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How To Create a Successful Website – 10 Factors That Matter

Posted on October 15, 2018 by NextJSjointviews

Creating a website has become very easy today. You can have a website up and running within a few hours. And no, you don’t need to be a computer engineer or a coder to create your website. Website creation platforms have made it easy for any layman to come up with a website all by herself.

However, the challenge is in creating a successful website that serves the purpose you built it for. This could be getting sales, selling events, creating a brand or a non-profitable cause. Nobody wants a website that has little traffic and makes no impact.

There are many factors that go into making a website successful. Here we list the 10 most important factors that matter. From ideation to monetization, these steps cover everything and even mention common mistakes new website creators make.

1. Goal Setting

Your website could be the start of a new business or an addition to your current business. In any case, defining the purpose of your website is a must before you start. Ask yourself why you are building this website? Is it to makes sales, get publicity or build a loyal audience for? After the purpose is defined you should set a concrete goal for your website.

It’s advisable to write down a goal statement for your website. The goal should be SMART – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound. An example of a SMART goal could be – build a mailing list of 1000 would-be-brides using lead-pages in next 3 months.

Very few people set concrete goals for their online presence and this is why most websites fail. When you have your goal in front of you, you can build plans to achieve it. Without a goal and plan you are just shooting in the dark and are likely to lose track of your purpose.

2. Market Analysis

Once you have the goal clear you will know the market you want to compete in. Picking the right niche is especially important for sites that want to attract traffic and make money out of it. Even if your site is only for brand building and web-presence it makes sense to see sites of related business and learn from it.

Its advisable to pick a niche (market segment) that is specific yet sizable. Some examples of niche are – gamers, would-be-moms, technology geeks etc. It’s very important to survey the web for sites that are already catering to the niche you have chosen. Some online business chase after niches that are already overflowing with great quality content and end up failing.

For example, it would be foolish to start a website about technology gadgets. Huge websites like Forbes and Wired are already publishing great content everyday! Unless you have 50 years or 10 million in your bank account, it would be a total loss to enter this niche. You site will never be found in Google against these giant sites.

What you can do is pick up a narrower market within that niche. So instead of going for gadgets in general, you could go for gadgets for teenage gamers.

3. Hosting and Domain Name

If you are just getting started website creation platforms like WordPress, Joomla and Wix are quick and easy way to build your site. They offer hosting, domain name and themes themselves or in partnerships with other hosting companies. You can also purchase domain name and hosting from a domain register and web hosting company (like Go Daddy or Bluehost). These can then be integrated into WordPress, Joomla or Wix.

Domain name should clearly reflect what your site is about and should be memorable. Although domain extensions (.com, .net, .co.in etc.) do not affect SEO directly, .com is always preferred because it is default in the minds of most users.

As far as hosting is concerned buy from a company that is reputed and has a great customer support. If you do not have technical knowledge it is important that your hosting company supports you with 24×7 live chat in. For some companies live chat is only available on premium plans. Its advisable to sigh up for that or upgrade to it as soon as possible. Issues like domain linking, data backup, website downtime or security concerns are common so chose your hosting wisely.

Shared hosting (like the one Bluehost offers) is perfect for new websites on a limited budgets. The basic plan costs you less than $3 a month. Once you scale up you can always switch to dedicated servers which cost more than$100 a month.

4. Theme and Design

Theme and design affect the user experience on your site. If you got the first steps of setting a goal and picking a niche market right, you will know exactly who your target audience is by now. Design is all about putting yourself in your visitor’s position and knowing what will appeal to them.

As far as themes are concerned you can get hundreds of free themes or buy one between $10 to $100.Free themes will limit site customization and give you less control compared to paid ones. However, based on your needs even a free one could be perfect for you. So spend time and select a theme that serves your purpose now. Remember, you can always change your theme in future.

5. User Experience

Design your site according to the purpose of your visitor. Too many people get caught up on making their site look pretty and forget about functionality. Remember that the visitor is not coming to your site to marvel at design but to complete a sale / read a blog. Amazon can make their site more minimalistic and beautiful, but that will not serve the purpose of visitors who come there for reviews and description of products they want to buy.

Make a flowchart of what the visitor’s journey should be on your website. Develop a sitemap and menu navigation that reflect this journey. This should also give a clear idea of where to place call to action buttons and layout of lead-pages.

6. Traffic Generation

You have made an amazing site that caters to a great niche. Now how do you make sure the right people come to it? Just publishing your site does not get traffic to your site and you will have to use one of the following ways to get visitors on your site:

Social Media – You could build your social media following and direct them to your site. Platforms like Instagram and Pintrest are great for visual products like fashion and visual arts. LinkedIn is great for attracting B2B customers.
Mailing List – You could send our weekly mailers linking to your site if you already have a mailing list. This could be the email addresses of your past customers or leads collected through marketing.
SEO – You could simply rely on Google to get you traffic by aiming to rank high on Google search results. This requires some time and content stategy.
Paid Ads- You could place ads in Google, Facebook, Instagram etc.to show your site to people who fit your target market profile? This is a very targeted and profitable way to get your site going however its not sustainable for long term.

In whatever method you choose above, you need to have quality content to share on social media, send in mailers and to rank on Google. This brings us to the next important factor that matters in creating a successful website.

7. Content

Content is the backbone of any website today. As softwares are get smarter at blocking ads, sites have to rely on value-added content to pull people in. A good title in search result is what compels people to visit your site. If you answer their question or solve their need by the end of the blog/ video, you have earned their trust..

Unless you are purely into e-commerce it is a must to have blogs, videos or podcasts that will get people to your website.

You can only be found on web if you write about what people are searching for or help them out in some way. This can be done by writing helpful blogs, e-books or guides. But perhaps the most important form of content today is video. Video already accounts for 73% of all internet traffic and is estimated to go upto 83% by 2020 (Cisco). Youtube is one of the best ways to generate traffic and build a loyal audience today.

You can make how-to videos, screenshot videos or live-shoots based on your topic. If you are a small start- up even videos of helpful tips shot on your mobile phone will do. The important factor is that the content should be helpful, entertaining of educational. People prefer videos to reading a blog so you just cannot miss on video marketing today.

8. Security

Imagine losing your site to hacking attacks once you have started getting traffic. This is not uncommon and hundreds of websites running on WordPress and Joomla are hacked every day. The most common motive to hack websites is to redirect your traffic to malicious sites, send phishing emails or serve illegal files. So your site doesn’t have to be big for it to be hacked. Its better to be secure from the day you set up your site.

