Thursday, 31 January 2019

Online Reputation Management Tools


Your Web Browser
If you are actively wanting to improve your online management, then the first tool of defense is your web browser (Chrome, Firefox, Safari or whatever you prefer). Type in your name and look at the first few pages of the search results. The first page is the most important, though, as few people click through to the second or subsequent pages in a search.
It might be best if you carry out an incognito search, as sometimes the browsers have a habit of customizing your searches, which would give an untrue set of results for your name. It is essential that you don’t do a Google search while you are signed in as yourself or your company.
Look at each result, and first decide whether the result references you or not. Split every result into one of the following categories:
• Negative – the result is about you and does not show you in a positive light. Naturally, any court reports and media reports on crimes will appear here, but there are many other types of negative search results. They could be rants from your ex-partners. There could be negative social comments from unhappy customers. They may be a “mistake” from your past – the tagged Facebook photo of you streaking in your university days, or lying comatose with penises drawn on you after a youthful drinking binge. They might even be a false and nasty allegation from somebody you have upset.
• Neutral – results that neither hurt nor help your reputation. They might be your position in a school athletics race, a review of a football game you once played, or a reference to you being a member of a local club.
• About somebody else – if you are searching for your personal name there is a high likelihood that you will encounter results for people who have the same name as you. This is less likely for a business, but there will still be cases for firms with more generic names. For example, if US web developer Castle was to Google their name, they will find that their search results would be dominated by references to the Castle television show
• Positive and helpful – hopefully, you will see positive content that shows you in a good light
Don’t be too upset if the Number 1 result in Google isn’t about you. Only 50% of people can claim ownership of the first result for their name. Indeed, only 2% of people can claim all the items on the first page of the search results.
Google Alerts
The internet is always changing. That means that somebody might post something that references you any day. You can set up a Google Alert for your name (either your personal name or your business).
Google will alert you with an email when it picks up a new mention of your name. This will make it easier for you to take action, should it not be complimentary.

Thursday, 24 January 2019

Google Keyword Planner


Balance low-volume and high-volume keywords
Keyword selection is a balancing act. If you choose keywords that have 100,000 monthly searches, you are likely going to pay a hefty amount in clicks simply due to the traffic.
On the other hand, a smaller volume keyword might only drive ten visits a month.
With keywords, you want a balance of both.
Remember: bigger isn’t always better. (I know what you’re thinking, and yes I’m judging you).
Just kidding. But seriously:
Skipping past vanity metrics like clicks and impressions is critical.
It doesn’t matter if you have 1,000 clicks but only one conversion. You’d much rather have 200 clicks and 20 conversions.
Only bid on what makes sense for your bottom line
Typical AdWords conversion rates for the search network are 2.70% on average across all industries:
Taking that number, you need to do some basic math before deciding which keywords to target.
For example, if you are selling a product for $15, you can’t have your cost per conversion be $14.
That would take hundreds of thousands of sales to see a big profit.
Let’s say the term you found has a $5 cost per click. If you take the typical conversion rate of 2.70% on 1,000 clicks, that would mean you would get 27 conversions.
But that also means you spent $5,000 to get them.
Always keep in mind the cost of your keywords and bid lower or higher based on your bottom line.
If it’s cheap, increase your bid to get more clicks and rank higher.
If it’s too expensive, bid lower to get fewer clicks at a cheaper cost.
Intent is critical
Intent is the most important (and overlooked) factor in keyword selection. Hands down.
AdWords excels at intent because users are actively searching for solutions. Whereas on platforms like Twitter and Facebook, users aren’t.
Searcher intent is simply the intent behind a given search.
It’s the “why” behind the search. It answers the fundamental question of: What is the user trying to accomplish or solve with this search?
For example, when you search for a term like “windshield repair now,” you are probably desperate and looking to get this problem solved ASAP.
You’re at the bottom of the funnel almost instantly, and nearly anything can drive you to convert.
But what about a term like “best crm”? What’s the intent on that?
You should instantly see intent. The popular organic content is all reviews, not companies touting their prowess.
That means that wasting money on this term isn’t going to get you anywhere.
 Intent can make or break your strategy and budget.
Always use negative keywords to reduce ad spend
Negative keywords are critical when building a keyword list.
Simply put, negative keywords are keywords that you specifically don’t want to show your ads for.
For example, if you don’t do free consultations, you obviously don’t want to show an ad for “free consultations” and pay $20 a click.
Using negative keywords can reduce your wasted spend dramatically by cutting out terms that won’t convert.
In the next section, I’ll show you exactly how to use them to reduce your ad spend and keep costs lower when selecting keywords.

