Sunshine State lagging behind in solar energy

The Sunshine State residents realize that the exploitation of the abundant solar energy in Florida is not an easy task. Industry experts rank third in Florida in the nation in the potential of solar energy roof, but 13 in the amount of solar energy produced.

Experts in renewable energy and solar industry say Florida is being delayed because the state is one of four that require solar energy to be sold exclusively by utilities. This limits the options to go Solar financial commitment and increases in advance for consumers.

The Sierra Club sees the lack of consumer choice as harmful to the environment. Tea sees an attack on personal freedom.

These unlikely allies working on a ballot measure in 2016 that would change the Florida Constitution to loosen the laws of solar energy in the state.

CIAL to be world’s first fully solar-powered airport

Kochi International Airport is on track to become the first airport in the world to draw all its power from solar energy. The airport would generate 12 MW of solar energy, and work should be completed in three months. Bosch is the structure of the airport to build the necessary structures.

CIAL, the company that manages the airport, plans to raise between 50,000 and 60,000 units of electricity per day and would cost Rs 64 million rupees. Solar panels have arrived at Chennai airport and related works are underway.

The airport already has a 100 kW pilot project generates 1.1 MW power project for the company and produce 5000-5500 units of power every day. Currently, the airport needs about 50,000 units of energy every day.

When the new power supply is installed, you can sell excess energy KSEB. From now on, there is a program of the bank with the KSEB to where excess energy is sold to the Board. It is believed that the project would break even in four years. The panels were constructed so that they can adapt to the expansion of the airport.

When the new international airport terminal comes into existence, the airport would nearly one lakh units per day. Then you could use small hydro power to meet the requirements. The government has allowed the company to operate eight hydroelectric projects are being built by a subsidiary – CIAL Infra.

Solar Attic Fans Can Reduce Your Energy Bill

A simple way to reduce your electricity bill

Many owners of Hawaii spend a small fortune to run fans and air conditioning in trying to keep your house cool. Most homes, houses, especially older, depends trade winds to keep your home from becoming unbearable.

Generally people who are trying to beat the heat was just installed an expensive air conditioning system. What they do not realize is that they could reduce their energy bills and save money simply by improving ventilation. It goes without saying that if you can keep the heat naturally, will have less and less fans air-conditioning, lowering their energy consumption.

How to keep your home cooler Naturally

The radiant heat from the sun hits the ceiling in each sunny day. Most roofing materials absorb much of the heat, especially asphalt or clay tile roofs. Hot air rises, but can be trapped in their attic or vaulted ceiling. If the hot air does not escape properly migrate down at home and continue becoming hotter and hotter inside. That is why it can often be cooler outside than inside your home.

Consider as a natural ventilation fan that moves air. Ideally, you want a high constant volume of air circulating in your home.

What do you want to set it is known as “Thermal Flow,” which comes out cold air and warm air is out. This thermal air flow can be adjusted by a combination of the contribution or soffit ventilation and adequate attic ventilation. There is only enough to allow hot air; You must ensure that fresh air is circulating.

There are several ventilation systems create ways to exhaust hot air:

Box vents – These vents are more common and less expensive upfront. They are usually made of plastic or metal. You can add additional vents to improve ventilation but not usually work on vaulted ceilings

Vents Whirly Bird – These are a step above a ventilation shaft and works well when a breeze blows. The problem is they are in a ball bearing system and eventually lead and become noisy.

Evacuation Ridge – A very good ventilation solution because it creates a large flow of air through the ridge peak. Ventilation puzzled edge and actually creates low pressure area on both sides of the ridge vent literally suck the hot attic air. This “aspiration” is known as the Bernoulli effect, the wind passing over a structure actually creates a lifting action or traction. The lifting effect of the difference in air pressure is the same force that allows aircraft to fly and sail boats.

Solar attic fans – These have proved more effective in removing unwanted heat. The small built in solar panels literally cause a fan to suck the hot air out. Solar fan 30 watts is usually sufficient for every 1,200 square feet of attic space. Some solar fans are specially designed for installation in vaulted ceilings. Best fans have a brushless motor system and a guarantee of 20 years. We see a lot of units manufactured in cheaper foreign failing within 5-8 years.

Solar Energy Air Conditioner – If natural ventilation does not solve the problems of overheating, air conditioning with solar energy can be a great alternative. These refrigeration units are fully managed by the power of the sun. They are autonomous units and because they are not binding on the electrical system of your home, do not require special license HECO.

