The International Internet Day was the event of sending the first electronic message, which was transferred from a computer to another, back in 1969. This event occurred in California, USA. Present day, International Internet Day is also an online movement of sorts that is targeted towards spreading awareness about the importance of the Internet and Telecommunication Technology in the world.

Ever since our inception in 2008, we at Prime One Global have been unswervingly celebrating this very day on the 29^th of October at our company headquarters. We would like to cordially invite all our friends, family members, partners, clients, stake holders and well-wishers to be a part of this day and share this moment of rejoice with us.

“International Internet Day is not just another day in the Calendar. It is a special day for everyone who has access to the Internet. It is an occasion for reflecting on how critical a role the Internet plays in our daily lives.” – Kokul Krishnan, General Manager, Prime One Global

At Prime One Global, we take this day as an opportunity to raise awareness about the power vested in something that we call the World Wide Web and how critical it is to preserve and protect it from unethical use.

The internet has brought the world together and the Internet is the future. So please take the time out and stop by at the Prime One Global Headquarters in Vavuniya on 29^th October, 2016, from 4P.M. – 5 P.M.

Hope to see you there! And don’t forget to check out our event page on Facebook 🙂

Every day, more than 1 million websites go online – Do all of them attract a steady amount of traffic? No. In fact, more than 50% of these websites go out of business in the next six months, because they are unable to keep pace with the ever demanding search engine requirements.

It is hard for a website to flourish online without any search engine traffic, even if the business is providing a valuable service. There is substantial cost and effort involved in Search Engine Optimization for obvious reasons.

SEO takes a lot of time. Your website needs to get indexed, and then you need to keep updating it, do your reputation management, blogging, PR distribution, link building, social media management etc., and pray to god that your website moves up the rankings. Another big problem with newer websites is that they lack in metrics like PR (Page Rank), Trust Flow, Citation Flow, Domain Authority, Page Authority – all of which, can only be acquired over time. THIS IS WHERE PPC (Pay-Per-Click) Comes into play.

PPC through websites like Google, Bing, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn will bring targeted customers to your website based on the keywords that you select, immediately. Unlike SEO, you don’t have to wait for your website to rank first, before you start receiving any search engine traffic with PPC. Some of the best things about PPC are:

1. It is a cost effective form of marketing

2. It brings immediate results in the form of targeted customers

3. It is good for landing page testing, split testing, squeeze testing etc.

4. It can be tied up with great analytical tools to get better insight into customer models

5. A good campaign has the ability to pay for itself, time and time again

6. If a website is already ranking organically, then adding PPC ads to SERPs increases their customer retention by 89%

7. Top 3 sponsored links on Google get 43.7% clicks from search results

And lastly, PPC is a very precise form of marketing strategy that can be highly effective when executed properly because it can provide comprehensive information on cost per click and conversion rates, impressions, CTR and reach.

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HOW TO SELECT THE RIGHT Pay-Per-Click Marketing Firm

The key attributes you want to check for in a good PPC Marketing Firm include:

1. Transparency – The rule of the thumb before selecting any marketing agency is to look for transparency. The marketing firm should be willing to share their expertise and information with you. You should be aware of what exactly is being done to your account and how it is being done. The lack of transparency of a firm is a clear indicator that the agents are not devoting as much time as they should to your campaigns, or they do not know what they are doing.

 

2. Expertise – PPC is a game that you get better at with more practice. So, ideally you would like to opt for a firm that has been in the industry for a very long time. The firm should be able to demonstrate some of their past case studies along with a portfolio of their past and present clients to showcase their depth of expertise in the PPC field. The PPC Agency, should at least dedicated one PPC Manager for your firm.

 

3. Control – This factor is somewhat similar to our first point. The Marketing agency should be willing to make you a part of their team, or become an extension of your business and work with your employees. You should always have the ability to retain control over your campaigns and make critical decisions based on your primary focuses, goals and in certain cases, even execute your campaigns under the supervision of the company.

When you have these basics clear, the next step is to underline a set of key questions for your ideal PPC Agency to answer about the qualified features that they will offer your firm in exchange for your money and trust.

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Interrogating your potential PPC Firm about their experience, background and approach can be extremely beneficial maneuver. Do not select a firm on the basis of their outward appearance as, “All that glitters is always not gold.”

Here is a list of questions you should ask your to-be PPC Agency to help you get a clear grip on their approach, methodologies, understanding, transparency and level of expertise you can expect from them during your partnership phase:

1. How many years has your agency been doing PPC Marketing?

2. Are there any PPC Marketing Certifications or Degrees that you have acquired?

3. Can you give us a list of Past and Present Clients for whom your agency has been managing PPC?

4. How many dedicated PPC Managers do you have in-house? Do they only focus on PPC Management or other SEO Fields as well?

5. Does your firm offer other Digital Marketing Services like Enterprise SEO, Local SEO, Social Media Management, Web Design and Development? If so, what is the ratio of employees in those sectors and PPC?

6. Will your company be proactively sharing required reports with me on a timely basis? Can I demand certain hap-hazard reports so that I know what is happening with my money?

7. Has any of your PPC Managers had an experience with working with a company in my niche?

8. Do you only offer AdWords or other PPC platforms like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Bing etc. as well?

9. Can you show me a standard PPC Report that you provide? Will I be able to ask for other metrics on demand? Can you elaborate about the various metrics, which I can inquire about?

10. Do you use any standard tools or do you use proprietary tools to manage campaigns and generate reports? If I decide to leave your PPC Management Services in near future, will I be able to transition to another company with my existing campaigns and reports?

11. Will you agree to let my in-house staffs, handle certain parts of the PPC Campaigns, while your company handles the rest? How do you typically plan to synchronize my staff?

12. How to you determine the success of a PPC Campaign? How do you plan to go about making my business achieve its goals? Will you collaborate with me to understand the requirements of my business to refine my goals and increase the ROI?

Feel free to alter these questions to suit your requirements. Once you have found the right PPC Agency for your business, it is time to move onto the planning and execution of your PPC Campaigns, which calls for the –

[call_to_action image=”” title=”” btn_title=”Click Here To Download Your FREE 2015 PPC Checklist” btn_link=”https://www.primeone.global/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/The-Extreme-Google-Adwords-Pay-Per-Click-Checklist-2015.pdf” class=””]

Click on the link above to download the checklist for Google Adwords PPC. It contains modules that will help you setup a successful campaign and monitor it daily, weekly, bi-weekly and monthly to conversion optimize your campaigns and get the best ROI possible.

Be sure to bookmark this page and keep this handy PPC checklist in your mobile device for easy access. Connect with us on our Facebook Page or leave your feedback in the comments section below if you would like us to cover a checklist on other important forms of Marketing. Have a good day!

7th Anniversary Invitation Letter

 

Dear Colleagues,

September 17^th, 2015 marks the date that Prime One Global will be celebrating seven triumphant years in the Digital Marketing Industry.

The last seven years have flown by, and it seems like only yesterday when I was walking down an old apartment corridor on a mission to rent a small, dusty room, which would later give birth to such a beautiful company.

Your Past Has given you the Strength and wisdom you have Today, So Celebrate it. Don’t Let it Haunt You.

I feel elated, very excited, my heart is content. Out of words to describe how far our company has come ever since its beginning in 2008. We have won many awards, reached uncountable milestones, and have backed the success of over 40,000+ successful digital marketing campaigns Worldwide to date. But, all this would have never been possible without our beloved Prime One Global family members, Friends, Partners, Clients, Stakeholders, and every other person who is associated with us.

Whilst we have had to bid goodbye to a few valued members of our team and friends, we have also acquired an army of nascent talent to help multiply our family this year. No matter how big our company becomes, we will forever be grateful to every person who has been a part of our company for even a short span of time. We are, what we are because of everyone who has had faith in our vision and trusted our company for their Digital Marketing requirements.

With a deep feeling of nostalgia, I am really excited to invite you all to our 7^th Year Anniversary Celebrations of Prime One Global LLC.

Thanking You,

Regards,
Sharanyan Sharma
Founder of Prime One Global LLC.

How to Increase Website Traffic Effectively

10 Simple Free Traffic Tips You Can Use Now!

So you have your business website all geared up – a fancy web design, social media profiles, YouTube channels, crisp content on all your blogs and landing pages – what happens next? How do you plan to spread the word about your awesomeness without overspending your budget? Should you invest money into Facebook Advertisements, Paid Banners, PPC Campaigns, Sponsoring Events or other media channels just yet?

The biggest problem most entrepreneurs and start-up businesses face is “How to Generate Traffic to their Business.” Most businesses spend a lot of money into multiple advertisement channels or run quite a few paid banner ads on giant websites, thinking that it is going to bring in a lot of customers, which is a major misconception.

Now I do not want to say that this approach is entirely wrong or something. But it all boils down to the conversion ratio of these companies as compared to the amount being spent on marketing. I have specially coined a name for this kind of marketing approach taken by many companies. I call it the ‘Scatter Gun’ Marketing plan. Please don’t do it. As a Digital Marketer, I have come across many companies that are spending way more than required, to crunch small figures at the end of the month.

I have also come across some start-up companies that have awesome products/services, but can barely acquire enough money to invest in marketing their products. Honestly, it pains my heart when I see companies (w/ scattergun approach) wasting their marketing budget in the wrong channels.

MY ADVICE TO STARTUP’s and BUDDING COMPANIES

If you are freshly baked, then you should give your products some time to sink in. Do not plan overly expensive marketing activities that you can otherwise do without. Always try to use free channels of promotion, or tweak your existing media channels or existing business materials (which require minimal expenses from your end), to promote your business and increase website traffic.

GO AHEAD. TWEET THIS MESSAGE!

Irrespective of your budget for Online Marketing, Always use #FreeMarketing Techniques To #DriveTraffic before diving in Paid Adverts.

— Prime One Global Internet (@extreme_seo_net) July 16, 2015

WHAT DO I HAVE IN STORE FOR YOU?

To make the entire process of traffic generation and business exposure less expensive, I have summed up these 10 Actionable Tips To Increase Website Traffic. Most of these are free to implement, and some do not require you to spend a single dime more than what you are already spending.

WHAT MAKES THESE TIPS SO POWERFUL?

• Don’t require you to spend money, so you can start seeing better returns with zero investment,
• No technical SEO knowledge required, so you can do these without hiring experts,
• Don’t need to make professional looking videos, so you can get away with your newbie skills,
• Don’t need to spend countless hours in front of computer, so you can invest your time and energy in running your business,
• Don’t need to brainstorm new techniques for increasing website traffic, so you can rinse and repeat the ones that work best for you,
• Some of these techniques just need to be setup one time, so you do not need to reapply them in the future, ever!

So, let’s kill the hype and show you what I have in store…

1. CREATE LOCAL CONTESTS THAT BOOST YOUR REVENUE WITH MINIMAL EXPENSES

 

Yes! You read it right, the first time. I know this sort of strategy sounds old and offbeat, but marketing your business through local contests is said to drive 400% more ROI than other forms of marketing.

Take a look at some at this Local Marketing Campaign run by a company. You can read the entire case study on this website.

HubSpot reports some interesting statistics related to Local Contests through this very old Infographic –

1. New Campaigns are said to acquire a 34% audience increase than the older channels,
2. 1/3^rd of local contest entrants subscribe to email updates from companies, which fuels their lead generation capacity,
3. Mobile contests are prone to driving 8 times more traffic to your business,
4. The best duration for local contests on average is 25-60 days. Anything more than that can kill the momentum.

Now, you must be thinking that running a contest means incurring a lot of expenses and giving away costly products! However, that is not true at all.

If you have Physical goods, you can give away sample products as a prize to a few lucky winners, or you can give away your online services if your business offers digital services.

Not only will this kind of technique bring increase website traffic, but will also get you more credibility and goodwill. As a bonus, you could even get real customer testimonials, which you can put up on your website and even use for future promotions. Sound legit?

(Disclaimer: I am not affiliated or connected to KickOffLabs and neither do I endorse their services. I have never used their services).

KEY TAKEAWAY – The use of social media and online contests is one of the best strategies used by companies to boost their online audience reach. Use it wisely, and do not think about making massive investments. Run small campaigns at a time.

2. DONT FUSS ABOUT GOOGLE, WHEN YOU HAVE YOUTUBE

With a striking Three Billion Searches daily, this video sharing website is the 2^nd most powerful search engine in the world, after Google. What’s best is ranking and increasing website traffic from this channel is very easy.

WHY IS YOUTUBE SO AWESOME?

Let’s keep aside the traffic that this channel receives daily, and talk about the potential of this channel in general.

1. YouTube Videos get indexed on Google faster
2. You can search for videos within the channel
3. Share videos to all popular Social Channels
4. With a few clicks it is possible to embed videos in blog posts and websites

So, what are you thinking? If you have not entered this channel as a business, then you should go ahead and do it right away.

