Thursday 29 September 2016

Why You Need Seo For Your Website Or For Your Business

SEO is important. Without it, your website can’t score well on the internet. Its absence means your website won’t gain superior visibility in the online world. It’s responsible for bringing traffic to your site which is what every business desperately looks for.

SEO or Search Engine Optimization is a technique to promote websites, products or services on the internet and enhance their visibility. There are two ways to get traffic towards a website – paid and organic, where the latter is achieved through optimization.

Here are the reasons why you should benefit a lot from SEO -
  • Organic search results are important as paid ads are something a vast majority of users neither open nor notice

  • It’s the SEO efforts that give your website good rankings in SERPs and keeps in the first page of search results

  • Featuring in top results of search engines means your website and business stand a good chance of being seen more by users on the internet

  • Optimization brings traffic in a natural manner and saves a lot of money to businesses who otherwise have to rely on paid mode of advertising

  • Organic traffic lasts more and that’s why, it benefits businesses more than those coming from paid form

  • More visitors come to those sites that engage in optimization and this is how a boost to ranking is offered

  • More clicks, more visits and more impressions happen and all this brings growth to your business on the internet

  • Brand building takes place and your business wins the trust and confidence of more users when it’s engaged in optimization effort

  • More people become aware of your business, more people see your websites and thus, more people turn up at your website, and all this is due to SEO

  • Businesses can target specific keywords to reach to markets of own choice, they can target the audience based on demographics

  • Measurable results are also possible with optimization and this is how one can amp up efforts to win more visits to the site

  • The biggest priority for any business is to perform well on the internet and this is not possible unless SEO is benefitted from

  • Without optimization, brand building goals can’t be realized as easily as it does happen and that’s why, optimization is important

In overall, your business should choose only the Best SEO Company to get superior rankings on the internet and realize its goals and objectives with effortless ease.

