How to improve Google page speed score

We live in impatient times. Deadlines are set for yesterday and success and gratification has to be instant. In such an age, it’s vital for you to make sure people don’t need to wait long while the pages of your website load. This is because web page speed plays a crucial role in the success of your digital campaign. Below are some facts that will shed light on how important web page speed is.

1. A delay of one second in your site speed can result in a 7% reduction in conversions/enquiries
2. 40% of your website visitors will abandon your website if it takes more than 3 seconds to load
3. The ideal time for your website to load is immediate but the ceiling is set at 2 seconds.

Well, now that how important web page speed is put to bed, let’s talk about how we can fix it.

Your first step should be to figure how fast the pages of your website are loading. To accomplish this, you can use Google Web Page Speed Tool. The tool provides a web page speed report and also gives suggestions on how to improve the page speed. Your Page Speed Score ranges from 0 to 100 points for mobile and desktop. A score of 85 and above is considered healthy and tells you that the pages are loading just in time.

Now, let’s delve a little deeper.

The Google Web Page Speed Insight tool provides a report that has three types of messages: red exclamation point, yellow exclamation point and green check mark. Here’s what they mean.

1. A red exclamation point means that fixing the problem will have a measurable impact on page performance
2. A yellow exclamation point means that you should consider fixing the problem if it’s not a lot of work
3. A green check mark means things are fine

Below are Important Parameters of web page speed and ways to improvise it.

Enable compression / minify CSS / Optimize images
When you run the Insight Test on Google Web Page Tool it offers optimized images, JS and CSS resources in the report. Download and replace the existing images, JS and CSS.

Leverage browser caching
To set the expiration date to various files you need to add the below code in the. httaccess file:
## EXPIRES CACHING ##
ExpiresActive On
ExpiresByType image/jpg "access 1 year"
ExpiresByType image/jpeg "access 1 year"
ExpiresByType image/gif "access 1 year"
ExpiresByType image/png "access 1 year"
ExpiresByType text/css "access 1 month"
ExpiresByType application/pdf "access 1 month"
ExpiresByType application/x-javascript "access 1 month"
ExpiresByType application/x-shockwave-flash "access 1 month"
ExpiresByType image/x-icon "access 1 year"
ExpiresDefault "access 2 days"
## EXPIRES CACHING ##

AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/text text/html text/plain text/xml text/css application/x-javascript application/javascript

Avoid landing page redirects
Having too many redirects causes significant performance and speed issues. It’s recommended that you restrict your use of redirects to only those cases where it is absolutely technically necessary. You can check for redirects on your pages by using the redirect mapper tool.

Optimize CSS Delivery
For your webpage to load faster its preferable to have a single CSS File. The reasoning is quite straightforward. The more the number of files, the more time the webpage will take to load. However, if you do have more than one CSS file, you need not worry. Just go ahead and combine all your CSS files into a single file. And, to figure out how many CSS files you have, use the CSS Delivery Tool.

Best way to choose keywords for seo

If search engines brought your consumer to your city, SEO brought them to your neighbourhood. However, nobody wants their consumer loitering in the neighbourhood. You want your consumer right at your doorstep, ready to talk shop with you. Achieving this last stage depends on how good your SEO is. The success of any good SEO depends on keywords. If you get the keyword combination right, you’re very easily traceable on a search engine. Which means your phone is just about to ring.

So, how do you get these keywords right? Selection of keywords is something that depends on your objective. Broadly speaking there are three objectives consumers and organisations have. They are:

1. Traffic Generation
2. Enquiry Generation
3. Brand Awareness/Brand Engagement
 

Traffic Generation
If you want a lot of people to visit your website, you are looking for traffic generation. In this scenario, you require keywords that have huge tracking volumes. However, you have to be careful not to include too competitive keywords as these are difficult to rank and take a lot of time. Let’s say, you’re selling popcorn. If you want people to find you, don’t choose the keyword popcorn alone. Add cheese to it as well. Now, if somebody is looking for cheese popcorn, the person/organisation can find you.

Enquiry Generation 
If you’re looking to generate enquiries, then you need to add some more specificity to your keyword bank. In such a case, keywords have to match your needs even if volumes are low. Let’s say, you’re looking to generate enquiries for your popcorn brand, you should also add the cost for a tub of your popcorn.