Lifehacker lists the most useful resources for creating YouTube videos for budding Video Producers and companies.

WHAT SHOULD YOU DO?

Search on YouTube for your business or category and try to understand what people are doing and how people are doing it. Don’t copy and paste everything. Pick up bits and pieces from different videos and make your videos even more comprehensive and information-rich.

WHAT IS REQUIRED?

You will need a computer with a webcam at the least for making YouTube videos. The rest of the resources are free of cost. You don’t need any marketing budget for this strategy to work.

WHAT MORE CAN YOU EXPECT TO ACHIEVE OUT OF YOUTUBE?

I use this method a lot, however, dirty it might sound, and it’s still a free way of generating more traffic by leveraging your competitor’s traffic.

Firstly, try and make a list of all your competitors’ videos on YouTube. Now, you can do it yourself or have one of your existing staff do this work. Either way it works fine.

Create better content in terms of Blog Posts or Videos than your competitors. So for example, if they have “3 Super Simple Makeovers for Monday Brunch” you should aim to create a video that has “5 Super Simple Makeover Techniques for Monday Brunch.”

After your content is created and uploaded, you are ready to deploy this super simple traffic leaching technique by using their comments section.

This technique works best for Videos that are more than 10 minutes in length. Make it a point to watch their entire video first and give a detailed review about what they have shared in the comments section at the bottom of the page.

When you submit the reviews, subtly leave a link to “your better version” of the content. The better version can be a blog post or a video. Then ask all your in-house staff or colleagues to up-vote the comment, which will act as a catalyst.

People will appreciate the time you took to watch the video and provide a summary. Your comment will start receiving natural up votes as well, and this will make it stay on top for a very long time.

You have no idea, how much traffic this technique can generate for your business. It’s a free method and an awesome one at that. But, please do not spam the comment section of other videos with links to your website.

This will not only ruin the reputation of your business but also lower the credibility of your work.

EXTRA TIP – Use URL shortening service like Bit.ly or Goo.gl to analyze the amount of traffic your website is receiving from those comments.

KEY TAKEAWAY –YouTube makes it easy to increase website traffic. Do not ignore the channel and if you are not a tech savvy person and the idea of making simple videos from free and easy to learn software spoofs you, then you can either hire a staff or let an existing member of your team learn and handle this activity.

3. Use Hashtags Wisely To Drive a Lot of Like-minded People to Your Website

HashTags were first introduced by Twitter in 2006 and since then have been gradually adopted by all other social channels like Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Google+ and other networks.

If you are not aware of what Hashtags are, then here is the Definition –

“(On social media sites such as Twitter) a word or phrase preceded by a hash or pound sign (#) and used to identify messages on a particular topic.”

For Example – #DigitalMarketing

Many companies and marketers have already adopted Hashtags into their social media and marketing campaigns, but still there remains a vast majority of businesses and individuals that either underestimate their power or do not know how to use hashtags correctly to generate traffic.

HOW TO USE HASHTAGS EFFECTIVELY?

1. Choose the right keywords – Proper keyword selection is not only important for Search Engine Optimization, but it also affects how your audience will interact with your business. If you are confused about how to start a Hashtag selection, you could try using this incredible Hashtag search engine – Hashatit.com

1. Launch The HashTag – Share a unique photo and message around your niche, followed by a link to your website blog or page that is relevant to the tag. Do this on all your social channels.

1. Provide Value and Engage With Audience – Make sure that the content you are trying to market is top notch. This is the cheese that will lure the mice into your den. Engage with your audience by tagging them in your posts and asking questions, raising conversations around your hashtag, etc.

1. Always Mention Relevant People – Always invite interesting and influential people into your conversation to make it more heated. TIP – Raise a controversial topic, ask a few people by using the @mention and watch how your social traffic starts flooding.

1. Use Free Analytics Tools To Track Your HashTags – I have not used many to be honest, but I surely love Topsy and Talkwalker. At Talkwalker, you can measure the impact of your hashtags by looking at a diverse range of metrics like engagement, general buzz, potential reach, sentiment, etc.

1. Feature Links To Your Website and InnerPages – And when you are using Hashtags, do not forget to highlight your websites and inner pages because your ultimate aim is increase website traffic, and about the rest, #KeepItSimpleStupid

QUICKSPROUT’s AWESOME INFOGRAPHICS ON HOW TO USE HASHTAGS –

Click on the Image to see the full post @ Quicksprout. 

KEY TAKEAWAY – Learn to use HashTags effectively. Educate your employees to use them and always try to create new or find existing and relevant HashTags for better content outreach.

4. Embedded Tweets Facilitate Instant Sharing Of Your Content

Google has recently tied with Twitter. Reference: Independent.co.uk

Do you understand what this means?

Your Tweets are now going to show up in Google search directly. Talk about a better approach to content outreach. If you are not already on Twitter, then it’s never too late to jump into the boat.

HOW CAN YOU MAKE THE BEST OF THIS SITUATION?

Use relevant #keyword and place shortened URL links to relevant pages on your website about that #keyword. Also, start embedding Tweets in your blog posts and pages to facilitate instant re-tweeting and content promotion.

Tweet Insight – According to a small survey we conducted at our office (We have around 67 In-house Staff), we found out that 95% of our employees and their connections were more prone to re-tweeting embedded tweets in posts, rather than tweet the message themselves.

Advantages of Embedded Tweets

1. Take any tweet and embed it into your website, widgets, and posts
2. Embedded tweets are interactive, thereby facilitating instant action
3. Easily enable your readers to follow-up after your CTAs
4. Over time, Google might include Embedded Tweets as a ranking signal
5. Can easily Insert Twitter searches into your Blog Timeline as well
6. Can be used to share Spontaneous customer testimonials
7. Can be used to promote Events or brand messages
8. And I am sure there are other advantages as well…

Check the original source @ Unbounce

How to Embed Tweets into Your Website?

Step 1: Find the tweet you want to embed on your site.

Step 2: Hover over the tweet and click on the (More) Link. There will be an option for Embedding Tweet, Click on it.

Step 3: Copy the code that appears on the page. This code has to be pasted in the relevant section of your website where you want to embed the Tweet.

Step 4: Once you have pasted the Embed code on your site, you are done.

Alternate Method for WordPress

You can alternatively embed the tweet with a Shortcode. Simply copy the following shortcode into your post or text widget and remember to check the URL correctly before posting. It’s really straightforward.

SHORTCODE TO DISPLAY TWEET

[Tweet https://ReplaceThisWithTweetURL]

This feature may not work for the old versions of WordPress, so make sure that you have the updated version installed on your website.

KEY TAKEAWAY – Start embedding tweets into your Blog Posts and Landing pages. Embedded customer testimonial tweets on landing pages are proven to improve conversions. Embedded Tweets might also be included in Google’s massive arsenal of ranking signals in near future.

5. Insert Trackable Link into Website Content to Increase Referral Traffic

 

9 out of 10 Clients of mine reported a significant increase in their website traffic after installing something called TYNT. It is very easy to install, check out all the features and how-to at www.tynt.com

Also, Matthew Woodward published an insane case study on Tynt:

rel=”nofollow”> How to Increase Traffic & Build Links Automatically in 60 Seconds

What Tynt does is installs a trackable link into your website so whenever any content or image is copied and pasted somewhere, and it places a link to the source page. Take a look at the picture below.

If you have got a relatively old website, then you will notice an increase in overall traffic to your site. It will also generate tons of mentions and backlinks that you would never receive otherwise.

KEY TAKEAWAY – Make sure you integrate Tynt into your website. It is free to use and even if your website is brand new, it will come in use over time. It hardly takes less than a minute to setup Tynt and this program handles bringing in hundreds of visitors to the Prime One Global blog every month.

6. Forget Spending Money on Solo Ads, Use Tried and Tested Blog Commenting

Apart from Search Engine Optimization, I invest a lot in buying media for my other businesses for traffic generation. Off late, I took inspiration from Matthew Woodward to try to the old school technique of Blog Commenting and Blogger outreach on a personal level.

What Method Do I Follow?

1. I subscribed to blogs in my Industry
2. I commented on new blog posts when they went live. I was always the first one to comment on them.
3. Shared their content and gave a no hype, crystal clear review
4. I just did things that I do at social events or corporate gatherings.

This kind of outreach apparently takes a lot more time and patience. But, the connections I have developed are priceless and worth every bit of sweat.

Now, I have asked one of my in-house colleagues to focus more on building relationships and commenting on other blogs.

Through this method, I have met a lot of awesome bloggers and businessmen. These people were more than happy to link back to my blogs and share my stuff on their social profiles, which leveraged my business to their circles, and extended circles as well.

What Should You Do?

First thing you need to do is make a separate email for this method. It should be a branded email preferably, but Gmail also works fine.

Get a branded email like [email protected].

Do a Google Search for all your important industry keywords.

Make a list of websites in the first 2 pages for all your important keywords.

By the end of the process, you should have a list of 50-60 unique sites in your industry.

Now, subscribe to each and every website one by one and use the freshly created email address. The reason I suggest you do it with a new email address is because, subscribing to some of these websites might put you into their Auto-responder list. You will be receiving tons of wanted / unwanted emails from them.

Once you subscribe to their blogs, you will receive a message whenever they write new blog posts. Always make it a point to go through their blogs and give your feedback.

Many of these fantastic bloggers and entrepreneurs will be more than interested in knowing about you and your business. Eventually, the blog commenting game will become more of an anticipatable thing.

Whenever there is fresh content on your blog, not only will those people come in to raise discussion, but they will also link to your work and share it on their social channels, without you asking them to do so.

KEY TAKEAWAY – Relationships cannot be automated. Quit automated link building, as they give you meaningless backlinks from deadbeat websites. Most of the quality sites do not auto-approve comments and getting a reference on even one of these websites is much powerful than 100 backlinks from automated software.

7. Don’t Let the Language Barrier Limit Your Business Outreach

No, I am not talking about learning new languages, nor am I talking about hiring linguists or translators to translate your website into different languages.

 

I came to know about this plug-in from Neil Patel, and I admire him for effortlessly finding these awesome techniques that help seal the deal, without carving a hole in your wallet.

This stuff is way easier than you can imagine. All you have to do is install a WordPress plug-in called Transposh and you are set.

Neil Reported a 47% Increase in Search Engine Traffic just after installing the plug-in. We use a more reliable but complicated Multi-lingual architecture on Prime One Global, but that stuff is so complicated that I cannot do it myself. We had our developers sit with a bunch of linguists to convert our website to various languages.

Download the Transposh Plug-in and Install it in your website right now.

What Transposh does is it translates your pages into other languages automatically. It opens a whole new world of traffic since your pages will start ranking for foreign search engine queries.

Note: Even though this plug-in offers support for 92 different languages, I would advise you only to select a few languages at a time to reduce the chances of errors.

Neil’s advice for Transposh – “uncheck the option that reads:

This enables auto-detection of a language used by the user as defined in the ACCEPT_LANGUAGES they send. Doing so will redirect the first page accessed in the session to the same page with the detected language.

The reason you have to uncheck that option is because the plug-in automatically sends people to a translated version when it shouldn’t. It’s not perfect…”

Rinse and repeat the Translation Process by selecting only a few languages at a time. Keep doing it till you have covered all the languages. Do not worry about translating future posts, as the plug-in will do those automatically.

KEY TAKEAWAY – Installing something as simple as a Translation Plug-in called Transposh on your website can quickly increase your website traffic by 50%. If you have not done it already, then you should do it right away.

8. Implement Long Tail Versions of Organic Keywords

This trick will only work for people who already have an established website and are receiving some traffic from the search engine. You can skip this section altogether if you have a new website.

You do not need any marketing know-how, and you do not even need to spend a lot of money for this to work. If you just do as I am saying, I can guarantee that your website’s traffic inflow will increase by at least 30%.

Use Long Tail Keywords

Who doesn’t want to rank for terms like “auto repair services” “home loan” “auto insurance” right? Even though these words are extremely powerful, they are difficult to rank for.

If you use long tail variations of the same keyword, not only will those keywords be easy to target and rank, but you will also get tons of search engine traffic for the same.

Take a look at Prime One Global’s search traffic, and then you will notice that most of the traffic we get is from search engines. And a majority of this traffic comes from long tail keywords, no kidding.

Now, what do you need to do in order to leverage Long Tail SEO?

Firstly, log into Google Webmaster Tools and go to Search Traffic -> Search Queries.

You should now come to a page with a lot of keywords that looks something like this…

Yes, these are the keywords that your visitors are typing into search engines to reach your website. So now you already know, which keywords are going to work for you right?

