Website design and development
plays a major role in online marketing or SEO to be specific. If the design is
failing or poor, it will not conform to the search engine guidelines hence your
search engine optimization campaign will fail. Website design and development
play a major role in search engine optimization. A bad design will never score
up to the metrics that search companies employ, and the site will never rank
high.
Hence the first step in SEO
Campaign is Site Audit. Using site audit you can discover whether it is mobile
friendly or not, whether it is properly hosted, and whether its download speed
is optimum. The website is not only responsible for ranking high on the SERPs
on chosen search terms. The website is also responsible to attract, engage and
convert the target audience to a goal specified in the vision statement.
The UX Factor
Another factor that plays a major
role in successful outcomes is the UX factor or how user-friendly the website
is. Thus, the developers should pay
special attention to onsite factors like web core vitals, site architecture,
on-page content, and visual elements and coding. Owners should see that the on-page content is
unique, relevant, and engages the target audience. There should be a call for
action or CTA line at appropriate places to encourage the visitor to head for
action. Whether a property is meant to sell or promote services the CTA button
will make a major impact.
Site Audit
Site audit also reveals technical
snags like blocking scripts, heavy images, and the number of server queries
that are being generated. A large number of server queries will result in a
late response from the server and downloading will be affected. This calls for
fast efficient hosting with no downtime at all. Thus, owners should opt for
dedicated servers that are equipped with the latest technology.
The website should be complete
when launched, no portion or page should be left incomplete. All dynamic
functions should be working in perfect order. No function should be under
repair or development. An underdeveloped website makes a bad impression on
visitors, and this will impact engagement and increase the bounce rate.
Design &
Aesthetic
The design and aesthetics also
play an important role hence they should be apt. A good website development
team is a must for making a good site, portal, or eCommerce website. The site architecture should be
well-defined, and the link should be intact, and one click away from desired
information. Boken links, complex forms, and unstable elements will make sure
that you do not get repeat visitors apart from a high bounce rate.
Keep your website updated in all
respect and check its completion using site audit tools. A good website
conforming to search engine guidelines is a must for success. Pay special attention to website development for
online success. Neglect will lead to a heavy cost and failure.
I have on a number of occasions deserted the page offering solutions I had queried for. We human beings have a short attention span, and this is most visible on the SERPs when the page is slow to download. In the case of the Internet, speed matters whether we download a web page, an image or download video, or a pdf file.
Page Speed is dependent upon many elements or attributes that a web page comprises. Besides losing the visitors the page if not able to download within 3 seconds is bound to lose at least 50% of the visitors. This is a substantial loss and calls for a solution:
What to Do? Solutions for Slow Page Download
Replace Animated GIFs with HTML5 Videos
Serve Images in Next-Gen Format
Efficiently Code Images (Specify Height & Width)
Reduce Initial Server Response
Eliminate Render Blocking Images
Animated GIFS though are interactive and effective but slow down the page speed and require uninterrupted Internet connectivity. It is better to convert them to HTML 5 Videos or replace them entirely with videos. Remember images take up nearly 21% of a web page weight.
Unlike the next-gen image formats like PNG and JPG GIFs cannot be compressed (they accept only lossless compression) hence only a milli-second image can blow out to a size of many megabytes. Slow frame rates and bad color representations are other drawbacks. Animation technology uses more storage and memory space. It uses more bandwidth.
*Lossy filter compression reduces quality and lossless filter compression requires rendering to the original on the webpage. Tools = Photoshop, FileOptimizer, or ImageOptim, Adobe Affinity.
HTML 5 Videos do not require plugins like Flash they can be effectively played on the browsers. HTML 5 Videos exhibit splendid colors, are light in weight, and offer a better experience to the visitors. 94% of video compression formats use MP4 Format. While OGG and WebM are not that popular. Autoplay and creating a loop is easy with <video> encoding in the case of HTML5.
The next-gen image formats are more popular these days, especially their compressed formats. But compress them only if they are very large and are visibly slow to download. While compression is required it may slightly mar the quality. Use Google WebM instead.
Always optimize images for a better UX Experience due to faster download. Small file size also saves on the bandwidth and the CPU Process from extra load.
The best image compression tools are Adobe Photoshop and Affinity Photo. For WordPress sites there are many plugins available for image optimizations examples:
Imagify Image Optimizer
ShortPixel Image Optimizer
Optimole
Optimus Image Optimizer
WP Smush
TinyPNG
ImageRecycle
Reduce Initial Server Response
Server Response time is that taken to download the result page after the client request is made on the browser. The faster is the response the better is the User Experience (UX).
For better server response do the following
Fast Web Hosting Service
Use CDN Content Delivery Network
(Close Target Audience)
Page Should Load within 3 Seconds
Good Server Response Time
0-7.2 ms Blocking
7.2 ms to 18.3 DNS Lookup
25.5 ms to .7ms connecting
26.6 ms sending to 111.8 ms Waiting
138.4 ms to 0. ms receiving
988.0 ms DOM Loading
1.22s 1st Contentful
1.22 1st Paint
1.52 s onload
2.02s fully loaded
Best Practice for Good Page Download Speed
Do Not Over Load WP Theme
Delete Unused Plugins, Deactivate others not in use to reduce CPU Usage
Use the latest PHP or the programming Language
Minify Scripts like External files, Java Scripts and
Configure Caching
Cache first–process later
*Remember Static Contents download fast while dynamic contents are slow to download.
Eliminate Render Blocking Images
Render blocking resources are always in the critical path when download is taking place. They are in the header section or above the fold.
