Let every visitor know what you look like

This is very much applicable to the hotel industry. People want to know where are they heading for the weekend party. If they are not sure whether your set up is what they are looking for, you may unnecessarily miss out customers. A cover photo that features the interior of your restaurant will give your customer a clear idea of what/who you are – cozy and comfortable or rock and hip.

Similarly, other industries like spas and parlors can feature interiors on their cover photo.

Show off the excellence of your product
Cover photos are the best way to show what your product can do. Focus on the excellence and capability of your product.  For e.g., Cutco Cutlery. Their cover photo, even though involves many elements other than the product, sees to it that their product dominates the picture.

Tell them who you are and what you do
Telling people what you do and what your business is all about is something every small business should do. And cover photo, being the dominating part of your timeline, does an exceptional job. For e.g., Tampa Rejuvenation

Their cover photo includes all the services they offer. Visitors will not have to click on ‘About Us’ or visit their website for any information, unless and until they are interested. The catch is – the target audience will definitely visit the website, for more information.

Pass on the message subtly
Given the terms and conditions of facebook’s cover photos, one cannot promote the company/product/services in the given space. But… but… but… You can always pass on the message that would indirectly promote your company or your services. Try to put the USP of your services in the cover photo. For e.g., Pumped Pest Control

As you see in the above picture, the company has very well put their USP in the picture itself. ‘No contract, No start up fee’ is something customers look forward to. Hence, this is one of the smart ways to promote your company and attract more customers.

Sync you cover photo with your profile picture
Many brands sync their cover photo with profile picture. Instead of coming up with two different pictures where one (the cover photo) gets cut out, you can make it a one complete picture. This again gives you a chance to be more creative and stand out from the crowd.

If you have any more interesting, creative or unique cover photo ideas that can promote a businesswithout directly promoting it, do share them with us in the comments section below.

Today, almost every small business owns a blog. Having a blog is completely different than maintaining it. Does just updating it daily really helps? It hardly helps. You need people to keep coming back to your blog to know you are updating it daily. So, here are some Do’s and Don’ts of blogging:

Dos of Blogging:

1. Promote every blog on social media: It is wise to have social media accounts for your business as it is the cheapest mode of promotion. Then with the help of the same platform, you can promote each and every blogpost of yours. Update the blogpost with a catchy title on facebook, twitter as well as linkedin. This will help you get traffic.
2. Interact with your readers: Interact with each and every reader. If someone comments, reply to him/her. When the size of your business is small, you can connect to your audience in a better way and build loyal and life-long customers. To improve the engagement, you can also ask your readers to send you the blogposts that are related to your business and update your blog with one of the reader’s blogpost, atleast once a month.
3. Make your blogposts social-media friendly: Add social media icons below every blogpost. Readers/Visitors should be able to easily share the posts they like. This will help your content go viral.
4. Have easy accessibility to ‘Subscription: The world of internet is widely spread. There are so many lovely things to explore that even if people find you interesting and informative, the next moment they will find someone else interesting and informative. So, the moment a person feels you are interesting, they should be subscribing to your blog, so that they don’t forget you. Once they subscribe to your blog, they will automatically be updated about your new post via email without you having to do anything.

Don’ts of Blogging:

1. Do not harass readers with advertising: Readers hate those pop-ups they get while reading an interesting article, or a blog filled with too many flashy ads where they have to search for relevant information. It is recommended to have user friendly blog. Remember: Think from a reader’s perspective, and not your own.
2. Do not have a scattered blog: The content on your blog should be properly arranged, and not scattered. It is advisable to categorize your blogposts. You can also have a ‘Search’ bar on your blog. This will make it easier for the reader to find your old blogs, or search for other posts.
3. Don’t sound boring: Many people get confuse between a professional and a boring blog. Being a business blog, it should be professional. But still, a blog gives you a liberty to be lively, give you personal opinions and share your experiences. So, use every liberty it gives to you. And you won’t ever sound boring. The entreprenuers can write once in a month, on the blog and share their experiences, or their interaction with their customers. This will generate interest   for your blog in readers, developing a factor of trust in them.
4. Don’t just focus on the stats: Many companies unnecessarily spend money on bringing traffic to the blog. Instead, concentrate on quality content. That is the only way that would get you more, as well as quality traffic. Remember: Stats are just for your reference. No sales depend on them.