Getting your site up and running and retrieving all your data can be a nightmare for a common man in case of hacking attack. Follow these best practices to avoide falling prey:

Update to latest versions of CMS software and plugins
Monitor your Comments and public forums for hacking scripts
Use strong passwords for you and your user’s logins
Do not allow file uploads without scrutiny
Get your site checked with free security tools like Netsparker or OpenVAS
If you collect visitor information or sell online you have the additional responsibility of ensuring that the visitor’s information is safe. Use HTTPS protocol for your site

9. Collaboration

Social media is all about collaboration and cross promotion. Influencer marketing has emerged as an effective marketing strategy and has replaced traditional marketing for many brands. The reason is simple. Influencers may have lesser eyeballs than television or hoardings but they are deeply connected to their followers online. Collaborating with real people in your niche is one of the best ways to get quality following to your website.

Influencer marketing is not the only way you can collaborate. Off-line events and promotions are also great to get noticed by your market. Do not discount the power of seminars, exhibitions and on ground communities when it comes to promoting your website.

You can also work with brands that are complementary to your niche. For example, a gaming website could partner in an Xbox event for gamers.

10. Continuous Improvement

Never make the mistake of thinking your website is ready and can be left to get traffic. Things are always changing in digital world. There will be new websites coming in, newer tools manage websites and new ways to market online. While you don’t have to work as hard as you did while creating the website, some amount of weekly time for maintenance is a good idea, only if you want to grow your business.

For continuous monitoring and improvement, use tools like Google console. It gives you traffic to your site, pageviews, bounce rates and average browsing time. Based on these statistics you can know what content is working for your audience and tweak your strategy accordingly.

Tools by Hubspot give you services to manage you email marketing and content marketing. Heatmap and visitor activity report by Crazy is great way to know what your visitors are doing on your site and where they are dropping out.

There are many more tools improve your site daily and collect more feedback. Perfecting your website and conversion funnel is a never ending process and it will depend on how far you want your website to go.

Also Read : Why Website Design Is Important For SEO

Why Website Design Is Important For SEO

Posted on August 31, 2018 by NextJSjointviews

If you are under the impression that website design and search engine optimization (SEO) are two independent activities, then it is not correct.

As a business owner, you must understand that both are related and any failure in recognizing the fact could adversely affect your business.

Aesthetics should be considered when designing your website, but it important to keep in mind the fact that website design encompasses much more than that.

It has the potential to impact everything from SEO and number of visitors to conversion rates and branding.

Good Website Design Is Important

The result of a study to determine whether the content factors and different design elements had an influence on the trust of visitors coming to the websites showed that website design is more important than content.

When the people who participated in the survey were asked as to why they mistrusted websites, the comments of 94 percent of the participants towards the website design elements. Only 6 percent of them made any reference to specific content.

Content Is Important

Website design might be very important, but content relevance and quality continue to be vital. When the participants of the abovementioned survey were asked as to why they trusted a particular website, the answers given by 83 percent of them revealed that content did have a key role to play.

People like websites that are informative, relevant, clear, unbiased, and fresh. Further, they like websites much better when age-specific information is given and answers to questions that come up often are provided.

Fonts and other typographic elements are also important, but the focus should be on delivering more accurate messages to your audience.

Anyway, overdoing these elements may not do any kind of additional good to your website. Too much content can mess up your web pages and affect the conversion rates.

Website Design Has Far-Reaching Effects

Both website design and content are important and they go hand-in-hand. However, it is the quality of design that attracts visitors to your website and makes them spend time and read the content you have provides.

According to website design and internet marketing experts, it is important to design your website, keeping the needs of your entire business in view. Or else, you will find it difficult to compete in the market.

Therefore, when you design your site to make it attractive to the visitors, it should also be kept in mind that it has the potential impact the other areas of your business.

Relationship Between Website Design and SEO

When creating your website, keeping SEO in mind, it is important that you think long term. Design trends keep changing, but the presence of your brand has to last for a much longer time.

Therefore, it is not wise to focus too much on the trends. It can cause problems for you. However, you should not completely neglect the prevailing styles.

To give you an example, a trending design style may be very attractive. Users may like the design because of the convenience the style provides. As a website owner, you may like to use the style because it keeps the users engaged.

However, what is more important is to determine whether the search engines like the trending style or not. As you remove the website structure that the search engines are traditionally used to crawling, you might be inviting problems for yourself.

On the other hand, you may really want to embrace the trending responsive designs for websites. This is because, in the near future, Internet searches are likely to be done more on smartphones rather than desktops and laptops.

There is a tremendous increase in the number of smartphone users around the world. Further, the search engines have started rewarding websites that invest in creating responsive web pages.

In addition to eliminating the need to run two separate websites and the risk of paying penalties for providing duplicate content, it helps you to greatly bring down the bounce rates.

The examples given above give you a fair idea as to why it is important to connect website design and SEO. However, there are a few other factors that need to be kept in mind when designing your website.

Website Design and Branding

You need to make a distinction between website design and branding. The design of your website cannot be considered as your brand at all.

Of course, it is a brand element that can help you to build trust among your target audience. Branding is actually an investment. It grows over time and makes people say that they have trust in your products and services.

Brands are perceptions and the elements of branding such as logos, trademarks, names, taglines, and packaging, are the shortcuts to reach those perceptions.

Typically, consumers tend to lean towards trusted brands. They will buy products and services when they are able to correlate with a strong brand.

As such, from the website design perspective, it is very clear that the elements of design you choose will have a direct impact on your overall branding strategy as well as market position.

Website Design and Conversion Rates

Website design also affects the conversion rates, particularly with respect to the elements listed below:

1. Navigation

It is very easy to understand as to how accessibility and navigation are related to the conversion rates. If your web site’s design is such that it presents challenges to the visitors, then they are likely to lose interest quickly.

On the other hand, an intuitive website structure will encourage users to remain on your site and continue browsing. Navigation assumes a lot of importance when there are several pages on your website.

Therefore, you need to include a menu that clearly shows the list of web pages or a well-labelled navigation bar. A well-developed navigation plan enables users to not only explore but also understand your website much better.

You are not required to use state-of-the-art typefaces at all. A simple and intuitive navigation arrangement makes visitors come back to your website again and again.

2. Words Used

According to experts, the words that you use in your calls-to-action statements have the potential to directly impact the conversion rates. For example, incorporating the word ‘Free’ when requesting visitors to either download something or sign up on your site often tends to increase conversions by about 4.2 perc3ent.

