The keywords are the nuts and bolts of your SEO campaign. The first step is to get these ducks in the right row. Here are a few things you might be doing wrong while choosing your keywords. Keywords are what makes the SEO world go around, so it’s obviously crucial to get those darn things right. With the wrong set of keywords, you would just be trying out various ways to catch Google crawlers and yet not show up where you want to be. So here are five ‘mistakes’ that you should avoid while choosing your keywords, no matter how right they sound. You might not be an SEO expert or want to be one, but make sure you know what is right for your business. CHOOSING SHORT KEYWORDS It seems like a better idea to choose shorter keywords but the truth is that phrases or multi-word keywords are more likely to fetch you an audience. So from an SEO standpoint, more keywords equal more potential. LACK OF CREATIVITY We are often tempted to use general keywords that define our business as it is. Suppose you are a seller of graphic tees in Delhi, the first reaction is to “graphic tees seller Delhi” as keywords. This is where you get burrowed under the competition. Instead of the above, use a term like “Funky graphic tees seller Delhi” or “Cotton graphic tees seller Delhi”. This is likely to bring more visitors. NO IDEA OF TARGET AUDIENCE It is common to design keywords based on our understanding of our product or business, like fitting technical terms or terms that the target segment is unfamiliar with. What you need to do is to get into the mind of your audience and think from their point of view. This doesn’t mean that you give up jargons totally, but balance them with some familiar words too. USING PLURALS Never make the mistake of choosing plurals as keywords. This is because people seldom search for plurals, and since the search engine is very sensitive it may bury your website. IGNORING GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION A very important but frequently overlooked fact is taking the geographical considerations into account when designing key keywords. The locally used lingo in a country varies across the world. Therefore, it is important to carry out appropriate research to incorporate keywords significant to a geographical location. OVERLOOKING TRENDS The world is constantly evolving, there is increased awareness and the media is constantly feeding new trends to the audience. In such a dynamic environment it is essential that keywords follow the trends. Old fashioned words that are no longer in use will not attract people to your site. So keep up with the time and make sure your keywords do too.your keywords do too. UNEVEN KEYWORD DISTRIBUTION In trying to use popular keywords, there is a tendency to forget keywords that are less used but have less competition. Therefore, it is important to strike the right balance between the two to maximize your results. There you go, with extensive research and avoiding the above-listed mistakes, you are sure to find the right keywords that will open the door to your success.
Category: SEO
5 Local SEO Strategies that Will Help You Rank in 2019
You may have been running your small local business in a traditional manner for many years. But there’s a reason that marketing strategies that worked in the past may not be as effective today. The reason for this is a rapidly changing consumer behavior. The statistics speak for themselves. Four in 5 consumers use online search engines to find local information. Since consumer behavior has changed so much, you will lose out on a lot of business if you don’t change with it. If your potential customers are searching for you online, it doesn’t matter if you’re an appliance repair business or a designer showroom, you need to be online. Luckily for you, it’s only local customers who matter; those who will actually visit your business. There are local SEO techniques that can help you show up on the first page of the results when these customers search for you online. What is local SEO? Local SEO helps small businesses promote themselves within a certain local area. The difference between local SEO and general or organic SEO is that local SEO is for search queries which have “local intent”. Google can easily identify when a particular search query has a local intent, which means the searcher wants search results with local companies. For example, say the searcher wants to go to a yoga class near their home. So they google “yoga classes near me”. Google will immediately give them a number of local yoga classes nearby with their contact information. On the other hand, say the searcher wants to look up yoga asanas they can do at home and they google “best yoga asanas for a flat stomach”, then the results will be from the website which has the best content, even if it’s at the other end of the world. Why is local SEO important? This is simple. As we discussed before, many customers now search for local businesses online. In fact, almost 50% of search queries have local intent. Google capitalizes on this by showing local search results in two ways; through Google Ads as well as through local pack. Image Source As a local business, you can dramatically increase your business if you show up here. Why does local search give better results? This is because local search is much more personalized. Searchers are looking for something specific and they get it in the form of contact information and reviews. There is a high chance that they visit the local business and make a purchase the same day. In fact, a whopping 18% of local searches generate sales on the same day. What are some basic local SEO strategies? Here are some of the basic local SEO strategies that you need to have in place so that you can leverage local searches and maximize your revenue. 1. Make sure your NAP citations are consistent You need to make sure that your business’ name, address and contact number is exactly the same across all of your online assets like your website, social profiles, and Google My Business/Bing listings. The reason is that the Google algorithm looks for consistency in contact information when it is deciding which result it wants to show in the local pack and if your information is inconsistent it may choose another listing over yours. 2. Claim local directory listings Claim all listings on local directories including Indiamart, Indyapages, Just Dial, Yellow Pages India and so on. Make sure you verify the information in the listing. This is a fairly simple step and will give you instant visibility and credibility. 3. Solicit reviews Reviews are the key when it comes to local SEO. Research shows that 88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as they trust personal recommendations and referrals. You need to have the right tactics and strategies in place that make it easy for satisfied customers to leave good reviews for your business. 4. Localized website content If you are a local business and geography is important when it comes to who your customers will be, then make sure this shows on your website. You can create Geo-targeted service pages where the service areas are specified and have maps on the web pages with your business location on it. 5. Schema markup You should ask your web developer to implement local business schema on your website. This gives search engines a clearer picture of the local information about your business and makes it more likely that you will rank higher in the results. Implementing all of these strategies can seem a bit overwhelming especially if you don’t have the bandwidth and need to focus on your core business. In such a scenario, it’s probably better to outsource your local SEO to a company with the right expertise. In either case, you should get your local SEO in place as soon as possible so that you can appear in the local pack of search results and see a huge increase in your customer base.
