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The Highlights Of Conference Click Asia Summit 2011- ‘The Power Of Digital And Mobile Marketing In Asia’

Last week I had the Opportunity to participate in the largest marketing event in Asia delivering Digital, Social and Mobile marketing solutions – Click Asia Summit 2011. It was a 3 day summit with a focus on ‘The Power Of Digital And Mobile Marketing In Asia’.

The highlights of the conference:

The conference started of with a very inspiring keynote by Gurbaksh Chahal, RadiumOne . It proved a point that in order to be successful in the digital world one does not need a string of degrees and qualifications attached to his name but a focused approach , dedication and hard work. Gurbaksh’s session encouraged the entrepreneurs to take failure also as an opportunity and go ahead with more positivity rather than getting bogged down.

The delegates had to keep choosing the options of the sessions available , trust me it was a tough one as whenever you made a choice somewhere you felt that you are missing out on the other session which was equally informative.

The sessions onMobile Web: The New Mass Media byMahesh Narayanan, Google India and There's an App for That! By Neil Burton, Web Spiders – UK proved that mobile marketing strategy has to be a part of your digital marketing strategy if you want to future proof your online presence for the long run as statistics and data proved that more and more people are switching on to their smart phones to surf the web and downloading more and more Apps. For their smart phones.

But I think that as smart phones become smarter and internet connectivity becomes better and cheaper for the handsets there will be no need to download Apps. But the handsets will be used more like we use our laptops today. We discarded our desktops for laptops, now we shall discard our laptops for smartphones and that will literally put all the power in the hands of the people as people will shop surf more online due to the ease and accessibility always available in their hands.

The presentation on Metrics-Analysis-Action! And the Day 2 Keynote on Digital Analytics By Gillian Muessig, SEOmoz focused on the following points:

No analytics signal is a signal in itself
Data is not information and reporting is not analytics
Always dive deeper and track to find answers to how the offline and online advertising is lifting each other
Data is not analytics – As just having a car is not sufficient you need a driver to drive it – Just data is not enough you need to analyze it and decompose the metrics to get answers which will help you to take corrective actions and right decisions.

Gillian’s informal way of speaking and reaching out to the audience for questions attracted everyone’s attention and made a dry topic like analytics very interesting.

The sessions on :

Advanced View on PPC vs. Organic by Jeff Adelson Yan, Levelwing

Search Engine Marketing - Dead and Buried? (PANEL) by

Milind Mody, eBrandz

Navneet Kaushal, PageTraffic

Raghavendra Satish Peri,IBM

Best Practices: Online Marketing Vivek Bhargava, Communicate2

They all focused on the importance of having a marketing mix of SEO, PPC, Local Search with a focus on Google Places. They also stressed on the fact on how one marketing strategy helps on leveraging the other sometimes directly and sometimes indirectly. As these topics a very vast in themselves the extent to which they were discussed was not sufficient and satisfactory.

The first day concluded with a refreshing session by Mr. Anupam Kher touching the human side of technology and baffling everyone with a down to earth talk and chat on how success has made him more humble and how failure and adversities in life can make you a better person.

On day 2 the following workshops:

Ecommerce In India: Opportunities & Challenges (PANEL)

Dirk van Quaquebeke, Brandmile Ptd. Ltd.

Kunal Bahl, Snapdeal India

Digital Marketing, Lead Nurturing and Social Media for B2B Enterprises

Neil Burton, Web Spiders - UK

Anol Bhattacharya, GetIT

Mobile Marketing & Brands in the Mobile Web Environment

Naveen Tewari, InMobi

Rajiv Hiranandani, Altruist-Mobile2Win

Clearly stated the emerging of the mobile web and the current trend of mobile Apps. Kunal Bahl described the ABCD of Indians as A for Astrology, B for bollywood, C for Cricket and D for discounts. and went ahead to discuss the success of Snapdeal India . The key factor for any ecommerce site to be successful is to give a predictable experience on the site to the visitor was the main takeaway.

Dirk van Quaquebeke, Brandmile Ptd. Ltd. Mentioned that the India is fashion conscious, Indians have disposable income and are early adapters to e-commerce and deals and discounts work well in the Indian market.

Neil Burton, Web Spiders – UK and Anol Bhattacharya, GetIT spoke about lead nurturing and Social media in a B2B scenario . The importance of content for lead nurturing was highlighted .

