When launching a new site or revamping an existing one, social media optimization remains the crux, in order to attract an interested demographic and to grow brand awareness and visibility. With these five tips, you can understand and avoid the most common mistakes in this sphere. 

Specifying Domains: This simply means that you should have the favourable option of either http://www.xyz.com or http://xyz.com. Redi­recting the preferable one solves this quickly.

JavaScript and CSS Control: For aspirations of search engine optimization, framework sites that are plug-in heavy have this problem. If cutting down on the script used and the CSS displayed is not feasible, running them through external files will enable faster load times.

Exam­ple: <script type=‘text/relevant-type’ src=‘http:/xyz.com/location-of-relevant-file.js’></script>

Advantages of Sitemap: Using an XML sitemap is hugely beneficial. The tools for this are available online in abundance.

Search engine optimization is achieved by making your pages and website more discoverable as search engines pick them up. It also assigns degrees of importance to different content.

Title Tag Format: While title tags are elements to the page header, they could also be visible at the top, depending on the browser.

It is also the text, which can be clicked as the results appear in an organic search. Not only are they a ranking criterion, but they also influence click-through rates.

Points:

• Title tags should not cross 70 cha­rac­ters, with spaces
• Avoid excessively filling with keywords
• Essential keywords should comprise the start of each title tag

Lac­king or Dupli­cate Desc­rip­tion Tags: Desc­rip­tion tags are visible in search results. They appear below clickable text and are created by search engines, which assign importance, when the tags are not compiled. It is far better to decide for yourself on the information that will be visible to your audience rather than automated decisions, in this case at least.

The possibly worst and most common mistake in search engine optimization functioning is the repeated usage of a description tag across multiple pages. This makes the process redundant and it is better to have blank descriptions for other pages.

Rules of Thumb:

• With spaces, description tags should not exceed 150 characters
• Every page should have a distinct description tag
• These tags should complement title tag keywords.

Gaining an insight into these unpopular mistakes that most websites and businesses make empowers you to succeed, without the impediment of wary operations. Follow these tips and make good on your promise to operate a website with full search engine optimization.

Image courtesy mashable.com

Waiting for several minutes that feel like hours on the phone, trying to get through to someone “sensible” enough who can take your order for the bunch of roses you wish to order for your mom’s birthday. One word, “frustrating”. Such a simple job ends up becoming a nightmare. So what is the solution? Log on to a website that sells flowers, like www.myflowertree.com, select the flowers, and click on buy and voila! Easy job done in less than 60 seconds! And since you feel great about the efficiency showed by that brand, you leave a wonderful comment on how great their services are!  That is how social media has changed the face of customer service.

While that was just one scenario, there are several ways in which social media has changed the way services are provided to customers. From food, to clothes, to bathroom essentials, there is an ‘order online’ or ‘leave review here’ option for practically everything these days.  Whether a situation goes well or on the contrary, bad, a customer would never hesitate in expressing their views for the world to see since it is available at the click of a button.

1. It’s all out in the open: Gone are the days when people sent letters or emails to company’s complaining about their bad experiences with the product. With blogging and online forums, people can voice their dissatisfaction, and no company can hide from that. This also increases the pressure on businesses to perform well 24-7 since anyone can post a review if they are unhappy and a third person can see that and form an opinion real time.
2. Customers solve each other’s problems: Online public forums help customers identify issues that are relevant to them, and at times they don’t have to reach out to anyone since they can read and review an issue discussed earlier which might be similar to their own. Also they can openly offer advice to anyone who needs it.
3. Wake up Call! Companies have become more sensitive towards customer’s issues and customer centricity has become a key factor in driving businesses. Since there is a lot more transparency between the seller and the consumer through social media, the core of every business now is how to improve customer satisfaction.

Social media is the strongest platform for customer service. Whether it’s the good, bad or the ugly, a customer has every right to express his or her appreciation or discontent for any brand or type of service. Sometimes however this may cause people to voice opinions which may not be relevant or may seem over the top and unreasonable. Social responsibility goes both ways. It is a relationship between the consumer and the seller, and social media happens to be a mediator between the two.

Image courtesy mashable.com

Newsletters are highly capable tools to create and manage traffic on your website. A critical component, in addition to planning and strategy declaration, is the design. Information-heavy newsletters are not reader-friendly, and if the aesthetic isn’t right, essential communication will be lost.

The following steps can be taken to achieve a great newsletter design.

