Sharanyan Personal Blog

What Happened When We Stopped Renovating and Started Innovating

The Maverick — Thu, 25 Sep 2025 05:00:43 +0000

The Story of How I Transformed a Rural Office into a Global Symbol of Change

Prologue: Not Another Paint Job

When most people hear the word renovation, they think of paint buckets, contractors showing up late, and budget spreadsheets that mysteriously double in size.

But when I started talking about renovating our Vavuniya office, I meant something very different. This wasn’t about painting the walls beige (again) or buying a bigger water filter.

This was about reinvention.

Between 2009 and 2023, our Vavuniya office went through what I call “survival upgrades.” A little paint here, a few new chairs there, some hardware swaps when machines started sounding like tractors. It kept us alive, but it wasn’t inspiring anyone.

Fast forward to 2023: Prime One Global was advising global brands on digital transformation. We were talking disruption, innovation, creative economy. And yet… our Vavuniya office still looked like a 2009 cyber café.

That contradiction was eating me alive.

So in late 2024, I made a decision:
👉 Stop patching. Start disrupting.

This blog is the story of how we turned our Vavuniya office into a living, breathing innovation hub — with sleeping pods, cafeterias, libraries, and high-tech infrastructure — funded entirely by profits, not loans or investors.

It’s also about how I used Kotter’s 8-Step Change Model (yes, a textbook framework) as my playbook — and why I now swear by it.

But don’t worry. This won’t read like a business school essay. This is me telling you — founder to founder, dreamer to dreamer — how change actually feels, how people react, where humor saves the day, and how rural Sri Lanka taught me that disruption doesn’t need skyscrapers.

Chapter 1: The Long Road from 2009

Let’s rewind.

In 2009, when I first opened our Vavuniya office, I wasn’t chasing perfection. I was chasing possibility.

The desks? Functional.
The computers? Second-hand.
The internet? Let’s just say there were days when pigeons flew faster than our downloads.
The cafeteria? Instant coffee and Marie biscuits.

Still, it worked. We were delivering SEO campaigns and making clients happy. Nobody cared what the office looked like — as long as emails were answered and rankings climbed.

Over the next decade, we grew. The company rebranded, expanded internationally, and became known for performance marketing and digital transformation. But the Vavuniya office? It got left behind.

By 2023, it was painfully clear:
Our client-facing brand screamed “global innovation.”
Our workspace whispered “budget internet café.”

That was the gap I couldn’t live with anymore.

Chapter 2: Why “Just Renovation” Wouldn’t Work

A normal renovation would have been easy. Fresh paint. New chairs. Maybe a slightly faster Wi-Fi router.

But here’s the thing:
Incremental upgrades fix surfaces, not systems.

And what we needed wasn’t a surface fix. We needed a cultural and strategic reset.

I wasn’t building an office. I was building a signal.

A signal that:

Our people matter.
Our culture matters.
Innovation isn’t something we pitch to clients; it’s something we live.
Rural Sri Lanka can innovate as boldly as Silicon Valley.

So the question wasn’t: How do we make this office look better?
It was: How do we make this office mean something bigger?

Chapter 3: The Framework That Saved Me

I’ll be honest: I’m not the type to blindly follow business school models.

But during my MSc in Strategic Marketing at Queen Margaret University, one framework really stuck with me: Kotter’s 8-Step Change Model.

On paper, it looked neat. In real life, it became my guiding map.

Why? Because leading change isn’t just about money and construction. It’s about hearts, minds, and habits. And Kotter nailed that.

So I decided: this renovation will be my living case study. Let’s see if Kotter works in Vavuniya.

Spoiler: It did.

Chapter 4: Living Through Kotter’s 8 Steps

Here’s the fun part. Instead of bullet-pointing Kotter like a textbook, let me tell you how it actually played out in our story.

Step 1: Create Urgency

If you don’t make people feel urgency, they’ll shrug. And shrugging is deadly.

So how did I create urgency?

Market urgency: I showed the team our client benchmarks. “If we don’t match this infrastructure, we’ll lose clients.”
Cultural urgency: I said, “If our office looks outdated, what does it say about our mindset?” That one stung.
Personal urgency: I admitted, “If we don’t transform now, we’ll still be painting these walls in 2030.”

At first, people laughed. Then they paused. That pause was the beginning of change.

I also told the Nokia story — how a global leader collapsed because it ignored urgency. That one hit hard.

Step 2: Build a Guiding Coalition

Kotter says you need a coalition. Most people make it a “managers-only” club. I didn’t.

I pulled in:

Branch managers.
Finance leads.
Designers.
Writers.
Even the guy who usually complains about cafeteria tea.

Because when everyone has skin in the game, change feels owned.

Example? The mini-library wasn’t my idea. It came from a content writer. Today, it’s one of the most-loved corners of the office.

Step 3: Develop Vision and Strategy

We needed a rallying cry.

So I coined: “From Renovation to Innovation.”

Not just a slogan — a direction.

Strategy? I broke it into three streams:

Culture: cafeteria, library, quiet zones.
Technology: laptops, cloud systems, fast internet.
Comfort: ergonomic chairs, minimalist design, sleeping pods.

This wasn’t about making the office “pretty.” It was about making it purposeful.

Step 4: Enlist a Volunteer Army

This was my favorite stage.

Suddenly, people wanted in. They painted walls with quotes. Donated books. Designed posters. Even taped a sign near the coffee machine that read: “Innovation starts after caffeine.”

That’s when I knew the shift was real. It wasn’t my project anymore. It was our project.

Step 5: Remove Barriers

We faced two big ones:

Money: I refused to take loans. Every upgrade was funded by profits. Slower, but sustainable.
Mindset: Some believed Vavuniya “didn’t deserve” innovation. I countered with: “If not here, then where?”

We also cut bureaucracy. Approvals were instant. Teams chose their own paint colors and plants. Empowerment built momentum.

Step 6: Generate Short-Term Wins

We didn’t wait for a grand reveal. Wins came in phases.

Wi-Fi upgrade → delivery speed doubled.
Ergonomic chairs → one employee joked, “My back pain has resigned.”
Cafeteria launch → instantly became a collaboration hub.

These wins weren’t cosmetic. They were proof. Proof builds belief.

Step 7: Sustain Acceleration

Momentum fades fast. To keep it alive, we:

Launched upgrades quarterly.
Collected feedback monthly.
Linked changes to performance data.

Soon, employees started asking: “What’s next?” — curiosity itself became fuel.

Step 8: Anchor Change in Culture

The hardest, but the most rewarding.

Anchoring meant creating:

Rituals: Weekly “Café Conversations.”
Symbols: Posters, books, plants.
Stories: Reminding everyone this was built from profits, not investors.

Over time, the story became part of our DNA. New hires didn’t just see furniture. They saw culture.

Chapter 5: Why This Was Different

You might ask: “But don’t Google, Pixar, and Microsoft do the same?”

Yes. But here’s the difference:

They had billion-dollar budgets.
We had discipline, creativity, and rural grit.

Google built treehouses in Zurich. Pixar built an atrium in California. Microsoft built hybrid neighborhoods.

We built a global-standard office in Vavuniya, Sri Lanka — profit by profit, chair by chair, pod by pod.

That’s not a renovation. That’s a statement.

Chapter 6: The Results

So, what changed?

Productivity jumped 30% in six months.
Employee turnover dropped.
Client delivery speed improved.
Most importantly: pride skyrocketed.

People stayed longer — not because they had to, but because they wanted to. The office became a place of energy, belonging, and innovation.

And for me? I finally felt that our office reflected our brand, our values, and our future.

Chapter 7: Lessons Learned

Here’s what I’d tell any founder or leader considering change:

Change is human first. Furniture doesn’t shift culture. Stories and rituals do.
You don’t need investors to innovate. Discipline + profits = sustainable disruption.
Rural innovation is underrated. Don’t assume big change needs big cities.
Frameworks help — if you live them. Kotter isn’t just a theory. It’s a playbook, if you adapt it.
Celebrate the small stuff. Faster Wi-Fi can inspire more than a glossy brochure.

Epilogue: Why This Matters Beyond Us

This wasn’t about our office. It was about proving a point:

👉 That Sri Lanka’s rural towns can innovate.
👉 That companies can grow without debt.
👉 That culture is the real infrastructure of performance.

The Vavuniya office is now more than a workspace. It’s a story. A story of belief, discipline, and disruption.

And as I sip coffee in our cafeteria, surrounded by books, ideas, and laughter, I know this:

This was never about renovation. This was about proving — to ourselves and to the world — that rural Sri Lanka can lead in innovation. And we just did.

References & Inspirations

Kotter, J. P. (1996). Leading Change. Harvard Business School Press.
Catmull, E. (2014). Creativity, Inc. Random House.
Schmidt, E., & Rosenberg, J. (2014). How Google Works. Grand Central Publishing.
Pink, D. H. (2009). Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. Riverhead Books.
McKinsey & Company (2020). “The State of Digital Transformation.”
Microsoft (2022). The Future of Hybrid Work Report. Microsoft Research.
Fernando, A. (2019). “Unilever’s Sustainable Office Design in Sri Lanka.” Daily FT.

The post What Happened When We Stopped Renovating and Started Innovating first appeared on Maverick.lk.

The Founder’–s Dashboard: 15 Metrics to Build, Grow, and Fund Your Startup

The Maverick — Sat, 03 May 2025 04:59:35 +0000

As a tech and marketing entrepreneur, I often mentor startup founders who have a vision, a solid product, and even early traction — but struggle when it comes to understanding the metrics that actually drive growth and investor confidence.

If you’re building a startup, these are not just numbers — they’re the heartbeat of your business. Whether you’re talking to VCs or analyzing your next marketing move, understanding these metrics can be the difference between guessing and scaling with clarity.

The 15 Startup Metrics Every Founder Must Know to Scale Smart

This guide outlines 15 critical startup metrics. I’ll explain what they are, why they matter, when to use them, and share real-world examples so you can confidently apply them.

1. 📊 TAM, SAM, SOM — Understanding Your Market Potential

What it is:

TAM (Total Addressable Market): The Entire market demand for your product/service.
SAM (Serviceable Available Market): Portion of TAM that your business can serve.
SOM (Serviceable Obtainable Market): Share of SAM you can realistically capture.

Why it matters:
Investors ask this to size the opportunity. You need to know if you’re playing in a pond, lake, or ocean.

When to use:
Investor pitches, new market entry, product launches.

Example:
If you’re building a telemedicine app:

TAM: Global telehealth market ($ 300 B+)
SAM: South Asian market
SOM: Urban smartphone users in Colombo — a $10M opportunity.

