an already established physical outlet business moving online, you need to know exactly what you’ll be paying for the service.

2. SEO:

Ecommerce businesses are not benefited from working on their SEO. In fact, it can be highly beneficial to have your store rank high in search results. If you want your customers to find you when they’re searching for products that you offer, list your products and try to rank your page higher.

3. Scalability

Every business owner expects their business will grow in the future, but you may not know to what extent. So, it’s important to look for a platform that will scale along with your business.

4. Security

You will never want to enter your credit card information on any website, which is why security is becoming one of the biggest concerns among consumers.

5. Integrations

You should consider "integrations and plugins" when looking at ecommerce platforms. Almost all of the platforms, such as Shopify, will have plenty of tools for you to run your business.

6. Mobile Friendliness

Are you aware of the fact that nearly 60% of searches are done from mobile devices? Often those searches continue on to a purchase from a mobile device itself.

7. Customer Service

Biggest aspect of any business is its customer service. As the experience provided by traditional outlet businesses is based in a physical store, they typically have more control over how smoothly their business runs.

Here is a list of the most popular e-commerce platforms on the market today, along with why you might want to consider using each for your new e-commerce store. These are Miva, 3Dcart, Magento, Zoey Commerce, Nucleus, WooCommerce, OroCommerce, Shopify, Bigcommerce, & Volusion etc. This list is just a basic overview of some of the most popular e-commerce solutions out there. Leave your comments below or share your thoughts.

Common Confusing Words In English [Infographic]

Everyone knows the problem with spell-check: your word might be spelled right, but it may be the wrong word. English is full of confusing words that sound alike but are spelled differently. It’s also full of words that share similar (but not identical) meanings that are easy to misuse. Below are some of the most commonly confused and misused words in English.

Let's face it, English can be confusing. A lot of words are similar but with different meanings, as a result it is almost impossible to avoid making mistakes in English, but if you can get your head around these explanations in the below infographic, you might be able to avoid making these ones or at least recognize them when you see them.

Source: www.grammarcheck.net

20 Do's And Don'ts Of LinkedIn Etiquette [Infographic]

Has your fear of making mistakes on LinkedIn prevented you from taking full advantage of all that this business social network has to offer? Each day, it is seen people make mistakes on LinkedIn that not only wastes their time but damages their credibility. To ensure this doesn’t happen to you, it is essential that you understand and carefully utilize proper LinkedIn etiquette and best practices.

The biggest mistakes on social media come from the misconception that people care about what you have to say. That’s simply not the case. They care about finding solutions to their problems, that’s it. Remember WIIFM – they are always thinking “what’s in it for me”. In this article, you will discover very important Do’s and Don’ts of LinkedIn etiquette and the mistakes you absolutely must avoid making.

Source: topdogsocialmedia

5 Trends of Internet Of Things (IoT) To Watch In 2017 [Infographic]

The Internet of Things is the next level of automation and the emergence of newer technologies will definitely improve many aspects of our lives be it at work or home. This year would see IoT grow into a multi-trillion dollar industry only if the security and privacy concerns are looked through.

Consumer products such as wearables and connected electronics certainly garner a large part of the market, but IDC estimates more than 80 percent of IoT spend through 2020 will be on B2B applications and use cases. The Internet of Things will be one of the primary drivers of the digital transformation that enterprises will undergo in the coming years, creating a self-learning environment that will drive digital disruption in physical world. There is already an extensive local Internet within each vehicle, with more than 50 microcomputers containing 100 million lines of code networked with each other and dozens of sensors and actuators. Together, these systems of connected car technology help to control the engine and brakes, and monitor the tire pressure and exhaust gas composition, among many other things. IoT will be a critical piece of this transformation as it allows new business models to emerge and enables changes in work processes, productivity improvements, cost containment and enhanced customer experiences. Let's find out in the following infographic regarding trends of IoT.

IoT is a transformational force that can help companies improve performance through IoT analytics and IoT Security to deliver better results. Businesses in the utilities, oil & gas, insurance, manufacturing, transportation, infrastructure and retail sectors can reap the benefits of IoT by making more informed decisions, aided by the torrent of interactional and transactional data at their disposal.

