Why SEO ?

Businesses nowadays are getting more and more dependent on search engines for getting new customers and make more sales. This is because people are getting more mobile with all new devices being released to the market granting easier Internet access to more people. The real game-changer for businesses is the fact more people nowadays are doing an online search through their mobile devices. Therefore you need to make sure that these people can easily find your business when they search through whatever gadgets they use if you want to survive in the current market.

Development of search engines

The development of search engines are actually in line with the growing needs of customers. In regards of local businesses, consumers usually want to know various information relating to a business. They want to see some photos, they want to know the company’s phone number, operation hours, driving directions, etc. These customers are also more involved in social media sites and accessing other online sources where they can see some reviews in order to learn more about a company.

Search engines are developing in order to answer those needs, some of those important elements mentioned above are usually can be found in search results. Not only the type of information being displayed, but also the accessibility of the information is also evolving. Major search engines have worked very hard to ensure that the information can be easily accessed through any kind of mobile device.

How the development of mobile technology is impacting search engines and local businesses

Google claimed that mobile devices have actually become the main source of its search traffic, this is a very important thing that every business should be able to anticipate. Since Google is currently the “biggest” search engine on the Internet, there’s no other proof necessary to say that mobile devices have a huge impact on local businesses.

More than 89% of smartphone users are conducting Google search at least a few times a day, that’s why Google continuously tries to make sure these people really get what they’re looking for. A lot of measures have been taken by Google to provide better search results for mobile users, including by penalizing local businesses who don’t have mobile-friendly websites.

That said, there are still a lot of local businesses who don’t have mobile-friendly websites, which is actually quite shocking, because it’s pretty much like asking for troubles.

The importance of social presence in SEO

In order to make a purchase decision, most consumers nowadays look for information in about 10 different sources. So, not only they use search engines in finding a company that can offer a product or service they looking for, but they also do further research to learn more about the company, and one of the main source for them to find this extra information is in social media sites. Prospect consumers often interact in social media content published by the company relating with the product or service they are looking for before they make a purchase.

Some other information sources often used by these consumers include business directories, photo sharing sites, video sites, and blogs.

It’s really important for local businesses to publish their content on these online platforms in order to improve their visibility to their consumers. Most of the times, this visibility aspect will determine whether they can make more sales or not. Today’s companies should begin seeing these online platforms as cost-effective advertising platforms that they can use in their marketing campaign.

Challenges for small and medium sized businesses

The biggest challenges for small and medium sized businesses today is to find a partner that really understands the way consumers are using the Internet nowadays and design the perfect marketing strategy based on the latest trend of consumers behavior. Local businesses now not only need to have mobile-friendly websites, but they also need to improve their visibility by creating blogs, business listings, as well as a solid content marketing strategy that includes articles, videos and photos. They also need to create solid social media networks in order to grow their followers and fans.

Not only they need to create a great content marketing strategy across different platforms, but also they need to create consistent and professional looking design on these different platforms. Most importantly, they all need to be accessible across all devices.

This is not an easy thing to do, it takes a lot of technical skills and a lot of research to be able to execute such plan successfully. That’s why these businesses need to have a trusted partner that can help them plan and execute the most effective marketing strategy.

Tips for online marketing and branding in today’s market

Small and medium sized businesses should be able to create a comprehensive system in order to get new clients online, and furthermore, new promoters for their businesses. The most successful online marketing campaign is when you can make it go viral, and hat’s not something you can do overnight.

The best thing to do is hire a professional that can evaluate the latest trend of online consumers’ behavior of their target market and then audit their current strategy and web presence in order to make some necessary improvements. Usually the entire evaluation will include analysis of competition and advertising budget.