The content should be remarkable and ignite conversations. The main takeaway - Content provides the context for conversations in social media. In a B2B scenario for social media forget about the image supply as much as information as possible. The main ROI for a B2B campaign is lead generation and building relationships.

B2B is different from B2C
Create a strategy
Talk business from start
Talk numbers , statistics and data
Build a community

The session on Twitter for Business by Pradeep Chopra, Digital Vidya was a runaway hit with a very individual style of conducting the session Pradeep Chopra immediately connected with the participants and I am sure convinced everyone to start tweeting.

The # tag for the conference #cas11 surely became the trending topic.

On day 3 there were two specialized workshops to choose from, one was on Advanced SEO and the other one was on Social Media Marketing.

The SEO workshop was conducted by Bill Hunt, Back Azimuth Consulting and Benedict Hayes, Communicate2

Rajiv Dingra, WAT Media spoke about the importance of blogging.

They were full day workshops covering the following topics:

Time	Advanced SEO Workshop	Social Media Marketing Workshop
9.00 am - 5.00 pm	Bill Hunt, Back Azimuth Consulting Benedict Hayes, Communicate2 Rajiv Dingra, WAT Media	Gaurav Mishra, MSLGROUP Asia Gillian Muessig, SEOmoz
	Introduction SEO Factors Architecture Content Authority The Algorithm SEO Campaign Strategy	1. Real-life social networking game How do we connect with others on social networks around our passions? How do connections lead to conversations, collaboration and community? How can brands connect with people around their passions?
	SEO for Complex Websites The Challenges The Specific Challenges for Large Sites What to Avoid in, Large Sites Especially How to Rope in Stakeholders How to Maximize your Search Shelf Space How to Centralize your Efforts The Downstream Impact How to Maximize Searcher Stimuli	2. Community-centric integrated marketing How is the social web changing integrated marketing and the role of agencies? How can brands create a series of integrated marketing campaigns that build upon each other? How can brands leverage owned, paid and earned media into their integrated marketing strategy? Pepsi Refresh case study.
	Managing Complex Search Programs How to Effectively Deliver Search at Scale Key Focus Areas for an Enterprise How to Integrate SEO in the Workflow Roles and Responsibilities within the SEO Team How to Make a Page Search Friendly What are Organic Search Diagnostic Metrics? What are Organic Search Performance Metrics?	3. Social web strategy for business impact How can brands leverage conversations, campaigns and communities for business impact? How can brands build online communities to organize and energize their evangelists? How can brands measure business impact, platform influence and program engagement? Dell case study.
	The Dynamic Issues in SEO Spidering About URLs Indexing Optimization Listing How to Manage Keywords Understanding the Intent of the Searcher	4. Social web strategy in the B2C context How can brands use contests to build high-engagement communities? How can brands use communities to drive retail footfalls? How can brands create cause-based communities to connect with their stakeholders? Starbucks case study.
	How to Manage Complex PPC Keywords Creative Development Google Quality Score Optimizing Landing Pages	5. Social web strategy in the B2B context How can brands use communities to strengthen relationships with partners? How can brands use communities to attract and motivate talent? How can brands use communities to establish thought leadership? Microsoft case study.
	How to Measure the Success of a SEO Campaign Reporting Executive Dashboard Search Health Report PLP Scorecard Search Effectiveness Metrics Integration Metrics How to Build a Business Case	6. Strategy on a post-it note game What are our brand values and business objectives? Who are our brand evangelists and what are their passions? What is our core platform and program strategy and how will we measure success?
	Searcher Intent Modeling Searcher Intent Modeling Overview Searcher Intent Modeling Steps Integrating Paid & Organic Search Keyword Arbitration The Challenges The Keyword Conflicts How to Allocate Keywords
	Link Building Digital Asset Optimization The Challenges A Checklist The Best Practices
	Enabling Success in a Large-Scale Global Search Marketing Program The Burning Issues Fundamentals of Search marketing Search Organization Audit Enterprise Search Ecosystem
	Managing a SEO Process Managing a Team Managing the Keywords Managing the Technology Managing the Performance Managing the Priorities

Conference Pics :http://www.flickr.com/photos/64046153@N03/sets/72157626961170824/

SEO Though a Subset Of Internet Marketing Has An Edge Over Advertising And Marketing.

The larger goal for SEO and PPC campaigns is the same – To gain search engine visibility, get targeted traffic and thereby business enquiries or online sales. A well managed SEO or a well managed PPC campaign have the potential of achieving these said goals.