Brand Awareness/Brand Engagement
If you’re looking to create brand awareness or engage your consumers, you should shortlist keywords related to your brand. So, if your brand promise is ‘popcorn that melts in your mouth’, you can use keywords such as Word of caution: go for keywords only if your brand has a good presence online and offline because if you your brand is not present in both media, searches will lead to a dead end, something that will end up being counterproductive.

Keyword Tool
The next step is selecting the right Keyword Tool for keyword research. It’s a good idea to go for Google Keyword Tool as it offers a huge database, gives you keyword ideas and also doesn’t charge you. Other Popular Keyword tools are SEM Rush, Moz, KWfinder, Long tail Pro, and ubersuggest.

SEO Domain Migration

In some cases, organisations may need to migrate their old website (old domain) to a new website (new domain). This process of seo domain migration can result in loss of organic traffic to the website. As organic traffic is a critical factor in the success of any website, it is imperative that it be unaffected. We have enlisted below certain steps that can be undertaken to ensure that the organic traffic keeps flowing just like before.

SEO domain migration phase before launching your New website

Meta Tags
Migrate the Meta Tags form the old webpages to the corresponding new webpages. In case any webpage is missing Meta Tags in the new domain, then create new Meta Tags for the same.

Google Analytics Tracking Code
While migrating to the new domain do check if the Google Analytics Code has been inserted in the new website.

Broken Links
Once the website is live you can use XENU Broken Links tool to check if there are any Broken Links in your website. If you come across any, do make the necessary changes.

H1 – H6 Tags
Check if all the necessary H1 – H6 Tags are present on all the webpages.

Canonical URL
Google Treats www and non-www version as different websites, so make sure you redirect to one of the version using .htaccess file. Also, add relevant Canonical Meta Tags in all web pages.

301 Redirects
Redirect old webpages to corresponding new webpages using .htaccess file.

Mobile-friendly
With more and more users using smartphones to surf, it’s crucial that you have a  Mobile- friendly website. You can use the Mobile Friendly Tool to test your website.

404 Error Page
“Error 404 - Page not found!” is the error page displayed whenever someone surfs for a webpage that’s simply not available on your website. In that case, you can create a 404 error web page and redirect the user to home page.

SEO domain migration phase post launch your new website.

Google Webmaster
Inform Google that you have shifted your business website domain.
Follow the below-listed process.

1. Sign-in into Google Webmaster Tool
2. Go to the Search Console
3. Create a Profile for your New Domain
4. Now select the Old Domain
5. Click on the Settings Tab in Old Domain Tab (wheel icon on upper right hand side)
6. Click Change of Address
7. Submit it to Google

Sitemap.xml
After the website is live, create a sitemap.xml file using xml generator and upload on the root folder i.e. www.newdomain.com/sitemap.xml
Follow the below-listed process.

1. Sign-in into Google Webmaster
2. Select the Domain
3. Click Crawl on the left hand side
4. Click Sitemaps and then submit sitemap.xml

Robots.txt
Use Robots.txt file if you don’t want Search Engines to crawl any specific webpages of the website. You can use the Robots.txt File Generator tool to create the Robots File. Upload the Robots.txt file on the Root Folder www.newdomain.com/robots.txt

Enquiry Form
Do test if all your Enquiry Forms and Call to Actions are working fine and whether you have the conversion code in place for the Thank You Page.

Off Page Optimization
If you have maintained a Record of all the Off-Page activities that you have done for the old website, then it’s time that you change the domain address in those websites, wherever possible.

If you are not tech savvy, it’s better to hire an SEO Company as they are well-versed with the SEO Migration.

On-Page SEO Trends

Search Engines aren’t static. They’re constantly being honed and reinvented. As such, what was relevant yesterday might be redundant today. To make sure your website’s SEO keeps working for you, you have to keep track of the changing scenarios.

Not very long ago, it was enough for you to optimise your website by completing basic On-page Optimisation - Meta Tags for each page, h1 - h6 tags, Alt Tags for images, checking Broken Links, etc. However, that’s not the case anymore. The Search Engine canvas has seen some prominent changes in 2017. These developments have improved the quality of the results produced by search engines. To keep with the times, you need to incorporate these changes in your website. To know what exactly they are, how will they benefit your business and tools you need to incorporate them, read on.

