Let’s go back and think about all the ways we keep a physical store safe and secure. Chances are you install security cameras, a good reliable lock on the front door, you probably also ensure that all goods are stacked properly and all moving pieces are secured to avoid any accidents. What are you protecting? You’re protecting your customers from getting hurt, your store from being robbed and your business from being affected in case of any accidents. 

So why not take all necessary website security measures as well? After all, your online store, your customers and your business can be hurt, robbed, or prone to digital accidents too! 

The cases of website security breaches, hacks and data being stolen are on a constant rise. Your website collects and stores vital data that can hurt both you and your customers in case it is stolen. Thus, the need for complete website security must be a priority for anyone who owns a website. 

Before we go on to understand the need for website security, let’s look at the common threats and risks that we need to protect ourselves from. These risks include, but are not limited to:

• Spam
• Virus
• Adware
• Trojan
• Phishing
• Hacking
• Spyware

These are just a handful of the numerous threats to website security and hackers have a wide number of tools and software to infect websites. Let’s quickly jump to understand what these threats could mean for a business website. 

Why You Need Complete Website Security

To be able to grow and thrive in the digital world it’s important to understand the need for website security and know how to secure a website. To learn more about the need and the importance of website security, let’s look at what it brings to the table. 

Protect Your Customers

If your website is hacked or injected with malicious software, your customer’s safety and security are the first to be compromised. Not only will the website visitor’s be prone to being infected by malware but their personal and financial data may also be stolen. There are many different types of hacking tools and software that cyber criminals use, all have one major threat — attacking your existing and potential website visitors. 

Keep Your Business Reputation Secure

Losing vital customer data or being the platform that puts website visitors at risk due to a lack of website security can, and will, directly affect your business’s reputation. Not only will you be flagged as ‘unsecured’ but even visitors are unlikely to put their trust in your business again. 

Rank High on Search Engines

SEO or Search Engine Optimisation considers multiple factors to determine which websites rank higher on search engines, and website security measures are a key determining factor. In fact, as an added effort to boost its efforts to fight spam Google has detected and removed about 80% of hacked sites from search engines. What’s worse? Your website is also under the risk of being blacklisted if search engines detect too many vulnerabilities. 

Protection Is Cheaper Than Cure

Taking website security measures right in the beginning is a less expensive deal than the high amounts, both in terms of money and reputation, that you’ll need to pay to clear-up post an accident. It’s important to have security features such as Sitelock on your website right from the very start to minimize and potentially negate risks such as thefts, viruses, malware, or other cyberattacks. 

Invest in Website Security; Invest in Success

Investing in the right website security features will allow you to continue scaling your online efforts, keep your visitor’s safe and secure, and also ensure your customer’s trust and loyalty. 

Your business website’s growth relies heavily on the security features you invest in. It helps you rank higher on search engines, allows you to collect vital data and ensures that you can carry on without accidents/thefts slowing or shutting you down. Website security is thus the key to success. 

To know more and stay updated head to our Security Blog category. If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to drop a comment below. 

The post Understanding the Need for Essential Website Security Features appeared first on BigRock Blog.

If yes, you would probably remember the URL – if not let me refresh your memory – support.bigrock.com

Did you ever wonder why the URL is structured this way? Are there any benefits to it, and so on? 

First things first, let us understand the URL structure taking the above example, 

support.bigrock.com

Here, 

in – is the domain extension or TLD

bigrock – is the name of the website or a Second-Level Domain (SLD)

support – is the subdomain 

Errr, but shouldn’t it be ‘www’ instead of ‘support’? Well, it is completely up to the website owner whether they want to add a subdomain to their website or not. 

For example, www.bigrock.in is the link of the main website whereas, support.bigrock.com is a part of the main website. For better understanding, let us begin by understanding what a subdomain is. 

What is a Subdomain? 

By definition, a subdomain, otherwise known as a third-level domain, is the additional part to your domain name. The basic idea of creating a subdomain is to organise different sections of a website in a more organised manner.  Usually, these sections are extensive and can be separated. In fact, this organisation of your website can also help boost your search engine rankings aka SEO ranking.

Some of the prominent websites take advantage of subdomains viz. www.google.com is the main website whereas support.google.com is the subdomain for offering support to users. 

Here are some website pages that can be made into a subdomain:

1. Blog
2. A country market website/product page
3. A subdomain for every service you offer 
4. Support page 
5. Research directories 

Having understood what a subdomain is, let us now take a look at its impact on SEO in detail. 

Subdomains and SEO – The Connection 

Subdomains can help boost your search engine rankings. This is due to the fact that Google’s algorithm recognises and ranks your subdomains separately from your main domain. 

Here are the 3 well-known benefits of using subdomains:

• Add ‘keywords’ to your URL

Ever wanted to fit-in high ranking keywords in your URL but it didn’t seem like the right choice? A subdomain is a perfect place for you to insert that word into your URL structure. Moreover, you can even use a different domain extension to suit your subdomain. 

Take, for example, if your domain name URL is  

www.subdomain.businesssname.com you can modify the URL to add the keyword in the following manner: www.subdomain.businessname.com/category-keyword

• Build and grow your niche 

Building your domain’s authority can require a lot of time and patience. Nevertheless, when it comes to niche domains in our case subdomains the work is simpler. This is so because the market is small, and thus ranking and authority building is easier. Eventually, this can also help you to build and grow the business authority of your main website.