The two ceiling fans, solar energy and solar air conditioners are the most powerful way to get the hot air outlet. Being solar devices, they can still qualify for solar tax credits.

These Are the PPC Metrics That Actually Matter

If you’re anything like me, you’ve participated in a couple of DIY home improvement projects. At the beginning of these projects, with YouTube training videos as my sidekick, I have an irrational sense of confidence in my handyman abilities.

When I’m tracking down my supplies at the local hardware store, I often find the products priced and displayed as “good,” “better” and “best.”

The frugal side of me tries to argue that “good” is good enough, but is there something about the “best” product that will secure my DIY victory?

With PPC advertising, we often face the same dilemma; we need to decide which metrics are “best” to measure the success of our campaigns. There’s a wealth of content and opinions on how to measure PPC success, which can get confusing.

This post will help you understand how different metrics can paint very different pictures of PPC campaign performance.

I’ll show how traffic-focused metrics can be a good starting point, how conversion-focused metrics are even better and how ROI-focused metrics provide the most complete picture for making meaningful changes to your campaigns.

Let’s dig in.

Good PPC metrics are traffic-focused

Many advertisers will default to looking at the click-through rate or cost per click when determining the success of a campaign. AdWords provides a lot of traffic-focused metrics that are incredibly useful, including underused gems like device segmentation and impression share.

And while those are definitely a good start, it’s important not to get so distracted that you lose sight of your basic business goals: generating a profit.

My agency has serviced or audited over 1,000 AdWords accounts. Believe it or not, almost half of them had not set up conversion tracking.

Conversion tracking allows you to measure conversion actions like a purchase or a lead submission in your ad platform, usually by placing a code snippet on a thank you or order confirmation page.

Without that piece of code, the only metrics you can measure are related to traffic, such as search impressions, clicks and click-through rates. Let’s look at an example to see why this is problematic.

What traffic-focused metrics tell you

Imagine you’re a mortgage company and each new paying customer is worth on average $3,500 in revenue with 50% in gross margin.

If you haven’t set up conversion tracking, you’ll mostly end up looking at reports like this:

If we’re only looking at traffic-focused metrics, our top campaign seems to be Campaign 5, which has the most clicks, the best click-through rate and the lowest cost per click.

Meanwhile, Campaign 4 has expensive clicks – which looks like a red flag!

But the truth is this data alone can’t really tell us whether the campaigns are successful to a company’s bottom line. For our mortgage company, we need to know whether the clicks are actually translating into useful leads.

Better PPC metrics are conversion-focused

If you’re already using conversion tracking, pat yourself on the back: you’re better off than much of the competition.

If you’re not, then get conversion tracking set up immediately. It’s easy to set up on most platforms like Google AdWords and Bing Ads (and if you’re using Unbounce you can put the tracking code right on a built-in thank you page).

Think beyond web conversions

Conversion tracking is more than just web leads and sales: among new accounts I’ve audited or onboarded, I’ve found that approximately 75% of advertisers who take phone leads don’t track them as conversions.

For many industries, phone calls are the main source of leads, so it’s critical to include calls in your conversion tracking! Many call tracking platforms have built-in ways of setting this up, and Google has a solution for AdWords advertisers here.

Call leads are more valuable for some businesses than for others, so you’ll want to keep in mind that not all types of conversions are necessarily equal – but the first step is making sure everything is tracked and measured.

What conversion-focused metrics tell you

Let’s say our mortgage company joins the big leagues and sets up conversion and call tracking. Here’s how that report looks:

Now we can track how many people are actually signing up for the service, not just clicking our ads.

Now we can start identifying our top-performing campaigns using cost per lead data (cost per conversion in Google AdWords). You’ll notice that Campaign 5 has the best cost per conversion, so it still looks like our top performer. Campaign 4 still looks like trouble.

But while conversions are great, at the end of the day what really matters is whether leads became paying customers.

Conversions tell us how many leads our company got, but not how many actually signed up to refinance their homes or how much revenue they brought in.

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Your PPC campaigns aren’t just about clicks. Don’t lose sight of what matters: generating a profit.
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The best PPC metrics are ROI-focused

For marketers who want to use the most meaningful data, let’s move to the golden metric: actual ROI!

That means tracking leads from click to close and measuring revenue on a per-lead basis. When you understand which campaigns, ads and keywords are actually generating revenue, you’ll be way ahead of competitors who have no idea where they’re making or losing money.