3. Colour

Colours do have a role to play in improving conversions. Research studies show that big, bold red colour is best suited for headlines. Navy blue colour helps to improve the feeling of trustworthiness when you use it in your call-to-action buttons.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it is important that you have a clear understanding of the impact of your website’s design on SEO. It is just not a simple matter of preference or making a minor choice. Your website’s design has the potential to make or break your online business.

It has to actually make a difference as to how your target audience perceives your business or brand and the visitors to your website need to be converted into your customers.

All said and done, using a design that provides an impressive and easy to navigate user interface will go a long way in enhancing your conversion rates, contributing to improving the bottom line of your business.

In today’s digital world, more and more businesses have started developing responsive websites to stay ahead of their competitors. So, the earlier you act the better for you.

12 Website Design Strategies To Improve Your Business

Posted on August 29, 2018 by NextJSjointviews

Technology is constantly changing and businesses have been constantly evolving to take in these changes. From traffic to content, conversion rates and branding, there are many aspects of a website’s design that affects the presence of the business on the Internet.

Two perspectives

It is a true fact that very few business owners realize the importance of building a well-designed website. Many business owners, big and small see the entire effort as more of a chore.

What they fail to realize is that a website is a fully separate channel that will bring in the leads for your organization. What is better is that it takes less effort to set up a well-designed website than train an entire sales team.

On the other end of the spectrum are those entrepreneurs that invest thousands or even millions of dollars on website design/redesign. Web design, though important from the aesthetic point of view, is much more than just being attractive.

This article chooses to explore why web design matters at all and what impacts it has on different aspects of an online business.

1. Trustworthiness and basic design elements

In some of the studies that were conducted one startling fact that was revealed was that respondents labelled a website as being trustworthy or otherwise more on the basis of the design elements present than its content.

The ratio was 94:6.

Websites that have small prints, those that displayed pop-up ads, complex website layout, all contributed to mistrust from the respondents.

Another aspect that was revealed was that whereas some colours were good when used for specific businesses, it would not suit certain others.

In case the business already has a logo or a colour scheme, it pays to use the same on the website for easy recognition and relatability.

Use of similar colours and similar fonts as the logo is important. Use highlighted text sparingly. Go for a simpler logo than a complex one if you are designing a new one.

2. Navigation should be easy and consistent

Site-wide navigation that is the same on every page is appealing for a website. Your visitors should know at any point in time as to where to start.

Display of a search box in direct view of the user always is recommended. If your website ends up challenging the visitors, there is a high chance that they will lose interest and quit browsing further.

Avoid displays that clutter up and provide the visitor with information without any interruptions.

3. Faster websites sell more

The speed with which a website loads is an important factor in satisfying the customer. Almost half the respondents in a survey said that they expected that the website would load in about 2 seconds’ time.

Any additional delay of a second in the loading time of a website is costly for the business and there is also a substantial reduction in the customer satisfaction.

It is important to give that experience to the customer which they will be happy to remember. If your website’s loading speed is good, they are likely to talk about it to their peers.

4. Make the Call-to-Action visible

Place the call-to-action button on every page of the website. Ensure that it is visible and the visitor does not have to scroll down to see it. More importantly, add a benefit to the call-to-action.

That is more than likely to get you more conversions. One research showed that use of the word ‘free’ along with the call-to-action button increased conversions by about 4.2 percent.

Other phrases which were seen as appealing ones included, “Buy now”, “Start the two-week trial”, etc., among others.

5. Make video stories

Include storytelling videos on your website. Studies have indicated that videos dramatically increase conversions in websites.

Great video ideas include those that tell the visitor what is happening behind the scene video that shows how your product is created and what work has gone into it, product tours and case studies about a specific problem that a customer encountered, the solution and the end result accompanied by a simple attractive script.

Testimonial videos are known to do their bit for your website. Allow people to announce how happy they are after using your product or service.

6. Improve the trust by displaying badges

Incorporate badges as part of your website. It is indeed a design element that can bring in more trust from your website visitors. They can be categorized into:

Trust badges: Procure and display trust badges from review sites. TripAdvisor and Trustpilot are popular badges.

Security badges: Companies such a McAfee show to the visitors that the link to your website is encrypted and allows for safe transactions to be sent through the website’s landing page by the visitor.

Award badges: Display industry’s best awards if you have any. Do not fail to announce the awards, if any have been won by the designers and developers of your website.

7. No distractions, please

To increase conversions, it should be easy for the customers to make decisions. Do not make the website journey a confusing one for our visitors. Offers, pop-ups and too much of movement are likely to confuse the visitor.

Too many offers will end up becoming counterproductive. When there are too many, the visitor will be confused as to which one to pick.

The website visitor has to be safely guided through the sales funnel and get them to make a purchase. The golden rule is to keep distractions to a minimum.

8. Website-SEO relationship is important

SEO is a good method to make your website more visible to the search engines and customers at large. Getting a top slot in the search engine listings gets you your prospective customers’ attention.

This translated to a higher amount of traffic and consequently more conversions. The first step of SEO is good website design. With a great website design, you have already announced your arrival.

The rule of the thumb is do not neglect traditional website design structures that search engines look for while crawling in favour of modern trends. Have a healthy mix of the two.

9. Become Mobile Friendly

Most buying decisions of today are made with the mobile. With most people using the web on mobile phones and tablets, you can lose out if your business website is not optimized for a mobile device.

If you want your website to be seen on a computer as well as a mobile device, then you should have only very little media that is attached to the website design.

This may not work out the way you want all the time. However, it is better to have a mobile-optimized version of your business website. The website should contain all the relevant information that the customer needs to see.

10. Keep your website design contemporary

The bounce rates are going t be higher if you have an outdated website design. Old-fashioned websites are likely to be a turn-off. If they feel that you are not up-to-date, in either your content or design, they are going to bounce off your pages.

It is a good idea to review your website once in a couple of years or every year and freshen it up to reflect the latest trends.

11. Content is still king

While website design is important, content is still the king. Websites that presented lucid, no-nonsense and unbiased information were liked by most users. Other popular designs included FAQ’s and sites giving information to specific age groups.

12. Website design is one of the most important of your brand elements

The design of a website does not equate to your brand. However, website design by itself is an important brand element that helps your customer to place trust in you.

Branding is that invisible factor, or a perception, that grows over time and gets your client to trust your product/service no matter what. Other brand elements can be logos, taglines, packaging, trademarks etc.

The dozen points discussed above are basic ideas that can get your web design on track and make a difference to your customers. How your website looks and functions are key factors that would influence the outcomes of your business decisions.