• Improve user-experience 

If you are a content-heavy website offering numerous products and services, navigating the main website can be tiresome. Moreover, this can also make your website heavy and cluttered. This eventually leads to poor user experience as your users might find it difficult to find relevant content. At such a time, diversifying and making a new subdomain for your niche content can be quite helpful, and also help in increasing your user experience. 

We hope this article helped you understand domains and subdomains and how they can effectively impact your website’s SEO rankings. 

Do you use subdomains or plan to use one? Do let us know your opinion in the comments section below. Also, head to our Domains Blog Category to know more and stay updated.

The post What are Subdomains? Know Their Impact on Search Engines appeared first on BigRock Blog.

Once you’ve set up your WordPress website you’ll realise that WordPress offers various customisation options to design and enhance the look and feel of your website. One of the easiest ways to add functionalities to your website without coding is through plugins. This brings us to the next question you may have, what is a plugin and how to install a WordPress plugin? 

What is a Plugin?

A plugin is a software component that can easily be added to a WordPress website. With the help of a plugin, you can add diverse functionalities to your website without the hassle of coding. These functionalities can vary from website design, integrating SEO, social sharing icons, email subscriber list, featured posts, creating a contact form, and much more.  

There are several thousand plugins available today, and the number keeps on increasing. One way to categorise plugins is the cost viz. free and premium plugins. Most plugins, however, support both – a free version, with an option to upgrade to the paid version offering additional features. 

WordPress Plugins can easily be found in the WordPress plugins repository and also on additional 3rd party websites. We will cover this in more detail as we proceed. 

Next, we move to the decision making phase. With plenty of plugins available, how do you decide which ones to choose? 

Here is a quick checklist that you can use to make sure your plugins are safe: 

1. The plugin ratings. Higher the rating, chances are the better it is
2. Read the reviews 
3. The number of installs, and the last updated date (the more recent the plugin is updated, the better it is)
4. See if the plugin offers support
5. Go through the FAQs and tutorial section of the plugin 

Now that we’re done with understanding the basics of plugins, let us dive in and understand how to install WordPress plugins on your website.  

How to Install WordPress Plugins

There are two ways to install plugins to your WordPress website viz.

• Through your WordPress Dashboard
• Downloading from 3rd-party Websites and Uploading 

We will cover both these techniques in detail. Let us begin with the first way:

One: Through your WordPress Dashboard

Step 1: Login to your WordPress dashboard 

Step 2: Navigate to ‘Plugins’ in the main menu 

Step 3: Select ‘Add New’ 

You can search for plugins based on several categories like ‘Featured’, ‘Popular’, ‘Recommended’ and ‘Favourites’. Otherwise, you can also search via a ‘Keyword’, ‘Author’, or ‘Tag’. Basically, this helps you find a plugin of your choice easily. 

Step 4: Click on the ‘Install’ button

Step 5: After the plugin has been installed, click on the ‘Activate’ button 

Step 6: After the plugin has been activated it is time to configure the plugin 

Your plugin has been installed successfully! You can find your plugin in the ‘Installed Plugins’ section.  

Two: Downloading from 3rd-party Websites and Uploading

This method is for plugins that aren’t available in the WordPress plugin repository. You can download plugins from any trusted 3rd-party website also known as plugin marketplace and upload them to your WordPress dashboard. Let us see how to install WordPress plugins manually.

Step 1: Login to your WordPress dashboard 

Step 2: Go the ‘Plugins’ section. Next, go the ‘Add New’ section. Here you can find the ‘Upload Plugin’ button in the top header section. Click on it, a new window will open

Step 3: Here, select the zip file of the plugin you want to upload by clicking on the ‘Choose File’ button. Once the file is uploaded to the server, click on the ‘Install Now’ button

Step 4: After the plugin is installed, click on the ‘Activate Plugin’ button to activate and configure the plugin

Your plugin is now successfully installed! 

Fun Fact: Did you know that some plugins come pre-installed with WordPress depending on the hosting provider. Our WordPress Hosting at BigRock comes pre-installed with JetPack, a plugin that helps to boost traffic growth and enhance your website design. 

Ready to Install?

We hope this WordPress plugins tutorial helped you understand how to install a WordPress plugin in an easy step-by-step manner. So what are you waiting for? Get going and customise your WordPress website with quality plugins today!

If you have any queries, feel free to leave them in the comments section below. Also, head to our For Bloggers category on the blog to know more and stay updated.

The post How to Install WordPress Plugins on Your Website appeared first on BigRock Blog.

Dedicated Server Hosting is just that — a personal, exclusive and committed resource to help your business grow and scale. 

When looking for the right hosting services you may be confused about the different types of web hosting, and which best fits your requirements. 

At the onset of your business, Shared Hosting may suffice your requirements, but as you grow and traffic to your website increases it’s best to move to a Dedicated Server Hosting plan so you can continue to serve your customers/visitors without any issues. Still wondering what Dedicated Server Hosting is? Dedicated Server Hosting is thus considered the perfect hosting solution for larger businesses that experience high traffic on their website. 

Let’s take a look at the benefits and advantages of a Dedicated Server Hosting service. 

Dedicated Server Hosting: Need, Benefits and Advantages 

The need to choose Dedicated Server Hosting plans arises when a website owner needs more power and control. Since Dedicated Server is an exclusive resource for a website, the chances of downtime or other issues minimize, thus, maximizing productivity and functionality. Here’s a list of the advantages and benefits that follow: 

1. Greater Control and Flexibility 

With Dedicated Hosting, you have greater control over the server as you have flexible server configuration options. From the RAM to disk space and other vital components, you have the flexibility to manage these entirely based on your specific requirements. 