Now take, for example, we are ranking for the term “Enterprise SEO.” I will go ahead and type this into the Google Search. Then scroll down to the bottom of the page and you should be able to see tons of Long Tail Variations of your keyword through the “Searches related to local SEO.”

There are long tail phrases that Google will see as significant to a term that you are already ranking for. And since you are already ranking for the head keyword, it is going to be way easier for you to rank for these terms.

Just scatter these terms a few times in your primary page for the “lead keyword” and you are good to go. In a few days, you will start receiving more search engine traffic for that page.

I came to know about this strategy from Neil Patel, from Traffic and Conversion Summit 2015’s Wicked Smart Panel. He had shared two more techniques. However, it wouldn’t be fair to share all the exclusive strategies without his consent.

KEY TAKEAWAY – Make a list of the “keywords” for which you are already ranking, get long tail variations of the same through Google Related Searches and then sprinkle those keywords on the respective pages. Watch your search traffic increase in a few weeks.

9. Change Your Email Marketing Strategies

Do you own media? Do you already have a list of subscribers? Are you sending out emails to your followers?

Well, here is something that will not increase your subscriber list, but it will increase your open rates and thereby it will increase the amount of traffic you are receiving from your email campaigns.

You can also buy email marketing lists from www.directmail.com/mailinglists/. Though I have not tried them myself, there are a few people in my circle who have used them and got pretty decent results.

Take a look at these five simple email strategies –

1. Spend Some Money On Your Subject Lines

Why? Because what good is your email if it doesn’t inspire any clicks?

Subject lines are the most famous lines in your entire email. Think of it more like crafting a headline for your blog post or landing page. Standardized subject lines like “Your weekly newsletter” or “How I earned $1000” are not going to work anymore.

Take a look at these 5 ideas that will help you propel your Email Marketing Campaign:

1. Use a question in your subject line to invoke a sense of connection with your subscribers. Emails with questions in their subject are 77% more prone to being opened than ordinary subject lines.
2. Use cliffhangers in your subject lines. People love suspense. If you can use this effectively, then your subscribers will not be able to help but open your emails.

• Lists in the subject lines like, Top 10 Wedding Destinations, Top 5 Pickup Lines, etc., work great as subject lines.

1. If you want to announce something through your email, don’t let the readers open it to get the message, break the ice in the subject line itself.

WORTH READING:

10 Oddball Email Subject Line Formulas That Never Fail, by Perry Belcher

Best Email Subject Lines @ Hubspot and @Wordstream

2. Make Better Use of Your From Name

People are less susceptible to opening your emails if you have a weird ‘From the name’. Emails from unknown businesses and websites are mostly never opened by email readers.

Check the ‘From’ name, and make sure it is the name of a proper person, instead of just your company or website name. Also, make sure that the email address you are using to send these emails is not from a private free email system, it should always be from your branded domain email address.

Instead of [email protected] or [email protected], something like [email protected] will be more personal. People do not like automated emails, so even if you are automating them, always give a personal touch to your emails.

3. Time Makes A Big Difference In Email Marketing

One of the best ways to find the right time to send emails is to divide your subscribers into 3-4 equally sized lists. Then send them the same email at different time intervals.

After you do this a couple of times, you will be able to find out the 2 best time sections in a day to send your emails. Many people think that they should not send the same copy of the email to people twice. But I beg to differ here.

I think it is a good idea to send the same copy of your emails to people 2 times in a day because it is very easy for emails to get overlooked, and sometimes even if people are interested in your emails, they might just be too busy to open and read them.

4. Understand The Requirement Of Your Audience

What might be interesting to you might not be as appealing to your audience as you think. So always think twice before you send stuff to your subscribers. After all, the last thing you would want is to piss them off and make them hit the unsubscribe button.

Always take time to understand the requirement of your audience, before you start imposing your ideas on them. Comprehending the desires of your audience will play a massive role in the open rates of your email campaigns.

One of the best ways to know more about your audience is by doing short surveys. If you are confused about how to write surveys, here is an excellent blog on Hubspot.

5. Follow Your Sign-up Process To The Teeth

We can only talk about enough open rates when people start subscribing to your email list. Have you taken the time to find out how efficient your sign-up process is? Well, if you haven’t then you should do it right away.

When reviewing your sign-up process, you should always check the kind of promises you are making and ask yourself whether those are rational things that you would be able to deliver to your audience on a consistent basis.

Don’t promise something that is not true, because that will result in a lot of un-subscriptions and spam reports, which could limit you from otherwise reaching the audience that might be interested in what you have to share. Seems legit?

KEY TAKEAWAY – Maximize the potential of your email campaigns by capitalizing on things like better subject lines, personalized ‘From’ name, understanding the audience’s requirements by conducting surveys or asking them personally, and understanding the right time to send your emails.

10. Leverage Your Business Offline for Success Online

The current state of online marketing feels a bit broken. There are those old-style media guys who work with offline media channels like Radio, TV and Newspapers. Then there are those Search Engine and Social Media specialists and website techies who manage to improve the digital-sphere of a business alone.

The issues that most businesses face in their online marketing phase is that they create an invisible barrier in their mind, which tells them that online marketing has to be done online. But my question is, why don’t you ‘market’ your online business offline as well?

How is that possible?

Well, for most businesses that have physical products of services, it is quite easy to leverage the traffic to their online business through whatever reach they already have in the offline world.

For example: If you have products, then you can print 20% discount coupons on your products, which can be only redeemed through your website. You can offer a lucrative giveaway for simple answers that can only be replied to @ a particular URL.

Make sure you print your WEBSITE ADDRESS AND SOCIAL MEDIA URLS in bold in all your products, magazines, newspaper and other promotional material.

Use both sides of your business cards. On one side, you give the address, email, website URL, and other details and on the other side, give a special offer that incites people to subscribe to your blog to get updates.

The biggest advantage of this technique is that you do not need to spend a single penny other than what you are already spending to grow your audience and get more traffic to your website.

KEY TAKEAWAY – Use existing promotional materials in whatever form you have to get more traffic to your website by making use of whatever media outlets you are investing in now. Tweak them and incite people to visit your site.

 WRAPPING IT UP

So there you have it – Top 10 Actionable Tips to increase website traffic instantly. It doesn’t matter what business you are running, whether it is totally based on physical products or services or just rendering digital products or services. These tricks can work for any trade.

In order to be successful at driving traffic to your website, you need to have a concrete set of plans so let me tell you what you should do next.

1. Pick the easiest methods from the list like the Language Translation and YouTube Methods and apply them to your business. Do not procrastinate. Just get down to work or you will lose your focus.

2. Share this post amongst your family, friends and colleagues so that everyone can benefit from these free tips. Most of the strategies that we have talked out in this post do not need any major investments. So anyone can do it.

3. Once you execute some of the strategies that I have talked about in this thread, try to measure the outcome from the same and share your progress through the comments section below.

4. If you get stuck during the execution or need help with any of these tips, feel free to leave your comments below.

Traffic generation is a mind numbing topic and it can be a fairly expensive endeavor as well. There is not a single soul on the planet, who can claim to be the master of all traffic generation channels, it’s nearly impossible.

Instead of aiming to complete all the methods in this post, you should aim at completing one and mastering it and then moving onto the other methods.

Good Luck executing and have a good day!

Prime One Global is excited to announce a newly forged partnership with INFOTEL 2015 – “Connecting Citizens” as their Digital Marketing Partner. INFOTEL is South Asia’s premier and Sri Lanka’s largest ICT Exposition organized by the FITIS. It will be opening its 2015 edition from November 20^th – November 22^nd, 2015 at the BHICH. This will be its 14^th run in the last 20 years.

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Being the leading event of FITIS (Federation of Information Technology Industry Sri Lanka), INFOTEL has developed into one of the largest Technology exhibition held in South Asia, and the Premier Technology event in Sri Lanka. It is frequented by significant decision makers of leading organizations in South Asia. Setting a trend for the past 20 years, the exhibition promises a much pompous display of Technology and Services and will provide a rewarding stage for new and upcoming businesses this year as well.

Sharanyan Sharma, CEO of Prime One Global says, “ Though we have not been one of the luckiest to follow the Exposition since a very long time, we have previously attended INFOTEL 2013 and 2014 as Attendees, but this year is going to be different. We are not going to be just Attendees. We are looking forward to collaborating with the amazing minds behind this incessantly successful event.”

History of INFOTEL :

Two decades ago, with the speedy growth of Information Technology in Sri Lanka, the IT community had felt a need for a convention, a merger of minds. Like a place where the creative thinkers in this Industry would get a stage to share a part of their brains with the world. From the first time INFOTEL was hosted in Sri Lanka in 1992, it has come back every year with greater bang and charisma than the previous year.

Who Should Come To INFOTEL 2015?

There are no barriers – everyone’s welcome at Infotel. It is hard for someone to say that they do not connect with Technology today – it is a crucial part of life. So, if you are reading this piece – YOU should come to INFOTEL. And when you decide to come, keep all your perceptions about Technology at home – Since, INFOTEL 2015 is going to change your way of thinking. It’s going to challenge your current beliefs, break your thoughts about the future and inspire you in a way you could have never imagined.

There is opportunity for :

1. ICT Professionals – Software Engineers, Executives, IT Developers and anyone related to IT Professions.
2. IT Students – Students, Career Guidance and Opportunities in IT, Inventors, Creative Thinkers and Fresher’s’.
3. General Public – Hardware Equipment and Devices, Latest Gadgets, Gaming Industry, Software Licenses, Consulting and ICT Knowledge.
4. Exhibitors – 300+ Stalls, 08 Side Events, and 100,000 Guaranteed Footfall at the Event.

“Year after year, INFOTEL has built the platform for unconventional thinkers and inventors to show-off their talents in front of thousands of people. I have witnessed ‘out-of-the-box’ people sharing ‘out-of-the-box-ideas.’ This is the place to be for businesses’ that don’t fit into a single mold and this is the place to be for entrepreneurs who want to increase their knowledge to expand their business in the coming days.” Says, Pratheepa Sharanyan, Co Founder of primeone.global

Prime One Global’s Role in INFOTEL 2015

We are partnering with INFOTEL 2015 to improve their online presence and are directly responsible for the development, SEO and maintenance of their official website.  It is our ulterior motive to spread the word about INFOTEL to the deepest corners of the World by running result-oriented Social and Search Campaigns that drive more visibility for the event. As a result of this partnership, we will also be managing their online PR activities such as the administration of official social pages (Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn) covering press releases,  posting event related competitions and updates, taking Interviews of Stall Owners and more.

What is the Objective of INFOTEL this year?

If you are a follower of INFOTEL, you would have noticed that every year, INFOTEL Expo has a different catch phrase. The last year it was “For a Smarter Tomorrow”, the year before that it was “Enhancing Lives,” and till date our favorite has been “Vision to Reality” in 1998. The slogan for this year is “Connecting Citizens.” The expo will aim to connect Entrepreneurs (budding and pro) from different spheres of the ICT industry under a single roof to enable a rich bond between the citizens of different participating countries. The event aims to promote the Foreign Relations of Sri Lanka and thereby enhance the growth potential of the Island Nation.

Mondays have an extremely sad correlation with the life of us SEOs. Not because they are simply ‘Mondays,’ but because they denote the start of a new week. The onset of new Action Plans like the legendary plans for Work, the seven-day Social Action Plans for clients and blablah blah and yeah! Action plan for the family too. It’s more like a script that we live by today (a protocol that cannot stop and cannot be overridden) – and even with all this routine and discipline in our lives, every weekends with a fear of a Google Apocalypse or maybe some screw ups here and some accomplishments there (talk about being modest).

Now why am I talking about Monday? Because it was Monday (4^th May) last week, that I got the idea for this blog post. I had just woken up from sleep, and I opened my email (out of routine), trying to see what was in store for the week ahead. There were 27 unread emails, of which most of them had such peculiar Subjects.

Screencap Courtesy: To 4 of my awesome clients who gave me permission to share this screen without finding it offensive.

Every day there is a rise of a new fraternity on the Internet, which claims that SEO is dead, Every single day there are new “Guru” SEO firms claiming even faster rankings than pre-penguin times and EVERY SINGLE DAY there are new ‘Professional Copywriters’ who claim to do something called ‘SEO Writing.’ (What is that again?)

With all this useless hype and bullcrap sprayed on the webwork, it’s hard to understand the right from wrong. Especially in the case of webmasters (like my clients’ above) who have been victims in the past of self-proclaimed ‘SEO Gurus.’ That is when I came to a conclusion – “The fault is not in the system we live by, but in the mentality of the people that keep their hopes on it.”

I have yet to come across a webmaster that would channel dark magic (read black hat techniques) on his websites and throw a party when his website got penalty driven.  But every week there are a few people who come to me in search for immediate results. What sort of immediate results?