How To Disappear Online Over Internet [Infographic]

Internet has been serving us in various ways like finding any person, career, job, cooking, news, reviews, medical helps, understanding kid's requirement, education, sports, location of a hotel or hospital and every small requirements in our daily life.

But sometimes due to privacy and security purposes you have to disappear from net. In case you have made your mind about your privacy, your security, and your reputation, then its better to make yourself invisible online that will be worth the time and trouble as well. The below infogrphic will help you understand how can you make yourself disappear.

Source : WhoIsHostingthis

Worldwide Mobile App Trends In 2017 [Infographic]

Mobile apps are always been there and gradually increased its users by offering outstanding services on a smartphone; like online shopping, security authentication service, email apps, online banking services and many more. 50% of small businesses are looking to develop mobile apps in 2017. Let’s walk you through what that means. The mobile app environment is changing. Every day, consumers are getting smarter and smarter, challenging businesses and app developers to quickly adapt to the changing digital landscape.

As we move into 2017, securing our personal information will become more secure by default. The increase of web applications being built with https secure end-to-end encryption, makes it more difficult for hackers to snoop on the transmission of personal information. Let's walk through the below infographic to know the trend of mobile apps.

Source: HANEKEDESIGN

iOS 11 Features For iPhone, iPad, iPod [Infographic]

Recently, Apple has announced iOS 11 at its Worldwide Developers Conference 2017 keynote on 5 June that comes with a comprehensive range of features and some major improvements over its previous version. App developers can download a preview of iOS 11 through its official website.

If you and your family members own multiple Apple devices, and use them to share media such as photos and videos, it makes no sense for each member to have their own iCloud storage plan. Thankfully, iOS 11 makes it possible to have shared iCloud storage plans. Up to six members of a family can share a common iCloud storage plan between them. This can be done without having to incur any extra costs on a monthly basis. Along with this feature, a lot of other features are there. Please check the infographic for more detailed information.

Source : Mindinventory

How To Make A Perfect LinkedIn Profile [Infographic]

Facebook or Google+ is used to connect people whom we know personally or may be due to some official or professional contacts. But LinkedIn is a place where you try to get connected with the people who are in professional network only. LinkedIn is having more than 100 million members who have an average income of more than $100,000, it is the social network to use to build your professional contacts.

Below are some tips to know the business opportunities using LinkedIn.

1. Once or twice a week you should log in to LinkedIn to connect with current and former people you know. The simple reason behind this is for people to have you in mind when any opportunity comes and your skill set is matched with same, they can contact you.
2. Join LinkedIn Groups according to your need for professional growth. The reason is to increase visibility where LinkedIn Groups are also a great way to grow your network. Don't sit idle after joining any group as joining a LinkedIn Group is just the beginning. After that you should have to participate in the Group on a regular basis. If you regularly participate in discussion boards of LinkedIn then you can be a point of contact for better opportunity.
3. Always make yourself available to participate in LinkedIn Answers by answering several questions every week and whenever possible.
4. Last but not the least, keep updating your profile once you get any certification/degree or any other curricular activities so that people can know about your current profile and who knows if something comes up for you in surprisingly.

Always keep in mind that your have to build your network with new & old connections and strengthen the relationships with connected people. Once you maintain the relationship, people will provide you with leads and business opportunities according to your requirements and skill sets.

Please find the following Infographic to see how to make a perfect profile and how do you use LinkedIn.

Source: linkhumans

Hidden Games You Can Play On Google Search [Infographic]

Google Search and Google games are not similar concepts and even sounds totally different. It is difficult to imagine the Google homepage as an online game platform. But the games that we are aware of, can be played on Google search engine.

The guide below tells you how to find such hidden gems as Atari Breakout and Pac-Man (for the old-school gamers), a fiendishly difficult Flappy Droid game hidden in your Android phone, a simple but addictive platform game you can play in chrome when offline and some great games hidden in Google Maps and Google Earth.

Source: Euroffice.