2. 🔁 ARR – Annual Recurring Revenue

What it is:
Predictable, yearly subscription-based revenue (excluding one-time fees).

Why it matters:
ARR shows how scalable and reliable your revenue is — crucial for SaaS startups.

When to use:
Monthly tracking and investment discussions.

Example:
200 users paying $100/month = $20,000 MRR → ARR = $240,000.
Top SaaS startups grow ARR 80% YoY

3. 🛍️ GMV – Gross Merchandise Value

What it is:
The total value of transactions on your platform. Note: GMV ≠ revenue.

Why it matters:
It measures the size and traction of marketplace platforms like Daraz or Fiverr.

When to use:
E-commerce, marketplaces, and transaction-based business models.

Example:
You process $500,000/month in sales, earning 10% in fees.
GMV = $500,000 → Revenue = $50,000.

4. 💵 ARPU – Average Revenue Per User

What it is:
ARPU = Total revenue/number of users over a period.

Why it matters:
Helps optimize pricing and assess user value.

When to use:
In financial modeling, growth planning, and pricing reviews.

Example:
$10,000 revenue from 1,000 users = ARPU of $10/month.
Spotify’s ARPU: $64/year【1】.

5. 🧮 Gross Profit

What it is:
Revenue – Cost of Goods Sold (COGS)

Why it matters:
Reveals how efficiently you deliver value.

When to use:
Budgeting, pricing analysis, and investor reports.

Example:
$1,000 SaaS subscription – $200 COGS = $800 gross profit → 80% margin.

6. 💔 Churn Rate

What it is:
Percentage of users lost in a given time.

Why it matters:
Churn eats your growth. Lower churn = higher retention = stronger LTV.

When to use:
Monthly review for SaaS and recurring revenue businesses.

Example:
500 users → 50 leave = 10% churn.
Best-in-class SaaS churn is <5%

7. 🔁 LTV – Customer Lifetime Value

What it is:
LTV = ARPU × Gross Margin ÷ Churn Rate

Why it matters:
Tells how much a customer is worth long-term.

When to use:
Paired with CAC to evaluate ROI.

Example:
ARPU = $20, GM = 80%, Churn = 5%
LTV = $20 × 0.8 ÷ 0.05 = $320

8. 📈 CAC – Customer Acquisition Cost

What it is:
CAC = Total acquisition costs ÷ number of customers acquired.

Why it matters:
Essential for scaling profitably.

When to use:
During marketing campaign planning and investor discussions.

Example:
$5,000 marketing spend → 100 new users → CAC = $50
Compare with LTV for LTV:CAC ratio.

9. 🔥 Burn Rate

What it is:
Monthly net cash outflow.
Burn Multiple = Net Burn / Net New ARR

Why it matters:
Indicates how long your runway is.

When to use:
Fundraising and financial forecasting.

Example:
$25,000 monthly burn with $100,000 in the bank = 4 months runway.
Burn multiple <1 = excellent

10. ⏳ Deferred Revenue

What it is:
Advance payments for future services. Recorded as liabilities until earned.

Why it matters:
Shows future obligation and cash strength.

When to use:
For SaaS, prepaid services, and annual plans.

Example:
Annual plan paid upfront: $1,200 = $100/month earned, $1,100 deferred.

11. 👥 Active Users (DAU, WAU, MAU)

What it is:
Measures product usage and engagement.

Why it matters:
Shows stickiness and potential virality.

When to use:
In product teams, growth loops, and performance reviews.

Example:
10,000 MAU, 2,000 DAU = 20% DAU/MAU ratio → good for productivity apps.

12. 🌐 Network Effects

What it is:
Your product becomes more valuable as more users join.

Why it matters:
Drives compounding growth and defensibility.

When to use:
In GTM strategies and investor decks.

Example:
Slack grows more useful as more teammates join. Same with WhatsApp or Airbnb.

13. 🤝 Virality (k-factor)

What it is:
Measures how many new users one existing user brings in.

Why it matters:
High virality reduces CAC dramatically.

When to use:
Referral programs, waitlists, product-led growth.

Example:
Each user invites 3, 1 in 3 converts → k = 1 → viral.
If k > 1, you’re in exponential growth mode.

14. 📢 NPS – Net Promoter Score

What it is:
Customer satisfaction score based on willingness to recommend.

Why it matters:
Predicts retention and word-of-mouth growth.

When to use:
Post-purchase surveys and quarterly feedback loops.

Example:
NPS > 50 is excellent. Apple has averaged 72+ in recent years

15. ⚠️ Customer Concentration Risk

What it is:
% of revenue coming from your biggest clients.

Why it matters:
High dependency = high risk if a major client leaves.

When to use:
In financial analysis, risk mitigation, and fundraising.

Example:
One client pays $300K of your $1M ARR = 30% exposure → red flag.

Wrapping It Up: Metrics Are the Language of Startup Success

Startups that scale successfully aren’t just lucky — they’re measurable. These 15 startup metrics aren’t just for pitch decks. They’re tools for:

Building smarter GTM strategies
Driving efficient growth
Making confident product decisions
Raising capital with data, not hope

Understanding your metrics isn’t optional — it’s your founder superpower.

💬 Let’s Keep This Conversation Going…

Which of these startup metrics do you find most confusing, overrated, or game-changing?

👇 Drop your thoughts in the comments — and if there’s a metric you’d love a deeper breakdown on (with dashboards, tools, or real-world startup use cases), let me know. I’ll cover it in a follow-up post!

Let’s demystify startup growth — together. 📈🚀

The post The Founder’s Dashboard: 15 Metrics to Build, Grow, and Fund Your Startup first appeared on Maverick.lk.

The Founder’–s Dashboard:s Dashboard: 15 Metrics to Build, Grow, and Fund Your Startup

The Maverick — Sun, 22 May 2022 05:18:04 +0000

Due to Sri Lanka’s unending economic crisis, most local businesses are started transforming their business into the USA and UK, and other groups of people migrating to other countries with no options left. Last year I published a post about how to prepare yourself to incorporate Single member LLC in the USA

If you already registered your LLC, LLP from Delaware, Wyoming states, then it’s high time to File your Wyoming or Delaware Franchise Tax before 31st, May 2022. Even if your company was filed in December you’ve to pay the following before the 1st of June, 2022.

1. Delaware State Franchise Tax – ( $300 Mandatory )

Delaware LLCs are not required to file an Annual Report, but LLCs must pay a fixed rate as Annual Franchise Tax of $300 each year. This is nothing to do with your income or number of sales, every Delaware state LLC, must pay the $300 tax otherwise the Delaware state imposes a $200 late payment penalty, plus a monthly interest fee of 1.5%.

3. Tax forms 5472 and 1120 ( $80-$100)

According to IRS, 25% Foreign-Owned U.S. corporations or a Foreign Corporation Engaged in a U.S. Trade or Business. This means that if your business is at least 25% owned by a foreign person or entity, Form 5472 is needed to report any transactions during your company’s tax year. Filling form 1120, every LLC communicates their business performance and figures out their tax liability with the IRS. Whether you like it or not you’ve to file Form 5472 and form 1120. In case you failed to file or even filed incorrectly this will cost you a minimum penalty of $25,000 plus an additional $25,000 for each month the failure continues. Reach out to your registered agent or contact a tax expert via Fiverr this will cost you a maximum of $80-$100 to complete this process.

3. Registered Agent Fee ( $49-$60)

Your LLC registered agent will charge you a certain amount in order to act as your registered agent on behalf of your LLC, The registered agent cost varies however this is always between $60 – $49 which you’ve to pay every year as the Registered agent service fee and sometimes registered agent may charge you extra for file and remit the franchise fee separately.

Conclusion:

When you are operating a business in the state of Delaware or Wyoming just to makesure you are complying with the IRS and the state laws, Ignoring these mandatory filings may create a risk of blocking your LLC operations and ceasing the accounts for non-compliance plus you’ll be reported ( even if no activities) through your EIN records. You only have just eight more days to finish all these processes and you need a minimum of $450 to fulfill these state requirements. Let me know if you have any questions or need any help?

The post Delaware Franchise Tax – Forms 5472 and 1120 Filing Requirements for LLCs first appeared on Maverick.lk.

Top 7 Checklist For Incorporate Your LLC Business in the USA

The Maverick — Wed, 29 Sep 2021 08:58:01 +0000

The wait is over, Most of you asked me to write about my USA business incorporation Journey. As I mentioned in my LinkedIn post, it’s NOT just another LLC registration but a complete transformation for me! in other words, it’s a paradigm shift for my company. As a small business owner who is closely working with the global market, this was my five years of a dream to have a registered USA entity with a physical business office presence.

Since you are here to read this post, I’m sure this is your dream too! Of course, It’s easy to find the incorporation agents online, but the real problem is which one is right for my business model, requirements, budget, and most importantly for my “specific purposes”. This is the point where I’ve slowed down myself and invested quality time in research about the right US company registration agent to fulfill my requirements.

It wasn’t an easy task for me! since I also wanted to rebrand my company structure including the products, market, culture, brand name, organization structure, and almost everything top to bottom. Therefore I started working on my next five years business plan with a simple OKR process where I can get better clarity about my goals and achievable objectives where I can create timelines and KPIs to benchmark my progress.

My short term business goals are like;

Future Ready: Restructure the current Products to the specific niche market.
Feature ready: I decided to completely focus on the USA, Europe, and the middle east market which require certain Payment methods to accept customers’ payments.
Innovation: Especially for my niche, Old wine in a new bottle strategy won’t work anymore, therefore I have to blend the innovation mix in every single business process.

I know that I’m about to go for massive changes! big risk, but if I can execute this properly then it will be a lifetime reward. I will write a separate post later about my rebranding journey and the challenges I have overcome. Now, this post is all about ” How to open LLC in the USA for the non US citizens ” with a lean budget but maximum return.

Ask these questions before you start forming an LLC in the USA.

What’s your purpose? what are you trying to achieve throughout this entire process?
Does your business “really” require a US presence? If yes Virtually or Physically?
What “BIG” problem you’re trying to solve here? That can be done locally with any alternative options?
Have you analyzed your customer’s persona? How many of them are from the USA, How do they pay now?
Did you analyze your stakeholder’s journey? ( Customers, Partners, Employees, Investors, Banks, legal factors, etc)

If you have the answer ready before you start anything spend some time analyzing the results and their consequences where you will have a clear picture of what you are really about to achieve. Also, see if you can pull your last twelve months’ sales data and try to analyze the basic reactions metrics such as ARR, churn rate just operating locally, and then create a simple business forecast ( NOT just a sales revenue) where you can reinforce your end goals to minimize the risk factors.

