Whenever you need something – a product, a piece of information, a contact number – what’s the first thing you usually do? You pull up a search engine and type in your query, right? Google processes more than3.5 billion searches every day. So, it’s no wonder that so many companies are scrambling to get involved in search engine optimization (SEO), a strategy that helps businesses rise to the top of search rankings for queries related totheir business, products or services.
To the outside observer, SEO often seems complex, intimidating and bogged down with technical logistics. But it doesn’t have to be.
Here are seven quick and easy ways to make your site more visible to search engines:
1. Optimize every page of your site with rich content.
This is by far the most complicated item on this list, but it’s fundamental. Without it, you’ll be hard-pressed to get visibility insearch engines at all.
All of your pages, especially your main lineup (home,contact, etc.), need to include concisely written, descriptive content. Ideally, this content will be optimized for specific target keywords and phrases (as long as the text doesn’t seem unnatural). If you have pages without much content, this prevents Google from indexing them.
2. Write unique title tags and meta descriptions for everypage.
Title tags serve as the headlines of your pages in search engine results pages (SERPs), while meta descriptions serve as the descriptive text. Not only do these constructs inform Google about the content and purposeof each of your pages, they also dictate how your pages appear in search results.
In this way, they serve a dual purpose: They rank your pages higher and increase click-through rates from users on search engine results pages.
3. Weed out 404 errors.
404 errors are annoying for users and may interfere with the number of pages Google can index. By themselves, they’re unlikely to hurt yourrankings, but it’s still usually worth setting up a 301 redirect or restoringthe page if you notice a 404 error where there shouldn’t be one.
Google Search Console has a great tool for checking this. If your website is on WordPress, you can download one of a number of plugins designed to automatically make 404 pages fun and useful, or automatically 301-redirect them to another page, such as your home page.
4. Make your content easily shareable.
This is a simple change, and if you haven’t done it already,you’ve probably missed out on some significant opportunities. On your blog page, feature social share icons so your users can actively and easily share your content socially. Social shares don’t contribute to rankings directly, but can make your pieces more visible, making it easier for them to earn more inbound links.
This benefit was recently confirmed as one of the top two ranking factors in Google’s algorithm. If your site is WordPress-based, there are a number of plugins that can add social share buttons to your websitedy namically.
5. Optimize your images.
You’re probably using images in your content marketing campaign, but are you optimizing them effectively? It doesn’t take much to get your images into optimal shape for search engines; all you have to do is title your images accurately; write an accurate keyword-rich description; and include alt tags and a caption to categorize and describe the image’s role on your page.
If optimization is done correctly, your image will be indexed and searchable in Google Image Search – an indirect, but valuable route for online searchers to get to your site.
6. Make your site load faster.
Site speed isn’t a crucial factor for search engine visibility, but it certainly does count. Plus, a faster site usually leads to a better user experience, which means a higher conversion rate, among other benefits.
You can improve your loading speed by: optimizing your images, using the right types of images, using a good caching plugin, deleting unnecessary meta data and only using plugins you truly need.
7. Include structured markup.
Okay, to be fair, this one isn’t that simple, but it is an effective (and more or less straightforward) way to get your site more visible in search engines. At some point, you’ve performed a search and seen some stand-out answer for your query located above or to the side of the typical results; this could be a mini calendar, an encyclopedic entry or a short summary-style answer.
These are rich snippets, and if you want to get featured like this, you’ll need to include structured markup for various types of content on your site. I don’t have the space to get into the technical requirements.
Your SEO Checklist
The goal of search engine optimization is to have the search engine spiders not only find your site and pages but also specifically rank the page relevance so that it appears at the top of the search engine results. The process of optimization is not a one-time process but requires maintenance, tuning, and continuous testing and monitoring.
Below is a broad four-step process for a strategy for search engine optimization. Use this as your top-level checklist.
Step 1: Target Market Business Analysis
- Website analysis. Analysis of meta sets/keywords, visible text and code to determine how well you’re positioned for search engines. For example, how much code do you have on a page compared to text?
- Competitive analysis. Examination of content keywords and present engine rankings of competitive websites to determine an effective engine positioning strategy. Pick the top five results in the Google listing results to begin this process. Expand as necessary. Use tools such as Semrush.com and Keywordspy.com.
- Initial keyword nomination. Development of a prioritized list of targeted search terms related to your customer base and market segment. Begin with this: What would you type into a search engine to find your business website or page? Then, ask your customers!
Step 2: Keyword Research and Development
- Keyword analysis. From nomination, further identify a targeted list of keywords and phrases. Review competitive lists and other pertinent industry sources. Use your preliminary list to determine an indicative number of recent search engine queries and how many websites are competing for each keyword. Prioritize keywords and phrases, plurals, singulars and misspellings. (If search users commonly misspell a keyword, you should identify and use it). Please note that Google will try to correct the term when searching, so use this with care.
