Nagaraju - Digital Marketing, Lead Generation, Demand Generation, SEO, Social Media, Website Ops

List of Analyst Relations websites and platforms

2024-10-21T12:26:00.005+05:30

Here’s a list of notable Analyst Relations websites and platforms that focus on industry analysis, market research, and analyst relations for businesses:

1. Gartner

Website: www.gartner.com
Description: One of the most influential research and advisory companies in the tech sector, providing insights, reports, and consulting services for companies of all sizes.

2. Forrester

Website: www.forrester.com
Description: A leading global research and advisory firm that offers insights into business strategies, technology, and consumer behavior.

3. IDC (International Data Corporation)

Website: www.idc.com
Description: A premier global provider of market intelligence and advisory services for IT, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets.

4. ISG (Information Services Group)

Website: www.isg-one.com
Description: A leading technology research and advisory firm specializing in digital transformation services, market research, and advisory for businesses.

5. Omdia

Website: www.omdia.com
Description: A global research and consulting firm, focusing on technology, media, and telecommunications.

6. 451 Research

Website: www.451research.com
Description: Provides insights and intelligence on technology innovation, specializing in emerging technologies.

7. Everest Group

Website: www.everestgrp.com
Description: A consulting and research firm that helps companies drive IT, business process, and engineering efficiencies.

8. NelsonHall

Website: www.nelson-hall.com
Description: A global analyst firm that offers high-quality, in-depth research to help organizations with their sourcing strategy.

9. HfS Research

Website: www.horsesforsources.com
Description: Specializes in digital business operations, automation, AI, and outsourcing.

10. Frost & Sullivan

Website: www.frost.com
Description: A global market research and consulting firm that provides insights on innovation and growth strategies across various industries.

11. Constellation Research

Website: www.constellationr.com
Description: Focuses on digital transformation and disruptive technologies, offering research and consulting services.

12. Zinnov

Website: www.zinnov.com
Description: Provides consulting and research services focused on globalization, digital transformation, and technology services.

13. The Analyst Syndicate

Website: www.thansyn.com
Description: A collaborative network of independent analysts who provide insight into a wide range of industries and technologies.

14. KuppingerCole Analysts

Website: www.kuppingercole.com
Description: Specializes in identity management, cybersecurity, and digital transformation research.

These websites are widely regarded for their in-depth analysis, reports, and advisory services, making them essential for organizations seeking to stay updated on industry trends and engage in analyst relations.

2025 Digital Marketing Strategies: Navigating the Future

2024-09-29T21:32:00.008+05:30

Digital Marketing Strategies for 2025: Getting Ready for the Future

The state of digital marketing is changing quickly as 2025 draws near. Businesses need to adjust to be relevant in light of the constant influence of social media, changes in consumer behavior, and technological improvements. These are some important tactics to think about in 2025.

1. Over-individualization
Customers are becoming more and more demanding customized experiences. Brands may deliver hyper-personalized content and offers by analyzing client data through the use of AI and machine learning. This entails developing tailored marketing messages that speak to the interests and habits of each particular customer rather than relying just on generic email campaigns.

2. Voice Search Engine Optimization
Optimizing for voice search is essential due to the increase of speech-activated gadgets. It is recommended that marketers concentrate on long-tail keywords and natural language processing because customers typically phrase searches differently when chatting. This entails producing material that addresses particular queries and offering succinct, understandable information that voice assistants can convey with ease.

3. Dominance of Video Marketing
Video is still king, and by 2025, it's predicted to make up a sizable amount of all internet traffic. Interactive material, live streaming, and short-form videos will be essential. To effectively reach their customers, brands should engage in compelling storytelling and make use of channels like YouTube, Instagram Reels, and TikTok.

4. Experiences with Augmented Reality (AR)
AR technology is going to completely change the way customers engage with brands. Immersion experiences, like interactive product demos or virtual try-ons, allow businesses to increase customer engagement and boost conversion rates. Memorable brand encounters can be achieved by integrating augmented reality (AR) into marketing campaigns.

5. Marketing that is Ethical and Sustainable
Customers are becoming more aware of ethical and sustainable business operations. Audiences will respond more favorably to brands that place a high priority on social impact, environmental responsibility, and transparency. To foster loyalty and trust, marketing tactics should emphasize sustainable practices and be in line with customer values.

6. Community Development
Building a community around a brand can increase engagement and brand loyalty. This entails promoting user-generated content, holding virtual events, and interacting with customers on social media. Creating a vibrant online community can encourage brand advocacy from consumers, leading to organic growth.

7. Influencer Collaborations 2.0
The landscape of influencer marketing is changing, favoring micro and nano influencers with very active followings. Partnerships that complement a brand's values and target audience should be sought after. Being honest is essential because people are more inclined to believe endorsements from influencers who actually use the product.

8. Analytics Driven by AI
Information is the foundation of successful marketing. Marketers may obtain deeper insights into consumer behavior, campaign performance, and industry trends by utilizing AI for analytics. Businesses can improve ROI, make well-informed decisions, and optimize campaigns in real-time with this data-driven approach.

9. Multi-Channel Advertising
Customers engage with brands through a variety of touchpoints. Whether interacting via email, social media, or in-store, a smooth experience is guaranteed with an efficient omni-channel strategy. Integrated marketing initiatives should be given top priority by brands in order to develop unified messaging and improve client connections.

10. Transparency with Blockchain
Blockchain technology offers ways to improve security and transparency in digital marketing as worries about data privacy become more pressing. Brands may utilize blockchain to validate ad placements, guarantee data integrity, and cultivate consumer trust about the usage of their data.

In summary
The dynamic landscape of digital marketing in 2025 will be defined by swift technology progress and changing demands from consumers. Brands may stay ahead of the curve by adopting hyper-personalization, utilizing cutting-edge technology like AR and AI, and emphasizing sustainability. Those that can innovate and adapt to this changing market will prosper as it gets more competitive.

Top Account-Based Marketing (ABM) Tools

2024-09-27T23:04:00.010+05:30

Here’s a list of top Account-Based Marketing (ABM) tools along with their website links and brief descriptions:

HubSpot
hubspot.com
About: HubSpot provides a comprehensive CRM and marketing automation platform with tools for email marketing, content management, analytics, and social media, making it easier to implement ABM strategies effectively.
Demandbase
demandbase.com
About: Demandbase specializes in ABM, offering tools for account identification, engagement, and analytics. It integrates with existing CRM systems to provide insights and enhance targeting efforts.
Terminus
terminus.com
About: Terminus offers a multi-channel ABM platform that helps businesses target and engage accounts through various digital channels, providing robust analytics to measure campaign effectiveness.
6sense
6sense.com
About: 6sense leverages AI and big data to identify buyer intent signals, allowing marketers to prioritize accounts and tailor messaging based on insights into the customer journey.
Marketo
marketo.com
About: Now part of Adobe, Marketo is a leading marketing automation tool that supports ABM through personalized marketing campaigns, lead nurturing, and detailed analytics.
LinkedIn Sales Navigator
linkedin.com/sales
About: Sales Navigator is LinkedIn’s premium sales tool, allowing users to find and connect with key decision-makers in target accounts. It offers advanced search features and insights into account activity.
Engagio (now part of Demandbase)
demandbase.com/engagio
About: Engagio provides a platform to coordinate marketing and sales efforts across accounts, focusing on account engagement and performance measurement, now integrated into Demandbase’s offerings.
Pardot
pardot.com
About: Salesforce’s Pardot is a B2B marketing automation solution that helps businesses manage their leads and campaigns, offering tools for email marketing, lead scoring, and reporting to support ABM initiatives.
Albacross
albacross.com
About: Albacross specializes in website visitor identification, allowing businesses to capture leads from anonymous visitors and target them based on their engagement with your site.
Bombora
bombora.com
About: Bombora provides intent data that helps marketers identify which accounts are actively researching topics related to their products or services, enabling more effective targeting and engagement strategies.

These tools offer a range of features to support your ABM efforts, from lead identification to multi-channel engagement and analytics.

