PSPINC Official Company Blog

Why Google Analytics is Switching to Google Analytics 4 and How to Switch Over Manually

Apr

25

Released in 2005, Google Analytics is a free web analytics service where users can view statistics and have access to basic analytical tools for their websites. These tools help website owners optimize their sites for search engines and better market their sites and potential businesses. Since 2012, Universal Analytics (UA) became the default property type. In 2020, Google released Google Analytics 4 (GA4), giving users the option to use either.

Starting July 1st, Google Analytics will not only switch to GA4, but it’ll also stop its data collection for UA properties. And they'll solely support GA4 rather than giving users the choice to either GA4 or UA. Even though it’s almost two months away from now, it’s recommended you switch over sooner rather than later.

Why is Google Switching to Google Analytics 4?

Internet users today are becoming more aware of their privacy online in recent years. With that concern, many users have opted out of tracking cookies, which are text files that collect data about a user’s behavior on their browser. When you first go to a website, many times, it’ll ask if you agree to accept tracking cookies. As users learn more about internet safety, more and more people are opting out of tracking cookies. For Google Analytics, that changes things because UA captures data by relying on first-party cookies. With more people opting out, UA’s data set will become less helpful moving forward. GA4, however, uses event-based data modeling to gather data.

How to Switch Manually from Universal Analytics to Google Analytics 4

two people looking at google analytics and a tablet

To manually switch over to GA4:

Create a GA4 property and data stream

For a site that already has analytics, start by going to the Admin (lower left) in Google Analytics
Make sure the right account is selected in the Account column (if you only have one Google Analytics account, it’s already selected)
Select the Universal Analytics property that currently collects data for your website in the Property column
Click GA4 Setup Assistant in the Property column
Click Get started under I want to create a new Google Analytics 4 Property
In the Create a new Google Analytics 4 property pop-up, depending on how your site is currently tagged, you can either:

Create and continue
Create property

Select the option that best describes your situation on the Set up a Google tag page and follow the instructions to finish creating your new GA4 property
Collect website and app data
Turn on Google signals
Add users

Even though it’ll automatically switch over (if you haven’t opted out), Google still recommends you manually switch to GA4 before the deadline on July 1st. The reasoning behind this is simple: the sooner you switch, the more data you’ll collect in the new system. And that data collection will be vital to help determine trends and insights and how to improve your overall business and marketing plans. If you need help migrating your data from UA to GA4, we have experts ready to help you with your SEO and other marketing needs.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#b2b #blog #business #businesstips #businesstools #customersupport #digitalmarketing #google #googleanalytics #marketing #marketingdigital #marketingtips #security #seo #smallbusiness #tech #technology #web #webdevelopment #website #websites #webtools

What’s New Newsletter Vol. 164 “Marketing with Audio”

Apr

20

Using audio in marketing has only gotten popular over the past few years. Catchy jingles, sponsored podcasts, audiobooks, and other audio advertising methods. And there’s a good reason for this: people are more likely to remember something with audio, especially music. So, when you use audio in your marketing plan, it’s that much more effective.

The goal of marketing isn’t just to get people to buy your product, but it’s also to keep your products and your brand in the back of customers’ minds. That way, the next time they think of something related to what you’re selling, they’ll think of your brand, making it more likely they’ll buy from you. That’s why we created Click It Audio, which gives businesses an easy way to add audio to their marketing efforts. Embed an audio file onto your site or add an audio QR code on your product packaging and business cards. Get started for free or upgrade to our Standard plan at just $9.91/month.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#advertising #b2b #blog #business #businesstips #businesstools #digitalmarketing #ecommerce #marketing #marketingdigital #marketingtips #pspinc #pspincwhatsnewnewsletter #smallbusiness #tech #technology #web #webdevelopment #webtools

AI-Generated Search Engines: Bing Chat vs. Google Bard

Apr

18

After Bing announced they’d integrate the AI-generated chatbot, ChatGPT, Google announced their own rival chatbot, Bard. Since then, Google opened access to Bard via a waitlist (much like Bing) in late March. Unsurprisingly, now that users have access to both, it begs the question of which one is better. In the search engine game, Google has always been the clear winner, with about 93% of the global search-engine market compared to Bing’s meager 3%, according to Statcounter.