Thursday, 17 January 2019

Importance of Backlinks Part - 1


The Importance of Backlinks for SEO is a much asked question in the current SEO world. Today, link building is one of the most effective marketing strategies that involve the production of important links from your site. Backlinks, also inbound links, are offsite SEO tools that play an important role in improving your websites or blogs popularity. They are placed in resource boxes, at the end of articles or in weblog comments. In simple terms, backlinks are shortcuts to your website from other sites. You should note that not all backlinks are the same.

Only top quality backlinks will help your site rank high in search engine results. Quality backlinks are those that are from sites that have content similar to that in your site. Do not go for quantity instead of quality when building links. You should also bear in mind that many backlinks could cause problems, anchor text is important, site content and quality is paramount. How can you build links to your website or blog? Well, you can build links from social media optimization, web directories, document posting, guest posting, article submission etc. Depending on the level of competition in your niche, you may require as many as ten thousand or as few as ten links.

Why are backlinks so important in SEO?

– Boosting traffic

Without a doubt, if back linking is done correctly, it could boost the number of visitors visiting your site unbelievably. How? When done perfectly, back linking will increase your site’s visibility and relevance in search engine results. More people will click on the back links you have placed on sites that are similar to yours which will direct them to your site.

– Improving SERP ranking

Search engines like Google rank websites with many quality links and content well. This means that when users search specific keywords related to your niche, your site would appear on the top sites on the first page of search engine results. If your website ranking improves, you will be able to attract most clients that are looking for your products or services online.

– Brand exposure

When visitors read content and keep on seeing your brand name linked through the content, immediately they will start associating your brand with the content that it has been linked to.

– Building brand authority

When getting quality links on the most trusted websites, search engines such as Google will use these links to indicate that your website offers important information to the visitors. On the other hand, it will be a good indication for the clients your brand is among the top in your niche. Apart from directing traffic to your website, back linking attracts clients to your brand.

– Free advertising

You can slash your advertising costs if you can do the backlinking yourself. However, if you are not able to do the backlinking yourself, there are many reliables and trusted companies that specialize in providing back linking services to make marketing a walk in the park.

Why do you need High PR Backlinks?

High PR backlinks are links from high authority sites that will help improve your websites ranking on most search engines. You require high PR backlinks if you want your website to be ranked faster and without much effort. Without high PR backlinks, the high-quality content you keep on posting on your site is useless. If you are looking to get backlinks from high authority websites easily, you must create content that people are very interested in laying their hand on. It is the only way out. Since most search engines are concentrating on getting rid of sites that most people post their content to like free link submission sites. They only hurt your SERP and degrade your site’s authority. Getting high PR backlinks are necessary especially if you are in a competitive niche.

How do you get high PR backlinks?

– Posting high-quality content to the major social media platforms that readers will like, share, tweet and much more.

– Find guest bloggers or become a guest blogger. You will get more backlinks as you collaborate with other like-minded individuals.

Why you should avoid bad backlinks

Bad backlinks are backlinks that users rarely click on to discover more information while quality backlinks are those clicked on regularly by numerous users from your site or other sites. Bad backlinks can be detrimental to your brand’s credibility. Those visiting your site will not trust the information that they access there and this can lower your sales and ruin your business.


Major Reasons Why Content Is King for SEO


This day and age are different. Without a proper internet marketing strategy, it can be quite challenging for your business to flourish, thrive and dominate your niche. There are many aspects of online marketing and search engine optimisation (SEO) that one should take head and stay conscious about, but content is king at the end of the day. Here are some reasons why Content is King, and how you can make this work to your advantage.

High Sales Conversions and Customer Retention Is Dependent On Content

For a business to grow and attain steady reputation, high sales and customer retention is required. Ranking high on Google is one thing and getting a massive inflow of traffic to your site is a different thing altogether. Lucky enough, this can be achieved through strategic SEO content, local optimisation for your business website and a highly strategic keyword strategy. However, it doesn’t all end there. Maintaining this inflow and actually ensuring that incoming traffic is converted to maximum sales requires a whole daunting approach regarding content.