Accelerated Mobile Pages

Web surfers aren’t a very patient bunch. On an average, they expect your website to open under 3 seconds. If it does not, 40% of them will abandon it. As a businessperson wanting to their business to grow, this is the last thing you’d want. To help you deal with this problem, search engines have come up with a technology called AMP HTML. This technology allows websites to build light-weight web pages. As the web pages are light, they load faster and prevent your consumer from rushing to your competitor’s page. The best part is that incorporating it is really simple. All you need to do is change the way your HTML code is written.

Advantages

1. Increased web page speed for mobile sites.
2. Better mobile user-interaction experience.
3. Especially useful for publishers where revenue is generated from banners.

Useful Tools

AMP Learning Tool: Learn how to create AMP web pages
AMP Testing Tool: Testing Tool by Google

Structured Data Mark-up
Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Yandex have sponsored schema.org. Schema.org is a collaborative, community activity whose mission is to create, maintain, and promote schemas for structured data on the Internet. Using the schema vocabulary and formats such as Micro-Data, JSON-LD and RDF you can add structured data to your web pages. The structured Data Mark-up will help search engines return more informative results related to your website. Alternatively you can use the Data Highlighter tool by Google webmaster where you need not make any changes in your HTML you simply “tag” data field with your mouse.

Advantages:

1. The Structured Data Mark will help search engine crawlers distinguish the content in the web page. For example, you have written an article on apple, the fruit, and not the company. In this case, the search engines could interpret it both as fruit or the company. However, by employing Structured Data Mark-up Code you can inform the search engine that it's a fruit.


2. Structured Data Mark also helps in adding rich snippets and other features to your search result e.g., the search snippet for a hotel might show its average review and price range.


3. As Users are shown Key information related to your business right in search results (reviews/pricing/upcoming events) the Click through rate (CTR) for organic traffic improves drastically.

Useful Tools:

Google Structured Data Tool : For testing the Structured Data
Schema Creator : Helps you create Structured Data

​​  

Security (https)
Search engines, especially Google, give better ranking to websites that have a secure connection, i.e., HTTPS websites. This ranking especially applies to industries where online transactions occur, e.g., e-commerce websites, banking websites, payment gateways, etc.

Advantages:

1. Your ranking improves when your website ensures that the data keyed in by the consumer is secure from theft.


2. This increases your brand trust and credibility – 30% users look for Green Bar (https connection) before proceeding with a transaction.

Useful Tools: 

1. SSL Certificate Comparison and Review: Provides information about certificate authorities and reviews

Example:

​​

Mobile- responsive websites

There were more than 371 million users in India by June 2016. More users are using mobile phones than desktops to surf the Internet; therefore, it’s imperative for you to have a mobile responsive website.

Advantages:

1. Good user-experience on smart phones.
2. In the longer term, search engines will eventually use the mobile version of a website’s content to rank pages from that site.

Useful Tools:

Mobile-friendly testing tool

Example:

We’re sure you’ve got a hang of the above tools and how you can create more traction for your business using them. Besides adopting the above SEO technologies, we also recommend that you be alert about the new SEO technologies that are constantly emerging. This will help you make the most of your presence on the web and keep your business growing.

What every business owner must know about Digital Marketing

Digital Marketing is one of the most used terms of the industry today. However, it is sadly just a bunch of jargon for most of the people who hear it and use it to convey their mind. What exactly is digital marketing and what part of it is essential for today’s business person? We’re here to break it down for you in the simplest words possible.

Digital Marketing is simply marketing of your product or service onto digital platforms so as to hold onto your loyal consumers as well as increase your reach to new potential target audience swiftly.

That is it. That is what digital marketing is. There are some further questions that need attention to solve your confusion; such as:

1. Is digital marketing the same as social media marketing?

The answer is yes. Digital marketing is a wider concept as compared to social media marketing in the sense that, all social media platforms are available digitally i.e. via the internet. However, there are other platforms that come under digital marketing other than social media marketing.

1. What are the concepts and platforms of digital marketing?

The search engines that we use to search our queries and requirements are in themselves a humungous platform for digital marketing. This concept is called “Search Engine Marketing” or SEM.