Now that Bing’s leveraging Bing Chat (their AI-powered assistant), Google may lose some of its longstanding power over the search engine market. Since releasing Bing Chat, there are now 100 million daily active Bing users, one-third of whom are using Bing Chat daily, according to Microsoft Bing Blogs as of early March. With that is also over 100 million recorded chats, according to Search Engine Journal. Both still insist they’re in their learning phase as Bing and Google figure out any major bugs and as they optimize each system. So, while both have their fair share of limitations and bugs, we’ll see that change as OpenAI (the company behind ChatGPT), Bing, and Google all work to improve their respective chatbots.

Differences Between Bing Chat and Google Bard

black samsung tablet display google browser on screen

While Bing Chat and Google Bard are both AI-generated, they’re distinctly different because while Bing uses the popular chatbot, ChatGPT, Google uses a LaMDA model, which results in less text-heavy responses. But it’s important to point out that Bing Chat and ChatGPT are not the same; Bing just uses the GPT-4 technology. The biggest difference between Bing Chat and ChatGPT is the fact that Bing Chat can generate images and offer sources that their AI is generating data from.

But so far, users who have tried both prefer Bing Chat over Google Bard. Google, however, hasn’t been out for nearly as long, so Bard is still in the early phases of optimizing the overall experience of the AI chatbot. Bing Chat, however, has the advantage of ChatGPT’s GPT-4 technology, which users have already proven to like, which we’ve seen from ChatGPT’s overall popularity. But regardless, one thing is clear: AI chatbots are here to stay. And we can only assume the technology will continue to grow as experts learn more about how to better optimize them.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#ai #aichatbot #bing #bingchat #blog #business #businesstips #businesstools #chatbot #chatgpt #google #googlebard #microsoft #search #searchengine #smallbusiness #softwaredevelopment #tech #technology #web #website #webtools

What’s New Newsletter Vol. 163 “Easy Website Builders”

Apr

13

Today, it’s much easier to build a site for businesses, blogs, portfolios, or for any other reason. In the past, web developers and designers worked together to create a site from scratch. Now, there are a bunch of web builders out there that make it easier for non-developers to easily create a site, with features all designed for different goals people have in mind for their site. Businesses can add cart options, bloggers can choose how they want to rearrange their posts, and there are all sorts of templates out there designed to put the focus on images first. But with so many to choose from with a million different options, it’s hard to know which would work best for your website needs.

That’s why we created WebdeXpress, a simpler web-building tool! Compared to our competitors, WebdeXpress comes free with our premium web hosting service, Dreamersi, and includes great features fit for every website need. And for those who aren’t as tech-savvy, we even have a Done-For-You (DFY) plan, where our design team works with you to create your site in hours. And if you’re looking for a more custom solution, we also custom develop and custom design sites for our customers, too!

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#b2b #blog #business #businesstips #digitalmarketing #hosting #marketing #marketingtips #pspinc #searchengineoptimization #seo #smallbusiness #tech #technology #webdevelopment #webdexpress #webhosting #website #websites #webtools #wordpress

What’s New Newsletter Vol. 162 “Localizing Content”

Apr

6

For businesses today, you want as many customers as you can get to buy from you. The problem is, when you try to market to everyone, your efforts end up sounding vague and uninspired. When you determine a focus for your campaign, however, you won’t only share better marketing content, but you’ll also end up with customers who are even more interested in what you offer. One way to narrow down your audience is by language; our products and services aren’t just for our U.S. customers, but also for our customers in Japan.