1. Can you rank my newly furnished website in a month?
2. Can you do SEO writing for my blog and increase my traffic?
3. Local restaurants wanting to increase their footfall.

And other such questions. I am not saying that SEO is impossible or something, but what I want to say is SEO has to be understood. It might be that you have been under the wings of wrong SEO Firms, which gives you false positive ideologies like the ones I mentioned above.

Or

You might have bought a book on SEO from a very legit author 3 years back, which was trending back then and may have cost you a thousand dollars, but in truth – that book holds no significant value today. You can sell it for scrap much like your yearly newspaper deposits. The rules of the game has changed yet again, and we must adapt and welcome them, instead of being stuck with prehistoric notions that get us nothing but misfortune.

Take a look at this small experiment that I did:

I used Moz-SEO Bar Plugin for Firefox – It’s pretty neat.

Take a look at what I searched for and the results. Do you find any correlation between the search results to the common SEO assumptions that are prevalent?

1. Rankings are directly proportional to Authority – Now I won’t say that is completely untrue, but these statements are only as true as this screenshot. Clickminded is ranking above SEW and Hobo-web in spite of having a lower authority than them. Also, Moz is in the 11^th position for this keyword in spite of having DA – 92 / PA – 77.
2. More Content Than Competitors Equals Better Rankings – Again this is not true at all. Especially in this case you will notice that the 1^st and 2^nd Websites have comparatively lot less content than the 3^rd and 4^th Also in terms of Content and Authority, SEW and Hobo should have a better chance for top place rankings according to the books, not to forget MOZ which has exceptional authority and content, but in the 11^th position. 

3. SEO Content is important to Rank In SERPs – We are not living in 2013, and there is nothing called SEO Content writing in 2015. It is a thing of the past where keyword density played a crucial role in ranking for keywords. Back in 2010, the more the keywords on your page, the better were your chances to rank, but that’s now how things work nowadays. Google has this amazing system in place that scans a document for word references, synonyms, related terms and other important factors to decipher whether an article is relevant to a particular keyword or not. How do I reach this conclusion? – My search query is ‘SEO Guide in 2015,’ but you can see Rank 1 and Rank 2 don’t even have the word Guide in the Titles, however Rank 3 does have and neither of these websites have used “SEO Guide in 2015” anywhere in their 2000+ words body.

Why do you think all this doesn’t match with the current assumptions related to the SEOsphere and all the bull crap coating on it? Simple, because there are no rules in SEO.

Welcome to “We are a Professional SEO Firm” BS!

I will have 10 Seo firms pitch to you and 8 out of 10 times this is how the firms will pitch to you –

Hello and Welcome to XYZ Company. We are a Professional SEO Firm based in …… blah blah blah.

But, it is easy to fall for the big claims of the former SEO types and mistake them for professionals.

One of the best way to test the caliber of an SEO firm is by looking at their past case studies. I know case studies can sometimes be conjured to entice clients, but it will give you a fair idea of their understanding of the SEO field. ANOTHER important thing to look for when talking to a potential SEO firm is to look for guarantees. Throw in questions like –

“Can you guarantee my 1^st-page rankings within a month?”

“What kind of Guarantee do you give?”

If these SEOs know what they are doing and understand this field, there is no way they can give you a biased guarantee – that too without conducting a thorough SEO audit of your website.

They might guarantee you organic and strong rank improvements for life, but to say that they can take you to the top of the pole and stick you to the moon – Now that’s where the alarm bells in your head should start ringing.

Things to Ask Yourself Before You Hire Your Next SEO

1. Is the company willing to school you and involve you in their SEO process? If you show interest in learning what is happening behind the scenes are they eagerly accepting your inquiries or dodging it with SC-fi statements that make little or no sense to you?
2. Will they conduct a thorough SEO Audit of your website before running your online marketing campaign? Will they provide you with an SEO report before they start the work? Avoid companies that jump directly into link-building even without auditing your current link profile and Website on-page structure.
3. Do they promise high rankings and rank retention for a long period? Avoid such ‘Idiots’ at all costs.
4. Do they understand that your sole purpose for ranking is to drive more business to your website? They can rank you for meaningless keywords that make no sense to your business or such keywords which hardly get searched for.
5. What will you get after they have run your campaign? Will they give you a detailed report of their work along with action plans for your company to carry on the task after they have handed over the profile? If they aren’t giving you detailed reports and action plans, they are as clueless as you are about SEO.
6. Are they bent on signing you into a long term contract? While this is not a clear signal and can sometimes trigger false positive thoughts, but you should look out for all the above traits first. Companies that want to sign long term contracts like six months or 1-year contracts are not completely wrong, but there are two sides to a coin always.
7. Don’t look for short term or speedy rankings. Think like this – there are other companies in your industry. And imagine if all are paying different SEO companies to rank for the same keywords as you. Short term rankings will only give you a short-lived sense of pride while ranking in the long term in the right way will give your business the stronghold it needs to be established online.
8. Don’t opt for Link sellers or SEOs, while claim to have their own high-value domains – these are BIG FAT RED SIGNALS you should stay away from.
9. There is nothing called SEO Writing, at least it does not exist in 2015 and will never come in fashion in future. Today, Google Guidelines have become more ‘quality-content’ centric. So no more keyword stuffing and keyword density checking – all this doesn’t exist anymore. If they are offering you SEO Writing Services for your blog – this is a clear signal of their inability to follow current trends.
10. There are no hidden secrets in SERPs, and there are no magic recipes. Yes there are powerful backlinks and weak or spammy backlinks, but if a company tells you that:

“We have insiders at Google and can rake you to the top like putting up a star on the Christmas tree” – then by all means turn around and (you know what to do).

“We have some secret strategies that are guaranteed to boost your sales and rankings.” No no no, if they had all that – then they wouldn’t be talking to you in the first place.

So What Should You Do?

‘Hire us! Because we are a professional SEO firm. (Shameless self-promotion spotted).

Noo!!?! Do what you think is best for your business and choose the SEO company that you think solves all your queries before starting your project.

I hope this post was helpful in some way or the other, and I also hope that other amateur SEO firms learn a lesson from this as well. I had no intentions of blowing your mind up or making you think wrong of the current SEO firm.

All the information in this thread is not pointed at anyone and is purely for educational purpose. Additionally it would be a wise decision to understand the basic tricks of the trade so that you can be aware of certain things that are important for being a part of the SEO game in 2015.

SEO is adaptive, and it will change tomorrow. Sometimes to such an extent that what you read today may be completely irrelevant tomorrow so be focused and be aware of the Google Quality Guidelines.

Here is some more food for your brain to chew on:

1.    Mobilegeddon – The Webmasters Guide To Survival On The Internet

2.    How Regular Link Removal Is Better Than Investing 1000$ On SEO

3.    8 Point Checklist For SEO in 2015 – Revisiting The 2014 Updates

Connect with us on Facebook! or leave us a feedback in the comments section below.

The Webmasters Guide To Survival On The Internet Post #Mobilegeddon Era (21st April 2015)

 

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If you are reading this blog right now, then chances are that you have a website(s) or you are responsible for the online presence of your company/client’s websites. Back in February, Google announced an upcoming update that will take the Internet by storm. This update will target websites that are not fit for mobile viewing – So if your website is not mobile-friendly (now is the time to take action). Here is all the information and resources that you might need to make your website “Google Quality Compliant,” when the clock ticks into 21^st April 2015. Make it or you will break it! No puns intended.

 Contents:

1. What is Mobilegeddon?

2. Scope of the Update

3. Why did Google Take This Move? (Trend Analysis)

4. Estimating Your Present Mobile Traffic with GA

5. How to Avoid Getting Bitten By Google Mice?

6. Detailed Checklist of Things to do

7. Print-ready Checklist

8. Comprehensive List of Resources for Mobile-fixing

9. Verdict

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#1 What Is Mobilegeddon?

The trend of mobile surfing has seen such an upward slope since the past few years that come 2016 – 60% of people who will surf the internet, will do so from their mobile phones and other portable devices. If you are not aware of what I am talking about, then you can check your Google Analytics to see how much mobile traffic your website is experiencing. Even without looking at it, I can state that any website today will at least be getting 30% of its user base from people surfing through portable devices. And it is safe to conclude that if your website is not user-friendly, you may be losing out on tons of cashing opportunities.

Mobilegeddon – is an informal term coined by SearchEngineLand in March 2015, to spread awareness about the impending Google epidemic that’s going to hit the web in April. Through this update, Google is going to give more importance to websites that are mobile-friendly, which means better rankings for responsive and user-friendly websites.

NO-MATTER HOW CLEAN YOUR BACKLINK PROFILE IS AND NO MATTER WHAT THE QUALITY OF THE CONTENT ON YOUR WEBSITE – IF YOU HAVE NOT TAKEN ANY MEASURES TO MAKE YOUR WEBSITE MOBILE-FRIENDLY – THIS ONE IS GOING TO HURT YOUR BUSINESS, IN ONE WAY OR ANOTHER.

On 21^st April, Google will unleash the Algorithm which is going to scan each and every website on the web, and drop those websites from mobile SERPs if they are not “mobile-friendly.”

So what does mobile friendly actually mean?

In technical terms, “mobile friendly” demand websites to size their content to the viewport of a user and encompasses everything even remotely related to responsive designing. Speaking in layman’s terms – it basically means that if a user has to scale your website down to viewable size on mobile-devices (apparently because the desktop version of your website is opening on their mobile). Then your website is not “mobile friendly” or “mobile ready.”

Keeping up so far? Don’t be morose if you are not prepared for it. There are still a few days to go and you can work a solution these days!

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#2 Scope of Mobilegeddon

This update is going to be Larger than PANDA!

THIS UPDATE IS GOING TO BE LARGER THAN PENGUIN!

ZinebAitBahajji – a renowned member of Google’s Webmaster Trends Team quoted at SMX Munich that this upcoming mobile-friendly update from Google is going to impact the search engine ranking of even more websites than what the Penguin and Panda have done in the past.

Let me give you a clear view of this scene – if you are still confused.

[blockquote photo=”” author=”” company=”(Panda 4.0) SearchEngineJournal 21^st May 2014″ link=”http://www.searchenginejournal.com/hit-hardest-panda-4-0-answer-may-surprise/106461/” target=”_blank”]The past 24 hours have been a wild time for those who either work in, or follow the field of SEO. Google confirmed the rollout of two major updates, one of which was Panda 4.0, an update projected to impact roughly 7.5% of english search queries.[/blockquote]

[blockquote photo=”” author=”” company=”(Penguin 3.0) SearchEngineLand 11^th Dec 2014″ link=”http://searchengineland.com/google-algorithm-changes-210285″ target=”_blank”]“I believe that the indisputable truth about Google’s updates belongs to Google only, and for all that we know, Penguin 3.0 impacted less than 1% of the English language queries. However, as with anything related to SEO, we can only take what we have and work ourselves out of the dark.” [/blockquote]

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As you may be aware off, Google has its very inconspicuous ways of shedding light on its upcoming Algorithms. But, from whatever information it has given out on the Webmaster’s blog, the Internet is brimming with speculations as to how the update will impact websites and what measures can be taken to avoid it.

We are still unclear about what other factors would Google be looking out for during this update, and it is impossible to claim how drastically these factors will be able to change the website’s search visibility. From what Zineb commented at SMX, we can safely conclude that most of the non-optimized websites will be taking a blow from the ‘Google Mice’ a.k.a Armageddon … oops Mobilegeddon.

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#3 Why Did Google Make This Move? Trend Analysis. 

Statistics show that more than 60% of the searches performed on Google are now executed on mobile devices – so this only helps emphasize Google’s motive to take advantage of this traffic to ensure the best user experience for web surfers.

Let me explain the scenario better with the help of a few graphs. (Courtesy to ComScore.com for aggregating this data based on U.S. Demographics). This information is priceless.

In addition to the upcoming algo, Google has already started rolling out some ranking changes that are based on information collected from indexed applications of Signed-in users. Though this appears to be a small change, it will have a large impact on the way search results are displayed on Google. Businesses that are really catering well to their mobile users will have the best benefits from Google this time.

ICE BREAKER

There was a short Q&A round with Gary Illyes (Google Webmaster), in which he revealed quite some information to break the ice, on what we can expect from Mobilegeddon.

1. Responsive websites will not experience any major benefits in ranking.
2. Googlebot must be able to crawl CSS and Java in order to pass the upcoming mobile-friendly test.
3. Tablets and larger devices will not be affected by this update. Only mobiles and feature phones will.
4. Google is presently working on making a dedicated mobile index – Crazy isn’t it?

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#4 How to estimate your present mobile traffic? Google Analytics.

In order to understand how much traffic you could possibly lose from Mobilegeddon, it is important to understand how much organic mobile traffic are you actually getting?