Search Engine Marketing is marketing of your product on search engines such as Google and Bing by Yahoo. This platform  is of utmost importance for businesses that are into a B2B industry.

Another concept that comes under the wing of digital marketing is “Search Engine Optimization” or SEO. Search Engine Optimization is a way of developing your website’s content in a way that allows the search engine’s algorithm to crawl and test your website efficiently. It is a way to get higher rankings in the search results on the search engine; helping us to have a better hand at SEM.

SEO is a primary necessity of any and every website owner as it helps you stand out among the sea of websites we see today.

Social Media Marketing is a concept that comprises of campaigns designed to market your product or service on social media platforms such as facebook, twitter, youtube, linkedin, etc. SMM is a great tool when it comes to products that have a B2C segment.

There is an interesting concept called Remarketing in digital marketing which enables us to reach out to the potential consumer base multiple times. It can be seen as following your consumer on various platforms, websites and showing your personalized ad copy to them so as to keep reminding them about their visit to your website.

This also enables us to work on another factor called Consumer Lifetime Value wherein we can increase our reach to existing customers and improve our ROI from these consumers through various practices such as Email Marketing,  Remarketing, Paid adcampaigns, RSS Feeds etc.

However, for a great digital marketing experience, a campaign needs to be developed using all the above mentioned platforms.

1. How is digital marketing different from traditional marketing?

Digital Marketing is cost effective in terms of better reach and results.

Digital Marketing lets you target specific audience based upon demographics, interest and devices.

Digital Marketing gives us factual data that can be statistically analysed. For instance, if a hoarding is marketing your product, you have no clue how many people saw the hoarding, read the content and actually became customers because of that hoarding. However, in Digital marketing, say we run a campaign marketing the same product, we can analyse the data produced by different marketing platforms that can show us how many people saw the product, how many actually became consumers and which consumers came via which of the used platforms. This allows us to find glitches in our campaign and work on it to make it even more action driven.

1. But then should traditional marketing be stopped completely?

Of course not! Traditional marketing, in fact, paired with digital marketing can give results superior than just traditional or digital marketing. However, one thing that people mistake about digital marketing is that it can be done for free. It is true to an extent; however, to get the best results, digital marketing needs to have an independent budget. Money must be set aside to be able to exploit all the opportunities that digital marketing has to offer to your business and its glorious future.

How to create a digital marketing campaign that is result driven?

We have all heard about the enormous results driven by digital marketers for various businesses and public figures. However, more often than not, rookie marketers fail to achieve the results they have aspired for due to simple avoidable mistakes.

Today, we are here to tell you more about how to formulate a strategy that is sure to drive extraordinary results for your business.

TIP 1: Always know your target audience 

Defining your TG is extremely important and a primary requirement before coming up with a digital  marketing strategy because if you are not clear on the people you want to target, your strategy, no matter how creative and well designed, will be ineffective because you won’t be reaching your potential consumer.

One of the major rookie mistakes that a lot of marketers do is to target a broader audience.  I want you to understand that just because we have that as an option, doesn’t mean that is the best option. Instead, it is better to segment your audience based on place, age group, gender and likewise; then have a different campaigns or strategies in place for these segmented audiences.

For instance, if you run an eCommerce portal and sell funky t-shirts, make sure to know exactly who your end consumers are. In this case, it will be college students as well as fandom's of various t.v. shows, superhero fan following, etc. rather than just vaguely targeting 18 to 40 year old.

Focused targeting will allow you to have a cost effective strategy as well as give you a better ROI .

TIP 2: Define a buyer’s persona

Once, we have defined our target audience, we need to make sure that we understand the characteristics of our buyers/potential consumers.

Going further with the above example of eCommerce portal funky shirts; this is the step where you map out a buyer’s persona so as to be able to understand where your potential consumer is going to be on the internet. In our example, these college students, t.v. series fandom's, superhero fan following will be sure to visit websites that discuss latest trends in the youth, websites that discuss fan theories, latest episodes as well as conspiracy theories regarding a newly introduced superhero or a t.v. series that is foremost the most watched by our targeted age group — Game of Thrones t-shirt anyone?

