How Do I Fix My SEO?

Hi,

Yes, I just cannot work artlessly as I believe search engine optimization (SEO) is a continuous process but not a spontaneous one.

There is a thin line between a content writer and a content developer in SEO. I witnessed many blog posts very recently on Google's new Quality Rater Guidelines and how it is going to affect individuals and overall the industry.

All the write-ups were solid.

Suddenly a thought came to me. Not all of the articles must attract the same level of attraction from their readers due to various reasons obviously.

As I felt it with me, the connection, well, was not equal to all. Some writing bored me not because they were second or third on the reading list.

I believe a writer is the one who primarily responsible for making a connection with his/her readers through writing. The writer can make or break a reader’s mind through his/her creation. Writing is not any more compilation of words or following the word counts blindly. Writing is an art and always remains an art.

I have the opportunity in my career to work with many talented writers but meet very few creators.

A definition of a content creator to me -

Did I spend enough time on it? Did I do enough to make it right? Is this satisfying me?

I am not talking about editing, adding, or tweaking the copy here and there.

I am thinking of it giving birth to a baby and then taking care of the baby.

Nevertheless, there are hiccups.

Going through labor pain is sometimes annoying to some people.

Just like, sometimes, our creativity does not come up.

We have off times. There are time-frames when cannot quite create anything but our work just cannot stop.

As a result, we feel stressed. Maybe, you are not connecting with the writing topic as a writer for a specific period.

Maybe we are just exhausted.

Beating ourselves up is easy and piling on the stress is easier especially when deadlines are around the corner.

The result? We feel worse.. gloomy. We try to channelize pressure off us on others around us subconsciously behaving badly. Feel gloomier afterward.

Finally, nothing gets done the way we wanted.

I have experienced this many times. I spent a lot of time trying to make an SEO plan work when what I should have done is let it go and start over.

So, if you are going through this, know that you are not alone. We all have tough times.

From my experience, I can tell you there are things you can do.

How can I fix my SEO problem?

You can do a lot but here I am sharing my three best ways of survival from falling into an infinite loop of disgrace:

1. Get away from work

The idea is to focus on something different instead. Keep your mind busy with other things that will allow you to get a break.

When we are stuck, we tend to do the same mistakes, repeatedly. Shifting focus temporarily will help us get out of with a solution. Moreover, you will feel much organized and able to think out of the box.

2. Take periodic breaks while working

Work in sprints. Working continuously for long hours does not automatically ensure quality. It is hard to see computer screens for me when I do not give any justification for it. Moreover, you can only strain your neck, back, and eyes a strain.

If you are not amalgamating effortlessly with your work, then simply take a break, and come back afresh. I believe, no matter how solid your SEO plan is, without an energized brain, hard to get back on track.

3. Give yourself OK to fail

It is hard to swallow failure or negative comments most of the time. However, if you focus always on success and sweat over from the fear of failures, then eventually you should give up on your SEO career.

SEO is so dynamic that many times changing plans is the only thing that makes sense.

That does not mean you should stop trying new things or experiments or tests.

How to do SEO?

I could have spent my entire life in an organization by following my senior’s direction. I still would have get blame for any catastrophe because I know that following SEO directions blindly is as dangerous as walking in the desert with only a bottle of water.

As long as you want to do SEO professionally, you should not take anything for granted without testing it properly.

On the other side, sometimes a slight directional change in view is all that you need to make your SEO works. After all, why bang your head against the wall when we know SEO is a developing concept where change is the only constant and starting over could make things much easier?

Believe me, work stress-free and you will recognize the difference in you, your work.

What do you feel?

What is your go-to strategy when your SEO does not pay you back? I would love to learn from you!

Have a great time ahead, everyone!

One last thing, everything you do in your SEO job, do it with dignity, with glee.

Enjoy your progress in SEO! No matter if, no one praise you for your effort to make the SEO community flourish. I am here if you need me.

Partha

How To Set Goals In Google Analytics?

Hi!

Professionally, I do SEO. Therefore, Google Analytics is a common yet decisive weapon in my arsenal.

Yesterday I was reading an article on Google Analytics goal setting. At the end of the reading, I felt a bit miserable.

Why?

I realized how truly goal setting could start turning our dreams into reality.

I would like to draw your kind attention to this topic.

How?

You may have read a lot of articles about how to improve mental health, stay happy, keep your hope alive, etc.

If you like SEO, then you may go through articles on Google Analytics a few times.

A few of those I read too.

Suddenly, I start correlating the article on Google Analytics goal setting with my life. Moreover, I now start understanding more accurately the messages that lie within those inspirational articles on improving mental health, happiness, live a stress-free life, etc.

I realized that reaching our dreams is much easier than it may seem.

All we need to set a goal, keep everything simple along the way to reach that goal, and do not over-optimize anything to reach the goal faster.

The truth is we can reach practically any SEO goal set up in Google Analytics to measure progress, with the right SEO mindset. Likewise, with dedication and proper approach, dreams in our life are achievable too by just anyone.

Setting goals in Google Analytics is one thing and achieving it within the given time frame is another. The situation may sounds familiar to you.

However, you may be one of those number-crushers who consistently achieve targets and finish SEO projects on a high note. You are not at all surprised at how easily reach an SEO goal really can be.

Because you have found a process that works for you.

Chances are those number-crushers (who have found the optimum process to achieve targets consistently) optimized well their lives too.

However, not all have found the process until now. Let me share with you some simple steps we can take to reach just about any goal we set out to accomplish.

I have found these are the common traits for those who are not only doing their SEO jobs great but also living a happy monk-like life.

Prerequisite: We DO have to stick to these!

• Break major goals down into minor mini-goals
• Define a clear objective for every move you make
• Align major goals with the end goal
• Set realistic deadline that should keep you energetic to meet goals
• List all your goals in a specific order
• Develop an approach to meet every single goal
• Take notes about your goals in a document to refer to in the future - in both cases - meeting the goals and failed to meet
• Share goals with others too in case any refinement is required
• Imagine the happiness one can feel achieving goals when feel overwhelmed, every time will push you closer to the goal
• Stay passionate about everything but getting over-passionate about goals may backfire - focusing on the process is equally important as focusing on output

Ready to set up goals in Google Analytics? Then be sure to tune your mindset first to quantify your SEO progress through Google Analytics data.

I hope you understand the fact now to do SEO happily; we have to have a happy life. To living a happy life, we must set some goals and hitting them consistently (which means setting up a process). Once we optimized well our life as per our true potential, we can repeat the same in our SEO work! Accordingly, we can able to set logical goals in Google Analytics. Not only had that, we all then able to analyze all the data associated with goals.

If you do, I would like to hear your feedback!

Cheers!

Partha

How Do I Get Into Content Marketing?

For the last five years, wherever I go online, every digital marketing forum has at least three active threads on content marketing.

A lot of conferences and events are occurring around the globe every month and most of you may have attended at least one content marketing boot camp.

In less than three years, marketers, communications pros, journalists, marketing analysts, and more - professionals just like you - are in quest of getting the latest insights on content marketing strategies, interact with thought leaders from around the world through Twitter, LinkedIn, …and the list goes on!

The buzz is getting BIG every year, and the excitement is through the roof! I understand and respect the trend. However, it is a crunch time for us to take an educated step for a brighter future.

What makes a good content marketer?

Unfortunately, many of us know that content marketing has to do, but very less distinguishes it from spamming. There is a thin line between doing marketing with your content strategy to reach out to your targeted audience AND frustrate them by showing them marketing messages repeatedly until they block you.

However, as a responsible marketer, we have several options:

• The main agenda should always help the consumers through content, not to brag with cliche messages
• Maintain a variety as well as continuity in content production - must not use the same content in a different format again n again
• Share opinions through content to receive an opinion from the readers - everything that we create as a medium to communicate with viewers should add some value to the community

If you want to network and meet some of your potential customers leveraging the power of engaging content because you are looking for sales, then content marketing is fine, but if use your content directly to drive sales, then not.

What is the best way to do content marketing?