- Baseline ranking assessment. You need to understand where you are now in order to accurately assess your future rankings. Keep a simple Excel sheet to start the process. Check weekly to begin. As you get more comfortable, check every 30 to 45 days. You should see improvements in website traffic, a key indicator of progress for your keywords. Some optimizers will say that rankings are dead. Yes, traffic and conversions are more important, but we use rankings as an indicator.
- Goals and Objectives. Clearly define your objectives in advance so you can truly measure your ROI from any programs you implement. Start simple, but don’t skip this step. Example: You may decide to increase website traffic from a current baseline of 100 visitors a day to 200 visitors over the next 30 days. Or you may want to improve your current conversion rate of one percent to two in a specified period. You may begin with top-level, aggregate numbers, but you must drill down into specific pages that can improve products, services, and business sales.
Step 3: Content Optimization and Submission
- Create page titles. Keyword-based titles help establish page theme and direction for your keywords.
- Create meta tags. Meta description tags can influence click-throughs but aren’t directly used for rankings. (Google doesn’t use the keywords tag anymore.)
- Place strategic search phrases on pages. Integrate selected keywords into your website source code and existing content on designated pages. Make sure to apply a suggested guideline of one to three keywords/phrases per content page and add more pages to complete the list. Ensure that related words are used as a natural inclusion of your keywords. It helps the search engines quickly determine what the page is about. A natural approach to this works best. In the past, 100 to 300 words on a page was recommended. Many tests show that pages with 800 to 2,000 words can outperform shorter ones. In the end, the users, the marketplace, content and links will determine the popularity and ranking numbers.
- Develop new sitemaps for Google and Bing. Make it easier for search engines to index your website. Create both XML and HTML versions. An HTML version is the first step. XML sitemaps can easily be submitted via Google and Bing webmaster tools.
- Submit website to directories (limited use). Professional search marketers don’t submit the URL to the major search engines, but it’s possible to do so. A better and faster way is to get links back to your site naturally. Links get your site indexed by the search engines. However, you should submit your URL to directories such as Yahoo! (paid), Business.com (paid) and DMOZ (free). Some may choose to include AdSense (google.com/adsense) scripts on a new site to get their Google Media bot to visit. It will likely get your pages indexed quickly.
Step 4: Continuous Testing and Measuring
- Test and measure. Analyze search engine rankings and web traffic to determine the effectiveness of the programs you’ve implemented, including assessment of individual keyword performance. Test the results of changes, and keep changes tracked in an Excel spreadsheet, or whatever you’re comfortable with.
- Maintenance. Ongoing addition and modification of keywords and website content are necessary to continually improve search engine rankings so growth doesn’t stall or decline from neglect. You also want to review your link strategy and ensure that your inbound and outbound links are relevant to your business. A blog can provide you the necessary structure and ease of content addition that you need. Your hosting company can typically help you with the setup/installation of a blog.
Source: Entrepreneur
Talk Code To Me, Software Development Process
Do you remember your first mobile phone? Big, heavy, horrible specs, super bad camera or none at all…are those memories coming back? Now, compare it with your current phone. We all agree so much has changed from the physical appearance to the user interface. It is pretty evident that technology is accelerating at a rapid pace and we are becoming further dependent on it for every purpose. The demand for software is also rising considering the fact that we use them for simple and basic things like ordering food, accessing health care and also education.
Today we will talk about software development process. A software process (also known as software methodology) is a set of related activities that leads to the production of the software. These activities may involve the development of the software from the scratch or modifying an already existing system.
A good software process is repeatable, predictable, learnable, measurable, improvable. These characteristics allow the process to be reused and improved over time.
Requirements Analysis
This is the first step in software development. It involves extracting the requirements of a desired software product which is the first task in creating it. It may require skill and experience in software engineering to recognize incomplete, ambiguous or contradictory requirements.
System Analysis
This step is about analyzing the performance of the software at various stages and making notes on additional requirements. Analysis is very important to proceed further to the next step. It involves developing concepts, terminology, and relationships essential to the software and its behavior.
System Design
In this stage, the software is designed by the designer. Here the analyst and the designer work together in designing the software. This step helps remove possible flaws by setting a standard and attempting to stick to it.
Implementation
This involves writing and compiling code for the individual software components. The actual task of developing the software starts here with data recording going on in the background. Once the software is developed, the stage of implementation comes in where the product goes through a pilot study to see if it’s functioning properly.
Testing
The testing stage assesses the software for errors and documents bugs if there are any. When the software is ready it is sent to the testing department where quality analysts test it thoroughly for different errors by performing test cases.