Why You Should Outsource Your Social Media Marketing

Social Media marketing is an indispensable part of digital marketing. The basic reason why this is such an integral part of online marketing is because customers are present more than ever on Social Media and companies who want to reach out to their customers must reach out wherever customers choose to go.
Social Media Platforms Are Diverse
Social Media marketing is either completely free or very low-cost compared to traditional advertising. Social Media marketing — when done right — is highly targeted and hence very effective. It’s important that this form of marketing be done right using the correct Social Media platforms, so choose your platforms carefully. Certainly, a presence on Facebook, Twitter and Google+ is a given. As to the other Social Media platforms — Pinterest, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, Flickr, Tumblr, Vimeo or more — serve specific purposes and should be used to target certain audiences. Companies whose products lend themselves to artistic photography — and after Steve Jobs and his obsession with aesthetically pleasing industrial product designs, very few companies will stick their neck out and say that beautiful looks are not important for them — must use Pinterest and Instagram to showcase their products. So, if you are a restaurant or any sort of business related to food products, cooking, recipes, bakery products and so on, beautiful photography and the promotion of those photographs on Social Media is going to be a key part of your online marketing policy. Similarly, For B2B businesses, LinkedIn promotion is a must. Do your research and see what works best for you as every business is unique so one-shoe doesn’t fit all as they say.
Keep Social Media Marketing Engaging & Interesting
One of the biggest reasons why people use Social Media is because they find it interesting. People come back again and again to their Facebook newsfeed multiple times in a day because they find things that are riveting, funny, informative or otherwise engaging. For marketers, the cardinal principle therefore has to be: never be a bore. Actually, it’s not just relevant to Social Media marketers but many others.
Hence, viral video marketing is very effective. If you create a funny video commercial, people will watch it and share it and it will get millions of views on YouTube. Marketers have internalized this principle and we have seen many recent instances of clever promotional videos that went viral for different reasons.
Videos can go viral by being funny, emotional or by tapping into a specific mood by incorporating some hot button current topic into the video. The other way to get audience participation is by having contests. Social Media accounts should remain active. There should be regular posts on Facebook and Google+ as well as tweets sent out from the Twitter account. Remaining regular and consistent is a very important characteristic if you want to become popular. In addition, Social Media being an interactive platform itself, it is important to be interactive and interact with your customers on Facebook, Twitter and Google+ to give them a personal touch to show them you care.
If customers make a complaint via Social Media — such as sending a tweet to an airline’s Twitter account complaining that the airline was not sufficiently helpful when their flight got delayed or that their luggage was misplaced in transit — then corporate accounts should have a policy about how to respond to these complaints.
Reasons to Outsource Social Media Marketing
There are many good reasons why it makes sense to outsource the Social Media marketing of your business. Here are is a few:
Cost & Time Factors
Remaining regular and responsive on Social Media can be a time consuming activity — you have to post content on Facebook at least once a day and tweet several times a day. Depending on the size of your Social Media community, there will be several comments on your FB posts and you may need to engage with a few of the comments. If anyone is spamming your FB posts or trolls or becomes abusive on Twitter, you need to take corrective action such as blocking the relevant accounts. It can be time consuming to keep an eye on all of the different activities happening via Social Media.
With outsourcing this activity, you can get professional Social Media marketing companies to take care of all of the above aspects at a reasonable cost compared to hiring multiple Social Media experts in-house depending on the size of your company.
Experience & Expertise
Whether it’s writing novels or picking apples, experience matters. The same applies to Social Media. Professional Social Media guys or gals who are at the top of their game have developed a range of knowledge which can be hired by outsourcing Social Media marketing. Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and all the other Social Media platforms are evolving continuously; hence, only experienced Social Media professionals will be able to really do a great job.
Long-Term Investment
While it might appear to be an easy solution to attach Social Media responsibilities to the existing job description of a regular employee, there are many problems to taking this short-cut. Social Media being quite time consuming, tacking this on to an employee’s existing job role might hamper the employee’s productivity in his or her role.
Remember that Social Media is here to stay — it will change and evolve but Social Media is not going to go away. It’s a long-term investment for the company. Hence, a company should approach it with a sufficiently strategic vision in how to go about it. Outsourcing Social Media marketing to a professional agency will ensure that this will go on in a smooth manner irrespective of personnel issues. When you outsource Social Media marketing, you don’t have to worry about a particular employee “handling it” and you will be able to rest assured that a good agency has the expertise to make this a long term activity.
Real-Time & Hands On
With outsourcing, you get professionals who are always there. You are paying them for a service and you expect results for this service. With the immediacy that is an intrinsic character of Social Media, you cannot treat it like a side job which is what might happen if you tack on Social Media responsibilities to an existing employee. You cannot postpone responding to customer complaints or queries on Facebook or Twitter just because you are having a busy week or are out of town attending a trade show. With outsourcing, professionals will be there to respond to any crisis or complaint or even to say a gracious ‘Welcome’ to customers who might send an occasional ‘Thank You’ tweet to the company’s Twitter handle.
Brand Voice 
Companies should have or develop a consistent brand voice which will in turn create a devoted user base. If a clothing company is seen to be modern for example, then it might attract a younger demographic. Companies have to have a certain personality to attract their target demographic of customers. Social Media caters to different sorts of users and Social Media professionals will know how to create an attractive and consistent brand voice for the company. When you use a professional company to help with these services, they can help you create this “brand voice” and guide you with what makes the best business sense
Summary
They are many advantages to outsourcing your Social Media. Yes, you will have to be very careful when selecting who you are working with to ensure that you get exactly what you need. However, the benefits far outweigh trying to hire a full in-house team. With these advantages as listed above and other advantages, outsourcing of your Social Media marketing makes a lot of sense. If you need any help with any of your Social Media marketing or any other digital marketing, feel free to reach out to the team at Mind Digital Group.

Wednesday 28 September 2016

Importance Of Social Media For Branding

If you are running a business, you know how important marketing is for your branding. This same rule applies in the world of Internet marketing. Social Media has become an essential part of online marking. Making an effective presence online consists of ensuring that Social Media is now an integral part of your overall online strategy.
 Targeted Audience: With the help of social media you can now directly interact with your targeted audience. This will help you sell your products or services directly to someone who needs it.
 Free Advertising: Social Media can provide new business and it costs nothing to setup. The reason is signing up and creating social accounts is totally free of cost. You can post photos, general info and more of your products or services through Social Media. Facebook pages and Twitter feeds are great examples.
 Easily Build A Customer Base: There are billions of people using Facebook, Twitter and other social media networking websites. As a result it is easier for you to find customers and show them your services or products directly online.
 Better Customer Service: You can improve your customer service with the help of Social networking websites as your customers can easily reach you directly on social media. They can also give you feedback/reviews of the services or products you are providing them. As a result the overall experience will be positive about your brand through better customer service.
 Branding Yourself: A huge benefit of Social Media sites is the ability to quickly put yourself out there. All you have to do is join groups, communities, and interact with members that are related to your niche. It is important to create these relationships first before you start to market to your audience.
 Boosts Your Search Engine Optimization: Social Media plays a vital role to boost your website’s Search Engine Optimization esults. By simply letting people talk about your company, this allows Google to see that your brand is growing positively therefore it benefits your overall SEO efforts.
There are plenty of benefits that companies can take advantage of within the world of . Today it is critical to ensure that your brand is being seen the way that you want it to be seen. If you need any help or assistance with your Social Media or just want some advice, then please feel free to reach out to us at Mind Digital Group. We would be more than happy to help you get Social!