What is ABM or Account-Based Marketing?

2024-09-27T11:21:00.009+05:30

ABM, or Account-Based Marketing, is a targeted marketing strategy that focuses on engaging specific high-value accounts rather than a broad audience. Here are the key components:

Key Features of ABM:

Targeted Approach: ABM identifies key accounts that are most likely to convert and tailors marketing efforts specifically for them.
Personalization: Marketing messages and campaigns are customized to address the specific needs, pain points, and goals of the target accounts.
Collaboration Between Teams: ABM often involves close alignment between marketing and sales teams to ensure a cohesive strategy and messaging.
Multi-Channel Engagement: It utilizes various channels (email, social media, direct mail, events) to reach decision-makers within the targeted accounts.
Measurement and Analytics: Success is tracked through metrics that matter to the business, such as engagement levels, pipeline growth, and revenue generated from the targeted accounts.

Benefits of ABM:

Higher ROI: By focusing on high-value accounts, businesses often see a better return on investment compared to broader marketing strategies.
Better Customer Relationships: Personalized marketing fosters stronger relationships with key accounts.
Efficient Use of Resources: ABM allows for more strategic allocation of marketing resources to accounts with the highest potential value.

ABM is particularly effective in B2B environments where sales cycles are longer and involve multiple stakeholders.

What is Sponsored Content and Direct Sponsored Content in LinkedIn ?

2019-08-08T14:46:00.005+05:30

Sponsored Content and Direct Sponsored Content are two advertising options on LinkedIn that help businesses promote their brand and reach their target audience.

Direct Sponsored Content

Definition: Direct Sponsored Content is similar to Sponsored Content, but it allows for more personalized messaging.
Customization: It enables businesses to create and test content that isn’t published on their company page, providing flexibility in messaging and targeting.
Use Case: This format is ideal for A/B testing different messages or campaigns without cluttering the company page.
Targeting: Like Sponsored Content, it offers robust targeting options to reach specific segments of LinkedIn users.

Key Differences

Publication: Sponsored Content is visible on your company page, while Direct Sponsored Content is not.
Testing: Direct Sponsored Content is particularly useful for testing different creatives and messaging without affecting the company page's content.

Both formats are powerful tools for reaching LinkedIn’s professional audience, depending on your marketing goals.

Customizing an Image and Title When Posting a URL on Your LinkedIn Page

2019-08-02T14:31:00.000+05:30

When you post updates to your LinkedIn Page, you can customize the thumbnail image and title when sharing an article or website URL.

To customize the title and image when posting a URL

Paste the URL into the Share an article, photo, video, document, or update box at the top of the page.

An auto-generated thumbnail image may appear in the preview if one is available, along with the article or website title.

To customize the image, click the Image icon below text box and select an image from your computer. To customize the title, click on the current title and type your new title over it.

If you'd like to target your update to a specific audience, click the dropdown menu next in the share box and select Targeted audience. Learn more about targeted updates.

If you'd like the update to display to all Page followers, click the dropdown menu in the share box and select All followers.

Click the Post button to share your update.

When adding an image to your update, please keep the following guidelines in mind regarding image display size:

Use a 1.91:1 ratio (1200x627 px).
Image must be more than 200px width.

If your image width is less than 200px, it will not display in the larger image format. Instead, images will appear as a thumbnail on the left side of the post.

Images on mobile will not be cropped. Images of other ratios will show in-full with subtle white padding.

Content Copied from https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/81310/customizing-an-image-and-title-when-posting-a-url-on-your-linkedin-page?lang=en

What are the Benefits of Account-Based Marketing?

2019-06-21T10:24:00.000+05:30

Tracking goals & measurement is clear: When you’re analyzing the effectiveness of campaigns, whether email, ads, web, or events, it’s easier to draw clear conclusions, because you look at a smaller set of target accounts instead of a vast set of metrics.

Reduced resource waste: Because ABM is so targeted, it allows marketers to focus their resources efficiently and run marketing programs that are specifically optimized for target accounts.

Sales Alignment is Easier: ABM is perhaps one of the most efficient ways to align sales and marketing. This is primarily due to the fact that the marketer running an ABM program operates with a mindset very similar to sales—thinking in terms of accounts and how to target them, bring them to the table, and generate revenue from them.

Clear ROI: Effective ABM drives clear business results. In fact, compared to other marketing initiatives, the 2014 ITSMA Account-Based Marketing Survey found that "ABM delivers the highest Return on Investment of any B2B marketing strategy or tactic."

It’s personal and optimized: Account-based marketing tactics entail personalizing your messaging and communications to specific accounts so that your campaigns resonate with these target audiences. Targeted customers are more likely to engage with content that is geared specifically to them, and is relevant to their business and stage in the buyer journey.

How to Optimize the Lead Nurture Campaigns

2019-05-22T19:11:00.000+05:30

Let’s discuss how to make lead nurture campaigns better by optimizing them. There are many ways to optimize lead nurture campaigns:

5 Ways to Optimize a Lead Nurture Campaign

1. Segment Your Leads: Segment leads into groups to provide the most relevant content at the best time during the buying cycle. You can segment by many variables including industry, level of engagement, budget, and price sensitivity all of which are customizable in your automation platform.

2. Implement SEO: Help search engines serve your content to people actively looking for what you offer. Insert your offer keywords in the URL, title, headings, meta description, image alt tags, body and links of your landing pages, forms, thank you pages and uploaded content.

3. Prepare for Omnichannel Engagement: Your leads explore the internet on a daily basis. Capture attention on channels most frequented by your audience including email, social media, search engines and paid ads on the web and within apps. Keep a consistent tone, design, and branding for experiences they’ll remember when it’s time to complete their purchase.

4. Personalize Content Based on Actual Data: Your automation platform has been collecting data directly from your leads. Use this data to create variables of your webpages so leads instantly to see relevant information when they visit your website. You can personalize content for any data collected from leads.

5. Ensure leads are in the right campaign: Automation platforms provide endless capabilities to get your leads the right information. Workflows are directions you set to tell your platform how to respond to lead activity. Set workflows to move leads to other campaigns based on changes in their level of engagement or behavior.

5 Ways to How to Master Local SEO

2019-05-22T12:10:00.003+05:30

5 Different Ways to Master Local SEO For More Customers.

Optimize Webpages with Local SEO Keywords
Optimize for Mobile Using with Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)
Implement Schema.org with Structured Data Markup
Utilize Business Listings as Local Lead Generators
Review & Respond to Reviews & Social Media Posts

What is Directory and How it helps in SEO (Search Engine Optimization) ?

2019-03-01T12:39:00.000+05:30

A directory is an online list or catalog of websites. That is, it is a directory on the World Wide Web of (all or part of) the World Wide Web. Historically, directories typically listed entries on people or businesses, and their contact information; such directories are still in use today. A web directory includes entries about websites, including links to those websites, organized into categories and subcategories. Besides a link, each entry may include the title of the website, and a description of its contents. In most web directories, the entries are about whole websites, rather than individual pages within them (called "deep links"). Websites are often limited to inclusion in only a few categories.

There are two ways to find information on the Web: by searching or browsing. Web directories provide links in a structured list to make browsing easier. Many web directories combine searching and browsing by providing a search engine to search the directory. Unlike search engines, which base results on a database of entries gathered automatically by web crawler, most web directories are built manually by human editors. Many web directories allow site owners to submit their site for inclusion, and have editors review submissions for fitness.

Web directories may be general in scope, or limited to particular subjects or fields. Entries may be listed for free, or by paid submission (meaning the site owner must pay to have his or her website listed).

Scope of Directory Listings:

Most of the directories are general in on scope and list websites across a wide range of categories, regions and languages. But some niche directories focus on restricted regions, single languages, or specialist sectors. One type of niche directory with a large number of sites in existence is the shopping directory. Shopping directories specialize in the listing of retail e-commerce sites.

However, a debate over the quality of directories and databases still continues, as search engines use ODP's content without real integration, and some experiment using clustering.