What ROI-focused metrics tell you

Let’s say our mortgage company decides to figure out exactly which leads are earning revenue. We can track specific leads in our CRM back to each campaign, set up separate phone numbers for each campaign and record which calls led to sales.

Using our customer value numbers from above, we can calculate the following report:

We calculated revenue by having our CRM capture the Campaign ID in Google Analytics, then created unique phone numbers for every campaign so we could track every sale back to its source. Then we calculated the revenue value of every customer attributed to a PPC campaign.

Suddenly Campaign 4, which looked so bad before, is now our hero! Not only does it have the best ROI, it brings in the most revenue and the most sales — and that’s with the fewest conversions and second-fewest clicks.

Now we know something much more useful than cost per conversion — we know how valuable a conversion is. We know where to focus our marketing efforts to maximize revenue, and where we can make improvements that impact the bottom line.

We could then respond by allocating more budget to Campaigns 4 and 5.

Meanwhile, Campaign 3 gets a lot of traffic and conversions but has a poor ROI, so we can get to work at rewriting ads and landing pages to better qualify those leads.

Those are the kinds of changes that have meaningful results!

3 simple ways to track and measure your PPC ROI

The example above mirrors what we often see in the lead generation space: more expensive leads can often be the most qualified and produce the most revenue. But without breaking down campaign ROI you never know.

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Costly PPC leads are often most qualified. Break down campaign ROI before you do anything drastic.
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So how do you move beyond conversions and start focusing on ROI?

Here are a few simple ways to get started:

1. Call tracking: As mentioned above, get a call tracking solution that lets you track PPC calls independently and preferably at the keyword level. AdWords has a feature that lets you set it up on your landing pages here. Then make sure you’re reviewing calls to see which incoming leads are converting into sales.
2. CRM integration for lead generation: A good CRM will integrate with any PPC platform, so you can look at customers and know which campaigns brought them to you. To determine ROI, compare sales data to the metrics in your PPC campaigns to get cost vs expected revenue.
   
   Getting this set up depends on your specific CRM, but here’s how to get started with Zoho, Infusionsoft, Salesforce, and Hubspot. Unbounce also has built-in hooks for integrating with most CRMs.
3. Dynamic revenue tracking for ecommerce: The nice thing about ecommerce is that platforms like AdWords allow you to set a conversion value for specific products, so you can compare revenue and learn your ROI right from AdWords. Don’t miss out on this if your site includes a customer checkout process.

Every metric matters

PPC marketing leaders know that all the metrics we’ve discussed are valuable – they work to improve the three categories over time, while focusing most of their efforts on ROI to move their profitability in the right direction.

Traffic data like impressions, clicks and cost per click tell you how much search demand there is for your service and how many people are responding to your ads.

Better metrics like conversion data tell you how effective your ads and landing pages are at generating leads, as well as how much your leads cost.

But nothing tops actual ROI data: how much conversions are worth to your company’s bottom line. As we’ve seen, that kinda of data lets you focus on making changes where you can make the biggest difference!

At the end of the day, the key is to look at the right metrics for the right situations and use that data to make the most meaningful changes to your campaigns.

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Three Reasons Why You Should Consider Solar Installations

In today’s society, there is a good chance that you’ve probably seen or at least heard of solar panels. Regardless of how you learned about solar installations, you may wonder if they are a good choice for you and your energy needs. With about 600,000 businesses and households in the United States to make the change, it is safe to say that people see the clear benefits of renewable energy. If you are looking to heat your pool or the entire house, here are some reasons why the choice of solar energy that could be interested.

It is profitable

No one likes to spend money on your electric bill. According to the solar installation package you choose, you could reduce your electricity bill in half or even get rid of your bill in full. In fact, some states such as California and New Jersey promoting the use of renewable energy, which means that if you qualify, you could pay utility rather than the reverse. Moreover, the value of your home may increase because of its panels. Research has shown that you can sell your home up to 15 percent faster if you have installed the panels, and traditional systems could increase the value of your home around $ 17,000. This means that even if you’re just looking at this from a financial point of view, there are several ways you can benefit from opting for renewable energy.

It is the environment

Is there anything better than saving money while doing something good? By using renewable energy, reduce their carbon footprint and protecting the environment. The use of renewable energy helps to prevent global warming, which has had a very negative impact on our planet, as shown by the growing number of animal species in danger of extinction, erosion of our coasts, and melting glaciers. While only five percent of households in the United States used the solar installations, we could remove 89.6 million pounds of carbon dioxide from the earth.