Tuesday 27 September 2016

Impact Of Social Media on Ecommerce

Don’t have the time to go out for shopping? You can use your laptop, iPhone, iPad, or Android device instead. The trend of E-commerce websites across the world is increasing exponentially which reflects in the success of retail stores and online E-commerce companies reporting significant increases in online sales. For example, compared to last year brick and mortar stores such as Tesco, Sainsburys were reporting sales that were the same compared to last year in store, but they saw an increase of almost 10% online. This reflects the increasing affluence of the rising middle class and their willingness to shop from the comfort of their own homes and offices. Availability of consumer goods, books, computer peripherals or any item you can imagine are now available within a few mouse-clicks.
Most companies today are present on Facebook and Twitter and some are also present on defunct websites such as MySpace. On Social Media, however, it’s more about engaging customers through dialog, witty messages, contests and keeping in touch with customers even when they are not visiting the company’s website. What matters most, however, is how active the company is on Social Media, with the following they have on Twitter and how much engagement they have on Facebook with their fan base.
A good example of how to engage customers within Social Media is with contests. This is a great method in which most of the participants feel they have a chance to win something. This prize method or whichever your method is as an E-commerce company to engage your Social Media fans is important in your overall marketing strategy. Social Media engagement is all about providing value, giving something or just even helping out your brand advocates. Shopping is a popular pastime and people love the sight of products, and they love the idea of coming across the products they use frequently. Users love writing and speaking about these products on Facebook or Twitter and talking about whether they loved the product or hated it. For E-commerce companies this is having a huge effect on their business and it can no longer be ignored.
It’s a great idea for E-commerce companies to upload pictures of their latest products or most used products and even old products on Facebook and other Social Media sites. Consumers are able to therefore share the experiences they have had with these products and as a result they create awareness amongst social networks.If a certain type of product is rated highly by a friend or loved one, the likeliness of someone using this product will be much higher versus through direct ads on TV for example. Social Media as a result has had a tremendous impact on all E-commerce companies across the globe. E-commerce companies can capitalize on these social networks by engaging with the users of their products and giving them a personal experience. Every company weather that be E-commerce or retail brick and mortar needs to have a Social Media strategy but most importantly engage with their brand advocates otherwise someone else will.As always, if you need any help or guidance with your Social Media, please feel free to reach out to the team at Mind Digital.