2. Administrative Access

Unlike Shared Hosting, Dedicated Server Hosting allows you root access, i.e, administrative access that further allows you to customize your configurations and plugins as per your individual needs. Simply put, you have administrative access to customize your hosting and server needs rather than depend on a ‘one size fits all’ plan. 

3. Enhanced Security

With ‘personalised’ and ‘exclusivity’ also comes enhanced security. A Dedicated Server gives you exclusive control and access, thus maximizing your security. You do not share the server space with anyone else and the chances of threats and malicious attacks are automatically minimized. 

4. Dedicated IP Address

Just like the server space, your IP address will be dedicated to just your needs. This means the chances of your IP address getting blocked or blacklisted because of someone else’s mistakes/actions is completely negated. 

5. Effective Scalability 

Just because you’re choosing to move to a Dedicated Server because your website traffic has increased does not mean you will not continue to keep growing. As your website traffic further increases, Dedicated Server Hosting allows you to scale your configurations too, to accommodate your growing needs. 

Dedicate To Growth! 

As a business owner, you make numerous decisions every day, all dedicated to the growth and success of your business. Switching to Dedicated Server Hosting is one such decision that will fuel your growth, allow you to offer an unmatched website experience to your visitors and effectively keep scaling your business. 

Get dedicated to your growth — Get Dedicated Server Hosting. 

To know more and stay updated head to our Hosting Blog category. If you have any questions or suggestions please feel free to drop a comment below. 

The post 5 Amazing Advantages of Dedicated Server Hosting appeared first on BigRock Blog.

But wait, a dent in your well thought out plan. Your perfect domain name is already registered!    

So, what do you do? 

Shelve the project? Even though it might seem like a tempting option at the time, it is not the right choice! Instead, you search for the next best perfect domain name! And in this quest of finding an alternative domain name you’ve landed here, and we won’t disappoint. 

Here are 5 pro tips to help you find alternative domain names that can hopefully be close to your dream domain name.

Let’s get started!

1. Go with Your Second Best Choice 

If I were deciding my brand domain name, I would always brainstorm ideas and jot down the five best possible ones and then go with the one I resonate with the most. Chances are you might have done the exact same thing. If not 5, maybe 3? Maybe you had rejected them because the chosen one was slightly more appealing but when you think about it, choosing the second-best choice is a better choice than brainstorming all over again. And it makes perfect sense, doesn’t it? 

2. Add a Verb to Your Domain Name 

Adding a verb aka an action word to your domain name can be a real game-changer. Firstly, it doesn’t alter the meaning of your brand name, and secondly, it acts as a call to action. 

Take, for example, your brand is all about handmade cards, and you thought of registering ‘handmadecards.com’. But it isn’t available. Try adding a verb as a prefix and change it to ‘gethandmadecards.com’. 

Some of the actions verbs that you can try incorporating are: get/try/go/do etc. 

There are plenty of action verbs, and depending on your brand identity, they will change. On a fun note, all your school grammar lessons now come in handy!

3. Add Relevant Words to Your Domain 

If verbs and grammar aren’t your thing or fit with your website domain name, you can always add relevant words as a prefix or suffix. These words may or may not be a direct influence on your brand but can portray the essence. 

Take the same above example as a reference – you can add words like memorable, beautiful, cute, etc. These are some of the words people associate with cards, in general, so why not add them to your brand name. 

4. Look at Alternative TLDs

If you do not want to let go of your domain name beyond doubt, then the only option is to look for a different TLD. A TLD is nothing but a domain extension. So, if your domain name isn’t available as a ‘.com’, you can try registering with another domain extension. 

There are several domain extensions we’ll list some of them here, so you get a fair idea what they are:

• .art
• .blog
• .online
• .biz
• .store 

and many more.

5. Add a hyphen  

This one is a mixed tip. It depends on how you look at it. 

Adding a hyphen (-) to your domain name is a good option if it comprises of two or more words. However, some people dislike the idea of adding a hyphen as it breaks the flow of your brand name, and isn’t easy to remember.

Nevertheless, if you neither want to choose a different TLD or modify your domain name, this is the best possible alternative. 

Some of the popular brands that have a hyphenated domain name are: 

• mercedes-benz.com
• merriam-webster.com
• coca-cola.com

In a nutshell 

Whether you decide to brainstorm and choose a completely different domain name or try to find alternative domain names by only modifying the original, you should think about your brand. If the new domain name truly reflects your brand or not! 

We hope our alternative domain name suggestions help you find the perfect domain name for your website! 

Get going – find the perfect domain name and register it before someone else does! 

If you have any queries, feel free to leave them in the comments section below. Also, head to our Domains Blog Category to know more and stay updated.

The post Your Preferred Domain Name is Taken? Try These 5 Pro Tips appeared first on BigRock Blog.

Forget a bank, imagine renting a hotel room on a holiday where the hotel says there’s no lock on the door so we can’t assure security — would you stay there? Again, I assume not! 

Security and safety of our assets are of prime importance, in everyday life, be it personal or professional. 

Now, imagine you are a customer. You go to a website to purchase some household items but the website looks unsecure. Will you trust it to make an online purchase? Would you want to give your personal and bank details? 

An SSL certificate for e-commerce websites is that mark of security that gives the assurance to customers that their transaction and shopping experience is safe. 