Whenever we talk or discuss about organic rankings we discuss about how the search engines are improving their algorithms for churning out quality results as per the ranking factors which mainly revolve around the content and other quality factors of the website.

When we discuss about PPC campaigns,conversations and discussions get focused on the bid amount and how the search engines are working on reducing the click fraud rate. This basic difference itself tells us that PPC is pure advertising but SEO is about getting ranked for quality results.

A SEO campaign helps you:

To establish an online brand
Have a good online reputation
Gain maximum visibility all over the web
Helps you work on the website to making it more rich in content and error free HTML
Solve Cannonical Issues
Eliminate Duplicate Content
Add more meaning to the images of your website
Work on many other technical aspects of the website like HTTP headers, 404 pages, 301 redirects etc.

The SEO efforts put on a website continue to pass on the benefit of all the footprints created by the SEO campaign even if you stop working on the SEO after say about 1 – 2 years but, the PPC benefit gets terminated when you stop paying for the listing. Though there are situations when PPC can give the immediate return needed but SEO is something that cannot be ignored by any business owner having long term goals and plans for tapping the online market and establishing and online presence in the long run.

SEO has the same objectives like the other online marketing campaigns but in addition SEO also helps the website owner to establish an online brand by reaching out all over the web for making a presence of the site being optimized via social media, local directories, other topical sites and communities where the site can get links and have a platform to speak out the company ideas, values and goals.

Moreover, SEO relates to optimization for all the search engines not Google alone. Hence, any good SEO campaign will focus on all the search engines which have their own index and try to get maximum visibility on them. We know that Google is synonymous to search and has the maximum market share but you never know which search engine might just get bigger and bigger and start being used for search. For example Bing is gradually gaining popularity though at a very slow pace .

A genuine SEO campaign does not only help the website owner to get the high SERPs for the targeted keywords but also contributes in helping the search engines deliver quality and relevant search results.

The search engines time and again offer webmaster guidelines, tools and other help forums to help the SEOs with the search results. The following link tells us Google wants the SEOs to follow certain ethical guidelines in order help in the quality search results as an SEO campaign also has the ethical factor woven into its functionality.

http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35291

Hence, if your SEO campaign is a genuine SEO campaign rather than only a Google Optimization programme then you sort of future proof your search engine organic presence.On the other hand paid listings and other marketing campaigns give you a very short lived visibility for your site.

SEO - 01/09/2011

Why User Generated Content Will Be More Important In the Future For SERPs

As we all know that the social signals are a part of the search engine algorithms for determining the SERPs. Social media gives an equal platform to each and everyone to voice their opinions, views, thoughts and in various ways using whatever media they are comfortable with – images (Infographics), videos, text, etc. All this is giving an exponential increase and impetus to the UGC – User Generated Content on the web.

This UGC and the links on such content which add value to the content has the potential to push the SERPs up or pull the SERPs down of the links mentioned. Content has been the king on the web world but the UGC does not only have the plus points of the content but also has the power of the intent added to it. Hence, it has the potential to push or pull in the positive or negative direction.

User generated content may be in the form of:
• Reviews
• Comments
• Feedbacks
• Testimonials
• Ratings
• Blogposts with a focus on a certain product or company
• Tweets on Twitter
• Posts on Facebook
• Wikis

All that is voiced on such platforms about a certain company, product or service generates a WOM which creates an online reputation of the company . Hence , it is the user who has to be focused on in the whole campaign of promoting a website. The UGC will depend on the user experience the visitor has on the website .

The co-relation of the other metrics like the time on site, bounce rate, the goals achieved, the number of new and repeat visits and other such metrics from the analytic reports and the UGC will determine the popularity and the purpose of the website which will in turn affect the rankings and over all visibility of the site.

Well this is my perception, only time will tell as to how all this gets more and more incorporated in the search engine algorithms and how it is reflected in the search results.

SEO - 01/06/2011

Ecommerce, Magento And Your Online Store

With the growing increase in online sales taking your store or business online is the most sensible and logical decision. Businesses which do not offer products or services online stand a risk of losing their online market share to their competitors.

Once you decide to take your store online the most logical question is : which is the best platform for developing the ecommerce site with user friendly built in features for a shopping cart, e-payments, CMS and site administration.