We define buyer’s persona on the following basis:

1. Gender
2. Age
3. Marital status
4. Interests
5. Hobbies
6. Location
7. Lifestyle type
8. Education
9. Family
10. Income
11. Social circle
12. And challenges of life

The above mentioned types of classification may not all be applicable and relevant to your Target Group at once. A combination of them is to be figured out based on the type of product or service you’re providing as well as by walking in the shoes of your consumer so as to predict the answers to the above questions.

TIP 3: Figure out where and how this buyer’s persona can be put to use on the internet

Once, the buyer’s persona is ready, all you have to do is prepare a spreadsheet of all the digital platforms your potential consumer may be visiting online and map out a strategy accordingly.

For instance, you can target Facebook for your funky t-shirt ads along with platforms such as Instagram and tumblr as these platforms grab the attention of just the demographic we’re targeting- college going students who are interested in Game of Thrones and Batman ( Thanks to George Martin and Marvel Studios for that!)

TIP 4: Action Driven Website / Landing Page / Creatives 

Once you have defined a target audience along with segmentation and positioning and launched your digital campaign the Ad Creative / Ad Copies will redirect the potential buyer to a website landing page where all information of the product / services is mentioned. This is where your final conversion happens. If your advertisement is great but you haven’t invested time and effort into your website to create a great user experience, you can lose your clientele at the very last moment due to a compromising user experience. So, it is important to have a great website to support a great digital marketing strategy because in the end, your website is going to be a primary portal for your consumer to communicate with you.

Once the target audience, the buyer persona are figured out along with a dynamic & action driven website, there are enormous opportunities for you to experiment and unleash your creativity; and the results are to be surely driven your way!

Consumer Behaviour on Search Engine

Consumer Cycle:

The following is how a consumer query cycle works.

Problem Recognition --> Information Search--> Comparison ---> Evaluation ---> Purchase

Our job is to make our website stand in front of the consumer at the Information Search stage, Win the battle at the Comparison Stage and help the consumer with appropriate Evaluation so as to finally convert him; leading him to purchasing a service or a product from us!

Below are some keynotes that need a light shedding so as to how consumers surf the Search Engines to make decision.

Consumers have started become impulsive; they want an instant answer to their queries which has led to a surge in utilising Search Engines to find an instant solution. An entire world filled with information and the capabilities to satiate their need at the eleventh most hour is in their pocket, just a few clicks away.

Marketers need to understand that consumers have started becoming more and more impatient, demanding of instant results, instant deliveries and instant knowledge. It can be both challenging and exciting when dealing with this consumer behaviour because it’s these micro moments that are moments of the fastest decision making and if everything is done just right, from targeting the intended consumer to actually reaching the consumer to reducing his effort of satiating his need; he is as good as a conversion.

Traditional advertising will lose muffin points here because Search Engines allows us to accelerate the consumer experience by offering a higher and faster need satisfaction and catering them just what they wanted. This is going to keep evolving and we for sure need to make an effort to keep up with this evolution, so as to win the race and win the consumer.

Mobile is the big thing, desktops are dinosaur :

Indian consumer behavior has shown a drastic rise in the usage of mobile phones when it comes to internet usage and consumption.

According to a newly conducted survey, there are more than 420 million mobile internet users in India. In countries such as the US or the UK, 8 out of 10 people have access to the internet, out of which 45% used their mobile devices; contrasting a whopping 80% of Indian users accessing the internet through their mobile phones.

Google Voice Search Engine App / Google Assistant :

With an increasing number of users transferring to mobile devices than using desktops or even laptops, the voice search option has been gaining popularity in preference to make searches and satiate query needs on search engines. This function is being used more and more by a lot of people because it not only allows the user the ability to not type in the search box, but allows them to multitask while doing so.

Around 8 Indian languages are supported in the Google Voice Search, allowing Indians to use it effectively (even those who aren't well versed with Hindi and English.)

Another amazing feature that is made available by Google is called 'Google Assistant'. This feature allows you to have your own personalized search engine. You can search and know the answers to personal queries such as the status of your flight booking, your friend's birthday, remind you of something important, etc; helping you manage your life effectively! You can try out this feature by visiting the following site:

Accelerated Mobile Pages : 

More than 50% of the users prefer an AMP induced website since most of their searches have started happening on mobile devices.