The 5 Crucial SEO Trends for 2019
Since the early 2000s when Search Engine Optimization (SEO) first became a trend, more and more companies all over the world are trying their best to rank higher in Google’s search results. At the same time, Google and other search engines are becoming smarter, with newer ways to better their algorithm, provide the best experience to their users, and stay one step ahead of the SEOs. Here’s our pick of the trends that we believe will define the dynamics of SEO in 2019. Speed and Optimization Having a technically seamless website which is perfectly-optimized to keep loading time to a minimum continues to be one of the key trends when it comes to SEO in 2019. A newer aspect of this is that mobile page speed has also become an important factor in mobile ranking for Google. Earlier, only desktop page speed mattered for desktop rankings. For page speed evaluation, Google now apparently looks at two parameters; optimization and speed. Optimization is easy enough to control because you simply need to fix all the issues that prevent your site from loading fast. Speed, on the other hand, is measured via the Google Chrome User Experience Report. This report indicates how your site loads for each visitor which is obviously difficult, if not impossible to measure. As of now, optimization is apparently much more emphasised by Google than speed. However, as the latter is only in the testing stages right now, this could change soon. Brand Mentions Many SEOs keep hypothesizing that link-building is dead. However, both evidence and Google experts say that link building is still very much a critical factor when it comes to page rankings. However, there is another kid on the block; “linkless links” or brand mentions. Google has apparently started giving weight to brand mentions in its ranking algorithm. The more brand mentions there are, the better the search engine knows of your brand as an entity. By then analyzing factors like reputation, trust, advertising, and complaint-solving, Google determines the quality of and sentiment around your brand. This, in turn, affects your website’s ranking. Quality link-building is usually onerous and takes time. Brand mentions is an easier path to getting a similar reputation and credibility for your website. It’s best to mention your brand whenever there is an organic opportunity. Addressing customer complaints and engaging with happy clients are also ways to get high-quality brand mentions. Mobile-First Indexing Mobile-first indexing means that Google will now be using the mobile version of your website to index and rank websites. Google has been doing this migration since March 2018 and has even started informing webmasters about it. Since this project is moving at such a fast pace, it’s very important to make sure that the mobile version of your website is now completely optimized and search engine friendly. Switch to your mobile version as soon as you can, and keep checking to make sure that it has a high loading speed and the right user experience. Featured Snippets There is a lot of competition on the first page of Google’s search results. From Google ads and local packs to knowledge graphs and google images. One of the most prominent new competitor when it comes to the first page is the featured snippet. Here’s an example of a featured snippet. A featured snippet is Google’s way of enhancing the user experience by giving them the one answer it feels will help them most accurately and succinctly. If you want to be top-ranked for certain keywords with your content in the featured snippet, it’s a good idea to put your content in the form of question and answer sequences, especially when it comes to knowledge content. Tables with structured information can also help. Smaller sites also have a good chance of ranking as a featured snippet because the structure of the content is very important in this scenario. Amazon Search Amazon isn’t a universal search engine and has been designed only for a specific purpose; to enable customers to search on Amazon for products they want to buy. Nevertheless, Amazon has literally become the one-stop shop when it comes to people buying products online. 56% of customers go to Amazon first if they have to buy something and 51% check on Amazon after they find something they want to buy. This makes an Amazon SEO strategy a must have for any online seller. Getting the basics right is important. This includes running keyword searches, making items’ title and description user-friendly with adequate keywords, providing high-quality images, tracking customers’ reviews, and addressing customer complaints. It’s important to keep these crucial SEO trends in mind as you prepare for the search engine game in 2019. Being aware of future trends goes a long way in thinking of the right SEO strategies and optimizing well in advance. Which SEO trend do you think will work the best in 2019?