1. Remember Previews: The initial segment should contain the crux of the newsletter, compressed and clear to understand for the clients. In addition to seeing what the subject of the email is, people get to see a portion of your design that draws them in.
2. Links: Positioning hyperlinks to your social media representation along with links to pages of your site, which would elucidate the content of your newsletter, encourage viewers and sustain traffic. If the aesthetic matches the user’s inclination to searching for detail after being attracted to a portion, then convenience and ease would factor in by a marked extent.
3. Unison of Design: Having similarities in the design of your website and newsletter enriches brand recall. Clients are able to associate your website and newsletter when they view either one individually, strengthening you brand and creating traffic through efficient clickability.
4. First Impression: While integrating your newsletter and brand, allow it to showcase elements of design that clients would relate to your brand. A hand-drawn appearance would work well for creative purposes, such as an art gallery using a palette and easel for their newsletter. Maximising potential for conversations is done through entrancing and specific design, which is suitable to your business cause and operations.

Bolstering your design quality, while maintaining content, is the solution to avoiding large budget designs and gaining a successful virtual medium for your clients to keep track of, and come toward your brand. When viewing the page of the newsletter through an email client, the heading of the designs will be seen, which plays a vital role in terms of traffic. Thus, balancing innovative design with these simple tips, along with your website’s standard paves the way for avenues of new customer bases, and business expansion.

Image courtesy www.eyeforweb.com

With the surge in competition all around you, how do you ensure your business stands out amongst the crowd?  Moreover, with the competition getting even tougher in the digital space, it is even more imperative that you make your online presence even stronger. How can all this be achieved?

A compelling and functionality-rich website can help you win half the battle. Read on to know 5 features you MUST load it with:

1. Social Media Widgets: In a world where sharing dominates the value of a brand and enables faster brand awareness and recall, the integration of social media buttons is a must. Since social media activities influence the search results of a website heavily, this feature becomes very important to be included.
2. Calls to Action: Whilst a user may land up on your website, there must also be relevant calls to action for him or her to take an action. The action could be to register, contact, sign up or subscribe. The idea for you is to covert as many users as possible.
3. Responsive: You must remember that a large percentage of your users may be viewing your website on their tabs or mobiles. The traffic to your website should not suffer as a result if this trend. Keeping that in mind, enable a smooth user experience even on mobile phones by making your website responsive.
4. Search Bar: You know what can be found where on your website, but your audience doesn’t. Make their journey through your site easier, and include a search bar on the site.
5. Meta Data: A pretty website sitting in the virtual space is practically of no use at all, unless equipped to be found by users in search results. Thus, it is essential to ensure a well-optimized site, with meta titles and meta tags in place.

Building a good website is like packaging your offerings well. The user will get attracted only if the appearance looks appealing enough to come closer. So, make sure your website development has that creative edge it needs.

Image courtesy onvizi.co.nz

As the Internet is saturated with a plethora of websites, the only thing that can make a website stand out is its design. Design plays a crucial role in defining the overall experience of an Internet user on the website. The points listed below illustrate the impotence of web design for a business.

1.       Initial Point of Contact: For most of people, the initial point of contact with an organization is the organization’s website. Keeping in mind that the first impression is the last impression, the design of the website shapes the overall image of an organization in the mind of the relevant public.

2.       Effective Communication: A website often plays the role of the primary source of information regarding an organization. It is important that the website coveys the information effectively to the visitor. The website’s design must present the information well so that it is readily accessible to the user.

3.       Stand Out: With an appealing and intuitive web design, an organization can easily stand out among its competitors. A website is also a great tool for small and medium scale businesses for projecting a formidable image to their key demographics.

4.       Greater Business Prospects: A website says a lot about a business organization. An efficient web design will efficiently communicate the ideology and purpose of the organization. With only a little investment, websites can increase the scope of their potential clients and business prospects.

5.       Connection: A bad web design can eliminate all possibility of establishing a discourse with your relevant publics. If your web design seems to be unique and innovative, it also projects a positive image of the organization.

The website of an organization must carry a design that is intuitive and confirms with the overall ideology of the organization. A good web design is not something optional but critical for the success of an organization in the contemporary scene. So, get your website designed by the experts today!

Image courtesy www.elementsweb.net

We often come across the saying that “I was born with an IQ but education ruined it”. Whilst in most cases it has been proved true that no formula picked straight out of the books has ever worked in reality, it is surprising how true it is with writing as well.