Usually the resources are:
Image first to be downloaded
CSS Next to be downloaded
Java Script
Your visitors are staring at a blank while the loading is going on this is certainly going to frustrate the visitors to the website. Although there should be minimum executable files in the critical path sometimes they are unavoidable hence:
Reduce files in the critical path i.e. above the fold.
Optimize the image without losing the quality
Link CSS to HTML. <link rel="style.css" href=“style.css">
Combine all CSS Files into one and do not use the import method for the call.
Check How Java Script is loading Use Page Insight Tool
Insert Java Script at the bottom of the HTML away from the critical path
Use W3 Render Cache to remove render-blocking in WP.
These are some of the suggestions please take the help of tech experts to use some of the suggestions as a webmaster. The best solution is to make a content-rich simple website with few attributes.
Uday provides a search engine optimization service for digital marketing. He provides website content and content for authoritative links. He also works as SEO Content Writer for digital companies on a remote WFH basis.
He also teaches digital marketing in his home town Jabalpur. He can be contacted at:
There are lot many commercial SEO Tools on the Internet to analyze various aspects of your SEO Campaigns and for website analysis. Unfortunately the most useful ones are outside the reach of average webmasters and SEO consultants but some functions of the tools are free limiting their use but nevertheless good enough for the purpose and to learn. Besides Google Analytic and Search Console and Google Tools webmasters prefer to use other tools free and paid to bolster their SEO Campaigns.
Here are few commercial tools mentioned below.
Screaming Frog (Free/Paid)
Extremely Good for SEO Audit of client sites. Screaming Frog is a comprehensive tool without doubt. This is a desk top application and can be installed for free. It is a spider that crawls websites in order to extract vast range of metrics which help in refining websites as per Seo guidelines.
Demo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkil3pKSFDA
his is a good tool to unravel website performance and checks on various parameters and metrics in relation to the site. The free version is limited but good enough to get acquainted with the tool. It is best to go through all tabs and discover the dimensions and metrics that can be discover using this tool. About five hundred URLs can be crawled but for greater search and advance features the licensed version is a must. This tool is instrumental in finding issues or status of HTML, Meta Data and Broken links besides duplicate contents and vast number of metrics can be studied and discovered.
Also known as social media networking sites these have now become part and parcel of our daily lives. They are fast becoming popular for human networking, product promotion, and brand publicity. The reason behind the stupendous success is content creation in diverse forms on which they thrive. Content does not only provide information or knowledge they have become an ideal mechanism for online engagement and recreation. Success depends much upon creativity and innovation using tools and services provided by each social media company.
Some of the platforms have accumulated subscribers or members in millions or, even over billion people making them strong contenders for online publicity. All the social companies have created platforms for paid advertisement and offer various formats and bidding strategies for goal conversion as per the client's objectives.
Why Paid Publicity on SM?
They provide entertainment, recreation, and information to name a few attributes but the most important that should be mentioned without fail is forming a social or online community. Yes, most social media sites are excellent for networking and they bring people closer. Thus it has become possible to target a niche or personalized audience at a much lower cost and effort, as compared to the price charged by brick-and-mortar advertisement agencies. The reach provided by the Internet is unprecedented and it has created a globalized economy.
All the above attributes boil down to one thing and that is gathering people on one platform. Media sites like Facebook have become an extension of our social lives with known people close friends and relatives meeting in one place. Events, birthdays, weddings, parties, and information sharing all come into our reckoning timely thanks to FB.
Hence Social media platforms everything are creating online virtual communities of real people especially those who are related to or follow the niche.
SM Advertising (SEM)
Advertising is Marketing, and in this case, it is online.Another coveted activity on social media platforms is working for publicity. The above-mentioned attributes make it financially feasible to showcase products and services to the audience and generate leads or business connections, make online sales and create brand awareness, and whatever the goal is.
Hence all SM companies have created platforms to make text Ads which are the most popular means of Social Advertising on a paid basis. Other formats are displayed with images and Video Ads. PPC is most commonly used where the client pays for every click while in the case of CPM the commission is charged by 1000 impressions. PPC is the most popular means of bidding, the bids depend upon how competitive the niche is and the auction determines the rank or position on the SERPs. The ranking is not dependent solely on upon the bid amount but also takes quality and relevancy into the consideration.
In the case of Audio Ads, the cost could be based on the PPP model or Pay Per Play. This format is most suitable for audio ads which are relatively uncommon and is a function for those who run radio shows and podcasts.
Smart Technology
Smart technologies have automated Ads where little or no human participation is required. Companies like Google use Artificial intelligence or AI and machine learning to optimize Ads for better performance using few inputs from the advertiser. These Ads may also include immersive media a combination of futuristic technologies. The campaign bidding targeting and creation, all is done automatically with human participation. Smart technologies trigger Ads to the right audience, at the right time, and on the right platform. They compensate for human error and are accurate. Almost three times higher engagement and goal conversion response are expected from these technologies.
Social Advertising Approach
Social Advertising on platforms is not that simple. You do not promote just by subscribing to a Campaign on the media and get going. Although this is possible to some extent since the programs help direct the publicity to the most relevant audience and the most targeted destination. Effective marketing solutions are the key to success and most companies provide solutions according to a strategic plan that they encourage. Though there is a similarity among the online publicity mechanism among the platforms the marketing solutions differ due to the type or target audience prevalent in each.
Research & Analysis
Before organizing a campaign an in-depth study is required regarding the type of audience you wish to target for your goal. This has to be followed by the audience profile that is most abundant on the platform. Demographics play a major role in online advertisements understanding the audience will narrow down the funnel in which you wish to get a response. The basic character of profiles should also be studied so as to help you understand whether the audience belongs to the right target group you wish to generate a response from.