If you do not know how to check your present Mobile traffic from Google, it’s fairly simple. All you have to do is log into your Google Analytics account:

1. Click on Reporting on the Top Bar.
2. Select Mobile under Audience in the Sidebar.
3. Click on Overview.

Tada, you have all the mobile traffic information that you could possibly want.

So, once you are inside your Google Analytics, you can scrutinize the number of visitors that you are getting from mobile phones every month. Observe the image below, the upward shift in organic mobile visits is a clear signal of the increased use of mobile phones for surfing the web.

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I am dealing with hundreds of websites every month, and 90% of this kind of upward slope is common for all these websites. This trend is so obvious, that I call in on some of my careless and lazy clients to observe their mobile trends and act accordingly in order to stay ahead of the competition all the time.

Why should you only optimize for mobile because of the oncoming Google update? Isn’t the whole idea already beneficial without having to take #mobilegeddon as a catalyst to fuel your interest?

So by studying the number of visitors your website is experiencing day after day, month after month – you can clearly estimate the number of visitors you may end up losing if your website is not effectively and timely optimized.

Here is a neat Case Study – Search Engine Land conducted on Moz.com to explain the process of estimating Mobile Traffic for a website that you do not own.

Say hello to “Mobile-friendly” Tags

If you haven’t noticed this before, take out your smartphones and type any keyword into Google. You will notice that most of the first page entries have a “Mobile-Friendly” tag attached to them.

Just for the fun of it, I performed a quick search on Google with my Mi4 (Awesome Phone – !@$%Missing affiliate link). The keyword I selected is “Music Quotes” and here is a partial print-screen of the results.

Now you may notice that the first 2 results have a Mobile-friendly Tag, but the 3^rd and 4^th results don’t have a “Mobile-friendly tag.” Come 21^st April, 2015 – I can say that these websites are going to be in trouble because they have not been optimized for mobile usability. (You can also keep it as a test and check on these websites when the day comes)

Write down the keyword – “music quotes”

Website No1 in trouble – quotegarden.com

Website No2 in trouble – musicmasterclass.com

Or do this experiment with a number of websites selecting a keyword from your industry.

Now, I am not saying that the first 2 websites are completely safe and prepared to face the upcoming update. But they may as well be in trouble for their other pages – You never know.

What you can do is, perform a few Google searches which your website is already ranking for and check if your website is getting the “Mobile Friendly Tag.”

Don’t just check your homepage, search “keywords” that display your Inner pages in the SERPs and see if you are still getting the “Mobile Friendly Tag.”

Perform the same check for your competitors and see if their pages are getting the “Mobile Friendly Tag.”

If they are and you are not, then you better buckle up your seat belts as they will get a massive advantage over you after 21^st April, which they will enjoy for quite a long period of time. And if it’s the case vice versa, then Congratulations! You are prepared for the post #mobilemadness days.

Don’t just stop after you see the “Mobile Friendly Tag” for your website in the Google SERPs.  This detailed guide will give you a clear view edge over your competition for many more days to come. There is lots of work to be done and there are only a few days – so keep reading!

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#5 How Can You Avoid Getting Bitten By Google Mice This Time?

Before we jump into the Checklist of how to make your website mobile friendly, it is wise to brush along the sides of the subject (just the way Google like’s it).

1. Allow Googlebot to access the JavaScript, CSS and Images files of your website.
2. Don’t use any kind of unplayable content – Especially Flash.
3. Avoid Faulty Re-directs. This can happen when you inappropriately redirect your desktop URLs to Mobile URLs.
4. Don’t harass users by blocking them from viewing content with too many intrusive download links and messages or advertisements.
5. Avoid cross-linking blunders. This can happen if you have multiple versions of the website and you redirect users to the wrong mirror page.
6. Enhance your mobile site speed with Google PageSpeed Insights.

 This is just the way Google likes it. Now head over to my all encompassing Checklist of To-Do things to dodge the April 21^st Update and prepare your online business for the future.

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 #6 Checklist for Mobile Friendly Website (~Avoid Google Nerf)

With Mobilegeddon on the loop, and not many days for it set the Internet crazy – Here is my detailed checklist of things that you must take into consideration if you are a website owner or are responsible for the good health of your organization’s website.

Look at the image above, this is a screenshot from the Google Analytics of Prime One Global. You can clearly see that we receive a steady inflow of footfalls through organic mobile search. Now, if we were to ignore this figure and not bother about mobile optimization before the 21^st of April – you could call us sheer foolish (but, thankfully it is not the case as we are already up and ready, and we help others optimize their websites too).

You can be a designer, developer or another SEO company, or even someone managing a website, and this detailed checklist will help you with making your website mobile friendly. So even if you are in the website development phase or are planning to design one in the future – you can use this checklist to make your website Mobilegeddon safe.

1. GOOGLE QUALITY COMPLIANCE CHECK

With all the #mobilemadness #mobilegeddon hype on the web, it is easy to get swayed and puzzled about what you should do to make your mobile, website friendly, err… website – mobile friendly before the 21^st of April. Before you even jump into the nitty-gritty of mobile optimization it would be wise to check if your website is already “As mobile friendly as Google wants it to be.”

Check the individual pages of your website with Google’s Mobile Friendly Test Tool, which will help you with detailed information regarding optimizing your website. And if most of the pages of your website are passing the test without a twitch, you can be rest assured that nothing too dramatic is going to happen to your online presence after the onset of 21^st April 2015.

With this said and done, you can also read what the search giant has to say about mobile optimization in their Webmaster’s blog. There is another useful read which Google published back in November last year about helping users find Mobile friendly websites.

2. Determining your INVESTMENTS AND RETURNS

If you are reading this checklist, then most probably you did not pass the Google Mobile Friendly Test or you are just hunting for more information. Planning to optimize your website for mobile can call in for an enormous investment, especially because the algorithm in question is going to do a full-site scan and not just a site-wide scan. Even if you are ready to go all-in on mobile optimization it is crucial to determine the amount of investment you need to make – both in terms of money and resources. Don’t rush to a conclusion – Plan your moves and execute them one by one, to reap the best benefits in the long run.

It’s important to understand how much organic traffic you are presently experiencing from search engines. If you haven’t done this yet, now would be the ideal time to log into your Google Analytics (I hope you have integrated your website(s) with GA) and determine whether there has been an upward shift in the amount of traffic you have been receiving in the past few months. If you notice that your business is receiving less than 10% traffic through mobile devices, it could mean one of the following things:

1. Your website has poor SEO, which is resulting in poor organic traffic.

or

     2. Your website has poor Mobile Optimization and that is why it’s receiving less traffic.

or

     3. your business model doesn’t call for mobile viewers (9  out of 10 times this will not be the case)

Now if you are already experiencing very little traffic from mobile, I would suggest taking the slower route for this process as you may have more time than you really think.

But.

Let’s say, 30-50% of your organic traffic is from mobile phones, it calls for a faster and effective mobile strategy implementation.

How do you determine what amount of money and resources to invest?

The safest bet would be to allocate the same amount of money and resources that are available to you, to equal the share of mobile to desktop traffic that your website has been experiencing over the past few months.

3. BUILDING A MOBILE APP TO ENHANCE USER EXPERIENCE

Even though Google introduced the App indexing feature to display applications in search results back in October 2013, it’s still a powerful way of enhancing the overall user experience of your brand.

It is not rocket science, we know that Google is driving these updates with a strict motive to give users the best search experience possible – Thus, if your business model can support an App for the users, it would be one of the best times to plan this out.

You may be wondering how on earth will you plan and execute an App development campaign before the 21^st of April. Well, you don’t need to hurry about this; you can take your time and scale this into one of your marketing projects for the future.

Obviously, everything boils down to your capacity to invest/allocate (money and resources) at the moment, but again – you can keep this in mind for the future.

4. RESPONSIVE / DYNAMIC / PARALLEL

There are rumors that Google loves Responsive designs more than Dynamic URL Segmentation or Parallel URLs, but this is completely untrue. I have run quite a few tests in the past weeks, especially after Google’s  Feb 4^th Update, and I can assure you that if your website is mobile-friendly there is nothing to worry about.

If you are unaware of which configuration option you should select for your website, then here is a description for a clear view:

1. Responsive Design: This configuration serves the same content to desktop, mobile, and tablets by using CSS3 elements. So, the contents of your website will automatically resize for perfect display according to the device it is being viewed on. This configuration is the best because there is no duplication of content and there is no need to handle multiple mirrors of the same content. You just have to manage one single website. The only disadvantage of this configuration is that you cannot segregate Mobile only content nor have different content for different platforms.
2. Dynamic / Adaptive Design: This option is almost the same as responsive design as you will be working on a single URL but, different HTML and CSS codes will be presented to users depending on the device they are viewing your website from. The only con of this configuration is that you will have to re-write the code of your website every time a new mobile device is released.
3. Parallel URL Websites: Even though this is one of the most strenuous of all the options available, it still has its perks for those websites which need to laser focus on the mobile experience of their visitors. Opting for a Parallel URL website is like having a separate subdomain for example (m.yourwebsite.com or mobile.yourwebsite.com). Its cons include having to manage the mirror image of your website and dealing with duplicate content etc. Every time your website is updated, the changes have to be reflected in the other domain as well.

5. USING USER INTENT FOR ENHANCED VISIBILITY

It is not an unknown fact that most of the searches that are performed on the move are done via mobile phones and other hybrid devices. According to research, more than 80% of the searches performed on mobile are with local intent.

This means that people are most often looking for local addresses, telephone numbers, stock availability, and other business-related information via mobile phone. With this in mind, ask yourself the following questions:

1. Do customers come to my shop or office?
2. Do I have a helpline to deal with customer inquiries?
3. Do I sell goods and services that have the tendency to out-stock?

The answer to all these questions will mostly be a yes, and thus it may be a crucial business booster if you can place your Contact and Stock Information like (Map, Address, Contact Numbers, Email Id, etc) before the other information on your website, it will greatly boost conversions of your mobile site.

6. CREATE A MOCKUP FOR YOUR MOBILE WEBSITE

Before you jumpstart your mobile optimizing or website development journey, it is crucial to have a simple mockup of what you would like your website to look like in the end. You can use different mockup creation tools like Adobe In-design, Photoshop, etc., but just don’t trade the comfort of your users for elements that make your website too heavy to load or don’t appear properly on all devices.

Also take into consideration that some of the aspects of your desktop website will be difficult to convert to a mobile version, for example, the navigation menus or mouse hover menu reveals. These features never adapt to mobile websites, so you must look for better alternatives. Now let’s take a detailed look at the creation of your mobile website wire-frame.

i. Development: Remember to put the meta viewport tag on top of all your pages. If you took time out with the Google Mobile-Friendly Test Tool, then you must have already fixed this up.

ii. Readable Fonts: Is your content legible for mobile viewing? If viewers have to constantly pinch the screen to change the size of your font, this does come as an obstruction in fluid visibility. Google recommends 16 CSS pixels and a line height of 1.2em.

iii. Distance Between Touch Elements: Ensure that all touch elements of your website have a considerable gap between them, or users may end up clicking the wrong button. This is the primary cause of increased bounce rates, low sales, and possible frustration or agitation among mobile surfers. Make sure that your Call-to-action button is clearly visible and accessible on all devices. You can also check if Google has picked any element of your website for being inaccessible in the Mobile Usability section of GWT.

7. AVOID HORIZONTAL SCROLLING IN MOBILE SITE

Even though this one is obvious, it wouldn’t hurt to have it in the checklist. Mobile surfers are used to vertical scrolling to view hidden aspects of a website, but if users have to scroll horizontally to read between the different sections of your website, then it may cause problems in user experience as they will mostly have to pinch the screen to resize it for a complete view.

This problem is also easily traceable through the Google Webmasters Tool.

NOTE: You can avoid getting this error in GWT by using relative width and position values in the CSS and also making sure your images are scaled properly.

8. OPTIMIZE FOR FASTER PAGE LOADING ON MOBILE

Again, this is a no-brainer.  The user’s type of device and data connectivity also plays an important part in the mobile surfing experience. Even though the world is blessed with 4G connectivity, more than 60% of people who are surfing the internet, do so through 3G connections. You wouldn’t want to properly optimize your website in all aspects and then lose out on precious leads or sales because your website was not able to load completely on slower devices, would you? There are variable controls that can be tweaked to achieve the best results but the first thing you should do is to head over to Google Page Speed Insights Tool to see what Google says about your website load time.

NOTE: You can do things like compressing images, minifying codes, and leveraging browser codes to enhance the load speed of your website(s).