Keep these 8 ‘Dos and Don’ts of Blogging’ in mind and attract quality traffic to your blog. If you have any extra points to share with us, please feel free to add them in the ‘Comments’ section below.

To solve this problem, Google introduced a “news_keywords metatag”. What is the goal? It is simple: this new metatag will allow news writers to write their stories and express their views freely and also help Google understand the news article like a “human” so that it is interpreted in such a way that it is discoverable by wide audience of users.

News_keywords metatag will also help publishers to specify a collection of terms that apply to a news article. Also, there is no need to include these keywords in the headline or body text. Since the metatag would appear as a part of the HTML code of a page, visitors to a site won’t really see the metatag. For instance, news keywords such as “stocks”, “stock market”, or “crash” will allow Google to better understand the writer’s intent.

Keep in mind that this metatag will be used to determine ranking, like many other algorithmns. This new tool will surely prove to be beneficial for news article writers and make sure that their creativity is recognized.

You can learn more about getting news_keywords set up by reading Google’s Help Center article.

Keywords costs and return on ad spend (ROAS) are two things that are important to any ecommerce advertiser. Quality score is directly propotional to ROAS and inversely propotional to the click costs. Which means, higher the Quality score higher will be the ROAS and click costs will eventually decrease. On the other hand, lesser the Quality score less will be the ROAS and click costs will increase. Let us make it clearer.

VALUE EACH CLICK:
Lead generation clients and ecommerce advertisers behave differently in one way. The former is more focused on lead volumn and overall CPA goal whereas the latter focusses on pays more attention to CPA goal of each product. Since keywords attracts the most number of target, it is essential to focus on them if you are an ecommerce advertiser.

How does it work:
Start by analyzing your keywords. Then calculate your revenue per click by dividing your PPC revenue by the total number of clicks on the same timeframe. Then, furthur divide RPC result by your goal ROAS. This will give it the highest bid you need to make to maintain a good ROAS. This helps you in determing how your CPC bids should work. See the example below to understand better:

Relationship between click costs, ad position and quality score
According to Google, your ad rank is the product of your maximum CPC bid and Quality score. Look at the example below

Here, Quality score is the influencer if keyword bid is kept constant. This means that higher the Quality score higher will be the ad position.

Take it a step ahead by comparing the ad rank with your competitors. Compare the click costs of two advertisers in the same ad auction with different Quality Scores. Look at the example below:

You can see that advertiser A with low Quality score of 2 has to bid more to get the ad rank of 5. Whereas, advertiser B has the Quality score of 8 and has to bid comparatively low for the same ad rank. How does this affect the overall ROAS? Let us see:

So if we keep all other values constant and only change the click costs, the advertiser with low Quality score will have a lower overall ROAS. In this case, advertiser’s A’s overall ROAS suffered as a result of more expensive click costs, originating from poor Quality Scores.

IN A NUTSHELL
This is how Quality score is essential for ecommerce advertisers. A good Quality score will not only up your performance on the search engines but also help you in maintaining your desired budget without overshooting it. Tell us how have you used Quality score to optimize your own ecommerce campaigns? Feel free to leave a comment below.

Good sales require good credibility. But… but… but! How to build the credibility that would bring you sales? Here are some tips to follow:

Do not lie. Be transparent
The very first thing one should remember is not to lie and maintain as much transparency as you can. Many people add fake reviews and testimonials to the site which they think would add credibility and trustworthiness to the site. Instead of gaining customers, businesses lose them. So, while adding reviews and testimonials, make sure you add the name, designation and the name of the organisation of the review/testimonial writer. For instance, your site sells novels. Think: One novel has got hundred reviews from common people, while the other has 5 reviews from wellknown media. Which book would do more business?

Similarly, do not have anything to disclose to your customer at the time of final payment. Lay down all the terms and conditions, in front of a customer, before he invests in your product. Suppose, you have purchased a beautiful set of wine glasses. The site delivers the product to you and later you realise that one of the glasses is chipped. Now you want to return the set, but the company says that they do not take back chipped glasses? What would you do then?