The targeting mechanism is aided by the platforms and one can focus on age, gender, niche, destination, etc. without wasting resources on audience or regions out of the purview.
In relation to publicity, small micro aspects of human behaviors and business trends have to be researched and analyzed. The purpose is to get high ROI since the campaigns are paid hence you need to focus on the target audience most relevant to your business or profession. Users or advertisers have to learn to optimize Ads by providing full information and business details and the goal of relevant well focused targeting. Normally big budget companies hire publicity experts to carry out the campaigns using their experience and skills.
Social Media Platforms for Digital Marketing
LinkedIn
Twitter
Facebook
Instagram
Paid Advertisement Social Media Sites
Facebook Ads
Facebook's annual revenue generation from paid marketing services is 115 billion USD. This is the World's most popular medium for networking and business. The platform has over one billion visitors every day. Although you can push an Ad for free on FB, it will reach only your friends and followers besides a few more.
If you subscribe to PIXEL Ads on FB your coverage will be extended across the chosen path. The platform is having 2 billion subscribers and the potential for advertisers is immense. With help of pixel code an analytical tool the ads can be better optimized on Facebook. Ad performance is a proven success and many businesses and professionals prefer this medium.
Ads on Instagram
By the year 2023, the revenue from marketing solutions is expected to reach 20 billion USD. Another very popular platform Instagram is flooded with images and short videos and this attracts women folk who comprise more than fifty percent of the audience. The monthly user base at the present juncture is 500 million people mostly young.
Incorporate visual media to create maximum appeal for your product and services and thus promote. But the reach is limited in this free option available to all registered members. Paid promotions on this platform is highly successful if your audience is young, and more so if you are targeting females.
Since Instagram is owned by Facebook the Ad format is similar and easy to use. But remember images and video work better on this medium than text Ads so you real-life pictures and videos in your campaign to get maximum target audience engagement and goal conversions.
Advertisement on Twitter
In 2022 the Ad revenue generated was 1 billion USD. As popular as others, the free option is available to all, and it works to some extent. The paid option is the website card with media. The cards are customizable units with rich media and text below hundred characters usually the title. These types of paid ads have the potential to engage customers directly with the brand or company.
The cards work in conjunction with the tweets and are not alone. Paid or promoted tweets with cards drive greater traffic to your Ad online. The engagement is substantial in order to create leads and conversions. Twitter provides a tracking facility as well. Like all paid Ads you can set a destination or landing page URL which is clickable on the card.
Advertise on LinkedIn
Ad revenue generated in 2022 was 3.8 billion USD. LinkedIn is a social network of professionals bent on the B2B market. With a base of more than 250 million subscribers, most of who are professionals split equally between the genders. The platform is subscribed by high-income professionals and businessmen senior men and women.
LinkedIn is popular for high-end products and services, recruiters, B2B Marketing, and education. You will find most of the profiles matching the segments mentioned here. Hence you should carefully choose what to promote on this network site.
The platform deploys traditional PPC campaigns using sponsored InMail, text ads, and sponsored content. The target audience is chosen by metrics that differ from other mediums. Here targeting is done on basis of company, size, skills, age, location, and education. Hence the paradigm here differs and needs to be understood well before organizing an advertisement campaign.
Google Ads (Search Company)
Google Ads generate more than 200 billion USD per annum. It is a leading search company with a share of 91% globally. The advertisement medium is fortified by text and display formats besides smart technology formats that yield heightened results. The company also provides an Adsense option where bloggers' content publishing sites, forums, and website owners can publish Ads and share revenue with the search company.
YouTube owned by Google accumulated 28 billion USD from advertisement revenue worldwide. The video publishing company has more the 2 billion subscribers.
Running effective Ad Campaigns requires experience and expertise on Google and social media. Most of the web marketing companies in India are capable of providing effective paid marketing solutions.
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Uday provides SEO services for digital marketing in Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh. He provides website content and content for authoritative links.
He also teaches SEO, content writing, and digital marketing in his home town Jabalpur. He can be contacted at:
The process begins at the white board stage even before the design has been associated. Getting to know the topic and focus on search terms is vital. Sit down with the owners and clear things out. You do this even if you are not the web designer. This sounds bit odd but you are basically doing content and keyword research which precludes first paint.
The next step is to figure out the content pages, all should be relevant. Make a summery of the content pages and then move forward. The following step is to create the link architecture. This should accord due priority to important pages a top down hierarchy that links to secondary pages inside. And then follow up further with URL naming. All this is being done keeping website optimization in mind. In URL naming you can use exact phrase since the importance has been diluted by search engines at least by Google. Rather go in for URLs that can be easily remembered.
Then send the sketch of architecture, content pages and URL naming to the web designer, and if he is good at coding you will get lot of technical seo implemented as desired.
Remember this is vital for a successful campaign. Start writing contents as per the sketch and keep sending the ones completed to the designer. It is important at this stage for contents to be focused on keywords which have been targeted. Each and every page keeping content spam in mind pages should be related but not similar no information should be repeated.
After the website has been completely designed create XML & HTML Site Maps by generating it using the tool. Send the site maps to the web designer to be placed in the footer in each and every page. If this procedure is followed the website optimization would be a grand success.
The contents should begin with H1 Tag above the fold using descriptive words which are important keywords as well. Only one H1 Tag should be placed. Few H2 and H3 tags should be used to decorate and to mark the paragraphs with adequate relevant headings. Since passage evaluation is going to be in place for ranking and indexing please accord weight to each and every paragraph and keep the contents unique test them using tools like Copyscape.