It is reliable

Its working panels to convert sunlight into energy in your home, and the sun will not go away soon. Even if the sun is not at night, its panels store energy in the electric grid so you have access to energy even when the sun does not shine. It is important that you keep your clean and free of debris such as snow, dirt, tree branches and leaves panels, this will ensure that the panels are used to full capacity and you get all the energy possible.

To read more about renewable energy, it will be difficult to deny its tangible benefits. If you are not sure how to get renewable energy benefit specifically to a local company for a consultation. In most cases you will see that there are benefits that had not even considered. Finding a reliable way to save money and the environment is something that everyone should be interested in. Make sure you take the time to discover what renewable energy can do for you and your community.

Dr. Evil’s Landing Page Optimization – Sonia Simone

Copyblogger’s Sonia Simone kicked off her Authority Rainmaker presentation with a question that has certainly been asked before.Is marketing evil? Unfortunately we’ve all come across misguided campaigns that seem intended to trick people rather than help them. But that’s not how it’s supposed to be.

“Like brushing your teeth before going out on a date, marketing is about putting a good face on what you have”, explains Sonia. You may be able to pull the wool over people’s eyes in the short term, but tricking your audience is a sure path to failure in the long run. Every brand’s reputation is pretty easy to research on the internet these days and people just aren’t dumb enough for a truly ‘evil’ strategy to work.

So, effective digital marketing is decidedly not ‘evil’, but can we learn something from evil people? According to Sonia, we certainly can. Drawing on some classic villains including Dr. Evil and the Joker, Sonia laid out how well-meaning digital marketers can benefit from adding just a little ‘evil’ to their landing pages.

Always Try to Shoot Fish from a Barrel

The best way to generate conversions from your landing pages is simply to make it easy for people to convert. Like a barrel, a well-constructed landing page puts visitors directly in the firing line of your offer and doesn’t include ‘leaks’ or distractions to divert them from converting.

To get more ‘fish’ into your barrel, it needs to be inviting to your audience. Make sure your landing pages (and by extension your whole website) look professional, are easy to use and load fast. Test your forms across all major devices and browsers, then test them again. Even better, ask your grandma to test them.

Also, your offering needs to be something that people actually want. As Sonia explained, if you’re trying to sell broccoli ice cream, it doesn’t matter how well you market it, because nobody wants that.

Social Proof is Scarily Effective

Just like nobody wants to miss a party that they know their friends will be attending, people are much more motivated to join a list, download an ebook or sign up for an offer if there is evidence that others like them have already taken the same action.

Smart marketers have been aware of the power of social proof for a long time and the really smart ones are incorporating it into their landing pages to help them convert better.

A few ways to take advantage of the evil power of social proof:

• Endorsements from influential people in the industry
• Case studies
• Social share count widgets
• Facebook Like Boxes

 

Don’t Be Too Clever

Catchy clickbait headlines may work well for BuzzFeed, but they are notoriously poor performers on landing pages.

One of the fundamentals of high-converting landing page is clarity of messaging. While clever headlines may be attention grabbing, they are often confusing and confusion is the enemy of action.

In addition, confusing messaging can lower the perceived trust people have for your company, which is absolutely the last thing you want when potential business is on the line. Would you prefer to trust your health to a doctor who knew her craft, or one who could entertain you with jokes?

There’s a time and place for cleverness, but landing pages are rarely a good fit for either.

 

A Good Call to Action is Like Jedi Mind Control

When it comes to landing pages, your biggest competitor is inaction. Everyone’s attention is extremely limited, so make sure you aren’t wasting your audience’s time by being confusing or ambiguous with what they are supposed to do by including a good call to action.

Really killer calls to action have the following attributes:

• Incredible clarity
• A clear benefit
• Builds trust

Provide Multiple Paths to Your Evil Lair

Any evil genius with any credibility has at least a few routes to reach their lair. There’s the hallway with spikes that pop out, the ventilation shaft hidden behind a bush and of course the front door (with lasers or something…).

Each of these distinct paths to the inside of your lair appeals to a different kind of secret agent or commando. The cautious and pragmatic spy will likely prefer to take their time and slink in through the ventilation shaft, while the overpowered bruiser henchmen will crash their way through the front door.