Monday 26 September 2016

Online Reputation Management To Enhance Your Online Presence

You have spent years creating a picture perfect reputation for your brand in the market and one fine morning you wake up to find that your brand’s reputation has gone down the drain as some malicious online comments or slanderous illogical remarks have been made about you online. Whether you are a well-known Ecommerce company or even a small business, it would be truly unsettling to find that your sales and brand reputation suffering as a result of your negative online reputation. This is where Online Reputation Management comes in to play and is something that can help. It is a very effective and efficient way to help you solve an online reputation crisis that many companies sometimes face.
Many companies and people are unfortunately ignorant of the importance of managing their online reputation. It might come as a shock to them how an online reputation can make or break a brand image. You might ask, “Why are these people posting bad comments against us?” or “What will they gain from doing it?”. The most logical answer is that they might be your company rivals or lobbyists who are holding an active campaign against you to encourage the sales of their own services or products. These people aim to critically damage a company or even profit by shortening your stock. It might do huge damage to your brand if you neglect negative comments on your company especially during the initial phase. Today, everyone researches companies online and these slanderous comments whether true or not will seriously damage your online reputation. Therefore, it is even more important in this day and age to take Online Reputation Managementseriously.
Is Online Reputation Management expensive or cost effective? As a matter of fact, Online Reputation Management is not at all costly in comparison to the harm that negative comments can cause. Thanks to today’s highly online focused world, any crisis can quickly become an online reputation crisis unfortunately. Even if esteemed publications do not report such crisis stories but a blog or Social Media website does, it can cause serious harm to you. The first thing you should do to prevent any type of crisis beforehand is by hiring an effective Online Reputation Management firm that knows what they are doing. They will keep tabs on your website, Social Media sentiment and other online channels to ensure that a positive brand image is being conveyed at all possible times. Some of the key benefits of working with an Online Reputation Company are as follows:
 You can know what customers are saying about your company, products and services through sentiment and advanced analysis tools
 Ability to benchmark against your competition
 Increase brand value of your products and services by addressing or engaging with customers
 Integrate reviews on your website
 Increase rankings across search engines, online shopping portals and many other credible sites
 Increase your online brand value which will lead to more sales/referrals
Connect With Your Customers Through Online Reputation Management
Communicate with your customers & know they say about you: Online Reputation Management helps you to know what is being said about you on review sites and respond accordingly. It also provides you an opportunity to engage with your potential customers and better understand them.
Listen to & respond to customer reviews: Positive reviews comes from your happy customers but that does not mean that you can simply avoid the negative ones. Consider all reviews, be it positive and negative as an opportunity to start a fruitful conversation. Negative mentions act like guides to improve service at your company by rectifying errors done in the past. Most importantly, you get the opportunity to react quickly and wisely to negative feedback. This shows you respect and value customer feedback no matter what it is.
Increased image & enhanced brand value: Satisfied customers are your biggest assets. Once they are confident that you take their responses seriously, they become loyal to you. While they keep coming back to your site, they also talk about your products with their colleagues and friends which leads to more sales and positive brand image. Make your customers your brand ambassadors; raise your company’s brand value without making a huge investment in marketing.
Some Tactics Used By Online Reputation Management Companies
 Improving the tagging and Search Engine Optimization of company-published materials such as white papers and positive customer testimonials in order to push down negative content
 Publishing original, positive websites and Social Media profiles with the aim of outperforming negative results in a search
 Submitting online press releases to authoritative websites in order to promote brand presence and suppress negative content
 Getting mentions of the business or individual in third-party sites that rank highly in various search engines
 Proactively offering free products to prominent reviewers
 Proactively responding to public criticism stemming from recent changes
Working with a good Online Reputation Management company that knows what they are doing can really help your brand and overall sentiment online. Your reputation online matters and is something that needs to be taken seriously before it is too late. If you are looking for a forward-thinking, reliable and trusted Online Reputation Management company that can help your brand online, please feel free to reach out to the team at Mind Digital Group.

What Is The Importance Of Google Algorithm Updates

Nobody likes to fail, whether it’s a classroom, sporting event or your professional life. We have seen many changes in 2013 with regards to Google and Search Engine Optimization techniques. Many important updates have been rolled out which have changed the Search Engine Optimization process, thoughts, and strategy. EMD (Exact Match Domain) Google update was a massive crackdown on spam websites that were trying to beat the system by changing the domain name of their website so they could rank for specific keywords. Another example of an update that was rolled out in 2013 was known as Google Penguin, this algorithm analyzed the quantity, quality, and relevance of websites that link to yours. When Google looks at your link profile, they’re looking at things such as what types of websites link to yours, are they spam sites, how quickly you acquired these links, and the anchor text used by the linking website.
Google updates its algorithm over 500 times a year in order to fight low quality sites from appearing on the Search Engine Result Page. In the future we will also see many updates from Google to ensure that its users are getting the most relevant results. The reality is people how to Google because they feel they get the most relevant information according to the searches they perform. If that were to stop happening, then users would look elsewhere to find what they are looking for.
Search Engine Optimization is no longer an easy task that you can do sometimes or even in your spare time. As Google changes its website ranking techniques constantly the ultimate goal is to ensure that the users are getting the best experience possible. What Google holds as the most valuable today is the content you are providing and sharing. As a result of this, it is critical that you constantly refresh, add, and share content on the Internet. If you are doing white hat ethical SEO and are providing good content then you will not have to worry about any Google updates.
Many people think these updates cause a lot of disruptions and problems. The reality is that these updates are teaching online marketers an important lesson which is do things the right ethical way and Google will reward you for your hard work & efforts. To reach your online goals it is critical that you stay up to date with all the Google Algorithm changes to ensure you are getting the best results. Most importantly, create great content that people want and only perform white hat ethical SEO. As always if you have any questions or have been affected by a Google update, please reach out to the team at Mind Digital Group. We are always happy to help with any of your Search Engine Optimization needs.

