Category: Internet Marketing

Mobile Advertising 101

April 18, 2012

Introduction Mobile advertising is the most popular form of advertising. It is the most exciting frontiers in interactive advertising. Part of the success of mobile advertising can be attributed to the growing demand and reach of mobile devices in addition to the evolution of sophisticated smart phones. Internet has now been reinvented on mobile devices, so as the advertising. Mobile advertisement is an essential pillar of online marketing strategy. Each and every company/business is trying to reach to as many customers as possible and mobile as a medium is successfully catering to the need. Advertisers are shifting focus from mainstream computers to Mobile devices, hence smaller, personalized and interactive form of advertisement is also gradually gaining popularity. In the latest “Mobile Advertising and Marketing 3rd Edition” report  by Berg Insight the global mobile marketing and advertising market will grow from € 1 billion in 2008 to € 8.7 billion in 2014 which is a 43 percent Compounded Annual Growth Rate. At that value it will be 11.7 percent of total digital advertising. The number presented above gives an idea about how mobile advertising is gradually playing an important role. Mobile Advertising ecosystem The mobile advertising ecosystem involves several intermediaries between the “Advertisers” and the “Consumers”.  When a message has to be conveyed from an Advertiser to an intended consumer, it has to be processed through Ad agency, Content publishers, Mobile Carrier and finally to the Consumer. The figure below gives workflow of a typical mobile advertising campaign: Types of Mobile Advertisement Mobile advertisement is of various types. They vary from a simple SMS to rich media ads like animated graphics and video. These ads can be highly targeted and can be displayed based on user’s behavior. Let’s discuss below the various forms of mobile advertisement: SMS (Short Messaging Service) This is the primitive and simplest form of mobile advertisement and exists from a long time ago. This kind of advertisement is supported by all the mobile phones and hence it has the highest reach. But the conversion rate for SMS ads is very low. Whatever information a brand wants to convey to the consumers is composed in short message and sent via a SMS gateway. SMS advertising is suitable for sending coupon and special discounts. Retail, restaurants and entertainment markets get benefitted through this form of mobile advertising. If this SMS ad is used excessively by sending same message to a number multiple times, it cause irritation among customers and can be fatal to a brand. Text Ads These kinds of ads are displayed like a normal text on mobile websites. These ads are currently responsible for 50% of mobile Internet traffic as they fit in almost any mobile device and mobile web browsers having Internet access. The Text ads like normal desktop ads contain 3 lines of text and a URL that links to the advertiser’s website. Image Ads The image ads can be of 2 types. One that is served through MMS and another served through Mobile websites. This is a popular method of advertising. The image ads include both static and animated images. In image ads via MMS, the advertisers load static and animated images to an ad server and the ad server identifies the mobile device and serve related ads. In the image ads via mobile sites, the ads images are embedded on the mobile web pages and appear while browsing the mobile sites. Graphical Banners There are various types and size of graphical banner ads available for mobile. These ads may be quite interactive and can have call to action button placed on it. The difference between image ads and banner ads is that image ads might not have a clickable component whereas the graphical ads have a clickable component. Video Ads These kinds of ads are usually supported by high end mobile devices and resemble mainstream advertisement. The ads that are displayed on TV or websites can also be displayed on mobile devices. For example while playing videos in sites like youtube, few of the videos want you to see the video ads before the actual video is played. Embedded Ads These kinds of ads are generally part of free mobile games or apps and displayed during game play. Push Notification/Scroll Ads These kinds of ads are pushed to your mobile device and appear when the mobile device is idle. Usually these ads ask you to perform some action to deliver further content. These ads are served through the mobile operator. Mobile Ads Transmission Options Mobile ads can be served via various medium as given below: Short Messaging Service Multimedia messaging Service Premium SMS Subscription based SMS service Wireless Access Protocol sites Mobile Web Mobile Operator (via caller tunes and IVRS) Streaming media Broadcast Media Mobile Ad Network In order to facilitate the mobile advertising, the mobile ad networks play an important role. These ad networks are the one where advertisers meet the publishers. Below are a list of global renowned ad networks: Admob Admob has been acquired by Google in 2009. It is one of the world’s largest mobile advertising platform. It serves as high as 40 billion banner and text ads per month across mobile web and mobile apps. iAds iAds is a mobile advertising platform from Apple. iAds has been a part of iOS 4. It helps third party application developers to embed advertisement into the apps they build for iPhones and iPads. inMobi Founded in India, inMobi is the largest independent mobile advertising network in the world. It is a performance based mobile advertising network and helps advertisers reach their target audience and publishers monetize their content. It started as an SMS based search platform. Microsoft Adcenter Mobile advertising solution from Microsoft offers both display ads and search advertising. According to Microsoft the mobile display ad solution connects to nearly 50 million unique users and the mobile search ad solution leverage the partnership with Bing and Yahoo and reaches to almost 28 million users. Apart from the above list of ad