There are quite a few options available but we recommend Magento for an online store as Magento is a feature-rich eCommerce platform built on open-source technology that provides online merchants with unprecedented flexibility and control over the look, content and functionality of their eCommerce store.

Magento’s intuitive administration interface features powerful marketing, search engine optimization and catalog-management tools to give merchants the power to create sites that are tailored to their unique business needs. Designed to be completely scalable and backed by Varien's support network, Magento offers companies the ultimate eCommerce solution.

You can read the FAQs related to Magento on http://www.magentocommerce.com/product/faq

Once you have an online business its not the end but the beginning for establishing that business. As the online competition , marketing and management are also issues which have to be given attention to.

Advertising the URL is crucial initially till you gain a substantial WOM (Word Of Mouth). Locally you may be a brand and quite famous but when you go online you need to establish that brand as you in real time when you first started your business.

Most of the people will find your store via the search engines – Hence, optimizing your site for the search engines is something which cannot be taken lightly. Next is to generate a good online reputation so that it generates a favorable WOM is important.

Social media presence helps you to have a voice on the web. You can start engaging with your existing clients via social media which in turn will help you to get additional genuine fans and followers and help you have a wider reach.

Encourage existing regular customers to buy online so that they can share their user experience (UX) with their friends and followers via reviews, emails and by posting on their social media profiles. Make all these options available on the site itself so that they can send the message easily online.

Create a blog which gives you the platform for sharing your ideas, promos, advice, etc. thereby helping you to establish an online brand image and persona.

The online market scene is no different than the real time market but the online markets help you to have a faster and wider reach.

Think Local And Act Global is the latest mantra of the online world which substantiates that Marketing is active storytelling , PR is reactive storytelling - Internet marketing is real time, active and reactive and has a local And global reach.

SEO - 01/02/2011

Why SEO Is More Relevant And Important Today

I don’t think anyone needs any introduction to what SEO stands for. Everyone who is serious about online business is very much aware about the importance of Search Engine Optimization. Every year as the year comes to an end there are blog posts on – SEO IS DEAD – Butas always again the importance and the need for SEO bounces back on the online scenario with more added life energies.

As we offer SEO services and myself am an advocate for organic search , when I read posts predicting the end of SEO I get more motivated to write about why it is more important than ever before.

Yes, SEO in 2011 is for sure much more than just rankings. The juvenile definition of SEO which mentioned only about getting high rankings is no longer applicable. The SEO fraternity who have been promoting websites online since the time when the term SEO itself was not coined surely know what I am talking about.

We have come a long way since 2000 where individual submissions in the search engines was the main task for SEOs. SEO in 2011 is not only about getting high rankings but about building a brand for the business that you are promoting. It is about helping the client establish his goodwill online and have a true online persona for himself and his business.

This is possible by helping the business create relevant and right footprints on the web and also by helping the client to rectify any faux pas which might have created unwanted footprints.

As the search options go on increasing and the social fabric gets woven more and more into search the guidance and training of how to use the social media effectively is also one of the SEO deliverables today.

As many people think that if they are tweeting about what they are eating or where they are going they are engaging in social media and this should help them with their search engines presence also. But, if you are not engaging with the people on twitter about your focus area of work or the discussions are not topical then I think you are just wasting your time. As non-focused discussions will not help you create the social link graph needed to help your SERPs soar.

Of course, as it is social media so a proper balance and blend of work discussions and casual chats (which help you to project your true personality) should surely help your professional and personal profile be projected in the right way so that people know who you are and what work you are involved in.

Today, SEOs guide their clients about creating blogs and focus on subject matter about what they want to associate themselves with on the web. This also is a way of projecting your personality and sharing your views and opinions about the concerned topics , products and services. If blogging is done with a focus and a purpose in mind and if your blog offers knowledge and information thereby attracting regular traffic then again the blog content helps you to establish the online persona which has become a part of the SEO deliverables today.

The blogosphere is showing an increase in the no. of personal blogs as people want to blend their social and professional personalities and create an individual presence along with the online industry they are associated with.

Hence. SEO is more relevant, has a wider meaning and involves much more understanding about the web world than just on page tweaking of the website for meta tags and content.

SEO - 01/01/2011

The Power Lies In The Hands Of The People (The User) In Co relation To Search And The WWW

Abraham Lincoln defined Democracy as the government by the people, of the people and for the people and that has been universally accepted and we have seen time and again that the people when in unison accept anything then every kind of authority has to bow down before that and accept it whole heartedly.