Another fact that needs to be given weightage is that an accelerated mobile page loads 85% faster than a normal webpage. Due to this fact, search engines give a higher preference to websites that have AMPs while determining their quality score, hence helping in a better organic ranking.

Trust Signals :

Customers are giving a lot of weight-age to reviews in search engines. Whether it’s for checking movie ratings/ product ratings/ service ratings it’s affecting the decision of users. This opportunity window is of importance so as to build credibility of your business online, along with having a loyal and rising customer base.

Location Matters :

Looking for something nearby whether it’s a restaurant, store, a tea shop is a common search done using a Mobile devices, contributing almost 1/3 of all mobile search devices. Therefore marketers need to optimize their website for location based queries. Search engines like google use the location of users based on GPS to deliver appropriate results even if the location isn’t mentioned in the query.

The Trends are clear, people expect relevant and accurate information when they search, also search engines have started using tools like machine learning to deliver relevance based on the consumers surfing behaviour, location and search query. Marketers need to create their SEO and SEM campaigns based upon behaviour changes of the consumer, allowing you to capture their attention in those micro moments when decisions are made at the speed of light.

The early you adopt, better the results. The phrase 'Change is the only constant' couldn't be more happening in any industry as it is in the Digital Marketing Field.

Why do you need an SEO strategy

We’re in a world that is getting increasingly digitized as the days proceed and search engine optimization is one of the primary requirements today. I’m sure you must have figured out that an online presence is a must if you want your business to flourish; since geographical boundaries are losing relevance when it comes to potential customer base.

However, just having a website is not enough either; looking at the fact that almost everyone wants to have a business route online, just like you. This causes digital clutter and makes it hard for your website to be seen / preferred by search engines like google and bing.

However, there is a way to get rid of this problem and to get a better presence on search engines, by reach your potential consumers far more effectively. And one of the major part of that solution is SEO- search engine optimization.

If that is not reason enough to have an effective and well thought SEO strategy in place, here are 5 more reasons that will convince you!

Better reach and lead generation : There has been a hike of 15% to 12% chances in conversion rate as compared to leads generated through outbound marketing. Interruptive marketing is slowly marking its way towards extinction-because consumers hate the interruptions during their leisure time- they aren’t paying attention to what you have to say and they simply aren’t interested. Hence, SEO works best because this time the consumer is looking for your product or service and effectively, when they visit your website/ desired landing page, they will be paying attention to what you have to say about your product or service with a willingness to pursue forward.

But how will they find your website among lakhs of search results provided by Google or Bing?
The answer is- an effective SEO strategy.
A recent data collected by Hubspot shows that 91% of businesses that developed their online presence through SEO saw an immediate rise in their lead generation numbers.

SEO is not cost, its investment : We may observe that even though our keywords trigger some great conversions, we’re not ranking on the first page of google search results. This is as good as leaving money on the table, with no satisfactory returns, whatsoever. 92% of search engine traffic comes from the first page and thing on 2nd page and further will diminish the returns.

This is where google analytics comes to play. You can not only review your progress after optimizing your website but also work on these small but game changing issues that can take you to a new height of performance with the help of a proper SEO strategy.

It has the potential of converting your website into your most valued sales recruit : Okay let’s think about it. Your website is your best employee as it is. It works 7 days a week, 24*7 without calling in sick or lagging in competence. It can generate enquiries by hundreds at a particular time, without complain and is able to multitask like a boss. SEO has the potential of bringing this best sales recruit of yours in the limelight and help it get to its highest performance when it comes to user experience as well as effective communication of your product or service.

SEO is as important as salt in food : SEO isn’t just the icing of the cake, it is a very important ingredient of your Digital Marketing Strategy. Even though it may seem as though it’s a troublesome task at first, you’ll see the result yourself and understand that it is not only cost effective, but as important as salt in food; being responsible for bringing all the flavours together. It is the key ingredient that uplifts the entire digital marketing strategy and allows you to bind all different aspects together to generate an expectation exceeding ROI.

SEO enables you to use free advertising : Search Engine have two components Paid Advertising and Organic Results. Search engines charge paid advertising based on Cost per click but Organic Results are free results wherein Search Engine don’t charge a penny for it. Once you have applied SEO Strategy successfully and you start ranking in search results all the traffic that comes to your website is Free of Cost. All you pay is to your SEO Consultant or SEO Agency which is minuscule as compared to the returns.

