I am writing this article after lots of comments I got for writing over the “Not A Ranking Factor”. You might be shocked after seeing these.
What is Google Ranking Factor
These are the factors that impact the ranking of any website or web page on Google. It helps the websites to get ranked higher in Search Engines. For every SEOs, it is important to know the Google Ranking Factor which really works.
There are lots of factors available that really impact the position of any website in the search engine. But along with the real one, there are lots of google ranking factors which are considered as ranking factors but they don’t matter at all. Google itself has issued several statements about the same.
Let’s have a look at those Google ranking factors which are not a ranking factor anymore-
Word Count Is Not A Ranking Factor
On Reddit, Google’s John Mueller stated that Google does not use word count as a ranking factor.
John Mueller was replying to a user on Reddit. The question was –
“How to find word count in SERP?”
John Mueller Replied – “Word count is not a ranking factor. Save yourself the trouble”
So any marketers who are just focusing on the number of words in the content; need to go through it and understand what it means.
If someone needs to write a blog on “How to boil an egg?”; how much text should he keep in his content?
100 words, 250 words, 500 words or more than it?
It is very simple…if we can write an answer within 100 words why should we extend it to the 500. Focus on writing well-explained content not just on length of content.
Website Traffic Is Not A Ranking Factor
Have you ever thought about it? Yes, you did. But not something like this.
Being a marketer, I myself was thinking that getting more referral traffic will improve the ranking.
But that is not TRUE.
See what Google has to say about this.
Hi Suhas! No, traffic to a website isn't a ranking factor. If you're starting to get relevant traffic & users love your site, that's a good start though!
So, now it is clear that getting referral visitors doesn’t mean that it will also get the Organic traffic.
This has been a super popular myth within SEOs and digital marketers.
AMP Is Not A Ranking Factor
This is going to give a little bit of pleasure to the SEOs who are working for small businesses and have some issues in getting an AMP version website.
Google said, “AMP version is not a ranking factor.”
Albeit this statement might be right in terms of ranking factor still every website should have an AMP version in order to open the website on mobile devices speedily.
There are following benefits of having an AMP version website –
Reduce Load Time
Open Easily on Any Devices
Bring Down Bounce Rate
Mobile Friendly
No Sitemap Required For AMP Version Pages
I suggest all of you please have the AMP version of the website.
Google Danny Sullivan clarified on Twitter that Machines can’t tell the “Accuracy of content”. See below his tweet-
Machines can't tell the "accuracy" of content. Our systems rely instead on signals we find align with relevancy of topic and authority. See: https://t.co/O65v1PTehr and https://t.co/cTveD8XNxp
Next, he added – Google’s systems cannot verify the accuracy of content but it relies on signals that the company thinks
Google’s systems cannot verify the accuracy of content; instead, it relies on signals that the company thinks aligns with “relevance of topic and authority,” according to Danny Sullivan, Google’s search liaison, in a tweet posted from his personal account on September 9. This attracted attention from SEOs and kicked off a conversation.
Structured Data is Not a Ranking Factor
Replying to a user on Reddit, John Mueller stated – “Just to set expectations, structured data generally wouldn’t be seen as a ranking factor — it’s just the search result that might be shown differently. Sometimes that difference is enough to make it worthwhile though :). Also, think about what it is that you want to achieve with it, don’t just do it because it’s possible.”
Now, it is clear that Structure Data is not a Ranking factor. But yes, we should use it as it impacts the CTR and can help to increase the traffic on the website.
After all ups and downs, we have successfully completed the 2019 year in regards to Google updates in 2019. Even after many major Google updates, 2019, very few websites got hit by Google; they might be working for users is the reason. We have seen lots of changes in Google in order to improve the search results. Google made several changes but here, you are going to find the top major Changes/Google Updates which happened last year, 2019.
March 2019 Core Update (aka Florida 2 Core Algo Update)
March 12, 2019
This was the very first major update which happened in March 2019. Google regularly updates the Google Core Update 3-4 times a year. So, it was the first one for that year.
What were the major changes in Google after this Google Core update?
There were lots of discussions going on amongst the SEOs after the release of this update. As there was no name for this update till then, it was difficult to find out its impact on Google’s SERP.
Later Danny Sullivan, Google’s Search Liaison named it “march 2019 Core Update” in a tweet.
We understand it can be useful to some for updates to have names. Our name for this update is "March 2019 Core Update." We think this helps avoid confusion; it tells you the type of update it was and when it happened.
The issue arises when many Webmasters started to see the drop-down in their Google Webmaster data. Actually, this was because of some errors made by tools (as assumed before Mr. Pete tweet).
No hard evidence either way yet, but a multi-day indexing bug could certainly (in theory) cause the SERP flux we're seeing. While not an "algorithm change" in the traditional sense, it's certainly a ranking change.
The pages were dropping from the Google Index. Almost all websites were affected. The pages were not coming in Google at any place for most of the websites.
This all happened because of some bug in the Google index. So, after all, there was nothing from the Google end intensely, it was a bug that hampers all indexed websites.
The Highlighted Point –
Google De Indexed Millions of Pages
It Called it “Bug”
It Fixed the Issue and Gain What Were be Loose
Not Major Impact on Google Ranking for a Long Time
Have you ever done a search and gotten many listings all from the same site in the top results? We've heard your feedback about this and wanting more variety. A new change now launching in Google Search is designed to provide more site diversity in our results….
— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) June 6, 2019
Amongst all Google updates 2019 (happened in 2019), The Domain Diversity Update was one of the most important updates. The marketers and SEOs have been continuously asking for such updates or algorithms.