As an e-commerce website owner you handle critical and sensitive information of your customers and ensuring its safety must be your responsibility. You want to ensure that your customers feel safe making transactions on your ecommerce website and obtaining an SSL certificate is a key step in ensuring that. 

To start with, how do you know is an ecommerce or any website for that matter, has an SSL certificate in place? Look at this image below:

Notice the tiny closed lock at the beginning, followed by https? These are the two visual signs that certify a website’s security. 

You may notice some websites are HTTP, while others like this image, are HTTPS. That extra ‘s’ at the end is what certifies that the website is secure and encrypted. The ‘s’ signifies that an SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) protects the website. 

If you go ahead and click on the lock, you can see more information, like this: 

While an SSL certificate is essential for all websites, it becomes an integral and necessary part of an ecommerce website. Why? Because ecommerce websites collect sensitive data such as credit/debit bank details, passwords and other financial information from its customers. Thus, any website like an ecommerce website that requires visitors/customers to share personal and financial details must invest in an SSL certificate. 

Benefits of an SSL certificate for Ecommerce Website

When a person lands on a website without SSL and other data-encryption security measures, they may receive warnings and alerts to notify them that the website is unsafe. Unsecure websites are vulnerable to cyber-attacks and other threats, and this is an immediate deterrent for anyone to go ahead and continue browsing, let alone transacting, on that website. 

For an ecommerce website, security becomes of prime importance as you want your customers to be able to trust you and the fact that you will keep their personal and financial information secure. Here’s a list of benefits that come with an SSL certificate for ecommerce websites:

Secure Payments

As an ecommerce website, chances are you’ll accept different modes of payment, including credit card payments. This is sensitive information and whether you have an in-built payment system on your ecommerce website, or redirect customers to a third-party payment platform, an SSL certificate will ensure that the customer’s data is secured. This also gives customers the satisfaction that you’re a credible ecommerce platform that ensures their data is not stolen or vulnerable to threats. 

Password Protected

Most ecommerce websites want to build a loyal customer base through membership or exclusive accounts. This requires customers to create password-protected accounts to easily shop on your store. This ease-of-use and password-protected login also create more opportunities for cybercriminals to steal information, however, an SSL certificate ensures password-protected logins and minimizes vulnerability to attacks. 

Data Collection

Ecommerce websites don’t just collect financial information but also rely on customer’s personal information and preferences to be able to serve them better. This could include questionnaires, feedback forms or other web forms to offer a more tailor-made shopping experience. The protection of this personal information is equally important and an SSL certificate helps you keep this vital data secure. 

Google SEO Rankings

In 2014 Google announced that websites with https, SSL certification, will enjoy a slight benefit in SEO rankings, as compared to HTTP websites. While the boost in SEO rankings may not be very high, this further establishes the need to keep your ecommerce website SSL secure. Additionally, this also indicates that your competitors are also going to do the same and you must be at par. 

Get Secure With SSL

While there are many ways to secure your website, SSL certification must be one of your top priorities to ensure a hassle-free, safe and secure shopping experience for your customers. Owing to this need for security, SSL certificates from BigRock offer many features and benefits that help you protect your ecommerce website and your customers. 

Online shopping and the world of ecommerce is at an all-time high and continues to grow. Customers today prefer an online shopping experience, and are always on the lookout for newer ecommerce platforms that cater to their needs — but not at the cost of compromised security! 

For more tips on keeping your website and online business secure, head to our Security Blog category. If you have any questions, comments or suggestions please feel free to leave a comment below. 

The post Importance of SSL Certificate for an E-Commerce Website appeared first on BigRock Blog.

There are several ways of promoting your local business online – social media marketing, email marketing, registering on a local listing site, and much more. In this article, we will be concentrating on one of these techniques – email marketing. Furthermore, we will discuss what email marketing is and various restaurant email marketing strategies to effectively market your restaurant online. 

First things first, let us begin with understanding what email marketing is. 

Understanding Email Marketing

Email Marketing is a type of marketing that helps promote your business, products or services through emails. It is a form of direct marketing with the goal of driving sales by converting users or website visitors to customers. 

As a marketeer, there are several forms of emails you can send to your customers viz. sales emails, new product or service release emails, newsletters with industry news, a casual catch-up with your customers, exclusive discount emails for your subscribers, etc. 

If you’re wondering if this truly is the right technique to market your restaurant online – here are some statistics:

• As per Statista, there were 3.9 billion email users across the world in 2019 and the number is expected to grow up to 4.3 billion by 2024
• According to a 2019 report by GetResponse, the average open rate for a welcome email is 88.7% 
• Another study by DMA shows that for every $1 invested by you for email marketing you get an average ROI of $42

Now that we’ve established that email marketing is efficient, let us have a look at ‘the three hows’ to get started by covering the basics of restaurant email marketing strategies. 

The Three Hows 

1. How to gather information from customers
2. How and which emails to automate 
3. How to keep up with further communication 

1. How to gather information from customers 

Collecting information from customers needs significant effort especially when it comes to a restaurant. You can’t just walk up to their table and request them to give you an email address, could you? Well, bold and experimenting millennial restaurateurs might just do that – but isn’t that a bit too tedious? 