Write naturally keeping keyword limit in mind and use descriptive and related terms/semantics which describes the topic holistically. Try to dig deeper with information or knowledge in the secondary pages each secondary pages being linked to the relevant main pages. Remember no repeat information! Adding attribute like videos and images should be utmost relevant with descriptive alt text. No using phrases in alt text to describe vaguely. Video and should should be well optimized especially check their downloading. Attribute dimensions to images and keep them light weight but with high resolution.
Also audit the new site check for mobile friendliness and web core vitals for enhancing user friendliness. Optimize pages using descriptive titles and description besides using structured language as descriptions for search engines to better understand your page.
Keep content optimum do not over do. Resort to internal linking wherever required using proper anchor text which describe the page. There should be call for action wherever needed.
Draw a clear picture of what the website stands for and add contact or booking links on all pages in the footer section or even in the header, Add Adsense in limit or any other advertisement from which you plan to earn. Remember high traffic is a must hire a search engine optimization specialist and keep upgrading the site.
Last but not the least add a relevant blog with regular entries as source of fresh content and an aid to increase the page rank or domain authority. Write blog entries precisely keeping good language and formatting on place. Make entries anecdotal or very informative that would engage the visitors and call for repeat visits.
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Uday provides search engine optimization service for digital marketing. He provides website contents and content for authoritative links.
He also teach digital marketing in his home town Jabalpur. He can be contacted at:
Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data that can be transmitted from a website. For example, if the bandwidth is one then only one MB can be transmitted from the website. If you click on the website URL you will get a message that the bandwidth limit has been exceeded. In other words, it is the volume of traffic that can be sent over a connection in a measured time.
Bandwidth is usually calculated as megabits per second or Mbps. This aspect differs from speed and rather corresponds to the volume. It also differs from latency which usually is the time taken to download information. The question is how data actually gets downloaded in a fixed time and this factor is dependent upon the network speed, packet loss during the transmission, and many other factors that may hamper it.
For a single home computer bandwidth requirement may be less but if the whole family is using multiple devices like a smartphone, or laptop the number of computers than bandwidth requirement increases dramatically. hence if one resorts frequently to streaming, downloading, and gaming, a greater amount of bandwidth may be required.
For websites being optimized for greater traffic, the bandwidth need will increase according to the number of visitors using them. If for a long time if bandwidth remains fixed and there is a surge in traffic the invisibility of your site on SERPs will make it unpopular and will negatively impact your Seo campaign. As soon as you get the notice online that the bandwidth limit has been exceeded ask the hosting provider to increase the limit by another 25 to 30 Mbps and keep on increasing the limit till the website visibility of SERP is optimum. If the budget is low then increase the limit by 25 Mbps at a time. This will optimize the bandwidth usage and the client will not end up paying the extra charge.
Hence while buying a hosting package always go in for higher attributes if heavy traffic and activities are assured.
I come to an important optimization aspect if during the Seo Campaign the site ranks of terms that do not convert or do not solve the purpose then you are going to lose bandwidth hence always target well-researched terms.
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About Author
Uday provides affordable search engine optimization or SEO Services and Content for Digital Marketing.
He also teaches Internet Marketing in summers in Jabalpur in India his hometown.
Uday is a freelance Naturalist and birder and mixes all vocations to make a living,
Seo is an exercise and part of digital marketing to come close to guidelines set by search engines for a good site worthy of high rank in the SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages) on relevant search terms. To this I will add a site that accords a good user experience. As a matter of fact the latter is of utmost importance for visibility on the Internet. The SEs have evolved methods to gauge metrics that confirm the user friendliness of the website. With constant evolution of algorithms and clubbing of associated technologies the ranking and indexing process is becoming highly evolved and complex.
Google
At the present times Google leads in search technology and the company is striving hard to retain its share by evolving in right manner. The webmaster support crucial for success of SE is with this company presently. Hence most of the business owners should seek results for their website optimization on Google.
User Experience or UX
A good user experience comes around due to a number of attributes. These are good unique contents precisely delivering an answer or information to a query put forward by the user in the search box of the browser. Relevancy of the answer or information will remain the focal point of search on the Internet and search engines companies strive to provide an answer or information closet to what the user is seeking. Hence content and related attributes like images, graphs, videos and the readability is matter of concern for small websites owners with limited resources.
Web Development
Most of the cheap web designers carry out a quick job for their clients without spending much resources and employing much skills. Well that is what comes whence you are not willing to pay. Besides contents the link architecture, mobile friendliness, formatting, download speed, and relevancy to the topic matters most. Add to this technology, quality and content of graphical charts, images and videos matter as well.
So when your website is undergoing design and development keep track of these factors. As a matter of fact search engine optimization begins at white board stage. A Seo consultant or expert should be able to guide you on making a good link architecture for your website being born as well as contents being shaped obviously writing contents may not a a cup of tea for every designer. Hence ask for good content writer who is an Seo or understands this aspect of web development.
Seo For Small Business
Remember search engine optimization is not only for big business but as much for professionals, small firms and companies. It is a compulsory exercise to enhance visibility on SERPs and also important for getting referral through many websites where external linking has been done preferably with informative and unique contents. The promotional activities besides leading to a good site buildup will also garner organic links which is an imperative for good position on SERPs. This will bring a dead website live and active on the Net.
Digital Marketing is creating a reputation, branding and promoting the website on social media platforms. These are good for advertising yourself as a professionals or your company to popularize and generate business. But Digital Marketing is costly, as it is more comprehensive exercise. Hence owners with small budget should limit the campaign to website optimization only.