The marketers need to understand one thing, use content not to improve your marketing game, rather use to make high-level connections - which essentially helps to plan your marketing strategy for the future.

If you are planning to use a tool for automating the content publishing process then that is cool, but for making new connections and nurture old relationships to communicate meaningfully, do not mechanize your content development process.

Please stop misusing any marketing opportunity to grow solely your business. You are doing injustice to you more than anyone else is by creating content perplexedly.

How Do Small Businesses Do SEO?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a subset of marketing (or search engine marketing). Thus, it costs time and money. If you are short on time but have the money, hiring an agency or consultant is an option.

However, if you are short on money, use these do-it-yourself directives to improve your SEO result -

1. Do keyword research

Let's start with keyword research. You know what consumers want because you are the owner of the business. Apply that knowledge in keyword research, create a list of the possible words and phrases that consumers use to find your business online.

It also helps you to estimate the demand for your product/service that you have to target.

I am not telling you which tool you should use to do this because -

• There are many free and paid tools available online
• There are many resources also available online on how to do keyword research

All I can suggest here, any tool no matter how powerful and accurate it is, never ever can suggest better keywords for SEO than your own business brain.

2. Know your opposition

During the process of searching and finalizing keywords, watch for the top-ranked websites in the search engine results pages (SERP), for the same key phrases. Try to find answers to the questions like -

• Who they are?
• What are they doing well and poorly?
• How do they use keywords inside the website and the content they have?
• What is their USP (unique selling point/proposition)?
• How they engage with their prospects?

Studying online business reviews and ratings besides checking social media activity to learn about competition is an easy way to start.

In digital marketing most of the reviews and ratings are part of paid ads - so, the best way to rely on your own field experience and take business decisions.

After all, the people who are searching for you (your target audience) online are the people who use to take your brick-n-mortar service earlier.

3. Design your web pages

With an understanding of what customers want, and the keywords they use to find you online, build pages on your business website to adhere to those search queries.

You have competitor analysis with you, so build an individual page’s layout corresponding to that study backed by the latest trends and thought - as a customer, what I should need on a page to take conclusion affirmatively.

4. Optimize your site

The next step is to categorize the pages meaningfully and create a logical structure for a website. Depending on your variety of products and services, you should expand the website vertically as well as horizontally.

Any website today should be mobile responsive and that is a basic requirement to cater to the ever-growing number of smartphone and tablet users.

Also, make sure that the experience of those users is smooth and engaging in terms of page load time.

You simply cannot have a technically perfect website but you can minimize/remove easily fixable bugs from the site to make it overall healthier.

Again, to give your visitors a superior quality experience while they are on your page, the focus should be on simplicity.

Else, you can find a bunch of blog posts on the web about how to optimize a site; but my one recommendation to you - keep optimizing but not at the expense of degrading the user experience.

5. Produce content consistently

You do not need to be a writer or hire a seasoned writer until you can speak in your user’s language and your users can understand it easily.

Consistency is key. Quality is the main thing.

Content does fit in any form - not need to be text only. However, make it engaging enough so your business's target audience consumes it the way you want.

I do not know any secret recipe for developing content, but I can suggest you check every bit of content before you post on the web from your user’s point of view.

If you are happy with the creation, then you can expect a similar level of acceptance for whom you have developed content. It is as simple as it is.

6. Start building relationships

Link building is a major component of SEO but is ineffective now. You should focus on building business relations.

The more you give away to the web, the better you place yourself on the web.

If you built a compelling website, then users automatically not just want to share their experience with their friends - but visit repeatedly for more.

Eventually, you will start earning links ethically.

The competitive research in point no. two, above, will help you here because you already know now links from which sites give your competitors the mileage.

Accordingly, you can start interacting with those websites meaningfully.

Nevertheless, use your logic again, you know your business, you also know about your target audience, so it is easy to think where those people are like to spend their time online. That is it; chalk out a program and start following it diligently.

The result will soon follow you.

7. Shape your social media network

As part of building public relations, social media platforms are a fantastic way to listen to what others are saying and accordingly help them by providing accurate solutions.

Please do not push them, rather pull them naturally towards you at their own convenience. Connect with your customers and prospects meaningfully but not forcefully.

Give value to these professional relationships as much as you value your personal bonding. Boosts your SEO by nurturing your relationships with the unknown.

I bet if these unknowns will start giving one day happily their reviews and ratings on you and those will be priceless for your business online.

8. Understand data to derive information

In an idle world, you can optimize randomly. However, in an ideal world, you cannot what you do not quantify.

Hence, you need analytics in digital marketing to track performance, to take steps based on data analysis, to understand what is working for your business and what is not.

You can change anything mentioned above if you have data; if your data is telling you that users like more "this" than "that", and then you can do any change more confidently.

Analyze performance for your SEO program is essential too but do not over-analyze anything. Rely on your field knowledge, because data sometimes can give mixed results. That said, relying on data is a good bet nowadays.

No alternative to education: study whenever you get a chance to stay relevant and knowledgeable.

Minimize your tumbling.

Failure is inevitable, you have to face problems and your education will give you the power to encounter every challenge that you face on the way.

Ask questions: always try to start with "WHY" and not with "HOW".

If you are stuck anywhere ask questions to yourself first. You will automatically be redirected to how. How to solve this problem.

Be patient. Stay happy. Believe in your own.

No one can stop you to become a formidable SEO even though you do not have any background.

Cheers!

Why Is My SEO Not Working?

Search engine optimization (SEO) not working? Here is why -

Hey,

So you are upset by the lack of traffic to your website?

Yes, I can understand. You are putting time and money into inviting traffic but not getting results are depressing.

You are probably doing all these -

• Publishing articles
• Building links here and there
• Buying links desperately

Even you are worried about what will happen after the next Google update.

If any of these sounds familiar to you, I have something more bad news that you might be interested in -

Stop doing what you are doing right now otherwise your website continues falling. Getting tons of traffic that increases each month gradually will remain a dream for you unless you have a revised mental state.

There are no hacks, that can save you/your website from falling further as per my knowledge.

How do I fix my SEO?

Here is a solution:

There is a blueprint saved already in your mind that dictates to you until now how to do SEO to get exponential traffic. Reprogram it.

You are carrying an SEO mindset (otherwise you would have not read this post) perfectly tailored to "how Google works in 2008". It’s a failed template used every day by many like us to generate traffic for our clients or for our own.

Stop taking directions from masters or searching for SEO tips and tricks online. Spend time on correcting your mentality first.

Those who create tons of new business for their clients around the world changed either their mentality first or established an illegal connection with Google, Bing, and many more search engine teams to receive favoritism.

How can you improve your SEO?

Rather than wasting your time with SEO theory, tune your mind first and look at actual case studies of sites ranking in late 2018.

• Exactly how they seeing the keywords and consider adding them within the content
• The links they are building a scam or a pure output of an ethical public relations program
• The types of content they are developing consistently
• The approach they are taking for any form of social media interactions
• The way they slice-n-dice results in further improvement

For all these, you have to follow only one strategy - rebuild your SEO mind-map. I am giving you this incredibly valuable suggestion for free.

Why? Because I did the same mistake you are doing and I do not want you to suffer more. Actually, the quicker we all change collectively, the better everyone can leverage the power of modern SEO. After all, we are all members of the same online community.

Then you can apply what you learn to your website immediately after.

How to think about SEO?

I am seeing a lot of digital marketers (young and seasoned both) are doing enough to create a bad reputation about SEO in common mass. Which has to stop right away. And, this is my effort to do that.

If you are not ready to change from your inside, you cannot hold yourself and figure out a different way to increase your website traffic.

Make sure you have developed the right mentality before doing SEO, which is the best you can do to you, to the entire SEO community!

SEO is a very sophisticated thing. I feel pain when people around me telling me, oh! You do SEO through their dubious expression to me, my profession, and to my community.

We have no right to degrade SEO unnecessarily for our own false mindset about SEO.

See you soon!

SEO: Warrior vs. Worrier

Do you want to face reality or refuse to face reality?

Be an assailant, not a victim.

Meet worrier.