Keep yourself in place of the customer everytime you write a marketing copy, and write down all the things you feel ‘You’ should know about a product

Let them know you are reachable
One of the influential factors of credibility building is to let people know you exist and will be there, when needed. To assure them, you need to display your address and contact number on the site (even if the transactions are online) – customers need to know you have a physical presence and you are not a fraud, who sells defective products and then run away. Always display customer care numbers, if any, so customers will not contact the owner or other departments of your office for doubts and inquiries.

Are your transactions safe? If yes, tell them
People fear sharing their credit card details on a portal they do not know, as details may be leaked/or shared with a third party. If you have a system that keeps these details safe, then tell your visitors.

Video testimonials
Video testimonials can be of common people who have used your site and are happy with your products. These videos can demo or speak about the condition of the product (to assure others that products delivered are brand new) and guarantee/warranty (if any). Video testimonials can also be the reviews of TV channels or any other credible source. If you have any celebrity clients, it is better to have their video, on your site, no matter how short it is.

Have social media presence
Social media connect you with people. With the speed social networking is growing, you can not only maintain your current customers, but can also rapidly gain thousands of new customers daily. Word-of-mouth is said to be the best source of credibility and the cheapest source of publicity, and social media give you exactly the same.

Besides these, some of the other ways to build website credibility are:

• Do not clutter your website with ads
• Write persuasive copy for your product
• Have a blog and update it regularly
• Easy navigation
• Have original content – from copy to images

Hope these points would help you build a credible site and increase your sales. If you have any points worth sharing, then please share those with us in the ‘comments’ section below.

WHY CONSIDER MOBILE WEBSITE OPTIMIZATION?

• Improved User experience.
• Accelerated Download Speed.
• Better user engagement.
• Ranks higher on mobile-friendly search engines.
• Helps in creating a strong Brand Identity.
• Anytime, anywhere accessibility.
• Can be easily designed and re-designed, less restrictive.
• Cost-effective as compared to other apps.
• Integration with Offline Media through the use of QR code.
• More advertizing options.
• Help you attract both new, old and “On the Go” customers with hassle-free browsing.
• For local searches, the chances of coming higher up in the mobile search will increase, which can be really advantageous in mobile marketing.

BEST PRACTICES FOR MOBILE OBTIMIZATION:

• Make sure the website is ‘human’ which means that the website should be designed keeping ‘users’ in mind. If the site is
  difficult to browse through, it may lead to high bounce rate which can be a huge ranking factor.
• Use mobile-specific keywords. Keywords used for a desktop website may not give same results when used on a mobile
  website. [See : Google Adwords Keyword tool]. Phones are not used like PC’s. Use shorter tail phrases.
  
• Use Geo-Tagging: Most of the local searches are performed using mobile devices. So, it makes sense to have a specific
  location to your page before closing it. The best way to do this is by inserting “geo-location” , so that the search
  engine knows where are you and what your location is.
• Mobile Search Engines behave in a different way. That is, just as mobile users are different from desktop users, mobile
  search engines also behave differently. Check the keywords, content, layout etc while creating a mobile website.
• Be social first then Mobile. The users looks for “entertainment” and easy browsing and many users are connected to their
  social network via apps 24×7. So, while developing content for mobile users you may and foremost idea should be to
  ‘entertain’ them. The sites have to be visually appealing.
• Embed social media links on every page of your mobile website. This will increase exposure, traffic and user engagement.
  This will help boost your profits.
• Be thumb finger friendly. Use Vertical menus to minimize scrolling. This will make moving along the menu easy, when
  deciding which link to click on. Have a search box prominently available.
  
• Reduce large chunk of texts and images. Use bullet points and compressed images. This will also download faster.
• Develop your mobile website to ensure the best user experience possible. Don’t just use a ‘scale-down’ version of  the desktop website. A good example of this is Twitter’s mobile site:
  
• Create links to the main website (desktop website), so that the main website is not left behind.
• Lastly, use search engine crawlers to make sure that the mobile content is directed to the same mobile version that users
  are sent to. Doing this will avoid penalty such as cloaking.

Therefore, develop mobile sites for full engagement and an incomparable user experience.

Do you have any other tip that you want to share? Leave a comment.

It was an algorithmic update that was announced on April 24, 2012. This update targeted those websites that violated Google Webmaster Guidelines. It aimed at lowering search engine ranking of those websites that used black-hat SEO techniques such as keyword stuffing, cloaking, using duplicate content and spamming. It approximately affected 3.1% of English search queries and 3% of queries in languages like Chinese, Arabic and German.