5 types of content that will attract paying customers
When we set out on a content marketing journey, our key agenda is to create offerings for readers who get attracted to the brand’s offerings. Whether we do this subtly or in an overtly promotional manner depends on the brand’s requirements. In both cases, the idea is to think what content is highly relevant to prospects and customers, and then deliver it in the format they are most likely to consume it. So what’s the magical content formula of content creation that attracts paying customers? Here are five key elements that go into it. 1. Write content that solves their problem No matter what the customer base, they are likely to have a problem area for which your product is the perfect solution. If they like to travel, a travel itinerary with an ‘exact match’ peer review is a great way to see which package someone is more likely to buy. This content is not easy to find. It takes a lot of research to put together content that a user will relate to, based on his life stage, family size, income, age and a mix of other factors. And that’s what makes it ‘sales-clinching’ content. Such content is generally used to subtly introduce the brand to the customer and nudge him to explore more about the solution. Once the customer buys the concept, it is easy to create hooks that can get him to fill a lead form or directly line up for your sales. How to do this Conduct online or offline customer research to understand customer pain points and create different customer journeys on the basis of the problem you propose via your content. It can be content on the website, emailer, SMS, lead form, social media or a blog. To carry forward the above example, conduct a survey to see what millennials look for when traveling v/s what someone in their early 40s with children in tow looks for. If each of these segments receive an itinerary reviewed by their peers, they are likely to find it more relevant to their life stage and travel preference. It may be the nudge they need to book the package with you. 2. Content extrapolating reviews and testimonials Reviews and testimonials are a tricky part to handle for a marketer. Its authenticity is considered only if it comes from a third party source. For example, you probably wouldn’t pay too much attention to a positive review shown on a product’s own website. But if you were to see the same review on Amazon, you might consider buying the product. Similarly, you might give more weight to a video review where you can see real consumers talk about using the product. A balanced review that highlights the good and some bad is more trustworthy than many overwhelmingly positive reviews. How to do this The first task is to understand third-party review sources for your product. See the most valuable channel that is driving sales. Once you have a couple of channels, you can use API integration or plugins to pull these reviews and show them on your website directly, that too along with the third party attribution. The second way is to go after your existing customers and chase the happy ones to give you a video testimonial. Using this to attract prospects adds credibility to your product offering. From an SEO perspective, create a blog that collates all this with links pointing to actual reviews. This blog can be optimized for the keyword “<<product/brand name>> reviews” keyword, giving you an advantage for ranking in search, with positive Content. 3. Offer a valuable piece of content in a timely manner Often, customers are wary of making an upfront investment in your product, especially one that is of high-value. They would like to start with a sampling to nudge them into the decision-making mode. Besides, who doesn’t like a freebie? How to do this People don’t want to give the really good part for free, but hey, if it is really good, it will attract customer attention. In case you have a recipe e-Book kindle version, give away one of your prized-possession recipes and it is bound to get everyone’s attention. Many e-book and online course sellers have found this strategy to be highly effective. What’s more, offer your products gift-wrapped during the holiday season and it is bound to get a whole new level of reception. 4. Ask your existing customers to create content that can attract new customers Have you seen some of the little millionaires of YouTube enthusiastically reviewing toys, or those reviewing everything from cell phones to carpet cleaners? It’s obvious that people are hooked to the concept of watching others use a product and share their review. You can ask influencers to review your product which is likely to attract attention from paying customers. The other option is to incentivize positive behavior like sharing on social media which will add to the visibility. 5. Create comparison content to show superiority Common human behavioral science makes your search on different websites before deciding what to buy. But what if you initiate the answer even before they ask? When a comparison is available in a controlled environment like your own website, it may be accepted with bias. But if you have third-party syndication to push this, it can be one of the most important pieces of content that drive conversions. For example, if customers think of your product being heavy on investment, having an independent financial website or daily do a comparative review will create a perception of credibility. Even long after the article is published, it can be a piece of content that your sales team carries with it to convince and clinch a customer. Conclusion The format for content consumption may not be a decisive customer driving factor, but it definitely plays a role in getting traction. Blogs that rank well in key searches can improve your overall SEO value and drive incremental organic traffic
[Video] 11 SEO copywriting tricks you must understand if you want your content to work