Well, this article is not about government and politics as I am not interested in either of them but the above definition of democracy is applicable to every field not only in politics.

Let us co relate this with the WWW with a focus on the search industry. As we have seen that the search engines when they started they had very simple algorithms and the main task for them was to index the web and the users had to understand the mechanism of the search engines and try to learn how to search i.e what keywords and phrases to query so as to find what they wanted as the index was limited and did not get updated so fast.

As this problem of indexing has been solved by the search engines and now with Google Caffeine and the advanced indexing techniques by Bing the user has an advantage and search is a child’s play now , with right from a 10 year old student to a 70 year old grandma searching and finding what information they want with great ease on the web. Especially now with so many search options.

As we can see the trend web 2.0 focused totally on the user, the users wanted a dynamic and a rich user oriented experience so all the developers started working on developing such websites and the search engines also started working on their algorithms to index such content.

When the social media sites got swarmed by the people the search engines were not far behind and now they have incorporated the social link graph in their algorithms and the SERPs get affected by the social signals. Even on the local search it is the reviews by the people which affect the rankings.

Hence, the search engines gear and navigate their development efforts according to the peoples demand, likes and dislikes and changing search behavior . So, as the searchers become more net savvy and as search experience becomes more and more just a click away in fact , now it has become instant before you can type the whole query Google is trying to think for you and offer options at the speed of your thoughts.

In short , we get what we ask for. Making the search experience more rich is not only the job of the search engines but all the people involved in the whole process.But, it is the end user who has the maximum importance here. Hence the quality , algorithms and the display of the search engine results are also directed - directly or indirectly by the people, for the people and of the people’s choices.

First it was the user’s ease of navigation and user experience which was focused upon and given importance to (i.e Content For The User) by the WWW and now it is their opinions and views (user generated Content – Content by the user) which is important .

Next evolution on the web is curation of content which should reflect a merger of the content and will truly reflect the 3 principles of democracy (content of the user, by the user and for the user ) in every topical online industry and sites like http://www.serpd.com are testimony to it.

No wonder they say that "Content Is king" but "The User Is The Emperor".

SEO - 12/27/2010

The Power Lies In The Hands Of The People (The User) In Co relation With Search And The WWW

Well, this article is not about government and politics as I am not interested in either of them but the above definition of democracy is applicable to every field not only in politics.

Hence,the search engines gear and navigate their development efforts according to the peoples demand, likes and dislikes and changing search behavior . So, as the searchers become more net savvy and as search experience becomes more and more just a click away in fact , now it has become instant before you can type the whole query Google is trying to think for you and offer options at the speed of your thoughts.

In short , we get what we ask for. Making the search experience more rich is not only the job of the search engines but all the people involved in the whole process. But, it is the end user who has the maximum importance here. Hence the quality , algorithms and the display of the search engine results are also directed - directly or indirectly by the people, for the people and of the people’s choices.

First it was the user’s ease of navigation and user experience which was focused upon and given importance to (i.e Content For The User) by the WWW and now it is their opinions and views (user generated Content – Content by the user) which is important.

Next evolution on the web is curation of content which should reflect a merger of the content and will truly reflect the 3 principles of democracy (content of the user, by the user and of the user ) in every topical online industry.

No wonder they say that "Content Is king" but "The User Is The Emperor".

SEO - 12/27/2010

The Right Approach To Social Media With A Focus On Twitter

Social media is a conversational and a communication platform and everyone wants to know how it should be managed or how it should be used effectively as a communication tool so that the conversations generate a favourable link graph.

Since the search engines have announced the importance and influence of social media and the social link graph on SERPs everyone wants to work out a social media presence and strategy and blend the social media presence to positively enhance their SEO efforts and their search engine presence.

Firstly, since it is a communication platform all the rules of effective communication apply to social media conversations also. Since I am more of a Twitter person rather than a Facebook person, I would like to share with you about social media focusing on Twitter. According to me Twitter is one of the best and widely used microblogging platforms.

The points to keep in mind while using Twitter in order to improve your social link graph :

Follow authority people and peers of your industry.

No. of followers are important but what is more important is their interaction and their being interested in what you tweet.

Twitter is a conversational platform at a very wide scale. One tweet tweeted has the maximum possibility of getting Retweeted by each of your followers and then by each of their followers – A chain reaction so to say.