What’s LLC in the USA?

The registration process, the organization’s legal structure are completely different than our formation of Sri Lankan Private Limited company procedures. According to the Wikipedia reference, ” A limited liability company (LLC) is the US-specific form of a private limited company. It is a business structure that can combine the pass-through taxation of a partnership or sole proprietorship with the limited liability of a corporation.

LLC is not just a corporation under state law; it is a legal form of a company that provides limited liability to its owners in many jurisdictions. “. Registering a USA LLC entity isn’t simple and of course, it’s not hard at all! It’s just a matter of which registrar agent you are about to deal with.

The Types of LLC

Once you get a clear picture of your roadmap then you need to select the type of LLC you are about to get registered.

1) Sole Proprietorship or Single-member LLC – Highly recommended for startups and any small business which require USA legal presence, Bank, Merchant, Address, Phone, etc

2) General / Limited Partnership – Suitable for Multiple members with different % of shares, ownership levels SME’s

3) Series LLC / Restricted LLCs – Definitely not for us 🙂 Coz, this will takes 10 yrs to get the registration certificates, and only for US citizens are from Nevada + the AOA is fully restricted.

4) L3C Company / Anonymous LLC – Again, this isn’t for us unless you’ve your own reason not to disclose your personal/financial data with vendors and the Government organization.

5) Member-Managed LLC or Manager-Managed LLC – Suitable for companies funded by multiple investors, The AOA will be structured based on the terms of each members conditions, etc

Which is the most suitable state for form an LLC?

Again this completely depends on your business model and the scope of this LLC formation. There are always Cons and Pros, If you are a non USA citizen, feel free to look at these statistics to know the best and worst states to incorporate your business in the USA. Based on my research and the experience that I have had so far Delaware and Wyoming are the two states that are super cool for non US citizens who want to incorporate their business in the USA as LLC or LLP.

1. Wyoming

Corporate tax rate: 0 percent
Individual income tax rate: 0 percent
Sales tax rate: 4.00 percent
Average effective property tax rate: .61 percent (national average is 1.19 percent)
Unemployment rate: 4.0 percent

2. Delaware

Business-friendly
Low filing fees and franchise taxes
No corporate income taxes for foreign LLCs taxed as corporations
Personal taxes on your business’ profits in addition to the $300 annual LLC tax due annually by June 1.
Flat corporate rates usually range between 4 to 9 percent.

Checklist for choosing the right USA company registration service providers

There are few legal, business factors you have to analyze before choosing the right LLC incorporation agent. Your business model and purpose are different than mine, what is good for me is maybe isn’t suit for you. Therefore, I’m not gonna cover everything here, but only the importance I’ll highlight in this section.

1) Trust and Customer experience: How long have been in this business and most importantly their response rate. Reach out to them with basic questions via mail, call or support ticket to know their response rate.

2) Industry Specialization: Any typical LLC registration agent can help you with obtaining a name check, company formation, registering EIN on behalf of you, act as a registered agent for a certain period, and give you a universal US Address with Mail forwarding plus call forwarding number. But, here we are looking for someone who can understand our business model, painpoints in order to deliver a personalized experience to your niche.

3) The Hidden expenses: Most of the LLC registration agents have transparently listed their packages and the cost details on their websites. However, few are still using the LeadGen pages to capture your details and give you a quote. This is where most of us got trapped! For example, They will hide annual maintenance costs such as act as a registered agent, State, and federal tax filling costs, mail forwarding, etc. When it comes to renewal you will end up paying a huge amount without knowing all these processes.

4) Benefits: This is something you really need to dive deeper into to know what exactly you are about to receive. Only a very few industries specialized US LLC registration agents have crafted their registration packages with adding better value propositions for their target customers, Such agent’s customer journey is perfectly crafted and they know in and out where you can leverage their additional perks to compress your operational expenses. Example: Apart from the typical registration process are they providing any additional values such as third party vendors credits, intro, spotlighting your business on their pages, free legal and accounting advice, etc

5) Financial Benefit: Getting a USA bank account is simple and almost everyone knew these methods! But there are very selective USA LLC registration agents who are providing better Bank account openings with most reputed USA banks where you can get Checking, Saving, Debit cards for you and your team members. I’m gonna cover this method in my next blog post, keep an eye on my next post 🙂

6) ITIN: If you want to open a PayPal, Stripe, 2Checkout business account then you need to have ITIN ( Individual Taxpayer Identification Number ) or SSN ( Social Security Number ), As far as I know, most of my friends are using the Fake PayPal accounts where you can easily get it from any freelance platform for less than $50 bucks. As a business person, I’d like to maintain certain ethics in the business which I follow since I started. Normally, ITIN will come as an addon where you have to pay roughly $350-$425 and it will take 2 – 26 business days to get it registered ( depends on your registrar ) Make sure to inquire them about the ITIN cost, timeframe, refund policy, etc.

7) Future Management Roadmap: Most of the LLC registration agents are acting like Whitelabel agency/a front-end registrars on behalf of corporate service providers, They simply complete the registration process and get their cut and pass it to the corporate service providers, This is where you have to be careful with your research part. Get to know who is your state registrar and how you can collect or renew agent services. article, name & address change amendments, future annual return submissions, and its’s cost, etc.

In fact, I only mentioned the most important key point above, My suggestion is to create your requirements checklist and go for a quick fact check to identify your utmost needs where you can prioritize based on your roadmap.

Wrapping up: Don’t take it personally!

I know, “Most of us” (Maybe not you ) are like a typical consumer! We read everything, but we don’t put it into action! We need to know everything, but we don’t do that! This is why I decided to publish my ” Transforming Global” Journey here like a series! What you learned today is the basic awareness where you can evaluate yourself whether you really need to go ahead with the LLC registration or not!

The Good news is, In my next articles, I’ll be covering the following secrets;

The perfect USA Bank for Asians ( Online access, Checking/ Saving/ Cashback, Cards, Draws, credits, and much more)
ITIN Secrets ( Less investment, fast delivery )
Top Secret Tips: How to get your investment back almost instantly ( Eg: if you pay $380 for the LLC registrar you can get up to $350 back to your account once you got the EIN )
The hidden treasurer: How to get $650,000 worth of perks through your registrar

The sad news is, The next posts are NOT for everyone, but for selective people with a key to access that page. don’t worry, I’m not gonna sell anything here, just wanted to pass this to the “Relevant” people. If you enjoyed this post and wanted to get access to the next series of posts, please feel free to convenience me in the comment box with your name, email and tell me why you’d like to learn more in short 🙂

The post Top 7 Checklist For Incorporate Your LLC Business in the USA first appeared on Maverick.lk.

Working Remotely ? Master These 15 Powerful Tips to be Ultra Productive

The Maverick — Thu, 23 Sep 2021 16:50:06 +0000

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, most of the companies are implementing voluntary or mandatory work-from-home policies. That means many of us are dealing with a new challenge: working from home for the first time, full-time.

For some people, working from home means fewer distractions and greater productivity. But not everyone comes into this category. For some, working remotely can be quite a challenge with countless distractions, punishing hours, and high stress.

If you’re falling into the second category, No Worries! You aren’t alone, especially when many employees are now being asked to work from home for the first time. I’ve compiled a list of essential tips for working remotely to help you do great work at a work-from-home structure.

Essential Tips for Working Remotely

1. Be Easy on Yourself – Shifting to work-from-home can be a huge transition. So, you might feel lonely, isolated, anxious, stressed, unmotivated, or on the other hand, you might feel more relaxed, energized, or productive. It’s all OKAY and normal to feel these emotions. We need time to get used to any transition in our life, so try to be easy on yourself and give yourself time to get used to the new normal.

2. Schedule Your Breaks – Try to get up from your desk and stretch your body every hour or so. Walk around your home while talking with your colleague on the phone. Move to a different place to eat your lunch for 30 minutes. Taking small breaks throughout the day and moving your body allows you to refresh and increase your productivity when you return to your work.

3. Set Your Work Time – When working from home, people tend to work more because it’s harder to “leave” work. But, if you overwork eventually, you’ll burn yourself out. Therefore, set your “Work” hours and communicate regarding your work hours with both your colleagues and family. It will help you stay healthy and productive.

4. Set Ground Rules – Discuss the hours you’re working from home with your family members and the ground rules during those work hours. Anything can interrupt you, like a dog barking in the background of a client video chat. Therefore, be proactive to avoid these kinds of situations. Setting ground rules help you to reduce noises and other distractions around your workspace.

5. Give Importance to Ergonomics – When working from home, use the most comfortable chair with back support. Sitting in a straight wooden chair for a long time is not suitable for your health. It will impact your backbone health. Therefore, consider investing in a comfortable chair to make your work from home more comfortable and healthy.

6. Overcommunicate – When you’re working remotely, make sure to communicate with your colleagues constantly. Share the necessary things that your colleagues need to know. Especially if you have multigenerational teams, always make sure to maintain constant communication with them.

7. Know Your Company’s Remote Work Policies – Your company HR department probably has guidelines or handbooks on working during a crisis, including remote work policies, procedures, and expectations. So, before you get into work-from-home, read those guidelines and get to know your company’s work from home remote work policies.

8. Set Rules for Team Check-In – Do you want your team to check in with you first thing in the morning? Want them to send a daily or weekly update on what they’ve been working on? Setting ground rules and guidelines for your team check-in will help you avoid misunderstanding, and you can smoothly keep the work on track.

9. Watch Your Project Progress – While working remotely, the team needs to be proactive and be ready to progress on longer-term goals. For instance, you can send a daily email to your team with a list of projects that have advanced that day. This etiquette will help you keep your projects on track and maintain a smooth workflow.

10. Resolve Issues with a Quick Phone Call – Emails and other written communication methods are prone to misunderstandings. When you sense any miscommunication happening, quickly pick up your phone to resolve issues through instant phone calls.

11. Promptly Reply to Emails and Calls – People tend to be more conscious of time when working remotely. A colleague might find a three-hour response time to an email much too delayed when they picture you sitting at your home workstation the whole day. If a colleague is too pushy about responses, have a one-on-one conversation about your expectations and timelines with them.

12. Have Casual Communications – Even if you’re working remotely, you should check in with your colleagues when you start and end your day. Try to follow the same rituals and habits you use to maintain in the physical environment to keep the relationships and normalcy.

13. Follow Your Company Culture – Try to keep things aligned with your company culture. Even though working remotely does drastically change your interactions with your colleagues, you can still make sure that the little things you do in the office continue: Like sending Good morning texts, check-in messages, or chatting about your family, or anything else you would normally do by the lunch break. These little things help you reduce your feelings of loneliness and anxiety.