The Complete Social Media Cheat Sheet 2017 [Infographic]

Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus and Pinterest all have the opportunity for you to attract people to your brand and content, by adding compelling visuals and images. There are some really creative ways you can express yourself (even though the platforms change often), so if you have access to a camera or photographer or really awesome graphic designer & artist, I recommend having at least one stunning visual that expresses your brand, on every page.

Needless to say, the social media landscape is constantly changing, and it can be difficult to stay on top of all the changes happening at lightning fast speed. Luckily, there are resources, tools, blogs, and infographics like the one below that help marketers cut through the noise and stay up to date on these trends.

Source: OnBlastBlog

Most Popular WordPress Plugins For Your Blog [Infographic]

WordPress is definitely the most preferred blogging platform for bloggers. With WordPress, you are having the full control to modify and tune the performance of the website  accordingly to your requirement. So it requires few essential plugins which help your blog to sustain over net and increases feasibility on search engines. Here I have listed 25 Best WordPress Plugins of 2014. The plugins mentioned below will make your WordPress website fast and secure.

When it comes to functionality and performance, it’s hard to beat a WordPress website. But all that power doesn’t just happen. It’s the result of the plugins you select to solve problems and add features. There are thousands of plugins in WordPress database. Out of those many, this infographic recommends 30 of WordPress’s most popular plugins.

Source: WPtemplate

Virtual Reality (VR) & Augmented Reality (AR) - The Growth [Infographic]

It is expected that the VR market could reach $7 billion in sales by 2018. The demand is increasing day by day and it means opportunities for startups and investors. Where the VR industry continuing to expand, it is also bringing up new career opportunities and fulfill the demand. Potential positions for job-seekers may include UX/UI Designers, Unity Developers, 3-D Modelers, Animators, Project Managers, and Videographers. 

People who are interested in pursuing a career in the industry, it is important to stay up-to-date on the latest VR trend and they have to follow social media conversations, attend webinars and conferences, and participate in online communities. In an industry that expects to sell 500 million VR headsets in less than 10 years, the Virtual Reality industry appears to have a very promising future ahead of it. Let's find out how the future would be in the below full infographic.

Source: Context:

How To Make Life Easier With Google Doc Hacks and Add-ons [Infographic]

Google Docs is a great tool to use if you collaborate frequently, feel safer knowing your work is stored in the cloud, or don't want to pay for a word processing program. After all, it's free and has all the basic capabilities that you need. Even better, you can insert add-ons to further Google Docs' many capabilities.

Though the program is intuitive to use, you may not realize the extend of its capabilities. Did you know that you can browse the web from your Google Docs page and insert footnotes at the click of a button? Do you know how to insert bookmarks and navigate using keyboard shortcuts? To learn these skills and more, check out this infographic on Google Doc Hacks.

Source : GETVOIP

How To Rank On Top With Google's Verified Customer Reviews

Google has been there for the people who look for reviews and their trusted stores feature contains a lot of helpful insights and information about a wide variety of popular businesses. It is quite obvious nowadays that people open up Google and search for a product before buying or see the reviews for hotels before booking.

Along with the traditional review service offered, Google recently decided to do away with trusted stores in favor of a new type of review: verified customer reviews. Now it’s up to businesses to learn the difference between the two as well as how to optimize this new feature in their favor.

This post will explain more about what verified reviews are as well as suggesta some ways businesses can use them to list on top of the competition over Google.

Image Credit: thesearchmarketingshop.com

What is a verified customer review?

A verified customer review is a review a customer can write after making a purchase from a company’s website. It is different from a typical Google review. Here the mandate is; a customer should definitely make an online purchase, so the business being reviewed is required to have an online store.

Steps to sign up for verified customer reviews

Below are the steps mentioned in the Google Blog and explained exactly how you can enable customer reviews.

• Sign in to your Merchant Center account (or sign up if you do not have an account).
• Select “Merchant Center programs” from the dropdown in the upper right-hand corner.
• Click “Get Started” in the Google Customer Reviews card and accept the Program Agreement.
• Add the survey opt-in code to your website.
• Optional: Add the badge code to your site wherever you want. This will make the badge appear on your site, allowing you to display your seller rating and show customers that you’re integrated with Google Customer Reviews.

