Uncategorized – WebKow

The 6 Basics of Digital Marketing in 2021 [The Ultimate Guide]

Neeraj Ramnani / November 24, 2020

I will talk about the basics of Digital Marketing in this article. These are important, well-known principles but yet many companies seem to ignore them. If you stick to only these basics 100% of the time in your digital marketing efforts, you’d probably be better off than most of your competitors. The 6 Basics of Digital Marketing 1. Build a website that’s conversion-friendly Usually, people design websites based on their personal preferences. This is often a recipe for disaster because what you prefer may not be what customers prefer. And what’s more- what customers prefer may not be what customers convert on. For example, you will find many websites that look and feel better than Amazon, yet very few convert as well. This is partly because their design is so well-tested for conversion optimization. Every element works together to maximize total sales. The most important principle to remember is to keep the design of your website simple and easy to navigate. Even the slightest amount of overwhelm can put off buying or registration decisions for your prospects. Make it so simple that they don’t need to think more than a second or two to understand anything on your site. This also means using simple images and clear text instead of trying to go the Shakespeare way. 2. Focus on Google Google is easily the most important website on the internet. So much traffic is governed or directed by Google that any new website cannot ignore SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and PPC (Pay-Per-Click advertising) on the Google platform. By investing in your SEO long term you can get higher rankings on Google (and Bing) which means a lot of free traffic can come to your site from relevant search terms. And then there is pay per click advertising (PPC). Many people click the ads in the first few results on the Google Search results page, so it’s important that you appear there for relevant keywords. For example, if you’re selling running shoes for those with flat feet, it’s important that keywords like “running shoes for flat foot” are not neglected by you as they could be easy sales for you once you get that click. 3. Retargeting Once you’ve driven people to your website and the website is conversion-optimized, the next important step is retargeting. Don’t let your visitors disappear forever. Make sure that these people are coming back to your site. You’ve paid a lot of money or put a lot of effort to get them to your site the first time. It should be easy for them to find you again. Usually, more than 90% of your visitors won’t buy your product or sign-up for any offer the first time. By investing in retargeting and building that retargeting list, you can assure that you are bringing people back to your website, and nudging them to eventually buy or subscribe, or sign-up for any offer you’re running. 4. Have killer content Invest in your content- especially in videos. Think of videos like salespeople who are always working for you- even while you sleep. Put videos of your product or services wherever you can. Once you’ve got the right video that converts well, put that video up on your social platforms, your website, and wherever else you can. It’ll do the job of a salesperson for you. Videos also rank highly on Google and YouTube, so a good video content plan can help with your SEO as well. 5. Online Reputation This includes having good reviews, a strong reliable presence on the important platforms on the internet. Most customers don’t buy products that do not have reviews. The two most important places to have your reviews are Google My Business and Facebook. Other than these, there could be various industry-specific websites where you may want to have a presence. This is the oldest yet most reliable way of letting customers know that they can trust you. 6. Be Social Don’t forget to focus on your social media. These are free platforms for you to expand your digital real estate and your presence. More than 50% of shoppers say social media presence is important for their buying decisions online. Produce high-quality content in the form of images, videos, or even text. Make sure that the content is entertaining or informative, or both. Be friendly to your followers and engage in conversations with them by replying to important comments or posts. Social media is a two-way space. You might also run lead generation or conversion ads on social media to generate leads or sales from platforms like Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. One important thumb-rule to remember is to try to start with not more than 3 social media platforms. More than 3 might be overwhelming and it’s better to have a strong presence on a few platforms instead of a casual one in many. Hope you guys like all the 6 Basics of Digital Marketing. Thank you for reading!