14. Use Video Calls – To avoid feeling lonely and isolated, use video calls to connect with your colleagues more humanly. I know that video calls are not comfortable for everyone, but the little discomfort can be worth the benefit of seeing your colleagues’ faces. Video calls help us to build relationships and meaningful human interactions.

15. Get Feedback on Remote Work Environment – Last but not least, if you are new to the work-from-home culture, ask your colleagues for regular feedback on how the remote work environment is working out. Gather feedback from your colleagues on what is easier and more difficult when working from home remotely to help you improve your work-from-home situation.

Conclusion

For those new to the work-from-home structure, the above-listed tips will help to make their remote working more effective. Make necessary adjustments and be kind to yourself; eventually, you will get used to the new reality. I hope this post was insightful, and I firmly believe you’ve already applied a few work-from-home tips that I mentioned above. If you have any questions or, other tips for working remotely, Let me know down in the comments which one was your favourite and why?

The post Working Remotely ? Master These 15 Powerful Tips to be Ultra Productive first appeared on Maverick.lk.

Powerful App Store Optimization Strategies That Work in 2021

The Maverick — Thu, 26 Aug 2021 02:47:55 +0000

The worldwide pandemic lockdowns forced people to change their lifestyles to the “new normal”, and these changes dramatically affected the app business. As people turned to their mobile devices to work, study, and have fun, which increased the competitiveness in the app stores. But, this is not the only surprise 2020 brought to the mobile app publishers, with the IDFA deprecation announced last year and that to be enforced soon in 2021, user acquisition is becoming more important, while app store optimization (ASO) appears to be another crucial factor for app business growth.

Here in this article, you will find effective app store optimization strategies (ASO) that will help you enhance your mobile app growth efforts in 2021. Let’s dive right in…..

What is App Store Optimization (ASO)?

App Store Optimization (ASO) is a continuous process to improve an app’s rankings and discoverability. The higher an app ranks, the more relevant it appears to users. Plus, the app’s rank directly connects with the number of downloads, a higher rank position gets more downloads for the app. Also, there are numerous other benefits of ASO, like:

The increase of app’s discoverability
Generates more traffic to the app
Increase in the number of app users
Expands app’s user base
Boosts app’s organic downloads
Increase the CTR and revenue
Reduce user acquisition costs
Helps to grow your app business

The Challenges and Opportunities of App Store Optimization

The Challenge

The global app market is of the most competitive marketing spaces with nearly 4 million Google Play Store apps and 2 million Apple’s iOS App Store apps. Therefore, successfully acquiring and retaining users for your app is become more challenging than ever.

The Opportunity

According to Apple’s report, half a billion visitors come to the iOS App Store each week, and from them, 65% of iOS app downloads happen through organic searches.

As we discussed earlier, App Store Optimization (ASO) is a continuous process of testing and measuring updates to app store marketing assets, with the goal of increasing rank, visibility and generating more app downloads.

With the announcement of IDFA deprecation, Organic search has become more important than before. As IDFA deprecation reduces the impact of paid advertising because advertisers lose access to users’ data.

So, all these facts allow app publishers to enhance their app performance through App Store Optimization.

App Store Optimization Strategies for 2021

Choose the Right Keywords

Understand how the keyword difficulty and search volume have changed over time to choose the most relevant keywords that drive traffic for you. So, here are some tips to choose the right keywords.

Make Use of Branded Keywords

You know what? In the global app market, branded search queries dominate the top keyword lists by search volume, in the US, 1 of the top 20 keywords by search volume was branded on iPhones searches. You can target your competitors’ branded keywords through paid ads or fend off your competitors’ keywords by bidding on your own branded search term to maximize your presence on the app search results page.

Leverage Both English and Local Keywords

Surprisingly, in Thailand, Japan, and Indonesia, the top keywords by search volume were English Brand keywords. But, users in Korea tend to search in the Korean language over English, noticeably different from other countries in APAC. Therefore, it’s a good approach to use both English and Local Language Keywords because that’ll help your app to rank for both English and Local Language searches.

Don’t Ignore Misspelled Keywords

You can strategically use the misspelled/breakout keywords to enhance the share of search traffic and boost your app’s visibility in the app stores. Breakout/misspelled keywords indicate the shifts in app stores (apps) demand over time. With the right App Store Optimization process for these breakout/misspelled keywords you can monitor the trends in the market shift and rank your app accordingly.

Use Machine Learning to Find the Keywords Opportunities

Aligning your app offering with the keywords that people are searching for online is important to generate more app downloads from a valuable audience. for this purpose, you can use machine learning tools like App Annie’s machine learning keyword suggestions where you can find optimal keywords by simply typing a few seed keywords. Yes, the machine learning keyword suggestions tool suggests a list of relevant keywords related to the keywords you type and search on the tool.

Get to Know Your Competitor’s Keyword Strategy

Monitoring paid search ads allows you to understand how your competitors are prioritizing keywords in their App Store Optimization and user acquisition strategy. Also, gives you insights into who could be generating CPI’s, and where you may be losing out on your potential audience share.

Frequently Optimize Your App Updates

Use timely app updates to increase your app discoverability, and also watch out for your competitors’ app updates to get to know their strategies. Here are some app updating tactics.

Frequent and Strategic App Update

Frequent app updates like changes in app icon, name, version, and description can maximize the discoverability of your app with more targeted keyword additions and boost your app store conversions to generate more downloads by highlighting new app features and value propositions. Research data show that non-gaming apps update more frequently than games apps across both iOS App Store and Google Play App Store.

Add Users’ Desired Features

New features updates brought meaningful differences in apps discoverability, and App Descriptions are a prominent place to discuss your app’s new features updates and product offerings. The top 100 apps on Google Play App Store updated their app descriptions associated with new features additions which are 25% higher than top apps on iOS. For Games apps, this was 70% higher.

Leverage Your App Store Assets

Use your app store assets like user reviews, screenshots, and descriptions to convert your app traffic into app downloads. Here are some ways to maximize the impact of your App Store assets.

Optimize Your App’s App Store Page

By regularly updating your app store page you can enhance your App Store Optimization process. And, your app store page is the first impression the users get about your app, also, your app store page allows users to get information about what your app offers. Including app names, screenshots, descriptions, and short videos in your App Store Page will help you to convert window shoppers to your app users. The following are the key elements you need to add to your App Store Page: your app name, app subtitle (iOS), app icon, app description, keyword field (iOS only), app promotional text (iOS), screenshots, the app featured graphic, app promo video, in-app purchases (iOS), and Google tags (Google Play).

Boost Your App Ratings and Reviews

Getting feedback from your app users is a treasure. Your app users can help you find out the strengths and weaknesses of your app, and you can use those insights in your product roadmap. To see whether your app generates a good number of ratings & reviews or not, compare the number of ratings and reviews generated with the number of app downloads generated in a certain period. You can then compare these insights with that of your competitors to find ways to improve your app store SEO performance.

Expand Your App’s Global Reach

Get to know the different requirements between the Google Play app stores and iOS app stores then customize your ASO strategy to their guidelines to maximize your app’s global reach. Here are some tactics to improve your app’s global reach.

Provide Language Support

Providing language support is one of the important global App Store Optimization (aka aso marketing) strategies to scale your app globally and expand into new markets. On iOS App Stores, non-gaming apps support an average of 6.6 languages while games apps support an average of 9.6 languages. These factors show the importance of language support. So, add providing language support into your global ASO strategy.

Optimize Your App for App Store Submission Differences

Understand the different requirements between the Google Play app stores and iOS app stores then customize your App Store Optimization strategy according to the iOS app store guidelines and the Google Play guidelines. These tiny details can make all the difference in app optimization. For example, your app name should be only 30 characters on the iOS App Store compared to 50 characters on Google Play App Store which is an important difference when using high-value keywords in your app name.

Boost Your Organic App Store Traffic

Being featured on the app stores can have a great impact on your app store page traffic. Each visitor you get on your app store page is an opportunity to convert them to your app user. Do an A/B test for your app store assets and optimize them to give you the best conversion rate from the traffic. Also, combining your app features with app rankings and downloads growth gives you a comprehensive overview of how you stack against the organic app marketing efforts of your competitors that will help you to improve your app marketing efforts.

Follow Strategic ASO Updates

You can follow strategic ASO ( app store optimization) updates to achieve a good boost in your app organic downloads. Here are some ways to leverage strategic ASO updates.

In-Demand Feature Updates

The app description is the best place to showcase the key features in your app, and adding your app key features in the app description will help you to maximize your app downloads and boost the engagements of your app users.

Strategic Updates for Timed Events

The timely event offers and flash sales for special events and festivals will help you boost your app user acquisition. These kinds of coordinated updates can help you increase your app discoverability and conversion to generate more app downloads.

App Icon Updates

A dramatic app color change or app icon design change can signal a major change in the app to the current users which prompting them to re-engage and explore the new update of the app which automatically increases the traffic and app downloads.

Top 5 app store optimization tools.

There are hundreds of App store optimization tools ( ASO tools ) and app store optimization strategies available online, but not everything will give you the features and options to get the best ASO optimization experience. These are the top five app store optimization apps I tried and work well in every situation. Just give it a try and let me know your feedback?

Conclusion

When people understand the value of your app in their daily lives, there is greater potential for your app downloads. This is where App Store Optimization helps you to increase your app discoverability and visibility to reach more people.

I hope, now, you have gained knowledge about the advanced app store optimization Strategies. By following these App Store Optimization strategies, you can enhance your app marketing strategy. And that will have a positive impact on your app business.

APP Store Optimization

Most frequent questions and answers

1. What is ASO?

App Store Optimization (ASO) is a strategic optimization process that improves an app’s discoverability, visibility, and rankings in an app store. App stores rank each app according to a variety of ranking factors. By successfully optimizing your app with optimal keywords, proper images/visuals, and localized descriptions, you can increase your app visibility and rank higher, also this will drive more app downloads.

2. Why is App Store Optimization Important?

App Store Optimization helps to improve your app’s rankings, visibility and discoverability. The higher an app ranks in the app stores, the more relevant it appears to app users. Plus, the app’s rank directly connects with the number of app downloads, a higher rank position gets more downloads for the app. Also, there are numerous other benefits of ASO, like:

The increase of app’s visibility and discoverability Generates more organic traffic to the app.
Increase in the number of app loyal users.
Expands app’s user base.
Boosts app’s organic downloads 6. Increase the CTR and revenue of the app.
Reduce your app’s user acquisition costs.
Helps to successfully grow your app business.