When we hear the term SEO copywriting, we think that its main objective is to make sure that the content ranks well in search engines. And that’s why often the content creators get too caught up with ever-changing search engine algorithms, rankings and generating traffic and forget that the real essence lies in creating compelling content. The reader is the most important element in this process and should always be the focus while creating content. See, at the end of the day, high ranking and volume of traffic won’t matter if the visitors on the webpage are not buyers or potential buyers. Similarly, the purpose of coming up with rock solid content is failed if no one is able to find it on search engines. Good SEO copywriting is the solution as it helps your content reach your target audience without the need of spending a fortune on paid advertising. So, here are 11 SEO copywriting tricks that will help you leave a mark on your readers with quality content while also elevating your search engine rankings. Want to read more check the curated list below. [Video] 8 steps guide to Good Content [Video] Why Exactly Should You Do Content Marketing And How? Different Ways Your Business Can Use Videos To Its Advantage 8 easy ways to spike up the engagement rate of your content
Copy v/s content – what you should be doing for the blog
“The customer is not stupid. She is your wife.” That quote from the grand ol’ daddy of advertising pretty much settles the debate on how you should be communicating with your customers. Whether you do it via your blog or advertising, the rule remains the same. Which means, whether you do it via copywriting for your ads and marketing material or content writing on your blog and website, you need to keep the basic etiquette on creating crisp content that is closely linked with the end result you want to drive. The difference between copy and content writing Copywriting, as wiki, describes, it the art of writing marketing content that is persuasive enough to drive your customers to take action. Content writing is the art of writing content on websites and other marketing avenues to promote specific products. This extends to also all steps that are the means to the end like educating your customers, creating awareness, building your brand, sharing stories, writing on your websites, blogs, building on testimonials and some more. So, how are these different? The long and short of it is simply that copy is short and content is long form. Copy is mostly thought by the industry in the sense of writing for advertising. If this extends to the website, it may involve some additional writing to drive home the point. Usually, the call to action is clear and immediate. It is also likely to be structured around a single campaign or cause. Unless these are long-standing commercials, the brand will want to increase leads and sales through advertising in addition to build recall. An additional interesting part of copywriting is that though you write it for mass consumption, you address it to make it relevant to the one reader reading it at a time for it to be effective. Last but not the least, copy in its many formats like Brand Taglines, jingles, sound cues (sensory branding) and even celebrity speak is intended to make a big impact with fewer words. Content writing is like a story you read down a meandering path where you are likely to find a solution to a problem you may have. You may ‘stumble upon’ a piece of content after you searched for the topic on Google. While content to is written with the clear intention of driving CTAs, people are more likely to discover similar stories and consume it before determining their action about a particular topic. Copywriting is used both online and offline. It is in ATL and BTL communication and is customized as per the language and interests per month. Content writing is mainly restricted to online unless you are counting advertorials as content. Is either one better than the other? Not really, you need a good use of both to make your strategy complete. For example, you could read a few blogs, watch a few videos and then some more while planning for your vacation. But when you are ready, you are likely to click on an ad that is offering the package and sharing the price up front. So how do you create a good mix of both? Mix copy and content for your blog Copywriting works as a great pull to draw attention in bursts. For example, while your blog may have great content writing, the title needs to be written with the precision of a copy writer selling an FMCG product. Clutter breaking titles for blogs and web pages are often the make or break point between consumed and non-consumed content. So you see, a blog is, in fact, a great use case where copy and content writing skills are required in equal measures. The process of coming up with click-worthy titles are similar to creating the USP for the product. Compelling words, irresistible call to actions that make you want to click right now and read is the exact intent of copywriting. There are plenty of case studies on how sites like BuzzFeed have nailed it and caused us to click and scroll through a lot more content than we intended on cat photos and sports fails. The other use case of mixing copy and content for your blog is when you want to create a single line in between the content that breaks the clutter and keeps the engagement going. These are often ‘tweetable bites’ of content that even work for other social media. The third use case of mixing copy and content for your blog comes when you want to share it across channels. Imagine that you are a travel company which has conducted a survey on the travel trends in India and is ready with a report. You’ll have to pull a good insight from the report and do some copywriting to ensure your Facebook readers check out the report. At the same time, you’ll have to write a different copy for Linkedin which brings you out as key player in the industry. You can create multiple one-line insights for tweet bites which can be shared across time zones to ensure maximum reach. Does it work vice versa? Sure does. From real estate to financial products, the attractive headline copy can get your foot in the door but you need content to ensure that when people want to know more, they aren’t left with a call center number to call. You ad copy is most likely redirect users to a website where content does the actual talking to sell. Last but not the least, you need content to be found There is no better reason to raise the content marketing services flag than the fact that Google recognizes quality content. If done right, it gets you link love and puts you right in front of the people. Campaigns with good copy can be done with a frequency cap but good content is always on. You know, they are lying in that job description When you read about a content writer job these days, they talk about
How small organizations can join the video marketing craze?