Read More »

Making Money from Mobile Apps

March 26, 2012

Every now and then we heard stories about app developers making fortune from the app they developed. Though the news are hard to believe, they are in fact true, as mobile app market has untapped potential to make money. The other side of the story also laments that not every app developers make money with their apps, which is also true to the T. Considering the fact that there are millions of apps in Apple App Store as well as Android Market, everyone into the app development cannot make money. Having a careful look at the top selling apps, we can see that all popular apps have few things in common which makes them popular and people do not think twice to pay money to have those apps in their smartphone. If you understand these distinguishing factors and incorporate those into your next mobile app, you can still win against the competition and your app will get visibility, more importantly it will serve as a money making machine. Before we proceed further on “how to make money through mobile apps”, lets us have a look at the recipes for a successful mobile app. If our app is successful then it will make us money. If you are serious about making money from your app, you need to clearly understand the elements of successful mobile apps. Researching the App Store With infinite competing apps in the market, you need to do proper research to find out the niche that has very few apps or no apps at all. This will lead you to face less competition. Researching on the app stores will also give you insight on the current trend of the app usage. You will get to know about what is making people dissatisfied about an app and what are they looking for in an app. Creating an Innovative App It takes lot of efforts, time and money to create an app that looks good and performs. So do not waste your effort in replicating an existing concept, rather utilize that to come up with something new. The app market is flooded with all sorts of app, so if the app you develop is another archetypical app available in the market with a little twist, it will disperse in the vast sea of app store and you will hardly find any takers. On the other hand after a thorough research if you come up with something unique that solves certain problem the smart phone users are facing, you will have lot of takers for that app. Performance and Loading Time The success of an app depends upon how consistently it performs. The app has to be tested properly in all conditions before it is released in the app market. The app should consume less memory and CPU power so it can run on all kind of smartphones including the starter range. The main reason people prefer mobile app is because they want to access information faster. Mobile apps which take long time to load are removed as soon as they are installed. Loading time of 5-7 seconds is fine but above that creates dissatisfaction. Enticing User Interface The main reason of success of a smartphone app is the user interface. If the user interface is appealing and has simple and easy navigation, it will be user friendly and hence will be popular among all kind of smart phone users. If the UI of an app is cluttered, it will fail to gain user acceptance. Apps like Feathers, Gowalla, Instagram are considered having the best User Interface. Value Proposition The mobile app has to be usable, that means it has to offer some sort of a solutions to something needed by the users and make life easier. Such an app will gain popularity quite rapidly. Such apps offer something extra then other app and engage the users. If you look at apps like Flixter, Gowalla, Echofon, Tripit etc. they all have what it takes to be a top selling app. Now that we are done with identifying the recipes of a successful app, it is time to know how to make money from our app. Once our app is ready to launch, there are 2 important steps that need to be successfully completed. Getting Approved in the App store After your app is developed the only hindrance before it is available to public is getting approved in the app store for the respective platform. While it is easier to be approved in Android marketplace, getting approved in Apple App store is quite difficult. But if the submitted app complies with all the policies and guidelines, it will definitely get thumbs up. If Apple feels that the App is just a copycat and does not add any value addition to iPhone, contains pornographic and racial content then the app is likely to be disapproved. Promoting the App Once the app is approved and listed in the App market place your next goal is to let customers know about it so that they will download the app. The best promotion technique is to get features as a new app in the category or top selling app. But to be featured in the app market place you need numbers. So there are external ways to promote the app and get the desired numbers and then automatically get featured in the app marketplace and you will see a sudden increase in downloads as soon as your app get featured in the marketplace. You can create a dedicated website for your app, utilize blogs in the same niche to write about your apps, Take help of influential people in social media to talk about your app in Twitter and Facebook. These methods will create a buzz about your app and information about it will reach to more and more people. With good promotion and marketing, your app will gradually gain visibility and it is time to see the result in terms of monetary benefit you