How you can collect as many positive reviews as possible.

Now this is the main motto of every business and how do you accomplish this. Here are few tips to rank on top.

1. Offer an incentive program to verified customer

It’s often the customers who have bad experiences who are most likely to leave a review; most people can’t be bothered to take the time to write about a positive experience. So, it is possible to turn a negative impressions in customer's mind into positive reviews simply by offering incentive per review. 

2. Follow up the link with a personal email

Google is already making it incredibly easy to leave a review by automatically emailing a link to customers, but there’s no reason why you can’t take it a step further and follow up their email with your own. Just because Google is asking them to leave a review doesn’t mean they’re going to do it. So, take the call by yourself and follow up with customer for a review.

3. Respond to both positive and negative reviews

It’s not enough to just ask people to leave a review; you also need to respond after they’ve done so. If they leave a positive review, reach out and thank them for taking the time to do so. And also reply to the negative comments understanding the customer's concerns and addressing them.

So now, opt for verified customer reviews. Do you have any other ideas on how you can use them to list on top? Leave your comment below.

22 Ways To Create Attractive Content [Infographic]

There are several ways to create attractive contents over web. Your website has only seconds to capture interest. Think about articles you’ve read, speeches you’ve heard, books you’ve begun. The initial exposure helps people determine whether they want to spend more time reading, listening or viewing. There is simply too much competition for time to expect that people will invest too much of theirs in trying to overcome a tepid introduction. This post demonstrates how to repurpose existing content in a different media format, get more bang from your archives, and reach new and different audiences in the process.

You have to be edgy, but not poke someone in the eye. You have to be willing to challenge and amuse, while not bragging or boasting. Your site, and particularly your homepage, should be provocative enough to be memorable and cause others to tell colleagues, “You ought to visit this site." The following infographic from CopyBlogger shows 22 Ways to Create Compelling Content When You Don’t Have a Clue.

Source : CopyBlogger

24 Juicy Tips for E-commerce Content Marketing [Infographic]

Content marketing helps you build your brand, build trust, keep people informed and turn browsers into buyers. Not to mention it gives you something to post that isn’t “buy me now” on social media! Opening up your ecommerce site, slapping on your products with a keyword stuffed description, hoping people somehow find you and then just click buy is a bit of a pipe dream. Whatever platform you use, from Amazon or your own website you need to market your products.

ReferralCandy has presented it again with this great infographic of inbound marketing advice for e-commerce content marketing. This is a format they’ve put together and it’s a very cool checklist and a format that easily allows marketers to scan and pick up some great strategies as well as advice from some of the best industry professionals out there.

Source : ReferralCandy

25 Outstanding Content Marketing Tools For Your Brand [Infographic]

Content marketing needs a lot of tracking on the areas such as number of website visitors, engagement with post, resonance of topic area, effectiveness of headline, best day/ times to post to reach objectives, demographics/ psychographics of readers or viewers, website metrics for posts such as time on site, bounce rate funnel optimization from post or where visitors went after reading. 

Social Media Strategy Summit has collected 25 Content Marketing Tools for curation, creation, promotion & distribution, as well as analytics & tracking, including brands that use those tools, what’s great about the tools and who the tools would work best for. Here is a nice inforgraphic which explains 25 outstanding content marketing tools for your brand.

Source : SocialMediaStrategiesSummit

If Your Blog Were A Beer [Infographic]

It’s no secret the beer and blog markets are over-saturated these days, with every content and craft curator out there clamoring to generate enough hype to capture at least 30 seconds of their audiences’ (or customers’) dwindling attentions. But bear with us when we say this might actually be a good thing, since out of all the hundreds of millions of blogs and over 20,000 different kinds of beer out there, you can actually afford to be a little picky.

Labels may vary, but the taste is pretty much the same. Often found in red plastic cups. Some people live Miller Lite. They're brand loyal, just like some of your readers. But taste your last few posts. Do they read like a lot of other blogs? could they have been written by anyone? If your blog tastes like water, that's not a good thing. Your blog should sound like you. It should have a personality and style of its own.

Source : Visual.ly