How to Monetize the Directory Listings:

Directories have various features in their listings, often depending upon the price paid for inclusion:

Free submission – there is no charge for the review and listing of the site
Paid submission – a one-time or recurring fee is charged for reviewing/listing the submitted link
No follow – there is a rel="nofollow" attribute associated with the link, meaning search engines will give no weight to the link
Featured listing – the link is given a premium position in a category (or multiple categories) or other sections of the directory, such as the homepage. Sometimes called sponsored listing.
Bid for position – where sites are ordered based on bids
Affiliate links – where the directory earns commission for referred customers from the listed websites
Reciprocal link – a link back to the directory must be added somewhere on the submitted site in order to get listed in the directory. This strategy has decreased in popularity due to changes in SEO algorithms which can make it less valuable or counterproductive.
No Reciprocal link – a web directory where you will submit your links for free and no need to add link back to your website

Human-edited directories

A human-edited directory is created and maintained by editors who add links based on the policies particular to that directory. Human-edited directories are often targeted by SEOs on the basis that links from reputable sources will improve rankings in the major search engines. Some directories may prevent search engines from rating a displayed link by using redirects, nofollow attributes, or other techniques. Many human-edited directories, including World Wide Web Virtual Library, Business.com and Jasmine Directory, are edited by volunteers, who are often experts in particular categories. These directories are sometimes criticized due to long delays in approving submissions, or for rigid organizational structures and disputes among volunteer editors.

In response to these criticisms, some volunteer-edited directories have adopted wiki technology, to allow broader community participation in editing the directory (at the risk of introducing lower-quality, less objective entries).

Another direction taken by some web directories is the paid for inclusion model. This method enables the directory to offer timely inclusion for submissions and generally fewer listings as a result of the paid model. They often offer additional listing options to further enhance listings, including features listings and additional links to inner pages of the listed website. These options typically have an additional fee associated but offer significant help and visibility to sites and/or their inside pages.

Today submission of websites to web directories is considered a common SEO (search engine optimization) technique to get back-links for the submitted website. One distinctive feature of 'directory submission' is that it cannot be fully automated like search engine submissions. Manual directory submission is a tedious and time-consuming job and is often outsourced by webmasters.

Find List of Directories @ http://www.srikshitha.com/2012/01/huge-huge-huge-list-of-directories-for.html

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_directory

Google Plus Account is going to close from April 2, 2019

2019-02-05T13:05:00.001+05:30

Recently I have received a mail from Google that my personal Google+ Account is going away on April 2, 2019

I have received this email because I am a consumer (personal) Google+ account or I manage a Google+ page

In December 2018, Google announced the decision to shut down Google+ for consumers in April 2019 due to low usage and challenges involved in maintaining a successful product that meets consumers' expectations. Google want to thanks for being part of Google+ and provide next steps, including how to download our photos and other content.

On April 2nd, our Google+ account and any Google+ pages we created will be shut down and Google will begin deleting content from consumer Google+ accounts.

Photos and videos from Google+ in our Album Archive and our Google+ pages will also be deleted. We can download and save our content, just make sure to do so before April. Note that photos and videos backed up in Google Photos will not be deleted.
The process of deleting content from consumer Google+ accounts, Google+ Pages, and Album Archive will take a few months, and content may remain through this time. For example, users may still see parts of their Google+ account via activity log and some consumer Google+ content may remain visible to G Suite users until consumer Google+ is deleted.

Already from February 4th, we will no longer be able to create new Google+ profiles, pages, communities or events.

See the full FAQ for more details and updates leading up to the shutdown.

If We are a Google+ Community owner or moderator, we may download and save our data for our Google+ Community. Starting early March 2019, additional data will be available for download, including author, body, and photos for every community post in a public community. Learn more

If we sign in to sites and apps using the Google+ Sign-in button, these buttons will stop working in the coming weeks but in some cases may be replaced by a Google Sign-in button. We will still be able to sign in with our Google Account wherever we can see Google Sign-in buttons. Learn more

If we have used Google+ for comments on our own or other sites, this feature will be removed from Blogger by February 4th and other sites by March 7th. All your Google+ comments on all sites will be deleted starting April 2, 2019. Learn more

If we are a G Suite customer, Google+ for our G Suite account should remain active. Contact our G Suite administrator for more details. We can also expect a new look and new features soon. Learn more

If we are a developer using Google+ APIs or Google+ Sign-in, click here to see how this will impact you.

Evolution of Email Marketing - Some Curious Facts Which you Don't Know

2019-01-30T10:48:00.001+05:30

In recent years, social media has helped foster communication between people all over the world, but email has been doing it for decades. In fact, a 2018 forecasting report by The Radicati Group found the number of email users around the world will reach 3.8 billion by the end of the year. To put things into perspective, this is 100 million more users than 2017. And by 2022, this number is expected to reach over 4.2 billion.

Before email, marketers relied on traditional mail for distributing advertisements in the form of flyers, catalogs and promotional letters. Thankfully, today you don’t have to head to your local FedEx and print out hundreds upon thousands of ads resulting in a costly, time-consuming and outdated job. Email marketing has transformed the way businesses reach their customers, turning what used to be a distribution headache into a swift click of a button. But to really appreciate everything it has to offer, we need to dive deep into the history of email marketing and how it transformed into what it is today.

Let’s take a trip down a digital messaging memory lane

1971 – The first email is sent

Sent by Ray Tomlinson, a computer programmer for MIT’s Arpanet (which was essentially the foundation of what we know today as the internet.) While he can’t remember exactly what his message said, he believes it was something along the lines of “Test 123” or perhaps the top row of letter keys, QWERTYUIOP. Do you think the recipient knew this was a code that needed to be cracked?

1972 – The first email management system is developed

Not long after, Larry Roberts created an email management database. This system allowed people to list, select, forward and respond to messages.

1978 – First email blast sent

Only a few years down the line, Gary Thuerk, a marketing manager at Digital Equipment Corporation, sent an email to nearly 400 users on Arpanet, advertising DEC machines. The result?

About $13 million in sales. Talk about a win.

This first email blast foreshadowed a bright future for the world of marketing, developing what is known today as one of the most efficient and important segments of internet marketing.

1982 – The term “electronic mail message” was shortened to “email”

Referring to digital postage as an “electronic mail message” didn’t exactly roll off the tongue. Life became easier when users began utilizing the term “email” instead. This was the same year the smiley “:-)” was used. Can you imagine having to wait 10 years after the systems were created to learn how to express emotions over the computer? I bet the recipient reacted the same way we do today when we receive the lonely “K” via text from our grandparents.

1988 – Spam becomes a thing

Now, we’re not talking about spiced ham, here. But why do they have the same name? The email version actually it got its name from a Monty Python sketch, but I digress.

It was this year that the word “spam” was added to the Oxford English Dictionary and defined as junk mail. It was inspired by those who weren’t happy about receiving email blasts that sparked zero personal interest or relevance.

1989 – Lotus Notes launched

Lotus Notes 1.0, one of the first widely used email software services, was created and launched by Ray Ozzie and Mitch Kapor.

1989 – AOL recorded the iconic “you’ve got mail!” track

When I think about the first few emails I ever received, three words come to mind: “You’ve got mail!” – in that nostalgic voice, too.

With such an iconic phrase and sound, you’d think that AOL spent months developing the perfect audio, but that wasn’t the case at all.

Former AOL CEO Steve Case shared the story behind the sound in his book “The Third Wave: An Entrepreneur’s Vision of the Future,” and you’d be surprised to learn that it was just a customer-service rep’s husband, a voice-over actor, who recorded it the night of Case’s request:

“The next day, she brought the recordings to me. His voice couldn’t have been more perfect. It was disarmingly friendly, like the voice you’d expect from a stranger who offered to carry your grandmother’s groceries. The second I heard it, I knew we weren’t going to be auditioning anyone else. I instructed our engineers to add the voice files to the new version of our software.”

1991 – The internet (as we know it today) is born!