In this age and day, online shoppers and information seekers are looking for tips, how-to articles, product reviews, buying guides, and professional advice material. They are looking for helpful informative content and want to get updated on their areas of interest. You definitely won’t do your site any good if you don’t concentrate on giving them what they want; through high-quality content. If you do so, however, content is king, as it is what you use to increase the profitability of your business, by retaining the clients that you have, recruiting more as they come, and ensuring that new web visitors follow call to actions and make online purchases. You will need consistent and strategic content as part of customer services as well.
________________________________________

Most SEO Aspects Depend On Content

When establishing an SEO campaign in social media, your will require compelling content in order to attract and direct prospective customers to you money site. Backlink building, blogging, video marketing, email marketing, and many other forms of internet marketing including PPC campaigns require strategic, up-to-date, interesting and informative content for your SEO strategies to materialise best. As a matter of fact, you may have the best website design on the World Wide Web, but you may not reap the best benefits out of it if your website content is not high quality. This is because there set standards regulation internet marketing, such that you posting another person’s work or content from another website online can result to penalisation by Google or even possible website closure. To rank high on Google and other search engines such as Bing and Yahoo, your site requires having high quality, informative, and original content that brings value to your target audience. To provide this value, make your content brief, non-complex, shareable on various platforms, informative, original and interesting.
________________________________________

Great Content Markets Your Products, Services and Business

Online marketing doesn’t all end with a great website user interface. You will need to promote your business both onsite and offsite online as well. Your business needs to be well identified from the grassroots level. And how do you make it known, followed and more preferred than your competition? This is definitely through content marketing on various online platforms. As your products or services become more and more popular online, so does your business and brand. For growth of any business online, the creation of high-quality content is inevitable.


Thursday, 10 January 2019

Link Building in 2019


Links go hand-in-hand with your content plan.

In fact, Google has stated that content and links are its #1 and #2 ranking factors, respectively.
Makes sense, then, that building a quality backlink profile should be a key part of your SEO strategy in 2019.

There are a few types of links you’ll want to focus on.

Editorial Links

Editorial links are backlinks that you earn because your content is so awesome. They’re not links you get from guest-posts or because you requested them from another webmaster.

That’s an additional reason why you need to produce amazing, relatable, shareable content. Because it will get you backlinks from other websites.

In fact, editorial links are the most valuable types of backlinks. You’ll likely notice that your rank goes up when other authors start linking to your articles.

Whitehat Acquired Links

When you do decide to pursue a backlink strategy, make sure that you play by the rules.
There are countless sites online that will sell you backlinks from private blog networks (PBNs). Although you might be tempted to take that kind of shortcut, you’ll be playing with fire if you do so.

Why? Because it’s a blackhat technique to pay for backlinks.

You can be sure that Google is on the hunt for those PBNs. Once they’re discovered, the links won’t pass any page rank, and you will have paid for absolutely nothing.

Even worse, though, you could find that your site gets penalized by Google. If that happens, all your SEO efforts won’t mean anything.

So do yourself a favor: only pursue whitehat links.
Make Sure Your Site is 100% Technically Correct
Technical SEO is admittedly the less glamorous side of SEO.
But it still has an incredible impact on your rankings.

One out of place element – anything from duplicate content issues to outdated sitemaps – could be a cause of rankings drop.

Going into 2019, it’s important to have someone adept in technical SEO to take a look at your site and ensure all there’s nothing going on behind-the-scenes that could hurt your search rankings.
There’s a lot to cover here, but I’ll go over some of the biggest technical SEO factors you need to be aware of – and on top of – in 2019.

Move Your Site to HTTPS

We’re getting to the point where it’s mandatory to have a website that uses the secure HTTPS protocol instead of the insecure HTTP protocol.

For starters, Google gives a bit of a ranking bump to sites that use HTTPS.

Beyond that, Google Chrome began marking all non-HTTPS sites as “Not secure” in July 2018.
If you have a website that you’re trying to position as an authority on a subject, it’s going to be difficult to accomplish that when Google Chrome users see “Not secure” in their browser bar as they’re reading your content.


Search Engine Optimization In 2019


Quality Content

Content will continue to reign supreme in 2019.

But simply pumping out content for the sake of having content won’t cut it.

These days, your readers – and Google – expect your content to be in-depth, insightful, and most of all, serve the needs of your readers.