This Google Update was all about showing the more diverse, different and unique search results to users. As earlier or still, you may find several listings from a single domain for a query. In this scenario, many listings were getting several places in top results while some deserving listings were not anywhere.
What Now?
With the help of this Google update, Google Search is trying to show more unique results in the top searches. Now, it will not show more than 2 listings from the same domain. Google SearchLiaison further added that we may still get more than 2 listings for some domain if its system found it unique in some way.
Is it going to consider the results from Root-domain & Subdomain Results differently?
No. If we were getting 2-2 results from root domain and sub-domain respectively. After releasing this Google Update, we will get only 2 results (2 from any domain or 1 from each domain)
The Highlighted Point –
The marketers and SEOs were demanding such type of update for a long time
Now, we will see the maximum 2 results from the same domain
Google may show you more than 2 results if it finds it relevant
Root-domain and Subdomain results will be considered from the same domain
The other listings will get space in the top search
Tomorrow, we are releasing a broad core algorithm update, as we do several times per year. It is called the June 2019 Core Update. Our guidance about such updates remains as we’ve covered before. Please see this tweet for more about that:https://t.co/tmfQkhdjPL
— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) June 2, 2019
One more Google Core Update. This one is the 2nd Google Core Update after the previous one happened in March 2019. I think this is the first time Google pre-announced before it’s been rolling out. Danny Sullivan stated that they just wanted to be more proactive and marketers will be known about the update and don’t feel puzzled.
Google usually rolls out the core updates several times in a single year. For 2019, this was the 2nd one. So, as always nothing special. It was just another Google Core Update that rolls out to improve the search result.
Google has tried made little bit changes in its Google Search Algorithm in regards to showing adult content. Now, after the update, Google is going to show less adult or porn content for the searches as “School Girl”, “Teens” and more.
So, there was nothing to worry about the other industry. It may have helped several websites for Schools, Student activities, NGOs working for Girl child and more.
Again indexing issue in Google after the Google De-Indexing Issue in March 2019. It affected every new content but this time the News websites have been hampered mostly as they do publish the news every 15 mins (averagely).
This was a technical issue from the Google side. There is nothing to worry about. The issue has been resolved by Google as Google confirmed.
Google again pre-announced the Google Core Update in September. Earlier they pre-announced the same Google Core Update in March 2019.
The question is – Why are they pre-announcing from the last 2 updates? Is something big going to happen?
Google on Twitter “Later today, we are releasing a broad core algorithm update, as we do several times per year. It is called the September 2019 Core Update. Our guidance about such updates remains as we’ve covered before. Please see this blog for more about that.”
Find the same tweet below:
Later today, we are releasing a broad core algorithm update, as we do several times per year. It is called the September 2019 Core Update. Our guidance about such updates remains as we’ve covered before. Please see this blog for more about that: https://t.co/e5ZQUAlt0G
Why does Google want to hide or minimize Google reviews?
This update will help Google to hide or minimize the google reviews in search snippets. Now Google is going to show the review snippets from the selected schema types. By doing this, Google wants to remove misleading reviews and make it more meaningful.
The Schemas Google Will Accept For Reviews
We can have several types of reviews and we can create those reviews with the help of different Schemas. Find the following Schemas which Google is going to accept and will show the reviews in search results –
Google has announced some important changes in using the NoFollow attribute. Google introduces 2 new NoFollow Attributes –
Nofollow Attribute For User Generated Content
Nofollow Attribute For Sponsored Content
Before releasing this update, there was only one NoFollow Attribute being used for all non-trusted links i.e. rel=”Nofollow”.
Now, we can use 3 different Nofollow attributes –
rel=”sponsored” – Use for paid and sponsored links.
rel=”ugc” – Use for user-generated content such as comments, reviews and more.
rel=”Nofollow” – Use for Non-trusted links.
Google posted –
“All the link attributes, sponsored, ugc and nofollow, now work today as hints for us to incorporate for ranking purposes.”
It is big. Now, Google will treat UGC nofollow links as hints for ranking purpose. It means now Google may crawl the links with NoFollow attributes. The NoFollow attribute was not used for crawling and indexing (Google didn’t follow them) and so Google didn’t use them for ranking hints.
The Highlighted Point –
Google announced 3 different Nofollow attributes.
rel=”sponsored”
rel=”ugc”
rel=”Nofollow”
Post these changes, Google may use all Nofollow attributes as a ranking hint.
We can use the attributes in combination with one another i.e. rel=”Nofollow sponsored”, rel=”nofollow ugc” and so on.
As per Google recommendations, the webmasters should mark the paid and affiliate links with “nofollow” or “sponsored” attributes
Means by working on UGC one can generate the backlink which may be crawled by Google
Google can track how many websites/person is indulging in Paid linking/promotion on 3rd party website
One question – Would Google like to target those who are paying for a link, for PPC?
BERT is the acronym for Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers. Basically, it is designed to understand the intent behind the search queries.
It has the capability to understand the full context of each word in search queries. It also understands the meaning of whole queries by looking at the words that come before and after it.
Why is BERT?
As we know, Google always tries to improve its search results. With the same aim, Google keeps changing or bringing new things.
This time Google wants to understand the queries in a better way so that it could provide the most relevant results to the users.
Google also stated that it wants to understand the Queries better than ever before.
It is a neural network-based technique for natural language processing (NLP)called BERT. This technology enables anyone to train their own state-of-the-art question answering system.
Google also said that it is extending the BERT method to more languages so that it could help the other people who don’t understand/search in English.