The benefit of a successful campaign would be from the traffic that is generated by ranking high on relevant search terms. Another benefit will accrue from this campaign is the referral traffic but for this your consultant should be a good writer or content creator as well. Thus you will generate good business online.
Thus the small business should go for Seo Campaigns, and if possible the whole digital or Internet marketing campaign. It costs money but then results pay back. This is why your site is on the cyber space of WWW is it not?
================================================================= Uday provides remote SEO and website contents in English. He teaches digital marketing in Jabalpur in summer holidays. Uday freelances as naturalist/birder in India. He loves to blog on SEO/Conservation and Travel. Contact: pateluday90@hotmail.com Mob: 09755089323
Blog (Regular Anecdotal & Quality Contents & Attributes)
FaceBook Page
LinkedIn Profile
Twitter Account
Both together make a productive pair. A website is near static while a blog is the active arm of online presence. The website is the front a mouth piece and a brand insignia. A blog is the one that highlights skills, services and offerings. It is refreshing, informative and continuous: past perfect, present perfect and future perfect.
Website and Blog work in conjunction whether you are a company a brand, service anything. Remember the combination is magical for reputation building and conversion but basic rules apply.
Informative Unique Website Contents
UX Link Architecture
Relevant add to information attributes
Regular Blog Updates
Anecdotal Informative Blog Contents
Topic Specialization for company/personal Blog
Content Curation for Other Blogs
Regular inputs Article links, Images and Videos on Social Networking Sites
SEO or Search Engine Optimization
Strong Digital Presence with Addition of Infographic and Company/Personal Videos
Web Saturation
Link Building For Referral
Regular Research and Analysis
Yes! No cheap design! No cheap contents! The first step to online success or Internet Business.
Regularize search engine optimization especially quality link building campaigns. Regularize digital marketing inputs.
Landing page optimization UX, Attributes & Call For Action!
Club together PPC (Adwords) And Seo Exercise mandatory for big businesses. Why!
While PPC results can be instant Seo results are time bound but the rankings achieved will reduce PPC cost by no need to bid on terms where ranking has been achieved.
Remember the web is quality driven and tough competition exists hence either you are a serious and committed player or you are not there at all. On the Internet!
Uday is a blogger and provides Digital Marketing & SEO Services. He creates quality links. He also provides website contents in English. He has ten years of experience in this trade.
Uday Teaches Digital Marketing in his home town Jabalpur.
Uday is also a freelance naturalist/birder and loves to blog on wildlife.
Most of the sites made by amateur are weak in attributes that are essential for good user experience especially contents. Haphazard copied contents are common since many web designers do not bother to hire a web content writer or pay for the write up.
Site Maps
Another ignored feature of web development is the site map. Most sites do not have an updated site map embedded and this lacunae is due to negligence by cheap web designers. The site owner have no idea how much they will lose from this negligence and many do not bother. Well if you do not wish to achieve good rankings for high traffic on SERP than it is okay you may be happy with your site being good enough for reference? Well yes if the visitors like it and gain information from and no if they find the site useless.
For large websites it is imperative to have a site map embedded or linked. The purpose of a site map is for facilitating indexing by search engines. The other purpose of a site map is to facilitate the human visitor. Hence both attributes are essential and the search engines include them in their indexing and ranking metrics.
Two most widely used site maps use HTML and XML the first is for humans and search engines as well and the second is for search engines. Those webmasters with no knowledge of programming can use online softwares to download a site map for their site. It is that easy and both HTML and XML site maps can be generated from the tools online.
But site owners and webmasters have to constantly update the site maps for better performance. Hence new URLs should be promptly added and defunct ones removed. There is an option in Google Search Console to constantly inspect the site maps use it. Always check for missing URLS on the site in order for it to be properly indexed and ranked.
Web designers rarely care about optimization elements in the designs. This is not totally correct for those with SEO understandings and regular touch with the SEO consultants do care about elements or attributes that would help the site in ranking and win on the social networks.
The first element and that which is of utmost importance is of course the link architecture. Search engines index and rank a website using standard calculations of hundreds of metrics they are able to decipher or concur from the website visits time to time. The algorithms like to run through the portals in an orderly manner with ease.
Website Link Architecture
The link architecture is arrangement of pages in an orderly manner. The funnel should create a logical graph depending upon the descending scale of importance to the visitors and certified by the funnel graph as we see in the Google analytics and that of other search engines. It should lead to the right end or conclusion example contact page, booking page purchase page, etc.
Hence the home page would be the first page that a user would often land upon in an architecture of website this is given the greatest importance in the link architecture until unless it is a doorway page.
Another delimitation of home page being relegated is if the page is purely introduction in nature. Then it is somewhat relegated vis a vis a page with detailed information with an option to click the action button. Anyway in all cases it is the most prominent page from which all other pages are linked incidentally the Home Page is the most promoted page. Hence this should make things clear about the doorway pages they should be avoided anyway search engines do not appreciate them.
All the pages be they information or functional pages should be linked to the home page. These should be placed on the top links in a series depending upon their scale of importance:
Home.2.3.4. contact...booking..testimonials, reviews...thanks. The pages post home page are also called internal pages.
Additional information to be added are usually on two tier in form of html pages, pdf, articles etc. They should be linked from topical pages or extremely relevant internal pages. Linking to other websites should be avoided even if you own them especially if they are placed in same folder in the hosting space.
Website Contents
Contents to the pages are most important and pages with thin contents are not appreciated. Meaningful and relevant, the contents should be well written without any blemish. The formatting of the contents is important as well for they inform search engines about the importance of the paragraphs as well as of the relevancy. Do not include contents which are not at all related. If the contents add to greater but related information then add them in 2 tier.