We’ve generally seen startups and SMEs all thrilled when it comes to digital marketing as it offers quick and tangible results. But a lot of them shy away when we suggest video marketing. The term invokes a budget, production, and execution worry which stops most people from exploring it as an option. Believe us, we are here to change that. Video marketing is not complicated and need not be expensive if you have a clear vision. The benefits of using it are exponential without a doubt. The very fact that YouTube has more than 1B users and is experiencing a 50% YoY increase in the number of hours people watch videos is a big indicator that you need to communicate to your customers in their preferred medium of consumption. If you haven’t tried video marketing yet or started off really small and want to expand, here are some of the things you can try. Types of videos Introductory videos It is hard to understand the superpower booster of a vacuum cleaner when you just say it in words or show pictures. You need a video that can do justice to the product you are selling. Similarly, if you are offering a service that helps people rent houses but also demonstrate that you do it better than all the other people in the market, doing a video can be much better than pages filled with text and pictures. There are many such examples where an introductory product video is simply necessary. And you never know, the first video may just be the last one you need. Take Chat Books for example. The popular introductory video which was an instant hit with mothers currently has over 16M views catapulted the product subscriptions too. Another video that we simply cannot miss mentioning here is the introductory video for Dollar shave club. The video that left its audience in splits also gave the company the visibility it needed to get customers to try it out. Animations While the above videos work well, they also involve a budget with actor and production costs. If you don’t want to start off with a big bang, you can go for quick animation explainer video that can make your complex product proposition look simple. Animation videos mostly have your customer as the protagonist, first shown facing the problem. Then comes your brand to save the world (among other things) making your customer super happy. Check out the Mint videos here which is a classic example of an animation introduction video. You can also see the Spotify video here, which is well made one that is quick and easy to understand. Besides the call to action is so clear that it makes you instantly want to try the product out. There are many freelancers and startups who can make animation videos for as low as INR 3000 / min. So, you see, it isn’t expensive at all to get started. All you need a great idea and script to get started. UGC videos In a day and age where everyone with a smartphone can be a video marketer, you can potentially have hundreds of brand ambassadors talk about your brand. UGC videos are really the new word of mouth campaigns where all need to do is delight your customers and give them the ability to express it. Customers are keen to talk about their experience with your product or service if you delight them. Many even do it without you asking. They review your products or share an experience with your service just like that. The important thing is to then ensure you find them, appreciate their efforts and celebrate them as a hero by sharing their content. If you don’t have customers doing it on their own, just create an ask. Once you do, wait for all the content that comes in and stitch it together for the world to see. Take some of the videos here. The Coca-cola campaign is especially a great example of the potential of such videos. Closer to home, you can see HolidayIQ holidayiq.com do a great job of catching reviews as videos with a smart app that detects where you are before you can do the destination review. Testimonials Testimonials that are in the form of text generally have very less credibility. Anyone can write “I totally flipped over when I used xyz’s Microwave oven.”. – John Doe Instead, have a customer speak about it adds a lot more credibility. Customers aren’t staged actors so the connect with fellow customers is very real. More importantly, these videos don’t cost an arm and leg. Just be nice with “thoughtful thank yous” (which means a nice product hamper could be well received). Influencer videos We all like customers, but we also tend to be attracted towards the better-looking customers who happen to be liked by 20,000 other people. Influencer videos can also be created on the barter system in some cases involving actual payment. But the reach for these videos automatically tends to give the visibility velocity which is much needed. The final impact of an influencer video is debatable, though. A lot of so-called influencers are in the business of collecting goodies and shortchanging brands with no real marketing impact to show. The most important consideration here is that you are clear on your end goal with such videos and can show measurable outcomes. Insider videos You can sum up a bunch of brand showcase videos in this category which is again fairly low on production costs. These can be employee videos, culture videos and behind the scene videos. Just to elaborate, culture videos showcase a slice of how you do business. It can be about your company’s bent towards social activities or the amazing time your employees are having and raving about. Another type of insider videos is ‘expert videos’ where senior and preferably well-known people
How social listening can help with SEO