Guide to Artificial Intelligence in Search Engine Optimization

Posted on July 23, 2018 by NextJSjointviews

Most of the concepts surrounding AI are based on speculation collected from search engine behavior and patents. Unfortunately, misconception gives rise to fear and this has lead to the current situation where many are unable to utilize AI in favor of SEO. Before we delve deeper into the subject, we need to know what AI is all about.

What is Artificial Intelligence in SEO?

Artificial Intelligence, unlike popular belief, is not a static formula. It is a continually developing system that has been designed to identify, sort and present the required data to meet user demand at that particular point of time from available variables that go far beyond the keywords typed.

How is AI changing SEO?

The year 2015 saw the introduction of RankBrain by Google to its algorithm chart thereby cementing the significance of Artificial Intelligence in SEO.

3 years down the line and search marketers are using AI to uncover new insights, automate labor-intensive tasks to offer an entirely new level of personalization to end users. The AI revolution is real, and it is happening. The significant areas where AI is changing SEO include:

Web Development
On-Site Content Display
Ads
Testing
Interactive Buttons

AI and Machine Learning

AI and machine learning are not the same. Machine learning is a subset of AI. It relies on algorithms to collect data from the existing surrounding to take actions without being explicitly programmed to do so. In other words, they rely on their experience to deliver the desired results. For example:

1. Google uses machine learning to analyze the context of the content to offer better search results.

2. Amazon’s Echo analyses the user’s behavior and of other similar customers to provide new product ranges to choose.

3. Apple uses machine learning to increase the security of the device whereby the user’s face and fingerprints are recognized to unlock the hardware.

4. Facebook uses machine learning to identify the user image and their context.

How Will AI and Machine Learning Impact Content?

Content that fails to engage is no longer of any importance. “Content is King” is an outdated adage. The main focus is on creating a content that “engages” the end users and leads them to go for the services offered and the products displayed.

For example: to improve user experience, RankBrain interprets the environment from which the content is derived and thereby aims at providing better search results.

The goal is to offer search results that are matching to the closest answer to the query enquired. If the content generated for SEO purpose fails to live up to the need of the time, it will get lost amidst thousands of contents created daily. To step up and become visible, the content has to be “concept-related content” rather than “keyword-related content.”

How to use AI for SEO?

In this tricky environment, it becomes equally important for the SEO professionals to survive the challenges thrown at them. The following 5 strategies can change your game plan completely:

1. Keyword Optimization through keyword gathering, grouping and generating exemplars.

2. Use of Cluster Analysis & Predictive Analytics. Regroup your content on a single chosen topic and use the trends to predict the user demand to arrive at the search results.

3. Leveraging Customer Reviews to the hilt. There is nothing better than authentic customer feedback to create better awareness and higher page ranking.

4. Utilizing the available Customer Data to predict shoppers buying habits.

5. AI powered Chatbots are a great way to attract customers towards a sale.

AI SEO software and tools

The popular AI SEO software and tools can be summarized as mentioned below:

Acrolinx – For analyzing and optimizing quality content
Automated Insights
One Spot – For customizing marketing channels
Narrative Science – For generating immersive narratives from the data available
Market Brew – For figuring out SEO rankings
CanIRank – For SEO strategy formulations
Albert – Use AI for online marketing tricks
Pave AI – For analyzing Google Analytics

Simple AI strategies in SEO for amazing results

AI strategies are not always complicated. Gooogle’s RankBrain aims to offer the best possible search as per the query generated. To make sure that your SEO tactics attract the attention of RankBrain, keep in mind the following attributes:

Mobile Friendly Pages are the key.
Page Speed determines the success rate of your website. A slow loading webpage irks the customer and affects their attention span.
Controlled Bounce Rate.
Improved Dwell Rate.
Enhanced Click Through Rate (CTR).
Use more of Latent Semantic Indexing keywords.
Related Internal & External Links.
Structured Data Usage rather than random information available

AI and Link Building

At present, AI has not reached that stage where they can build links for your content. However, it can assist you at each stage of content planning.

Use AI for data collection through natural language processing. This will help to determine whether the information collected is genuine and relevant or not.

AI can also be used for site analysis to determine whether the site in question will have an impact on the page ranking or not.

Smart Tips for Improving Your AI based SEO

An effective SEO strategy takes time to develop and even more significant time to show favorable results. Data and data analysis is an integral part of any SEO strategy.

However, the human brain can process so many data available at any given point in time. To maximize the data crunching, you need AI.

Artificial Intelligence based SEO offers refined and better search ranking results. It can gather data, identify cross-selling audience segments and follow it up by determining the relevance and effectiveness of the content.

How Can AI Improve Your PPC Campaigns?

Give your PPC campaigns a boost with AI. The trick lies in using the AI to carry out repetitive tasks, which is a full-time job in itself. Use AI to monitor and fine-tune paid ads. To improve your PPC campaigns through AI opt for the following measures:

1. Opt for dynamic ads that show different ads to different users based on their preference and purchase history.

2. For any PPC campaign to be successful, the ad delivery has to be at the right time to the right people. AI helps to optimize ad delivery.

3 .Instead of manual bidding, make use of automated bidding with AI.

4. It is not necessary to use AI for your PPC campaigns. You can use AI to find out about customer searches, buying the pattern and use the relevant information in creating your PPC campaign strategy.

5. AI can use data analysis to uncover relevant keywords for your industry, thanks to the real world conversational language.

Future of Artificial intelligence in SEO

To sum it up, we cannot undermine the role played by AI in SEO strategy nowadays. The question remains what lies in the future? If the recent trends are anything to go by, then the following can be predicted for the future:

1. AI will interfere with SEO practitioners using Black Hat SEO tactics like the use of excessive keywords in the content, backlinking.

2. Real-time data will require real-time adjustments with better-personalized care – all thanks to AI algorithm.

3. Conversational keywords will rule

4. The demand for visual content will be on the rise.

Final Thoughts

As technology progresses, we will see many more changes. Who knows, a time might come when you will type in your requirements and mention the budget while the rest will be taken care of by AI.

6 Important Tags For SEO in 2018

Posted on June 25, 2018 by NextJSjointviews

Building links inside the content is still a relevant idea, but you cannot ignore SEO in the times of customized search. The relevance of your content, its structure and the general experience of the user also determine the way your website attracts search engine results.

Debates have been going on across the cyber world regarding the use of tags in SEO customization. SEO tags had an evident say in the ranking of websites, but they have gone controversial as on page SEO.

In this scenario, it becomes increasingly important to understand the role of various tags and analyze their impact on SEO performance.

