While the creation of content that readers find fascinating and valuable will always be at the center of your content strategy, you are aware of the increasing burden that search engines place on user experience, particularly for people using mobile phones. Your content’s effectiveness is crucial to achieving your clients’ acquisition goals and, by extension, your lead generation results.

However, tracking key performance indicators is nothing new for content marketers. And, while it seems simple to track page load times and other information, there is still some element of trial and error because search engines don’t publicly disclose the mechanics that power their algorithms or the details of their monthly changes.

Therefore, it is essential to be on the lookout for any new suggestions or tools Google may provide. This includes Core Web Vitals (CWV), a new set of metrics that Google released to assist website owners in bettering their visitors’ online experiences.

What are Core Web Vitals (CWV) In Terms I Can Understand?

Google has long believed that providing its consumers with high-quality, relevant information is the best way to meet the needs of both the company and its users. But as with continued internet growth over the years, Google has started analyzing more information based on user experience. Even though many media outlets still disregard Google’s suggestions as useless “web hygiene,” doing so can help you get an advantage over the competition.

Core Web Vitals are a number of measures that gauge how well your site loads and how user-friendly it is. They include measures of visual stability, interactivity, and loading time.

The three Core Web Vitals metrics are:

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)

This metric measures how long it takes for the largest element on your page to load. In other words, LCP monitors how long it takes for a page to transition from being completely unresponsive to displaying its largest text block or picture element.

Every second of delay costs users thousands of prospective consumers, and as you are well aware, users have minimal patience for such things. Low LCP scores are not enough to simply pick your largest page element with care; huge files, CCS, and server-side factors can all play a role. If you want to get serious about improving your LCP, aiming for less than 2.5 seconds is a good benchmark.

First Input Delay (FID)

This scope measures how long it takes for your page to become interactive. The time it takes a user to do an action on the website, such as picking a menu item or checking a box, is recorded by FID. Google seems to be working on a new responsiveness statistic that looks at latency across several user interactions rather than just the initial one and over a longer time period, noting that most online systems already score well in terms of FID. This is a perfect example of how CWV is more of a moving target than a fixed answer.

Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)

This metric measures how much your page elements shift around while loading. You want your CLS to be under 0.1. In other words, how the page’s elements shift about the viewport as the page renders. Poor CLS might be caused by images or objects like ads or iframes that don’t have the right proportions, which can be frustrating for your users. Since CLS is primarily concerned with the significance of the change and its impact on the surrounding content, it is not measured in seconds like the other CWV indicators.

These metrics are important because they help gauge a website’s user experience. A website that loads quickly and has little layout shift will be more enjoyable to use than a website that takes a long time to load and has a lot of layout shifts.

Why Should I Care about Core Web Vitals for my Website

As a website owner, you should be mindful of Core Web Vitals because they are a key part of delivering a great user experience on your site. They are important because they give you an idea of how your site is performing from a user perspective.

If your site has poor Core Web Vitals, it could be affecting your traffic and conversion rates. Google uses these metrics as a ranking factor in their search algorithm, so it is important to make sure your site is optimized for them.

You can check your site’s Core Web Vitals using Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool. Simply enter your URL, and Google will give you a report on your metrics. From there, you can start making changes to improve your scores.

What Can I Do to Improve My Website’s CWV

Some common ways to improve your Core Web Vitals include:

• Reducing the size of your images
• Minimizing your reliance on JavaScript
• Lazy loading of your content
• Improving your server response time
• Checking your cached content
• Removing animations
• Switching your hosting provider

These are just a few of the many things you can do to improve your Core Web Vitals. If you want to ensure your site delivers a great user experience, keep an eye on these metrics.

What Are the Benefits of Improving My Website’s CWV

When you improve your website’s customer web journey (CWJ), you can enjoy a number of benefits. This includes the following,

1. Increased Customer Engagement: When you make it easier for customers to find what they’re looking for on your website, they’re more likely to stick around and engage with your brand. This can lead to more sales and more loyal customers.
2. Improved SEO: Making your website more user-friendly can also help you attract more organic traffic from search engines. This is because search engines like Google reward websites that offer a great user experience.
3. More Leads and Sales: Ultimately, the goal of improving your website’s CWJ is to increase leads and sales. When you make it easier for customers to find what they’re looking for, they’re more likely to buy from you. [Particularly important for our manufacturing web design clients.]