When you log in to your brand’s social account, you encounter an environment of virtual noise and chatter. If you are on social, ‘hearing’ happens by default – where you see and hear everything around you to an extent that you have awareness about the most important topics and conversations. Listening, on the other hand, is an activity that requires your attention and concentration. It means you understand the sentiments behind the statements and get into a position where you are responding and not reacting. Social listening is done for multiple purposes. It is to identify brand advocates and dissuader. It is to get feedback that you didn’t actively ask for. It is to know the questions that prospects have in mind about your product or services. But one of the most important reasons to do it is from an Online Reputation Management and SEO perspective. It is important to listen to your fans and haters and respond to both and turn the brand around for the better. Here are some reasons how social listening is good for your SEO game with Google 1. Social conversations feature in search results Search isn’t what it used to be ten years back. Earlier you could search for ‘Mumbai hotel’ and get a list of hotels in Mumbai in your search result. Today you are more likely to type “Reviews for top hotels in Mumbai” and get answers from social chatter, Tripadvisor, Mouthshut and video walk-through and reviews on YouTube. Other conversations about your brand could be happening on blogs and social forums. While you don’t have control over what’s being posted, listening to these are important as you need to ensure that the sentiment is largely positive. If needed, you’ll need to nudge the conversations to get desired results. 2. Being responsive to social queries shows Google you are active and that you care Google loves fresh content, and so do we. You might have an answer on Quora which is a year old but if it still getting upvoted, Google thinks of it as fresh content. This is one of the main reasons, negative content takes ages to subside. The only way to tackle this is to have a constant onslaught of fresh, original content and upvotes which can pump up the positivity in the search results. 3. You can use social chatter to create your own FAQs and rank well A lot of social chatter is around queries people have about your product or services. They could also be about the pain points around your product and how you can improve. It is great to get some impromptu feedback too. Once you identify a pattern based on your customer’s user journey, you can pin down their frequently asked questions and give them answers straight on your website. After optimization, your own page is likely to rank for your customer’s FAQ and it can help tremendously to mould their opinion about you. 4. It allows discovery of new keywords to optimize People often don’t talk in the same language that brands envision them to. Your customers may be using short forms, similar words and even hashtags to describe your product and their thoughts around it. Once you identify these words, you can add them to your SEO keyword list. Plug them into a tool like Ubersuggest and it’ll be a sure fire way find out if these are isolated cases or a part of the frequent chatter around your products. 5. It’s a great source to identify potential link websites As you track and monitor your brand on third party websites, it can help you identify influencers and content creators who could be potential sources for links. You can identify the people in the conversation and approach them as potential link building partners. They are already vested in your product. Asking them for their opinion via reviews, guest blogs or focus groups can make them feel that the brand is willing to listen to their opinion. This empowerment automatically nudges them to become brand advocates. In fact, even linkless brand mentions are also potential SEO gold. 6. Get a forecast on topic trends Listening allows you to focus on your customer’s or prospects’ current area of interest. As the conversation changes, you’ll need to make slight adjustments to your product’s brand strategy. For example, until a few years back, people thought of vacations as a list of places to visit and things to do. Today, the conversation is increasingly about ‘travel’ instead of tourism and ‘experiences to consume’ instead of ‘sights to see’. Identifying this trend has now made many destination management companies to re-word their offering according to what their potential customers are looking for. Airbnb’s experiences is a great example of how a brand in the travel industry has created a whole new economy based on this emerging trend. 7. It helps to identify your competitors SEO strategy Your competitors could be eavesdropping on your conversations online, just like you are spying on them. Some could even potentially hijack conversations. Take this instance where users are asking about products on Craftsvilla but Go4Ethnic, their competitor is trying to grab user attention hitching a ride on the question. Social listening is also about monitoring the chatter about your competitors, identify their influencer, and track and understand their strategy. It’ll ensure you can maintain the lead in your customer’s social visibility. While we’ve given a lot of pointers on the positive effects of social on SEO, not doing it right can result in lost SEO visibility and traffic. Here are some of the potential downfalls you should avoid in your social strategy so that your SEO isn’t affected. a. Not posting enough engaging content New content indicates freshness. Content that is engaged with (liked, commented on and shared) shows that you are resonating with your audience. Both of these are SEO signals that overall contribute to your content ranking higher. b. Not posting on G+ We know that G+ isn’t
Social Media Tools: The 5 types to help you become a better marketer
