NOTE: This is our 2nd post in a series on #observability. You can find the 1st post here.

Monitoring your systems has become commonplace for SMBs. Monitoring involves regularly checking and tracking the performance and behavior of a system or application to identify any issues or potential problems. It typically involves collecting and analyzing data about key performance metrics (KPIs), such as response times, error rates, and resource usage, to ensure that the system is operating as expected.

Observability (O11y) refers to the ability to gain insights into the behavior of a system or application from the outside by collecting and analyzing data about its internal state and interactions. It involves providing visibility into the internal workings of a system or application and allowing for the efficient identification and resolution of issues that may arise.

 The Google Trends chart below extenuates the need to educate SMBs on the need and benefit of observability.

Google Trends: IT Monitoring vs. IT Observability

Reread those last two paragraphs. Observability and monitoring are closely related but not the same thing. Monitoring is the process of collecting data and information about a system to understand its behavior and identify any problems that may be occurring. On the other hand, Observability is the degree to which the internal state of a system can be inferred from its external outputs.

In other words, monitoring involves collecting data and information about a system, while observability is using that data to understand and infer what is happening inside the system. Monitoring is an essential part of observability but not the only aspect. Observability also includes analyzing and interpreting the data collected through monitoring to understand how a system is functioning and identify any issues that may be present.

Observability is essential in various contexts, including engineering, computer science, and other fields, because it allows people to understand how a system is functioning and to identify and troubleshoot problems when they arise. Monitoring is also an essential aspect of observability, as it allows people to collect the data and information needed to understand a system’s behavior and identify any issues that may be present.

Observability Enhances Monitoring

Observability can enhance monitoring by providing a more comprehensive understanding of a system’s behavior and performance. Monitoring involves collecting data and information about a system to understand its behavior and identify any problems that may be occurring. On the other hand, Observability involves using that data to understand and infer what is happening inside the system.

By combining the two approaches, organizations can get a complete picture of how their systems are functioning and identify any issues that may be present. For example, an organization may use monitoring to collect data about the performance of their systems, such as the amount of traffic being handled or the number of errors being generated. This data can be used to identify any issues that may be affecting the system’s performance, such as bottlenecks or resource constraints.

However, monitoring data alone may not be sufficient to understand the root cause of a problem entirely. Observability can be used to complement monitoring by providing additional context and information about the internal state of a system. For example, observability can be used to identify specific components or processes within a system that may be causing problems or to understand how different parts of a system interact and affect one another. By providing a more detailed and comprehensive understanding of a system’s behavior, observability can enhance monitoring effectiveness and help organizations identify and troubleshoot problems more effectively.

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) are designed to ensure that web content and facilities are accessible to people with disabilities. Here are some key points and specifics of these compliances:

For WCAG 2.1:

• WCAG 2.1 is a set of guidelines developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to make web content more accessible to people with disabilities.
• The guidelines are organized around four principles: perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust.
• WCAG 2.1 includes 17 guidelines and 61 success criteria that provide specific requirements for making web content accessible.
• Some of the specific requirements of WCAG 2.1 include providing text alternatives for non-text content, making content scalable and resizable, providing alternative ways to navigate the site, and ensuring that content is structured correctly and labeled.

For ADA:

• The ADA is a federal law that prohibits discrimination based on disability in several areas, including employment, state and local government services, public accommodations, and commercial facilities.
• The ADA requires that web content be accessible to people with disabilities, including individuals who use assistive technology such as screen readers or magnifiers.
• The ADA applies to state and local government agencies and private entities considered “places of public accommodation.”
• To comply with the ADA, web content must meet specific accessibility standards, such as those outlined in WCAG 2.1.

In summary, WCAG 2.1 provides guidelines for making web content accessible to people with disabilities. At the same time, the ADA requires that web content and facilities be accessible to people with disabilities and prohibits discrimination based on disability in certain areas. By following these guidelines, organizations can ensure that their web content and facilities are inclusive and accessible.

What are the ramifications of non-compliance?

Non-compliance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) can result in legal and financial consequences for organizations. Some of the potential ramifications of non-compliance include:

1. Lawsuits: Non-compliance with the ADA can result in lawsuits being brought against an organization. These lawsuits can be costly, time-consuming, and damaging to the organization’s reputation.
2. Damages and penalties: If an organization violates the ADA, it may be ordered to pay damages to individuals affected by the non-compliance. In addition, the organization may be fined by the government.
3. Loss of business: Organizations not accessible to people with disabilities may lose out on potential customers or clients who require accessible web content or facilities.
4. Negative reputation: Non-compliance with accessibility standards can damage an organization’s reputation and lead to negative publicity.

By being compliant with WCAG 2.1 and the ADA, organizations can avoid these legal and financial consequences and demonstrate their commitment to making their web content and facilities accessible to private entities and those with disabilities.