So what to do? It is simple – here are some tips that might come in handy:

1. Like every website, your restaurant website could have a pop-up, asking customers who visit to submit their email ID to avail exciting offers or discount codes in their inbox. 
2. Ask customers to give reviews on the overall order or service. You could ask them to submit the review on your website or some third-party website that collects email addresses. 
3. Create a ‘Contact Form’ to promote online bookings to avoid the crunch and reduce wait time. 
4. Ask customers to ‘create an account’ on your website to order food online without the need of visiting the restaurant. Given the ongoing pandemic, customers might be inclined to do this. 
5. Print your website name on payment receipts, menu cards, billboards and more, inviting customers to join the mailing list. Do not forget to add a line about an incentive in store for them once they sign up! 

For example, ‘Thank you for dining with us! Don’t forget to join our mailing list for exclusive discounts.’ 

These are just a few tips depending on the location of your restaurant and your customer base. You can always think of various other ways of engaging with your customers and gathering their information. 

One thing to always remember is to consider this exercise as a ‘give and take’. Offering incentives to your customers like promo codes, special access and more not only helps you get their email address but also helps build a strong relationship with them. 

2. How and which emails to automate 

One of the most important emails to automate is the Welcome Email. A welcome email is the very first email sent to customers when they subscribe to receiving emails from you. 

Make sure your welcome email consists of the following:

• Should be personalised with the name of the customer 
• Should include photographs for a warm welcome
• Should be colourful, lively and tempting 
• Should be branded i.e include restaurant logo (if you have one) and the name of your restaurant 
• A reward at the end of the email (say 10% discount on the next offer or a Free dish). You may even choose to put a definite deadline for availing the offer – say 2 months from the email 
• Social media links of your restaurant’s online handles 

Below is an example of a welcome email sent by Starbucks!

Source: Pinterest

Another automated email is the one where you notice your subscriber hasn’t opened your emails in quite a while. You could send them an invitation email to ask for feedback, offer some reward, and even ask them to manage their preferences. 

Source: Emma

3. How to keep up with further communication 

You’ve asked your customers to subscribe and hence it is your responsibility that you keep the conversation flowing.

After you’ve sent your first email, it is good to communicate with customers a few days later. One of the ways of doing this is to send weekly updates or newsletters. 

You can send them a follow-up email with either some exciting new dishes they could try, or send them an email with social media posts and a ‘Follow’ button. Another example is you can send them an email of new features or updates about your restaurant. There are plenty of ideas all you have to do is think, get inspired and innovate!

Source: Really Good Emails

Pro Tip: Content is king, and quality images and text is an integral part of it. When designing your restaurant’s email marketing campaigns, make sure you focus on quality content.

What Next? 

Now that you have a fair idea about email marketing and restaurant email marketing ideas, it is time to put them in action! 

You already know what the signature of your restaurant is – capitalize on it and centre your email marketing campaigns around it. Think of all the different emails that you can automate (festival emails, a reminder email of why the customers subscribed, etc.) look at the email campaign reports, figure out if customers are availing the discounts and reward you’ve sent in your emails, and so on. 

You can spice up your email content by sending a complicated recipe and then ending with a quirky note saying, ‘Why to wait 3 hours for it when you can get it delivered/ordered in 15 minutes?’ As we said, the ideas are aplenty all you need is to figure out how. 

Lastly, as your restaurant grows, so will your emails. However, the best thing about email marketing for restaurants is that whether you’re a dine-in, takeaway or a delivery restaurant it is all the same!

So, what are you waiting for? Go, get your personalised business email address and start sending appetising emails to your customers right away! 

If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to drop a comment below. Also, check out more articles that can help your Small and Medium Business market better and succeed! 

The post How to Use Email Marketing to Promote Your Restaurant Online appeared first on BigRock Blog.

But what exactly is SEO? 

This SEO starter guide is the answer to your questions covering what SEO is, the working of SEO, and tips to attract new visitors to your website.

Without further ado, let’s get started.

What is SEO? 

Search Engine Optimization, commonly known as SEO, is one of the most effective ways to drive meaningful traffic to your website organically through a search engine. The main aim of SEO is to drive quality traffic but also improve the quantity of said traffic. 

Confusing? Let’s break it down further: 

Quality traffic: Search engines can send you all types of traffic. For example, you run a travel website. However, people who are interested in buying insurance are being directed to your website because the search engine displayed your website in their search results. In this scenario, the users interested in insurance do not add any value to your website and are most likely to bounce. SEO helps you get quality traffic so that they are more likely to convert. 

Quantity of traffic: The higher the number of people directed to your website through SERP, (Search Engine Results Page) the better! SEO helps your website get noticed in the search engines. 

Organic traffic: Ever noticed an Ad pop in just about everywhere when you search for a product? Yes, it can be on social media and even search engines. Website traffic driven through Ads, (user clicking on the Ad) is known as paid traffic. On the other hand, organic traffic is the one where you do not have to pay for your website to be noticed by users on the SERP.

To break it down further, SEO can be said to be a two-way street. Your potential visitors are out there searching for ‘what your website offers’ and you are the website that is offering it. SEO is the bridge between the two and helps narrow down the needs and wants of both the parties effectively. Your visitors find what they are looking for and you, in turn, find them. 

So how does this interconnection work? 

Working of the Search Engine – Basics

We’ve understood the basics of SEO, let us now understand how the visitor-website interconnection works. 

At the start, it is crucial to understand the three key-terms that are central to the working of a search engine and in turn, SEO:

1. Crawling
2. Indexing &
3. Ranking

For simplicity, let us explore each term in detail.

1. Crawling: As per Google, the first step is to find out ‘what content exists on the web.’ Crawling is the activity responsible for finding out what content is there on the internet. 