Having a presence on social media is no longer a choice for businesses. It is a way to make sure you connect and engage with your customers, up the game on your competitors and continue to attract prospects. While it is one of the most exciting jobs out there, with great power comes great responsibilities. Social marketers need to be cued in on the hundreds of little changes that popular platforms keep throwing at us every day. From changing interfaces to new algorithms to new formats, we have to be quick on the uptake of what’s in trend and how to leverage it for the brands we manage. We also don’t have a real opportunity to stay away from the job – in daylight and dark, in sickness and health, at work and during vacations… Thankfully, there are a few kind souls out there who double up as brilliant marketers, tech specialists and designers who build tools to make our lives easy. Many of these tools are nothing short of a lifeline for us who have to manage multiple accounts and busy schedules. Here are the 5 types of tools you should be having in your arsenal. 1. Tools that help curate / discover content While a big part of social involves sharing brand content, it also involves sharing content in general that your audience enjoys. Hunting for shareable content is rabbit hole that most social marketers fear, unless you set the clock and focus. Here are some tools that help you find what you are looking for, quickly and efficiently. a. Hootsuite Hootsuite has been around in the market long enough to adapt through iterations of content discovery for today’s users. From tracking mentions to competitors to the industry in general, Hootsuite gives a sensible dashboard to curate and track simultaneously. b. Buzzsumo Buzzsumo is one of the perfect curation tools out there. You not only get to see the most shared and trending content, but also the medium where it is shared and who is sharing it. And the info about backlinks is invaluable. It is, by far, the one content dashboard we can’t do without. c. Pocket Keep bumping into great content as you surf the web. Put them in your ‘pocket’ app and it’ll be available on your phone or computer even if you don’t have a connection. Pocket integrates with over 1500 apps and is available of most major platforms. d. Feedly We can’t end our list without Feedly. It is the most popular RSS and blog reader in the world. Save content from websites, blogs and Youtube channels in one place for distraction-free reading. A lot of Feedly is free but the paid version is worth a try if you do this full time for a living. 2. Tools that help with scheduling While social media marketers are generally a sleep-deprived lot, some tools have made the journey of being one slightly easy. Scheduling posts for the future allows you to get the basic tasks out of the way and be more prepared for daily firefighting exercises. Here are the tools you can try. Buffer Buffer is our in-house go-to tool when it comes to scheduling. Ease of use, multi-platform support and analytics makes this an indispensable tool for social media marketers. Sprout Social Sprout social is a sort of an all-round social tool that does many things like monitoring, engagement, reporting and scheduling. Nonetheless, it is a tool worth considering Later: Later is one of those tools that can especially work well with Instagram. It is great for visual content as it has real-time post previews, hashtag curation and analytics that help track and optimize. CoSchedule The one additional value that CoSchedule brings to the table is that it integrates with your company blog and allows you to publish content and push it on social simultaneously. 3. Tools that help with listening/monitoring Listening to social, putting out fires and keeping the positivity around the brand going is a full-time job – that of an online reputation manager. ORM is often a specialty within social whose main job is to keep their ears to the ground and more importantly respond and not react. Here are the tools that help you do it a. Talkwalker Talkwalker is a conversation monitoring tool that works very well with Hootsuite. Install these two tools to instantly tag, assign and monitor mentions. It does all this and more. b. Reputology If your customers are all over the web talking about you, chances are that you’ll have to be where they are. Reputology checks major review sites like Yelp, Google, and Facebook and responds to reviews in a timely manner. c. Streamview for Instagram Being one of the fastest growing media on social, it is important to keep track of your customers and prospects on Instagram. Streamview can monitor posts by location, hashtag or username. d. Crowd analyzer If audiences are global, you need a tool that can work on the global level too. Crowd analyzer is useful if you have audiences in the middle east. The arabic-focused social monitoring platform monitors social networks, blogs and forums for relevancy, dialect and sentiment. 4. Tools that give stats With so much everyday juggling, it is important for us to not lose our focus on the end goal of our social efforts. As such, brands measure the ROI of social with metrics like reach, engagement, traffic, leads and even conversions. Without the right analytics tools, you won’t have an informed way to analyse the past, make future plans and show what your efforts are worth. a. Followerwonk FollowerWonk is a must-have tool for Twitter. Add your handle and you’ll know who’s following you, how much authority do they have and help you nurture your influencers. b. Google Analytics Good ol’ GA is still very much in the game when it comes to social. GA is perfect to track the traffic you get from different social channels of the same platform (paid
How to Write for SEO in 2018 and Achieve Staggering Results