Friday 23 September 2016

How To Generate Traffic From Blogging

A successful website is one that gets a lot of targeted and high quality traffic on a steady basis, and businesses often spend a lot to ensure that their websites are popular. One simple way that does not require a lot of investment and yields great results, is blogging. Creating a blog section for your website and updating it frequently with industry specific posts will bring in new visitors regularly and your blog will gain prominence. As a result, it can and will become one of the largest sources of traffic for your site. Getting web traffic from blogging requires careful planning and execution, but when done right, it yields outstanding results and creates a steady stream of traffic that is independent of your marketing efforts. Set up a blog section for your website and keep it updated with thought pieces and valuable tips to create a unique image for yourself in the market. You need to ensure that you invest the proper time and resources so that you are provided high quality content to get you traffic and higher rankings in the search engines.
Designing a blog
The blog for your official website can have the same look as the rest of the site or look completely different. The focus should be on keeping the design simple and reader friendly. The text should occupy a major portion of your blog so flashy backgrounds or bright colors will earn you the displeasure of your readers. You may experiment with the blog design but try to keep the color scheme for your blog consistent with the overall website theme.
Creating quality content
The first thing you need to do in order to generate traffic from blogging is to decide the topic for your blog. Ideally, this topic should be relevant to your business, so that you can use it to show off your expertise. Most blogs do not generate decent visitors for months but it is vital that you keep it updated regularly and publish enough content so when your website starts getting substantial traffic from your blogging efforts, visitors always have fresh content to read. There is a lot that you can do with a company blog. You can optimize the content to boost the SEO ranking of your website, target long tail keywords, bring in higher organic traffic and even engage multiple Social Media platforms through the regular sharing of your content. One of the most important factors when creating a blog is to try and provide high quality and relevant content (according to your blog) for your audience.
Benefit from overall growth
Blogging is useful for websites because it invites people to inform them about a topic and helps them with some problem they are facing or even provides them with information on any topic they are looking for. This makes it a useful website in the eyes of Google and other search engines thus it automatically helps you get a higher search ranking. A cycle is created where content will boost your SEO rankings and the ranking brings in more visitors which in turn further increases your ranking. With consistent efforts, you will be able to generate outstanding traffic from blogging and create a very popular platform that is populated with an engaged audience and even potential customers.
Summary
Blogging is one of the best ways for you to generate new traffic to your site. It can help you gain visitors, increase brand awareness and much more allowing you to enhance your online image. There are several web development companies that provide content development services and can help you generate high quality traffic from blogging within the shortest period of time. If you need any help or assistance with blogging, development, or anything digital marketing related, please feel free to reach out to the team at Mind Digital Group.

The Evolution Of Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization has come a long way since its inception in the 90s when search engines first made an appearance. The earliest SEO involved manually submitting your website to the search engine so that it could be indexed and placed on the list of results that the engines returned. The earliest search engines used very limited factors to determine the ranking of a website. These factors included keyword density and links on a website, and webmasters soon started stuffing their websites with keywords, sometimes in invisible fonts and very high quantities to secure top rankings for their websites. Soon the search engines caught on to such tricks and updated their algorithms, which spawned the industry for SEO services that exists and thrives even today.
A Division in The SEO Industry
It has been a steady battle, between search engines and SEO services, each tries to outdo the other. Search engines try to filter out useless information and include only relevant results, while it is the job description of a Search Engine Optimization expert to ensure high ranking for his or her clients. Soon this race led to a fracture in the SEO industry out of which two different factions of the SEO experts were formed. White hat SEO experts use ethical means to promote websites, while the other faction, performs unethical, and sometimes downright illegal things to secure the top rank for their clients. This is known as black hast SEO. The penalty of being caught using black hat SEO is severe, and any business that wishes to enjoy long term success naturally prefers white hat SEO services. Search engines can do many things to penalize sites such as eliminate a website completely from its search results or give it a penalty to significantly drop its rankings.
The Increasing Complexities of Search Engine Optimization
Google is the biggest search engine today, and the primary focus of most SEO service providers. To counter unfair means, the search giant uses hundreds of factors that are combined together to calculate the ranking of a website. SEO companies have taken on this challenge and try to find new and innovative ways to improve SEO rankings. Some popular ways of boosting SEO rankings of a website are:
1. Studying the website and ensuring it has no code error
2. Optimizing website code for performance and faster loading
3. Ensuring that the website really has something useful to offer through quality content
4. High quality links from reputed and reliable sources
5. Ensure that a site has no broken links or duplicate content
From random stuffing of keywords, to highly sophisticated and targeted optimization techniques, Search Engine Optimization has come a long way. It has evolved magnificently and continues to do so. Each year search engines update their algorithms, and SEO services adapt their services to these new changes.
Modern SEO industry
The SEO services of today have evolved beyond all recognition and are drastically different from the services of just 10 years ago. Leading SEO companies continue to deliver great results for their clients. With the Google Hummingbird update, the rules of engagement have once again been changed, and the focus is now on creating websites that users will like. Google is all about sharing quality information and content with its users. SEO services continue to evolve, and they will no doubt adapt to this as well, and create even more effective Search Engine Optimization techniques. Google will constantly change and update their algorithm to benefit its users and so will the SEO companies continually have to change their strategy. This is something that will be continually ongoing and will never stop. If you need any help with your SEO or any other digital marketing, please feel free to reach out to the team at Mind Digital Group.