Predictions of SEO trends in 2016

As we’re approaching 2016 there are some big changes in SEO that will have huge impacts on the competitive landscape, these include:

• More than 90% search traffic in the US market are expected to come from smartphones by 2016.
• Nowadays, tablet sales growth have surpassed the smartphones. So in 2016, tablets will play a more significant role in providing web traffic, and businesses need to adapt to these changes in making their marketing tools and strategies more tablet-friendly.
• Mobile traffic has become a more potential traffic, more than 80% of local mobile searches have turned into sales. The number seems to keep going up.
• Social media sites are really important to influence purchase decisions of online consumers. They always look for recommendations in social media sites when to help them choose the right product or company.
• Direct email marketing is still a good marketing strategy, but if not combined with a solid internet marketing strategy based the latest trend, it would be pretty much useless.

Yes, It is important to have a website with HTTPS certificate. and secure connection.

Matt Cutts always excited about websites moving to HTTPS, because this make his Job so easy as a head of Google’s web spam team.

HTTPS not cheap, you have to pay at least $450 per year to get HTTPS certificate.

However, I got a solutions for you.

If you are running on WordPress or any other website you can use this solution.

It is really simple. Go to https://www.cloudflare.com/ and sign up for a FREE package.

They offer HTTPS to all the clients..

If you ware using WordPress, you will see some errors after you do the configurations.

This is how you fix those common wordpress HTTPS errors.

Hashtags are everywhere! Ever since the booming of social media, this punctuation mark seems to become a very popular thing these days, especially for social media users like Twitter and Instagram. For businesses, hashtags are important because they can improve social media traffic significantly. In Twitter, tweets with Hashtags averagely generated two times more engagement than tweets without hashtags.

So, how do we optimize hashtags for our benefits? it’s actually quite simple. But first thing’s first, what exactly is a hashtag in social media? In social media, hashtag is a tagging system that categorizes social media content. This categorizing function is the key of success in the use of hashtag to boost your social media content.

When you use a hashtag, anyone with an interest in your hashtag, including those that are outside of your network can be reached by your post. So this simple thing can actually expand your reach so widely.

Where To Use Hashtags And How To Use It Effectively

1. Twitter

This is probably the most popular place where hashtags are used. As already mentioned above, tweets with hashtags get twice more engagement including clicks, retweets, favorites and replies than tweets without hashtags.

Statistically, having two hashtags in a post is considered the best to promote engagement. If you use more than two hashtags, your engagement might drop to just 17%. Tweets with only up to two hashtags get 21% higher engagement and 55% more likely to be retweeted.

2. Instagram

This is another place where hashtags are extremely important. However, it works a little differently than twitter. In Instagram, posts with the highest interactions mostly have 11+ hashtags.

Posts with 11 hashtags get 79.5% interactions out of 1k followers, it’s a huge difference compared to posts with 1 hashtag that only get 29% interaction out of 1k followers.

3. Facebook

It may not be as popular as Twitter and Instagram in terms of using hashtags, but probably because at first it wasn’t really effective. When Facebook first started using hashtags, the engagement is even worse than posts without hashtags. Back then, posts without hashtags got 1.30% median viral reach per fan, while posts with hashtags only got 0.80% median viral reach per fan.

But as time goes, it gets better and better. Now posts with 1-2 hashtags in Facebook get 593 average interactions. Unlike Instagram, the more hashtags you use in your Facebook posts, the less engagement you will get. Posts with more than 10 hashtags usually only get 188 average interactions.

4. Google+

Google+ is a bit different than the other social media sites above. When you post a content, Google+ is automatically giving hashtags to your post. However, you can still edit it or you can also add it on your own. In Google+ you can also add hashtags in your comments, so you would have more chance to be found.

The great thing about putting hashtags in your Google+ posts is that it can be found in Google search. Google has integrated hashtag in their search engine, so whenever you put a hashtag in Google search it will provide you with normal search results and relevant Google+ posts on the sidebar.

The last couple of years have been pretty tough for small businesses that are using Facebook to engage with their audience. Due to some changes in Facebook’s news feed algorithm has made many small businesses experience a huge drop in their Facebook engagement and reach. However, it doesn’t mean that you can no longer use Facebook to market your brand and boost sales for free. There are still a few things you can do to improve your organic search.

Why is Organic Reach Declining?