Read More »

Using Link Baiting for SEO

March 19, 2012

Today the Internet Marketing landscape is quite competitive and everyone knows how difficult it is get quality traffic. So Internet marketers and SEO specialists are often employing innovative ways to drive quality traffic and back links to their websites. One such technique of garnering back links is called “Link Baiting”. We can define Link bait as a “technique to garner back links to a website naturally”. In link baiting, we create a compelling piece of content that arouses people’s interest, so they wish to link to that content from their website. In normal link building we approach others to link to our websites or we exchange links with others, but in Link baiting the content that we create attract people and they are compelled to link to the site as they want to share it with their readers too. The goal of perfect link bait is to let people keep sharing it till everyone in the Internet sees it. A Viral link bait is quite useful and give result beyond imagination. Types of Link Bait There are various approaches the professional link baiters follow to create link baiting strategies (hooks). However these strategies can be broadly categorized into the following: News Hook This kind of link baiting strategy is dependent on the freshness of the content. You need to be pretty proactive in publishing the news as and when it happens. The news like a much anticipated product launch or preview of a gadget before it launch gets quite lot of attention in Internet community and can help you in getting lot of backlinks. The unveiling of iPhone 4 by Gizmodo is the best example in using this link bait hook. It has got 244K Facebook shares and more than 4000 back links from diverse domains. Humor Hook Put something in a funny way, make a cartoon of a celebrity or write a funny story or a joke and you will get lot of people talking about it. You can even make fun of yourself or fun of a renowned celebrity or the industry. But make sure your content is unique and special then million of other sites. Resource Hook Infographics, widgets and online gadgets serve as good link bait items. Resource hooks are the best and easiest link baiting strategy. There are lots of opportunities to do some ground breaking research and put your research finding in a nicely done infographics, which is enough to get you a plethora of backlinks. You can even write How-to-guides or an ebook and you will get backlinks for sure. Though this strategy is time consuming, it gives desired result. Attack Hook This strategy relies on negative views and comments to create buzz. But this can lead you to making few enemies for sure. Talking bad about someone or something creates a debate sort of thing and divides people into 2 groups who indulge in fighting among themselves and indirectly help in promoting the content. Political bloggers and critiques are good at this strategy. Incentive Hooks This strategy is employed by almost everyone at some point in time. Running contests on blogs, asking people to write review about your site etc come under this. When you give people something in return, they will never hesitate to write about you. Elements of Link Bait For maximum return from link baiting, the quality of content should be good and unique. It should be well edited and properly formatted. This will let others to skim over the content and decide to link to it. With that in mind, we need to consider following things: Headline: A strong and alluring headline is a must. So the first step is to decide on a catchy headline that will automatically divert people’s attention and they will think of reading. When people will link they may use this headline to link to your site which in turn will serve as an added benefit and will increase traffic inflow. Main Content: Remember that great link bait content cannot be produced in a few hours. The main content should be written thoughtfully and in an easy to understand manner. The information provided in the content should be thoroughly researched. The content should be well formatted and should be free of spelling and grammatical errors. Graphics and Visuals: Pictures speak better than the words. So complement your content with graphics and visuals. If you have an infographics in place for any research based article, do include that and talk about the infographics in brief. Targeted list: Before you publish the article meant for link baiting, build up a list of bloggers and web masters who will be able to help you in promoting by sharing the link bait. This way it will get more visibility and can go viral faster. Launch with a Buzz: Even if you have a great article, complemented with pictures and graphics, you cannot expect people to find it and link to it on their won. You have to put little efforts to make it viral. Social media is the best choice in the regard. Use social media like Facebook and Twitter and social bookmarking service s like Digg, Reddit etc. to submit the content and promote it. Make sure that you are not over promoting it, else it will be regarded as Spam and will be of no use. Factors for Link bait success The ultimate aim of link bait is to gain backlinks which helps in SEO. Because one of the prime requisite in SEO is gaining backlinks. The social media like Facebook and Twitter act as catalyst which trigger the link bait posts to be mentioned in traditional blogs and websites. That is when the actual magic of link bait can be seen. Link baiting is the natural way of building backlinks. Main purpose of any SEO campaign is to bring traffic to a website by employing various methods and link bait serves this purpose effectively. One of the factors for the success of link