You are a good SEO. You show up at work on time every day, are friendly with your colleagues, and get the tasks complete on time. Though you are a little scared about your career because you are having trouble coming up with new ideas to counter the challenges commendably.

You are not sure about your own abilities so just goes the office and follow directions every day blindly.

Meet warrior.

You are a good SEO too. You also attend the office on time every day and are friendly with your collaborators. Your desire is to become a great marketer and eventually make your positive mark on the industry. You know that to do so, you need to stay humble, network with great professionals and learn from them marketing better.

You read blogs, participate in forum discussions, and then apply in the work to gain hands-on SEO experience. You have a plan in place to connect with like-minded digital marketers using the internet.

You have enough self-belief and have the courage to face problems.

Be like a warrior.

Now is the time to push back all your worries, invest time, and effort in shaping your SEO career.

There is always time to start fresh. So think like a warrior for your better future.

5 Best Digital Marketing Interview Tips

Hey, Mate!

Anxious while preparing for interviews?

It is not about just bagging your first job after college, but also about giving your career a steady start.

You might have the right qualifications, experience, and qualities, but how you convey the same to the interviewers matters the most.

The big question here is, how do you sell yourself in a digital marketing interview?

After serving in the IT industry for more than 10 years now, I still sweat both inside and outside while appearing for an interview. However, the rate now reduced much and during the journey, I discovered a few things and working on my improvement.

So, how do I prepare for a digital marketing interview?

I am sharing my discoveries with you too so you need not apply for 100+ jobs like me because of some self-created mental yet easily curable blockages.

Moreover, I am sure, like me, working continuously on the below-mentioned tips will not only serve you in job interviews but also in your life.

5 non-technical yet important tips for any digital marketing job interview:

• Avoiding eye contact: Making eye-to-eye contact with the person taking your interview is absolutely critical. If there are many, you must roll over your eyes as many possible as talking to you simultaneously. I believe, with that, you able to create a stronger bonding with them in a short span of time.
  
  
• Poor inactive posture: Your posture especially when you are listening and sitting idle in front of a group of people, is one of the clearest indications of the level of confidence you are carrying with you at that moment. A straight back, parallel open legs, and stretched hand on the arms of the chair should do well.
  
  
• Not smiling: People love you a lot more if you show them your little gratitude. Like sitting rightly or making eye contact, a gentle smile always gives your interviewer an extra bit of relief. Those who kept an honest smile on their face, also able to handle pressure better than others do when the situation knocks on the door. You may be genetically tuned not to smile very often but a pleasing personality with a smiling face means a win-win situation. Please that does not mean, you should laugh unnecessarily and loudly to catch other's eyes.
  
  
• Talking too much: Speaking well is necessary but often we forget, speaking too much somewhat annoying especially if you are sitting long and taking interviews after interviews. Here, my suggestion is, trying to measure the reaction of the interviewer first and then elaborate on any topic if needed or if get chances. Else, a precise answer is always admirable.
  
  
• Not listening: You should always allow the interviewer to finish talking before replying. Remember, interviewers also check your listening skill besides your fluency in speaking. Let them interrupt you while you are answering but you should never.

You can prepare for your job interview by talking to yourself in front of a mirror, a homemade recipe, which will help you correct common problems with your job interview sickness.

How Does A Man Find His Purpose?

Hi Folks,

Years ago, I made a mistake. I enrolled myself to complete my graduation. Within a few days, I knew that something was wrong.

I sensed it.

Despite the sensitivity, I continued. Kept attending classes to finish the course.

Nevertheless, inside I was neither committed and not persistent.

It is a dangerous state of mind that you are doing something uninterrupted but discontented. It can work for you or against you. I inherited this skill perhaps from my parent.

Then again, regardless of the objection from inside I finished my three years graduate program from the university.

Because I was unsure about my strengths.

I had selected the commerce stream. Although I did not want to become an accountant or was seeking any management role in business.

I was like water and the choice was something like oil.

Naturally, it did not mingle.

Quite expectedly, I did not find any job after my graduation and made another mistake.

I decided to become a software programmer. My accounting career was suddenly replaced by a programming course – an e-commerce application development certification course, from a reputed training institute.

Initially, I felt more at ease.

Somewhat comfortable.

However, after 3 months, when I did my first test project where a team of three trainees had to collaborate to build a program similar to MS Notepad, that familiar ominous feeling back again inside me.

Despite this conflict, I finished my one-year high-end computer training and this time too I failed to secure a job in the IT industry.

At that time, I was confused more than ever.

After a few years of struggle, I finally get a job in the digital marketing field. I am still struggling though, but not anymore to build my career, or secure my job, but to give back something to the online marketing community.

Anyways, almost a year ago, I headed to an unfamiliar city with a new job. It is a great organization with supportive friendly colleagues.

However, the feeling persisted and I can feel it.

Going to the office every day is a routine for me. I looked at some of my friends and family members who liked their work.

Whereas some others just looked exhausted, sleepy, and skeptical.

My professional career as a web marketer is now 12 years long and now I decide to do something different.

I need to find why I am on this earth and want to help people who did not know the real power of search engine marketing but want to know it.

Recently I met some young energetic people who want to become professional digital marketers.

Unfortunately, all of them did the same mistake that I did at a young age - without thinking much, enrolled for a course paying a hefty fee.

In my time, I can at least say as an excuse, there was not much exposure in career counseling or options or availability of web to make an informed decision. However, these people cannot use that as an excuse for them. Then why they choose the wrong path for them?

Does this mean, even if we have a Smartphone with an internet connection all the time, we are not progressing in the right direction?

Therefore, I decided to write my experience in the form of blog posts and publish them so I can help others from suffering inside. Thus, I am now writing regularly.

This is my way to return the favor to the society where I belong.

The journey is on.

I decided not to settle down for permanency.

When people typically start thinking about coming back to their hometown from abroad, I did just the opposite - left my hometown alone for the first time in life and headed towards a new place.

I must respond to my inner calling.

I wanted more from life.

Started looking around.

Obviously, it was scary as I moved to the unknown.

However, I survived.

It took me months to settle down.

Leaving your family and friends was not an easy decision for me I ever made.

Along the way, there were smiles, pain, and encounters.

However, I accepted everything.

Because slowly I am discovering my passionate purpose in life.

I am much better now in every aspect of life.

You all also try hard to figure out your passion and design life accordingly to live peacefully.

I am always here to help you. Let me know if you need me.

Have a great time ahead.

Best,
Partha

Reinvent YOUR Thoughts - Then Reinvest On Digital Marketing Training

I often see ads like, an intensive online training program designed to help you discover and fix what is wrong with your digital marketing processes, and efficiency. By the end of our course, we will issue you a certificate to succeed at career and job hunt.

It pokes me all the time, neither of these ads claims that you will have the clarity and confidence to enjoy your professional duties.

I checked many institute’s digital marketing curricula and really feel disappointed when not found anything like -

• Discover the area of interest for work you should be focusing on
• Build processes for better acquainted with change
• Automate routine work to free up your time for experimentation
• Craft an ideal relationship between the landing page, ads, and your keywords
• Protect your money by investing intelligently in social media

Digital marketers need less training on character limits in the title tag or keyword density and proximity; rather they need more brush-up psychologically.

Unless they rebuild their thought process, no training or nothing can help them to become a true digital marketer.

I believe we need next-level direction to rebuild the way we think about what actually digital marketing is. Every passing day, people start believing that digital marketing is easy. Building a career in SEO is easy too - just get 3-6 months of training from an institute to start a career in SEO.

Please get out of your illusion, unplug from the gimmicks surround you, clear your mind, and become an SEO professional through hard work not by holding any certificate.

The focus should be on:

• Professional- or self- counseling
• Participate in communities to follow/understand how others are approaching
• Stay healthy, avoid junk foods, drink plenty of water, take rest, meditate, and do exercise

The result will be positive. Trust me. If you stay honest, nothing can stop you from progress not only in your career but also in life.

I am telling you so you can prepare and must not suffer like me.

If you check your surroundings, you will see that opportunities are there, only you need to take a little initiative.