Thursday 22 September 2016

The Most Important Factors For Successful E-commerce SEO

Many things need to be considered when integrating your E-commerce and SEO strategy so that they work as cohesively. The way to integrate SEO features into your E-commerce site is by having an SEO consultant as part of the core team of web designers, developers, and information architects. As an example, your Developers need to be aware of duplicate content issues and how to resolve them. Products on the E-commerce store should be organized by category and sub-category. This improve the E-commerce website’s optimization. Conduct keyword research of both your website and competitor websites. Remember that “long tail keywords” is where most of the action lies in terms of search. Make sure your website has breadcrumb navigation. Having descriptive meta tags that include prompts such as ‘find out more about’ is an essential technique. It’s a must to write Img Alt Tags. This helps non-visual readers such as vision-impaired consumers. There are so many things to keep track of it can be quite intimidating hence the reason for having an SEO consultant can surely easy these headaches.
While SEO and automation used together can have negative connotations, for E-commerce websites with thousands of products, it is important to facilitate automation whereby programmers can automate on-site elements such as title tags. User generated content should be leveraged to help improve the site’s ranking. Since user generated content tends to be original and fresh, this improves the site from an SEO perspective. Allow buyers to write product reviews and testimonials. This creates a community of happy users and convinces visitors that they can trust you. Help visitors spread the word about all the products on your site by integrating social media on product pages. Also, this will help you avoid using manufacturer product descriptions which can lead to duplicate content which is a no-no from an SEO perspective.
You can maintain a blog where you talk about new products and offers and have an FAQ page that helps answer the most frequent queries of your users.
Optimized product pictures and videos should be used on the site as the quality of your product pictures can influence how visitors feel about your product. Make sure customers feel comfortable sharing their financial information on your site. Prominently display the logos and text certifying that you comply with security standards (SSL/Visa). It’s better to offer peace of mind to visitors rather than take the security aspects of the website for granted.
Mobile and smartphone usage is growing like crazy. This trend will only persist. For E-commerce retailers, the website should be optimized for mobiles via using responsive web design or having dedicated mobile sites.
If you have local presence apart from being an online retailer, then your business’ name, address, and phone number (NAP) for all locations should be present on your website. All the branches should be listed on Google Local Business via a Google+ page. You should allow reviews and rating on each branch of your business. This will be displayed by Google when someone searches for a local branch of your business.
These are some of the basic E-commerce techniques that should be taken care of at a minimum to ensure survival and growth for your business in the online commerce space. If you need any help or assistance with your SEO strategy, please feel free to reach out to the team at Mind Digital Group.