In 1996, Bill Gates coined the phrase ‘content is king’, though this was hardly true in the early days of the internet. In fact, up until past few years, one could still write ordinary content, artificially stuff it with keywords, throw some Web 2.0 links and still sleepwalk their way to the first page of Google. It was a time when content farms, private blog networks, and blackhat SEO experts made hay in the sunshine of Google. Those times are now over. Google in 2018 is very different from Google in 2000, 2010, or even 2015 for that matter. Rapid advancements in machine learning and continuous algorithm updates have ensure that Google has now become incredibly good at recognizing and rewarding an extraordinary piece of content. And the famous words of Bill Gates have now finally found their rightful place as the gospel truth of internet. In 2018, the fate of most businesses depends, on their ability to create content which is good enough to consistently rank on the first page of Google. What You Need to Know while Writing for SEO in 2018 1. Write for Humans — and not for Google Google wants you to write content that provides value to the audience. It doesn’t want you to use tricks to impress the bot. Period. A page with an unnaturally high keywords density is not going to help anymore. An overly optimized page stuffed with keywords can even attract a penalty from Google. Mentioning the keyword in the title, description, heading, few times in the introductory paragraph is perfectly fine, but don’t go overboard in your quest to convey relevancy to Google. Write in a language that is engaging and easy to understand. According to Google’s official statements, around 60% of searches are now happening on mobile, where people often read on the go, sometimes even while multitasking. This makes it even more important to write in a conversational tone. You don’t need to display your Harvard academic writing skills on the internet, unless of course, you are writing for the Harvard Business Review itself. Write in a way that holds the attention of your audience, brings them delight, and provides actionable advice. Better writing is going to significantly increase the average time spent per visit on your website, which is understood as an extremely important ranking factor, something that has been proven through a study published on wordstream. Write a stellar opening paragraph You have written an in-depth, well-researched piece of content, but the opening few lines of the article are not good enough to hold the attention of the user. Guess what? You have lost the user already. Simply put, your in-depth article can’t move the needle without an even better opening paragraph. Bounce rate is seen as an important ranking factor by Google, and there is no way to beat it without great content, even if your website loads in nanoseconds and has a terrific visual design. This becomes incredibly important in a world with perennially decreasing attention spans, multi-tasking and an endless supply of content. So how do you write a stellar opening paragraph? Study how the best writers on the web do it. John Morrow from Copyblogger is a great example to follow. Write, Edit, Edit ….. until you hit a complete mental block. Take a break, come back and repeat the process. This is one way to do it. Or hire a top-notch writer with a proven track record 2. It’s Time to Write Long In-depth Posts Instead of writing 20 thin pieces of content that don’t take you anywhere, it is better to write that ‘1 epic piece of content’ that can become the go-to source on the internet for that topic. Not convinced yet? Read on … Brian Dean from Backlinko first coined the term — ‘Skyscraper post’ for an article that is supposed to be 10 times better than the next best article on the web for the same topic. The Skyscraper Post is a sure shot approach to get into the top results of Google, even for a highly competitive keyword. Now, how does one write an article which is 10 times better than the next best piece of content? Let’s say, you see an article titled ‘10 Ways to Beat Anxiety’ ranking amongst the top 3 results in Google for its relevant keyword. And it seems to be a well-researched and fairly well-written article. Now, let’s assume, your goal is to rank above it. Don’t write something that is just incrementally better. How about writing an article titled ‘101 Ways to Beat Anxiety’? Of course, it’s not just about the number of points. The article should also include in-depth description along with each point, eye-catching images, expert quotes, research-backed data etc. It’s almost like writing a well-researched, multimedia-rich eBook and publishing it on the web as a single article. And soon you could find your place amongst the top results on Google, sometimes even without massive outreach efforts. Realistically, it’s not always possible to write something as comprehensive as the above example. Nevertheless, the principle still remains the same. The effort you may want to put in a specific article could be directly proportional to the search volume, competition and commercial value of that keyword for your business. But if you want to shoot for the moon, go for it by all means, for there is a definitely proven way to do it. Why does this approach work so well? A truly ‘epic’ piece of content is likely to work favorably on SEO for several different reasons. An in-depth piece of content could rank for hundreds, or even thousands of similar keywords apart from the primary keyword you are targeting. Such a piece of content is likely to perform as an outlier in terms of on-page factors such as organic CTR, bounce rate, average time spent per visit. All these factors are understood to significantly improve ranking prospects. An epic piece of