Read More »

Explainer Videos: A Potent Internet Marketing Tool

March 7, 2012

Once companies manage to get a slick website to entice customers or clients, they tend to believe they are all set to make their foray into the Internet. However, marketing oneself or one’s company isn’t all that simple and one needs to tap into the consumer’s psychology. Psychological theories of learning emphasize on the importance of sensory inputs. For instance, a website that only has text is the least appealing. When it offers images and colourful pictures, a visitor stays on a page for a longer time. Similarly, when the website appeals to the auditory sensors, depending on the situation the visitor to the page may lurk around a little much longer. Also, having text, images, audio and video would be a complete sensory experience and this is perhaps why one should consider uploading and publishing explainer videos that grab the attention of the visitor, provide information and also allow for interactive sharing through social media. Most importantly, explainer videos are viral, if they are good enough. What Are Explainer Videos and What Are Their Benefits? Animated explainers or promotional videos are a great addition to one’s marketing plan as they add a little bit of fun to one’s business and effectively explain one’s services and products. First off, explainer videos grab the attention of the viewer and also help in sustaining it. This means, the page visits last for a longer duration and helps in increasing web traffic. This automatically helps in increasing page views, brand awareness, ad exposure and finally helps in memorizing one’s company’s information and reach a wider target audience through social media or otherwise. What Are the Key Features of a Good Explainer Video? If one were to ask what must be included in an explainer video, it is rather simple and clear. The explainer video needs to be simple and non-intrusive. Much as a video is sensually stimulating, it must not prove to be intrusive and annoying. The information and the video must be clutter-free and must avoid unnecessary information. An explainer video must also not be very lengthy and should not last for more than 2 minutes. The idea is to grab the viewers’ attention for a few seconds more than usual, and not make them get distracted from the actual content. Explainer videos must be interactive and fun. This means that one must make use of rich animation, graphics, visual effects and an attractive voice over in order to convey the message effectively in a non-intrusive manner. It is a good idea to approach a video production company or speak to web designers themselves if they could play around with animation and make an attractive video. It is rather simple to create an explainer video and is more affordable than getting actors to play their roles. How Can One Make a Good Explainer Video? A good explainer video must have a plan. The plan must describe the content, tone and medium. Once the plan is written, the next step is to visualize it on a storyboard. Storyboards help in visualizing the video and also in editing once the video has been shot. Voice-overs are very important and a soothing background music with or without voice-overs can be a great tool in maintaining the visitor’s attention. Once the video has been shot, edited and completed, it is time to share it on as many websites as possible. Social media websites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Google+ always come to one’s rescue. How Can Explainer Videos Help in Marketing? Explainer videos are particularly useful in a web marketing campaign as videos can go viral. They can drive traffic from YouTube and social networking sites. Visitors spend 45% longer on a website which has explainer videos. Research also reveals that people tend to buy products or service twice as likely when videos are present. They help in driving a sales pitch without being too intrusive and eventually help in creating valuable online brands. Which are some popular companies creating explainer videos? Oomphbox provides a cost-effective solution for creating compelling explainer videos that can easily grab attention of your prospects and explain your innovative business model, products or services for higher conversion rates. Some of the other companies that make professional videos are Common Craft, Demo Duck, My Promo Videos, Grumo Media, Epipheo Studios, Explania.

Read More »