But just as Google has a solution for everything, this too had a solution. Google released a feedback form. This was designed for two categories of users- one who wanted to report web spam and others who think their website is innocent but has still been hit by this update.

As a data refresh to the Penguin algorithm, an update was released named Penguin 1.1 in early June this year. Since the previous update affected a major chunk of search results, this refresh according to Matt Cutts, Google’s head of Webspam affected less than 0.1 % of English searches.

Moving on…

The Problem- what is the diagnosis and what are the steps to detect it?

1. Trace the day you got hit.
2. Were the site-wide links hit or only specific pages? Also see:

• Did every page lose its ranking?
• Can you rank a new page for a lower competition term?

3.Once you do that, find out the problem areas of your website.

Why was your website affected?

This is not very difficult to guess:

• Over-optimized anchor text.
• Too much low quality content.
• Use of too many off-quality link.

If your website is found to have more than 65% of inbound links with Anchor Text matching keywords, then you certainly need to consider some recovery lessons from the examples below:

1. WPMU.org

Ross Hudgens of Search Engine Land worked with WPMU.org to recover by:

• Removing many site-wide footer links (approximately 15,000).
• Miscellaneous on-site issues like canonical URL’s

The graph below shows WPMU.org’s Recovery:

2. So does that mean, Penguin penalty is linked to the URL? Will copying the content onto a new URL help? Will it rank off the content and what’s left of the domain authority?

In a “MFA Test” by Ian Howells of slideshare.net , he say “Sure, you can.” Here is the proof:

He then tested if a 301 from the “penalized” page will pass the ranking hit to the new URL? His finding say that it surely can and within 5 days. See the graph below:

Some more findings of test:

• If your penalty is just on the page level, you can start over with the same domain.
• If your homepage has been targeted, then it might be a matter of big concern for you. You will have to control your links like WPMU did or get them removed.
• No “duplicate content” notice will be issued if you simply copy paste old content to a brand new page.
• You cannot, however, keep those links by using 301 (into your new URL).

How can you rebuild your website’s ranking?

• If your homepage is safe, then start moving the affected pages to new URLs without using 301 redirect and go back to link building.
• For solid links to your old (now dead) URLs, you will need to get them changed to your new URL.
• Don’t want to move pages? Find spam links and get them taken down and then wait for the next update.

In this case, will canonical tags, 302 redirects, cross-domain 301 tag work or creating new alternate home pages help? We are yet to see this. Have you already started taking recover lessons? Let us know whether they were fruitful.

However, it is important to successfully leverage online networking platforms, forums and sites to build your reputation so that your brand is strategically positioned to meet your business goals. We shall discuss a few practical ideas to cultivate a positive and consumer-oriented identity in social realm.

1. Define your niche

Focus your social media activity on that specific segment of audience vital to your business needs. The concept of brand contraction is critical to success on the social Web. Listen to conversations across the Web related to your industry, business or competition. Analyzing what you read or view online gives you an ability to grasp what people are actually saying about your brand. This is as important as publishing and conversing.

2. Avoid excessive self-promotion

Do not make your conversations sound like a monotonous corporate rhetoric or a blatant promotional activity. People won’t relish your content that reads like a sheer marketing pitch. Stick to the basic 80-20 rule of marketing; emphasize on non self-promotional social media activities. When you want to indulge in self-promotion directly, do so sans bombarding people with a flurry of messages.

3. Hold user-friendly conversations

The content you host in the social realm should be useful to your target audience for them to read it or initiate a dialogue with you. Furthermore, if it doesn’t add any value to their lives, they won’t be encouraged to talk about it and also share it with their others. Only relevant, user-friendly conversations open up an opportunity to spread your message across the Web.

4. Impart a human touch

Engage your audience through meaningful conversations and interactive content. Add an informal touch to your content so that it matches their needs, expectations and aspirations. Always leading with your strengths and being consistent in your approach is a must. Transparency and honesty of intent are equally critical to enhancing your image.

5. Be receptive

Acknowledge concerns of other people and build a proactive relationship with them. They need to believe you care about them and their needs, too. Respond to queries and suggestions, comments and feedback on your tweets, blog and so on. In other words, be receptive.