Similarly, visitors to your landing pages are likely to respond to different paths to conversion. Varying degrees of experience with your brand, places in the sales cycle and personal values are a few factors that can cause people to respond better to different messages or formats.

Boiling it down, Sonia says there are two major categories which your visitors are likely to fall into:

• Already sold – These are the people who know what they want, know you can deliver it and are ready to convert. Make sure you have a direct, frictionless, straight-to-the-point path to conversion for these visitors. Don’t waste their time.
• Need some convincing – There’s a reason these people made it to your landing page (perhaps a useful blog post, ebook, or webinar you created?), but they’re not quite sold yet. A softer call to action will likely work much better for these visitors to help convince them it’s worth it to become a customer.

Make People Feel Safe

In order for evil geniuses to be successful, they must be able to build trust. In order for your landing pages to convert visitors into customers, you have to do the same.

According to Sonia, your audience’s single biggest fear is feeling stupid. Most people want to believe that your offering is everything you claim it is, but they can’t be sure until it’s too late. What if they buy your product and it doesn’t work? What if they join your email list and receive nothing but spam? What if they come to your webinar and you share incorrect or unhelpful information?

All of these unfortunate outcomes can make someone feel pretty stupid. Unfortunately, anyone who has used the internet for a while has probably been in at least one of these situations before, so they have built in wariness about it happening again. Therefore, in order to convert visitors to customers, you need to help them overcome the fear that you’ll make them feel stupid again.

In order to help your audience feel safe to do business with you, make sure your landing pages:

• Project credibility
  • Include visual indicators such as security badges and privacy policy links.
  • List endorsements from trusted authorities.
  • Include references to other clients you work with.
• Reverse the risk
  • Offer a money back guarantee.
  • Start with a free trial.

The objective of any strategic digital marketing campaign is to translate attention into action. A well made landing page can be scarily effective at doing just that. But, as the decidedly non-evil superhero Spiderman famously said, “with great power comes great responsibility”, so please make sure to use these evil landing page optimization tips for good.

Keep your eye here on Online Marketing Blog for coverage of Authority Rainmaker as well as on Instagram, Flickr, Pinterest and Twitter @TopRank.

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Top 3 Solar Energy Breakthroughs to Watch Out For

Solar power remains untapped genius we need for sustainable clean energy. After the discovery, the cost and effectiveness, even cosmetic-continue to advance this technology as a generator fully commercially viable and sustainable energy.

Getting Skyscrapers in downtown

It will not be long before our cities become independent power, requiring little or no power unsustainable. Gone will be miles of pylons transmission unsightly piles of coal and wind turbines. Such a scenario could be possible in the not too distant future when the solar windows reach their full potential. Professor Henry Snaith, co-founder and scientific director of Oxford says Photovoltaic solar coating technology developed in Oxford PV could transform buildings and skyscrapers of glass covered with a city in power plants. Our future cities glow with the colors of the rainbow, as the buildings on the supply of glass multi-shaded from the sun. According to Oxford PV, some color treatments result in more efficient electrical conversion: black treatment on top of the list, green and red are in the middle, and blue is less effective.

Coming soon: completely transparent solar panels

Ubiquitous Energy, an MIT startup plans to fully transparent market using innovative technology that changes the way cells absorb sunlight solar panels. The new panels use the invisible part of the solar spectrum, while allowing ordinary visible light to pass through. The breakthrough called transparent luminescent solar concentrator (TLSC): use organic salts which absorb wave lengths of invisible ultraviolet and infrared light. These wavelengths of infrared light reflected luminescence not visible in the panel edge, and converted to electricity by the ordinary solar cells.

3D Printed solar tree

Researchers from VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland have joined solar technologies today 3D printing and print trees harvested energy. The leaves of these trees are specially designed and able to generate enough solar energy to power most mobile devices today and LED bulbs. Trees capture the kinetic energy, even against the wind and thermal energy from the ambient temperature changes. The new solar trees are the product of biomimetics, the new science of copying nature. And biomimicry exploit these new trees come as a Nanoleaf. Unlike conventional solar photovoltaic (PV) cells, lens half the wave length of infrared energy rich Nanoleaf. Equally impressive is the piezoelectric Nanoleaf petiole. When the wind whispers a Nanoleaf return, the mechanical stress resulting in the petiole, branch and branch converts this motion into electricity.

The sun bathes the Earth continuously to 800 terawatts of power. Wind energy is unfortunately untapped. Is not it time that we use more of that free energy?