They keyword saturation is important when writing contents for the websites. Spamming is not at all appreciated and your page will be pushed lower down the rung. H 1 and H2 tags should be used frugally usually H1 is the first tag which means important content is placed highest on the hierarchy or arrangement ...naturally. Tags are used in titles and usually H1 is used only once.
Place contents in quotes if they are suggestive of greater thought or opinion.
Avoid duplicate contents or similar contents use canonical meta tag if similar or repeated contents have to be used. Duplicate contents copied from other websites is a sure shot failure bound. Hire a good content writer!
Attributes
Add videos, graphics, and images which are related and use descriptive alt text without fail. Do not keyword spam here as well a warning since the temptation is great.
The text to background contrast should be appreciable and distance between links should not create a cluster separated by appreciable distance.
Add indexing and follow option in the meta tag without fail in each page. Leave the robot.txt file empty or add page exclusion instructions without errors.
Add both HTML and XML site maps and regularly updated. in coding replace index.html with absolute URL on all pages. Some scripts are not properly negotiated by search engines avoid them. Make sure all the pages except those with noindex/nofollow are crawled by the search engines.
It is wise to be in Google Search Console which will help discover discrepancies and anomaly in site performance also place Google analytical code and connect it with the search console.
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Uday provides SEO and Internet Marketing Services. He also provides website contents in English. He teaches Internet Marketing in Jabalpur.
Contact: pateluday90@hotmail.com
9755089323
Websites for tour operations face highest degree of competition. As a matter of fact most of the tour operators websites hardly receive any organic traffic...most of the response is from the referrals and recollections of the past visitors or clients.
For such website one good means of traffic is to link it on a high traffic driven website on relevant topic. You have to pay for such link ups but then manna from the Net is driven by cost.
A Good Tour Operator's Website
Earlier most of the contents were palmed off from other sites and it worked. Not anymore. You need a good content writer to shape up your profile, upto the mark destination descriptions, minute accommodation details, and package tours. All the write up has to be original including the itineraries of the packages. Double check for duplicates. Use canonicalization for somewhat similar pages which you wish to retain for some purpose within the link architecture.
The number of packages have to be limited such that your core focusing is evident. Ten or Twelve itineraries are best advised. The itineraries should be descriptive and well up to the mark.
Are you specializing in wildlife or ecotourism?
Shaping sightseeing holidays?
Offering culinary tours?
Organizing festival packages?
Haunted house tours?
Do not project your portal as market place for everything. This is a mistake nearly all tour operators make. Hold on to your niche!
Finalize your niche, you cannot be selling tours like a departmental store. Clients wish to join packages organized by a specialist tour operator. They want to be in an expert association where the tour leaders, naturalists and guides are all masters. Yes the site should also display work culture, efficiency, honesty and very reliable reviews on major portals and guest comments on site.
You should be a registered operator with major association. Accreditations matter!
A secure and responsive website offering SSL features with payment gate away is a must.
Interactivity
All said and done the most important aspect of a tour website is the communication window. Do you communicate with your visitors? Bring forth upcoming tours, highlight tours that have been completed, publish images and videos of past tours, destination tips and status. Do you do all these things on your site or is it a card board cut out thing? A cardboard cutout is a dead thing do not expect any response. Be prepared for low conversions if any, and most of all be placed low on the SERPs.
How do you communicate? Well this does not mean one to one conversation all the time. The things mentioned above are enough. When the visitor interest deepens it can boil down to one to one conversation. But the inputs must be regular to keep interactivity alive.
Another good means of conversation is the blog. Do you as tour operator blog your experience or have you hired a blogger? Do you or your company project expertise through blog? Well do it without fail and yes link the blog to your website.
Hire
Have you hired a good Digital Marketing guy? You will not if you are one yourself else hire one without fail.
This means you have to dole out money but then the Net is not for cheapsters.
=========================================================== He is a naturalist and conducted tours in the past. That's why the article. Uday teaches Digital Marketing in Jabalpur He Provides SEO Services & Website Contents pateluday90@hotmail.com 09755089323
For writing quality contents simplicity is a virtue that goes a long way. Make it simple. At the same time understand the meaning of words frequently used as well as less used. Understand the meaning of rare words which are not used often but can be helpful in negotiating a difficult twist whence writing on topics.
Develop Your Own Dictionary
Increase and maintain a vast repertoire of meaningful phrases and complex words which help in explaining difficult aspects, emotions and complex situations with ease. You can make your own phrases but they should mean well and clear.
Style Innovation
Innovation is the crux of quality writing, hence develop a unique style, a powerful vocabulary that generate emotive expressions. Be bold, do not hesitate to bring forth a style or views and news in your own terms.
Quality writing means explaining the topic or announcing an event in a structured language. This is also applicable to writing novels where sentence structure separates professionals from the novice.
Read
You cannot write if you do not read. The ability to quickly grasp meaning of complex sentences in online writing can lead to developing your own abilities to bring forth the meaning of sentences by skillfully using words and phrases. Hence read blogs, articles and books by acclaimed authors who have authority on a topic. Do not waste time on fiction which is not much related to writing quality contents online. Read news articles, opinions and research material if the latter is required for an extensive write up on a subject.
In case where knowledge and facts are concerned a capability of in depth research has to be developed. Searching online as well as off line is a must if you wish to get your facts right. Extensive research makes contents unique, which is one aspect which outdoes other competing ones. Always keep on reading on the subject of relevancy. But your bread and butter could arise from just any topic hence develop ability to grasp quickly unrelated topics that may often not interest you as a writer.