Google is also going to use the BERT for featured snippets too.
The Highlighted Point –
BERT will help Google to understand the context (not meaning) behind the queries.
It will help Google to understand queries like humans rather than robots.
Marketers don’t need to change anything if you are already writing for users.
BERT will help to understand the prepositions like “to”, “for”, “of” etc.
In the very beginning, it is limited to US English searches only. It will be expanding to the other local languages too.
Again one more step from Google to understand the meaning behind queries in a better way and improve the search result.
Now Google is going to use the Neural Matching method for local searches too. By implementing this method, Google is trying to improve the results for local searches too.
What is the Neural matching method?
As Google stated in another tweet, “Neural matching is an AI-based system Google began using in 2018 primarily to understand how words are related to concepts. It’s like a super-synonym system. Synonyms are words that are closely related to other words.”
An example by Google, neural matching helps us understand that a search for “why does my TV look strange” is related to the concept of “the soap opera effect.” We can then return pages about the soap opera effect, even if the exact words aren’t used…
The marketers need not do anything in regards to this update. Yes, if you are going to lose the ranking; need to introspect your business listings a
In early November, we began making use of neural matching as part of the process of generating local search results. Neural matching allows us to better understand how words are related to concepts, as explained more here: https://t.co/ShQm7g9CvN
Hope you have enjoyed this blog. Kindly comment if these Google updates in 2019 had hit you and also let us know – what did you do for recovery. It will be good to share your experience with the readers.
Firstly let’s discuss in brief what E-commerce Business is??
E-commerce business is an Electronic business that involves the transfer of information across the internet and is profitable. A lot of suppliers choose to open a shop on e-commerce platforms as it is rising these days. They start their own online business and make profits through their services.
Now, what is E-commerce SEO??
Umm…
Basically, the techniques that are used while marketing E-commerce Business is known as E-commerce SEO. There is not much difference in E-commerce SEO and normal SEO. The techniques used in them are almost the same.
So, now let’s talk over the tips to follow while doing E-commerce SEO:
Discovering Keywords For Ecommerce Website
Finding the right keywords is the key to rank your e-commerce website. Take the time to do some in-depth keyword research to pick the ones that suit your activity. Long-tail keywords can help you rank high on specific niches where your competitors are not already. Those keywords can attract the audience and the traffic you are looking for and increase your conversion rate. Think in terms of user queries. You need to think about your keywords in terms of user’s search perspectives.
On-Page Optimization For Ecommerce Websites
There are many elements to consider for on-page optimization for Ecommerce Websites from keywords to social media. Let’s take a closer look at each:-
Keyword Optimization: We have identified various elements of your site’s pages that should be optimized for keywords.
Meta Titles and Descriptions: It is also known as metadata, inform the search engines what web pages are all about. The Meta title is the clickable listing in the search engine results pages (SERPs), and the Meta description is the text that follows. Both the Meta title and description should be unique to each page and optimized with the page’s primary keywords to capture search share. The text should also be compelling and well written.
Header Tags: There role on a page of content is to break up important sections of the content in a user-friendly and search-friendly way. When used effectively, headers help format the content in a way the search engines can crawl and understands it easily. It includes at least one of the page’s primary keywords in the H1 and in other header tags throughout the page to boost up the topic to the search engines.
Paragraph Copy: Copy is the actual on-page text. Even though your site is appointed as E-Commerce, this doesn’t mean you should exclude content where it is useful and appropriate for the shopper. Search engines read and index sites via text, so providing them the content they are looking for is strongly recommended.
Optimize Site Structure: Creating a well-designed website defined by content and organized around keyword research helps search engines in indexing your site’s content. It is easier for search engines to understand what your site is all about.
A well organized, optimized website also helps visitors navigate it easier to find the products they are searching for.
Internal Linking: An integral part of an optimized site structure is internal linking. Search engine robots crawl the web via links. Providing your website with the solid support of internal links that logically lead from one page to another helps search engines in understanding the overall theme. Internal links also assist visitors with navigating your site – where do you want them to go next?
Usability: Aligned with both optimized site structure and internal linking is usability. Basically, usability refers to the ease with which visitors to your site can navigate it to find the information they are looking for.
Besides making your site easy to navigate, you can increase conversions with a clear call to action (CTA) that facilitates purchases, don’t hide your sales pages or make it a complicated process for people to buy.
If you are owning a business, you must consider to hire the best Digital Marketing Agency and let them help you to increase the sales as well as revenue.
Social Media Integration: There is no doubt that social media influences search results. Optimizing your site’s content by integrating it with social media campaigns is a smart strategy that can help with your site’s rankings and thereby, E-Commerce sales.
When considering your social media integration strategy it is important to keep in mind the appropriate target audience. One size does not fit for all E-Commerce businesses, especially those heavy with images. Pinterest may be the best social platform. For others, it may well be Google+ or LinkedIn.
Avoid Duplicate Content and Mention Product Descriptions
Product descriptions are very important for E-Commerce SEO and should be informed and optimized by your keyword research. Duplicate content descriptions is a common mistake among E-Commerce businesses (which may invite a Google penalty).
A second common mistake is repeating meta titles and descriptions for different web pages. As discussed above, it is important to create a meta title and description that is unique to each page of your site.
General product descriptions also do little for conversions. Adding details – “warm,” “soft,” “cozy,” “comfortable” – that is presented to your readers. In short, detailed and descriptive product descriptions start with unique meta information and end with advertising copy.