That’s why we work hard to help other small businesses do the same. We started localizing software between the U.S. and Japan in the 90s and it’s only gotten better since then. Today, we do more than just localize software; we also offer translation services so other businesses can feature both English and Japanese languages on their website and other marketing efforts. Doing so helps optimize your customers’ experience, especially for non-English speakers. And on the business side, it helps expand your potential customer base. Start localizing your content with us today.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#blog #businesstips #businesstools #marketing #marketingdigital #marketingtips #pacificsoftwarepublishing #pspinc #pspincwhatsnewnewsletter #sales #smallbusiness #socialmedia #tech #technology #webdevelopment

Create an Effective Marketing Strategy with a SWOT Analysis

Apr

4

The key to a successful marketing campaign is an effective marketing strategy. But it’s hard to put one together if you don’t assess where the company currently stands. One of the most important parts of marketing is research. After all, you can’t market for a company without knowing anything about what the company does, how it operates, what it sells, and how it compares to others on the market. The best way to start the research process is with a SWOT analysis.

A SWOT analysis also referred to as a situation analysis, stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. It looks at what the company excels at, where it could improve, and where they stand amongst the competition while helping identify ways it could improve. It gives marketers a basic outline of the company, which will lead them to conduct further research on not only the company but also its competitors and their industry.

How to Create a SWOT Analysis

a woman standing in front of a white board with a swot analysis drawn on the board

Research should always be at the start of every marketing process. A SWOT analysis just makes it easier to organize that research. There’s basic information like a company’s name, history, among others. Then, you can look into identifying what makes this company different than others. What are the best parts of this company and where can they improve? It’s through this research that you’ll get a better idea of what the industry looks like as a whole and where this company fits in.

Creating the SWOT analysis after that is simple; instead of writing it all out in a report, draw out a two-by-two table, labeling each quadrant with Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. Then, as your research progresses, fill them out with the appropriate data. It’s that easy. While this won’t be everything you need to know before creating an effective marketing plan, it will, at the very least, give you a good start. A SWOT analysis tells you what issues you should address and how the business can grow, all of which will only strengthen your overall marketing strategy and plan moving forward.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#advertising #blog #branding #business #businesstips #businesstools #digitalmarketing #marketing #marketingdigital #marketingonline #marketingresearch #marketingtips #research #sales #smallbusiness #socialmedia #swot #swotanalysis #tech #technology

What’s New Newsletter Vol. 161 “Last Chance for 50% Off Pass Wizard Pro!”

Mar

30

Today is your last chance to get 50% off Pass Wizard Pro! As a fully encrypted system, you can store, manage, and even share passwords securely without worrying about forgetting or exposing them to potential cyber criminals. Pass Wizard Pro not only gives you the space to store and manage as many passwords as you want, but you can also add an extra layer of security with 2FA. All for just $0.84 a month (after taking 50% off)! Not to mention group features that make it easier to share select passwords securely.

To claim this deal, just sign up for Pass Wizard for free and upgrade to Pro. Then, when you check out, enter the promo code, PRO50, and you’ll get your first year of Pass Wizard Pro for 50% off! So, protect your passwords in a secure vault, perfect for personal and business uses. But hurry, this sale only lasts until the end of today!

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#blog #business #businesstips #cyber #cybersecurity #discount #passwizard #passwordgenerator #passwordmanager #passwords #passwordsecurity #passwordstorage #passwordvault #promo #promocode #promotion #pspinc #sales #smallbusiness #tech #technology #web

Everything You Need to Know About the Potential TikTok Ban

Mar

28

TikTok is a short-form video-sharing app geared mostly toward Gen-Z. Content on the platform ranges from cooking videos to funny animal clips to practically anything you could think of. According to Business of Apps, as of January 2023, TikTok had almost two billion monthly active users globally. And this doesn’t even include users from China since the app uses a different name there. As of just last week, TikTok’s CEO, Shou Zi Chew, boasted that TikTok now has 150 million active monthly users in the U.S. alone. But this claim also comes amongst talks over a potential ban of the app.

TikTok’s Data Security Concerns

close-up of the settings app in the iOS interface

The app, while popular, poses privacy and data security practices for one big reason: TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, has ties to China. Other countries worldwide, including the U.S., have banned the app altogether or restricted its use in certain cases. For example, India placed a ban on not only TikTok but also other Chinese-owned apps like WeChat, and Pakistan banned the app at least four times. While the U.S., Canada, and Taiwan haven’t officially banned the app, government-issued devices only have restricted access to TikTok. However, there isn’t currently any hard proof of these privacy concerns; it’s more of a concern for what China could do with TikTok’s users’ data in the future.