Looking For IT Staffing Services and Technology Solutions?

If you’re looking to improve your website’s performance, start by focusing on the customer web journey. Core Web Vitals are a key part of delivering a great user experience, so make sure your site is optimized for them. You can achieve this by engaging a reputable IT services company like The Provato Group.

When a client comes to The Provato Group, we assess their unique situation and provide guidance on how to get the best possible outcome. We have over 75 years of expertise in the IT industry, with 65 of that spent on advanced IT projects, architecture, and development. we focus on providing expert IT staffing and technology solutions for businesses of all sizes and in all industries. We are able to provide superior service to our customers since we don’t focus on the competition in any given market.

So, what are you waiting for? Start monitoring your Core Web Vitals today! Want to understand more? Reach out to one of our website architects to get insights into your site’s CWV and performance.

The heart of a business is in its infrastructure, and infrastructure evolves. When that happens, data must be migrated from one system to the next. The company’s entire history is stored in your data – ready for data analysis, audits, and sometimes records of decades-long customer relationships. Some businesses went through their digital transformation so long ago that they once digitized the film from tapes. Some remember the migration from mainframes to modern PCs and servers. A great many have now migrated from PCs and servers to the cloud.

More businesses every day are going through complete and partial data migrations. One department may migrate to upgrade its platform of tools, or the company may migrate archives and infrastructure away from technology that has grown archaic to the next cutting-edge solution. However, if this is your first major data migration, there are more than a few ways to invite disaster.

Data migration is a huge task with millions of opportunities for error. If done carelessly, you get technical difficulties of the highest order. If done neatly and meticulously, your staff is left with the delight of a new system with their archive of data already at their fingertips.

Let’s explore some of the most common data migration mistakes and how your team can easily avoid them.

1) Migrating into a Mystery System

Know your system before you migrate into it. Have key staff members spend time exploring the new platform, creating test cases and getting to know the features. The data won’t be at anyone’s fingertips if your team doesn’t know how to access it.

Both your IT team handling the migration and those who will most use the platform afterward should explore the features, functions, and what it’s like to handle data in the system before the migration. This will not only help you plan a better data migration, but it will also help your teams more quickly adapt to the system once migrated.

2) Migrating At the Wrong Time

There are times when a company can soak a little disruption, and times when it can’t. Planning a data migration is a lot like planning an office renovation. Copying and moving files takes resources, and it may leave certain teams in a data limbo while their files and systems are being transferred. Even if you plan for your teams to keep using the old system while the new one is prepared, the transfer itself or the resource usage can cause errors in the system.

You want to schedule a data migration for nights, weekends, and slow weeks in your business cycle. Nights and weekends allow you to optimize resources for the migration and work in a clean, unchanging data environment between the two systems. Planning for a slow week ensures that any aberrations that could occur during data migration have the minimum impact on your team and operations.

3) Migrating Your Junk Files

When relocating offices or moving between homes, you don’t bring crates of old junk mail – but businesses often migrate their entire file systems without culling the junk.

Why use your resources and effort on migrating files you don’t need? This is the perfect opportunity to remove all junk mail, old temporary files, programs you don’t need, intermediate backups, and miscellaneous downloads. Every email spam folder can be removed. Wipe out any program not serving a function – and all the data attached to it. Take this opportunity to purge your email lists, and archive old customer and employee data. A data migration is the best moment to lean down your data, shedding junk and potentially culling old malware along the way.

4) Skipping the Prep of Both Files and Destination

Removing junk is an example of preparing your company’s data for migration. But just one step. In any migration, both the data and the target platform should be prepared to combine. Your data may need to be adapted to fit the new formats of the new system. For example, a new system might use a different date format, or have more and different names for certain shared variables. Preparing your data allows a smoother automated transition of large bodies of data and full system configurations.

Preparing your file destination allows you to get all your security and operational settings in place before errors can be caused when the body of legacy data is imported. Make sure you’re using the right database types, and that your built-in passwords match (or are updated altogether). Preparing both the data and the new platform will help to minimize hiccups in the new system and prevent data disasters.