Optimize Product Images
When using product images, you should include image file names and optimized alt text to inform the search engines of what the image describes. As discussed in part 1 of our basic SEO concepts, image file names are simple titles that accurately summarize the image’s content, while alt text describes the image in more detail.
Including image file names and alt text helps search engines understand them, as it is currently not clear whether or not Google bot has the ability to read imagery. Image file names also help to explain images to visitors with visual impairments who use screen-reading functionality. Image optimization is a very important part of E-Commerce SEO. You will also check out the image weight and loading speed. If an image takes too long to load because it is heavy, your page load time will decrease and possibly cause Google to penalize your site. Most SEOs avoid the conversion of images.
Boost E-Commerce SEO- Enable Reviews & Ratings for Your Products
Finally, enabling reviews and ratings for your products can give your E-Commerce business a competitive edge.
A great way to achieve this is to employ schema on your site’s content – and especially, its key product pages. While it sounds highly technical, Schema is just a system of code that your web development team can readily implement that helps search engines better interpret your site’s content.
With the schema, search engines can display your web pages in the search results with easy snippets that even include thumbnail images, reviews, and ratings. These results are far more compelling and more likely to be selected by shoppers than general SERP listings, giving you a competitive edge. The schema should be one of the first things to consider when doing E-commerce SEO.
Classified sites are those sites where you tell about your services and products. The Classifieds sites for UK are the best place to advertise your business. It helps you to generate the leads and get a backlink as well. The Classifieds sites are going to be very effective day-by-day. If you have good resource of classifieds sites, you can save your precious time and make your work more result oriented.
I’m trying my best to provide you those resources which have more reputation and providing the backlinks. These all classified sites have good domain authority and Mozrank.
You just need to register there and start posting the ads. Always try to have a title which can have more clicks and attract more visitors and gain your traffic as well. Be Specific and try to provide details as much as possible about your products. Always give right and proper contact details so that if anyone wants to contact you, can reach you easily.
Also do not forget to post the images as well as. You can post the videos also if you have. It brings more traffic on your ads and will increase engagement.
You must follow the below given tips while doing classifieds posting-
Avoid posting on those websites which have similar IP address. It may be cause of duplicity and may harm your real website
Select the most relevant category
Provide the tag which have more searches
Set your targeted keywords as a tag. It is a better practice to use the keyword in variation too.
Top Classifieds Site For UK
Find the list for top classifieds sites for UK businesses. These classifieds sites are going to help you a lot. By posting your business here, you can generate leads for your business and also get a link. The link might be Dofollow Link or NoFollow Links but in either way they are going to be helpful for your website SEO.
Here I’m sharing the classified sites for UK which accept the ads from UK . There are many websites which accept the ads from multiple countries and few websites accepts only UK ads.
Classifieds sites for India are the platform to sell or buy the products or services. We can get a good number of leads or sales from these classifieds sites. There are lots of good websites which are more capable to provide you enough leads or sales without any charges. And, yes, there are few websites, which do charge for the same.
So, if you are dealing in any business, you must promote your services or products on classifieds sites in India. It will help you in two ways –
Providing Sales and Leads
Generating Quality Backlinks
Top Classifieds Sites in India
“How can we provide you the top classifieds sites for India?” – This is our top priority while we do work on finding the list for top classifieds sites in India. The classifieds sites must be so good that someone could get quality backlinks and leads as well.
We have been constantly working on finding good resources and will keep it doing. It is just beginning. We are trying hard to provide you the best resources. We have already posted many such posts which contain different types of resources.
Each and every resources matter and are effective. As we can use these classified sites for creating backlink too. As we should try to get backlink from every corner of the web.
Free Classified Sites in India
Here, I’m again posting an article which is containing the classified sites for India. If you are doing for India business you will find this list very helpful.
Google News has changed the way readers consume and devour news daily.
It has brought a massive change to the conventional way of skimming through newspaper pages and then finding the headlines worth their time and attention.
Today, a visit to Google news means an opportunity to get to read aggregated pages of news from various dailies, newspapers and sites from around the world.
With Google News, readers can even find topics of interest displayed to their personal interest. Quick and 24×7 updates are available and it takes a click to keep pace with the world around you.
Like readers, news publishes too gain a lot out of Google News as their information finds a broader audience without massive investment.
However, it’s not that easy to get your news features on Google News as it uses some unique algorithms and formulas nobody is sure about.
You’re never sure how Google news selects and ranks articles, apart from that factors like relevance, freshness, originality of the news finding precedence over other less vital aspects.
For Google News as well, the content is king and if you want attention from the most-widely available news platform, you got to know how to optimize your content well.
With proper search engine attention, you can easily boost the visibility of your news items on Google News and realize your conversion goals.
Here are some tips to optimize your content for Google News:-
Conduct Keyword Research to Understand People’s Favorite News Searches
When you plan to start Google News optimization, the first step should be to do keyword research and find those news items people are interested in. There are some tools and features like the Explore tool in Google Trends and the Autocomplete feature in Google News that will help your cause a great deal.
Once you use these tools and features, it will give a better idea on what people are searching for in news or press release section. This will help you come up with the best possible answers for the hot and trending queries that readers have in their mind.
Have Clarity and Brevity with the Headline
Get it straight, Google News continues to give a lot of weight to page titles when it comes to determining ranking. This practice continues on for years despite several revamps along the way. And you know the headline of your news (video, magazines and PR as well) works as their page title.
So, use clear and concise headline so that proper indexing by Google News is never an issue. With headlines, avoid going too much creative or stay away from showing word power. Try to keep it simple so that neither readers nor search engine algorithms find them obtuse.