Can you think back to a time before the internet was a thing? I can’t, because 1991 was my birth year as well, so I sincerely couldn’t imagine a world without it. The introduction of the internet to the general public really changed everything about everyone’s daily lives, but it opened up so many new doors for marketers. Gone were the days of relying on snail mail to send catalogs to promote products and services. With email, marketers could experience a whole new – and simplistic – way to directly reach potential customers.

1996 – Popular email services begin to launch

After the success of Lotus Notes, companies began to take notice of its popularity and decided to branch out and create their web-based email database. In 1998, Microsoft developed its Internet Mail, which would go on to be renamed Outlook. The same year, Hotmail launched free email services for the general public. Up until this time, a private email was the only form of digital communication. Now, anyone with access to the internet could also create their own personal email address (which consisted of about 20 million American adults).

Late 1990s – Introduced us to HTML emails taking over plain text emails

Do you remember plain text emails? You know, the ones that consisted of basic, typewriter text and nothing visually captivating? This was the only option up until the late 1990s when HTML emails came about.

The use of custom fonts, colors, graphics and formatting changed the way messages were perceived. Before, everyone knew what they were going to see as soon as they opened the message. With HTML, it became more of a surprise.

Not only has HTML allowed marketers to help develop company brand awareness, but it also enabled them to make calls to action more prominent and engaging.

2003 – the CAN-SPAM Act was introduced in the US

Don’t take this title seriously – this law doesn’t encourage spamming. It’s actually the opposite.

The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 was signed into law by President George W. Bush as the nation’s first standard for sending commercial email, requiring the reduction of unsolicited email efforts. According to Autopilot, it also required that all marketing emails include sender details and an unsubscribe link, allowing readers to opt-out of receiving messages they found to be annoying or spammy.

2009 – Responsive emails were introduced

Did you know that mobile opens accounted for 46 percent of email reads in 2018? Webmail opens made up 38 percent, while 18 percent were desktop opens, according to Litmus. None of this would’ve been possible without the introduction of responsive email in 2009, which enabled marketers to optimize their emails for every user no matter what device they use to check their inbox.

According to Send Pulse, responsive email is the most effective way to improve email click-through rates, as 70 percent of people refuse to open or read an email if it doesn’t transfer well from a computer to their smartphone or tablet.

Today – Email marketing is EVERYTHING

Over the last decade, emails have become so much more than messages filled with general text. Now we pay attention to the pre-header text, word placement, visual hierarchy, hero images, gifs, and external linking options, all of which can take an email marketing campaign to the next level. In fact, research by Econsultancy found that 73 percent of marketers rate email as the No. 1 digital channel for ROI.

Today, marketers make use of email segmentation, mailing lists, newsletters and personalized campaigns through automated email marketing software. These tools are key to generating customer loyalty, improving click-through rates and ensuring your marketing efforts aren’t going to waste.

Email marketing changed the game

It’s safe to say that email has completely changed the way we communicate, and email marketing has made it easier for marketers to reach potential customers at scale. With the success that stemmed from smartphones and social media, future digital innovations will only help email marketing grow and become a more optimized, prominent option for advertising.

If one thing’s for sure, it’s that email marketing isn’t going anywhere. As a marketer, it’s your job to take advantage of it and look forward to what the future has in store.

Source: https://www.brafton.com/blog/email-marketing/the-history-of-email-marketing/

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Vs ASO (App Store Optimization)

2018-07-01T13:11:00.000+05:30

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Vs ASO (App Store Optimization) - Infographic

Image Credit: goo.gl/ZtN9c9

Linkedin Marketing Strategies for B2B Lead Generation

2018-06-08T00:44:00.000+05:30

Use it as a lead generation platform: LinkedIn is THE best option for lead generation. LinkedIn marketing accounts for over 80% effective leads generated via social media. Here is how you can use LinkedIn advertising to generate leads:

Turn your page into a lead generation page.
Keep the content fresh and unique.
Use relevant and catchy images.
Incorporate engaging content.
Make the page presentable and the content readable.
Use separate header and landing images.

Gain a Competitive Advantage: More than 90 percent of B2B marketers are currently using LinkedIn to share and distribute content. When you start marketing with LinkedIn, you can more closely monitor your competitors’ strategies, such as how they’re serving content, what they’ve accomplished, how they’re engaging your audience, and how their employees engage your target customer.

This can help you identify trends and marketing opportunities to grow your brand and acquire new talent.

Build Visibility and Engagement With Groups: There are a few benefits for marketers when it comes to LinkedIn groups: you can engage with other existing groups to form new connections, and you can even launch your own group with ties to your company to improve visibility and authority in your industry.

Participating in groups is a smart way to market yourself on LinkedIn without directly promoting your products or services. Your main goals are to provide answers, spark up debates and discussions, and use content marketing in groups to position yourself as a thought leader. That influence carries over to your brand with the connections you make.

Keep the page active and conversion-focused: You must keep the page active with fresh content as already mentioned.

LinkedIn marketing is done to ensure that the leads generated convert to actual takers. Marketing on LinkedIn is all about getting the potential takers to click. In case the landing pages fail, the recent updates should get them. To draw people’s attention you need to:

Post regular updates:

Engage viewers with interactive posts and be present to cater to the attention.
Develop a communicative bond with potential conversion targets.
This is how you use LinkedIn marketing to engage interested people and keep them interested so that the leads can convert to clients

Grow Your Presence With Targeted Content: Unlike other social networks where consumers collect friends the way gamers collect Pokémon, professionals on LinkedIn tend to network with people that work alongside or within their industry.

Increase Your Organic Visibility: LinkedIn Careers page screenshot Company pages and posts created in LinkedIn Pulse are both indexed by search engines like Google. Optimizing your company profile and posting regularly can give you a tremendous boost in organic search visibility, unique visitor traffic, and relevant referral traffic when you link back to your landing pages in the content you distribute.

Page administrators can even view metrics and insights including:

The engagement level of posts
Follower demographics
Page traffic
Activity and engagement on your company page

Many of these insights are also available for personal LinkedIn accounts, although advanced data metrics are only available to premium users.

Transform Sales Into Thought Leaders: If you have a sales team, include them in your marketing strategy. Don’t rely on LinkedIn just for sourcing leads and hard selling. Instead, encourage your sales team to become content marketers.

By sharing great content with prospects and customers, your sales team can greatly increase their personal influence and authority. Prospects will feel like your sales team is genuinely helpful, which builds more trust in both the individual and the organization. After using this approach, I’ve seen the velocity of sales increase as the window from lead acquisition to close shrinks.

Become More Human: People like doing business with other people, not faceless brands. Optimizing your business page with awesome behind-the-scenes images and team photos adds personality to your brand that will set you apart from the competition.

Let your employees represent the human side of your marketing strategy. With great images, compelling content, and helpful contributions to the community, you’ll maintain a positive perception around your brand.

Generate More Leads: As you build your presence on LinkedIn, you can begin leveraging user-generated content to promote your brand. The customers and vendors you’ve worked with in the past can provide testimonials that make your brand and individual team members stand out within the community. Any kind of testimonials from peers are major trust signals that can help you close deals faster and generate more leads. Testimonials on LinkedIn

I go out of my way to connect people in my network together if I think they have something to offer one another in business. When you craft great relationships with your prospects and other professionals, you will experience the same kind of referrals as your connections become champions for your business.

Zero in on Decision Makers: LinkedIn offers a lot of data, which makes it easy to find and engage the right audience. Whether I promote organic content or I use the paid promotional tools for sponsoring content on LinkedIn, this platform gives me the best chance of reaching the decision makers in every campaign we run.

Grow Your List: Direct engagement and content-sharing on LinkedIn will continuously enhance the trust your followers have in you. This makes it easy to reach out to your entire network and prompt them to join your email list to receive updates whenever you publish even more valuable content. Rather than hope for opt-ins from a call-to-action on a post, directly asking can yield tremendous results.

I’ve added hundreds of people to my lists just by reaching out to connections and asking them to sign up for my newsletter after first spending time nurturing the new relationship.