So, Twitter has a possibility of a very wide reach making your message reach to people in exponential numbers.

Participate in Twitter chats on topics related to your industry. This helps you to establish your identity and put your point forward gaining you important followers in return.

Use #Tags while chatting and posting topic related tweets to be in that timeline and be found in the Twitter search for that term.

the no. of retweets are increasing that means the people want to share what you are writing and your reach is widening.

The no. of mentions also means people are conversing with you and replying to you – That again is a positive influence.

On Twitter many start as an explorer trying to explore the Twitter social media potential , then they start sharing what they read by posting the related links i.e they tend to become curators . Both the stages have their own benefits.

If you balance on both that is share content from other sites and tweet links from your blogs and sites and post valuable info. based tweets then you make your social link graph more favourable.

Only blowing your own bugle amounts to being egoistic, if you retweet, share and post links of other quality content your followers shall always have that curiosity element and would surely want to read the tweets in your timeline and add you in their Twitter lists or subscribe to your tweets.

Getting listed in more and more no. of lists related to your industry and along with authority Twitter accounts adds the necessary goodwill to your twitter account.

If you observe the Twitter page all these parameters are available in your account and you can keep a daily track of all these parameters yourself easily.

Use Twitter influence measuring tool like www.klout.com to know where you are heading to.

Last but not the least be a natural when it comes to conversations as twitter interactions are like any other normal business conversations you might have over the phone, email or via any other communication tool to discuss something. The only difference is that you are reaching to a wider audience and everyone will have their opinion which maybe positive or negative.

Be prepared for the bouquets along with the brick bats. As people may praise you or they may even criticize and out rightly reject what you say, And, its cool as you cannot please all the people all the time and you should not even try. But, try to put you point forward if criticized.

Humble explanations are necessary but getting into dirty fights online give a very negative impression and may cost you some followers and more criticizm.

Please do not automate your tweets as that amounts to the height of insensitivity and it is better to have few focused and valuable conversations rather than just posting automated tweets indiscriminately . The human element is very much required in the interactions.

SEO / Social Media - 12/19/2010

SEO And Online Presence In 2011

It is that time of the year again when each one of us ponders over the decisions and follies made in the past year and plan and make resolutions for the coming year. This is applicable to our personal as well as professional lives.

I have given some thought to the online scenario with a focus on SEO for 2011 which I would like to share.

Firstly, at the very outset I would like to dispel any doubts and fears if any SEOs have regarding the demand for SEO services in the coming year. According to me the SEO Services will be the most sought after services and the demand curve for the same will surely show and increasing trend.

Though SEO is going to have a much wider connotation in the coming year and the SEO services deliverables will include much more than just on-page tweaking of titles and meta tags. What is going to be of importance is the off-page optimization. Off-page optimization will also be much more than just trying to get links from here and there randomly. The off-page efforts shall have to be more organized and the whole process shall have to be focused on creating a brand and goodwill online. Just having a site linking to you may not pass on the much needed link juice for pushing the SERPs.

With search engines confirming the use of the social media signals for rankings the social link graph and the social media parameters are fast becoming the basis of off-page optimization passing on the necessary nectar or the link juice for boosting or maintaining the SERPs.

Currently the Facebook and Twitter social link graph and data are of utmost important. Social media sites is a conversational type of medium which involve a dialogue, sharing of links and now is also truly social in nature and is making the birds of a feather flock together and like minded people are seen sharing news , ideas and views. Though at present there may be a lot of noise on the social media but soon it will evolve into a platform where discussions and opinions and links shared by the authority accounts related to the concerned industry will gain a lot of weight. Hence how your social media interaction is managed will be the key to the success or failure of the online campaign.

Apart from the social media - the blog posts, the presence on the community forums, the links in the email signatures, guest blogging, User generated content on your blogs and any other external link from the WWW which adds value to your website is going to establish your identity, brand, goodwill, reputation thereby increasing visibility and also will add the necessary life needed to push the SERPs.

Hence you can say an overall online presence on the WWW which gives you a chance to rank on all the search options will be the key to have a successful SEO campaign.

The local markets have a lot to offer and ignoring the local scene and aiming for the global scene will surely be a very big folly for any business especially for the SMEs. Think global and act local will be the needed approach that any business would be expected to have.

Tuning your website and yourself for the mobile web is one more thing that needs to be focused on . With the kind of the increasing trend shown in the sale of the smart phones especially in the last quarter of the year says that the web is going mobile.

