This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse the site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies.
Learn moreOKWe may request cookies to be set on your device. We use cookies to let us know when you visit our websites, how you interact with us, to enrich your user experience, and to customize your relationship with our website.
Click on the different category headings to find out more. You can also change some of your preferences. Note that blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience on our websites and the services we are able to offer.
These cookies are strictly necessary to provide you with services available through our website and to use some of its features.
Because these cookies are strictly necessary to deliver the website, refusing them will have impact how our site functions. You always can block or delete cookies by changing your browser settings and force blocking all cookies on this website. But this will always prompt you to accept/refuse cookies when revisiting our site.
We fully respect if you want to refuse cookies but to avoid asking you again and again kindly allow us to store a cookie for that. You are free to opt out any time or opt in for other cookies to get a better experience. If you refuse cookies we will remove all set cookies in our domain.
We provide you with a list of stored cookies on your computer in our domain so you can check what we stored. Due to security reasons we are not able to show or modify cookies from other domains. You can check these in your browser security settings.
We also use different external services like Google Webfonts, Google Maps, and external Video providers. Since these providers may collect personal data like your IP address we allow you to block them here. Please be aware that this might heavily reduce the functionality and appearance of our site. Changes will take effect once you reload the page.
Google Webfont Settings:
Google Map Settings:
Google reCaptcha Settings:
Vimeo and Youtube video embeds:
You can read about our cookies and privacy settings in detail on our Privacy Policy Page.
Privacy Policy
Expertise.com Names Chow-Bryant One of Top 18 Digital Marketing Agencies in Houston
Recently, Chow-Bryant received an email from Expertise.com, informing us that we were named to their list of the Best Digital Marketing Agencies in Houston 2017. Of about 538 reviewed agencies in the Houston area, despite our company’s relative newness, we made the list of 18 recommended digital marketing agencies.
Expertise.com’s Top Digital Marketing Agencies in Houston
Expertise.com’s list is based on five criteria:
While we don’t know what our final score is, Chow-Bryant is honored to be included in the Best Digital Marketing Agencies in Houston 2017.
Thanks, Expertise.com!
Check Out Our New Live Stream Calculator
New Live Stream Calculator
In November we wrote a technical beginner’s guide to streaming on Twitch. At the time we were linking to live stream calculator on OBS’s site. Unfortunately, that calculator is no longer up despite being a handy tool for finding a good starting point for stream settings. As a result, we decided to build our own. You can find the new live stream calculator here.
Future Marketing Tools in The Works
There are also plans for some new tools in the near future. Check our Chow-Bryant Tools section for the latest. Additionally, you can browse our GitHub repositories here. This is where we provide templates and code snippets for website optimization, analytics filters, and structured data markup.
Plan & Manage Your Digital Estate
Internet security has been a hot news topic over the past few months. A cascade of software vulnerabilities, account breaches, and security flaws produced a steady stream disclosures, apologies, and a few PR disasters. As a result, most of us are more aware than ever of the need to keep every piece of our online presence secure.
Read more
Add Schema Markup to Your Website
What is Schema Markup?
Schema markup is a form of structured data that helps search engines understand what’s on a webpage. This markup is a community effort to create a universal vocabulary of tags and categories for the internet. An example of Schema markup in action is the Google Knowledge Graph. These are the cards on the right-hand side of some Google searches. These cards provide more information about your search, and are a collection of structured data snippets from all over the internet.
Laser cat sees your Schema!
Here you can see a snippet of Chow-Bryant’s card in Google’s Knowledge Graph. Some of this information is fed into Google’s Knowledge Graph using Schema markup on our website. For instance, the footer on our site features Schema for a local business.
Other Forms of Structured Data
In a nutshell, Schema markup is very similar to the Open Graph Protocol and Twitter Card Data. The main difference is that Schema markup isn’t unique to a specific social media platform. Instead, Schema is primarily used by webmasters, app developers and search engines. In fact, Schema markup is supported by Google, Bing, Yahoo and Yandex.
Read more
Fixing HTML5 Ads That Were Rejected by AdWords
It’s 11:30 p.m. After several last-minute targeting changes, your Google Display Network campaign is almost ready. You’ve set the targeting, and you’ve segmented out everything that needs to be segmented (of which there was a lot). Now all that’s left is uploading the ads so that they will start running at midnight as planned. All that’s left is adding the creative into the AdWords interface.
OH GOD NO.
AdWords just rejected your ads.
Now what? You’ve got 30 minutes to fix this, and both your designer and your developer left town for Vegas about two hours ago.
Tick-tock, Clarice. Read more
How to Fix Suspected Malware in the Enfold Theme for WordPress
Help! My Malware Scanner Says I’ve Been Hacked!
If you’re using the Enfold Theme for WordPress, or another theme developed by Kriesi, you’ll want to read this post. Today, around 4pm CST, Wordfence and other WordPress security tools started sending alert messages to site owners using the Enfold theme. The messages informed them that a file on their site contained a link to suspected malware.
There was an increase in hacking attempts against WordPress sites in 2016, and it looks like 2017 will be no different. Fans of the Mass Effect video game series might feel like they’re struggling to “hold the line.”
Our influence will stop hackers! In our battle today, we will hold the line!
But fear not! The amazing community of developers working on WordPress is always looking for ways to improve the CMS.
Read more
Digital Media Targeting for Beginners
Targeting Causes Bullseyes or Black Eyes
Digital display media is a popular channel for marketing brands. We often equate the term to website banner ads, but it also includes video ads, social media ads, audio ads via music sites and apps, in-app ads, search engine marketing and more. It seems like there is always something new under the digital media moniker. Most often, though, discussions center around best practices for banner design, messaging or placements. These are important factors in a successful media campaign, but digital media targeting can make or break a campaign. It’s crucial in ways many people do not realize, plus it affects every form of digital media marketing. Read more
How to Add Open Graph Data to Your Site
What is The Open Graph Protocol?
The Open Graph Protocol is a lot like Twitter Card Data and Schema markup. Basically, the Open Graph Protocol is a collection of meta tags that allow a website to become a rich object in Facebook’s social graph. As a result, a website with Open Graph data on it has the same functionality as any other object on Facebook like profile links and stream updates.
Read more
How to Add Twitter Card Data to Your Website
What is a Twitter Card?
When you share a link on Twitter, the link may automatically add an image, title, and description below your tweet. This information is called a Twitter Card, and it comes from some HTML tags on the webpage called a rich snippet. This markup lets site owners easily share additional information about their articles, images, videos, and even apps. Here’s an example of a Twitter Card for my article on The Cat Line. Read more
How to Create Actionable Marketing Reports
Marketing reporting and analysis can be a real pain, but not to worry. Prior to working as a digital marketer, I was the development reports writer for my university. If you’re not familiar with the Office of Development, you will be one day. That’s the office that does fundraising, and my job within it was to tell people where their money went. In that role, I learned a lot about how to write an effective and actionable report. I use this knowledge daily at Chow-Bryant, and there’s no reason that you can’t too.
Business Topics That Should Be Covered in a Report
For any effective business report, there are a handful of topics that are consistently useful:
To be honest, things become tricky once you ask about budgets. People often are uncomfortable discussing money, but you must know the info to report accurately. Therefore, I recommend keeping detailed spend records within your department to make it easier on everyone.
No need to talk about money if we have documentation that does the speaking for us. Read more