Formatting & Grammar
The title, first sentence of paragraph should well explain what the write is all about. This is important to catch and fix the reader’s attention. Secondly the length of your article should not be discouraging or cause a reader’s fatigue. Hence formatting is an important attribute especially for websites.
In case of writing lengthy articles or even short ones clever formatting is crucial. Smart headings and short sentences all included in a paragraph makes it readable… and a catchy headline will attract readers.
Your writing should be neatly divided with headings for search engines and visitors both. In case of search engines use one H1 tag that is usually the main headline, than use few H2 tags and as many H3 tags if required. This you would often do when writing for websites and large portals.
Break paragraphs effectively each containing one module of information.
Make effective use of comma and full stop to clarify what you mean, a pause is like a thousand words. It can prevent a clash within a sentence and make each one clear this is especially applicable with case where simple and complex sentences are contained. Although write using simple sentences sometimes complex structure is unavoidable. Hence read about use of comma, full stop and semicolon. Any write up that makes sense is readable hence apart from creating structured write up do not be involved deep into grammar. And get confused!
Generating Interest & Photos and Videos
If you are associated with a topic or an authority on one…you can generate lot of interest among professionals, amateurs and others alike. Making a write up interesting is your ability, and understanding the readers you attract is also important. If your write ups contain a surprise, an unknown fact, or describe an adventurous event often, you will certainly add more and more readers.
Related, explanatory or interesting photos when added intermittently at right junctures can increase the readability of a write. Add an info graphic where comparison or figures have to be expressed. And also add a detailed or explanatory video limiting it to just one.
Blog Writing
Blog writing can be a mix of fact and fiction; in fact all your blog writing should be anecdotal in nature. Here it is you who is behind the narration, if the writing is not anecdotal better create an article and name it so. Frequent or daily happening is what the readers of a blog look for… keep this in mind. A doctor can write about interesting cases and a surgeon can write about unique operation he has done. There is no limit to topics especially on the Internet.
In case of a travel blog add pictures to highlight destinations, photos of important places, public activities and interesting people you have come across. Write about small things for example a small pawn shop may be more interesting than a large departmental store. Same things apply to an eatery, small ones on street offering unique food may be more interesting than an upscale joint with standard plate.
Like any write up success depends upon what interests readers. You should be able to gauge well.
Blog writing usually has a minimum length of few paragraphs but the entries could be lengthy even beyond two thousand words. The limit arises whence the meaning is achieved and delivered fairly well. Do not go on to write gibberish.
Using Semantics
Semantics are more helpful in case of humans in order to understand the relationship with the main topic. It is crucial in making the search engines to understand the topic. Rather than repeating the keyword again and again which may invite penalty from the search engines use related words. For example hotels, resort, accommodation, restaurant, room, cottage, tariff, service, amenities all point to a hotel.
When you write naturally semantics naturally drop in so not much effort is required here. Remember always write naturally for the readers and do not try to insert keywords or phrases in order to impress the bots.
Repeated Edits
Go through the write up before publication again and again in order to do away with typos and related errors. See that your sentences are delivering a perfect meaning and are truthful. For in writing honesty is the best policy. No fake news please!
Practice Read and Write
Like in any field practice makes a man or a woman perfect. Keep on writing till your readers say that you have done a good job worth impressing an editor. Well! Continue to read and write to be successful on the Internet. There is no end!
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Uday provides optimized contents in English for websites.
He provides Digital Marketing Services(SEO).
He teaches Digital Marketing in Jabalpur Contact: pateluday90@hotmail.com
Keyword Research & Analysis : Understanding Intent
When you are optimizing a page or a piece of content for a keyword you should definitely know what intent is that phrase going to fulfill. Whenever we are in the process of optimizing a website we make a keyword analysis and make a list after extensive research that we would use throughout the campaign. But just having a robust list is not enough...we have to know what intent does each fulfill.
What is intent?
Well it is a common word that signifies a purpose behind an action. Similarly people use search terms on the SERPs with an intent. The search is mostly for finding information, seeking a specific website dealing with the topic the user is searching for, seeking news or intent to purchase online.
So you may ask what is your site or rather that specific webpage you are promoting about? Does it fulfill and intent? Is it an eCommerce site or is it an information website? Hence once you are aware of this aspect you will narrow down the list of terms you have assiduously created. In short the terms you have used to optimize the web page should be justifying what your page offering. People searching for knowledge or information should not be landing on your eCommerce page.
But it is not so simple for sometime related ages can lead to business conversion but than do you have the bandwidth to be that extensive. For example:
You have a site on wildlife resort with a page on accommodation and one on the resort itself. Than for additional information you will also have a page on destination which is an information page and not meant for conversion. But if your destination page ranks well without putting too much time and effort all the better because user seeking information will land on the page and may move on to other important pages of the website. Well still you may not get a conversion but surely advertisement has taken place. It could create an awareness about the property or in future.....
But certainly you should understand the intent behind each term in your list and then give shape to your campaign. Hence optimize a page using a term that solves its purpose. Just do not go for high volume terms since they may not be fulfilling the purpose of the page.
Also the contents should be aiming at the purpose as well. For a product page the contents should be persuasive speak about the attributes of the product or products and convert the visit into a purchase. In case if informational pages the research should be intense and the information contained should be unique and solve the visitors queries. Although the visitors understands the page offering better whence they go through the site comprehensively nevertheless on page focus should never be compromised.