5) Forgetting to Test Migration Success

Speaking of data disasters, always test a theory before implementing it. Testing data migration at every step of the process is essential when considering something as important as your business’s operational infrastructure.

Test to ensure that:

• The method you will use to migrate data works.
• The data functions correctly in the new platform after being migrated
• Migrating large sets of data is successful
• Migrating more than one category and nested file systems is successful
• Outlier cases are handled
• Data at no point is lost or corrupted during the migration

6) Roughly Estimating the Migration Time and Cost

You might be surprised to learn how often a data migration estimate is really a rough “guestimate” with no real understanding of data file sizes, transfer speeds, and the available hours to operate the transfer. This is one of the reaons that a trained data migration specialist is often consulted to build a data migration plan that includes a more accurate and data-based estimate of the cost requirements for a data migration.

After calculating the size of your data migration, the originating and target systems, and the transfer speeds available, your data migration specialist will be able to give a more accurate estimate of the hours needed to complete the migration. From there, you can build a schedule of transfers and data handling during low-activity hours for your company systems.

7) Migrating Manually without Automation

Modern data migrations are massive. There are thousands, hundreds of thousands, and millions of data entries depending on how busy your company is. Most of this data, however, is already organized into classes and similar-set databases that can be automatically migrated far more easily than you could manually migrate – even for those savvy in handling servers.

Automated data migration takes the best migration process and then iterates over your full data set. In this way, you can carefully insert the data from an old system to a new system – even with unmatching data forms – in order to migrate company data without manual entries and hand-selected transfers.

8) Forgetting to Test the Migration’s Complete Success

The other side of the automation coin is the need for human auditing and testing. Your automation may not be able to handle outlier test cases, or some of the transfers may have simply been interrupted or incomplete due to signal variance from your internet provider or router. Check everything.

Make sure that a complete data migration is also fully operational. Asl your testers or even your teams to explore, try to touch and access all their operational data, and report back. Your migration software may have also produced a log of errors and alerts that can guide you toward potential areas where an error may have occurred, or where minor data corrections may be necessary.

9) Data Migration Without an Expert Plan

All of these common mistakes are why the most organized, efficient, and error-resistant data migrations come from consulting with a specialist. Data migrations are both large-scale and extremely precise. Every piece of data matters, and every migration from one system to the next is unique. It takes forward planning and an eagle-eye perspective on the entire system to plan the most efficient data migration for both the company and the data itself.

You can rely on The Provato Group as your data migration specialists to plan and implement the smoothest possible upgrade of your company’s infrastructure.

Cloud services have been around for quite some time; however, adoption is relatively low compared to the massive benefits it brings to any entity that uses it. However, all is not lost; more small and medium enterprises are waking up to the reality that cloud computing is the silver bullet they’ve all been seeking to revolutionize and advance their businesses.

So, what are cloud services, and are they beneficial to small businesses? Read on to find out!

Cloud services and small businesses

Cloud services are online services that enable users to access applications, data, and other resources over the internet from anywhere. Cloud services can be used for various purposes, such as managing email, working on documents, or streaming music.

Most small businesses are usually faced with one major issue: lack of resources for the simple reason they’re starting out. But that’s not all; even with adequate resources, it may be challenging to justify some tech purchases, mostly due to the significantly high acquisition and operational costs.

So how can small businesses access top-tier tech capabilities without stretching themselves thin or with less uncertainty about whether investing significant resources would pay off?

The answer is cloud services.

With cloud services, small businesses can enjoy unmatched tech capabilities at a fraction of the cost and with little or no resources (i.e., skilled IT workforce) to utilize it in line with their organizational objectives.

These are some of the ways small businesses stand to benefit from cloud computing:

1. Ease of use and integration

Cloud services can be integrated into a business without needing IT staff. With a cloud service provider, small businesses can incorporate cloud services and related utilities into their existing systems and workflow processes in minutes or even seconds.

It’s easy to see why this is important: If you want to use a specific feature or tool within your organization, it can be frustrating if there are multiple steps involved in setting up the integration process or having to hire an expensive team member who knows how to do it manually.