Give Emphasis to Headline with Subheads & Text Formatting
Yes, you can use subheads to add additional keywords that are not in the headline. With subheads, you can make the content or news more interesting to readers. Their presence can help users decide whether the news item is worth continuing on further. Plus, you can always emphasize key points in the article by using bold, italic, bullet and underlined text.
Since long paragraphs and sentences can put off readers, it’s better to break up the content into smaller chunks to make them easily digestible. And yes, you can pepper the news with some visual cues so that those in hurry-type readers can grasp the gist of the news quickly.
Don’t Focus Much on the Length of the News Article
Look, Google News will never discriminate articles based on their length. That very much negates the conventional wisdom that says, ‘keep it short’ so that readers have it easy. Nobody knows exactly how long your content should be to be optimized for Google News. Rather, quality of content will hold the key in optimization.
Articles can be between 300 to 2000 words, even more, and Google News won’t have any issue with the length. However, optimization results will depend on whether the piece is written by a subject matter expert, whether it’s unique, researched, balanced, in-depth on a topic etc.
Include Photos & Videos
The use of photos and videos can add value to your content optimization for Google news. Although Google focuses more on rich textual content, using images and videos can add more heft to your news for sure. Plus, you can find news items being displayed alongside relevant images to give more clarity to readers.
So, if you want your images to get paired with news item, make sure they are relevant, and they have schema.org to be the thumbnail to the article. Make sure your images come with standard file name extensions and they are sized to at least 60×90 pixels. And yes, use well-written captions and maintain reasonable aspect ratios with images.
Add Meaningful Links
Adding meaningful links to your content can help direct audiences to additional content and serve your cause even better. The use of relevant and contextual links can help drive quantifiable traffic to the content and boost the user’s experience. Google gives preference to natural links (editorial placed links) while it can penalize unnatural ones not editorially placed.
For that reason, Google News only allows no follow tags to links in PRs which may not help with SEO but can still drive more visitors or traffic to the site. So, be ethical with the use of links and add value to your news content optimization.
Track the Performance of Your Content on Google News
As a publisher, you should be ready to assess the performance and impact of your news or article to see where you’re heading. Google Analytics will help you conduct a deep analysis of not only your HTML but also AMP articles (for mobile pages). You can use Google site and track direct traffic to the site easily in case you provide content via RSS feeds.
Plus, publishers can also use tracking feature in Google News to get more details about the performance of their content or release on any particular point of time.
There will be multiple checkpoints that you’ll have to cross during your professional journey. You start with an idea of establishing a market for your products or services.
Next, you prepare a pathway to grow your business to success. Now, as a marketer what can be the most desired thing for you in the world? Probably “more customers” right? And what often comes after customers? The answer would be, more traffic to your site.
Driving more traffic to your website is a marathon, not a sprint! This process can be a tough one. Your content is meant to create awareness and to bring ROI. If you have experimented with everything you know but your traffic is still stagnant, then there are some points of improvement in your approach. Time to check out some Digital Marketing tips to upgrade your skills. But before focusing on more traffic your target audience should be able to find your website first.
Would you like to know how to do that?
Here are 10 tips and strategies to help you get more traffic to your website:
Expand your Social Media Reach
It’s not a wise choice to ignore social media. Social media usage has been increasing at a rapid rate across the globe. You tend to find more customers through social media.
Having a Facebook profile isn’t enough anymore. Make sure you have an active presence on other social media platforms as well, such as:
Twitter
Instagram
YouTube
LinkedIn
Things you must keep doing-
Post content daily.
Try your best to get more followers.
Create engaging posts.
Respond directly to your followers to entice communication.
These actions are surely going to generate new leads for you. But remember, just because someone follows your brand on social media doesn’t mean they visit your website. Compel your followers to visit your website with your posts, provide links to your social pages to drive traffic directly to your website.
Give Your Thoughts Voice
Start blogging. If blogging is not in your marketing strategy, then including this strategy in your checklist should be a priority.
Irrespective of the business type you have or what industry you’re in. Blogging is one of the best ways to increase website traffic and generate organic leads.
Take out some time to analyze your brand. What are you offering? Tell people about your offers and services through your blog. Give people a reason to keep coming back. Your SEO gets improved because you’re constantly adding new content to your page. Your organic lead generation will increase as well.
Give your blogging a boost by guest blogging on guest posting websites. It is a great way to increase your site traffic. Try building backlinks leading to your website for readers who may not be familiar with your brand can click on those links and be redirected to your site as new leads.
Make Friends with Video Content
Consumers love video content! That’s why many marketers produce video content online. Videos get a 157% increase in organic search traffic as well. Furthermore, 46% of consumers act after watching a video advertisement.
Give people what they wish. Your business should have a YouTube channel set up, and you need to add new videos regularly. Creating a video does not require to spend a fortune. It’s easy to create and edit your videos in house.
Improve Your SEO
It is a highly effective way to generate leads and traffic. As you can see from what we’ve already talked about, implementing some of these other lead generation strategies will automatically help your SEO.
By using other tools to improve your SEO, you’ll be able to get more traffic from organic search results. That’s because when someone is looking for something online, whether it’s a product or service, they’ll probably start with a Google search. See Google Search Statistics here.
Almost everybody uses Google to help them find information about products before they make a purchase. If you master your SEO strategy, you can direct visitors to your website anytime.
Now that they’ve found your site from a search engine, it will be easier for you to generate a new lead as well.
Leverage Long-Tail Keywords
You’re effectively using your high-intent keyword and popular keyword, right?