To counteract this potential, the U.S. government created the RESTRICT Act. This bipartisan bill, in short, allows the secretary of Commerce to ban apps that pose a risk to U.S. national security. It doesn’t explicitly name TikTok, but it covers companies owned not only by China, but also by Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, and Venezuela. Last week, Chew faced congress to answer questions they had over TikTok's data concerns. Unfortunately, it didn't seem to change the status quo as many representatives didn't seem to know much about how the app works. While this bill exists, U.S. lawmakers, including President Biden, aren’t pushing to ban the app. Instead, they’d much prefer it if a U.S.-owned company acquired ByteDance, removing its ties to China.

How Advertisers Are Responding

two women having a meeting in the office

Despite the uncertainty about the app’s future, advertisers are sticking with TikTok and are largely unfazed by it. Privacy and data security concerns on social media are nothing new to marketers. Facebook and Instagram’s parent company, Meta, is still a formidable force in the social media market today. Especially for marketers, as Facebook’s ad business has only gotten stronger since. So, it’s safe to say they were able to walk away mostly unscathed from the Facebook and Cambridge Analytica data scandal in 2015. So, with this example in mind, marketers know the privacy issue concerns will eventually die down.

Marketers have experienced this wave of security concerns for social media in the past, only to see it ultimately pass. So, for now, advertisers are sticking with TikTok and keeping their ad spend on the platform. And for marketers who have employed a TikTok-first approach, they’re sticking with it, despite the threat of a ban. TikTok, for better or for worse, delivers droves of the Gen-Z audience, making it an attractive marketing platform. So, as far as advertisers are concerned, TikTok is here to stay.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#advertisers #advertising #app #branding #business #businesstips #cybersecurity #data #datasecurity #marketers #marketing #marketingdigital #marketingnews #marketingtips #security #smallbusiness #socialmedia #therestrictact #tiktok

PSP Pilot: Company Search Results Update

Mar

23

1 Enhanced Company Search

Before:
Whenever a user searched, “PSP Pilot”, the only result that appeared was “PSP Pilot”.

After:
Now, when a user searches for “PSP Pilot”, the results page would show “PSP Pilot”, “PSP-Pilot”, “PSP&Pilot” etc.
※ The search results will now include partial matches rather than only showing exact matches.

2 New City Filter Added

• In addition to searching the company name, you can now search by city for companies that register a particular city name in their company address.
• Please note that this will only work if you check the “Location” filter box. Otherwise, it’ll grey out.
• This search box includes the same enhancement as the company search
• New autocomplete feature: when typing in the search box, it’ll suggest terms in the dropdown menu and allow you to automatically choose an option.

※You must type more than three letters to see the drop-down menu.
※Please make sure there is no blank space before the letters. It may cause the wrong result.
※This feature also isn’t sensitive to capitalization, so if you were to search for “san diego”, “san diego” and “SAN diego” would both display in the drop-down menu.

https://www.pspinc.com

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#PSPPilot #blog #business #businesstips #businesstools #clientdatabase #employeeportal #smallbusiness #taskmanagement #tech #technology #web

What’s New Newsletter Vol. 160 “Email Marketing Compared to Other Marketing Tactics”

Mar

23

One of the most effective marketing tactics today is email. With so many advancements in technology today, email still delivers the highest return on investment (ROI) compared to other marketing tactics. According to Omnisend, the average return per dollar spent on email marketing is $40. While social media and paid search are popular efforts, email marketing still delivers the best results. Why? Because everyone uses email. So, if anything, it makes it much more likely people will at least see your content whereas being seen on paid search and social media is determined by many other factors that are mostly out of your control.

The best way to ensure your email marketing campaign is successful is by having a definitive goal set in mind, testing email broadcasts, making emails visually appealing, tracking how well it performs and adjusting over time. And that’s exactly why we built NewsMAIL, our email marketing tool that makes it easy for businesses to easily create effective email marketing campaigns. Get started at just $20/month or take a look at some of our prepaid plans.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.