   Basically, search engines send crawlers or spiders (before you spook out, this is the term given to robots or bots) to find new content that is added and add it to its database of known pages. This content can be found with the help of links.Note: The content can be anything from a website, image, text, document, video, etc.

2. Indexing The next step is understanding the information that the crawlers find. This is known as indexing. The search engine (for our reference: Google) tries to analyse the content of the pages it found and understands them before appropriately storing them. In short, the data is stored in an index, which is actually a large database, and hence the name.The way your page is indexed (stored) in Google is directly proportional to it being found by visitors. Here are some tips by Google to help you index your page properly:
   • • Short but meaningful page titles
     • Use relevant page headings
     • Use text content over media (images/audio/video)
3. Ranking The final piece of the puzzle is ranking. When a user enters a query in the search engine, the results are displayed depending on what the search engine deems as the most relevant. This information is picked up from the index. If you notice, the results are arranged in the order of ‘most relevant’ to ‘least relevant’.To improve your search engine rankings, so that the user can find your webpage easily, you need to make sure that your data is indexed properly, it is up-to-date, your website is fast, secure, mobile-friendly, and optimized. To optimise, use keywords (most relevant words that users search wrt your webpage content) in your content.

   Lastly, depending on the search engine you are targeting make sure that you read their SEO guidelines and tips for better results.

The Last Quadrant

We began with the aim of generating quality website traffic, to achieve that we concluded SEO was the key, next we moved onto understanding the workings of SEO, and at last, we have reached to the final step – how to realistically attract visitors to your website.  

Here are 4 tips you need to keep in mind when aiming to drive website to your traffic: 

Tip 1: Choosing the right keywords: 

As mentioned above, relevant keywords can help optimize your website content that in turn, helps drive traffic to your website. The best way to find the right keywords is by researching. 

The internet is full of tools and keyword research tools come in handy. 

Some noteworthy tools irrespective of the search engine are Google Keyword Planner, Moz Keyword Explorer, SEMrush, Ahrefs,  Google Trends, and more. 

Tip 2: Location of the keyword 

Keyword placement matters a lot when it comes to optimizing the webpage. Here are three places where you shouldn’t miss adding keywords.

1. Copy: Place your keyword in the opening, body, and conclusion of your content copy. We recommend you do not spam your copy with all the relevant keywords but use them with caution. The idea is to drive quality traffic and so your website should have quality content.
2. SEO Title Tag: The title tag of your webpage shows up on the search engine results page, along with your browser tab. For a search engine to rank you better, you should add a keyword to your Page Title.

   Take, for instance, our article title: ‘SEO 101: A Beginners’ Guide to Understanding SEO’ When we did our keyword research, we found that ‘beginners guide’ is a keyword. As you can notice, we’ve fit it in our title and it doesn’t sound like it’s been force-fit. Remember, that your keyword should blend-in easily, otherwise, it may sound off to the visitor.

   Note: Do not exceed the 65 character limit for the title tag. 

3. Meta Description: The description you see displayed below your SEO Title Tag in the search engine results is known as the ‘meta description’. Make sure to include a relevant keyword in that description too.

   Note: Do not exceed the 165 character limit for the meta description.

Tip 3: Start a Blog

If you already run a blog, then this tip isn’t for you. However, if you are running an e-commerce store, a photography website, a podcast website or any other website and you don’t have a blog you should consider having one. 

A blog is a good place to start building content that can help address potential queries of your clients. 

For example, you run a travel website and you take care of customer bookings, packages, tours, etc. As a customer, I may have several queries and may not always want to call or reach out to support. A blog at a time like this can prove to be helpful. 

Some articles your blog can cover are:

1. 5 Visa-free countries…
2. How to travel light…
3. 5 Things to take care of when travelling to… 

Essentially, you are just providing your visitor with the solution to their queries and this further aids you in helping them convert.  

Tip 4: Building Links by Backlinking

As seen above, crawling is the first step to optimizing your SEO activity and this is done by joining links. Backlinking in this respect is the best way to build links. 

Backlinking in simple words is adding your link to relevant websites/pages so that if a user visits them and clicks on your link they are redirected to your website. Some of the ways to backlink your website are guest blogging, publishing data on listing websites or informative websites, conducting outreach activities, and more. 

READY TO START?

A good and effective SEO strategy takes time and patience but it is worth the effort. We hope that this Search Engine Optimization starter guide helps you understand the basics of SEO and helps you chalk out your first SEO plan with ease. 

What are you waiting for? Take advantage of the power of SEO and seize the day! Check out more articles that can help you navigate the digital world as a Beginner!

The post SEO 101: A Beginners’ Guide to Understanding SEO appeared first on BigRock Blog.

This reimagination of your local store and the journey forward in this digital world need not be challenging. However, if you’re new and need a tip or two on how to market your business online – this is the right place to start. 

As with anything, we assume you are new to the online world and this is your first attempt at setting shop! According to a research survey published in 2019, ‘90% of consumers used the internet to find a local business in the last year, with 33% looking every day.’ Moreover, 82% of consumers even read online reviews. Given the statistics, it is therefore important that your online business has a great marketing strategy in place. 

Note: When we say marketing strategy we do not say you can compromise on the quality. Marketing is a means for consumers to know more about the awesome business you’re running.

In this article, we will cover the most important strategies for marketing your business online:

1. Business website 
2. Social media presence 
3. Email marketing
4. Registering on a listing site
5. Engaging content 

Let us get started in demystifying these for you in simple terms.