In Google’s own words, your content needs to meet these basic principles to meet their quality standards:

• Make pages primarily for users, not for search engines.
• Don’t deceive your users.
• Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings.
• Think about what makes your website unique, valuable, or engaging. Make your website stand out from others in your field.
• Some of those are relatively straightforward: avoid any black hat SEO tactics and don’t use any clickbait or misleading titles.
• But in order to meet Google’s quality standards, your content must first and foremost be created for your readers.
• Here’s what your content needs:
• It needs to be in-depth. That means aiming for long-form, 1,500-2,000 word posts that are thorough enough to completely cover a topic.
• It needs to be content that can establish you as a thought leader. That means including your own analysis and takes on relevant subjects, and providing solid recommendations and advice to your readers.
• And it needs to be different. It needs to set you apart from your competitors. That means you need to be aware of what your competition is putting out there, and a find a way to cut through the clutter – either by including more innovative strategies or even easier to digest, quality information.
• Once you’ve found that formula for creating great content, the next step is to scale your content plan.
• And, as always, be prepared to promote that content through paid ads, email automation, and social media.
• Another note on content: though keywords are still important, matching your content to user intent is becoming more important than ever.
• For example, if Google determines that a search query has purchase intent, then the results list will heavily favor e-commerce sites. That’s because the user is looking to buy something.
• On the other hand, if Google determines that the search query is part of a research effort, the results list will favor sites with the best content.
• Think about that as you optimize your site for keywords. Don’t just rely on the keyword itself, but ask what kind of intent the user would have when typing that keyword into a search bar. Then, produce content that matches that intent.


Wednesday, 2 January 2019

What's the Difference between SEO, SEM, and SMM


SEO - Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a set of ongoing best practices used for your website and blog to help you get found online via the top search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo. These techniques help improve a website's SERP, or Search Engine Result Page. There are two types of SEO: on-page and off-page. On-page includes using keywords correctly throughout your web pages, including title tags, H1 through H4 tags, URL structure, alt tags on images, among a host of other practices. Think of the Google 'snippet' when you search for something either by typing in the long-tail keyword or speaking it directly to Google or Siri. Good on-page SEO practices will help ensure your company and products/solutions get found by the right people. 

Other key on-page SEO techniques include:

• Friendly navigation
• Fast loading pages
• Mobile friendly pages
• High quality on-going content (the most important piece of SEO)

Off-page SEO is just that: best practices that are external to your website and blog. These include back-links (other relevant companies with good Google credibility linking back to your web-pages). Think of these as 'votes' received for your content being so remarkable. This 'voting' happens when another website links your content in their own blog, using it as a source, giving your content further credibility. Naturally off-page SEO is much harder to achieve because you are relying upon outside sources. One great example of off-page SEO is when a manufacturer rep posts a blog on their website about your factory and brand(s), and you then reference that article in your own blog. And visa v, right? Factories and reps should be working hand-in-hand along with dealers, consultants, and even end-users to share content that is all in their own best interest. This is how you can really 'win' on the web.

SEM - Search Engine Marketing

Search engine marketing is the process of driving traffic to your website using paid online advertising. In other words, you pay Google for Google AdWords, ideally your content comes up first driving more awareness and traffic. You may have heard of Pay Per Click or PPC. Today, the cost of AdWords and paid campaigns has gone up significantly with the search engines due to saturation of the market, thus leading to the next phase of SEM, paid advertising on social media platforms. See a trend here? 

SMM - Social Media Marketing

Inherently, social media marketing (SMM) is part of on-page SEO because of link building. Have you Googled your name lately? Take a look at the first few results. Do you see a link to your LinkedIn profile? Twitter? This applies to businesses, as well. Being on these social platforms helps your company, and your brand(s), get found easier. 

The goal of SMM is to drive quality traffic to your website, landing pages, and blogs, to get them to engage with you, and ultimately, drive revenue with a trackable ROI. Facebook. Twitter. LinkedIn. YouTube. Google+. Instagram. And now Snapchat. 

The key to engagement is: 1) identifying which platform your buyers are actually on, and 2) fully understanding your buyers (or followers) and providing them personalized remarkable content. For example, if you are bar and beverage manufacturer targeting bartenders, your content strategy should help bartenders. This information will help you to better educate customers, make you a thought leader in the industry, and keep your brand at top-of-mind awareness. At the end of the day, you are creating your cultural voice online with social media marketing.