Beginner’s Guide to SEO

2018-02-02T16:38:00.000+05:30

What is Search Engine Optimization and Why it is Important?

Search engine optimization often refers as SEO is the process of increasing the visibility of web pages to appear higher in the non paid search results. Whenever a search query is performed, SEO helps to rank your web page higher in the SERPs. The traffic appears from SEO source is free or organic. For better understanding and knowing the basics, check the SEO Meaning in detail along with the video. It is not only important to optimize the web pages for search engines but also for the users. Here are the key reasons why SEO is important-

1. The majority of people click the top five results in SERPs so it is crucial to perform the right practices of SEO to appear higher in the search results.

2. SEO improves the usability and user experience of the website for the users.

3. Users trust the results of search engines and having the higher position develops credibility for the site to get clicks.

4. If the site appears higher in the search results then people prefer to share most likely on social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, etc.

5. SEO helps in outperforming your competitors as if one of the two sites is optimized then it will likely to get more sales as most of the people perform search query before buying a product or service.

SEO and Keyword Research

Keyword research is the backbone of SEO. It is the process of researching and choosing the keywords users may search in the search engines which relates to your product or service. It is crucial to select the right keywords in order to appear higher for the given set of queries and drive organic traffic. Research the keywords based on the intent of users or topics that are trending in your industry. Utilize the power of Long tail keywords as people more specifically perform the search queries. If you are having the small business which is area based, search local keywords.

Once the research is done, check the search volume and keyword difficulty. Select the keywords having high or medium search volume with less difficulty. You can use tools to perform this selection. Some of the popular tools are-

KwFinder

LongTailPro

SEMrush

Moz Keyword Research Tool

Google Keyword Planner

For detailed process for keyword research and keyword strategy check

How to research keywords for SEO?

Keyword Strategy

To rank the web pages higher in the search results, there are 200 SEO ranking factors that Google considers to rank. But there are 30 SEO most important factors which are classified into on page and off page SEO factors. Here is the list-

On Page SEO Factors

Website URL structure

Meta Tags

Keyword Density

Keyword Proximity

Image ALT Text

Internal and Outbound Linking Optimization

Canonical Tags

Site speed

Website Errors

Sitemaps

Redirections

Mobile Friendliness

Crawling & Indexing

Addition of Tracking codes

Breadcrumbs

Text/ HTML ratio

W3C Validation

Schema Implementations

Social Sharing Buttons

No Follow

Noindex

Off Page SEO Ranking Factors

Domain Authority

Page Authority

Trust Flow

Citation Flow

Social Shares

Link Juice

Page Rank

Anchor text

Types of SEO

Black Hat SEO

White Hat SEO

Black Hat SEO refers to the techniques which don’t follow the SEO guidelines. Some of the black hat SEO techniques are as follows- Link spam, cloaking, keyword stuffing, etc. It shows the results quickly but there is short lasted growth in the rankings of the site.

White Hat SEO techniques follow the strict SEO guidelines. Some of the white hat SEO techniques include- the creation of quality content, manual research and outreaching, practicing link earning techniques. The results of these techniques are slow but long lasting.

Google Algorithm Updates

The digital marketing field is dynamic in nature and there is a change every second. It is now more focused and competitive in nature as well. If you have a goal to achieve high search engine rankings and maintain them for a long time, you have to strictly follow Google Algorithm Updates. Here is the list of Major updates

Google Panda Update

Google Penguin Update

Hummingbird Update

Google Pigeon Update

Google Mobilegeddeon Update

Website owners should have the knowledge of all these major SEO updates and optimize the site avoiding penalties on the site to ensure better DA and rankings in SERPs. However, if the site is affected or penalized then remove Google penalty.

Website SEO Analysis

This is one of the most important steps of Beginners guide to SEO. Analysis of website for all the SEO most important factors is called the website SEO analysis. It is important to analyze the website to improve the online presence, visibility on the search engines and resolve technical errors of the site. You must check website SEO analysis steps along with the basic SEO audit checklist and free tools. It is crucial to optimize the website for better user experience and site usability so check SEO tips for web design and development. Rectify all the technical errors and broken links by using the Search console tool.

How to Increase Performance of Website?

There are many factors responsible for increasing performance of website such as average time spent on site, bounce rate, traffic, number of visitors, social sharing, etc. It is crucial to creating the right SEO strategy to stay ahead in the competition and outperform competitors in the industry. Follow the latest SEO trends and white hat SEO techniques, link building techniques to get effective results. Although the results of all these are slow and there is a saying by ancient proverb-

“Slow and steady wins the SEO race”

So results might be slow but effective to increase the performance of the website in search engine result pages and driving organic traffic. For better results, it is important to monitor keyword rankings and follow the steps to improve ranking.

Traffic Measurement and Analysis

This is a crucial part of the Beginners guide to SEO. Add Google Analytics code to the site and track the important key metrics such as traffic sources, average time spent on the site, bounce rate, visitors, and conversions. You can also check the top performing landing pages, channels, traffic details. Link your Google Analytics account with Search console to check the search queries performed by searchers.

Prepare the SEO report including the contribution of traffic by each channel, average time spent, bounce rate, new VS returning visitors, keyword ranking positions. You can also set the goals according to the industry requirement and track how many conversions are completed successfully. Compare the results with the past month.

Importance of Content Marketing in SEO

Content Marketing plays a vital role in SEO. Quality Content boosts the SEO efforts by making it more attractive to convert visitors into buyers. Here are the key points how both of them can improve the performance of the site.

1. With the help of SEO and content marketing, you can research a trendy and latest topic and create unique, relevant and high-quality content. This will help in driving massive traffic to the site, reduce bounce rates and boost conversions.

2. Content Marketing helps in writing an appealing headline which will result in high social shares, good open rates in email and huge traffic to the site.

3. High-Quality content can earn more links as people like to link the quality content on their site as it is more authoritative.

4. Content Marketing skills help SEO specialist to perform the link building through content such as guest posting, Quora answers, Yahoo answers. This makes the strong online reputation and improves the domain authority of the site.

5. Content Marketing helps to optimize the content properly by placing the keywords naturally in the content. It also helps in integrating the long tail keywords rightly in the content and follows the right percentage of keyword proximity.

Role of Social Media in SEO

Social media and SEO go hand in hand. It increased the authority and visibility of the site in search engines. Here are the roles of social media to improve SEO for a site-

1. Link build on social media is considered to be authoritative which improves the credibility of the site. By regularly sharing the content of the site, time spent can be increased and bounce rate can be reduced. These all provide the strong signals to search engines to rank the site higher in SERPs

2. Social media helps in increasing the follower base which turns into the visitors of the site. Visitors are important for improving the visibility of the site that spends the time on the site and finally converts into buyers.

3. Social media helps in improving the position of keywords in SERPs by targeting exactly same keywords in the social media posts or hashtags.

4. Social media especially Google+ profile helps in improving the presence in local 3 packs results. All you need to do for this is to optimize the social profile, build accurate citations and keep the profile active.

5. Social media makes your content viral and drive huge traffic and increase the time spent. This results in appearing on the web pages higher in the SERPs.

Search Engine Marketing

Integrating SEO and PPC to increase the visibility and maximizing traffic and conversions is called Search Engine Marketing. There are many benefits of SEO and PPC integration. Here is the list of some of them.

1. You can link Adwords and Analytics account and utilize the keywords for various SEO activities. This also helps in avoiding the problems of exact search volumes which Google now doesn’t show. As from the integration, you will get the keywords which are driving traffic and conversions.

2. Ad copy prepared by PPC specialist help to make an attractive title in SEO. A good title for the web page is important for improving the visibility in the search engines.

3. PPC team helps to create an effective landing page. An optimized landing page will help to drive the leads or conversions. Thus improve the overall performance of the site and satisfy the clients.

Local SEO

Local SEO is an effective way to promote the products or services to the local customers. It is important to build citations including Name, address, phone number and website aka NAP+W. You can build the accurate citations of your business on Google my business, Foursquare, Yelp, Yellow Pages and other online business directories. Localize the content, website, get online reviews and build strategies. Here are some of the important reasons to why local SEO can attract more customers to the site.