Paradoxical as it may seem, the length and breadth of an essay that made literature students fetch copious marks, are insignificant in practicality. Since the industry, today is rooted in a virtual platform and writing has taken a digital form, certain rules of writing do not work.

Writing for the web is not a rocket science. However, like other forms of writing it abides by its set of rules, too. Below is a list of 4 main things to remember while penning for the web:

• Redefined Reading: Only 5% of the entire population on the web would be actually reading it. Well, this may not be true in case of e-books; however, as far as websites and other sales related content is concerned, people on the web “scan” the text. Also, people tend to read 25% slowly on the web; therefore, the content on the web has to be 40%-50% shorter than its print version.
• Information Redefined: Let’s face it! No one is looking for pages and pages of content containing running text. Overloaded with content, information, data and mails 24*7, all that one is looking for at the end of the day is a bang-on solution for their search/problem. If your content can does the tricks in 10 seconds, it will not take more than a minute for the user to get an understanding of the remaining content.
• Voice Redefined: It’s all about writing the way you talk. The only form of voice that works on the web is “interactive”. It is the only way to draw audience attention and encourage information sharing, which is the ultimate goal of web content writing.
• Text Redefined: Crisper, crunchier and much more concise, text for the digital age has to be redefined to fit the small screen of your systems and mobiles. The text has to be focused on the message – to communicate.

When you are writing for the web, you are inviting international readership. Standardization of content, therefore, becomes extremely important.

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The realm of writing for websites differs greatly from traditional writing. The prime reason being is that the attention span of an online user much is fairly low. In order to generate effective website content, you need to adhere to some principles:

1. Flow: The online user is not very likely to put a real effort in going through a webpage. So, it is critical to maintain an effortless flow and cohesiveness in the content, so that the user can easily wade through it. To introduce the aforementioned elements in your writing, you must use conversational tone and direct speech.
2. Economy of words: Wordiness absolutely mars the readability of any piece of writing. Website content must be to the point, concise and consistent. Remember that the online user is always in a hurry.
3. Accentuate: In order to enhance the readability of your content, you must supplement it with images, hyperlinks, bullet points, headings and subheadings. There can be overwhelming amounts of content on a webpage, making an arduous task for the user to find what he/she may be looking for. Therefore, the content should be laid out in a well defined structure with clear and concise points illustrated with images.
4. Adapt: While writing, you must be aware of the kind of user would be reading your content and where exactly the content would be placed. It is important that the content on the webpage confirms to the overall theme of the website and the audience it would cater to.
5. Invert It: The age old principle of inverted style of writing holds good for website content writing too. Position the crux of the content right at the beginning and shift the accessorial details to the bottom.

In all probability an online users is going through a web page because he/she needs a ready access to useful information laid out in a simple fashion. A content writer for a website must serve this primary and basic need of the online user.

With demand for online PR services at its peak, the cost for professional web content writing has gone up further. The basic principle behind outsourcing the job of writing for a company’s website is to maximize traffic to the website. Now there are different categories when it comes to website content, and each has its own price points:

Landing page

To understand the significance of the Landing page, you only have to remind yourself of the cliché, ‘first impression is the last impression’, which pretty much says it all. A landing page may be welcome page or the about us page of a website that talks about the company and its services in brief. Monotony is the tendency of the hour when it comes to writing for such pages. For converting the browsing audience into buyers, the content has to be innovative that catches attention on first contact. This is when the need to spend extra bucks on the website content arises.

Reputed copy and content creation agencies quote a higher price as they have the best writers in business. A lot of research goes into writing for the landing pages that is successful and acts as an effective salesman for your website, thus justifying the expensive fees.

SEO Blogs

There is no dearth of shortcuts to anything and everything, and so to increasing the website traffic. SEO blogs count among the most convenient and effective ways to increase traffic to your website. The conversational blogs give people a reason to visit a website and browse it. Blog writers can target topics based on the study of analytics and success of a particular write-up in the past. They are better attuned to the penchant of the readers, making sure the next click after the blog is the website URL.

Linkbait articles

Now there is not much of a difference between Linkbait articles and SEO blogs, minus the length and viral-ism associated with Linkbait articles. These articles require much more than just a regular write-up or a writer. People entrusted with writing a Linkbait article need to be more innovative in their writing and they have to spend a considerable amount of time while researching and writing these articles. Editing these articles takes even more time than writing. Most content writing companies would charge you per word when it comes to Linkbait articles.