High Profile Lawsuits

Many notable lawsuits have already been related to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 compliance. These include:

1. Domino’s Pizza v. Robles: In this case, a blind individual sued Domino’s Pizza because its website and mobile app were not accessible to screen reader users. The case reached the Supreme Court, which declined to hear the case, but the decision was widely seen as a win for accessibility advocates.
2. Gil v. Winn-Dixie Stores, Inc.: In this case, a blind individual sued Winn-Dixie because its website was not accessible to screen reader users. The court ruled in favor of the plaintiff, stating that the website was a place of public accommodation under the ADA and must be accessible to people with disabilities.
3. National Association of the Deaf v. Netflix: In this case, the National Association of the Deaf sued Netflix because its streaming service was not captioned, making it inaccessible to people who are deaf or hard of hearing. The court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, stating that Netflix must provide captions on its streaming content.

These cases and others like them demonstrate the importance of WCAG 2.1 and ADA compliance and the potential legal and financial consequences of non-compliance. Organizations are encouraged to make their web content and facilities accessible to all users, including those with disabilities, to avoid these types of lawsuits and to demonstrate their commitment to inclusivity and accessibility.

How have small businesses been affected?

1. A small bakery in California was sued by a blind individual who could not access the bakery’s website using a screen reader. The bakery was found to violate the ADA and was ordered to make its website accessible to people with disabilities.
2. A small hotel in Florida was sued by a deaf individual who was unable to use the hotel’s website to make a reservation because the site was not accessible to screen reader users. The hotel was found to violate the ADA and was ordered to make its website accessible to people with disabilities.

Let us know how we can ensure that your business has the proper requirements covered.

NOTE: This is our 1st Post in a series on #observability.

Digital transformation uses digital technologies to fundamentally change how an organization operates and delivers value to its customers. This involves integrating digital technology into all business areas, including operations, product development, customer experience, and business models. Digital transformation can help organizations become more efficient, agile, and responsive to changing market conditions. It can also enable them to create new revenue streams, enter new markets, and better serve their customers. Overall, digital transformation is about using technology to drive business growth and innovation.

But how can you tell if your business has become organizations become more efficient, agile, and responsive?

Enter Observability.

Observability (O11y) has been used in engineering and computer science for many years to monitor and understand the behavior of physical and software systems, respectively. In recent years, observability has become more widely recognized and adopted as a business tool as organizations increasingly rely on complex, interconnected systems and applications to support their operations. These applications are usually built separately and lack the true interconnectivity desired.

Observability can be an essential tool for enhancing digital transformation efforts, as it allows organizations to monitor and understand the behavior of their systems and identify any issues that may be affecting the performance or effectiveness of their digital initiatives.

Digital transformation involves adopting and implementing new technologies and processes to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of an organization. Observability can help organizations understand how these new technologies and techniques function and identify any problems or issues affecting their performance. By providing visibility into the behavior of systems, observability can help organizations identify and fix problems more quickly and effectively and ensure that their digital transformation efforts are successful.

In addition to helping identify and fix problems, observability can also help understand how a business’s systems are functioning under normal conditions and identify potential improvements or optimizations that can be made to increase the efficiency or effectiveness of a business’s operations. Observability can help organizations identify and address bottlenecks or resource constraints affecting their systems’ performance and identify opportunities for optimizing their operations to achieve better results.

Overall, observability can be a valuable tool for enhancing digital transformation efforts by providing organizations with a better understanding of the behavior of their systems and the potential issues or opportunities they may face and by helping them to identify and address problems more effectively.

As digital marketers, we always look for the next best thing to help our clients grow their businesses. Unfortunately, sometimes our clients are as well. You can lose sight of what is working for your company when that shiny new toy enamors you. It is also frustrating when you have to spend a good portion of your regularly scheduled meeting discussing new concepts that will not move the needle. The urge is to turn to your client and state, “I didn’t know that you perfected that?” “That” can be filled in with any marketing channels, paid search, SEO, direct mail, or even yellow pages.

When I began my career in marketing, I had the pleasure of working for the world’s first search engine, the yellow pages. This was at the time when yellow page usage began its steep decline. It became increasingly difficult to convince companies to keep the budget in the yellow pages. Our running joke was that the CMO was not holding court at a cocktail party discussing the effectiveness of his YP campaign. What we needed was a hook to explain why the yellow pages still mattered:

Nothing Replaces Anything

And with a few exceptions (8-track tapes, BetaMax, VCRs). The car didn’t replace the train, the TV didn’t replace the radio, and the computer didn’t replace the TV. The internet didn’t even replace the yellow pages. These channels’ effectiveness has changed, although they have not been replaced.