I hope these 5 reasons have helped you understand SEO better and the importance of it, in relation to other aspects of digital marketing.

Top 5 Future Trends of SEO

Six billion searches are made every day on Search engines, which points to the fact that Search engine optimization is going to be an important platform in digital marketing for any company.

As Search engine optimization, helps a brand create visibility on the top most SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages); we need to keep up with various ranking factor updates that have come or are likely to come so as to play the game better than our rivals.

Hence, today we are here to discuss some of the most estimated SEO future trends which will be affecting 2017 as well as 2018; based on the response these trends get from the digital world.

AMP Pages : Accelerated Mobile Pages is a Google backed projected designed specifically to load webpages faster on mobile devices. With users preferring websites loading in less than 3 seconds on mobile it’s advisable for companies to use AMP code in their website, not only will it improve customer experience but also increase your conversion rate. Website builder portals like WIX have already implemented AMP for the blog section. A lot of big publishers have also implemented it. 

Mobile First : Accelerated Mobile Pages is a Google backed project designed specifically to load webpages faster on mobile devices. With users preferring websites loading in less than 3 seconds on mobile it’s advisable for companies to use AMP code in their website, not only will it improve customer experience but also increase your conversion rate. A lot of big publishers already have started implementing AMP into their websites and portals like wix have integrated AMP in some of their templates such as blogging to match the requirement trends of its clients.

More info can be found on AMP Project

Content Experience : Mobile devices will be taken into greater consideration this year because around 60% of users are using mobile devices to surf the internet and the nos. of desktop users will drop even further year on year. With the advent of AMP technology and Voice search engines its evident that people are going to prefer mobile devices over desktop in future, therefore it’s imperative that you have a mobile friendly website and a mobile savvy digital marketing strategy in place for your firm.

Structured Data Mark-up : Leading search engines like Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Yandex have sponsored schema.org a collaborative, community activity whose mission is to create, maintain, and promote schemas for content on webpages. Using the schema vocabulary and formats such as Micro-Data, JSON-LD and RDF you can add structured data to your content. Structured data helps you to send the right signals to search engines about your business and contact. e.g If you are selling Apple (fruit) online then with the help of structured mark-up you can tell the search engine crawlers that it’s a fruit and related to the company Apple. Some of the most used schema markups are – Organisation schema markup, website schema markup, breadcrumbs markup, review markup, site navigation markup, local business markup and schema person markup.

More info can be found on Schema

Back-links : Until a few years back it was good enough to have backlinks on directories and other business portals. But times have changed and search engines have become smart. You need to have relevant backlinks to your website if you want to succeed. Rather than creating link on every website its better you create a list of relevant links, check their domain authority and then create a backlink. The relevancy of the backlinks that your website has is more necessary now than ever because it allows google to calculate your website’s authenticity and gives you an SEO benefit. It is also more preferable to get backlinks from local citations and reviews that allows google to understand how the internet community sees your brand.

Voice Search : With millions of smartphones in the market, consumers are preferring to use mobile phones for getting information on search engines. To cater to this audience

Search engines like google have launched Voice search engines, where user needs to speak on mobile phone and the search engines will display results, thus eliminating the task of typing in the mobile phone. 

How to do SEO | SEO Process

SEO strategy development : You have an SEO budget but are not sure what you want to achieve ? The first thing which you need to do is define an objective for your SEO Campaign, it can be - Keyword ranking, growth in organic traffic or lead generation. Now based on your SEO campaign you develop an SEO strategy i.e On Page and Off Page activities to be done.

   

Website audit : Start the SEO campaign by conducting an website audit to help you find the technical loopholes in your existing website which affect the website's visibility in search engines. Website seositecheckup.com help you generate an SEO audit report which you can utilize to make your website SEO friendly.

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Site architecture : A good navigation system helps web crawlers and potential customers browse your website easily which in turn allows it to index all web pages and also provide a good experience to customers. You need to study your existing architecture and Our SEO experts would study your existing site architecture and recommend you SEO friendly website architecture which would be web crawler and user friendly.