1. Business website 

The first and foremost step when taking your business online is to start by building a website. Yes, a social media account is alright, as well as, presence in the online marketplace but all these have to be backed up with your business website. 

Here are 3 things you should keep in mind when building your website:

• • Domain name 

Your domain name is the first thing that makes an impression on your potential customer. Therefore, it should reflect your brand and the services you offer. Obviously, this becomes easy if you’ve already decided the name of your business, however, if you’ve not then the best course of action is to find one closest to your brand values and niche. 

Next, it is important to keep the domain name as short and as simple, as possible. For instance, say your brand name is ‘Grocery Now’. Now there are several ways of registering this domain name, but as a potential customer online which one would you rather click on – www.grocery-now.biz or www.grocerynow.biz?

Domain names that are simple to remember are most likely to be remembered and thus, clicked. So, avoid using numbers, difficult spellings, long names, hyphen etc. to your domain name. Keeping it simple and crisp is the key!

Next, it is crucial that the domain extension you use should also give a fair idea of your business. As you are a local store, it makes more sense to choose a domain extension that reflects that. One of our recommended domain extensions is .BIZ. 

For instance, if you’ve chosen, www.grocerynow.biz, you’re letting your customers know you’re a business as the .BIZ domain extension is synonyms with businesses, it is short and crisp, suits your business irrespective of it being small or big and, it is even great for the SEO of your website.    

• • Hosting 

After you’ve decided on the domain name, it is time to register it and make it live. The choice of the hosting provider and the type of hosting depends on your website, the traffic you estimate it will receive, the money you want to invest, etc. 

Ideally, for a startup online business Shared Hosting looks like the best bet, however, depending on your business model this might not be the case. If this sounds like jargon to you, you can read our ultimate guide to understanding web hosting, and choose the one that best fits your needs!

• • Responsiveness 

A mobile-friendly website is the need of the hour. What are the odds – you are reading this article on your mobile device? Well – there’s a 50% chance that you are. Hence, it is important that your website is mobile-friendly and responsive. 

Want to check if your website passes the test? Run your website through the Mobile-Friendly Test by Google, and hey if it isn’t responsive – you know what to do right? Make it responsive! 

2. Social media presence 

Social media has dominated us and we’re connected to it on a daily basis, for both personal and professional pursuits. For this reason, investing in social media marketing is an essential marketing strategy. 

Here are three things you need to take care of:

• • Deciding on a social media channel

The choice of a social media channel strongly depends on the audience you are catering. If you’re a ‘grocery store’ having a presence on Instagram and Facebook makes more sense than LinkedIn or Twitter. 

Choosing the right channel can help you focus on what you want to market and how you want to do. As you are just starting out, focus on building your presence on one channel – once you’ve made a name for yourself, your customers will recognise you across different social channels.    

• •  Build your channel

It takes time and effort to connect with your customers via social media. Use engaging creatives, captions, clickbaity Ads, etc. A visually appealing social media channel can attract costumes to read more and know more. 

• • Register it with your business name

Lastly, make sure that your register your social account using your business name.

Pro Tip: Think big, and register your business name on all the social media accounts you think you could market your business. So, when the time comes – you need not worry about someone already having registered it!

3. Email marketing

Email marketing is a powerful way to communicate with your customers. It not only gives you direct access to their mailboxes but also, allows you to cater to them for their specific needs.   

To do so, you first need to create a list of subscribers. The easiest way to accomplish that is to have a ‘Subscription Form’ on your website, or once your customer has made a purchase – ask them for their email address. Initially, your database may be small but as more and more customers register themselves you get a chance to analyse them better and implement the learnings to promote your business better!

4. Registering on a listing site

Remember the 90s and the fat Yellow Pages directory? If you’re a millennial you most likely do remember. A listing website is nothing but the online version of your Yellow Pages.

However, this is one online marketing strategy that businesses can miss or not think of investing in. Nevertheless, creating and claiming listings is a great way to market your business and be found by potential customers easily. 

Some of the popular listing sites include:

• • Google My Page
  • Facebook
  • Yelp
  • City Search
  • Yahoo Local
  • Bing Local 

Make sure no matter which site you choose, your listing should be accurate, professional and up-to-date.

5. Engaging content 

Lastly, comes the content but it should not be taken lightly as ‘Content is King’. No matter where your content goes – business website, social media account, listing site, emails, blogs, etc. it should be engaging and useful to the customer. 

Yes, you should always use search engine optimization (SEO) and keywords for your content to be easily found. However, it is crucial to remember, content that is not relevant or repetitive will drive the user away instead of engaging them. 

One simple way to make sure your customer connects with your content is to analyze their shopping habits, the posts they click, the pages they visit and so on. Your content marketing strategy should aim to reflect your business and enhance your user’s experience. After all, online is all about data and data is nothing but content! 

Establishing a digital presence for your local store might seem like a daunting task but it isn’t. All you need is patience and the right online marketing strategy and tools, and you’re good to go! 

The post 5 Strategies to Market Your Local Store Online – Start with a .BIZ Domain appeared first on BigRock Blog.

Domain Name Decoded 

First things first, let us begin by understanding what a domain name is. A domain name is your online identity and can be said to be the digital address of your website. Anyone wanting to visit your website needs to type in your domain name in the search bar of the web browser. 

An example of what a domain name looks like is – www.bigrock.in. If you notice, the domain name consists of three sections, each separated by a ‘dot’. 