With many providers offering free integrations with their products, as long as they have been built on open-source software, adding them to your organization will be quick and easy—and free!

2. Greater efficiency and cost-effectiveness in business operations

Cloud services can help small businesses grow and become more competitive, efficient, and cost-effective. Cloud services are available 24/7 worldwide, so you don’t have to worry about being tied down by your physical location, provided there’s internet access.

You’ll be able to access many different types of cloud storage solutions at a low price point—and because it’s all hosted on one platform instead of multiple servers around the world, there is no need for expensive hardware or software licenses. Cloud services allow you to focus on what matters most: running your business by enabling you to outsource the day-to-day IT tasks and maintenance.

3. More flexibility.

When using cloud services, you can adapt your business model and scale up or down as needed. If your company has been doing well in one area but is struggling in another, you can switch to a more profitable segment without having to make major changes all at once.

You also won’t have to worry about losing customers because they’re unhappy or due to a misunderstanding—the cloud allows them to easily move their data back onto your servers when they want access again (and vice versa).

And since everyone in the organization shares resources across multiple locations, there’s no need for costly equipment purchases or maintenance contracts; instead, as one location grows larger, new servers are added until everyone has access everywhere else within a reasonable timeframe.

4. More scalability.

If your company grows, you can add more servers using the cloud infrastructure and pay only for what you use. If your business shrinks in size, it’s easy to scale back down without buying new hardware or struggling to dispose of others.

Additionally, many of these services offer a pay-as-you-go model that allows businesses to save money by not having an ongoing bill for their IT infrastructure. This is especially beneficial considering that many small businesses don’t have a dedicated IT department looking after their needs—they may be responsible for everything from payroll processing to managing their social media accounts themselves!

5. Advanced collaboration.

If there’s anything the past three years have shown the world, it’s the need to find innovative ways to collaborate beyond physical spaces since circumstances may not always allow traditional workplace dynamics.

When using a cloud service, your employees don’t have to worry about their data or devices containing sensitive information. This means that they can work together without worrying about whether their workspace is secure or not.

Additionally, since cloud storage provides unlimited amounts of space and bandwidth, it’s easy to share large files between multiple people. This means less time spent on file transfers and more time getting things done!

6. Better security.

Cloud services provide better security than traditional systems. When you use a cloud service, your data is stored in data centers protected by top-tier safeguards, including but not limited to firewalls and malware scanners.

The same cannot be said for your hardware or any other physical device used to store sensitive information; even if those devices are protected using antivirus software and other means, there’s no guarantee that they’ll be safe from malicious actors looking to steal personal information or money.

Cloud services can help you improve your security posture by providing more protection against external threats while also reducing costs associated with maintaining legacy infrastructure—and they’re easy to set up!

7. Enhanced productivity.

In a cloud-based service, authorized individuals can access information anytime, anywhere. They can work on multiple projects simultaneously and access data from any device. A small business’s employees are also free to collaborate with other team members, which allows them to get things done faster and more efficiently.

In addition to being accessible from anywhere at any time, these services are user-friendly enough so that even those who aren’t technically savvy can use them effectively. Users never have to worry about their IT staff out of office hours because everything is stored securely in the cloud—and if something goes wrong (or someone loses their password), there are plenty of backup options available.

Conclusion

By taking advantage of cloud-based solutions, small businesses can save money on infrastructure costs, enable faster deployment of new applications and features, and improve security and data protection. Overall, the adoption of cloud services by small businesses is becoming a necessity to remain competitive in today’s market.

Ready to advance your business using cloud services? Contact us for more information.

A company’s application (or applications) is one of the most important channels for customer service and communication. Depending on what your app might do, it can be a source for collecting customer pain points, a supplemental tool, or be the very foundation of your business itself. No matter what purpose your app serves, it’s critical to ensure it functions effectively, serving and delighting your customers on a consistent basis.

There’s a significant degree of maintenance and upkeep that goes into running a successful app. While it’s certainly possible that an organization can do this themselves, the amount of time and effort it involves can take them away from the other vital functions of running their business. It can lead them to focus more on day-to-day operations and less on high-level strategic decisions that will move the needle in major ways.