3. How do I optimize my app store?

App Store Optimization (ASO) is a continuous process of testing and measuring updates to increase your app rank, visibility and generating more app downloads. So, here are the simple steps to optimize your app.

1. Choose the right keywords that drive traffic for your app.

2. Timely optimize your app updates to increase your app discoverability.

3. Optimize your app’s app store page with proper information.

4. Expand your app’s global reach by providing multiple language support.

5. Update your users’ in-demand features in your app.

4. How does the app store measure optimization?

App Store uses the following key metrics to measure your App Store Optimization (ASO). Also, these metrics help you to measure your app success, user engagement, user retention, and conversion. Let’s check out those key metrics:

1. Your App’s Discoverability in App Stores.

2. The Number of Active Users for Your APP.

3. Lifetime Value of Your App.

4. Your App’s User Acquisition Cost.

5. Your App’s Conversion Rate.

5. What are the App Store Optimization Process?

App Store Optimization (ASO) is a strategic optimization process of boosting your app’s visibility, discoverability, and ranking within the app stores while increasing your app’s conversion rates.

The two primary app stores are Apple’s iOS App Stores and Google Play App Stores for Android. When you opt for App Store Optimization Services, the service provider helps you rank your app high in the app store search results through an effective ASO process also the App Store Optimization helps you to increase your app’s Click Through Rate (CTR) and app downloads.

The post Powerful App Store Optimization Strategies That Work in 2021 first appeared on Maverick.lk.

7 Simple Steps YouTube SEO Guide to Rank Your Videos Higher in 2021

The Maverick — Mon, 09 Aug 2021 08:10:36 +0000

You know what? YouTube is the first largest search engine for videos and the second-largest search engine in the world. Besides, YouTube is owned by Google, which means YouTube videos appear in Google search results more often than videos from other platforms. So, just as you use SEO for your web pages, you need to use YouTube SEO for your videos as well.

Today, in this post, I’m going to show you EXACTLY how to use YouTube SEO to rank your YouTube videos. In fact, this is the exact YouTube SEO process that I used to grow my YouTube channel. So if you wish to get more subscribers, views, and traffic for your YouTube channel, then you’ll love this new YouTube SEO guide. Let’s dive right into the YouTube SEO guide!

The Queries That Prioritize Video Results on SERP

There are specific queries that prioritize video results over regular organic results on SERP. Here are some examples of those queries.

Sports and training queries like power yoga and full-body home workout
“How to” queries about instructions and tutorials
Reviews and unboxing queries about new products, movies, etc.
Entertaining videos queries like funny animals and stand-up comedians

The queries mentioned above are best satisfied with visual content. If you really want to rank for these types of search queries, you have to include video content as a part of your content marketing strategy and follow the best YouTube SEO practices to optimize your YouTube videos for search engines.

The YouTube SEO Ranking Factors

As I said earlier, YouTube operates as a search engine, So, we need to consider the YouTube SEO ranking factors that will help our videos to rank in YouTube SERP. So, here is a list of YouTube SEO ranking factors.

Views

In YouTube, if a user has watched at least 30 seconds of a video, that will be counted as a view. Repeated view from the same user is counted as a new view; however, the same user’s numerous views per day might be considered spam. One more interesting fact is that YouTube’s business is trading views. It buys views from YouTube video makers and sells them to advertisers. That’s why views are essential for ranking on YouTube and it’s one of the important factors in YouTube SEO.

Subscribers

Subscribers are the real people who follow your YouTube channel through their YouTube accounts. Closed YouTube accounts and spam subscribers (artificially gained through third-party services) will not be counted as subscribers by YouTube algorithms.

Audience Retention

Audience retention is a measurement that shows how many people watch your YouTube videos till the end and at what point they stop watching the videos. This is one of the ranking factors that YouTube considers even more important than video clicks and views, so your main goal is to create YouTube videos that make people watch your videos till the end.

Engagement

Your YouTube videos need to have activities like comments, replies to comments, and new subscribers after publishing a fresh video on your YouTube channel. The more activities your videos have, the better the chances of being ranked by the YouTube search engine.

Video Quality

High-resolution YouTube videos are valued by both YouTube AI and your YouTube audience. So, it’s good to switch to HD format videos; also, several studies prove that quality YouTube videos do get higher ranking positions.

Channel Authority

YouTube provides great monetization possibilities, but it requires a lot of analysis and thoughtful content creation to make a good amount of money on YouTube. When your YouTube channel reaches impressive figures, generally around 100,000 subscribers, you can go for badge verification and make your YouTube channel an official source. This will increase your channel authority and give you more opportunities to make money on YouTube.

Relevance

The best way to make your videos rank high on YouTube SERP is to make them match a relevant search query. Take your time to analyze what your target audience searches for on YouTube and what is a trend these days. Then create relevant videos accordingly.

So, now, let’s see how to optimize your YouTube videos for YouTube SEO. Let’s check out!

7 Ways to Optimize Your Videos for YouTube SEO

1. Keyword Research

Kick start with keyword research for your videos. Get an idea of what your target audience is interested in and how they refer to the information while searching it on YouTube.

Make Use of YouTube Search Suggest

You have two options to find keywords for your videos with the help of YouTube autocomplete:

Get keywords manually from YouTube’s search bar: Type your selected keywords on the YouTube search bar to see YouTube auto-suggestions in the drop-down list. These queries/keywords are good because they are what people actually type when searching for a video on YouTube.

Use a keyword research tool to check all the keywords for your video at one time: You can use any keyword generating tool to find the relevant keywords that are related to your keyword phrases just as you would find on YouTube. The keyword tool will show you the list of the most popular keywords related to the keywords you have added in the keyword research tool.

Find Keywords for Videos in Google

YouTube has very limiting options for keyword research, so it’s a good idea to look for related keywords in Google. Keywords found on YouTube and Google are not 100% substitutable, but there is some connection in popular search queries.

Check Out Video Results in Google Trends

Google Trends is a great option to use when you’ve already come up with a list of keyword ideas and need to compare them to choose the most popular keywords. To search in Google Trends: Open Google Trends > enter search query > click search > select Web search > choose YouTube search. You can check the keywords’ popularity by using the filters like “Related Queries as Top” (with the most search traffic) and “Rising videos”.

2. Add Video Meta Tags

Video meta tags are the textual and visual information that describes the video to users and search engines. Nowadays, YouTube algorithms can recognize objects in your videos and understand the content, meaning meta tags are no longer as important as earlier. Still, meta tags prevent YouTube algorithms from misinterpreting the content of your video, Meta tags are also what users see first when they come across your video. So, you need to arrange your meta tags in a way to make them appealing, relevant, and clickable.

Add Keywords in the Meta Title

Your video’s meta title reflects the topic of your video. Therefore, the meta title has to include the keyword phrases that you want to rank for. According to the Backlinko study, videos with an exact keyword match in the meta title do rank better. If you want your videos ranked by both Google and YouTube, make sure the meta title fits the 60-character limit to avoid being cut off on result pages. Don’t overhype your video meta title, avoid click-baiting, and ALL-CAPS meta titles.

Add Keywords in the Meta Description

A well-optimized meta description helps viewers to find your videos through search results. In the meta description, add a call-to-action and put related keywords closer to the beginning of the meta description. Because the first two or three lines of your video meta description will show up in the video search results. Although YouTube allows meta descriptions of 5,000 characters long, you don’t need to take up all the space. Contrary to popular opinion, content length doesn’t influence your search rankings. So, only add the necessary information in your video meta description. Also, under the Show more button of the video description, you can hide all of your marketing information, such as your website and social media links, as well as playlists of related videos on your channel. Besides, in the description, you can add relevant #hashtags as well.

Create Captivating Thumbnails

Actually, a thumbnail is the first thing that catches the viewer’s eye. It lets the viewers understand the contents of your YouTube video and decide whether to watch the video or not. While YouTube can generate a selection of thumbnails from your video, uploading a custom thumbnail for your videos is recommended. As per the Creator Academy report, 90% of the best-performing YouTube videos have custom thumbnails.

Optimize Your Video Tags

As per the YouTube statement, tags will be helpful when your main keywords are commonly misspelled. YouTube does not restrict the number of tags, so you can use up to 10-12 relevant tags in your videos, and tags are different from hashtags. In YouTube SEO, tags work similarly to keywords.

Provide Closed Captions

Closed captions (CC) help Google quickly analyze your YouTube videos’ contents as artificial intelligence is more successful in recognizing text over audio. Google can suggest its AI-generated closed captions for your YouTube video. Still, it’s always better to create your own closed captions that will help you avoid any mistakes due to pronunciation issues or poor audio quality. You can use keywords in your closed captions to make your YouTube videos rank in SERP. Closed captions are a written demonstration of a video, so make sure to include relevant keywords throughout your textual script of the video. You can create closed captions for your video manually by simply writing what is said or using tools like 3Play Media or Cielo24 to generate them automatically.

Add Timestamps

Providing timestamps for your long YouTube videos will help you increase Engagement and help users navigate through video sections. Not only that, but timestamps also help Google to index the specific parts of your video as search results for related queries.

3. Improve Audience Retention

Audience retention is a calculation of the amount of time a viewer spends watching your YouTube video. As YouTube prioritizes long videos (the longer a video is, the more ads YouTube can add to it), you need to make your viewers watch as much of your video as possible by keeping their attention and interest. Backlinko research suggests that longer videos perform better than shorter ones when it comes to audience retention. But, there is no ideal length for a YouTube video to rank; just make sure to give value to viewers and encourage their activities like comments, shares, and likes on your videos.

4. Provoke Engagement

The audience’s engagements with your YouTube videos increase the organic outreach of your videos. Suppose the viewers are active in comments, likes, shares, and willingly click other videos on your YouTube channel. In that case, the YouTube SEO algorithm will start recommending your videos to a broader range of people. To provoke the Engagement, you can do the following things:

You can add a video link in the end screen of your video to encourage more interaction with your YouTube channel. By adding a video link at the end of your video, you can encourage your viewers to watch another video of yours or subscribe to your channel.

At the end of the video, you can ask a direct question for our viewers to provoke conversation. Consider asking your audience’s opinion on a subject you like or disapprove of in your video, or encourage them to ask you any questions they have after watching your video.

Be active in the comment section and show appreciation to your viewers through your comments. People are more willing to interact when they have a feeling of a community. So, show your audience you appreciate their efforts and activities on your YouTube channel, and talk to them, too.