1. Most of the people perform a search to find the information about local business. It is important to optimize the local site for mobile as nearly 60% of search queries are performed by mobile.

2. Local search marketing yields better returns on investment than any other channel of marketing.

3. It is important to build the citations and business listing on the online directories as 50% of conversion comes from there.

4. People make a purchase decision by looking to the online reviews so encourage the online reviews on the business profile present on the authoritative sites.

5. By optimizing the Google My business profile, building citations and earning reviews your business can come on the first page of Google in local 3 pack search results.

Link Building and SEO

Link building techniques have changed a lot of in the past few years. It is now important to build the quality links on authoritative sites than performing the bulk submission on low-quality sites. Before building links, it is necessary to check some of the factors such as traffic, DA, PA and Page Rank. While building links, try to add the value to the users instead of just adding the link for the sake of traffic. Link building can improve the authority of a site. At the same time, bad link affects the site and should be disavowed in Google Search Console Tool. Some of the latest and trending link building techniques are-

Guest Posting

Citation Building

Link Bait, round ups

Broken Link Building

Link Reclamation

Building Links through Infographic

Outreaching by email to add links

Widget/Gadget Link building

Blog commenting

Link Building on Quora and Yahoo Answers.

Mobile SEO

Having a mobile version of the site is the key to success in the coming years. With mobile first indexing update, it is now almost compulsory to have the mobile version of the site to improve the visibility in the search results. You can also use responsive design for the mobile friendly view of the site. Here is the list of six key components which are necessary to improve the site-

1. Focus on Improving Mobile ranking.

2. Fix mobile-friendly errors.

3. Perform the keyword research for mobile and optimize the content.

4. Focus on app store optimization

5. Perform app indexing.

6. Utilize Accelerated Mobile Pages.

WordPress Plugins That Will Speed up Your Site

2017-11-25T00:13:00.005+05:30

Important WordPress Plugins That Will Speed up Your Site

These plugins are designed to increase the load speed of your page through a variety of mechanisms. Which one you need depends greatly on the structure, design, and reach of your page. There are plugins for extremely high traffic sites, plugins for image heavy sites, and every need you might have in between. To help you narrow down which WordPress plugin is best for your site, we have narrowed down some of our favorites, each filling a slightly different focus.

Faster Rendering: WP Fastest Cache

Looking for a plugin that is fast, intuitive and after 3 million downloads, still maintains a five-star review?

WP Fastest Cache is your answer.

You have put in hard work on your site and now you are generating tons of views. This is great. Except the heavier the traffic flow is generated to your site; the more RAM and CPU is used and this means only one thing.

Slow rendering.

WP Fastest Cache creates a static HTML file, so that multiple users reach the same static page rather than having the page render repeatedly.

Looking at the 5-star reviews this plug in receives, user site speed, functionality and ease of use among the top features. More than 400,000 active installations can’t be wrong. The only downside? To take full advantage of all the features will require a premium version.

Caching: W3 Total Cache

If you’re looking for a free web caching option, W3 Total Cache is the most advanced plugin for web performance optimization to date.

This plugin is one of the most respected and recommended WPO frameworks by major web developers and web host. Plus, it has gained the trust of big business names like AT&T and Mashable.

Impressive. But, is W3 Total Cache the right plugin for your needs?

This plugin will do a lot for you. The website boasts perks such as

At least 10x improvement in overall site performance.
Improvements in conversion rates.
Improvements in search engine rankings.
Up to 80 percent bandwidth savings.

And, that is just the tip of the cache iceberg.

W3 Total Cache is a big-time plugin with a monstrous number of features. For high volume, high traffic sites, a plugin with these capabilities is essential.

On the other hand, the complexity of this plugin doesn’t make it = user-friendly to the uninitiated and its intended audience is experts in the field. The features can be overwhelming and, honestly, too complicated for the small-time user.

Compressing JavaScript & CSS Files: WP Super Minify

WP Super Minify, with 20,000 active installations, combines and compresses HTML, JavaScript, and CSS files to reduce the time it takes your website to load. The three-step process for installing this plugin include downloading the plugin, uploading it to the directory and activating it through the plugins menu.

The process really couldn’t be any simpler or foolproof. WP Super Minify won’t increase Google page speed as much as some of the more technical plugins, however, many users can expect an increase of 2-4 percent.

Not too bad for an easy and intuitive plugin.

Reducing Image Size: WP Smush

WP Smush is an award-winning, image compression plugin.

Every image on your site can increase page load time. In the past, the only real way around this was by compromising image quality. With WP Smush, every image is compressed so that the overall size is decreased, yet the integrity and quality of the image remain intact.

What are some of the perks of WP Smush?

It supports all common image formats including JPEG, GIF, and PNG.
Removes unused colors from images.
It is compatible with other plugins.
Compresses any image in your directory.
Removes metadata from JPEG images.
Multiple images to compress? No problem. W3 Smush handles up to 50 at a time

WP Smush is the go-to plugin for image optimization.

Decreasing Pageload: BJ Lazy Load

When a user enters your site, all the content on the page is automatically loaded. No matter how much content there is.

What if your page is large, or contains many images? Loading time is naturally going to be slower.

BJ Lazy Load has the solution.

When this plugin is installed, your page no longer loads all at once.

Isn’t this a bad thing?

Not at all.

Rather than loading content that the viewer is not ready to access, BJ Lazy Load delays loading it until the user is ready. For example, let’s say you have a long page and lots of written content filled with images. Obviously this isn’t a quick browse. As the viewer scrolls along, content iframes are replaced with placeholders so that the page loads bit by bit, rather than all at once. The visitor won’t notice this, and that’s exactly the point.

Optimizing the Database: WP-Optimize

Running a WordPress site and/or blog can lead to a highly inefficient database.

Every time a new page or post is saved, WordPress creates a revision of that post or page. So, if you edit a post 6 times (as I’ve done so far with this post) there might be 5 copies of this post as revisions.

As you can imagine, this quickly adds data to the database table resulting in unnecessarily bloat and slower access. In other cases, a large blog might have thousands of spam or un-approved comments saved in their tables, causing further inefficiencies.

In short, WP-Optimize allows you to clean up and optimize your database to make it run better. You can also remove all those post revisions and comments automatically to ensure your database is running neat, fast, and efficient.

Once enabled, you can define a schedule which will automatically clean-up your database by removing all unnecessary data like spam comments, trashed content, etc., compact/de-fragment your MySQL tables, show database statistics and potential savings and more.

Methods to avoid when building links for SEO

2017-11-17T14:50:00.000+05:30

There are many good ways of building links to improve search engine optimization and there are also bad ways of building links that might hurt your website ranking and get you a penalization that’s difficult to recover from.

Methods to avoid when you build links for SEO:

Buying and selling links.
Using an automated link building system.
Excessive link exchange.
Building a network of sites with the purpose of interlinking them.
Irrelevant links posted that are not related to the topic.
Using low quality links.
Using web-rings and link farms.

Using some of these methods might falsely boost your website rankings, but there is a great chance that your site will be penalized by Google in the future and it can take several months or more to recover. Google is always looking for quality web links and adding low quality website links is not the way to go.

SEO Checklist 2017-18

2017-11-16T16:26:00.000+05:30

Ultimate SEO Checklist 2017-18: Daily, Monthly, and Annual SEO Tasks

Install Google Analytics (or other traffic tracking tools).
Install Yoast SEO if you’re using WordPress. Otherwise, find a suitable alternative for modifying page titles and meta descriptions.
Use a sitemap generating tool to keep an updated sitemap at all times. Yoast SEO handles this for you if you are on WordPress!
Submit your sitemap to Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.
Create and upload a robots.txt file so search engines can properly crawl your website. WordPress manages this for you.
Install an SSL certificate.
Ensure your site is mobile-friendly using Google’s mobile-friendliness testing tool.
Claim your business on all business listing sites, such as Google My Business and Yelp.
Claim your brand name around the web. You can use tools like NameChk or NameCheckr to speed things along.
Add Structured Data Markup to your website.
Make sure essential pages are present: About, Contact, and Privacy are a bare minimum.