Then it’s time to target long-tail keywords, too. These keywords account for a majority of web searches, meaning that if you’re not targeting them as part of your paid search or SEO efforts, you’re missing out.
Long-tail keywords are much less ruthless and they will drive the majority of your traffic to your website. Using some of the long-tail phrases into the page that already ranks for the relevant head term, you’ll start getting more relevant search traffic.
Don’t Forget Email Marketing
So many businesses are adapting to modern marketing to attract new customers through content marketing that they forget about more traditional methods. Email marketing can be a powerful tool. A successful email blast to the targeted audience can result in a significant uptick in traffic.
Just ignore bombarding people with relentless emails about every single update in your business.
Make the Most of the Comment Sections
You probably check out at least a few sites that are related to your business regularly, so why not join the conversation?
Blog Commenting doesn’t necessarily provide an immediate boost to referral right away. This practice certainly helps in making a name for yourself. By providing intuitive, comments on the blogs and site is a great way to get your name out there, which can ultimately drive more traffic to your own site.
Use More Infographics
The visual representation of statistics and information, if done right, can be a huge traffic magnet on both the popular pinning site, as well as your website.There are lots of benefits of using Infographics.
It can be a time-consuming process, but there are several ways present on the internet that can help you make infographics in less time.
Use the Power of Retargeting
Retargeting involves targeting customers through ads on other sites long after they’ve visited your site. Depending on the type of retargeting you do, you can often convince them to circle back to visit your site by displaying a product they may have looked at, an ad for an item they searched for, and so on.
Join the Best Digital Marketing Institute
If you’re having some problems in adapting to these tips that I have just provided for you, you can look for a Digital Marketing Institute in Delhi that will provide you with the expert assistance to boost your reach to your target audience hence grow your website traffic.
Ranking a website at the top of the user search in Google is an art in its own. Over the years Google has introduced a number of factors in its algorithm which according to sources are easily more than 200 to ascertain which of the results lie close to user’s requirement. To develop an understanding how Google has improved their ranking factors let us see the most important tweaks over the years:
Security of Websites or HTTPS was introduced as a Ranking Signal.
Mobile Friendliness became a Ranking Signal.
Google updated its algorithm with Penguin 4.0. as well as Possum Update which was circled around Rank Brain-a machine-learning (Al) algorithm that Google uses to improve search results with perceptive, cleaner not to mention, a more semantic search experience.
Google pressed more importance on HTTPS websites.
Let us see which 10 factors will be paying the most attention to:
Site Security
With rising issues of security in user information tracking Google also has put a lot of effort to make sure that the websites ranking at the top of their searches are in the no-threat zone for its users. Sites having SSL certificates or sites starting with HTTPS are ranked higher than their counterparts. To understand the impact on SEO one needs to have a quick look into the following data:-
More than 80% of the users would abandon a purchase if the data was being transferred in a potentially insecure connection meaning it would have a direct impact on sales. Thus securing your website is a must now.
Google Chrome has become smarter by indicating its users regarding the security of a website by warning it Not Secure which has an advert effect on the minds of the users.
A potential rise in the bounce rate has been seen since the inception of Chrome warning and most of the top websites have thus transcended into the secure category in the fear of loss of traffic retention.
Mobile First Index
With an increase in the number of mobile searches are indicative of the fact that mobile first indexing is an essential ranking factor now Sites wanting to reciprocate to this change need to make sure that their mobile sites are responsive in design and the difference in content from the desktop version is minimum.
It is important that one is not confused between mobile friendly and mobile first. In the age of mobile first index the mobile site plays important role now in the existence of SERP.
With 91% of users agreeing that access to content is a far more important factor while searching a site content retention in the mobile version has become the true guideline of a mobile first index age.
Website Page Speed
This factor is a direct ricochet of over the year’s history of many important sites and the level of impact on the user experience. With the introduction of mobile first index loading time of a site is now also an important factor to consider if you don’t want to lose an important chunk of your traffic.
Sites like Amazon and the Telegraph has reported significant loss of sales and viewership with slower loading pages.
Based on recent research a generalization of the waiting time has been made on the loading pages which is around 2-3 seconds. Most users are reportedly bounced back if they are asked to wait a bit longer. According to sources a 1 second delay in page speed has 7% reduction in conversions.
So, if your website page speed is great you are going to get more conversions.
Internal Linking
SEO experts curve their technical magic while maintaining the On-Page Optimization. These include metadata handling which deals with the title tagging and page descriptions. Another is prioritizing the internal linking structure keeping in mind the five different areas namely
Helping users
Managing flow of link or UI designing
Ensuring flow of content topics built around a structure
Emphasizing indexing of particular page
Schema Markup
The newest and most important of them all however is the Schema markup Schema is also another under the hood effect which helps search engine optimizer scroll through the codes and point out important contents of your website almost like a translator.
SEO experts approve of incorporating are through video pages, NAP information, Testimonials and Events to use schema markup in the website.
Content Quality and Length
Content is still the KING.
Earlier Quality of content was everything and length of content had very little to do with ranking but over the years the SEO trend has seen a significant change of course. This has mainly occurred because in order to rank higher keyword density saw a significant increment in the content which at times didn’t prove beneficial for the reader.
So, even if Google may have ranked the content higher but users didn’t have the best time reading it. But now it is a totally different scenario.