For more details on our products and services, please feel free to visit us at Online Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Internet Marketing, Best Online Marketing Company India, Social Media Marketing India

What Is Paid Social Media Marketing (SMM)


Back in the early days of social media, when everybody still “poked” each other on Facebook and VR was just a glimmer in some developer’s eye, the process of using it for marketing was direct and easy to grasp. It could be difficult to master completely, sure, but it was cost-effective to start and just about every element made sense, whether you had an MBA or not.

You used Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn to build up an audience. You carried out a conversation with that audience by posting photos, links, videos, status updates. You made impressions, spread your brand narrative, and drove referral traffic to your website. You responded to customer feedback when it came up.

And you did all of these things organically – meaning that you didn’t have to pay a fee to the social network of your choice to reach your audience.

While it’s still technically to free to start using social media for marketing purposes, the reality is that the game has changed. Organic reach, once the end-all and be-all for social marketers, has rapidly trended toward zero on Facebook, while algorithmic changes to Twitter and Instagram make it increasingly hard for your content to stand out.

Meanwhile, social media networks have consistently been rolling out paid advertising tools, bringing them more in line with conventional marketing platforms such as TV or print. In other words, brands have increasingly had to “pay to play” on platforms that were once ostensibly free.

So, in some ways, you could say that organic social media marketing is on its way out, and paid social media marketing is in.

To put it most simply, paid social media marketing (SMM) is a digital marketing method wherein you pay to promote your ads or branded content on a social network, such as Facebook or Twitter.

That’s it, in a nutshell. Sounds simple enough – and, in a lot of ways, it is actually a fairly straightforward process. But that snappy definition doesn’t necessarily tell the whole story about paid SMM. About where it’s been and where it’s going. About what it can accomplish for your brand. 

About how you can put it to work right now.

So let’s break it down a little bit more. Here are the three big things you need to know about paid SMM for your brand:

1.) Everybody’s Doing It

At the risk of sounding like a peer-pressuring bully in a PSA, the simple fact is that paid SMM is ascendant – and if you want your brand to see the benefits of social media marketing, you’re going to have to be able to keep up with your competitors, who may well already be using paid SMM to drive traffic, increase conversion rates, and stoke conversation around their brand.

2.) It Offers Remarkable Capabilities

If you’re hesitant to invest in social media marketing, there are a few things to keep in mind – which could be enough to swing you one way or the other.

Whether you want to…

• increase your overall audience by securing likes or followers
• increase the number of people who are seeing and engaging with your brand
• drive more referral traffic to your website
• make more direct sales

… there’s a paid SMM campaign option right for you.

Even better, social networks – particularly Facebook – offer a wide array of tools that improve your ability to reach the right audience, increasing the likelihood that you’ll see your desired ROI. Using native SMM tools, you can target highly specific audiences based on location, age, or interests, for example; you can also start with what we call “remarketing” (or “retargeting”), which allows you to appeal directly to consumers who have already visited your website or otherwise shown interest in your brand.

And, finally, there are paid SMM options right for just about every budget. Getting started with marketing on Facebook can take as little as a few dollars per day; conversely, you can spend thousands to reach your potential audience, if you so choose. The sky’s the limit, but the barrier to entry is still mercifully low.

With that said, however…

3.) There’s An Art to Getting It Right

While it may only take a few dollars to get started with paid SMM, the reality is that actually executing it to a highly successful degree is far trickier, and requires a more sophisticated and specialized set of skills.

To begin with, it’s vital to realize that every social media platform is different. Every network has a distinct audience that it serves best, has a set of social media goals that it’s the best for achieving, and, above all, has different standards and protocols for images, text, budgeting, and so on. An image that looks great in a Facebook ad, for instance, may be all wrong for Twitter, where images with text are more acceptable – and actually may perform better.

It’s those little quirks and details that add up. Similarly, some of the more advanced elements of paid SMM – daily budgeting, audience targeting, analytics monitoring, integrating tracking tools on your website – can be complex. Getting these little things right is hugely important for maximizing your campaign’s potential for success. Narrowing your audience ever so slightly, or taking the time to A/B test an ad, could mean the difference between a huge surge in traffic and a little one. Taking the time to install Facebook Pixel code on your website could make all the difference between understanding why your SMM is working, or continuing to just take shots in the dark.

Curious about some of our past results with paid SMM? Ready to talk shop? We’re here to help! Drop us a line today to get the conversation started!