That’s why it makes sense to partner with a provider of managed application services. Let’s take a closer look at what managed application services are, why your company would want them, the type of organizations that use them, and how they work.

What are Managed Application Services?

Your application plays an important role in your business. That role will vary depending on the nature and purpose of your app, but you developed it for a reason. Every app requires a certain amount of operational support to ensure it continues running successfully. Managed application services are services provided that keep an app operational while responding to any disruptions or challenges to ensure it stays online.

Managed application services involve maintaining the app, monitoring for bugs, and making the appropriate updates to counteract those bugs. It also involves engaging in modernization efforts and updating release notes so that customers understand critical changes that have been made.

Routine maintenance isn’t the only type of support a managed application services provider can give, however. They can also assist in developing the app itself. They can provide user design and coding support to help the app get from conception to the App Store.

The scope of a managed application services provider you choose will depend on your specific needs as a client. Some require assistance with one app, others need support for multiple apps, databases, or other technology solutions. The specific services can also be applied to other systems, platforms, technologies or services. Again, it depends on the organization and its business requirements.

Why a company would want Managed Application Services?

So what does a company with a need for managed application services look like? Companies that find themselves in a variety of situations may find it advantageous to turn to a managed application services provider. Below are just a few examples of reasons that companies that would want to partner with one:

Staff turnover

If a company has staff who previously supported their applications leave, they may need to supplant that support. A managed application services provider can assist with this need.

Can’t afford expensive IT staff

Having a fully staffed IT department is costly. Along with paying their salaries, you’ll also have to pay for benefits and PTO. Employees require more organizational infrastructure that could eat away at your bottom line.

It’s less expensive to go hourly

By opting for an hourly approach to your IT staffing needs with a managed application services provider, you can save money. Rather than hiring full-time employees, you can hire fractional ones.

Leverage a team of resources

If you hire an IT staff, you may have limited budgetary resources to commit to them. You may only be able to hire one or two individuals, forcing them to cover a multitude of technologies. With a managed application services provider, you can leverage a team of resources with diverse skill sets.

Need to keep up with the latest tech

Managing application services involves maintaining awareness of best practices in the areas of cybersecurity and other tech-related areas. That can be a lot of pressure on your IT staff. With managed application services providers, you can rest assured they’re keeping up to date on the latest trends.

Need insurance coverage

If you do have existing staff, a managed application services provider can act as an insurance policy to bolster your support needs.

A desire to focus on higher-level work

Your team needs the ability to focus on strategic-level tasks as opposed to operational ones. Managed application services providers can complete the more menial work.

What type of organization typically could use Managed Application Services?

If you’re wondering if managed application services are right for your organization, below is a summary of businesses that may benefit from one:

• A small or mid-sized team that currently has limited IT capabilities
• Businesses that don’t view application development as one of their core competencies
• Businesses that want to eliminate excess costs but still require app support
• Teams that are experiencing high churn rates with their IT staff turnover
• Organizations that don’t have the budget for full-time IT employees but still have IT application requirements to fulfill

If any of these apply to you, having a team of experts in application development and support might be the right fit for you.

How do Managed Application Services work?

So what can you expect when you sit down with a managed application services provider to reach an agreement? First, you’ll draw up a contract. That contract will include a statement of work that defines:

• The number, size, and scope of applications to either support and develop
• The type of support needed
• A Service Level Agreement (SLA) that defines issue resolution and support hours
• A minimum number of hours required for support
• Costs for hourly/monthly support as well as additional costs for any extended services offered

Once terms are agreed on, the provider can begin working with the organization to manage and support their application.

By partnering with the right managed application services provider, you can minimize risks associated with subpar application support. By clearly defining the scope of the expected work, you’ll be sure to establish a solid working relationship with your provider, setting both their team and yours up for success.

Interested in finding the right provider for all of your application service needs? Look no further than the Provato Group. For more on how we can partner with you to revolutionize how you develop and nurture your apps, contact us today.

Craig is a boots on the ground account manager. With over 25 years of experience working with desktop and web applications along with various site design and content management systems. He brings his wealth of knowledge to the table when working with new and existing clients. As the saying goes, he knows a thing or two, because he’s seen a thing or two.