5. Share Your Videos Via Your Own Social Channels

YouTube SEO is important, but it’s not the only way to get traffic to your YouTube videos. According to Hubspot latest report, Facebook is used by 70% of video marketers (YouTube with 87%). In a February 2019 survey, around 50% of US Facebook and Snapchat users replied that they used these social media platforms to watch videos. And, the Covid-19 pandemic has only made this percentage grow; further, that’s why social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram can be the best promoting and advertising platforms for your YouTube videos. The more social channels you share your video to, the better its traffic and Google ranking will be.

6. Build Authority

Brand recognition is one of the most crucial YouTube SEO ranking factors. If a user is offered several seemingly similar search results, the first thing they will check is whether they recognize any of the YouTube channels. So, building a YouTube channel that users can trust and remain consistent will help you brand your YouTube videos.

Here are some practical tips to earn credibility and trust for your YouTube Channel

Have a unique and recognizable name for your YouTube channel
Add a high-quality logo for your YouTube channel and videos
Add links and contact details at the header of your YouTube Channel homepage
Create a short trailer about your YouTube channel
Be authentic and original in your self-representation on YouTube Channel

7. Monitor The Performance

You must monitor your channel’s YouTube Analytics to improve your YouTube SEO. YouTube Analytics includes metrics such as demographics, traffic sources, engagement stats, search statistics, and many more. A comprehensive report of YouTube Analytics will show the general performance metrics for your videos: traffic sources, impressions, and clicks. Pay attention to click-through rates (CTR). If you optimize your videos well, the CTR will get higher. Also, YouTube Analytics’ engagement report will show you top videos, top playlists, and top elements of the videos on your YouTube channel, so you can compare the YouTube SEO optimization of the top videos to those videos that fall behind. And, the YouTube Analytics’ audience report will help you discover your viewers’ interests and watching habits. Here you will get insights into how to rank YouTube videos for your target audience. By linking your YouTube Analytics to Google Analytics, you can track transactions and conversions on both platforms, also it helps you to better optimize your videos for YouTube SEO.

Conclusion

You may think that the YouTube SEO process is a complicated thing, but it’s actually not. After reading this YouTube SEO guide, I hope you gained a clear understanding of how the YouTube SEO algorithm and Google algorithms work and how to best optimize your videos for YouTube SEO.

Do you have any experience with YouTube SEO? Or Do you have any concerns with the YouTube SEO tips listed in this article? Feel free to share them in the comments!

The post 7 Simple Steps YouTube SEO Guide to Rank Your Videos Higher in 2021 first appeared on Maverick.lk.

9 Steps Guide to Help You Create SEO-Friendly Content in 2021

The Maverick — Sat, 31 Jul 2021 08:05:08 +0000

Want to grow your business without increasing your budget for marketing? Then leverage the power of SEO-friendly Content.

However, creating SEO friendly content often requires time and effort. But, the benefits are worth it- if you do it right, SEO-friendly content will pay off in the long run.

Many people have the misconception that SEO-friendly content can’t be user-friendly. In fact, well-optimized, high-quality content essentially improves your chances of ranking higher in search results that attract more search users towards your content.

In order to help you, in this article, I’ve provided the answers for these below three questions:

What is “SEO-friendly content”?
What types of SEO-friendly content are there?
How to Create SEO-Friendly Content?

Let’s get started!

1. What is “SEO-friendly content”?

Let’s break down the phrase to understand what SEO-friendly content is.

SEO stands for search engine optimization aka the process of optimizing a website, webpage, or content for search engines like Google so that people can easily find them on search results when they search for a similar website, webpage, or content.
Content refers to any information that lives on the web and can be consumed on the web

So, SEO-friendly content is any content created in such a way that it helps to attract search engine traffic.

SEO-friendly content brings unquestionable benefits to your websites like organic traffic and audience growth. Also, SEO content can be cheaper, more enduring, and sometimes more effective than paid advertising.

2. What types of SEO-friendly content are there?

The following are the types of SEO-friendly content that will boost your organic search traffic, conversions, and revenue.

Blog Posts –Blog posts are the effective and easiest ways to create a regular flow of SEO-friendly content. Generally, blog posts are more engaging and attract more links, so they can be a great way to build authority for your website.

Articles –Most of the magazine or newspaper style websites usually publish articles like a news article, interview, and featured article. Besides, these articles drive traffic to those websites.

Infographics –Infographics contain a lot of data on a single subject which can generate more page views and links. However Infographics have so much content embedded in one large image, therefore the Infographics are not readable as text by search engines, so it’s necessary to optimize the rest of your webpage for SEO.

Directories –Directories are a useful way to gain links to websites or resources around a given topic. For example, an herbal tea blog might create a directory of places to buy that particular herbal tea, from the main department stores to individual shops around the nation.

Lists –Actually the list is a kind of article, but we’re framing it as a list like “Top 10 Powerful LinkedIn Automation Tools” or “60+ SureFire ECommerce Statistics” which makes list articles easier to scan. These types of list titles seem to be more clickable when found in social media feeds or search results.

Guides –A guide is a longer piece of content that explains how to do something in detail. You can post an entire guide on your website or you can post an excerpt or summary and ask your visitors to fill out a registration form in order to read the complete guide. Putting up a registration form is a good way to generate leads but at the same time, most likely it will reduce the number of SEO traffic you can generate to that guide.

Videos –It can be easier to rank on the first page for a competitive keyword with a video than an article. Therefore, video is a great way to attract and reach more audiences, but the results depend on what type of business or website you’re running. So, consider creating videos on your business process or tutorial videos for how to use your products, besides, don’t forget to add a text transcript of your videos.
Product Pages –A good product page can serve as both SEO content and a PPC landing page for any retail or eCommerce website which gives both traffic and leads for the business sites.

The eight types of SEO-friendly content that I’ve listed above are proven to bring a lot of organic traffic. But don’t let this list limit your possibilities. There endless choices on the web to create SEO-friendly content.

Now, let’s look into the strategies to create SEO-friendly content!

3. How to Create SEO-Friendly Content?

If you have been creating content in a random manner, and hoping that some of your content eventually rank up on search results, it’s time to roll up your sleeves and commit to a more systematic SEO content strategy for the web.

Here are the nine steps to define and refine your SEO content strategy:

1) Begin with Keyword Research

While present SEO encouraging content makers to create thought-leadership types of content, Keywords still play a vital role. Finding the right keywords will help you to both satisfy your target audience and rule the search results.

While choosing your target keywords, consider the following factors:

Understand your search intent behind the keywords you want to use in your content
Research more resources to create content that competes with the content already shown up in the search results.
The volume of searches for a particular keyword in a given time frame, because using the wrong keywords will lead to a waste of your time and efforts.
Focus on long-tail keywords even though they might have a low search volume, they still give a high possibility to rank on the SERPs. As people often use longer phrases when they want to find out more specific information about a particular search topic.

Google suggests that you need to “think about the words and phrases that a user might search for to find a piece of your content.” For an article, you’d need to start your research with the right keyword. And for that particular article, you’d need to pick one primary keyword and up to 5-10 additional target keywords.

Select a Primary Keyword

When you’re writing a blog or an article, it’s obvious to feel the temptation to add as many keywords as possible and optimize your content for all those keywords. But, this practice will make your content less comprehensive.

Therefore it’s advisable to choose one primary keyword and dig deeper with it. Your primary keyword should be the main focus of your entire content.

Use Additional Keywords

Additional keywords should be closely related to your primary keyword so that including them in the content doesn’t change the main focus of the content. You can use free tools like LSIGraph to generate semantic, long-tail, and LSI keywords that are related to your primary keyword.

Below I’ve listed down some great ways to let you perform exceptional keyword research for your SEO friendly content:

1) Use keyword research tools like Google Keyword Planner, SE Ranking Keyword Suggestion tool or AnswerThePublic.

2) Use Google’s Related Searches to learn more about your target audience and what their search intent is

3) Google Autocompletewill provides keyword suggestions based on real user queries that help you to select the keywords just the way people do the search.

4) Wikipedia is a high ranking and authoritative online resource made by humans that people trust, refer to, and use. You can search for topic-specific pages on Wikipedia to find the most related keywords.

5) Use Quorato to find new variations of your target keywords, as many people use Quora to discuss numerous topics that aren’t filtered by search.

6) Check out different Industry Forums in your niche to see what types of topics and questions your target audiences are interested in.

7) Watch out for your main competitors and find out which keywords are driving quality traffic to their websites.

Once you find out your primary keyword and other related target keywords, make sure to add them in the right places in your content, like in your content:

Title
URL
Meta description
H1-H6 heading tags
Image names and alt tags

Remember, over-using keywords will hamper your content readability, so avoid keyword stuffing and include your keywords throughout the content in a natural way.

Most importantly, create different types of content that answer questions or solve the problems of your target audience.

2) Define Your Search Intent and Identify the Format

Search intent is the why behind a search query means search intent is what users are trying to attain, and what they expect to get when typing or voicing a search query. Google pays a lot of consideration to educate its algorithms to evaluate users’ search intent correctly and encourages content makers to answer the search queries with relevant content.

Based on the search intent for a keyword, your content format, the message you convey in your content and the call to action you choose will vary. There are four types of search intent that we can categorize:

Informational –Searchers looking for specific information
Commercial –Searchers looking to purchase something or want to explore their options
Transactional –Searchers want to buy something
Navigational –Searchers looking for a specific website or webpage.

Here are some hints for keywords that you can use for the above-mentioned search intent types:

Informational –Question words like “how”, “what”, guide, tutorial, or list words like “top”, “checklist”, “best” in the title.
Commercial –Product modifying words like “review”, “cheapest”, “affordable” or “comparison”
Transactional –Words like “buy”, “discount”, “and price “, ” coupon”
Navigational –Names of product, brand, or service.

These hint words help you to determine the keywords for the specific search intent.

You can also use Google SERP features like featured snippets, People Also Ask, Google Ads, and Google Shopping ads to determine the keywords for the search intent.

According to the search intent and keywords, now you can identify the best format for your content.

3) Generate Well-Optimized Meta Title

The Meta title tag is an HTML code element that specifies the title of a webpage. Meta title tags showed on SERPs as the clickable headline for given search results. Therefore, the Meta title tag is one of the most important parts of both SEO and search user experience. That’s why it’s essential to create a well-optimized Meta title tag. Let see what are elements you need to focus on while optimizing your Meta title tag.

Primary keywords First – Primary keywords closer to the beginning of your Meta title tag may have more impact on search rankings. Ensure to always begin your title with your primary keywords to emphasize their relevancy and importance.

Meta Title Length – If your Meta title is longer than 50-60 characters, search engines may shorten it and could end up omitting important words from your title. Also, avoid writing your title in ALL CAPS LETTERS, they may be tough for search users to read, and may rigorously limit the number of characters search engines will show on the SERP results.