SEO Software Tools – An important element of your SEO strategy

September 22, 2010

Do you want your site to rank in the first page of top search engines and lure the best traffic in the online domain? Well, a competent Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) process can increase the chance of your site to achieve the top ranking. In simple terms, SEO or Search Engine Optimisation is a process which improves the visibility of a site in various search engines through organic and paid search results. It is a major part of Internet Marketing and targets various searches related to image, video, audio or local searches. There are number of steps involved like site analysis, strategy framing, its implementation, result tracking and measurement. Optimization can be onsite as well as offsite. Onsite optimization includes the content editing with respect to the targeted keywords whereas the offsite involves link building and submission of the site to various directories of different search engines. The entire process can be overwhelming at times! To make life simpler, SEO activities can also be outsourced to a competent agency. Keeping and maintaining track of the results is a bit time consuming and lengthy, but is necessary for framing the right strategies and sustaining your site rankings on a continuous phase. This measurement of the result is done through various tools such as Google analytics, Woorank tool or SiteReportCard tools. Lots of onsite, offsite and domain related parameters can be judged through them. Hence it takes lot of time for organizing such results. There are a number of SEO software tools that are available online and you have to make use of them accordingly. Some of the widely used tools are Ranking Checker Fiddler Web Debugging Tool SEO Analyzer SEO for Firefox XENU’s Link Sleuth, Keyword Density Tool Prominence Tool Google Ad-words tool Starting from site monitoring, competitor analysis, keyword research, finding link partners to offering handy SEO advice, you can get an array of features from these SEO tools. In addition, these tools also help in deciphering the most popular pages that are being searched and visited, the Text to HTML ratio, the image detail, site w3c validation, site compliance to different browsers and many more. Certain off-site analysis of the back links can also be analysed, along with the site load time. Based on your requirement, you have to make use of the features and benefits of the SEO software tools. The above mentioned tools can only serve a specific purpose at one time. Whereas if you are looking for a multi-dimensional tool that brings most of the things together and help you correlate things better, you need an integrated SEO software. We highly recommend AnalyticsSEO for this purpose. Once you are able to get through, there will be no looking back. Your chances of getting the best traffic and excellent ranking will be enhanced. Let us know how did you get along!

Read More »

Keyword Analysis – Factors that influence choice of Keywords

September 3, 2010

By Santanu Mukherjee Keyword Research is an important aspect of Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing. Keywords for your website should be chosen cleverly so that those terms define your site and at the same time are widely searched. Say you have a website on “online games”. Then “online games” seems the obvious keyword. It not only defines your site but has a huge search volume. However – though it seems apparent that this is the best keyword there can be few practical problems. For example:  it’s possible that many websites are trying to achieve a good rank using this particular keyword (this often happens with keyword that have large search volumes) and so the competition is increased. The higher the competition, the less chance your site has of achieving a good ranking. You need to be very careful when choosing keywords. This article will guide you on how to choose the right keywords for your website. Brand Keywords (Brand epitomizes a company and helps build a strong sales base): Brand Keywords are usually a URL, a Company name, Company abbreviation etc. All these should be included in your keyword list as a matter of course. Brand keywords are vital in maintaining the reputation of your company. For example:  if you type “Samsung” into Google and get, instead of the company website, a dealer’s URL you’re not going to appreciate it very much, You won’t feel that the brand Samsung is particularly strong. In order for any company to keep the flag of its reputation flying as high as it should, its brand name or names should be taken into consideration while optimizing the search engine. Already Ranking Keywords (use Google analytics to identify these): Say your website is already achieving a ranking through existing keywords. This means you are getting value from them already. Targeting new keywords and forgetting the terms that already rank is not a wise decision: that’s like throwing money away for no reason. While new key phrases must be researched and incorporated into your SEO drive, you should also devote some effort to these “already ranking keywords”. Maintain or improve their rank and your site will be that much more visible to potential customers. Unique Product Name or Trademark Name: Let us consider a client who has launched a new venture. It will take some time for the venture to become popular. Initially, then, there may be no search volume for that particular term because the new service is not yet known to anybody. However – whilst optimizing the client’s website the new venture or the service must be considered in the list of keywords. Gradually, as the venture becomes popular, the improving rank will start paying the value. Geo- Location perceptions (Search volumes for “produce” for US & India are different): Geographic Location is the next important thing to be considered. If you don’t understand where a client’s market is targeted then you can’t judge their culture. Hence, your choice of keyword may be wrong.  Geo-Location plays an important role in local searches.  If you’re dealing with a website for a restaurant, café or a departmental store, for example, then you should obviously consider their geographic location before you finalize the keywords you intend to use in their site. Be aware, too, of search terms that have a high meaning or search volume in one geographic location but not in others, An example: the term “produce”, which means vegetable market in the USA, has a good search volume in America. There is almost no search volume for the term “produce” in India. You need to know that the keywords you choose have the right search volumes for the geographic location your website is targeting. Services or Products (Get under the surface of the industry): Study the website in detail and try to find out what service or services the company offers. If necessary, speak to the client so you can get to know exactly what it is they do and sell. So, for example: if the product is “insurance”, then you have to understand whether the site owner is an insurance company or an insurance agent. If a company’s product or service is very niche then choosing a keyword or keywords is easy. There might not be many competitors but if the service is popular it should have a good search volume. Competitors (Don’t re-invent the wheel): As I mentioned earlier, competition plays an important role in choosing the right keyword. If there is one apple and many people to eat, then obviously the probability of getting the apple for 1 person decreases. You can apply the same logic here. If many websites are targeting the same keyword then the probability of good rankings for any given website becomes smaller. This is why keywords that have a high search volume but a low competition are ideal targets. Broad, Exact, or Phrase: A keyword may be categorized as “Broad”, “Exact” and “Phrase”. Let’s define these one by one.  Say you own a luxury hotel in Kolkata, which has an authentic continental restaurant.  Now: people coming to Kolkata and looking for Hotels may search with keywords like “Hotels in Kolkata” or Luxury Hotels in Kolkata”. These can be considered as “Exact” keywords. Any variation from these exact terms may become either “Broad” or “Phrase” keywords. If someone searches with the term “luxury hotel in Kolkata with authentic continental restaurant”, the search becomes narrower and the probability of ranking for your hotel with this keyword becomes much higher.: because the searcher is looking not just for a luxury hotel in Kolkata, of which there are many; but for a luxury hotel in Kolkata that also has a continental restaurant. There are fewer luxury hotels in Kolkata with continental restaurants – but yours is one of them. This falls into the “Broad” category. A “Phrase” is basically a broad keyword where the “Exact” keyword is in the right order. “Luxury hotels in Kolkata with authentic continental restaurant”