9. AVOID FLASH AND DON’T BLOCK CSS, JAVASCRIPT, AND IMAGES FROM GOOGLEBOT

If you are using any flash elements on your website, now would be the time to get them removed. HTML5 is one of the best alternatives to flash elements on a website. We say that flash is not good for the mobile experience because Flash is not readily available on all mobile devices. Due to this, it may cause an erroneous mobile viewing experience for your users.

And the first thing that Googlebot will check when it crawls your website is for blocked CSS, JavaScript, or images. If it finds that any of these elements are blocked from crawling, then it will mark your website as “not-mobile-friendly.”

10. DISPLAY RELEVANT KEYPAD FOR FORM FIELDS

This is one of the most overlooked factors when it comes to mobile optimization and I have personally seen a 30% growth in opt-ins and leads from mobile visitors, when websites optimized their forms do display the right keypads. Check out your existing forms and see what the users will have to fill in separate fields. Check if the respective fields are displaying a relevant keypad. Having a ‘number keypad’ displayed in the contact number field and an ‘email-keypad’ displayed in the email form field will greatly enhance the mobile experience or your viewers and is worth tweaking.

11. CONTACT NUMBERS TO OPEN IN DIALER APP

My dad is not aware of how to copy and paste things on mobile phones and so are the majority of the people in this world. You must take this into consideration when optimizing your website for mobile because having to copy the number and paste it in the dialer or even write it down on a piece of paper makes the whole process cumbersome and messy. Sometimes, it may even result in people leaving your website without contacting you. Ensuring that clicking on your contact number opens the dialer app will get you those visitors who might be stuck on the fence just because they are unable to call you without leaving the screen or memorizing your number just to forget the last few digits when they are frantically typing into the dialer pad. Think about it.

12. HAVE YOUR WEBSITE TESTED INHOUSE OR HIRE PEOPLE

During the development phase of your website, it might be a good idea to constantly see how well it is performing on variable devices. This can be done through various emulators available online or you can manually do it on various devices (Borrow from your colleagues or family members).

Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome, both have this nice ‘Inspect Element’ feature that lets you view your devices as seen by other devices – This is a very handy feature that I sometimes overuse.

Alternatively, you can also hire a bunch of testers or even organize an in-house event where the members are asked to surf your website in various mobile devices and give their inputs after 10-15 minutes of wading through your pages.

After the demo run, you can the testers to pen their individual feedback and collate them later on to pick up bits and pieces that need enhancing. Sometimes, it is just better to have someone else analyze your website because they will only think from a user’s perspective and tell you very obvious things that you may overlook, just because your brain is clustered with lots of plans and ideas.

Ending Note 

This is my all-encompassing checklist of website mobile optimization. I have helped a lot of my clients cope up with their mobile optimization needs, so if you need any help you can always ask for assistance on the Facebook Page or even in the comment section below. If you have any questions or want me to add something to this checklist, again, the comment section is a few blocks away.

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 #7 Print Ready Extreme Checklist for Mobilegeddon

Here is the download link to the print-ready version of this checklist for your convenience. Don’t forget to pin this checklist if you found it useful.

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#8 List Of Useful Links And Resources Related To Mobilegeddon!

1. Google Algorithm Database – List of all Algorithms updated will date.
2. Google App Indexing Service – Want to get your app featured in SERPS? This is the door.
3. Google Mobile Friendly Website Guidelines – Self Explanatory
4. Google Mobile Friendly Test Tool – Check if your individual pages are mobile friendly.
5. Google Mobile Usability Report – Get instant reports on mobile usability issues.
6. Google Webmaster’s Help Forum – Ask Google for help!

Here is a list of Big G’s Guidelines for optimizing various leading CMS or similar platforms:

1. WordPress
2. Joomla!
3. Drupal
4. Blogger
5. vBulletin
6. Tumblr
7. DataLife Engine
8. Magento
9. Prestashop
10. Bitrix
11. Google Sites

Here is a list of guides that can be used to change your not-so-responsive website into a “Responsive website.”

1. Design a Skeleton Website
2. Bootstrap Website Downloads : CSS/Java/Fonts + Source Code Rails/Compass/Sass
3. Responsive Grid System Website Toolkit
4. Advanced Responsive Website Designing Tutorial – Advanced HTML and CSS.

Extra Resources:

1. List of different options for mobile navigation menus.
2. Mashable’s list of top online wireframing tools.

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In the end, it depends on what your website is focused on and what business models you are following. There are a few things however that need no excuse not to be followed and doing the basic mobile optimization checks is one of them – After all, who doesn’t like an extra influx of visitors from mobile phones.

Unless you are from the underworld, in which case you will be using the .htaccess file – a few people will get what I mean and #5MinutesOfSilence for the people who don’t. Haha.

My apologies for such a lengthy post, but again I love to keep all the information in a single file so that you don’t have to run around from blog to blog, hunting for more information. If you like what I write or if you have any suggestions or need help regarding Mobile Website Optimization, you can also shoot a comment below or contact me at our official Facebook page and I will get back to you at the earliest. Hope you found this Guide helpful. Have a Good day! 

How Regular Link Removal Is Better Than Investing 1000$ On SEO

Read This Before You Proceed

Written below is my opinion on Link Removal and I do understand that some of you may find this rather drab and time-consuming. I have also accounted for a story from the past which I find amusing because it may be an eye-opener for many webmasters who have not had the experience of getting a link removal request. This blog is for educational purposes and I believe that first-hand experience from real-life stories is a better teacher than any books or journals you will find on the Internet. If you just want to jump to the accumulation of facts, then do so by hitting Ctrl+F(Win) / Cmd+F(Mac) and searching for “The Importance of Link Removal and Backlink Audit”

I have also published my Link Removal Request Email Template and Google Reconsideration Email Template just before the conclusion.

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My tryst with Link Removal and the importance of SEO audits.

Being in the SEO Consultancy field has a lot of perks, undeniably, but there are times when there is more to a scene than meets the eye. Having handled more than 3400 clients last year I got a chance to meet and interact with lots of people from various parts of the world. Each with its own set of distinctive problems and business objectives.

Conversion-based clients, people struggling with bad reputation threats and low returns, Social media challenges and most obviously the fight for the number one position on Google and other search engines.

Just by interacting with these clients and trying to decipher their unique problems that are somehow interconnected – I feel tolerant, and every time there is a knock on the door, I am acquainted with the various possibilities for the story lurking behind it.

There have been many peculiar incidents in my consultancy life, but one such incident that refuses to leave my mind is of a friend from Australia, Lucas Donato.

It goes something like this…

It was a Sunday afternoon and I was sulking in my cabin when I received a call from Lucas. He sounded a bit agitated. Taking a moment to weigh the situation I guessed that maybe his rankings had dropped or there were rumors of another Google tyranny.  When I landed on my desk I was amused to see a very ordinary-looking email from him, which was the reason for his distress. I laughed, staring at my screen – it was a forwarded email from him, the same one that he had received earlier that evening from a fellow webmaster.

I kept staring at the screen and laughing. I understood the whole scenario. Lucas was worried because he thought there was something terribly wrong with his website profile that had made Camela want to get the links deleted.

This is the email that I sent him, followed by a call (because at times blunt text messages are not enough to pull my clients out of their distress).

Lucas was relieved after having a whole-hearted conversation with me over the phone (Sorry brother if you are reading this blog, but I know you wouldn’t mind). Many a time I recall this incident to my clients, because Lucas is a perfect example of a hardworking entrepreneur, who just like the other webmasters on the Internet, does not have profound knowledge of the stringent quality guidelines that Google keeps buffing day after day, year after year.

“Many webmasters find solace in spending thousands of dollars every month on their Internet presence. They take refuge behind massive expenditures feeling safe, only to know that their final outcome – the reason for their low bank balance (trying to rank on the SERPs) is still distant from the finish line.”

 

And in this endless marathon for Google supremacy, they take into account their Social Media Profiles and Online reputation and overlook the importance of Link Removal.

I have personally dealt with many clients who retained good rankings on the SERPs just by thoroughly auditing their backlink profile and I felt like putting it up on the blog, instead of just keeping it inside myself. I want this to be an account for all my past experiences with bad link profiles and link removal and things that I have imbibed along this journey of Search Engine Optimization.

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The Importance of Link Removal and Backlink Audit

Just like the Lucas story (read above if you haven’t), there are webmasters who splurge a lot of money on the SEO of their website, paying less attention to their backlink profile. Lucas was confident that there was nothing wrong with his On-page or Off-page SEO or with the quality of content that was constantly being placed on his websites. He was actively involved in various blogs relating to his niche and had a great network of bloggers and webmasters who would amuse themselves through his websites. But, even when you are 100% sure that nothing can go wrong, here are reasons for doing regular backlink audits (if you don’t already have the habit) that I have personally accumulated through various experiences:

1. Prevention is Better Than Cure: Of all the activities that interconnect the SEO field, having to file a disavow file to Google just after your website has been hit by a manual penalty is the most painstaking. Primarily because the damage has already been done, and it’s like putting double effort into the same thing that could have been done easily in the past to avoid all this mess and begging. Secondly because after a website is hit by a manual penalty (Penguin especially), there is no saying when it may regain its rankings ever. It can take from months to years and I know of a few people who went totally out of business and suffered great loss as they were unable to recover from the shock.

 If you know someone personally who has suffered such an experience, they will tell you better. Once you are in the pit, you are not given any logical explanation for the misdeed. There were people who had to completely disavow their entire profile because they were unsure what to keep and what to delete after getting affected. The pressure of the situation simply adds to the misery, it’s like adding salt to an already burning wound.

2. Immeasurable Trust Factor: Webmasters who maintain a clean and stout profile are susceptible to being trusted by other authorities in their field than the ones who accept citations from random sources. 

It’s simple. If you do a thorough backlink audit of your website and ensure that links to and from your website are in good shape, you will learn to trust only a few power sources instead of any rookie-level webmasters who might indulge in techniques that are not favorable by Google guidelines. Ensuring a clean profile will earn you links from trusted sources with great trust flow.

3. Today’s Good Links Maybe Tomorrows Downfall: Link attributes are not static, they are dynamic. If your website indulges in good SEO practices, a link obtained from your website by another website may act in their favor less today and more tomorrow as it grows powerful with your healthy habits. The same is the case vice versa, a good link that you or your SEO company obtained for you today may be a healthy ranking factor today but you never know what the website is going to do tomorrow. Link statistics can change from good to bad in a matter of weeks and something which boosted your ranks today may work to destroy your internet presence, inviting a penalty tomorrow. Still, need more reasons? Keep reading.

 

4. Negative SEO Tactics and Competitors: Remember your business does not only have competitors but the SEO you employed also has competitors. At times, other competitor brands or the competitors of your SEO gurus may run spammy link-building schemes to spoil the reputation of your brand or invite a penalty for your website. Yes! It might look demeaning but such things do happen and corruption is not only prevalent in the real world, as you are aware – corruption prevails where humans hide. Some websites run automated scripts that steal the website architecture and content from another website and put it on theirs (though this might not get you caught for plagiarism), but it will definitely get you penalized for attracting too many low-quality backlinks.

 

5. Links That Are Incorrectly Placed Into Website Templates: Sometimes you may acquire backlinks from trusted sources, giving you a sense of great achievement, but what if that single and powerful looking link has been placed by the webmaster in their website’s template by mistake (for example links in widgets, sidebars or footers). This will cause the link to be replicated amongst the numerous pages of the website and look like spam to various Search Engine bots. End result – irrecoverable manual penalty by Google, easily avoidable through Link Audit and Removal.

 

6. Over Optimized Keywords and Anchor Texts: There was nothing wrong with the over-optimization of keywords and anchor texts a few years back, but off late such endeavors are not being given the best of treatments from our big brother (Google). So what might have worked for you a few years back, may work against you today and this is yet another powerful reason to cleanse your link profile with proper link removal. 

I have come across websites that were penalized for over-optimization of keywords and anchor texts because they got way too many brand name anchors and website anchors from various sources. Even though the links were from authentic sources, but there is no dodging the ban hammer if even by chance your main key terms have been over-optimized. You can always request webmasters to change the

 

7. Over Optimized Images with Wrong Context: Webmasters are still careful when placing text links on their websites, but often when it comes to optimizing images they get a bit lazy. Over-optimized and wrongly customized images are easy to overlook and may invite a penalty, if there are way too many images with the same Alt Text, Alt Attribute, etc. Such petty things are easily overlooked by even the most knowledgeable Search Engine Optimizers, so casual webmasters are nowhere in this league. Not only will auditing the backlinks that you receive via images help you dodge the Google hammer, but it will also attract better organic traffic to your website from Google Image search.

 

8. Find Like-Minded People and Establish Relationships: Even though Google already has a feature called Google Alerts for this job, but there are times when an alert might not trigger because it does not fit all your criteria. This is where link maps are of great use. Performing a monthly link map will make you aware of all the websites that have unlinked you, or of the new websites that want to establish a connection with you. 