Uncategorized

What are LSI keywords

Neeraj Ramnani / January 29, 2020

LSI (latent semantic indexing) keywords are keywords which are semantically linked to a main keyword. In simpler words, they are keywords similar or related to the main keyword. Search engines use latent semantic indexing to analyse other words that people are frequently using around a topic. They’re highly correlated. An example could be “hunger” and “thirst”, or “dating” and “relationships”. Are LSI keywords same as synonyms of the main keyword? In some cases, the LSI keyword could simply be a synonym. However, it is not essential that it be a synonym of the main keyword. For example, ‘thirst’ is not a synonym of ‘hunger’ but they are related and often may appear together in webpages around the world. How do search engines use LSI? Search engines (especially Google) use LSI to decide the quality of the content on a page, by checking for words that ideally should appear nearby a given search keyword. It also helps them decide the relevance. For example, if I search for “best pizza”, search engines will look for words like “pizza restaurant”, “order pizza” (commonly found along with the words “best pizza” on webpages). This way, if a page has “best pizza” only as a passing reference, and doesn’t contain these related keywords, it is unlikely to get picked up by Google as the top recommendation on page one. What is LSA? LSA stands for latent semantic analysis. LSA is the system used to determine LSI keywords by search engines. By taking a huge index of billions of web pages, the search engines learn which words are correlated, and which concepts relate to one another. For example, using LSA, a search engine like Google could recognize that going to the beach is related to sun-tanning, bikini wear, scuba-diving or beach sports. This way it can analyse search queries better and give more accurate results by looking at a range of keywords on the pages instead of just the search term. What are LSI keywords’ benefits? Why is it important? LSI keywords are becoming increasingly important as a way to tell search engines about what our page is about. Also, people searching for related keywords other than our main keyword are also more likely to stumble on our page. How do I find my LSI keywords? There are many tools available online for finding LSI keywords for any given main keyword. You can also look at the “searches related to” section at the bottom of the google SERP (search engine results page) to find good LSI keyword ideas for your content or blog. The below video has other ways you can brainstorm for LSI keywords before you write your content: Where to use LSI Keywords? Your main heading will typically be your main keyword, but you can use LSI keywords in sub-headings, as link anchor text in some of your back-links or external/internal links, throughout the page’s content (of course!), in alt names, image file names etc. Any other considerations before using these keywords? Yes. Google’s algorithms have gotten incredibly smart because of the vast volumes of data and analytics used by that company. You won’t be able to trick it easily. It’s best to use LSI keywords in a natural, organic way rather than stuffing them artificially. Instead of repeating your main keyword over and over again in your content, try to use LSI keywords here and there. A final word Instead of using just the main target keyword, start to think of articles as corresponding to clusters of keywords which are closely-related. In the usual elements of the page when you’re doing SEO (such as headlines, body, alt-text etc.) use some of these related keywords instead of repeating the main keyword endlessly. Don’t forget to use the main keyword as well as LSI keywords in only a natural, organic way without trying to stuff them needlessly. It’s incredibly easy to use LSI keywords for SEO. Many of it may already be done by you without even realizing it. Understanding this search engine function can help you improve and think of this more strategically. About the Author:Neeraj Ramnani is the founder of GrowthFoundation.in and WebKow.com. He is a digital marketer since 2011, and has pioneered some of the most innovative approaches in this field over these years. He’s worked with over 40 brands for their result-oriented digital marketing.He’s an alumnus of IIM Indore and SVNIT Surat.

Uncategorized

Chatbots For The Future

Tanushri Saxena / September 25, 2019

Chatbots will rule the digital platform. They are growing fast, with the demand scaling up. Before we know about the future of chatbots and their importance, let us first understand what they are. WHAT ARE CHATBOTS? Chatbots are basically robots that stimulate human conversations. They are also known as virtual assistants. But wait, how can they stimulate a human conversation? How is it even possible for them to fathom the human language? Using sophisticated AI solutions, the programmers try to replicate the pattern of end-user interaction so that the bots can carry out a (seemingly) human conversation. They are so cool. Why bother to have people 24*7 to chat with users or potential customers, with their attitude and performance constantly affected by moods? Yes, people at call centers are trained to perform well and remain polite, but no one can vouch for their consistency. A company will never encounter such issues with chatbots. CHATBOTS WILL RULE THE FUTURE I never give inductive statements. I always have points to support my claim and try to make it deductive. And perhaps by the end of the blog, you will also agree to it. My rational points to support my claim are here: 1) EVERY BUSINESS WILL HAVE A BOT. Have you ever observed that Facebook messenger is getting more popular and used than Facebook itself? This shows that people love to converse more virtually. So it is ideal for every company to grab and engage to customers via these digital conversations. People are busy and impatient and they want their questions answered as quickly as possible. Your company needs to match up this expectation to survive and thrive. So you can provide this amenity to your visitors in two ways: A) Set up an arrangement like a call centre where humans will be chatting all day long. This is not at all cost-effective, and most of the businesses will not be able to ever implement this. OR B) A business can have a chatbot to perform that part. Computers will answer queries and will talk to multiple people simultaneously. And they are getting better at handling different situations in the way users expect. So if messaging apps are the platform where all companies aim to engage with people, then yes, chatbots will rule. 2) Bots are faster than websites and mobile apps. Suppose I want to know what the current discount schemes are in Ahmedabad’s Central mall. I can get it from several modes. 1) I may get an email or SMS from the mall itself if I am a member.2) I have to visit the official website and get it from there.3) I can use some app to know such offers. 4) Personally visit the mall and ask staff members. But these modes can be made redundant if Ahmedabad Central has chatbots. Simply ask the chatbot and get all the information you need. For such queries, people want an even faster, more personal and more reliable method than Google search. Isn’t it easy to directly ask chatbots and get the answers? I hear you thinking- people are resistant to change. They won’t adapt to chatbots. They will. Here is why people will prefer a bot. 1) The options users currently have often taken too much time. People want a faster way. Bots load instantly. They will solve all the queries. 100s of queries, one solution. 2) Apps need to be downloaded, they take up valuable space (it’s like giving a part of your mobile real estate) and you can’t have different apps for every purpose. Chatbots will not demand any part of your mobile storage space, as they live inside other apps (like FB messenger), websites, SMS or email. They will simply answer you what you need when you need it. (Chatbots are so kind!) Still not convinced? Check out this SquareUp article on 5 companies that are successfully using chatbots. Read our 5 tips to boost your Google Ads. About the Author: Tanushri Saxena is pursuing her MBA from GLS, Ahmedabad. Currently, she is interning as a content writer at WebKow. She enjoys an occasional cup of coffee and is an avid Game of Thrones fan (but not season 8 ).