Maintenance
Once the software passes through all the stages without any issues, it is to undergo a maintenance process wherein it will be maintained and upgraded from time to time to adapt to changes. Maintaining and enhancing software to cope with newly discovered problems or new requirements can take far more time than the initial development of the software.
What You Need To Know From Your Digital Marketing Agency
With the advancing technological structures, there is a subsequent rise in the digital marketing agencies because of their requirement and importance in today’s marketing strategies. They are at the peak at the moment like the search engine optimization (S.E.O.) and search engine marketing (S.E.M.) agencies because almost everything is getting digital.But with this, everyday a new agency is formed which might not be as good as the others and so you need to know certain things before you hire one for your company. In this article we will be discussing top 10 questions you must ask before you select a digital marketing agency:
1. What are the Services Offered?
When it is social media/digital marketing, you have to carefully note down everything starting from the basics to the add-ons. You have to make sure that your requirements fall under their basics in order to have full access.
2. What is Success to them?
It is very important to understand that every single individual has a completely different explanation for what success means to them. Now, you should be on the same page as that of your agency while you try working together.
3. How well acquainted are you with this industry?
You have to understand how well they understand the industry. Now, one cannot simply add keywords in the content and make it large but they have to write great content.
4. What kind of success stories do you have?
The success stories are responsible for giving you an insight into the working structure of the agency and thus making you understand whether they are suitable for you or not.
5. Who is going to work for me?
You have to remember apart from the agency head there would be one person who would be in contact with you all the while and he or she would be the one working for you directly.
6. How good is your communication system?
Like customer response or service is necessary to be fast it is essential that internal communications are well maintained as well. An agency has to function in synchronization with your company.
7. How do you calculate the reports or results?
Feedback is an essential element when calculating the results of a company after a certain period. Now adverts like Google Adwords have instant responses and thus the agencies prepare reports as well to measure the rise or fall in the graph.
8. What is your charging structure?
Different agencies charge in different manners apart from the fixed work they are doing for you. Now, this completely depends on the agency so it is better to clarify everything.
9. Do you organize meetings for review reports?
Like they are analyzing your reports it is important that they share the reports with you as well. You need to understand how your company is functioning and if there are any changes to the agency working on your behalf.
10. What is your idea of a perfect client?
This question would determine whether you should hire them or not. The question judges the type of client they would prefer and thus if it is below your expectancy level then you know the answer!
These are the top 10 questions you must ask before hiring your digital marketing agency. Remember these are the questions that would judge them so well.
What should be in your website have?
When you have a business or company website to run then, there are a lot of things that you need to take care of. Like for instance, your website should have the right features or else it may go down in S.E.O. ranking which is based on keywords. Also, you may have problems getting more traffic to your website even when you have your website promoted on Google Adwords. To help you out, we have listed the top 10 features that every website should have.
10 Important Features
Here you go with the 10 important features that your website need to have:
1. Domain Name
Having a domain name for your website is really important. They add a sense of professionalism to your site which is hard to get if, you don’t have a domain name. Also, you need to make sure that the domain name is sensible enough. Like for instance, the name of your company can be the ideal option.
2. Purpose
It is important that the purpose of your website is clear. When visitors view your website, they should be able to understand what the website is for or what your website provides. If the purpose is unclear then users may simply just lose interest from your site and thus, may never visit it again.
3. Fresh Content
You should be regularly updating your website with fresh content. By doing so, the visitors to your site will know that the site is an active and efficient one. This will help them to trust your site and will also keep them interested. But if you keep on serving the same thing old thing to your viewers then they have the impression that your site is not competent enough.
4. Uniqueness
There are millions of websites out there on the net. So, you can very well figure out the level of competition that you will have to deal with. Try to come up with something new and unique that you can do to your website. This will help you attract more traffic to your site. If you are unique, you will sell.
5. Relevant Information
Your website should obviously contain detailed information about what your company does or what it provides or any other important details that you think your customers or visitors need to know. This will help your visitors to know more about you and your company.
6. Contact Details
If you are serious about your website and business then, make sure that you furnish the contact details on the site. If customers don’t find the way to contact you then, they may simply just leave your site and shift to some other site.
7. User-Friendly
Make sure that your site is user-friendly because if users find it difficult to handle them, they may shift to some other site. Therefore, it’s better that you design an easy to use the site.
8. Clear Navigation
A website is useless without clear navigation. Therefore, it’s important that you use logical names for the different pages of your website. Because trying to be clever is not going to work well with your customers.
9. Social Media Integration
In this age of social media networks, you should definitely promote your site on the social media platforms in order to get more recognition. Also, integrating these social media networks on your site will help improve your SEO rankings.
10. Mobile Ready Version
Majority of the population browse the internet from their mobile phones and therefore, it is important that you have a mobile-ready version of your site. This will help the viewers to visit your website even from their phones.
Now that you know about the 10 important features make sure that your website has all of them.