When we break down a domain name, we begin reading from right to left – 

in – domain extension, otherwise, known as a TLD aka Top-Level Domain

bigrock – the name of the website, otherwise, known as an SLD aka Second-Level Domain

www – world wide web, most commonly found before a domain name but can be skipped  

Another example of a domain name you may have come across is – blog.websitename.com 

In this domain name, the only difference we notice is that ‘www’ is replaced by ‘blog’. Here,

blog – third-level domain, also known as a subdomain 

When you want to start your website or blog, you do so by first choosing and registering a domain name. When you register a domain name, you choose not only the name but also the domain extension (www.mywebsitename.com).  

Note: If you want a subdomain, first you need to register a domain name and purchase hosting. Next, from your hosting management dashboard, you can create additional subdomains. Example, blog.mywebsitename.com or shop.mywebsitename.com 

If you’re wondering how to start up your blog by registering a domain name and purchase hosting, here is a quick guide that can help you. 

So, what is a TLD? 

A TLD or top-level domain is the last part of your domain name. It is sometimes also known as a domain name suffix as your domain name ends with the TLD. 

A TLD is assigned and overseen by The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers or ICANN. Moreover, a list of all the valid TLDs is maintained by the IANA and is updated from time-to-time. 

Having seen what a TLD is, let us now move on to understanding the different types of TLDs in depth. 

Types of TLDs 

There are officially four types of TLDs recognised by IANA: 

1. gTLD – Generic Top-Level Domain
2. sTLD – Sponsored Top-Level Domain
3. ccTLD – Country Code Top-Level Domain
4. Infrastructure Top-Level Domain

Let’s explore them in detail:

1. gTLD – Generic Top-level Domain

The gTLD is the most common and recognizable of all TLDs. Some popular gTLDs you may have come across are: 

• .com 
• .net  
• .org  
• .xyz
• .club
• .biz 
• .top

The list of gTLDs is ever-growing. The newly added gTLDs are also known as ‘new gTLDs’. 

These days several websites want to be recognised by their domain name hence they choose to suffix a new gTLD (Eg: .host, .name, .biz etc.) instead of the traditional .com to serve their website’s purpose. 

Apart from this, there are TLDs specific to certain geographical locations, known as GeoTLDs. Technically, GeoTLDs fall under the category of generic TLDs and the main aim is to serve the purpose of representing a place, culture or language. 

Some of the GeoTLDs currently available are:

• .berlin (Berlin, Germany)
• .nyc (New York City, USA)
• .moscow (Moscow, Russian Federation)
• .tokyo (Tokyo, Japan)

As of September 2020, there are in total exactly 1,246 generic TLDs made available by ICANN. To view all the existing gTLDs, check them on the IANA website. 

2. sTLD – Sponsored Top-level Domain

sTLD is the type of top-level domain that is sponsored by or taken care of by private organisations, businesses or the government. 

To register your website under an sTLD, your domain should abide by certain rules. 

Some common sTLDs are:

• .edu – for educational institutions 
• .gov – primarily for US government entities and agencies 
• .asia – open to individuals, companies and organisations connected to the region
• .mil – primarily US military 

Some recent additions to the sTLDs are: 

• .travel – reserved for travel agencies 
• .tel – reserved for internet communication service websites
• .museum – reserved for museums 

As of September 2020, there are in total 14 sTLDs listed on the IANA website.  

3. ccTLD – Country Code Top-level Domain

A ccTLD is a top-level domain that is specific to countries. Mostly, ccTLDs consist of two alphabets in the English language. However, some ccTLDs are also available in a country’s regional language. 

Here are some examples of ccTLDs available: 

• .in – India
• .uk – United Kingdom 
• .us – The United States of America 
• .va – Vatican city state 
• .cn – China
• .ke – Kenya
• .eg – Egypt
• .भारत – India
• .台湾 – Taiwan
• ‏.ایران‎ – Iran

As of September 2020, there are in total 316 ccTLDs listed on the IANA website. 

Note: Some ccTLDs are restricted to only the individuals and organizations residing in the area. 

Many times, ccTLDs are used by companies to tap into the local markets by localizing their website address. 

One example is amazon.com that is localized to suit the needs of different country markets. Some examples of country-specific websites are:

• amazon.in 
• amazon.co.uk 
• amazon.com.au

4. Infrastructure Top-level Domain

There is only one domain name in this category –

• .arpa – Address and Routing Parameter Area

With the help of this domain name, you can reach the root of the name hierarchy by reverse mapping IP addresses to the domain names. 

This domain is exclusively used for Internet-infrastructure purposes, particularly, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Furthermore, the domain is administered by IANA under the guidance of IAB (Internet Architecture Board). 

As of September 2020, the .arpa domain includes 11 second-level domains, read more about them on the IANA website. 

A Quick Recap

By now, we assume you’ve figured out the primary intent of a TLD is to help a user visiting a website figure out what the website is all about, or the purpose it serves. 

Although you may have no idea about the technicalities of a domain name, if you see – 

• www.websitename.edu you are most likely assume it might be an educational website or, 
• en.wikipedia.org and you can tell it is a not-for-profit organization

All this just by looking at the domain suffix. 

We hope that this detailed tutorial on TLDs and the types of TLDs helped you understand about domain names in-depth and TLD aka top-level domain is not a jargon anymore!

If you have any queries, feel free to leave them in the comments section below. Also, head to our Domains Blog Category to know more and stay updated.

The post What is a TLD? Top Level Domains and its Types Explained appeared first on BigRock Blog.