Since the digital marketing industry is booming worldwide and evolving side-by-side, hence you should ready first mentally to face challenges and always expect the unexpected.

I request you to consider the depth of the digital marketing industry first carefully and then jump into the deep water to refrain from future frustration. If you know, you need mental transformation then get ready to act fast.

Excited about your growth!

Partha

Digital Marketing Agencies FAILED on Their PPC Education

Over the past few months, I have been searching for a school for my little son (My family just relocated to a new city).

Essentially, I have been doing Google searches. I searched for everything from review, to curriculums, to boards, to locations, to fees.

In the course, I have clicked on ads too. Way more than I generally do. Because professionally I am running Google Ads campaigns for my employer. I know the cost of clicking on ads very well.

What promptly turn out to be to me was the absence of good practices in managing ads.

In searching for a school for my kid, I Google all kinds of terms around "play school" and "Montessori education" or "nursery schools near me".

Let me tell you frankly, the experience was shocking.

Renowned schools and the wealthiest institutions in the education market are dominating the paid ads space.

It seems to me (from the way ads were functioning), schools should have hired some "professional agencies" as they are aggressively bidding on keywords around "daycare" and "preschool" and "kindergarten" to run campaigns on behalf of them.

However, the unhappiness occurs after I clicked on a few ads.

Upon clicking any ad, I landed on either the home page or the application form page.

They bid on the keywords like "childcare" and "toddlers", but they are not highlighted such as facilities, achievements, infrastructure, awards and recognitions, safety measurements, process, timings, the background of teachers, and the staff. I am not saying you put all the information in one place - over-information is dangerous as like a lack of information. You need to maintain the right balance.

There is a massive gap. It is very frustrating to me as a parent to find it difficult to get all this information easily. Rather they are pushing me to get the registration done.

Sure, the agency may have a contract - paid per successful registration.

I was willing to pay any reasonable amount for my son to enjoy the journey he is about to start. I was also looking for “installments” if any so I can avoid paying a lump sum amount.

However, I have not seen any such information.

The solution for this is simple: create landing pages according to your searcher’s psychology.

My intent as someone looking for a nursery school admission is vastly different from someone looking for generic information about a school. So accordingly select your page.

Instead, these landing pages just pushed me to their generic goal funnel without categorizing properly based on analyzing search intent.

What a waste of money! Not only I leave the site unhappily, but also my whole experience was unpleasant online. If things remain the same, I am sure the ad management team is struggling with their poor quality score.

If you are not using landing pages correctly, your time on selecting keywords and creating ads will have no meaning.

If you are serious about PPC ads, then stop sending users to a generic landing page because in return you will gain nothing. Better, take a moment to create a unique experience for visitors and promote our own brand.

Many people are ready to spend the money online today but unfortunately, the confusing landing pages hinder them to proceed.

Therefore, I ended up searching in my neighbors for their face-to-face feedback. Overall, it was a disappointing online experience for me.

Please do not do this to your customers. Please do PPC marketing in a good manner.

Provide exceptional landing page experience.

Yours,
Partha

10 Easy Ways to Become A SEO Warrior Mentally

Success in any profession requires a tough mind. You can have all the knowledge, but if you are mentally fragile, you will fail.

I have seen many SEO talents become vanished due to their mind in mess. From my experience, sharing a few easy ways to train your brain and turn the odds in your favor.

Since pursuing an SEO career is one of the most challenging jobs, so mentally you have to be strong, stay positive, and enjoy the excitement in it.

The aim should never ever felt defeated by any internal and external fear. For that requires mental toughness like an ancient warrior.

It is time to bring out your hidden power to build resilience that will help you get through all the imaginary obstacles like a soldier.

Here are the ways to grow mentally and become SEO Jedi:

1) Go one step further and think with Google

Keep thinking if you are the customer how you would like to get services, accordingly do your SEO works to progress further towards your goals.

2) Things will go wrong and that is normal

Sure stuff will go wrong (think about when a Google algorithm update rolled out) but do not chase the perfectionism, rather take action.

3) Sleep on spamming

For the sake of quick SEO results, committing to spam work worthless. Rather than being penalized by Google, you delay reacting cheaply.

4) Always track data and measure success

When difficulty strikes (and it will), commit to finding patterns in past SEO work before moving forward. By keeping track of records, you develop the data-driven decision-making ability in everything that happens.

5) Focus should be on the project goal

One of the attributes of SEO’s success is staying focus and not giving up. Focus comes with clear planning and with a deadline. Distractions will appear but focus your thoughts to execute your plan.

6) No pain, no gain

You cannot be strong in anything without experiencing failure. Pain is guaranteed if you want to be gained as remember, SEO is still in a developing state - what works today may not work tomorrow.

7) Break the comfort zone often

Slowly but surely, habituate mind and body to get used to the discomfort. Do not fear breaking the so-called SEO myths. Think out of the box. Be innovative. Apply logic. It is these small habits of discomfort that can help you succeed in even the most challenging time.

8) The brain needs fuel too

Before running on empty, pour your empty brains with positive ideas that serve you. How? Avoid a toxic atmosphere and practice reading articles on the latest SEO developments to stay up-to-date. Feed your mind through books written by SEO stalwarts from around the world; attend seminars and webinars, listen to podcasts. Give your mind the engagement it needs through fresh knowledge.

9) Limit disruptions

The more you listen to others in tough times, the more chance you get distracted. Just keep your cool and composure, and work on SEO dilemmas that you are dealing with in a preferably focused, mindful, silent atmosphere.

10) Believe in yourself

As an extension of the above point, believe that you can do it. You can have all the SEO resources, but if you do not believe in your own ability, then you are going down for sure.

In a word, it is discipline.

We can make any change we want and take any challenge we face with discipline.

For mental toughness, we need discipline – a practiced mind. That means no SEO puzzle anymore will make us sweat, rather with a disciplined mind, we can find opportunities from every problem to grow ourselves as a true professional.

The funny thing is you probably already know about all these but lack discipline, the situation is not yet under your control.

Our mind dictates other parts of the body. If it is not tuned to achieve the impossible, we will fail at our goal.

Let others know in comments, how do you practice becoming a mentally tough SEO professional?

See you soon!

Digital Marketing Career, Training & More - News Of All Sizes For Needs Of All Sizes

Discover, get together, and share with others just like you are among your peers.

Dear Readers,

"SEO" isn’t a short form for "search engine optimization" anymore. It’s the intersection of search (done by your potential customers), engine (the technology - a set of rules creating harmony between your potential customers and you), and optimization (your effort to appear against selective searches) that combines the imagination and enables the possibilities.

Join our forum for all SEO recaps from all over the world where you can share the "updates" too. You can get daily news here that inform and inspire experts at leading B2B and B2C brands across the world.

Connect with your peers and SEO solution providers

News and updates are only part of the value of subscribing to our blog. You’ll enjoy both structured and unstructured networking and training sessions designed to connect you with your SEO clan, including career advice, consulting & counseling, and a place where your revolutionary ideas can roars. You’ll also meet leading digital marketers and advertisers in our blog and receive demos of time-saving social media solutions.

Three more reasons to join:

• For unlimited networking opportunities
• For exclusive training workshop on marketing tools and technologies
• For creating connected experiences through making the most out of your Analytics data

If your goal is to discover and vet digital marketing solutions, contact us today. This blog platform is the perfect place to meet and learn from leading webmasters around the globe.

Subscribe to our blog now to get free alerts and updates directly in your email inbox. You can also contact us to contribute content as a guest writer - secure your spot now.

Cheers!
Team Tenet

The PPC Ad Campaign Experiments: Why To Test Almost Everything?

I panic often in past and perhaps you felt fear too at some point in your life. Then I slowly realize that it’s the thing we need to do most that we fright from the most in most cases.

10-12 years ago, I was completely unaware of how Google Ads runs. My first employer decided to hire me as PPC Analyst to run ad campaigns on Google even when I was a rookie, and that was it. Therefore, needless to say, I was not a seasoned or experienced ad campaign manager, yet here I am, a webmaster, and writing a case study all by myself.