The marketing landscape continues to change almost daily and most definitely will continue to change into perpetuity. This is a good thing and forces us to stay ahead of our competition. It also brings me back to my yellow pages days and discussing a complete exit from the channel with clients. They all agreed that there were still leads being generated, although they were more expensive as the years went along. Every discussion ended the same way….Reduce the YP budget, and reallocate elsewhere. Not one was replaced entirely. As always, especially in marketing, Nothing Replaces Anything.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has been around since we all started building and marketing websites. Over the years, numerous additions to digital marketing tactics have improved, automated, complicated, and confused marketers to this day. This sometimes leads to moving on to the next shiny object before maximizing the value and returns of our more mature customer acquisition and retention vehicles. SEO is at the top of this list and remains the most misunderstood strategy to increase visitors and conversions on your site.

To this day, my most spirited discussions with clients and prospects relate to SEO and why it is necessary. If you are convincing in your logic, your next lively debate is when you can either stop it or scale it back. Even if it is working, it’s both frustrating and amusing. I’ve never had a client ask me to scale back a paid search campaign to generate positive results. A search of “Is SEO Still Relevant 2022” generated over 100 million results. I guess I’m not alone in my thoughts on this topic.

So…Why is SEO still relevant in 2022? Too many reasons here, but to name a few:

SEO + Paid Search Campaigns > Stand Alone Paid Search Campaigns – Search Engine Land has a recent study showing that running SEO and paid search together improves click thru rates and decreases paid cost per click. We have also seen this happen when clients decide to cut branded paid search so that it doesn’t compete against the organic listings. Overall, traffic to the site has declined in every instance.

SEO Supremecy Reigns in Competitive Analysis – We always ask prospects for their top competitors and immediately plug them into a tool to see how they stack up. Their chief competitors, more times than not, are killing it from an SEO perspective, whether a national brand or a local business. The prospect has never embraced SEO or had the patience to stick with it.

Content is King and SEO Expands Your Kingdom – Bill Gates told us in 1996 that content is king, and we’ve been arguing back and forth on this topic ever since. Wherever you sit on this fence, if you do not have a sound SEO strategy to support your content, your kingdom or website traffic will be smaller than you desire. If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? Well…Does your content without SEO get read?

Remember the adage; Nothing Replaces Anything. Embrace SEO. And don’t take my word for it. Plug your top competitors into SpyFu and see how you compare. Then let us know if you want to discuss a sound SEO strategy.

Digital agencies remain a crucial component for a company’s execution of an overall growth and marketing strategy. All major corporations rely on agencies to supplement their in-house marketing teams to varying degrees. This reliance will increase in the future as the digital landscape continues to change in volume and complexity almost daily. A prime example of this is the entry of big consulting firms into the digital arena. Deloitte, PwC, and KPMG have fully embraced digital as a standard extension of their current consulting practices.

Even with all this growth and momentum, the digital agency model is broken, and it is no one’s fault. It’s not an easy problem to solve.

Agencies Take On Too Many Clients – Agencies love clients, and they love to tell you who they work with more than they love clients. Every agency I’ve worked for has had too many clients,s and this puts too much pressure on your top clients. The 80/20 rule is pretty universal. 80% of your revenue comes from 20% of your clients. This leads to continually selling more to your top clients or under-resourcing them.

Account Teams Are Spread Too Thin – This combines taking on too many clients and not pricing the engagements correctly. Today’s agency has a tremendous amount of overhead that is not adequately priced and ends up as a detriment to the account team and the client by default. The client, however, is not without blame because they are usually unwilling to pay for these services. This leads to overpromising and underdelivering due to agency margin pressure.

Employees Are Promoted Too Soon. It is increasingly difficult to hire, train and retain your best people, and even your mediocre people are regularly being poached for more salaries and better titles. This never-ending cycle forces early promotion of your top talent. Unfortunately, your top talent is not ready for increased responsibility, primarily managerial responsibility. Clients, as a result, are paying for the title but not necessarily the experience.

Too Much Focus On Execution And Not Enough On Strategy – Agencies win new business on strategy and staff this new business with execution teams. This is typically due to where the client/agency relationship sits. The client day to day contact is usually too junior to worry about the higher-level strategic discussions, and client satisfaction then falls to more of the rudimentary tasks. Also, in most engagements, strategy isn’t broken out and paid for separately, so it gets lost in the overall execution. This devalues strategy as the critical component of why you hired the agency.

The good news is there are many ways to fix the agency model, and clients can undoubtedly assist. One is to have a clear understanding of why you are hiring an agency and to understand how to separate strategy and execution. Another is to only pay for services you need to improve your in-house team. It might be more beneficial to hire a consulting firm to set goals and structure your paid search campaign but to staff the execution team in-house. The firm can provide training, strategic oversight, and attend meetings as needed.

It would be best if you had experts.  People who get organizational strategy, marketing effectiveness, and how to orchestrate the choir.  People with these talents don’t come cheap; that’s where we can help.  We can help fill the holes in your marketing organization without having to commit full-time dollars to solve the issue.  Our team has been there and done that and are expert in marketing strategy, direct response marketing, and crossing the digital void.