With search engines coming up with smarter ways for reading the interpretation of online data, manipulative use of tags in an old manner is virtually out of the game.

However, more efficiently combined tags coupled with some other SEO customization can do wonders for your website.

1. Meta description tags

Meta description tag usually refer to some unique stats mentioned differently as compared with other texts and contain a title and relevant URL.

They are used to more eager users to dig deep into a particular subject. It has a significant impact on the user experience and imparts more prosperous expertise and positivity in the mind of users.

However, a mindless addition of Meta description tags may have quite the opposite impact on the user as you might expect. Meta descriptions affect the number of clicks user gives on your page and decreases the look away rates.

There are specific ways too for placing Meta description tags in the content. They should be inviting and related to the topic. The preferred material should also be quality work and should not give a feeling of betrayal.

It should be realistic and customized in the way a user would perceive.You should provide a unique and unique Meta description tag for your page, which reflects the subjects your page carries. Most significant keywords should be included. However, overuse should be avoided.

2. Title tags

It refers to the particular part of the page which reflects the title of the page. It looks like a clickable headline and also a part of the heading which appears on social media platforms and in browsers.

It gives users a general overview of what the page is meant to explain. Though it is no longer a solution to every problem, it still exists as a relevant thing a searcher would find.

It is the tag, which mostly tempts the user to decide whether the page will contain the content or not that he tends to search.You should provide an accurate and precise title for your page which gives a sense of assurance that he would get the content of his desire.

Make sure that your heading does not exceed 50-60 words. Use keywords naturally and place important ones ahead of others.

3. Italian and bold tags

For adding particular emphasis to certain words and imparting individual highlights for some parts, bold and Italian tags are used.

Though they do not comprise of essential metatags to utilize, they do add readability and improve the user experience. Use these tags only for those parts which are necessary. Avoid overuse of these tags.

4. Image alt keywords

These tags are used for highlighting the contents of an image. They do own significance for on-page optimization since they provide attributes to the pictures and materials.

As search engines cannot see the photos, they only are responsible for attracting search engine results and abstract visibility for the page.

5. Heading tags

This point to the labels, which are used to separate headings and subheadings from the other content. H1 to H6 comprises of the hierarchy for heading tags. UnlikeMetatags, they are visible to users and the most significant metatag, giving a glimpse of what the page acknowledges.

Their usage though has been a subject of debates in recent times, but proper utilization of H1 heading tags has been emphasized in many studies. Awkward usage of heading tags can keep a majority of traffic away and decrease the search engine ranking.

Search engines prefer to look for organized and well-structured content rather than crawling through the unorganized content.Headings help users navigate through the material and digest it.

These small details add up to significant SEO optimization and enhance the visibility of the page. Use H2-H6 is necessary. Add H1 tags with keywords and use secondary keywords within the paragraph.

6. Schema markup

It is a shared markup, which has been identified by search engines to organize data logically. It refers to meaningful tags where the shift seems to take from backlinks and keywords only to the relation between concepts and contents of the page.

Adding schema tags to the page enhances user experience and imparts significance to the SERP.

Bounce rates and user experience factors like CTR add up to the results search engines gives for your page. For proper utilization of schema tags, study the available tags and create a map plan how to use them during the content. Use structured data markup and make sure that they are not misleading and ineffective.

Takeaway

If you desire to boost your SEO for your website, make sure you don’t ignore the little tags available for your page. Not all tags are equally important. Some have more significance than others while some are must ones.

However, using tags at proper places and according to the content can significantly change the search engine results for your page in a positive way. Use the tags wisely and see the magic.

If SEO & PPC Work Together What Will Happen!

Posted on June 11, 2018 by NextJSjointviews

Any internet marketing professional might know that Pay- per – click (PPC) campaigns and Search Engine Optimization is two different techniques used for successful lead generation.

But, both these techniques are placed pretty far away from one another in the advertising spectrum. SEO generates organic traffic whereas PPC involves paying for the ads to be placed on different search engines.

Generally, these two techniques are used separately. However, it should be realized that all the while when an organization focuses on only one of these strategies, potential traffic that could have come in through the other strategy is being lost.

This article discusses how the many ways of integrating these two very different techniques which will serve to improve the competitiveness of any website over the longer term.

1. More Conversions with SEO & PPC

The basic SEO + PPC will increase chances of your website dominating search results. Basically, improving the website by applying the SEO technique will better the chances of it making it appear at the top of search engine results for at least one or even more keywords.

Additionally, if you decide to buy PPC ads for that same keyword, then this ad will appear at the top of the page every time someone else searches for the keyword. This is done to make sure that your website/brand dominates search engine listings. This will, in the long run, create more traffic and subsequent conversions.

2. SEO & PPC Helps Lower Ranking Websites To Perform Better

You may be thinking that if your website is already at the top of the search engine listings (organic ranking) for a specific keyword, then it is not necessary to purchase PPC ads for the same keyword..

However, certain studies have pointed to the fact that when the search ads for a specific keyword were paused, almost 90 per cent of the traffic that was generated by such ads was not replaced by the SEO-based rankings.

This actually meant that if you stopped PPC ads in between, there was a good chance that the traffic had a negative impact even with high-ranking sites.

Therefore, PPC helps to retain the clicks and interest from prospects that may have been missed if they were not there. This is of more significance to those websites that are not ranking #1.

In such cases, PPC will help to draw the interest of those who are looking for your specific product/services for the small amount of money that you pay for these ads instead of losing them.

3. SEO + PPC Help to Check Volume of AdWords

Some Internet data experts have observed that PPC is effective when it is used to target those keywords that do not have a high organic ranking through SEO.

Thus, it is possible to collect data on many keywords and provide it to the SEO campaign. This exercise will bring out more keywords that actually drive the revenue through organic searches.

On the other hand, organic impressions and click data can both be used to check the monthly volume figures of AdWords. This will result in more clarity as far as keyword priorities are concerned.

4. Helps the Business To Stay Ahead in the Race

It is a well-known fact that recently, long-tailed keywords have been given a lot of attention in SEO campaigns. Internet analysts believe that about 40 per cent of all the searches come from the many long-tailed keywords that have even less than 50 searches in a single month. Thus it is clear that most people search the Internet for information using only long-tailed keywords.

Contrarily, PPC campaigns typically use 1 or 2 or 3 keywords that are supposed to bring in heavy traffic. Combining both PPC and SEO strategies thus ensures that those keywords ignored in the PPC campaigns can be used to stay ahead of the competition.

At the same time, the long-tailed keywords are already bringing in a sufficient amount of quality organic traffic through the SEO campaign. Both these together can work to your advantage.