As I recall now, watching the other professionals as they settled in their work, I quickly realized how fortunate I am. Yes! All I have learned through trial-n-error and doing tireless experiments to validate all PPC theories backed by my employer’s support and my hunger for knowledge.

Know the real cost of postponement PPC experiments because of unreal fear.

I am feeling strange nowadays when I see the younger digital marketers surrounding me do not even have the minimum courage to do experiments in their career!

I think I survived in the digital marketing industry so far because I pushed my fear of failure back and decided to embrace the challenges.

When I was first introduced to the Google PPC ad campaigns, I felt even more like a fool. The technicalities were like nothing I had ever seen before, and I had no clue how to proceed. There were no accounting, economics, and management/organization theories I should go with. The platform was pretty and intricate though. However, after I took my first, hesitant step to create search ads, found that I fall in love with PPC. I managed to form a communication with potential customers through my ads’ landing pages that generate leads. I started to feel PPC is a little less frightening.

I dismissed some of my inner fear to grow in confidence through conducting tests – namely A/B and multivariate tests frequently. By the time I completed a year in my PPC job, I had managed a big budget to make better search network-based campaigns and to get more positive ROI.

The point of sharing this story is, if I had let my unreal fear overpower me, I would have missed a real opportunity.

I learned something valuable about myself. I learned that how to keep away self-doubts, how to stepping outside of my comfort zone, and have some amazing and exciting test results.

However, even though I knew how much I was actually capable of, it did not prevent me to try out new things again n again. For example, I cross swords with all my employers whenever they imposed something on me as my Boss.

I am not saying I am a PPC champion and I know everything. Nevertheless, I believe, in PPC, theories always remain theories, until that tested out in the light of day. I am respectful of other people’s opinions, but I believe in my abilities undoubtedly too.

Fear of challenging your doubts while managing PPC accounts should not hold you back and I can see, you can achieve too amazing results from standard test practices. Unreal fear kept me long away from realizing my dreams. And I don’t want you to suffer too!

Do you have your own PPC campaign management ideas, a unique test scenario you would like to test to validate? Is fear holding you back?

Here are 3 steps to help me beat my unreal fear, stop me from procrastination and conduct the tests that reshape my PPC career!

1) Test consistently.

As you test consistently, your analyzing skills will develop and you will begin to gain more confidence in your technique and decision-making skills.

2) Network with encouraging and supportive people.

Find a person or group of people to share your experiment ideas. Consult each other, challenge each other. Having someone like-minded will empower you further. It may be a friend, family member, fellow worker, manager, or an online forum.

3) Share your experience. Publish test results (if possible).

Try blogging or publishing your experience so others must not repeat the mistakes. The results you get can also open a new way - You too help others overcome the fear of testing by sharing your investigation reports.

So what are you waiting for? The only way to maximize the PPC campaign ROI is to take action.

Now go check!

If you are looking for a supportive and encouraging Google Ads experts’ community, consider subscribing to us.

Google Analytics: 5 Basics Of The Basic - From Set Up To Analyze

In today’s post, I will discuss five very basic things about Google Analytics.

I always wish to see what my blog readers do when they are on my blog so I can make changes to my blog and serve them better.

So I move to Google Analytics to get some insights.

Whether you are an expert or just started, Google Analytics can be confusing - from setting it up properly to filter out desired data.

When I started, I faced a lot of challenges. Even today, I need to consult with others from time to time on many issues. So I thought, writing about using and setting up Google Analytics for fellow small business owners would be a good cause.

What does Google Analytics do?

By inserting a tracking code into the site, you are letting Google Analytics track your website visitors.

The tracking is done in real-time and you can analyze data for a date range depending on your needs.

How does Google Analytics help business owners?

How this tool helps you much depends on the information you want to get from it. Some most common answers everyone is seeking are -

• Number of visitors to the website
• Demographics data break-up of that traffic
• Sources and medium of the traffic
• Most visited pages of the website by visitors
• Less interactive content and pages of the website

And many more.

These answers can be used in a variety of ways:

• When you know the number of visits to your site, you can quantify your efforts in driving that traffic. Accordingly, you can optimize your plan.
• If people are using their mobile more than desktop to surf the website, then you can craft your content accordingly. For example, if you see a very less number of visits from iOS, then accordingly you can start your investigation to find the root cause.
• If you can track any particular action - how many times the users take a step on the site, then the data can help you optimize the path to the action. Also, data about who didn’t take the step, and bounces off from the web page, can be helpful to make some improvements to increase your conversions.

As you become more familiar with data in Google Analytics, you can use it to adjust the way you are optimizing your processes.

How to set it up?

You need to register in Google Analytics with your Google account login. the steps are like -

• Open Google Analytics
• Login
• Create new account
• Create new property
• Create new view
• You will get the Tracking Code
• Copy the code and then add it to pages you want to track of your website.
• Check Google Analytics whether data is recording or not

You are done, now start analyzing.

How does the Analytics dashboard help you?

Through Google Analytics dashboard will let you see -

• Traffic metrics for the set date range
• Real-time information about active users and pages they are browsing
• Sources the visitors come from (ex. organic search, direct, email, referral, or other)
• The country most of them visit your site from
• The most popular times the visitors coming in
• The most popular pages of the website will be listed here
• Information about the devices they were using to access the site

You can of course customize the dashboard according to your wish later on.

How to improve website performance with Google Analytics?

Google Analytics provides valuable information about the people who visit your site and their browsing behavior. All you need to recognize the pattern and then optimize pages so Google ranks them higher on SERP.

Study Google Analytics data carefully to make data-driven business decisions and get more traffic, leads, and conversions!

There are many more things you can do through Google Analytics -

• Set up E-commerce Analytics (essential if you have an e-commerce portal)
• Measure your SEO results
• Attribute sources of your leads and sales
• From where visitors are leaving the website (exit point) through the goal funnel
• Page load time optimization
• Keyword the visitors are using to come to your website

And many more.

All the best with Google Analytics!

E-commerce Business Basics: Respect Your Customer Now More Than Ever

Do What You Do So Well That They Will Want To See It Again And Bring Their Friends. ~ Walt Disney

Hi Ecommerce Business Strategists,

We are living in a smart age. Most of the shoppers are now take smart steps too. The way they use information, compare and make purchases has changed.

It’s imperative to stay impressive all the time as a seller or buyers will shop somewhere else.

According to a research report, 75% of customers hope for an unfailing familiarity anywhere they connect with your brand.

Another study claims, 50% of customers are likely to change brands if a business doesn’t think likely.

If you want to make your trade a sensation, there’s only one way: take a customer-first approach.

This may sounds cliché to you now but the real question is how? How to draw customers’ attention and feel satisfied?

• Develop a durable relationship with them
• Offer personalized service/solution
• Pay equal attention to all

From my previous experience, I can tell you, you do not have to do special things, rather stick to the basics to make an impact on your potential customers. All you need to understand their pains and offer them a timely solution.

Bear in mind, if you keep your customers happy, then prospects can come to you again-n-again to do business with you.

So to convince a customer, first emulate their psychology. Then try to sell your service to them.

Just listen to them and realize what their actual problem is. And then present you as a solution provider.

Here are five common ways to make an impression on your customers and influence them to do business with you.

• Do not show them your power by displaying ads wherever they are on social media
• Do not send them every day or every alternate day emails full of offers
• Do not treat first-time buyers and returning customers separately
• Do not stop listening to what they are trying to say to you
• Do not see them as ATM machine for you

Have a nice day.

Best,
Partha

How To Win Over Audience Through PPC Text Ads?

What is it that good ad managers have in common? And what is the secret to their huge success?

Hi PPC Enthusiasts!

Before I tell you the answers, I first want to let you know what poor campaign management looks like.

Forget what your current job profile is, you just like it, but you do not like your manager.

Not only s/he ever praises your work, but also depressed with his/her own role and overall with the company. On top of this, s/he is unsystematic, which often leads to chaos among the team.

In other words, despite putting in your best efforts, you’re trapped in a team that is performing poorly due to bad and useless management.