You cannot expect others to reach out and share your content. If someone opts to engage with you on Twitter, Facebook, forum, blog or any other social Web avenue, you must reciprocate. Make it a point to comment on other industry-specific blogs, review sites, content sharing platforms, and more.

Even if you’re not turning to guest blogging activity specifically as a link building strategy, some of the factors mentioned below are worth considering:.

• Spammy links owing to carelessly executed guest blogging plans can become the potential problem area in the future. The quality and relevance of the site should be your primary concern. In other words, you must look for signs of genuineness and integrity of the resource you are going to guest post to this is to make sure that they won’t be compromising your link profile by perhaps opting to overtly sell links later (making it appear like you paid for that link as well).
• The publisher might simply open the floodgates to random guest post submissions, thus diminishing the value of your post dramatically and lumping your website in with many others you wouldn’t like to be clubbed with!. You obviously will not be in a position to tell whether or not a link is going to turn bad in the future. However, you must strive to minimize the chances of this. Observing some of the basic site criteria will help to achieve that goal.
• The site should be reasonably established in its domain and considered an authoritative source, run by a respected thought-leader. A definite sign of integrity is defined editorial as well as business objectives. Check that a ‘real’ institution or organization is there behind the resource. Verify the correctness physical address and other contact details.
• Another pointer to ascertain the scope for guest post opportunities is dynamic social media activity built around the resource. An active and meaningful presence on networking platforms sure is a sign of life. Other elements that further boost your confidence about the resource are e-mail newsletters. They give you an indication of the fact that the website owner/ publisher is at least making an attempt to be in forefront of the activity within their community. This means they’re running a genuine site.
• Of course, this is not a hard and fast rule. An active Facebook page does not now necessarily mean that the blogger won’t vanish in another six months time. However, a basic check will give some indication about such kinds of things. Again, don’t necessarily treat higher number of social network profiles plus links to those in the sidebar as better. Instead insist on the quality and depth of interactions on these platforms.

As we gradually move towards a cluttered link landscape, which looks set to incorporate factors, such as AgentRank or AuthorRank, you must put extra emphasis on guest posting on a site run by credible organizations individuals, perceived to have a high degree of trust, authority and expertise. This is likely to put you ahead of the curve.

Is the site or content relevant to you?

If still in doubt, take a quick look at its profile and history page. Carefully go through the mission statement. See if your content can fit in. But this is something to be taken up with help and advice of experts who will let you know if it’s all really worth the effort. In this context, an important aspect to finding out if a site will like to link up is to know if your venture or the site content that you’re pitching is of relevance to the domain of the site and the content that it currently hosts. You might come across one with high quality stuff. However, if it has little valuable metrics, it is better not to target or approach it right away.

Timeline is of essence

The meticulous timeline of relevant updates, the date on which the website pages – main landing or its inside content ones – have been last refreshed, is an important criterion. This gives us an idea that a site is attentive to producing text on regular basis, like blogs or news articles. If the latest news article or blog post on it is done about a month ago, it means the site has been poorly managed and neglected.

When to go for backlink analysis?

If you come across noticeable amount of linking root domains to the page, you may retain the same for further backlink analysis. Try and reach out to the sites, which link to that particular page and inform them they can have access to another good resource online for linking to instead.

Watch out for red flag keywords

Do not forget to take a quick glance at navigation/ footer links for clues, such as ‘write for us’, ‘guest posts’, ‘contributors’ etc. See if they’ve a page devoted to getting content already. Also, while browsing links, watch out for any red flag key terms, which resemble sponsored links with doubtful anchor text. Be wary of questionable words like loans, poker, Viagra etc. These are not desirable, so better stay away!

After having considered a majority of vital metrics, you will usually get a pretty good sense of whether or not you should approach the website. And if you are still in some doubt and still feel it’s of particular relevance and high value, as far as linking is concerned, you might resort to an outbound link checker so as to know if it is linking by any chance to questionable sites.

It is also not a bad idea to scan its backlink profile and see if all the crucial links coming in are mostly from directories or specifically pages titled as ‘Free Link Exchange’. Note here that design of a spam test can be a bit arbitrary since there are many sites run just for sake of it, and they make use of templates for some visibility online. So be careful while choosing your prospective link partners.