Write For Your Customers – SEO-wise, Meta title tags are very important but don’t forget that your first job is to attract clicks from your well-targeted search users who are likely to find your content valuable. So, it’s important to think about the user experience when you’re creating your Meta title tags. Along with keyword usage and Meta title tag optimization, also, you need to focus on the attractiveness of your Meta title tag. Because the Meta title tag is a new visitor’s first impression and interaction with your content when they find it in a search result. Hence, it should convey the most positive and valuable message possible.

4) Write Catchy H1 Title

H1 title is an HTML heading tag that plays an important role in structuring your content. H1 Heading tag gives both the website visitors and the search engines a clue about the content’s hierarchy and relevancy. Besides, including keywords in the H1 heading tag can help you to boost your search rankings.

Practically, your web content has two titles: the Meta title tag presented in your search snippet, and then the H1 heading tag which is displayed on the page itself that defines a page’s main content. H1 heading tag should be highly related to the content and unique across your website, and a page may only contain one H1 heading. Besides, don’t add the H1 heading tag in the image, since search engines don’t recognize images very well, you’d be missing out on an opportunity to signal to search engines what your content is about.

5) Create a Perfectly Optimized Meta Description

The Meta description is a snippet of short text up to about 155 characters that summarize the content. So it is important to optimize it appealing and informative to encourage search users to click your content.

There is no direct ranking benefit from the Meta description, but, Meta description impacts your click-through rate (CTR). If more people click on your web link, Google considers your content to be a good result, and based on your present ranking position, it will move up your rankings. That’s why optimizing the Meta description is so crucial, as is optimizing your title tags.

6) Structure Your Content for Readability

For instance, imagine you’re opening one of the search results on Google and there you found one continuous piece of plain text. Would you continue your reading? Definitely not, right? That’s why it’s essential to have a good structure for your high-quality content.

Adding subheadings will make your content scannable and increase its readability. With H2+H3 heading tags you can boost your content performance in terms of likes, shares, backlinks and traffic. You can structure your content and improve its readability by breaking your content into paragraphs, adding visual images, videos, tables, charts, etc, and including H2 and H3 heading tags. Plus, you can use, highlights, bullets, and numbered lists to enhance your content structure and readability.

Always, make sure to optimize your content before publishing it. While optimizing your content ensure that it is written in an SEO-friendly style, has a consistent tone throughout the content, and has unique text. Also, add recommended keywords and optimize the content length and reading time.

7) Enhance Your Content with Visuals

According to research, people remember only 10% of the information they hear, but they remember up to 65% of the information when they see it visually. So, using visuals in your content make it more memorable for your audience and increases the chances of content shares.

Adding multiple visual media like images, videos, gifs, and infographics can enhance your content’s SEO benefits, keep your users engaged, and gives search engines a strong cue that it’s high-quality content. Also, this will make your content SEO-friendly and eligible for image search. Consider the following factors while adding visuals to your content.

Alt Tags Attributes – Alt tags are HTML codes that describe your image and amplify the context of your content. Even though they are not visible on the page, search engines can read them to better understand the images in your content.

Compress Media Files – Use standard image sizes/formats and compress your images before uploading them to your content. Compressing your image files will have a positive effect on loading speed and enhance the overall user experience.

Use Descriptive Names – Google does recommend keeping descriptive filenames for your images, it will enhance your content quality. Filenames should probably be a short version of your alt tags.

8) Create SEO-Friendly URLs

Both your website visitors and search engines prefer well-structured and consistent URLs. So, it’s a good idea to stick with them. Here are the steps to create optimized SEO-friendly URLs before you hit publish your content.

Use Keyword in URL – Include the primary keyword in your URL, as a keyword-rich URL can improve your URL’s click-through rates (CTR) in search results. Also, URLs are a part of your snippet, so having a keyword on your URL makes them more relevant and generates more clicks for your content.

Avoid Special Characters – Special characters and symbols can cause unwanted troubles in your URLs, they can cause your URL links to break and make them hard to read. So, avoid using special characters and symbols while writing your URLs.

Avoid Unnecessary Words – Short URLs are better because URLs that are over 50-60 characters long will be shortened in SERP. Thus, long URLs can impact user experience, also shorter URLs are easier to share on social media. So keep your URL length to less than 100 characters and cut out unnecessary words around the keyword to give more clarity.

Avoid Stop Words and Automated Numeric Labels – Search engines often filter or ignore Stop Words like “and”, “but”, etc. Therefore, cut down on stop words to make your URLs shorter and more readable. Some CMS platforms automatically generate URLs that include numeric and awkward labeling, which can give a messy or confusing look to your URLs. So, avoid these numeric labels to make cleaner-looking URLs that your readers will understand and recognize.

9) Optimize Your Internal Linking

Internal Links are hyperlinks that go from one page on a website to a different page on the same website. Internal links are most helpful for building website architecture and spreading link equity across the website’s content. Also, internal linking passes authority from popular content to less popular content.

As you create new content, you should link to other relevant content, this way you can make your visitors stay longer on your website, and in return, they will gather more information from your website content. Adding a recommendation system is the automatic way to suggests content that is related to the one currently viewed. Plus, you can add internal links within your main content through various “read more” and “click here” suggestions. Internal linking also helps search engines to regularly discover contextually relevant content on your website.

Conclusion

Here you have it! As I mentioned above, sure, it’ll take lots of time and effort to create SEO-Friendly content. But, in the long run, it will be extremely beneficial. The above checklist of nine SEO content strategies will help you to make SEO-friendly content that ensures more shares, likes, leads, links, and repeat visitors for your content.

I’ve used these SEO content strategies to increase my blog’s traffic. So, I assured you that you will generate more traffic, improve your brand with these SEO content strategies.

If you’re not leveraging SEO-friendly content to improve organic rankings and captivate your target audience, I highly recommend that now is the best time to begin.

Do you have any other tactics to maximize the SEO friendliness of content? Or if you have any questions about creating and optimizing content for SEO, please, let me know them in the comments.

The post 9 Steps Guide to Help You Create SEO-Friendly Content in 2021 first appeared on Maverick.lk.

Actionable On Page SEO Checklist (2021)

The Maverick — Wed, 21 Jul 2021 14:18:54 +0000

A practical walkthrough of 13 key On Page SEO checklist to get a perfectly optimized page.

With search engines looking at more than 200 SEO factors when ranking a website, how do you know which ones to focus on? Or better yet, what steps do you need to take first to boost your search rankings? The ultimate goal of your SEO effort is to get your web pages to appear in search results. But, for that, you have to build your web pages in the right way. So, let’s check out the 13 key On-Page SEO factors to make a perfectly optimized page. I keep the post handy for a quick check-through that you’re not falling short in any part.

Leverage SEO-Friendly URLs

Both your website visitors and search engines prefer well-structured and consistent URLs. So, it’s a good idea to stick with them. Here are the steps to create an optimized permalink before you hit publish.

Use Keyword in URL

I do recommend you to include the main keyword in your URLs, as a keyword-rich URL can improve your URL click-through-rates (CTR) in search results. Also, URLs are a part of your snippet, so having a keyword on your URLs makes them more relevant.

Avoid Special Characters

Special characters and symbols can cause unwanted troubles in your URLs, can cause your URL links to breaking, and make them hard to read. So, avoid using unsafe special characters and symbols while writing your URLs.

Avoid Unnecessary Words

Short URLs are better than long URLs because URLs that are over 50-60 characters long will be shortened in SERP. Thus, long URLs can impact user experience, also shorter URLs are easier to share on social media. So keep your URL length to less than 100 characters and cut out unnecessary words around the keyword to give more clarity.

Avoid Stop Words and Automated Numeric Labels

Search engines often filter or ignore Stop Words like “and”, “but”, etc. Therefore, cut down on stop words to make your URLs shorter and more readable. Some CMS platforms automatically generate URLs that include numeric and awkward labeling, which can give a messy or confusing look to your URLs. So, avoid these numeric labels to make cleaner-looking URLs that your readers will understand and recognize.

Perfectly Optimized Title Tag

The title tag is an HTML element that specifies the title of a web page. Title tags showed on SERPs as the clickable headline for given search results. Therefore, the title tag is one of the most important parts of both SEO and search user experience. That’s why it’s essential to optimize your title tag. Let see what are elements you need to focus on while optimizing your title tag.

Put Main keywords First

Main keywords closer to the beginning of your title tag may have more impact on search rankings. Ensure to always begin your title with your main keywords to emphasize their relevancy and importance. Plus, according to user experience research, people may scan as few as the first two words of a headline. This is why I recommend adding the main keywords at first in the titles.

Watch Your Title Length

If your title is longer than 50-60 characters, search engines may shorten it by adding an ellipsis (“…”) and could end up omitting important words from your title. Also, avoid writing your title in ALL CAPS, they may be tough for search users to read, and may rigorously limit the number of characters search engines will show on the SERP results. It’s really good to be aware of how your titles appear in search results, but there are no penalties for using a long title on your content. Here you need to use your judgmental mind and think like a search user while writing your title tag.

Write For Your Customers

Title tags are very important but don’t forget that your first job is to attract clicks from well-targeted search users who are likely to find your content valuable. So, it’s important to think about the user experience when you’re creating your title tags. Along with keyword usage and title tag optimization, also, you need to focus on the attractiveness of your title tag. Because the title tag is a new visitor’s first impression and interaction with your brand when they find it in a search result. Hence, it should convey the most positive and valuable message possible.

The Right Meta Description

The Meta description is a snippet of short text up to about 155 characters that summarize a page’s content. Most search engines show it in search results when the phrase of the searched query exactly matched with the phrase within the Meta description. So optimizing it is important for on-page SEO.

There is no direct ranking benefit from the meta description, but, meta description impacts your click-through-rate (CTR) and Google uses CTR as a factor to determine whether you’re a good result or not. If more people click on your web link, Google considers you to be a good result, and based on your present ranking position, it will move up your rankings. That’s why optimizing the Meta description is so crucial, as is optimizing your title tags.

Schema Markup

Schema Markup Structured data is a semantic vocabulary of tags that you can include in your HTML to improve the way search engines read and represent your page in SERPs by enhancing the rich snippets that are displayed beneath the page title.

Not every web content gets the benefit from schema markup, but, some web pages will have a tough time ranking in search engines without it. However, you need some extra skills to use schema markup, there are mainly two possibilities to build your schema markup for the first time:

WordPress Plugins

WordPress offers plenty of plugins for structured data optimization. If your website is built on WordPress, you can use those plugins to create your own schema markup.