Here are some characteristics that you have found in your manager:

• S/he do not trust anyone
• S/he do not praise anyone for their work
• S/he is arrogant and do not show respect to others
• S/he never put goal-setting into practice
• S/he only interested in self-promotion and pay package

So how do good managers set them apart from the bad and mediocre?

First of all, they are likable.

They’re able to effortlessly communicate with others. They are humble, optimistic, and with empathy. They are inspirational with beautiful hearts and logical minds.

They do not use fear to convince others to follow them.

Also, they have the ability to see the invisible and determination to achieve something which to others is impossible.

For example, without vision (a combination of imagination and creativity), Google cannot reach its current state with just a mere goal that a manager sets one day.

It’s the same with Apple or Microsoft. With hard-to-believe vision, they have started their journey, and today, just imagine where they are now?

What’s your vision while you are writing text ads?

Millions of advertisers are out there who are competing with each other to attract the audience through PPC text ads. Billions of dollars are spent on the Google Ads platform to maintain supremacy on market by companies. Now if you don’t have the vision, then you will end up spending too much on campaigns without much in return.

For best results, I recommend you, "think outside of the box" while creating text ads. As I explained in this post, you have to earn all the traits of a good manager to influence your audience on the web through ad copies. Your ad copies are the medium through which you are connecting with your potential customers.

If you want to boost your ad performance, then bring your audience’s vision inside the text copies – how they feel, how they see, how they react – every little thing. The more your ad copies are aligned psychologically with your audience, the more they tend towards you – your offers!

No matter how much you willing to spend, how stunning your landing page is, how lucrative your keywords are, without a proper ad (powered by vision), you remain invisible.

So here are three more quick tips to start writing better ad copies:

• Make viewers feel welcome
• Write with purpose
• Pay attention to little things

It’s over to you now.

Understand the true value of the tips in this blog article and take action accordingly, and let all others know the results you achieve!

Cheers!

Partha

10 Questions To Ask In Your Next Client Meeting (Preferably First) To Avoid SEO Project Disaster

If you are reading this, possibly you are preparing yourself for a brand new SEO project. Good for you! You deserve to start as organized as possible.

You certainly do not want to take any uninformed decision and work without any objective. As you’re managing the project, make sure you ask these 10 crucial questions to get to the bottom of the client’s expectations from you.

If the meeting is direct with your client:

1. How would you measure the success of the project? Whatever they say take a note and make sure you genuinely can deliver what s/he is looking for.

2. How do you like to give your feedback/comment/approval when required? Make sure s/he not only does give feedback on time as and when required but also happily connect to develop a mutual care and concern. This in return not only helps make your job easier (less oversight needed) but also helps you understand the client’s mind.

3. What’s the process for reviewing and evaluating progress? Related to the one above: is there a proper review cycle in place? Does it seem like the client often evaluates resource performance? And, do they mind helping hired resources achieve project goals?

4. How long has your current team been in place and why replacing them? Check for any signs of unhappiness or conflict. Are there legitimate reasons?

5. How would you like to receive progress reports? This is a self-awareness check for you and your team. You should prove to him/her that reports are properly managed and everything is transparent.

6. Who are your business role models? Asking about competitors is quite common and expected. Ask why they chose this industry – this gives you an idea of what they value and want to try to be like.

7. How do you celebrate success? This is a great way to transmit a sense of how confident you are to bring success with modesty and value work-life balance.

If the meeting with someone who knows the client:

8. What’s his/her style of work? Do s/he supportive or a micromanager? Chase unrealistic goals or value work ethics?

9. What’s your experience working with him/her? Watch out for the response. Take note. Any additional information about the client’s nature and business will give you an edge later.

10. How about the teamwork culture? Many people still think, hiring an agency means they are obliged to work for money. In reality, how your client is involved in your work culture or vice versa, will define the project’s future largely.

Two other points keep in your mind -

One is timing - do not offend by your questions if the client seems disgusted. Always wait for the right time to ask the right questions to the right people.

And the other is your own SEO principles and ethics. To win the client’s confidence, do not promise anything which is beyond your capacity.

So, before you enter any client meeting, make sure you did your best to gather information about the client and project so you can ask genuine questions only.

Finally, if you do sense something going against your will during your meeting with a client, consider reaching out to superiors in your department who have more experience and request their honest opinion.

No matter if it feels awkward or not, since you are the project manager, so the more you know, the more informed your decision will be.

A Master Plan for Taking Back Control of Your PPC Campaigns

Here is the problem of my life – I know as a PPC campaign manager, nearly every Google or Bing ad campaigns that generates positive ROI consistently requires determination, thoughtfulness, and even some embarrassment along the way. However, I like to avoid discomfort (and who not!).

When I was new in PPC work, I used to let myself exposed to more discomforts than ever. The world of knowledge is literally at my fingertips, a few keystrokes away to explore the secrets of successful PPC ad campaigns. Every campaign was largely under my control.

However, after some successful years of work, I started putting off the hard work. Settled for the easy way out. In addition, one fine morning, I discovered myself in a position where every PPC campaigns are out of my control.

What went wrong? I discovered a few things later that are some most essential traits in any successful campaign manager. It is not how technically sound you are, it is how you approach as the running ad campaigns are not less than any psychological game now.

1. Take more actions repeatedly

Because the updates Google and Bing bring to us very quickly, our best defense is to create a precise list of actions that you need to perform repeatedly after a specific time, so it becomes habit.

2. Take yourself out of comfort zone

Avoid doing things that are not challenging and make you or your work proud when done.

3. Don’t react unnecessarily

Take actions from instant gratification or impulse decisions will cause more harm than good in long run. In most circumstances, managing a campaign profitably need reflect before you react.

4. Do the essential thing first

Regular maintenance or check-up of old campaigns are as much essential as developing new. So prioritize important work and divide your time to make yourself aligned with proper campaign management every day.

5. Do not over do (read over optimize) anything

Sometime over enthusiasm kills us. The best practice is not just to have a precise goal, but also to find out the best route for reaching the target on time.

6. Do one thing at a time

With so many things to manage and do relentlessly – moving between tasks may create conflicts. But practice help you focus on each tasks according to their individual merit and complete without compromising much even when you shift attention from one to another.

7. Divide the whole in parts

Try to work in sprints. Managing a complex PPC campaign is not an easy job. As a manager you have to watch a lot of things simultaneously. So it is always a good idea, divide your bigger objective behind running PPC ads into small milestones for better and clear measurement of the progress. By doing so, you can find the loopholes too easily and correct them if required.

8. Food

Eat healthy foods always. Unfortunately, this is true for many that if your body do not get sufficient energy; forget about managing an enduring source of energy and therefore your work.

9. Sleep

Like body, your mind also need proper rest, if you are not at your best psychologically, feel sleepy or tired every time, you just cannot run your campaign with out of the box ideas.

10. Exercise

To meet #8 and #9, doing regular work-out is the best way. The more you stay fit, the better you manage everything. It’s as simple as it is.

Lastly, above all, it’s your values which will help you especially when the going gets tough, and avoid the temptation of taking easy route. If you are clear about your goal in any given situation, with proper dignity, sooner or later you will reach your destination.

What About You?

How do you stay focused and motivated in managing PPC ad campaigns?

Marketing FAQs - About Digital Marketing Services (for Small Business)

Dear Reader,

Are you too frustrated from the multi-faceted complications of digital marketing?

I talk to small business owners often to know about how they are fighting against challenges when it comes to digital marketing.

Not surprisingly, most of the business owners hired commercially an agency for their services but surprisingly, most of them are now want to get out of the contract because they want to develop a DIY SEO mode.

Many of these business owners have experienced that, even though they formed a digital strategy at the beginning but somehow disconnected along the way.

Therefore, until there is enough cash flow to budget for outsourcing the work to an agency, they now prefer to do SEO on their own.

Sometimes hiring is the only option. Sometimes it just is not. Either way, the more business owners come to know about SEO PROPERLY, the better they make informed business decisions. Not only that, a more transparent relationship we will able to build which the industry now needed badly.

Note that, the majority of the business owners need right now is not implementation so much as they need a digital marketing strategy. They are operating offline. They know the importance of moving to the online market now. However, they have lack of real knowledge how and where to start.