Usage of different keywords maintaining the quality of the content has seen an upliftment not only in the rankings but also seen a significant improvement in user feedback and has significantly gained votes as keyword chunking and clustering is no more a requirement. Ensuring high quality content has been in practice for quite some time and can be done following some easy guidelines:-
Maintaining the website
Updating content on a regular basis
Check and remedy error messages on a page
Keep your content user and search intent specific and remove unwanted content
Make sure that the design of the website is in Me with the content design
Increasing brand awareness has a more direct impact on your marketing rather than SEO rankings but it is not avoidable. They affect your search engine optimization efforts in primarily four ways:
Social signals like reviews, tweets, comments, likes, shares, votes, pins on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn as well as other social-sites.
Time on Site
Google still actively emphasizes on the fact on how much time a user spends on your website which directly impacts the algorithms that are based on time on site factors. It is a pretty straightforward theory that if users are not spending adequate time on your site than your site is not relevant to most of them while other websites that see less bounce rates are better equipped for the users that they seek.
There are many ways to improve on site time. The following are some of the tips:-
Super admirable visual interactions in the introduction
Breaking down large paragraphs to small readable and attractive chunks
Lots of section headings and bullet points
Highly visual assets like images, gifs, and videos
Delivering answers to questions in an actionable way
Avoiding irritable pop-ups
The Power of Domain
In the-past, domains comprising of exact match keywords were a sure shot way to improve organic traffic. Domains still have the influence with lesser regards as before but with improved algorithm from Google we see two major pillars of domain power.
Exact Match Domains — Domains which have the exact keyword as the search has a higher accord of standing up at the list for example when we search the keyword “care there is a higher chance of the website cars.com appearing before popular car-related top brands such as Ford, BMW etc.
Domain Age — Age of a domain is another major factor to be considered now. Newly registered domains have to face harder competition to rank among the top while domains already prevalent with a longer record seem to have better opportunities of holding top positions for longer periods of time.
Optimize Images for Improved UX
There are many reasons to optimize an image. Other than losing out on rankings optimizing images have proven to be crucial in improving user experience as a whole. Think of a slow loading page just because of an image taking more than expected time to load. It disrupts the whole user experience. Website Speed Optimization can be done in the following ways:
Reduced File Size– No one is asking for a 100Kb pic but at least every page should have smallest size possible at the best quality possible.
Choosing a Descriptive File Name – An image is equivalent to 1000 words. Well, it is applicable to those having a file name that says it all rather than a random image with no signature.
Including a Caption or a Title – This significantly improves user experience by helping consumers find what they are looking for more easily.
Alt Tag – This is an alternative explanation of the image and this in particular is searched by optimizers to rank SEO experts love to tag an image in their own ways in order to rank a website higher just with the power of the image rankings.
Hope these all tips will help you to improve your website ranking and traffic as well. For any assistant, please feel free to contact us here.
The Impending Voice Search And Visual Search Revolution And How You Can Adapt
With the rise of virtual home assistants and visual searching options, users have a new way of searching the web, and business owners are faced with yet another challenge.
The good news is that optimizing for voice or visual search only requires a few tweaks to your current SEO strategy. The better news is that these technologies are relatively new to the digital landscape, which directly translates into less competition and easier conversions.
This article will tell you exactly how you can attract a new and emerging demographic of voice and visual search users by making swift tweaks to your current marketing strategies.
Voice Search: The Natural Way To Ask Questions
Initially limited to smartphones, voice search technology has been around for quite some time. However, with the emergence of smart speakers, voice search is fast becoming the preferred way of searching the web. 43 million Americans already own a smart speaker, and it is expected that by 2020, 50% of all searches will be voice searches. The voice search revolution has already begun, and it is time to jump on the bandwagon.
Voice powered shopping spend is set to jump the $40 billion mark in 2022 and I have zeroed down on four strategies for you to be able to get a hefty bite out of this highly lucrative pie.
Let’s see how we can start optimizing for voice search right now:
Making The Most of Voice Search Technology
The process behind a voice search is quite similar to a normal search. You speak a query and the smart speaker/virtual assistant returns results in voice.
The significant difference is, the speaker only returns the top results in voice. If the user is using a virtual assistant on their smartphone, the rest of the results can be viewed on the screen.
This means two things.
One, the voice search advantage is only available on the top few spots of the SERPs.
Secondly, in order to guide the right strategy, it is important to understand the way our audience interacts with voice search. When we enter a query into a search engine, we are used to entering precise keywords that will return the results we desire.
However, when a user speaks their query into a smart speaker, the tone is more conversational, and the query is, in many cases, a complete sentence, if not a phrase. In fact, most voice searches are in form of questions that start with ‘what, who, where, why or how’.
Based on our understanding of these characteristics of voice search, a voice search optimization checklist should include the following things:
1. Optimize to Feature in Google’s Featured Snippets
In several cases, the top search query is the “featured snippet” chosen by Google. Featured snippets are usually SERP page 1 results that precisely and concisely answer the user’s query.
Here’s an example:
While there is no surefire way of ending up in the featured snippets, optimizing your content to answer the user’s query, instead of ranking for keywords is a great start. Here’s a more comprehensive guide on improving your chances of landing in Google’s featured snippets.
2. Target Long-Tail Keywords
As mentioned earlier, voice based search queries are conversational, and hence, make use of long tail keywords. In order to rank for long tail keywords, the keyword research needs to be undertaken with a different approach.
Begin by understanding the common queries that your audience may have. Since most queries are also in the form of questions, answering these questions is a great way to land in the top search results.
In most cases, long tail keywords are specific in nature, which means there is less competition ranking for them. Identifying such low hanging fruits can easily help you get featured in relevant voice search results.
Bonus Tip: Google’s 2013 update, Hummingbird, has placed a lot of emphasis on the intent behind a search query. If you can understand the intent behind a search term, and optimize your content to satisfy your user’s intent, it will translate into a surefire win!