Google’s Markup Helper

You can use Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper to build your schema markup. This tool helps you to apply your own schema markup in a user-friendly way. Just select the type of page you’re creating, highlight your page elements, and assign your type of schema markup. When it’s done, download the HTML file and upload it to your website.

Optimize Heading Tags

HTML heading tags (H1-H6) play an important role in structuring your website’s content. Heading tags give both the website visitors and the search engines a clue about the website content’s hierarchy and relevancy. Besides, including keywords in the heading tags can help you to boost your search rankings.

H1 Heading Tag

Technical wise, your web pages have two titles: the title tag that is presented in your search snippet, and then the H1 heading tag which is displayed on the page itself that defines a page’s main topic. H1 heading tag should be highly related to the content and unique across your website, and a page may only contain one H1 heading. Besides, don’t add the H1 heading tag in the image, since search engines don’t recognize images very well, you’d be missing out on an opportunity to signal to search engines what your web page is about.

H2–H6 Headings Tags

H2–H6 headings are used to further structure your web page content. Therefore, using H2 headings is highly recommended, as H2 heading tags split your content into high-level segments which help users to easily navigate your page content, also help search engines to understand what the web page is about, so make them more informative with secondary keywords. Using H3-H6 headings is optional; you can use them to mark further subsections within the content.

Optimum Keyword Density

Unfortunately, there is no defined rule for how many times a keyword should appear on-page content. Search engines do not announce an accurate percentage for target keyword density, so you must use some of the best practices to optimize your keywords. Let’s check out the best keyword optimization practices.

Focus On Keyword Use

The best content is written for readers first. So, write naturally that provide value to your readers and use the keyword organically in your content. Also, make sure you drop your keyword somewhere in the first 100 words that help search engines to understand what your page content is all about.

Use Keyword Variations

Search engines have the ability to recognize and associate similar word forms related to the target keyword. Usually, these keyword variations include a prefix, suffix, or pluralization to a target keyword. For example, the keyword Digital Marketer could be Digital Marketers or Digital Marketing. Because search engines recognize and associate these words. Accordingly, use keyword variations in your content to support your target keyword while adding textural variety to your page content.

Evaluate Content-Length

There are many great articles on the web that provide some insights into the “ideal” content length of a piece of content or blog post. For example, a study conducted by the Search Engine Journal in 2016 found that the average word count for top-ranking content on SERPs results is around 1,900 words. In fact, the exact number keeps on changing and currently it hangs around 2,000 words per page. Based on these data one thing is clear that there is no such thing as the ideal content length, what matters more is to cover the topic fully in your content.

But, still, there are few reasons why lengthy content tends to rank better on search engines. First, more words often mean more value and authority. This leads to visitors staying on the particular web page longer and not requiring to go elsewhere to get the information they need and longer content often has higher social engagement, too. Consequently, all of these factors can tell search engines that your piece of content is substantive, valuable, and useful to visitors. However, ideal content lengths vary depending on the topic, keyword, and the competition, so, instead of using some random number for all of your pages’ content, I do recommend you to determine the word count for each of your page content individually according to the topic, keyword, and the competition.

Visual Media Optimization

Now, let’s look at the element that makes your content more attractive to users. Adding multiple visual media like images, videos, gifs and infographics can enhance your SEO benefits, keep your users engaged, and gives search engines a strong cue that this page has higher quality content. Also, this will make your page eligible for image search, and it can actually drive backlinks to your website.

Alt Tags Attributes

Alt tags are HTML codes that describe your image and amplify the context of your content. Even though they are not visible on the page, search engines can read them to better understand the page images. Besides, make sure to avoid Keyword stuffing and long alt tags.

Compress Media Files

Use standard image sizes/formats and compress your images before uploading them to your web page. Compressing your image files will have a positive effect on your page speed and enhance the overall user experience. If you don’t have any prior experience in image compressing, you can use an online image compressor or a CMS plugin to compress your image files.

Use Descriptive Names

Even though it’s not a major ranking signal, Google does recommend keeping descriptive filenames for your images. Filenames should probably be a short version of your alt tags. However, you don’t need to worry about the filenames.

Above-the-Fold Content

“Above the fold “content refers to the top part of the page visible when it’s just loaded, besides, it’s a term that comes from newspaper editors and becomes an SEO concept after Google’s page layout update. This “above the fold” part is what makes the first impression on your website visitors and Google pays special attention to it.

Avoid Distractions

With the page layout update, Google started penalizing websites for lots of pop-ups, distracting ads, and other obstacles that get in the way of above the imaginary fold. So, when designing your web pages, ensure to keep distractions to a minimum, especially on mobile devices, as mobile screens are smaller distractions may seem bigger.

Core Web Vitals

Recently, Google has introduced the concept of user experience metrics called Core Web Vitals that are measured based on the above-the-fold content. Particularly, how fast the above-the-fold content part loads, how stable it is while the page loading, and how faster it becomes interactive for the users.

Optimize Internal Links

Internal Links are hyperlinks that go from one page on a website to a different page on the same website. Internal links are most helpful for building website architecture and spreading link equity across the website. Also, internal linking passes authority from popular webpages to less popular webpages.

As you create a new webpage, you should link to other relevant webpages and conversion points this way you can make your visitors stay longer on your website and eventually move them down the sales funnel. Adding a recommendation system is the automatic way to suggests web pages that are related to the ones currently viewed. Plus, you can add internal links within your main content through various “read more” and “click here” suggestions.

Optimize Outbound Links

Outbound links are one of the most undervalued tactics of on-page SEO optimization. But, by linking your content to high-quality websites you can pull their authority towards your own website and provides relevancy signals that help search engines determine your page’s topic.

So, whenever you create new content, see whether you can link to other relevant websites. But, don’t overdo your linking, because certainly, you don’t want Google to get suspicious about your linking and you don’t want to lead your visitors away from your website.

Mobile-friendliness

Nowadays people are almost always on their smartphones and people mostly conducted their queries through their mobile devices. More importantly, Google has already started migrating websites to mobile-first indexing. That means Google will first look at your website’s mobile version when crawling, indexing, and ranking your website.

Therefore, mobile-friendliness has turned into a “must” from “nice-to-have”, if your web pages aren’t optimized for mobile devices; it’s most likely to be excluded completely from mobile search results. Responsive web design is possibly the most widely used solution to go mobile-friendly and Google recommends it too. If you use WordPress or any other CMS platforms you can use a responsive template for your website. In case there is no CMS in place, there are some guidelines available on adapting the responsive design for your website. Sure, it’ll take a bit of work but it’s worth it.

Optimize Comment section

In case, if you allow comments on your website, you should ensure that links posted through comments are automatically set to nofollow, this way you can avoid the passing of any link juice and it will discourage others from spamming your comment section with their links.

Platforms like WordPress, Disqus, and Facebook automatically add the no-follow tag to all links while integrating the comment section on the platforms. So, it’s a matter of whether you’re using a custom solution or an extra plugin.

Conclusion

These are the most important On-Page SEO tactics that will help you to get better rankings in the search engines. If you take into account, most of the factors listed above are actually pretty easy to implement. So, give them a try!

Many brands make the mistake of messing up with their URL structure, hence focus on fixing it first. It’s one of the hardest SEO factors to fix, but it’ll give you long-term benefits. The rest of the factors can be fixed over time, and they aren’t that much complicated. I hope you found this new on-page SEO guide useful for your page optimization.

Is On-Page SEO Still Important in 2021? Now it’s time to hear from you! Do you find out the reasons to boost your ranking? Let me know by leaving a comment below.

The post Actionable On Page SEO Checklist (2021) first appeared on Maverick.lk.

Google Analytics 4 : Top 20 Exciting New Features

The Maverick — Mon, 19 Jul 2021 23:32:35 +0000

If you have heard the term Google Analytics 4 or GA4 and are somewhat familiar with Google Analytics, then this short blog post is for you. The intent of this post is to highlight a few things about Google Analytics 4 without going into the details. As GA4 improves, new items will be added to this post and updated versions will be released.

Top 20 highlights of the Google Analytics 4

It is the latest free version of Google Analytics.
It is widely called GA4. No, the previous version is not called GA3, the previous version is called Universal Analytics.
The upgrade process from Universal Analytics to GA4 is not really an upgrade, it just creates a new GA4 property.
GA4 does not have a concept of “Views” and you can even run along with Universal Analytics.
You cannot move your data from Universal Analytics to GA4 and the data mode of GA4 is completely different from the old version.
In this new model, almost everything in GA4 is either tied to events or users.
Events are actions that happen on your site with or without user interaction. e.g., session start, page scroll, etc.
Events in GA4 can have 35 parameters unlike Universal Analytics, which only had 3.
Google Analytics 4 can capture 6 events by default, these are called Enhanced Measurement.
Enhanced Measurement events are Pageview, Scroll, Outbound link, Downloads, On-Site search, and YouTube video engagement.
GA4 also provides a list of recommended events by verticals so you do not have a figure out what to capture.
If Recommended events and enhanced events do not meet your needs, you can create your own custom events and reports with third-party Data Platforms such as Dashthis.
In GA4 you can configure events based on pages, right within the GA admin interface.
GA4 has a metric called Engagement sessions instead of “Bounce Rate” though it is not the opposite of “Bounce Rate”.
An engaged Session is a session that stayed on the site/app for 10 seconds or more or had a conversion event or views two pages or screens.
GA4 has a built-in debugger that allows you to debug tracking and activity on your site and app
Exploration has many exploration techniques. These e-commerce techniques are, Freeform, Funnel Exploration, Path exploration, Segment overlap, User Explorer, Cohort Exploration, and User lifetime.
In GA you can drill down see activity for each individual user using User Explorer in Exploration.
In addition to the above Exploration techniques, GA4 also has various templates to explore data for several business use cases and verticals.
GA4 has direct integration with BigQuery & you can send real-time data from GA4 to BigQuery.

Conclusion:

Google Analytics 4 is now rolled out. Upgrade from UA to GA 4 is usually means that you lose the previous version and just get the new functionality, right? Well, that is not the case with the Google Analytics upgrade to Google Analytics 4. Upgrade in this case means that you will get a new Google Analytics property that will take some basic settings from your current Google Analytics property and use those to set up a new Google Analytics 4 property.

So, there is no need to worry about losing your existing property. After the upgrade process is complete, you will have two properties collecting data for your website. This gives you an opportunity to play with the new version without losing your existing setup and functionality.

If you are a data-driven marketer, then I hope the above 20 facts about Google Analytics version 4 are interesting findings for you! Let me what do you think? Anything new spotted on GA4? Let me know in the comment box below.

The post Google Analytics 4 : Top 20 Exciting New Features first appeared on Maverick.lk.