Read More »

How To Catch Goldfish?

April 24, 2009

I made the last post about the mental state of your typical web prospect. Go read it first, if you haven’t already and then come back to this article. If you want to make money from your website (either directly or indirectly), you must only assume that you are dealing with uninterested, zombie – even if they typed in your keywords. Assume anything else and you will achieve less than what you have achieved, or may be nothing at all. A typical television surfer has an attention span of approximately 7 seconds. That means, the advertiser has got less than 7 seconds to grab and hold the interest of the person sitting in front of the box, failing which, the channel is simply be changed at the flick of “the thing” or, the zombie keeps tuned off, even though he is looking at the television. The job is easier on the web. You got 2 seconds more to sell. The addictive nature of web browsing leaves us with an attention span of nine seconds – the same as a goldfish. That’s it fellas ! 9 Seconds. How you use the first nine seconds is the make or break thing. In these nine seconds, you got to get the attention of the zombie and jolt it to normal a state of conscious attentiveness. The first step of all salesmanship/marketing is to get people’s attention. Examples would include dressing yourself up as a penguin and jumping in front of the every passing prospect, using proper headlines, focusing on content you present above the first fold etc It is any method, technique, trick or basically anything to get attention. You can’t do anything to sell people if you don’t have their attention. Here is a step-by-step experiment: 1) Buy a stop watch 2) Ask a volunteer to sit in front of you and look at your website 3) Give him exactly 9 seconds 4) Ask him what he understands about your business. Now, Don’t jump off the building with the result! Now you need to keep modifying the website or the landing pages until all you want to your prospect to know and understand about your business, is communicated in less than 9 seconds. Happy selling! -Mukul Gupta

Read More »

Selling to Zombies

April 22, 2009

In my last post about keyword psychology, I used the word “your zombie prospect”, with tongue in the cheek.  But, why do I think your and mine prospects are zombies? Am I a zombie too? Are you one too? , let’s do a quick test: Can you remember which car was parked beside you in the parking lot today? Who was standing outside the door when you entered the office? Heck, can you even remember the color of the shirt the guy sitting right next to you? Zombie! Zombie! Zombie! If you are like 95% people on the planet, then you cannot recall any of the above. We dwell most of our lives in the zombie state of unawareness. This preserves out mind to focus only on the things that interests us at the cost of ignoring everything else.  For example, if you are looking to buy specific model of a car, you suddenly start seeing more of those cars on the streets. If you want to buy an apartment, you suddenly start seeing “For Sale” signs everywhere. Those cards and signs have forever been there. You have just started to see them now. Why am I telling this to you? If you craft your marketing message, or build your website, that assumes that attentive, alert, intelligent people are going understand whatever you are trying to communicate and make a buying decision – It won’t happen! In order to sell, you must first wake the zombie up!  Keep reading to learn the art of getting attention. – Mukul Gupta