5. Businesses Can Get the Bang for Their Buck

In many industries, it is not worthwhile to have a PPC running for expensive keywords. In case such keywords are picked out and handed over to the SEO team, they can set work priorities to make your website rank high for these keywords. The budget that has been set aside for PPC campaigns can be used more cost-effectively.

6. SEO & PPC Work to Improve Keyword Clarity

SEO takes up more time, research and money. When you want to target a specific keyword and want to use it for SEO purposes, you may not be sure whether it will worth the time and money. The best way to test such a keyword’s viability is through PPC.

Running a PPC campaign is the best way to determine what works on the test pages and what does not. This is because the results are instantaneous.

If the performance is good, it means that the website should be optimized for the keyword. If it is the other way around, it is a good idea to avoid SEO efforts for that specific keyword.

All these subsequently lead to the information as to which ad copy results in the maximum number of conversions. This helps to provide information on the different page attributes and their mix that forms the winning combination: title tags, meta descriptions, content in the page, etc., that will help the website to rank high in organic searches.

PPC is not expensive and is the best way in which you can test the waters by spending the least amount of time and money.

7. Content-Driven SEO & PPC Work TO Enhance Conversions

It is necessary to publish top-of-the-line quality content to be visible amongst the millions of pieces of content that is being put out on the Internet every day.

This is a challenging task as well as an overwhelming one. If the content is ineffective it leads to the fact that there would be no traffic and hence no conversions.

A small budget that is directed for AdWords helps in promotion of your content. Now with the right type of content, which helps the audience to increase their knowledge about a specific topic, it is guaranteed that conversion rate can be upped resulting in higher sales.

8. SEO & PPC Provides Effective Retargeting

SEO is important in the context that it produces organic traffic some of which converts. According to statistics, conversions among those who used e-commerce sites dipped slightly in the recent past.

However, if you draw a retargeting campaign, it is possible to draw the organic traffic back the second time to the website in order for the sales to increase.

Visitors may take a while to make up their minds to purchase from your site. Retargeting campaigns helps to spot last-time/past visitors to the website and show them ads at a later point of time in such a way to remind them to come back to your website and buy.

9. SEO & PPC Data Collection Can Be Put to Good Use

Both SEO and PPC are sources for a large amount of data. The data from PPC and SEO are obtained separately. This amount of data that is collected becomes helpful when decision-making situations arise.

Some of the metrics that you can get hold of and analyse both from SEO and PPC campaigns are click-through rate, bounce rates, exit rates, time spent by the prospect on the website, and conversion rate.

These figures give an idea as to which keyword leads to the most number of conversions and which keywords lead to the least. This can help you to redirect your marketing efforts in the right direction. It will also guide you to make the correct changes to your website in the future.

10. SEO & PPC Serve Selectively To Increase Traffic

SEO and PPC campaigns collect data on the audience and then serve what they want. The difference between the two campaigns is only about what is served. A social media PPC campaign can give all demographic insights about your audience.

The Audience Insights tool of Facebook provides details such as the location, income levels, interests, browsing history, etc., to the PPC campaign.

All this data becomes useful to tweak the content marketing strategies and serve content specific to the demographic. This increases the chances that they will share the content with like-minded friends.

When the content circulates more across the Internet, there will be more people that would visit your website. Naturally, your SEO potential starts to improve.

11. SEO & PPC Gets More To View Content

The diversity of PPC campaigns is very interesting. PPC campaigns can target a broad base of customers over social media, SERPs, etc. PPC campaigns need not be restricted to landing pages alone but can be directed to infographics, written content, etc.

This eventually helps to boost your SEO because more people are getting to view your content. Social media backlinks lead the viewers to your web pages. Analysis has shown that PPC campaigns used for content promotion give very high ROI.

The Bottom Line

The above points have shown how PPC works and it is true that it shares many similarities with SEO: both rely on keywords, SERP visibility and demographics to bring in more conversions.

Combining PPC and SEO campaigns can be turned into one entity to save money and time. Building your brand using digital marketing means is a very important aspect for the future of your online endeavour.

Best Off-page SEO Techniques to Try In 2018

Posted on June 7, 2018 by NextJSjointviews

The vast world of SEO has two major divisions- on-page and off-page SEO. While on-page SEO includes the direct optimization steps revolving around publishing content, off-page SEO focuses on techniques that gather backlinks and popularity from external resources.

No matter how strong your on-page SEO is, it is impossible to gain authority and win top rankings without consistent and well-directed off-page SEO strategies.

Every year, new trends take place of the old ones in the SEO world. There are a few techniques of off-page optimization that have been performing better than others. This article will show you all those off-page SEO techniques, which you can try to boost ranking in 2018.

Blog commenting

Blog commenting is not a new concept in the world of SEO. However, this year has shown a growth in this trend. The fact that this technique brings highly targeted traffic to a site has made this process highly popular among the practitioners.

You manually search for blogs that are relevant to your business and site. Searching SERPs with a few core keywords related to your business or niche can help you find the right blogs to start commenting.

Experts suggest reading the selected blogs to make your comments valuable. The idea is to give additional information to the readers. It should also seem useful to the blog owner, so they allow your comments in their comment section.

Think long-term when using this tactic. Start by just adding information without any links that refer to your site. This will help in building a relationship with the blog owner.

Eventually, you can lead to adding URLs or headlines of relevant articles on your site. This will bring more interested traffic directly to your site. Plus, you will attain chances of winning backlinks in future.

Article marketing or submission

If you have enough time to invest in article marketing, it can bring hundreds of backlinks and upgrade your domain authority. There are different approaches that SEO experts suggest when creating articles and submitting them to different online platforms.

One approach is to create a parent article and produce various baby articles associated with the same topic. These baby articles don’t have a low word count.

In fact, they contain different versions of the parent article that you create. After developing different versions of the same article, you can start submitting them to various blog networks and article directories.

Another approach incorporates posting articles on forums that invite unique content. Such forums allow you to obtain credible backlinks that bring traffic to your site and helps in improving rankings as well.

However, this approach requires high-quality articles. Hence, you need expert writers who understand your business. Or, you can write on your own if your marketing scale is low.

Directory submission

This technique is very popular among site owners to win backlinks. However, you have to constantly keep an eye on the new directories that appear in the picture.

You look for general directories, reciprocal directories, paid directories and others. Among all of them, niche directories are considered most effective, as they help you win relevant backlinks.

The art of winning links from directories revolves around your ability to create appealing description and relevant anchor text. Always include your main keyword in the title, which becomes the anchor text for the link.