In short, we can summarize as follows:

Have great content on your site
Have a social media presence
Engage and interact on social media establishing an individual and business persona
Have a blog with a focus on your main line of business which you keep on updating regularly
Participate in conversations of your topical communities
Take guest blogging seriously
Do not ignore the Local Search
Go mobile

The overall aura generated from all these efforts put together will create your online brand and identity which in turn will reflect on your current and potential online business.

The search engine bots will measure all these signals according to the algorithms which the programmers have worked on, the online visitors will make judgments on the basis of what they read on the various platforms about your business and your ROI and social media mentions and comments will give you the answer to where you are heading to on the web world .

All put together SEO is going to emerge as Web Presence Optimzation rather than Search Engine Optimization maybe we need to have a new term for SEO as in order to reach the search engines and SERPs, first you need to have an over all presence on the web.

Hope all of you have a great time analyzing the past year and get great innovative ideas for the future.

SEO / Social Media - 12/15/2010

Information Architecture – The Foundation Of A Web Layout And Design

Visitors come to your site with the expectation of getting the relevant information about the subject they are searching on. When they find your site via the search engines or any other source ranking for the relevant keyword the first and foremost search on the website found is for the content and information about it.

Hence, we give a lot of importance to SEO and landing pages. Getting the targeted visitor is the first step. The possibility of this visitor getting converted to an enquiry depends on many on page factors of the landing page.

Companies usually work a lot on the SEO and other online marketing activities to get the visitor to the site but the layout and design many times is neglected and does not have a focus on making the visitor spend more time per page and visit more pages.

The visitor will spend more time on the landing page only if the relevant content is available in the form of text, images and videos if necessary. He will go ahead and click to view more pages if the site navigation is prominent and every page has links to every other page on the site. The ease of navigation is the key to lowering the bounce rate.

Information architecture (or IA) is the art and science of defining the structure, organization, navigation, space for Ads. and indexing of a Website.

Information Architecture , Web Design, On-Page SEO and Content Development have to all work in cohesion and the team members responsible for each of these aspects most of the time will have difference of opinion in order to put their best foot forward but despite all the differences the final conclusion has to have the best of all the aspects . The end result has to be user focused and should also offer the content to the search engine bot with ease.

Many websites start small with limited content but gradually go to become more and more content rich. Hence, the scope for the growth of the website in terms of additional links to be added to the navigation structure and any other additional aspect to be added should be taken into consideration to enhance the website with time qualitatively. Else it results into a chaotic situation resulting into a lot of clutter on the webpages and an ultimate decision of redesigning the website.

Just as an architect designs the building layouts first keeping in mind the aesthetics, strength, natural calamities, lighting, other essential supplies and makes the optimum use of the area, the IA has to have a focus on the visitor and design the web pages accordingly.

The main elements of any web page are as follows:

The Company Logo
The Tag Line Of The Company
H1 Headings
Breadcrumb navigation
Search form
Links to other companies where you have a presence on
Social Media Sharing Buttons
Global navigation links for the site
Local content navigation
Primary page content
Contact Details
Copyright And Privacy statements
And of course the relevant content of the page

Once the rough layout is finalized , utilizing every area of the page to attain and retain maximum attention of the visitor is crucial hence the placing of every element of the web page is very crucial.

According to the poynter eye tracking study the visitors usually start reading from the left most text and the eye-balls move further as follows:

The optimum architecture does not get worked out at the very first go. There have to be a series of testing and tweaking to come to a conclusion and a layout to be used for a long time.

The analytics play a major role in giving the details needed to take the important decision. Each and every metric of the analytics report conveys the absolute measure of the same but the co-relation to each and other is more important than the stand alone data. An example for this is explained in one of our post on http://blog.webpro.in/2010/12/high-bounce-rate-landing-page.html

A constant tracking and monitoring is required for SEO – to see if the Search engine robots are getting their material and the same tracking and monitoring is required to check if the visitors are retaining their interest by spending more time and navigating to other pages to read more and finally are they responding to the call to action of the page, i.e filling the form, contacting the company, buying the product or asking for more information, whatever the case maybe.

If the targeted, new visitors are responding to the call to action on the page and online sales and the ROI from the SEO money invested is on an increasing trend then I think the purpose of having a website is being achieved . But, there is always scope for improvement.

SEO - 12/12/2010