As an entrepreneur, you can have a healthy marketing budget or ready to hire a team of SEO to work for you, but if you are not utilizing your money and time in the right places, you will never get where you are trying to go.

Here in this blog, I am sharing the experience I have gathered working in the SEO industry for the past few years so you can derive some guidance at least.

For example, if you need suggestions on:

• How much to spend on digital marketing and where to spend?
• Which digital media channel is most beneficial for a specific type of brand?
• How to exploit opportunities by choosing the right keywords for a specific type of business?
• How to take care of technical SEO and make sure a website is ready to generate organic traffic?
• How to start building an email list?
• How to scale business?
• Etc. etc.

If you have, queries that are not covered in the list above drop an email to me! Chances are I can help you.

Never ever feeling stuck; you do not need to be. Let us build a digital marketing community where everyone helps each other to gain clarity and move forward with confidence and direction.

Talk to you soon,

Partha

P.S. If you are looking for digital marketing tips and hacks quickly, just Google! Here I am trying to create a group that shares the latest industry news, case studies, and more. Would love to see you here!

Google's August Core Search Algorithm Update: Time to Panic or NOT?

I’ve always had this theory that, if you help enough people (and Google too) get what they want, you’ll always get what you want.

Hi All,

You should have heard the news.

Google updated its algorithm on the 1st of August.

The result for some sites is positive in terms of gain positions. While some lost ranks on search engine result pages.

Worried, right?

The question now on everyone's mind is –

What does Google want this time?

I have seen many times in my professional webmaster career, during algorithmic uncertainty, typical site administrators often look for something to fix. Will a change in back-links generation strategy help with the new algorithm? What about keyword density? Or maybe the title tag needs some fine-tuning?

Here's what you as a website optimizer should do –

Nothing!

Google broadcast the algorithmic change as a “broad core update”, which says it wasn't targeting any specific spamming technique. Instead, Google is on a mission of perfecting its algorithm to “do well to responsible site owners who were previously un-rewarded”.

Simple, if as a webmaster you noticed that a website page you are working on lost its rank a lot, it's because Google “found” another page (better than yours) and decided to allot your SERP position to it.

I bring this up because there is a lot of feud going on in the webmaster world. As I said earlier, companies and “specialists” who offer SEO services are always waiting for this kind of uncertain time to make the most out of it caused by Google's recurring algorithm twists. They will certainly propose to you some “new” digital strategies and “advanced” marketing tactics..

..of course not free of cost.

Sure, some Google updates are more critical than others. And sometimes, you do need to consult with an expert webmaster. But, this is not the time.

If you want more information, this blog has more curated posts on the update and reactions from the SEO community across the world.

Isn't it nice to feel a bit relaxed now when there's nothing to worry about? Yes.

But slow down and take a deep breath –

If you notice a steady fall in your keywords rank – it's time to go for a fix.

As Danny Sullivan from Google said, “Want to do better with a broad change? Have great content. Yeah, the same boring answer”.

A position drop or two is normal over time but a consistent drop means your competitors are now creating better (as per Google’s revised algorithm) content than you unfailingly.

Content that is measured as more authoritative than yours.

If this is true and you honestly figured out that the content is a problem, then I suggest you check out Google's Quality Rater Guidelines once. You probably discover something that will take your content from “ordinary” to “extraordinary”.

In this case, you (as a layman website owner) can take the help of an expert content writer to analyze your content thoroughly. Before you start spending on writing and promoting, it makes sense to know the root cause, the severity of the damage, and plan accordingly to estimate the time to recover.

So, cool down now!

If you get hit by Google’s update, you should act reasonably this time around because you know you can overcome it ethically. Just, do not panic. It will take time but you can do it. Anyone can do it. Just stay persistent.

And, if any “professional” comes to you with his “readymade broad algorithmic update fix solution pack” – you can let him go with his bag full of offers.

Do not get overwhelmed by information and rumors when you hear about an algorithmic update from next time. Stay calm and composed as a webmaster to figure out a practical yet effective solution for you.

Let others know if you have anything else in your mind!

In SEO, self-help is the best help you may get!

Apparently, as a webmaster, you have to stay alert no matter whether you hit by any of Google’s core search algorithm update or not to keep your spot at the top.

How intriguing. No?

There are two ways you SEOs can do – learn and fight against the odds ethically for long-term gain OR do something illegal for the quest of a quick fix.

I am not advising you to not try anything exotic but be responsible as a website owner. Just to beat your competitors, it’s not a good idea to always react instantly especially after every Google algorithm updates.

I may miss something bigger in my write-up – I am curious if any of you are point that out in the comments.

Stay tuned!

Partha

NB: The big core Google search algorithm update has also now gained popularity as Google Medic Update.

"Fanatic SEO" vs. "Fantastic SEO" in the Need for Site Speed Game

A 1-second delay in page load can affect adversely your conversions, according to research reports. It can also hurt rankings, according to Google's statement. These facts can get you nervy (if you are an entrepreneur); turning on and off addons (if you are a webmaster), and most importantly, refrain from applying wrong optimization ideas onto the website pages (if you offer digital marketing services).

In this post, I help to calm you all down, as well as revert from the path of what I call "fanatic SEO work", that quite opposite of "fantastic SEO work", ends up hurting "SEO" more than helping it.

How "fanatic SEO" is against "fantastic SEO" work?

This explanation is a bit difficult to understand, so stay with me here. Fanatics take “everything unnecessarily” to the extreme.

If you are a fitness fanatic, there is a good chance you end up hurting your own body. If you are a health fanatic, you perhaps taking excessive medication which may neutralize bacteria, but in return damaging your immune system.

In SEO, fanatics mostly focus on imaginary problems, chasing and ending up with ugly situations - spending all their time optimizing except for creating fabulous content and market it with responsibility.

What loading time is the best loading time?

When optimizing, you in reality should set your target speed and performance for your website. Google’s reference is to check the competition and make sure you don’t fall short.

Key is monitoring the "page timings" and "user timings" reports in Google Analytics alongside “speed suggestions”. In general, the home page has to load in 2 seconds, product pages (for e-commerce sites) in 2.5 seconds and all other pages in 3 seconds is a considerably good target to follow.

Many recommend a fully developed homepage should load with content (both text and multimedia) in 3 seconds or less. Regarding HTTP requests, they suggest completing requests under 60 requests.

How design and content affect speed?

For speed and performance, starting out with a simple page layout is a good idea. Do not much stress on UX things now. Keep in mind that UX is important and has to consider when you laying out content and designing a page. But focusing on simplicity means you are already taking care of it to great extent.

All you need to place the content in their proper position and shapes.

Even if you have to deviate from your original page layout, you could always perform the speed test of the same template’s content with tools.

What I do is test the speed of a page’s variations in the Google tool to see which version has the best performance. Before finalizing anything, I would like to have a quick comparison to allow me to do the changes.

You can check "crawl stats" in the Search Console to validate your changes on page load time. In a chart format, Google gives webmasters some data to get an idea of how much time search crawlers are spending download a page in milliseconds which is a very good indicator for the overall measurement of speed and performance of the site.

A case study -

As an SEO I might not have set the world alight, but this case study is still a significant lesson for me.

This is a story of a digital marketing agency and one of their big clients.

Once a business owner was looking for a digital marketing service provider to digitize his brand. So he interviewed an agency.

The agency was capitalizing on the weakest point, and from the start of the interview - the client’s limited knowledge about SEO.

It was definitely a positive move for the agency owner, who ultimately won the project against difficult opponents - and when there is a commercial aspect involved.

This is digital marketing, and we are an agency - this is how we convince clients.

After the contract signed, the business owner was sure that the agency is capable of what he is looking after, and they certainly a good selection.

Yes, they started with a website audit report and claimed the website has SEO issues, but what was important was the way they went after "page load time" right from the off.

They were outstanding in the early stages of diagnosing issues and the client was happy at the way they came out and took control of the SEO operation.

There was a fantastic atmosphere everywhere and it was very exciting to watch the SEO progress the first 20 or 25 days but, when they presented their first monthly SEO progress report card, the client realized there is nothing to quantify.