It’s important to analyze the root of the problem and find out exactly why our organic search is declining so we can plan the perfect strategy for our next move.

Basically there are two reasons why organic search is declining in Facebook. First, to avoid overcrowding of content on newsfeed. There are more than 18 million business pages currently competing for your newsfeed space in Facebook. The second reason is quite simple, Facebook just decided that it’s time for Businesses to pay for optimum engagement with their audience and boost sales.

How Facebook Calculates Your News Feed Algorithm

First of all, you should understand that no one knows exactly how it works, but just like Google, with proper analysis we can make a good estimate. However, there are elements of the algorithm that already known publicly, including internet speed and device used by the user, how the user interacts with Facebook ads, posts that are made hidden or reported as spam by a user, also post types that trigger the most interaction whether it’s photos, text or videos.

Then there are also three pillars of EdgeRank that play a very important role in the current news feed algorithm, they are affinity (the intensity of your audience’s interaction with the page), Weight (priority given by Facebook to your posts, mostly videos and photos get top priority), and Decay (The age of your post, the longer it’s been around the less likely it will show up in news feed).

News Feed visibility relates a lot with user behavior. Interactions with a specific post, interactions with certain post types, also positive and reactions shown by users to the post will determine the visibility of your post to specific users.

How To Improve Your News Feed Visibility

Focus on things that really matter – Too many businesses focus on post reach, while it actually doesn’t matter much to indicate success. According to Jon Loomer, the amount of traffic and sales are much more important than reach.

Follow strategies used by Fortune 500 companies – There are 3 main strategies used by Fortune 500 companies to optimize their news feed. First, they show what goes on inside the company. Second, They show availability and allow their audience to easily interact with them. Third, They always try to provide pleasant and enjoyable experience to their customers.

Non peak times are the best to make a post – It’s simple logic, when not a lot of posts being shared online, your post will stand out more.

Create a closer relationship with your audience – This is actually quite easy, you can start by posting behind the scenes photos of you and your team, and you’ll see the positive reactions from the audience.

Post questions – This is a good way to encourage interactions and engagement.

Share self-explanatory photos – People love pictures, so posting pictographics and infographics are really useful to boost your news feed visibility.

Google Analytics is one of the best tools available for SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) Marketers. However traditional marketers also look in to these great reports to leverage their marketing knowledge. Google Analytics is all about data. These data helps you to study the past and future behavior of your customers.

I found amazing and still simple infographic about How to use Google Analytics and this will help you to identify main funtion og Google Anaylatics.

Courtesy of: Quick Sprout

Know the Google ranking factors – Part 01

I have been doing SEO for more than 10 years now. Every time when some client have a chat with me, they ask Why my competitors site on Page one and How to get to google’s page one?

Sometimes I get angry when someone ask for the most changing answer of the world. According to Google there are more than 200 Google ranking factors. However the effectiveness of each factor is changing everyday. So here are the 20 main Google ranking factors that never change over time.

01. The Content

you need to have a content to rank a webpage, The more content is valuable to the reader the more chance you have Google spiders seen your website for relevant keyword.

02. Page Speed

Your Website needs to load under 4 seconds, It doesn’t matter your website content is the best one available if it’s not loading under 4 seconds.

Here is my article about How to increase WordPress page speed

03. User experience

You need to see your website is easy to user and place the links and buttons in right place where people can easily use them when they wanted to.

04. Inbound Link

How many good websites linking to your website? You need to get links from higher page rank websites. don’t pay for links. If you get paid links Google will find out it. therefore make valuable content where people organically link to you.

05. On page optimization

Having the keyword on the Tittle and inside the content is important. you don’t need to worry about meta description, because now Google generate the meta description from your  content. However having the keyword on the content is important to generate meta description.

You can find other Google ranking factors part 02 here

I just found this slide share content from unworthy and I thought it is GOLD.

Yes, It’s talk about how you can make your post go viral. The statistics and all the insight info containing in this slide is priceless.

How To Make That One Thing Go Viral from Upworthy