Monday 19 September 2016

Activities A Search Engine Optimization Specialist Performs

Search Engine Optimization has a lot of mystery surrounding it and there are many people who do not understand what exactly a Search Engine Optimization Specialist does. While the technical details of this process are certainly not very interesting to someone who lacks technical knowledge. The misconceptions surrounding this industry often cause people to get scammed by unscrupulous SEO professionals who claim to be a Search Engine Optimization Specialist but provide their clients little or no benefit. In addition, sometimes clients hire a SEO specialist who partakes in black hat SEO which is looked down upon and can seriously hurt your rankings. It is important that you know what an SEO specialist really does in order to help your website get a good search engine ranking so that you can avoid being scammed. In addition if you understand what an SEO specialist does, it can help you pick a good SEO company out of the many options presented to you.
Basics of SEO
You do not need to become an SEO expert in order to tell which SEO company will provide you the best results. As long as you have basic knowledge of what a Search Engine Optimization Specialist really does, you can safely pick a quality SEO professional to assist you with your rankings. SEO is divided into on page and off page optimization and before you delve deeper, you need to understand what they are.
 On page Optimization – Any changes that a Search Engine Optimization Specialist makes to your website are part of the on page optimization. Usually this involves ridding the website code of errors and ensuring W3C validation. In addition, an SEO specialist will also add proper tags throughout the website and complete all metadata so that search engine spiders can analyze and classify your website with greater ease. He or she will place to correct tagging on your site so that the search engines know what your site is about as well as what to rank your site for.
 Off page Optimization – A large portion of time that a Search Engine Optimization Specialist spends on SEO for a website is spent on off-page optimization. Off-page optimization includes sharing links for your website on social networks, popular websites, developing links for your website and getting them placed on websites with a high PageRank. In addition SEO specialist submit articles relevant to your company on different sites, embed quality anchor text links which help you get high search engine ranking for the keywords that you want and more.
Summary
Search Engine Optimization is a time taking task that needs to be handled by trusted professionals who have the experience and expertise to deliver good results. It is something that is a long term task and cannot be done overnight. Any company or individual who claims to get overnight success will be using black hat unethical tactics which you should stay far far away from. If you need any assistance or advice with your Search Engine Optimization or any other digital marketing, please feel free to reach out to the team at Mind Digital Group.