Best E-Mail Marketing Automation Tools

2017-11-08T18:17:00.002+05:30

E-mail marketing is one of the best strategy which is used by digital marketing professionals to create awareness about brands, communicate with the targeted audience, and create leads/sales in bulk. When you use e-mail marketing for the promotion of your brand, you have to complete a number of tasks, such as the creation of personalized newsletters, segmentation of subscribers, maintaining the frequent communication with the interested customers/clients, ensuring the timely delivery of newsletters to the targeted audience, etc. When your subscriber base is increased, you start to face problems while performing different activities of e-mail marketing. At this point, you need essential tools to automate your e-mail marketing efforts, streamline your works and increase your productivity up to a great extent.

If you want to automate your e-mail marketing campaigns to increase you ROI, please go through the e-mail marketing automation tools mentioned below:

Active Campaign : Small businesses and startups always look for an all-in-one e-mail marketing tool at an affordable price tag. They can use Active Campaign easily by paying $9 a month. It is a feature-packed and easy-to-use e-mail marketing/marketing automation tool. It has its own CRM system that allows digital marketing professionals to manage leads comfortably and nurture your leads into loyal customers. It enables you to create marketing automation sequences easily and see the activities of your subscribers in detail. This helps you to build automated e-mail campaigns and add conditional content to e-mails to generate more leads/sales. Active Campaign easily integrates with 600-plus other services, allowing you to conduct e-mail marketing campaigns easily. But, this tool doesn’t allow you to conduct A/B test on different e-mails in an automation sequence.

Constant Contact : Constant Contact is a worthwhile e-mail marketing tool for small businesses, companies, and entrepreneurs. With this tool, you can easily create professional e-mail campaigns without having any technical skills. It also provides free personal support and coaching by phone, e-mail, chat or in person, enabling you to help your subscribers with their questions and problems related to your brand. First timers can easily create appealing newsletters with the help of hundreds of customizable templates and easy editing tools and dispatch them automatically on the scheduled date and time. It easily gets integrated with hundreds of tools used by e-mail marketing professionals. It has Anti-Spam checker that checks newsletters against spam and makes sure that they are delivered successfully to the targeted audience. Using this tool, you can increase your efficiency in e-mail marketing and grow your Web-based business faster.

Aweber : AWeber is a modern and robust tool that is very useful for companies that frequently utilize autoresponders and send new subscribers the same series of messages. With this tool, you can easily set up autoresponders and inform the targeted customers about the status of their orders/requests. It offers three e-mail editors: a drag-and-drop WYSIWYG editor, a plain text editor and an HTML editor. All these are useful for e-mail marketing professionals who like to code their e-mails. The WYSIWYG editor allows you to customize the newsletters and make them more appealing. You can easily generate social share buttons simply by linking AWeber to your Facebook and Twitter account. Drafts are saved quickly and you can easily have a look at previous versions and delete the repeated newsletters if any. It offers more than 700 templates to choose from.

MailChimp : MailChimp is one of the most popular and generous e-mail marketing tools for all hardcore entrepreneurs who generate business opportunities through e-mail marketing campaigns. Under its free plan, you can send up to 12,000 e-mails per month to a maximum of 2,000 subscribers. Go for its premium version if you have more subscribers and their numbers are increasing rapidly with each passing day. It helps your e-mails to get through spam filters easily and reach to the targeted audience comfortably. Moreover, MailChimp Guides cover a wide range of relevant e-mail marketing topics, such as transactional e-mails, mobile devices, managing lists, etc, which helps you to learn the tricks of successful e-mail marketing easily and quickly. The best thing about this tool is that it has notable business-enhancing analytical features and strong technology tools, allowing you to view the different statistics, such as open and click rates, opens by location, bounces, unsubscribes, etc. and make the required changes in the e-mail marketing campaigns to improve the ROI significantly and get in touch with the right type of customers.

GetResponse : GetResponse is an extremely useful e-mail marketing tool for entrepreneurs whose bread and butter comes from different e-mail marketing campaigns. Using this tool, you can easily import your subscriber lists from other platforms. This tool comes with 500-plus beautifully-designed e-mail templates and all of them are optimized for mobile viewing. So, you can easily create professional looking newsletters and autoresponders and get a positive response from the targeted audience. Moreover, with this tool, you can conduct A/B testing easily and make your e-mail marketing campaigns more effective by implementing the required changes. Features such as Time Travel, single opt-ins, good deliverability rates, mobile inbox preview, landing pages, etc, increase the usability of this tool up to a great extent.

Conclusion: E-mail marketing is used by all modern entrepreneurs and digital marketing professionals for the creation of leads and sales in quick succession. These are the top five e-mail marketing automation tools you can use in your e-mail marketing efforts to boost your productivity.

Advantages of Using WordPress in Website Development

2017-06-15T16:16:00.001+05:30

WordPress is a free and open source CMS, offering several benefits. Avail them by getting you website set up through School For SEO WordPress developers.

Open Source Software: WordPress is an opensource software, which means that you can download, install and change the backend code without any restrictions. WordPress offers over 2,500 themes and 30,000+ plug-ins which you can use for improving the existing features and designs. You will obviously require a domain and hosting server before you can install. School For SEO WordPress developers can deal with all the technicalities for you.

Simple Usage: WordPress is already being used by millions and millions across the globe, and the number is increasing rapidly. Why? Primarily because it is easy to learn and simple to use. Search the internet, and you will come across so much useful material that targets both the novice and advanced WordPress users. All these serve a great reference, and it will only be a matter of time, before you get a hang off WordPress.

Themes and Plug-ins: As previously mentioned, WordPress offers thousands of additional templates, any of which can be used for your website.  And whichever theme you select, you can customise it further in terms of colours, backgrounds and more. You can even add your business logo as well. WordPress offers both free and paid plug-ins which introduce more functionality to your existing site.

Compatible with Search Engines: WordPress complies with quality code requirements, and allows search engines to find your website.  If you use an SEO plug-in, you can optimise your website further.

Easy Management: WordPress features an Updater that notifies you of new versions of themes and plug-ins, and installs them upon your selection. Automated backups of all WordPress content can also be set up.

Live Streaming on Twitter - Go Live on Twitter

2017-03-23T16:09:00.000+05:30

Live video is the most immersive way to experience what’s happening around the world. From protests and monumental moments to celebrations and things that make us LOL, we’re making it easier for you to broadcast live video - straight from Twitter.

Starting today, you can create and Tweet live video from the Twitter app, powered by Periscope. To go live, compose a Tweet, then tap “LIVE” which brings you to pre-broadcast screen where you can frame your shot. When you’re ready, press “Go Live” to start broadcasting.

Once you’re live, anyone on Twitter and Periscope can join your live video and participate in your experience. When you’re watching a live video, comment and send hearts by tapping the screen. Hearts show your support for the broadcaster.

Live video brings moments and events to life in a way that no other medium can. Exploring a new city? Find yourself in the middle of something amazing? Celebrating your team’s big end of season win? Go live on Twitter and let others experience it with you.

This update is rolling out to everyone on Twitter for iOS and Android over the coming days.

We can’t wait to see what you share live. #GoLive

Copied @ https://blog.twitter.com/2016/go-live-on-twitter

DMOZ Announces Closing March 14, 2017 - The End of DMOZ and the Evolution of SEO

2017-03-08T13:45:00.000+05:30

In case this is all Greek to you, it won’t soothe you to hear me say that DMOZ – the open directory project – the noblest directory of them all – once king of directories and championed by Google- will cease to exist mid-March. While some SEOs are taking this announcement as a final stab in the back from Google, others welcome it as a long overdue succession of SEO strategy.