Agency responds to being given responsibility -

Things were a lot worse for all stakeholders when the agency repeatedly pinpointed the issue with page load time behind no conversions.

Sure, the web design and development team had a lapse right at the slow page loading issue.

That was down to the organization and discipline of the stakeholders that one could call upon, and how hard they worked together as a unit when they did not have an understanding of SEO.

That's not surprising, because the agency owner knew from experience that most clients are interested in either conversions or keywords rank, and if any question arises, page load time issue will be an escape route.

The agency still got to lose the project despite pressed everyone badly for improving page load time every month through their reports. Because the agency’s own website also with very poor load time. And a website’s page speed isn’t the reason to hit the first page automatically.

It's pretty simple: the faster the page loads of your website, the happier your visitors will be. Optimizing page load time leads to obvious developments in reducing bounces means positive customer experience, conversion rates, and in the end, your ROI. But that doesn’t mean you should focus solely on improving speed all the time.

Final thoughts

I can list many steps on how to reduce or control the page load time for SEO advantages but that’s not in the scope of today’s post. Keep in mind, if you want to do less coding, make landing page changes faster, more ease when educating your clients how to edit & update their site, creating more engaging conversion driving pages, then avoid a fanatic mindset.

We all webmasters know that SEO is a continuous process. So focusing only on improving the speed at every cost will do more harm than good. You can of course take into consideration the use of CDN, caching plugins, faster yet reliable hosting services, improve your mobile experience with AMP, etc. to get pages load as fast as possible, and still enjoy the UX parameters and better conversions.

If this post on improving your mindset and how it pertains to your SEO work was helpful, feel free to comment below.

Infographic on Indian Search Advertising Market and Digital Ad Spend Growth Trends

Search engine advertising illustrates ad placement that is appeared on search result pages next to organic search results served by search engines. These advertisements are typically text-based but can be appeared as images where valid.

Claiming sponsored listings by bidding on keywords is a fundamental part of search engine advertising which can be targeted to a local audience or globally.

Google Ads is the biggest provider of search advertising on the global market as well as in India.

Here is an info-graphic focusing on Indian search advertising trends.

reference: statista.com

Revenues generated through search engine optimization (SEO) are not considered here.

All figures are indicating gross values here.

Also, some key stats will give you additional insight into the Indian digital advertising market in 2018.

• The Indian digital ad industry is estimated to grow at 32% CAGR
• By 2020, the industry will be valued at Rs. 18,986 crore
• Digital ad spends will be approximately 19,000 crores in the next three years which is roughly the same as the print ad industry today
• It is expected that the digital ad spend to grow at 3X of the industry average and will cover almost a quarter of total ad spends
• Mobile is expected to take 60% share of total ad spend will happen digitally
• Digital Media spends will grow from 15% to 24% of the entire market by 2020
• The majority of the ad spends are occurring on Social Media (29%) followed by Search (27%) and Video (20%) through desktop computers
• At the same time for mobile, the figures are Social Media (27%) followed by Search (25%) and Display (23%) respectively
• Currently, 85% of the digital media buying are happening directly media buyers and sellers
• 50% growth of programmatic digital media buying in India by 2020 is expected to happen

Reference: Dentsu Aegis Network report 2018

See you soon!

SEO: Check the Checklist Before, During, & After the Website Redesign

Many website owners (entrepreneurs) still think that SEO is a one-time job. Unfortunately, the reality is just the opposite. For example, during the redesign of a website, multiple facets can be altered. If not properly handled the changes, it may have an adverse effect on the website’s SEO which may ultimately slow down the long-term growth of the site.

On the other hand if done correctly, redesigning a website can boost your SEO effort.

In this edition of my post, we will run through a top ten list for webmasters on how to revamp a website without disturbing SEO.

1) List all URLs from the existing website

URL restructuring is very common in the website redesigning. It is important therefore to keep a backup of the existing site for further reference. For example, new URLs can possibly impact your website ranking. So in that case, you can always check back the old URL to find the root cause behind the drop in rank.

Solution:

Plugins like Yoast SEO for WordPress can be useful to get the URLs. You can use the XML sitemap file(s) to get a trace of the URLs. I also suggest you take a look at tools like Screaming Frog SEO Spider. Keep a full backup of the old site in your computer’s hard drive or on any removable disk.

2) Setup a beta site

Do not start the redesign work on your existing live website. It can cause issues for your site visitors which in turn will give you problems in the long run. Instead copy your existing site and set it up as a temporary web directory. Make sure the beta version is robots excluded completely. Now you can start making changes to the beta site. Switch the domain once all done.

Solution:

If you can do all these on your own then good otherwise, either you can take help from your developer or ask your hosting company to do it for you. Remember, a website migration job has to handle with delicacy to protect none other than you from unexpected issues in the future.

3) Test thoroughly the new website

After you copied your existing website and done changes to the beta site, now is the time to do a thorough checkup. In this process, you should look at multiple aspects of your website including functionality check, usability check, browser and device compatibility check, etc.

Solution:

You can also use a tool like XENU’s Link Sleuth to find all the broken links on your beta site besides manual testing.

4) Do URL mapping

The next step is to do redirects between old and new URLs (if at all REQUIRED). Keeping the URL structure as it is will be the best way, however, sometimes is not possible. In that scenarios, implementation of proper 301 redirects from old URLs to their corresponding new versions will ensure no sudden loss of SEO benefits.

Do it without fail, else the search engine will get a 404 page not found error at the indexed web address. By doing 301 redirects, you will send the message to search engines that the old URL does not exist anymore and consider the new one instead permanently. Accordingly, search engines like Google will follow your direction about URL redirection while ranking pages on SERP.

Solution:

You can add redirects using the .htaccess file. For example,

Redirect a Single Page with .htaccess

Redirect 301 /oldpage.html http://www.yoursite.com/newpage.html

Redirect 301 /oldpage2.html http://www.yoursite.com/folder/

Redirect an Entire Site with .htaccess

Redirect 301 / http://newsite.com/

You can also do the work with redirect plugins for WordPress if you are not confident about .htaccess.

Note: .htaccess file is very important, and you should not touch it without adequate knowledge.

5) Launch the new design

Switch to the new site once all are satisfactorily done regarding design and redirection. Depending on the size of your site, you may opt for incremental change in stages.

6) Check Google Search Console data

To ensure everything is according to plan, you must validate the effort put in so far. To do so, you can utilize feature sets available inside Google Search Console. This free tool will let you know all the criticality they found on your site and suggest you fix it according to their importance.

Note: It is advised to check if the redesigned website is verified in Bing Webmaster Tools too. It’s another fantastic free tool for webmasters to check their website’s health.

7) Check Google Analytics data

Like Search Console, Google Analytics is another free yet effective way for you to check whether accidentally developers or designers done any mistake (for example, blocking the search engine to crawl the areas of the website). If you see the traffic drop is huge from any channel then you can start investigating. Once you find the root cause, you can again make your website entirely crawlable and may start seeing again the same level of traffic flow to your site.

Note: Re-check your website’s conversion data in Analytics and try to figure out the reasons behind if any sudden drop you see. Accordingly, you may need to reverse-engineer the site migration process.

8) robots.txt

After the migration, please check the robots.txt file once to make sure no corrupted line of command exists in it for ethical search engines.

9) sitemap.xml

After the migration (no matter whether your website now has a new URL structure or not), create/generate new XML sitemap files to Bing and Google will be a smart move. The reason is the more quickly search engines come to know about the changes, the less you will see the impact on SEO.

10) Keep monitoring

Even if you not encountered any major backlash during the site redesign process, it is important to monitor the changes continuously for understanding the actual after effect. Keep a close tab on every performance data to measure how much progress you gained by doing a redesign.

There are many SEO tools available that enable you to keep track of the performance alongside monitoring keywords rank. If there is a considerable fluctuation, then figure out why this is happening and look to find a solution to keep your site’s performance up after redesigning.

You should monitor your website enough until you are sure about its stability in terms of SEO effort.

Bye for now!