3. It is All About Being at The Top
Since only the top results are given voice, ranking in the top 10 is not good enough. If you want your result entry to be spoken by the smart speaker placed in your customer’s living room, it is important to be smart about your SEO strategy.
Ranking at the top for all relevant keywords is next to impossible. For this reason, it is important for webmasters to low competition opportunities, and expend their efforts on ranking for them. If you concentrate your efforts on a small set of highly relevant, low competition keywords, your chances of being the top results will improve drastically.
4. Concentrate On Local
Here are a few stats for your consideration:
The number of mobile device users is slowly surpassing the number of desktop users.
9 billion of 30 billion monthly Google searches have local intent. 75% of local mobile searches result in an offline store visit within 24 hours.
The inference from these statistics is quite straightforward, if you want to take advantage of the voice search trend, optimize for local search and mobile usage.
By now, you should know exactly what you need to do in order to optimize your website for voice search. In the spirit of gaining early advantage with upcoming trends, let’s now talk about visual search.
Visual Search
With the rise in popularity of visual platforms such as Instagram and Pinterest, the visual search revolution has been long overdue. The fact that visual search has limitless real-life applications and delivers unmatched efficiency makes this revolution all the more important.
Think about it, you spot someone wearing a jacket that you like. Entering the description of the jacket in a text or voice based search is going to lead you to results of several similar looking jackets and you will have to find the one you like.
Now imagine if you could simply snap a picture of the jacket and search it on the web to find the exact jacket you saw. This is precisely what visual search is all about. The user uploads an image, and receives relevant search results in return.
While the technology supporting this is very new, there are several major platforms that have adapted to it:
1. Google
For years now, Google has been adding advanced image recognition capabilities to Google Images. It began with the Related Images update launched in April 2013. After a 2016 update, users were able to click on a product image to display key information relevant to the product. Withanother update in 2017, Google started displaying similar products and even product styles with image results.
By observing these updates, we can easily guess that Google is trying to turn Google Images into an product discovery platform. Google selects the results based on schema markup data and image recognition, prioritizing results from authoritative websites. Google also priorities series of visuals that focus on a particular product type, or a complete look.
This means, in order to rank for visual results, website owners need to continue building their Domain Authority (DA), while also making sure their images are original and high quality, and coupled with proper structured data.
2. Google Lens
Just as the name suggests, Google Lens converts your phone camera into a searching device. The jacket example mentioned earlier explains this functionality perfectly. However, when it comes to searching for products through a lens, Google isn’t the only player in the game.
Before we get to the others, let’s first understand how we can rank for the image results prompted by a Google Lens search. While there are no special requirements for ranking for these results, there are two things that marketers often overlook:
Pay Attention to Alt Tags: More detailed meta tags will help the search engines understand your images better. As a result, your images will be easily retrievable when someone searches for a similar product, or even a product that falls in the same category.
Understand the Importance of Visual Elements: Google Lens, along with all similar technologies, make use of AI to find relevant products and images. The AI recognizes colors, shapes, sizes, and logos. For this reason, it is critical to ensure you logo placement, along with all other visual elements, are consistent and visible. This rule is not limited to your website. In fact, if you have a physical store, make sure your logo and brand name is clearly visible outside. The same rule applies to product packaging, and even the product itself.
3. Pinterest Lens
If you don’t already have a Pinterest presence, the visual search revolution will make it a necessity. With a conversion rate of 8.5% for carts under the value of $199, Pinterest ads have already surpassed Facebook’s 7.2%.
Pinterest became the first in the race of lens search platforms with the launch of Pinterest Lens in 2017. With 600 million searches being conducted on the platform each month. Pinterest Lens has emerged as a promising platform for marketers, especially in the field of food and fashion.
Once you have created a presence on Pinterest, follow these optimization tips to ensure your brand is visible for the relevant image-powered searches:
Test your visibility: Use the Pinterest lens to ensure your products show up when a similar object is scanned. If not, use the keywords that come up in the search results, and optimize your images for them.
Leverage existing visibility: Encourage your existing audiences, across platforms, to use Pinterest lens to find your products. This will not only drive visibility and engagement, it may offer preference benefits as the Pinterest platform grows.
4. Snapchat’s Visual Search
The Snapchat Visual Search works in a similar way to Pinterest Lens. When a user scans a product or a barcode with their Snapchat camera, a pop up will display the product, or similar products featured on Amazon.
The card also shows the price, ratings, and Prime availability. If the user decides to purchase, they will be redirected to the Amazon app or website.
Custom Visual Search
With the technology readily available, brands are now developing their own image powered search features integrated into their apps.
One great example of the same is the Lowe’s in-store navigation app. Considering the home improvement giant sells several varieties of similar looking spare parts. It is difficult for their consumers to understand or remember the name of the specific faucet in their bathroom that turned out faulty. Locating such a product when you visit a Lowe’s store is even more difficult.
The new application uses motion tracking to tell customers where they can find their desired products within a Lowe’s store.
Another great example of a brand using visual search to its advantage is Asos. The huge fashion website features 85,000+ products and now allows an in app lens search feature.
If your business also has a app, the same feature can be added with a simple API.
Conclusion
The rise of voice and visual search is not merely is new opportunity to lighten the purses of your customers. If used right, these technologies can act as a catalyst towards building long-lasting brand loyalty.
Think about it, if your brand is one of the few early adopters providing their customers with revolutionary easy of use, your audience will definitely appreciate the gesture in the long run.