B2B digital marketing, Uncategorized

Why Video Marketing For B2B?

Tanushri Saxena / September 11, 2019

Video is the future of content marketing for all types of businesses, including Business-to-Business companies (B2B). Researchers and buyers have less time and patience than ever before, and they would love to save time in reading by watching a short video instead. In B2B video marketing Videos that are on point, short, relevant and cater to the needs of most of the researchers get a lot of traction. DID YOU KNOW? 48% B2B buyers watch videos longer than 30 minutes and 20% more than 60 minutes. 91% growth in B2B researchers use smartphones with a motive to purchase. 46% B2B researchers fall in the age group of 18 – 34. Many B2B brands try to engage in video marketing once they understand the importance of it…but often they fail in making suitable and effective content because of false notions prevailing in the market. There are several myths about B2B researchers that this blog will clear: Myth 1) Millennial are not making the business decisions (wait… what?) Nearly half of the B2B researchers and decision-makers are millennial. They are young and competent to make major decisions in the company. They definitely prefer videos over text. This is not a general statement but videos make it easy to understand and fathom the objectives of the content. If the videos possess good content with high-quality graphics and good delivery of concept then researchers and buyers do watch it for their purpose. Myth 2) Focus should be only on senior executives If you focus your B2B video marketing on only C- suite then the employees who are researchers and purchase order placers will be ejected out of your gamut. Before making any video marketing content, do not believe in conventional norms, prepare a video that will appeal to everyone in your sales process. Myth 3) B2B researchers are not using mobile Why to curb your ambit by creating videos only for desktop mode? Your video should be flexible and must focus on all types of devices. Across all industries, more and more people use mobile to do their searches. They read, watch, learn, compare and determine their results. It is always desirable to make videos which are mobile-friendly too. This particularly has implications on the font size and video width that you choose. Myth 4) Videos are solely watched for gaining awareness 70% of B2B buyers are watching videos throughout their path. Why will a buyer watch a video of a product if he or she does not intend to buy it? Even if your web-visitors are watching these videos for awareness purposes, video can lure them by revealing interesting features, exciting offers and much more. This will ultimately influence them to buy your product. If you create videos that are not for the selling of products but relevant to it, it will still have an impact on your subsequent videos which may be solely sales-oriented. TRENDS OF VIDEO MARKETING FOR B2B 1) People love to laugh B2B companies like to give a touch of humour in their marketing videos. Video makers understand that any content should communicate in the simplest way possible. Adding creative attributes that make viewers laugh will influence them and position the brand in an ideal way in their mind. While making a business content video, do not think of the following: “What about my stakeholders?” “What if my target audience is elderly?” These are legitimate concerns. But people of all ages and backgrounds can appreciate a chance to smile. They will consider your efforts and creative ways of showcasing your product. There is no need to make an entire standup-comedy video, but consider the small moments where you can make a playful joke about yourself or a common problem that your customers have. 2) Let your viewers have an experience There are certain products and services which require experience before a purchase decision is made. Services are intangible, they are experienced. A video can be used to give your viewers a glimpse of that experience. Videos can also be used to showcase your engineering excellence or domain expertise. For example, if you are into manufacturing big machines as an input for the production processes of other companies, then you can do the following. Take your viewers to a virtual tour of your manufacturing process. Slip into one day routine of an assembly line worker and show how your finished products are manufactured. Make a video on raw materials, materials used in the entire production process and provide knowledge about those materials to show customers that they are purchasing equipment of the best quality. Example: Toyota is one of the biggest car engine manufacturers in the world. It supplies its car engines to various brands such as Lotus Cars, Spyker Cars, Pontiac and many more. Toyota has many videos on its car engine manufacturing process. Such videos enable their customers to experience the process and ensure that the engines purchased are produced through a premium process which ultimately fosters trust and confidence. 3) Use video to showcase what good you’re doing for society CSR not only helps our society but builds your reputation and goodwill in the eyes of customers. TATA and Mahindra are respected for their CSR activities. Make videos that advertises your CSR activity, make it loud on a large platform (only if your capital permits). But do not advertise your social activities using paid campaigns. Example: CEAT tyres under the CEAT Safety banner arranged stretchers, barricades and a changing room in Kumbh Mela 2019. These amenities were strategically provided at the most crowded places with an intention to serve the devotees, and a video on Youtube was issued to publicize their social service at Kumbh Mela. 4) Keep your videos short and sweet Unless the content demands it, do not stretch your videos for too long. Business researchers will only watch your video if it is on point and not unnecessarily lengthy. Of course, business researchers do watch long videos if the content demands it. Keeping