Read More »

Meet us at Search Engine Strategies London 2009

January 9, 2009

Hello Friends, We will be exhibiting (Stand no. 207) at Search Engine Strategies London 2009 on 17th and 18th February. Feel free to drop in for a cup of coffee and free Internet marketing consultation for your website. It is the definitive event for UK and European marketers, corporate decision makers, webmasters and search engine marketing (SEM) specialists, including pay per click (PPC) advertisers and search engine optimization (SEO) consultants. The conference will be from 17th February till 20th February 2009. Check out the complete event agenda at http://www.searchenginestrategies.com/london/agenda.html The event will take place at: Business Design Centre 52 Upper Street, Islington London, N1 0QH Tel: +44 (0)20 7259 3535 Fax: +44 (0)20 7226 0590 URL: www.businessdesigncentre.co.uk If you wish to drop in, feel free to use our invite to get a 20% discount off the conference fees or a free entry pass to the expo. You can download and print the e-invite http://www.submit2please.com/seslon09_20p_indus.pdf I look forward to see you at Search Engine Strategies and help you with more SEO/SEM success in 2009. Abhishek

Read More »

Proper use of ‘meta description’ tag for SEO

March 31, 2008

‘META DESCRIPTION’ tag lost its shine after the emergence of off-page factors (like link popularity) for rankings in SERPS. In fact it lost its purpose to a great extent when Google started using contextual content from within the page as the description of the URL in its SERPS. However in an interesting turn of events, ‘META DESCRIPTION’ is back in business! Most search engines, including Google are now using the ‘META DESCRIPTION’ content as the description of the URL in their SERPS. The page ‘TITLE’ is now being shown as the listing title with ‘META DESCRIPTION’ as the description of the URL. If you compare it with Google AdWords, you can consider the ‘TITLE’ as the Headline and ‘META DESCRIPTION’ as the Description. Therefore, you must use it to outline your strength, your unique selling proposition and if possible your offer. Loren Baker of Search Engine Journal mentioned cited this interesting Meta Description used by NextStudent.com in his article, Looking for federal or private student loans for School? Get up to 40k Fast: Call 877-680-9879. Student loan consolidation? Call 800-299-4639. NextStudent- College Funding Made Simple. You can also include your phone number (as cited in the above advertisement – description) for the prospect who is in a hurry! May be you will end up prospecting without having the visitor hit your website! In fact, with the latest version of IE and the FireFox plugins, the phone numbers listed in this description become hot-links, which a visitor can simply click and get connected on a voice call through Skype. And you can close a sale! 🙂 And yes, many SEO specialists believe that higher CTR on your SERPS listing (due to improved ‘TITLE’ and ‘META DESCRIPTION’) can help you further improve your rankings. BTW, I forgot to mention that some expert copywriters may like to even put in their headlines and teasers to pre-sell the product / services! Lisa Ditlefsen says: Basically if you think about it the meta description tag is your FREE ad! If you have experience in running a pay per click campaign I’m sure you have put a lot of thought into what the PPC ad says. The ad is what distinguish you from all the other PPC ads right? So why should it be any different in the organic SERPs? The title tag is your free headline and the meta description tag is your FREE ad, this is where you have a chance to ad hook someone in. How many times have you searched for something, got to the results and been put off by the description, it can’t possibly be what you were looking for!!? May be people do not give so much importance to this FREE ad, because it is FREE! It is never late. Give proper attention to your website ‘META DESCRIPTION’ tags and turn your organic traffic to a highly targeted FREE traffic.  

Read More »

Services

Industries

Company

Resources

Press Kit

MENU
Book a Free Consultation
CONTACT US

Let’s connect!

Loading form…

Book a Free Consultation
CONTACT US

Let’s connect!

    Privacy Policy.

    Almost there!

    Download the report

      Privacy Policy.

      Book a Free Consultation