An SEO Company Can Help Your Website

When IBM decided to enter cognitive computing and developed their Watson computer system, they decided to first develop it specifically to answer questions on Jeopardy and famously pitted the computer against former winners Brad Rutter and Ken Jennings. The resulting publicity has made Watson more or less a household name. The Jeopardy match-up resulted in invaluable coverage in the media which would otherwise have cost IBM millions of dollars in publicity expenses.
Marketing and publicity are a key part for any brand or business. Which is why the expensive half-time commercial slots during the Super Bowl cost $4 million for a 30-second spot and yet, there is no shortage of buyers.
In the online world, making a website popular is clearly one of the necessary conditions for website owners and Ecommerce businesses if they want to survive and flourish. One of the ways to achieve popularity is via Search Engine Optimization (SEO) with an SEO company. SEO is at the opposite end of the spectrum from Super Bowl half-time ads. SEO is entirely free and the only investment being the SEO professionals themselves times.
Of course, digital marketing is an ever growing activity and online businesses need to opt for paid online marketing activities such as search advertising, PPC advertising and online video ads. Such paid online marketing campaigns can be effective in the short run and they are typically the preferred method when the intention is to promote a short-term activity such as an end-of-season sale. But nothing beats SEO as the preferred vehicle of online marketing to increase a brand’s online profile in a sustained manner as once you achieve rankings, it’s free traffic.
SEO company
For those who are serious about their online business (which includes all Ecommerce businesses at the very least), there are two essential requirements for enduring success: 1) have a user friendly, functional and simple-to-use website with a great user interface and 2) engage a digital marketing company to help you with the SEO aspect of your business in an ongoing fashion.
SEO is for the long haul
Why do you need to hire an SEO company instead of doing it in-house? Well, that is because SEO is a job for professionals who have gained long years of experience by working in the SEO business. They have in-depth knowledge and perspective about both the past and the future possibilities of SEO.
With SEO professionals at an SEO company are taking care of SEO for your website, you will be assured that all the basics are taken care of: such as on-page and off-page optimization. SEO professionals will also know to avoid the deprecated practices or black hat SEO techniques.
Search engines like Google are taking action against those websites who try to artificially enhance their organic search rankings on the search engine result pages (SERPs). An SEO company that knows what they are doing will ensure that the website is appropriately optimized, no illegal quick fix solutions are tried. When it comes to SEO and website organic search rankings, the smart ones know that ‘slow and steady wins the race’ is the motto to remember and follow. There are no quick fixes. For example, if a site is old, it will a get certain amount of value and weightage in Google’s rankings irrespective of other qualitative aspects of that site.
SEO is a many-splendored thing
SEO is not a single monolithic thing anymore — if it ever was. SEO comprises of many things. Apart from the off-page and on-page optimization mentioned earlier, SEO professionals at an SEO company will ensure that there is no duplicate content on the website. Google chooses to punish sites with duplicate content (since in Google’s view, such sites do not add value to the internet; and Google is right here) and it is better to remain careful rather than seeing your hard-earned position in the SERP suddenly vanish. With numerous algorithm changes such as Google Penguin, Google Panda (not named after the cute animal), and Google Hummingbird, Google is trying to adapt to changes in user behavior as well as trying to provide the best and the most relevant links in the organic search results.
After all, Google’s (and other search engines’) reputation relies on such website providing authoritative answers to users’ queries. The changing nature of audience behavior includes such seismic shifts as the inevitable predominance of mobile devices to access the internet. To cater to these changes, Google is changing its algorithm to be able to better meet the needs of its customers. These are all things that your SEO company that you are working with will need to keep mind.
With the growth of mobile, voice search has grown. And with the Google Hummingbird changes, Google has revealed how it seems to answer truthfully any question put to it. Today of course, Watson is much more than a Jeopardy winning computer server. Watson has morphed from being unbelievably good at Jeopardy to helping cancer specialists make sense of the growing volume of medical literature comprising of endless data from current and old studies, clinical trials, side effects of drugs, drug combinations to avoid, etc.
Similarly, SEO professionals will take the guess work out of SEO. Apart from making sure that the website adheres to all the rules from search engines, SEO professionals that are working at an SEO company will develop and implement long-term plans to improve your site’s SEO. That includes running content marketing and social media marketing campaigns to improve the website’s SEO.
SEO includes content marketing & Social Media marketing
For a website to get good ranking in the organic search results, it needs to have great on-site content which the SEO company you are working with can advise you on. Google gives great weightage to authentic and authoritative content. Hence, SEO professionals ensure that websites have a deliberate approach towards content marketing which includes regular blog posts.
Blogging, email marketing, white papers, Slideshare presentations, etc. are a few of the ways of generating and then sharing great content. If the community of users likes this content and consumes it and shares it, this will give a signal to the search engines that this is valuable content. That will translate into those sites getting good rankings in the organic search results. If the content on a site gets many Social Media shares, this tells the search engines that this is authentic, meaningful and powerful content created by experts or industry leaders.
Search engines will display such sites higher up in the search rankings. Of course, the final rank of a site is determined based on ‘more than 200 factors’ as Google might put it but having good content is one of the most effective ways to enhance your site’s SEO in an effective and long-term fashion. An experienced SEO company can guide you and the do’s and don’ts in this area.
An SEO company specializing in content marketing will ensure that your site has great content. Social Media is the other great battlefront for the modern SEO professional. This battlefront must also be conquered if your website wishes to last for long. Social media — Twitter, Facebook, etc. — is the place where you have to post funny and relevant content which will get widely shared and disseminated among peers in a user group.
When a blog post shared on Social Media gets numerous Likes or Retweets, that gives the search engine the idea that this is a good site with interesting content. Of course, for content to be shareable, they have to avoid the cardinal mistake of being boring. Content can be boring because of many reasons — it can be too technical, archaic, or arcane, it can be presented in a soporific manner, it may lack the factors that make a post go viral such as having images or an emotional core to it. A good SEO company knows the balance that needs to happen in this respect
Social Media is sort of a pressure release valve for many busy working people. Hence, the popularity of cat videos on the internet — or videos of human twins doing funny stuff and so on. An effective Social Media marketing strategy will take into account such rules of the game as when to post content and how often to post content to each of the different social media platforms.
SEO companies with proven social media marketing strategies and expertise will be long-term assets for your company Once you get your ‘content strategy’ honed, you will likely get a pretty popular website which attracts endless unique visitors as well as a devoted band of regular readers. The deep engagement with your community of readers apart from the large number of social shares will give the right signal to the search engine that the website is an authority on that given business vertical. This will help your website rank higher in organic search results leading to more search engine users discovering your website.
Conclusion
For the above reasons, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) by an experience SEO company can lead to greater popularity for your website. If you are looking for a reliable, trusted and experienced SEO company that can help you achieve higher rankings, please feel free to reach out to the team at Mind Digital Group for any of your digital marketing needs.