The least you can do is, go to host the website and establish a relationship with the webmaster with a polite thank you and a review of their content to which your link is related. Sometimes there may be a discussion going on about you on a different website and who else will know better about yourself, than you? You can subtly join the crowd and take part in the discussion. Not only does this show other webmasters that you are watching your link profile, but also helps establish a sense of deep trust for future business relations, as they can evolve anywhere.

 

9. Find and Repair Broken Backlinks: There is a lot of time, money, and effort that you put in to win a backlink from a website. Now, what if this link is broken or leads to a 404! Page Not Found? It is a great loss for webmasters if their organic links are pointing to dead ends, especially the powerful ones that could impact their rankings to a great extent. 

If you have a thin link profile, even getting a single broken backlink repaired could mean a lot to your online presence, whereas if you have an authoritative website with thousands of backlinks, it is best to keep them checked and repair the ones that are broken from time to time. Links can be broken for various reasons. A webmaster might have misspelled a word in the link or the page he linked to has been moved to another page and you never took time to redirect the redundant link. 90% times this is the case with broken links as administrators change the link structure of a page to suit their keyword strategy, making the link lose all its earned backlinks.

 

10. 95% Penalties Are Related To Backlinks: According to research conducted by SEO experts, over 95% of the websites are penalized by Google for their backlinks. No matter how many powerful backlinks you have. Every single low-quality backlink will work towards lowering your chance to SERP fame. If your website was penalized, or you notice a sudden drop in your rankings, it is important to make yourself updated with rel=”nofollow”> Google’s Webmaster Guidelines and also check their guidelines for link removal.

 

“If your SEO agency does not give you a monthly backlink analysis report, or they have not even suggested the idea of getting your backlink audits in the right time – 

[blockquote photo=”” author=”Piyush Agarwala” company=”Prime One Global” link=”” target=”_blank”]

My Opinion (Take it if you like): 

SEO is not merely about building backlinks, the more the better and it never will be. In fact, SEO is about a strategist mind that works around to clock to decipher Google’s next move and make an appropriate action plan to power up and retain your social and search presence even during the time of an Algorithm update. Minor fluctuations in your rankings are always possible as most everyone on the web is spending money on getting better ranks, but if you see a drastic drop in your rankings or get an Unnatural Link Warning from Google Webmasters Tool, it is time to move on to a better SEO company.

It doesn’t matter if you spend a thousand dollars on SEO every month, or if you opt for an in-house team to do your SEO work. Your SEO team should be well versed with the history of changes and be able to maintain a firm record of your backlink timeline in order to prevent a mishap from destroying your plans for the future.

[/blockquote]

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Handy Templates for Link Removal

You can rip this template exactly if you want. However, be sure to double-check the entire piece before putting any of these to use.

Considering the fact that you have your link audit report in hand, you would now want to either hand over the entire process of link removal to a professional SEO or do it yourself. I have used these templates for sending emails to Google Webmasters Tool or to fellow Webmasters for dealing with my link problems.

Email Request To Webmaster Asking Them To Delete a Link

Sub: Link Removal From Your Domain (Domain Name)

Hello (Webmaster’s Name),

I am writing this email in order to inform you that there is a particular link on your website (their website name) that is pointing to my website (your website name). The link is appearing on this URL (give URL) with this anchor text (hyperlinked text).

I recently conducted a backlink audit and my SEOs are asking me to remove the link from your domain. There is nothing to worry about it as the integrity of your website is not in question, nor will the link impact your bottom line. I just don’t want to obtain backlinks from unknown domains.

Please do not mind me asking this, as I am just playing carefully to avoid any Unnatural Link Warnings from Google. 

I expect your full cooperation in this regard. Please let me know when you receive this email and I will verify my credibility as the webmaster of (your domain name).

In case you need help removing the links, you can revert to me and I will be glad to help you.

Thanking You,

Regards,

Your Name

Reconsideration Request In case Your Website Suffered Manual Penalty

Remember one thing – there is nothing that can be hidden from Google’s eyes. So don’t overlook any of your backlinks and if a link needs to be removed or makes you question your motives, IT MUST GO! 

When filing a reconsideration request, granted that you were too late for Link Removal and are already hit by a manual penalty, you must state your message concisely and hide nothing from the all-knowing Google.

There are a few things that you must complete before filing a reconsideration request. If you are planning to put only half your effort into this, then don’t even bother. Google will overlook your reconsideration request if they see that you made a negligible effort on your end to remove the links. If you emailed a particular webmaster and they did not cooperate, then you must mention that in your disavow.txt file along with a screenshot proof for the same. All evidence should be mentioned to show that you tried to remove as many backlinks as you could “manually” before asking for reconsideration.

Here is a template that I have used for many of my penalty hit clients:

Dear Google Webspam Team,

Thank you for bearing with my reconsideration request. My website (website name) has recently received a penalty for unnatural links. Unfortunately, I was not aware that my SEOs have used the wrong tactics to hike my website in the search engines and I was not aware of low-quality backlinks and over-optimized anchor texts as such. I do remember purchasing a link package from the SEO Company (Name of Company), but I was informed that these were 100% manually written and organically obtained links. I claim full responsibility for their carelessness and I no longer employ them.

To recover from the penalty, I bought a link audit service from this company (Name of Company). After receiving the entire backlink report, I have analyzed all the backlinks along with the help of a professional and got some of the webmasters to remove my link from their website. However, as I have unintentionally become a victim of link farming schemes, there are a lot of websites that are not actively moderated. I have sent an email to all the websites and the ones that cooperated and removed my link are mentioned in the first half of the disavow.txt file.

The second half contains the list of those backlinks, whose webmasters are either uncooperative or asking me for cash payment in exchange for link removal.

The third part contains a list of those websites that are just a part of link-building schemes and are not replying to my messages. I have also been unable to find the who-is details or contact details of certain websites and even those are mentioned in the third party.

Please check the attachments for all the emails that I have sent out along with the replies from the webmasters. I believe that this is evidence enough to show that some of the webmasters are uncooperative or careless in this regard.

I have also attached the disavow.txt file that I have submitted through the Disavow Tool. Thank you for reading my request again and considering my website. I was unaware of such schemes and I believe that It will never happen again in the future.

I have really worked hard to mend the loss and this is as far as I could delve.

Thanking You,

Yours Faithfully,

Your Name (Webmaster of Website)

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Closing Calls 

So this was my take on the importance of Link Removal. Though many may disagree, I believe, especially for the old players who have been doing SEO for a long time, Link Removal can do more good than obtaining a huge number of power links. Keeping your profile clean and maintaining this healthy habit not only get you a better trust score in Google, but also in the eyes of other webmasters who do the same. 

This blog is an accumulation of all the points and facts that I have witnessed firsthand about the power of Link Removal. I do believe that I might have missed out on other important factors that don’t seem to cross my mind at the moment (let me know through the comment section below). Also, feel free to share my Email and Reconsideration templates if you found them useful. 

Have a good day!

Most important SEO Checklist – SEO in 2015

So 2014 has been an incredibly powerful year bringing loads of changes in the SEO-verse. First, it was the Panda that reigned terror on websites with thin content, and then came the Authorship Drop followed by the mighty Pigeon that was focused on websites trying to rank locally. Soon after the Pigeon drop, Google unleashed the HTTPS signal which gave a slight boost to websites that had an SSL certificate and as if ranking on the SERPs was not hard enough, finally came the Penguin, which completely smashed illegitimate link building tactics. Don’t worry if you have missed any of these updates in 2014 as I will be giving a brief about them in some time.

Through these years of battling cyber-conspiracies of unethical SEO tactics and fraudulent schemes, Google has been pretty stern in manipulating its algorithms constantly so as to give fair-play an edge over the already overloaded blackhat tactics. The question that was asked in 2012 and also in 2013 and 2014 remains the same – “Is Google bent on killing the SEO?”, “Is SEO dead in 2015?”, “Will SEO agencies die down eventually?”

My answer to all these questions is a “No, NO, NO!”

In 2013 as well as 2014, Google has taken some really tough steps to fight spam, which has completely altered the landscape on which professional SEO’s built their strategies. Time has come to bid adieu to thousands of blackhat SEO agencies and agents who have caused quite a lot of damage already to websites that really deserved to rank. Let’s hope for a brighter 2015 and YES! SEO will never die. The people who manipulate SEO will gradually get eliminated. 

As the year’s pass, the need for being online has never been stronger and even though the Internet landscape is gradually shifting and becoming far too competitive than it was yesterday, it is never too late to join the battle.

“BILLIONS OF CONSUMERS. WITH A UNANIMOUS MOTIVE. ON A SINGLE PLATFORM.”

And you give me one reason why your brand doesn’t need to be here?

SEO is not about buying backlinks (the more the better), in fact, it never was. SEO is about a strategist mind that works around the clock to decipher Google’s next moves and respond to them with utmost precision. So as you have already anticipated, the game will go on but the rules are a bit different this time.

Related Articles:

Beware Online Pirates, Google’s New Pirate Update Is Infallible

Google Penguin 3.0 Algorithm – A Massive Blow To Manipulative Tactics

Google Page Rank Is No More! Which Metric Is Next In Google’s Vision?

Google’s Latest HTTPs as Ranking Factor – A Marketing Ploy or Tech Revolution?

Google Pigeon Algorithm – Most Significant Changes To Ranking Signal

A Beginner’s Guide to Google Schema Markup

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ALL OF 2014 MOVES INTO 2015 – REMEMBER, PRECISION IS THE KEY

Looking at the Google trends of the past few years – The search giant always launches a few tweaks in algorithms every once in a while, but the basic essence always remains the same. And every time around, the tweaks that are made, just make the previous strategies a bit more focused.

Brands that are aware of this constantly changing ball game keep a steady eye on their link profiles and Trust-Flow and Citation Flow and always disavow links that appear to add no legitimate weight to the authority of their website. This should also be your focus in 2015.

So, if you are thinking of making an action plan for your 2015 SEO, you better be well versed with all the changes Google made in 2014. A proper understanding of all the Algos is required so let’s do a quick recap of them in chronological order.

Starting from Earliest to Latest Algorithmic Updates

## Google EMD Update.

Also known as Google Exact Match Domain Update. Though this update was released in 2012 and did not get a buff in 2014, it is still very relevant and is a must-watch for in 2015. This update was focused on preventing low-quality websites which had exact search terms in their domain names and also very poor content. If this update happens, websites that have improved their content and also worked on their architecture will receive a buff in their rankings, and websites that fail to abide by the guidelines will be penalized as usual.

##Page Layout No.3 – February 6, 2014.

Google released their Page Layout update for the third time. This update is also known as the “Top Heavy” Update which focuses on penalizing websites that have too many advertisements above the fold. These websites are normally made as advertisement traps so that visitors end up clicking on one of the advertisements which generate revenue for the websites.

## Panda 4.0 No. 26 – May 19, 2014.

This is one of Google’s most lethal weapons for cutting down low-quality content websites from the SERP’s. Google frequently updates and releases a sibling of this powerful algorithm which has put millions of websites around the Internet out of the Search Engine Result scope.

## Authorship Photo Drop – June 28, 2014.

John Mueller announced on June 25^th that Google will be dropping all Authorship photos from the Search Engines which were connected to the Google Plus profiles. Though Google has unlinked the Authorship Markup it is giving a lot of importance to Google+ mentions and links, so consider keeping your Google+ Profile regularly updated.

## Pigeon Algorithm – July 24, 2014.

This algorithm release shook the landscape for all websites which were trying to rank hard for Local search. Google commented that the Pigeon update played a key role in binding the local algorithm with the core algorithm.

## HTTPS/SSL Update – August 6, 2014.

After a long time, Google came out of the closet and said that they would be giving a slight ranking boost to secured websites which had SSL certificates. They also stressed the point that though the boost would be small to start with, they would scale it up to a stronger ranking signal if the changes were positive. Consider getting your website SSL certified in 2015.

## Panda 4.1 No. 27 – September 23, 2014.

Another slow panda rollout just 4 months after the last rollout. Due to the slow nature of this rollout, the exact start date for the algorithm change is unclear but it did have an impact on 3-5% of the search queries.

## Penguin 3.0 – October 17, 2014.

That previous Penguin 2.1 update was released more than a year back, so Penguin 3.0 was the much-anticipated algorithm refresh from Google in a long time. This update was spread out in weeks and had been a very slow rollout. It aimed at penalizing websites with unethical or manipulative link building tactics.

## Pirate 2.0 – October 21, 2014.

This was another attempt from search giant Google to fight software and digital piracy. It had been more than two years since Google launched the DMCA/Pirate Update and it was a much needed release that caused dramatic ranking drops for a small group of piracy-related websites and torrent projects.