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Keyword research : The most deadly part of search engine optimization is shortlisting the appropriate keywords which will bring traffic and inquiries to your website. Our SEO experts would be utilizing your inputs, competitor keywords and keyword tools to finalize an set of keywords which we need to target.  ​

Content recommendation : As an Search engine optimization company we would be recommending you changes in your website content based upon our competitor analysis, keywords to be targeted and existing content in the website. Our SEO experts would also dive into the website to check for plagiarism as it would have an negative effect on our organic rankings.

  

Redesign guidance : In case you have decided to Redesign your website and are afraid that it will effect your organic traffic be assured we would create a strategy document for the redesign and work with your design and development team to ensure the impact is nominal. Our SEO experts along with web designers will guide you on the best practices in developing an search engine friendly website.

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Schema markup : Our SEO experts along with web designers would be implementing schema markup code on your website  to help the search engines return more informative results for users.

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Link building :  We don't just create random back-links on any website. As an SEO company we believe in creating quality back-links, that has relevancy to your industry, and has good domain authority. Our SEO experts carefully select websites, create relevant content and submit it keeping in mind your brand. Our SEO experts also do link audit of your existing links and disavow those links or remove those links which are harmful.

  

Why Online Advertising

As a start-up, your endeavour is to make the most of your advertising budget. Your objective is to build a reliable consumer base while making sure that every penny you invest in advertising delivers a pound in return. Online Advertising is exactly what you’ve been looking for. It helps you reach a great number of people and delivers fabulous ROI when compared to traditional or conventional advertising. Online Advertising also facilitates communication between you and your consumer which leads to the evolution of your product or service. Ultimately, it’s a good idea to be in a place which is the incontestable future of advertising.

Steps

First, build an exhaustive yet crisp website. Next, ensure this website is easily traceable by your consumer (You can do this by making the website Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) competent). After this, create a sturdy, consistent and creative presence on all Social Media (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc.). Lastly, make sure you reach our consumer right at his doorstep by using Banner Advertisements, Email-Marketing & Search Engine Marketing (SEM). Now, a little about each avenue.

Website

In the present time it is essential your website be mobile-friendly as more and more people are using their phones to access the internet. Your website should also concisely communicate all the important information about your organisation and have the necessary CALL to actions for your consumers to reach you.

Search Engine Optimization

51% of online traffic is generated by queries typed in search engines. This figure leaves no doubt about the significance of SEO. Therefore, make sure you have a strong presence on all search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc.).

Search Engine Marketing

(SEM): SEM or PPC (Pay per Click) is a digital advertising model where you pay only when your prospective consumer or anyone interested in your product or service clicks on your advertisement. A start-up like yours should run a test campaign on various portals such as search engines, social media, etc. This test campaign will clearly highlight the options that are most suitable for your enterprise and weed out the unnecessary ones. A test campaign also saves your energy and time and in the end acts as a roadmap for your future Online Advertising needs. The cumulative effect of all this is great ROI. SEM is a very efficient and cost-effective way of reaching your audience.

Social Media

There are more than a billion people on Social Media today. This is a world throbbing with activity and not being here is the closest thing that could be termed as an advertising catastrophe. It’s imperative for you to be here. The first clear advantage of SMO for your start-up is reaching your target group in great numbers. Secondly, being a start-up you go that extra mile to maintain your brand image. On Social Media you can know what people are talking about your product or service and accordingly make changes. To make SMO work for you, you need to target relevant social media websites and begin engaging conversations with your consumers. By posting videos, pictures and blogs you can maintain brand recall and know what your consumer thinks. All of these go a long way in helping your business.

Email Marketing

Once you have your database in place you need to create an arresting piece of communication. After this is done you can create an Email Campaign using tools like MAIL CHIMP, Octane, etc. If you don’t have the time and resources for this you can always hire an Email Database company which can conduct an email campaign for you.

Banner Advertisement

If reaching a mass or targeted audience happens to be your goal, Banner Advertisements are an excellent option. To proceed, you need to shortlist portals and request quotations from them. You also need to gather information from them about the demographics which visit their portals. Based on your objective, you can run a banner advertisement campaign. I would suggest running a 1 day to 7 day campaign to assess the ROI before investing in big campaigns. Other Digital Media Platforms that can be covered are Mobile Marketing, Affiliate Marketing, etc. As a Digital Marketing Consultant, we can help you strategise, execute and control your digital advertising plans as per your budget.