The death of DMOZ brings with it the end of an era of SEO. As SEOs we are sometimes masters of our own fate (ok last Caesar quote I promise) and this change is no different. DMOZ represented the old way of SEO – even though it never should have. To understand this paradigm shift, what happened, and where we go from here we’ll need to jump in our wayback machine and understand what DMOZ was at its inception.

RIP Open Directory Project

In the beginning, search engines sucked. A lot. We’ve all heard the stories of keyword stuffing and meta tags run amok and white text on white background. These early SEO tactics in the pre-Google (heck, even pre-Alta Vista) days caused search results to just plain suck. In the circa late 90’s days of dialing into AOL or Prodigy with a 28.8 modem, most people didn’t use (or even have access to) search engines. In those days, directories were how we found and discovered new websites.

Google was created during this same time period, and the creators were focused on links – but not just any links. Valuable links from quality and authoritative websites. So when Google told us to go and get directory links, they were really saying “Hey, see these sites like Yahoo and DMOZ? Lots of people go there and use them and trust them, so that’s probably a good place to get a link.”

Unfortunately, all we SEOs heard was “get directory links” so we started creating directories that nobody ever visits so that we could fill them up with links. At one point we even created directories of directories. This wasn’t what Google was talking about in their directory link advice. While users still continued to use Yahoo and Dmoz, the only visitors to our new SEO directories were rudimentary bots that let us “power submit” our spammy links.

These days, the message has changed. Thanks to Penguin and other recent algorithm changes most SEOs have running around parroting advice about not getting directory links. Again, missing the point. It’s not the directory part that matters.

Four Most Important SEO Ranking Factors in 2017

2017-02-24T23:59:00.002+05:30

1. Content

Content is one of the most important Google ranking factors, according to Andrey Lipattsev, a Search Quality Senior Strategist at Google. This shouldn’t be news — content has been an important ranking factor for a while — but in recent years, we’ve seen a shift away from keyword-focused content towards more relevant content written in natural language. Expect to see more of that as 2017 unfolds.

In fact, the SearchMetrics study cited above found that just 53% of the top 20 queries have keywords in their title tag, and less than 40% of landing pages have keywords in their H1. This number is dropping year-over-year, which “clearly demonstrates that Google evaluates content according to its relevance—and not by the inclusion of individual keywords.”

So what exactly does “relevant” content look like? The short answer is: comprehensive.

Consider the top result when you Google “Golden Retriever”:

DogTime’s article on Golden Retrievers rings in at almost 3,500 words, and it covers everything including breed characteristics, history, personality, health, care, and even rescue groups. The page also includes multiple images, infographics, and embedded videos — it’s everything you could ever want to know about Golden Retrievers on one page.

This supports what Backlinko found: Semantic search is here to stay. Algorithm updates like Hummingbird and RankBrain place intense value on semantic relevance and optimization, meaning that an in-depth examination of one topic in easy-to-understand language will always beat out unreadable keyword-dense drivel.

Backlinko also found that long-form content ranks better than short-form content, probably because it allows articles to consider their subject in more detail. That said, SearchMetrics found that mobile content is usually only 2/3 the length of desktop content, and mobile use is on the rise.

How to optimize:

Content influences a variety of other ranking factors, such as bounce rate and CTR. So for best results, make sure your content is both comprehensive and relevant to your audience — an in-depth examination of flamenco dancing probably won’t do much for your auto-repair business.

I recommend you use content auditing software to:

Find and fix thin content.
Explore fewer topics in greater detail on each page.
Improve your Topical Authority in your niche

2. Backlinks

Backlinks remain an important Google ranking factor, but over the years, Google has learned to weed out the bad links from the good. More links will still result in a higher score, but only if they’re from a number of diverse and authoritative domains.

The key to a strong link building campaign in 2017 is to create content people crave, and then to promote that content relentlessly. When other industry authorities read and link to your content, Google will read your backlink’s matching anchor text and consider your content more relevant.

When your content earns a lot of these high-quality backlinks, you hit three important ranking signals: number of backlinks, link authority, and link diversity.

Note that one of the main roles of social signals is to win you more high-quality backlinks. SearchMetrics found that ranking position and social signals strongly correlated across all social media channels — though Facebook is still the platform with the highest concentration of user interactions.

How to optimize:

There are many different ways to approach link building, but what they all boil down to is content marketing. Step one: Create high-quality content. Step two: Promote.

If you’re having trouble coming up with original content, consider using the Skyscraper link building technique: Find someone else’s relevant content with lots of backlinks, improve upon their content with a more detailed article, and then share your content.

I also recommend you use link auditing software to get a better picture of your link profile. Use this software to:

Monitor how many links your content has and the quality of those links.
Reach out to high-quality partners for backlinks.
Eliminate spammy and low-quality links; disavow them if you can’t get them removed.

3. Mobile-First User Experience

One of the biggest changes we saw in 2016 was Google’s shift towards mobile-first indexing. This means that Google’s index will now primarily crawl the mobile version of websites as opposed to the desktop version.

Mobile optimization is an extremely important ranking factor. All of the top 100 most visible domains have mobile-friendly solutions, according to SearchMetrics.

In 2017, it will be more important than ever that your content is responsive on all mobile platforms and identical to the content on your desktop site. Mobile-friendliness is now the norm, and with 85% of all websites now meeting Google’s criteria for being mobile-friendly, it’s time to improve your website even more — think mobile-first, not just mobile-friendly.

A word of warning: according to Google, if you are in the process of building a mobile version of your site, don’t launch it until it’s finished. Releasing a broken or incomplete mobile version of your website might wind up hurting your ranking more than helping; it’s better to keep your website desktop-only until the mobile version is ready.

Page speed is another important ranking factor that ties heavily into a good user experience. Desktop websites should load in 3 seconds or less, while mobile websites should load in 2 seconds or less (according to SearchMetrics, the top-ranked mobile websites are approximately one second quicker than their desktop equivalents).

How to optimize:

Use Google Search Console to add and verify the mobile version of your website.
Use the Structured Data Testing Tool to ensure that the same structured markup exists on both your desktop and your mobile site.
Ensure that your mobile site is accessible to Googlebot using the txt testing tool.
Test your page speed using PageSpeed Insights. If your page is slow, use an auditing tool to find and fix uncompressed content, page errors, and other elements slowing your website down.

4. Other Technical Factors

There are many other technical factors which might play a big role in your website’s rank. These factors include:

Encryption: Backlinko still finds a strong correlation between HTTPS websites and first page Google rankings, and SearchMetrics confirms that 45% of the top websites all use HTTPS encryption (up from 12% in 2015). Google confirmed back in 2014 that websites with a strong HTTPS encryption will rank better than their HTTP counterparts, and, as of 2017, websites that have not switched to HTTPS are now marked as unsafe in Google Chrome.

H1 and H2 Headings: There are more landing pages with an H1 and H2 in the source code this year. SearchMetrics found a strong correlation between the use of at least one H2 and a higher rank.

Anchor text: Exact-match anchor text still has a strong influence on rankings, but you risk a Penguin penalty if your links appear unnatural or spammy. Make sure your backlink anchor text is diverse and organic.

Interstitials: In keeping with Google’s emphasis on mobile-first optimization, as of 10 January 2017, they’re cracking down on intrusive interstitial pop-ups. That means any page with an ad or CTA that covers the main content or whisks users to a new page upon clicking might suffer a penalty. Exceptions to this include login dialogs, small banners that are easy to dismiss, and legally-required interstitials (e.g. age verification).

How to optimize:

Switch to HTTPS encryption.
Make use of H2 headings, especially if the top URLS in your niche don’t.
Ensure that your anchor text is diverse and semantically relevant.
Remove all intrusive interstitials from your mobile website.

Conclusion

SEO is an ever-evolving industry. In the past few years, we’ve seen Google make a steady push for rich content, quality links, and a perfect mobile experience. Other ranking factors are certainly important and will play a role in your rankings, but if you prioritize improving elements of your website related to these factors, then you’ll come out ahead of the competition.

Source: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/2017s-four-important-ranking-factors-according-seo-industry-studies/184619/

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