Write descriptions with the aim to influence people to visit your website. Keep it short and crisp, but don’t give a vague idea. Choose simple words that clearly explain your web pages.

There are tools out there to help you count the number of backlinks you attain. Such tools are effective in planning your ongoing directory submission approach.

Forum posting

Answering questions on forums is also a great way to drive traffic. You can link your relevant web page with an appropriate answer.

First of all, you have to find the right forums that are suitable for your niche or business. Then, understand the rules and regulations that are followed in a forum. After that, you can begin answering posts along with your profile or signature link.

Most forums provide a list of unanswered questions. Also, you can promote your new content on such forums and develop traffic, backlinks, and rankings.

You can start by posting answers and posts in 5 to 10 forums. Make sure that these forums come under your niche. Eventually, you will gain backlinks and get more forum options to market your website.

Guest blogging

Guest blogging requires an analytical approach to success. You can’t pick any random blog and approach for guest blogging. There are several factors that make a blog suitable for guest posting.

First of all, you should find out the readership level of a blog. Many sites offer guest blogging opportunities in their initial stages. Your job is to find well-established blogs that are relevant to your niche.

The writing part is simple. You have to focus on the core writing values to create an information piece of content. However, the linking process changes a little bit. You need to make sure that the topic presents opportunities to link guest posts with your web pages.

To find guest posting opportunities in your market, you can follow this example:

Core keyword + guest posting

Replace the “core keyword” section with the keyword your niche belongs to.

Few tips when preparing content for guest posting:

Make sure that your content can offer value to the prospect website.
Follow a disciplined optimization guideline to help the site owner.
Use meaningful images along with alt tags and descriptive filenames.

These tips will enhance your chances of getting posts approved. However, the job doesn’t end there. You need to follow all the questions that people ask on that forum. Answering the comments will grow your authority and help to improve the brand power in the digital market.

Using Q&A platforms

There are forums such as Quora and Yahoo where people simply add their questions. These platforms are perfect to build quality backlinks and win traffic. You can promote your content on your own by attaching a reference link to your web pages along with your answers.

It is important to give value to the answer seekers. Don’t just try to lead them to your site. Find relevant questions and genuinely help with your expertise.

Most platforms have regulations regarding link attachments. Being too aggressive can lead to getting banned from posting answers. Hence, it would be better to use two separate accounts and don’t overdo the backlink process.

Answer more and link to a few answers only. Eventually, you will build a strong reputation of your profile and win traffic for your site.

Social bookmarking

Social bookmarking is one of the fastest ways to build backlinks. This simple off-page SEO technique requires very little effort. But you have to give time to attain visibility on the bookmarking site you join.

Starting this approach requires only joining. Then, you can just add a link of your web page and let other people vote for your content. Social bookmarking sites are working in all kinds of niches. You can use your core keyword along with “bookmarking” to find relevant sites.

This technique is really valuable to win quick backlinks. Plus, you start getting traffic as people start taking interest in your content. It is important to include proper tags if a site asks. Such tags will make your links visible to readers who are interested in your niche.

YouTube Marketing

YouTube has become a great platform to win a wide audience and market your site or business. Depending on the purpose of marketing, you can use YouTube for different off-page SEO goals.

For instance, you can create videos related to sales. An appealing headline and clear call-to-action are the basics for any video.

Plus, you have to provide informative content in the video, so that, people see, like and share your video content. Such videos also become a promotional element on forums, bookmarking sites and other platforms. You can use paid marketing approach to get more visibility for sales videos.

Many site owners create informative content in video medium and promote it via YouTube. Thanks to modern video creation tools, you just need to spend a few minutes to make a video on your site-related topic. You can provide a strong description and link your official web page along with it.

Social media networking

This might be the most effective and most difficult off-page SEO technique. Almost every site uses social media profiles for online reputation and branding.

Platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and others have become a valuable space where business can tap into community interactions.

A successful social media reputation requires time and a well-directed approach. Every platform is unique, so you have to change your marketing approach.

The first step is obviously to create SEO optimized profiles on each platform that are most relevant to your niche. Include links to your site while creating social media profiles and complete all the information required.

Consistently post content that engages audiences. You can use relevant keywords and attach site and web page links whenever relevant in a post.

The idea is to provide information and create curiosity to achieve link clicks at the same time. With time, you gain followers who help in promoting your content all over the social network.

Data-driven Infographics

The boost in the popularity of data has given rise to infographic marketing approach. Infographics are generally a visual demonstration of data. This data can include valuable numbers, research, surveys or even informational text.

Graphical representation of information makes it interesting and more engaging. This is why it attracts influencers who share and link back to your infographics.

There are many platforms nowadays providing free as well as paid versions of infographic creation tools. You can get your subscription and create promotional content for an enhanced exposure.

Many SEO professionals provide exclusive infographic content pieces. So, you can hire professionals if your marketing scale is high enough.

Data-driven infographics immediately get attention. You can use such content pieces on your web pages, social media platforms, forum posting and even when answering questions on a Q&A site.

This will bring traffic from all directions to your site. Plus, search engines give importance to web pages with infographics while ranking.

Press release

Press releases also help in gaining valuable backlinks. This approach allows you to win links and promote your site at the same time. Also, the linked pages get an immediate traffic boom. You can diverse that traffic to other pages on your site via internal linking.

You can search for platforms that offer press release opportunities for free. One Google search will lead you straight to a perfect press release site. But this is the easy part.

Creating valuable press release is much harder than people realize. You have to follow a correct format of such content and focus on benefits instead of the features of your content idea.

The format of a high-quality press release:

Headline
Release date and location
Introduction (answer what, why, when, who and where)
Content body
Boilerplate
Contact information

If you have a business, it would be better to hire professional copywriters to write press releases for your business.

Web 2.0

Every online business and site owner is leveraging this off-page SEO technique.

Platforms such as Blogger and WordPress have high reputation and domain authority in the digital world. You can use such platforms to build links and attain higher rankings. The best part is that you attain complete control over the backlinks that you create.

The process requires creating a well-optimized blog for content and creates links to your official site.

Tying It All Together

Hopefully, you have understood these actionable techniques that are working in 2018. However, it is important to remember that the success of any off-page SEO technique depends on your ability to implement. Make sure you follow the tips and guidelines that make every tactic successful.

Consult an SEO professional to know more about how to win backlinks and improve domain authority.

How to Avoid Common SEO Errors that Hurt Your Rankings

Posted on May 4, 2018 by NextJSjointviews

Everyone talks about how you can increase your ranking in Google. But people rarely tell you the mistakes to avoid.