Keeping the Jargon Aside, Let’s Look At Simple Things That You Can Do Now To Make A Difference in 2015

Google is constantly fidgeting with its Algorithms as you can see. Sometimes it rolls out updates of the same Algorithms in an interval of few months. Don’t be fooled by the hype – the more Google updates its search engine software the more holistic the field of SEO is becoming. Even if you inculcate these tiny practices, they are going to make a big difference in your search rankings in 2015.

1. Content is Be All and End All. 

Did you notice that Google rolled out two versions of the Panda algorithm in 2014? That also in an interval of 4 months. This is a clear signal that Google is laying complete emphasis on filtering spammy and low quality content from high-quality and graduate-level content. Google search algorithms strive hard to differentiate the bad and irrelevant content and deliver only the most appropriate results to the searcher. So double-check the content you put up on your website.

2. Social Engagement In The Key. 

Do you even need an explanation for this? We know how stringent the rule book is becoming. As Google strives to deliver the most authoritative and relevant information to humans, it is much likely that it will soon start giving even more weight to Social reach and Social Media Interactions like Likes, Shares, Tweets, Pins, etc. If you have not stepped into the Social Media Platforms yet, then by all means make it a point to do so in 2015 – It’s never too late.

3. Casual Search Queries 

Though we did not see the Humming Bird update in 2014, in 2013 it brought in quite a lot of changes to the way Google interpreted search queries. The most notable change was the way Search Engines started interpreting casual search queries. Search engines started laying more emphasis on the way the queries were entered by not just focusing on the main keywords but the meaning of the whole phrase.

So as a webmaster, you should not focus blindly on generating backlinks. Instead, focus on obtaining backlinks from sources that have high authority and are already trustworthy in the eyes of Google. Also, ensure that the anchor texts that link back to your website are more casual and natural instead of just keyword focused. Double check the content in your website and ensure that the content is meaningful and has a shareable nature. 

4. Deviating from Traditional Links to Brands References

I don’t want you to think that Inbound Links are worthless in 2015. They are still the most powerful signals that Google will take into consideration to rank a website, but as I have already mentioned before – the tricks of this trade are going to change a lot.

It is a no brainer that the big fishes in the market have enough money to spend on getting “High Quality”, authoritative backlinks to their website, and judging by the way Google released the Penguin 3.0 update in 2014,  it is safe to conclude that Google will also start taking into consideration the amount of “Brand Mentions / References” across the web of your brand without any linkbacks. This keeping a balance between Brand Mentions and Inbound Links will be the key to ranking in 2015.

The ideal strategy here would be to make sure all your backlinks appear to be as natural as possible and have a variety of Anchor texts. If you have been building links from a list of Keywords as anchor texts via insignificant websites, Google will recognize the correlation between the same and may penalize your website. So unless you want to wait another year or till the next Penguin update, it would be wise to do a thorough backlink analysis of your website and disavow all the low quality backlinks. By all means, take the help of a professional SEO to do so.

5. Responsive Design And User Interaction 

According to statistics, 3 out of every 10 people in the world own a smartphone, Phablet, or a Tablet – Give me one reason why you should not care to make your website responsive in 2015 if you have not done it already.

40% of the searches conducted online are done through smartphones and tablets and with the increased presence of such devices in our lives this ratio has been on an upward curve. Focus on making your website structured for proper visibility on devices of different sizes. With increased user interaction of your website, the bounce rate of your website will decrease, which is a good signal for search engine bots that ultimately rank your website.

8 Point SEO Checklist For 2015

As we discussed earlier, 2014 has been a very dramatic year in terms of Algorithmic changes. Google unleashed the Penguin, Panda, and Pigeon Updates along with myriad other small and very significant changes to the ranking signal like HTTPs protocol and Conversational Search Queries. Due to these updates and changes the entire SEO landscape has changed.

I have prepared a checklist of things that you must watch out for along with negative practices which you should avoid at all costs to dodge the Google hammer in 2015 and also be in the Search Engine Trust list.

1# Search Engine Visibility 

Alike every single year, this metrics will remain the same only a bit amplified than before. Before you get into the High Quality Content, Social Media Integration, and other such routines, it is important that you make your website discoverable.

What You Should Do?

Have clean website architecture and ensure that all important pages (main categories) are reachable from your Homepage. Also, make sure that you use a logical structure for your websites where your inner pages are carefully tucked under the right categories. Make good use of Breadcrumbs and also Paginate those pages of your website which are too long to scroll.

NOTE: Your Websites URL should reflect your Websites Architecture.

Example of Good Website Architecture:

www.domain.com/main-category1/subcategory/product001

www.domain.com/main-category2/product002

What You Should Not Do?

If the important pages of your website are not visible from the Homepage that is a very bad signal. Not only will this increase the bounce rate of your website, but it will also render the visitors incapable of finding the things they are looking for.

NOTE: Always have a Search Box at the top of your Website.

Don’t unnecessarily cram a lot of subpages into one category, while leaving the others with very thin content. Break your information down into smaller subcategories if needed. Another malpractice that I see a lot of newbies making is that they try to link all the inner pages of their website from the Homepage itself. This is a clear signal of information overload and the visitors will get too confused.

Remember this human tendency – If a man is given too many choices, he opts for no choice at all.

2# XML Sitemaps and RSS Feeds Are Must 

To ensure faster and proper indexing, you must befriend XML Sitemaps and RSS Feeds. If you are unaware of what XML Sitemaps or RSS Feeds are, I have defined them below.

XML Sitemaps: These act like the sitemaps of your website, which direct the search engine spiders in the proper direction to ensure that all the pages of your websites are properly indexed.

RSS Feeds: RSS Feeds, also known as Atom Feeds are also a great way of informing search engines about the fresh content at your website. RSS Feeds are most often used by content curators and Journalists or Blog Followers who want to keep track of regular updates on a website.

What You Should Do? 

Always ensure that you have submitted your XML sitemap to Google Webmasters Tool and that all the URL’s contained in the Sitemap is canonical in nature.

Only use XML Sitemaps if you have reached the current limit of your Sitemap that is 50000 URLs. Having a single Sitemap is more than enough for small to medium websites. If you use RSS Feeds, then make sure that they only include your website’s fresh content, which will help search engines and users find only the latest updates from your end.

What You Should Not Do? 

Don’t let your RSS or Atom Feeds contain all the content from your website. This will make your fresh content difficult to find for those who want to keep track. Also, ensure that your RSS feed does not contain URLs or Links which are not allowed to be indexed by search engines through your website robots.txt. Don’t try to fool search engines by just updating the modification time of your pages. If they are not updated, let them be like that till you have time to update them.

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3# Make friends with Google Panda 

You have already been acquainted with Google’s favorite pet to fight non-authentic, low-quality content. You know what to do.

SEO in 2015 – What You Should Do? 

Today Google takes more into consideration than just the fact that the articles you put up on your website are Authentic and pass Copyscape. You must ensure that all the content on your website has graduate-level English and should be as engaging as possible.

NOTE: Make it a point to block all your website’s Legal Documents from being indexed in the Search Engines.

What You Should Not Do? 

Don’t scrape and post content from all over the Internet. Don’t be a part of plagiarism campaigns and don’t just pick content from another website, re-write and publish on your website. Try to have unique content with your own opinion that gives a certain value in return for a user’s time spent on your website.

Ensure that pages on your website don’t have exact or similar content. It is fine to give reference to other pages on your website, but meaninglessly adding subpages just to increase the weight of your website is a total no-brainer.

4# Avoid Being Under The Penguin Radar 

This is an absolute must. If you do all steps correctly and just avoid this nasty little beast then you are done for – at least one year (until and unless you are pretty lucky). Google’s Penguin Filter aims at blowing those websites out of the Search Engine Results Scope if they are found involved in any manipulative link building tactics. So keeping a natural and clean backlink profile is a must in 2015. If you don’t know what it feels like to suffer the blow of Penguin, consider Googling this phrase – “My website has been penalized by Penguin.” And see the reaction of webmasters who were too lazy to consider doing a backlink profile check.

What You Should Do? 

Do a thorough backlink audit of your website and disavow all the spammy and unnaturally acquired backlinks.

NOTE: Sometimes competitor firms do spammy link-building practices on your website just to have it go down the search results in the next algorithmic update. It is vital to do a check of your backlink profile no matter how sure you are that it is clean. 

You should always work to acquire good quality editorial backlinks from trusted sources. It is also a good signal to Google if you acquire backlinks at a steady pace. Also, maintain diversity in your anchor texts.

What You Should Not Do?

Never opt for link-building schemes or be a part of reciprocal linking networks. When you do a backlink audit, also disavow all backlinks that appear to be from irrelevant sources. Don’t overdo your anchor texts with brand name or primary keywords.

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5# Schema Markup Has Gained Relevance In 2014 

Schema Markup is a tag that is used by search engines to differentiate entities like (People, Products, Reviews, and Events, etc.) Although Google did not make it clear in any way that it would be giving significance to Schema Markup but in 2014 we saw a lot of websites inculcating the same.

What You Should Do? 

Take a look at the available Schemas and pick the ones that best fit your webpage. If you are not that good in coding, you can take of Google Structured Data Markup Tool to Schema Markup your webpages. To test the same you can use the Structured Data Testing Tool that Google has made available to webmasters.

What You Should Not Do? 

Don’t ever trick search engines through Schema by tagging your data as something which it is not. If you do this, the search bots will find it and penalize your websites. Stay away from anything that deceives the Search Engine Crawlers and the Visitors.

6# Avoid Buying Social Signals And Earn Them In An Organic Way 

Off late you must have noticed that search engines favor websites that have a strong social presence. Even though Google has not confirmed the effect of Social Media on Search Results, but it clearly said that Google treats all Social Media posts that are open to indexing just like it does any other web page or website. So you get the hint.

NOTE: Your Google+ Posts can make it to the Search Results of your G+ Connections and their connections so this can be used to get in a lot of organic traffic. 

What You Should Do? 

By all means, you should look at attracting social signals by posting meaningful and viral content. Don’t buy social signals from unlawful SEO firms and other agents as they will in most cases do you more harm than good.

Inculcate Social Media Sharing buttons on your website so that it is easy for people to share your posts.

What You Should Not Do? 

Don’t waste your time and money by purchasing like and shares or any other type of social signals. Both Search Engines and Social Networks are able to trace accounts that are created for the sole purpose of trading likes and that may result in your social media accounts getting banned altogether. 

7# Consider Getting An SSL Certificate

What You Should Do?

HTTPS protocol / SSL Certificates are the small padlock icon before a website name. This small padlock icon is a symbol of trust and security. It is crucial for websites to obtain an SSL certificate if they involve the transfer for Personally Identifiable Information of the users.

However, it is important that you take the help of a professional when transitioning from HTTP to HTTPS – if you do it incorrectly then it may harm your present standing in the search engines.

NOTE: Google made it clear that SSL Certificates give a slight ranking boost to websites, so only consider getting one if your website involves the transfer or sensitive information as SSL Certificates are pretty expensive. 

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8# Improve Website Load Speed and User Experience 

Going by the trend of the past few years, Google has started giving weight to quite a few UX-related metrics like Page speed, Responsive Designs, and HTTPs Protocol. Thus, it becomes even more important to keep our focus on enhancing user experience and being at par with Google site speed metrics.

What You Should Do?

Make use of Google Pagespeed Insights to find the current load time of your websites and become aware of any fixes that you could do to decrease the load time of your websites.

Also, if you are optimizing your website for other search engines like Bing, Yahoo! And Yandex – These search engines have made it pretty clear that they give weight to metrics like user engagement and click-through rates in ranking websites. Even though Google continues to keep mum about the same, working on enhancing these features of your website will give you great benefits like increased conversions of your website visitors and more likes, shares, and brand mentions across the internet.

What You Should Not Do?

Don’t have a cluttered website with a very heavy (too many images, media, or advertisements) homepage. Having a minimalistic reach to your website will let it load faster thereby enabling a smooth user experience and faster load time.

FINAL VERDICT – CLOSING CALLS

Even though there are more than 200 ranking signals, most of them are too small to be significant and some of them are such that you have no control over them. If you just focus on doing the things that I have mentioned in this Checklist, you will see a significant rise in rankings in 2015 or even be able to retain your present rankings when there is an upgrade of the current Google algorithms.

Just focus all your effort on completing part of this checklist, one by one and not all at the same time as you will fail. Remember, SEO is an overtime process. It doesn’t happen in one night and nobody, not even the big players reached the search engines in a short time. So just keep your focus on doing the right things like proper website architecture, enhanced user experience, schema markup, graduate-level content, clean backlink profile, etc and you will start to notice that your online presence has become more dominant.