Paying attention to the intent behind each term will enable you to understand the campaign that your SEO consultant is shaping. Even when you content writer is creating pages you can instruct him the purpose of your website. Most of the clients who go for cheap website design and development do not pay attention to this aspect and the final result is totally unproductive.
The crux of this content is that it should be shaped accordingly to the purpose of the visitors and not search engines. Sometimes targeting prime phrases could be a futile exercise usually long term phrases act as best conversion piece or deliver on niche information about a topic.
Being a practitioner of content based promotion techniques, I am not a programmer or a technical person, but here I wish to inform you that technical aspects of website tuning are important. These action fine tune the website and can be executed with the help of your website programmer or designer.
Technical SEO practices enable fine tuning of the code and scripts which may be preventing the SE robots from properly crawling and indexing the website. SEO provides solutions such that all targeted content pages are smoothly crawled and indexed by the crawlers.
If you use the Google site operator site:xyz.com you will get a whole list of pages that have been successfully indexed by the search engine and have found a place on the SERPs. You can discover these pages by logging in the search console as well. The pages which contain <noindex> in the meta will not be indexed and so will the pages which have been excluded in the robot.txt file. If this is by error please rectify it with immediate effect.
Dynamic pages can sometimes use too long to respond and may not be indexed properly due to time out issues.
For some reasons if two pages exists on a website make one canonical in order to avoid duplicate issue.
Session IDs where the server serves same content to the different persons using a changed ID where in a number is added to the URL path. This can cause a duplication problem and the page may be penalized due to confusion caused.
This problem can also occur due to URL parameter of filtering on eCommerce Site thus producing the same page content with a different URL.
A wrongly placed redirect could also cause problems discuss with technical guy in your team.
Due to some error the page not indexed could be wrongly responding with 404 code.
Fetch As Google
If the on the search console the number of indexed pages shown does not match with total number of indexable pages in your database you have a crawling issue. Use fetch as google to ascertain the indexing.
Making A Site Mobile Friendly
This activity makes the site flexible enough to be show on mobile screens and the changing on link architecture including spaces between the links plausible.
Create acceptable spaces between the links. Make the size of the font readable. Also the contrast between background and text should be appreciable.
Set up a view port in the meta which instructs browsers to resize according to the mobile screen.
Increase the site speed by optimizing images making them lightweight for images may comprise sixty percent of website weight. There are many tools that enable online compression. Search on the Net.
Compressing codes. By compressing codes the website become faster and that helps in user experience or UX as well as decreases bounce rate and hence increase conversions. The two ideal tools for compressing scripts. html, etc are deflate and Gzip. Compression is subject to acceptance by the server.
For those who understand coding and server programming or management. Here is link offering details of how to compress files for websites .
Also use minification to remove unused elements link comments, variables, formatting and function names all that are used during the programming or are not needed at all.
Well design and coding are dependant upon the programming language and the template. The program may comprise of many small attributes containing servlets/scripts and it may even be an amalgamation of related languages. Normally eCommerce websites which deliver extensive functions and displays are programmed in a complex manner and provide a cryptic interface to the webmasters who may not be technically adapt.
Client Side Scripting
The scripts are activated on the web browser after the download of all file are complete.
HTML/HTML 5
The language is the precursor of all others with came along as advancement including HTML 5.
The later is used for mobile web design in order to enhance downloading speed. Along with HTML CSS or cascading style sheet is extensively used.
Java Scripts may be used to create drop down menus, validate forms and animate HTML etc. JQuery from JavaScript library is used to enhance website functions pertaining to user interface. There are number of such programs available for use in large number of libraries.
Server Side Scripting
The programs in this case are executed on the server itself. The source code on server side remains secure as it is not transferred to the browser.
PHP
This most popular and the fastest programming or web scripting language used by the developers. It is constantly advancing in new versions. PHP 5 VERSION is the most popular with the coders and is being extensively used. There are other options also available for programmers interested in a different languages and tools.
Database Systems
It is that which supports a collection of website features which are stored in the database in a structured manner. The collection of data supports the middleware and other applications.
MySQL
Well known database systems include MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle Sybase and others. MySQL is open source database system software which assists in creating a user friendly environment. There are many other database systems available to the developers.
Website or Content Management Systems
Wordpress, Wix, Bootstrap for building UI, Drupal, ASP.Net and many more.
Development Process
The development process using simple HTML is most prevalent while other languages and tools would deliver dynamic and complex websites. The latter are mostly used in making eCommerce and highly networked portals for ease of use and adding many functionality and attributes. For an easy approach there are many predesigned and developed templates available in the market on the Net for free as well as priced for purchase.
Search Engine Optimisation
Search engine optimisation is not partial to any website development methodology. The guidelines that are suggested by search engine should be the characteristics present on the website. Some of these are good downloading speed, user friendly and well crafted site architecture, unique and useful contents, easy accessibility to all the features.
Hence coding should not hamper movement of the user as well as the robot that is the algorithm used by the search engines to index and rank sites. The robot should move around the portal efficiently and should be able to cache all that can help in indexing and ranking.
User friendly architecture should include friendly easy to remember URLs and should not end in #$`..RRR as most dynamically programmed website do. Sites should be frequently checked in search consoles to see find out the extent of indexing a search engine is doing. A robust website architecture would enable sound indexing of the site comprehensively.
There are many visitor metrics that are taken into account for ranking by search engines and those features should shine in the system. Make your site appealing with unique contents, friendly architecture, proper coding and formatting. Add site maps and other features like optimised videos and images etc.
In order to make timely changes the webmasters need to find an easy edit option. He should not be running to the programmer every now and then for assistance with coding.