Entrepreneurs usually have to make the mistake to find out what they have to avoid.

In this post we will tell you the most common SEO errors that you must avoid to rank well in Google and other search engines. So let’s get started!

Low word count

Word count indirectly affects your SEO as a value adding post will be at least 500 words long. In fact, posts with word counts between 2000 to 3000 words are ranking at top of Google.

A study by SerpIQ found that word count of around 2500 was ideal.

Word count of below 500 will not do much for your ranking and hence should be avoided. People will not gain much from such a post and low time spent on your page is considered bad signal by Google.

Long Title

Title tags are important for your SEO because they appear as the clickable link in search result and are the first thing a user sees and judges your site on. Long titles that are above 65 characters will exceed display limit and hurt your click-through rate.

An attractive title that fits in the results space is important to rank on first page. The idea is to strike a balance between a long tailed title and the optimal length of 60-65 characters. Use tools such as To The Web to get a snapshot of how your page will appear in Google search results.

Duplication of Content

Duplication of page content confuses web crawlers as to which page they should rank. This also directs your traffic to two different pages and divides your page authority. You can use Google Tag Assistant to check for any duplication.

Also use canonical tags on your pages. They tell Google which pages to rank in case of identical or duplicate content

Missing Description

Description is the content that appears just below your title in search results. It is the second thing that a user reads after your title and hence is important to get them on your page. Pages missing this critical description will hurt your SEO efforts. As pages on your site increases the possibility of missing description also increases.

Use tools like SEO MozPro to check this regularly and update your meta descriptions.

Server Errors

A server error is a response by your server indicating that it is unable to load the page. Too many server errors can pull down your ranking within a matter of hours. This error could be:

Code 500 – internal server erros

Code 503 service unavailable

Both the errors will close access to your site by humans as well as Google crawlers leading to a significant drop in rankings. A study by Search Engine Land found out that ranking for keywords dropped as server errors increase for a site.

Image Courtesy : https://searchengineland.com/super-fresh-google-index-server-errors-rankings-impacts-230975

Insecure Pages

HTTPS is a protocol that allows secure exchange of user data with the site server. Not having a secure page negatively affects SEO. Two of the most common problem with insecure pages seen on the web are-

-Mixed Content, i.e. having both HTTP and HTTPS content on one page

-HTTPS pages linking to insecure HTTP page.

Your page must not have any insecure content or link to any insecure resource.

Low Quality Links

You must be aware that the quality of link that point to your site affect your ranking. But did you know that the sites you point to are also important. Linking to spammy websites and insecure pages will negatively affect your rankings. Therefore be sure to link to sites with good reputation and domain authority.

Loading Speed

Loading speed directly affects your SEO metrics. Every fraction of second is crucial when it comes to page loading. You can take some measures to decrease your page load time if it is more than 1.5 seconds. Consider browser caching, faster server response time, compressing images and content for faster site experience.

How to Collaborate with the Right Link Building Agency

Posted on March 13, 2018 by NextJSjointviews

Link building is an important part of SEO or Search Engine Optimization. A single backlink from the right page has the power to get thousands of new visitors to your site.

Take the example of Moosa Hemani, SEO and inbound marketing specialist who recorded a 203% increase in his traffic after his guest post on Moz.com.

Backlinks from authority sites can in fact do magic for your website ranking. This is because Google counts backlinks from reputed sites as votes for your page.

Other pages pointing to your site tells Google that your content is worth quoting and referring to and hence valuable.

However, building links proactively takes time and effort. There is a whole process of researching the right sites and reaching out to them for backlinks.

You also need to add value to your partners to gain their trust and links. This could be re-purposing their content in the form of infographic, writing a guest post or promoting their page on your social media.

Link building campaigns need expertise, time and resources. This is why outsourcing link building to an external agency is a good idea.

The right agency can boost your SEO efforts with link-building strategy. Here are the evaluation criteria while choosing the right link building agency for your business.

• Experience

Past work of the agency is good indication of their quality of work. Have they successfully delivered increased traffic before? Ask them for references of their clients if required. This way you can enter the contract with confidence.

Also, it is important to check the industries and size of companies they have worked in. A campaign that was successful for a big MNC may not be the best strategy for a start-up. Your agency must have the creativity to develop a tailor-made strategy for you.

Generally speaking, an agency who has worked within your industry with similar client profile is preferable. However, do not rule out an agency new to your industry without asking for detailed strategy proposal for your business.

Another detail to consider is the experience of the person who will be handling your campaign. Stellar experience of the agency is of no use to you if your account will be taken care by a fresher single- handedly.

• Ethical Strategies

You may come across agencies that will promise you 500% increase within no time. Practices employed by such agencies are often unethical, penalized by search engines and may cause Google to ban your site. Make sure your agency is not using black hat SEO tactics that will only hurt your business in the long run. Here are some black hat practices for your awareness:

Paying for backlinks is not allowed and is considered a serious offense by Google
Inserting links in others site without their permission or through hacking into their site
Irrelevant posting of links to your site in the comments section. There are even tools available for mass posting in websites that are unrelated to your topic.
Excessive link exchanging is a practice where links are exchanged between sites just to show backlinks to search engines and with no real benefit to site visitors. Such a practice of linking excessively to unrelated site is a violation of Google’s webmaster guidelines.

You website will be the one penalized by Google even if you are unaware of such practices being used by your agency. This is why it is important that your agency shares all plans and actions with you honestly. This brings us to the next point.

• Transparency

Since you are entrusting a third party with your business site, it is important that you share a relation of trust and honesty. Your agency must share campaign details with your regularly. Setbacks and delays are understandable and should be shared with you clearly.

Unexplained delays in implementation and poor communication could be a sign of your agency hiding something.

• Business Philosophy

Very few blogs will talk about this, however, difference in business philosophy is often the underlying cause of problems. Imagine an agency that values perfection but is serving a client who values speed instead. The slow pace of delivery may frustrate the client whose priority is to move fast in the market.

When you choose an agency to work with, do check for alignment with their values and vision. There is no right or wrong in this. Some agencies will work best for you because their way of doing business fits perfectly with yours.

• Holistic Approach

Everything works together in digital marketing. This means that your link building efforts must be supported by good content, inbound sales process, social media and other channels. Building links around poor content will only lead to wastage of your resources.

Ideally, your SEO, link-building and content marketing should be done by the same agency. If not, they should at least work closely with the content and digital marketing team. Choose an agency that has an overview of your digital marketing and holistic approach to link-building.