Google Ads, Uncategorized

5 tips to boost your Google Ads

Tanushri Saxena / August 1, 2019

Google receives almost 6 billion searches every day and many of the search page results include Google Ads (previously called Adwords). Google Ads can play a very significant role when it comes to drive relevant and quality traffic to your website. Google Ads are displayed on the top of SERP followed by organic search results. They appear like this: Results in red box are Google Ads and results in green box which are displayed below the red box are organic results. How do Google Ads appear? Google Ads work with the very simple formula. Google Ad auction is focused around keywords. Advertisers focus on the list of keywords which are most likely to be used by people for a product or service of their industry. Then they bid on these keywords, basing on how much they are willing to pay for a Google user to click on their Ad. Google’s algorithm is such that it combines the bid and quality score of the ad and determines which ad must be displayed on the SERP. When the users click on their ad, advertisers pay a fee to Google. This is how Google Ads appear on SERP. If you already have a Google Ad and want to optimize it to the best then this blog is perfect for you. Tips that will work for Google Ads. 1) Make your landing page appealing Viewers who clicked your Google Ad will land to your landing page. Google Ad completed its duty by bringing traffic to your page and now it is the duty of landing page to be appealing enough to convert viewers into customers. You should optimize your landing page for PPC conversions by making the message of your ads align with your landing page message. KEYWORDS ➡ GOOGLE ADS ➡ LANDING PAGE Repeat the message of Google Ad on your landing page which will craft more compelling content and increase the conversion rates. Be very clear about your offer and highlight the CTA button where you think that a particular place on your page has high probability of getting clicked. 2) Fill all the Ad content ETA (Expanded Text Ad) were introduced to the world of AdWords in 2016 which made a substantial impact. It is desirable to fill all the details of Google ad which will make your Ad more compelling. It’s like you get more character space to write for your Ad. This field gives you the additional space to write. Take full advantage of this field as it allows you to describe more about your brand, offer and idea. Final URL – Make this unique and highly relevant landing page. Headline 1 – Put the name of your brand or the primary value of your Ad. Headline 2 – You can set up the base of your description or secondary value for your Ad. Headline 3- Now this is the new space provided by Google, use it to attract customers. Description – This is the money maker section where the needs of customers will be solved by your solution. Put a strong CTA at the end of description to help frame the ad and engage your reader. This is how your Ad will look when you fill all the fields of your Ad content. 3) Eliminate negative Keywords Yes, there are keywords which negatively affect your ad campaign and advertisers don’t realise it. Keywords such as “free” or “jobs” will bring you visitors who want free products or services. These visitors will not add to your customer base. If main objective of your advertisement is to increase sales then never use keywords that include word “free”. By optimizing your ads for negative keywords, you can help eliminate any potential searches that would waste your ad budget without bringing you the return you want to see. Making your lists more efficient so that they remain focused directly on the prospects most likely to engage with your brands will ensure that your money goes to the best possible use. 4) Track which mode is bringing traffic Track everything you can. Get answer to following questions to improvise your Google Ad. Which campaign is bringing most traffic? Which site has highest bounce rate? Which site has longest average time on site? These questions can be easily answered by UTM codes. UTM codes helps you track everything from keywords to campaigns. They are just the codes which are attached at the end of the URL. It helps in determining source, medium and campaign name. This will enable Google Analytics to tell you from where visitors reached your site and by which campaign. This is how UTM codes will show up in your Google Analytics dashboard. UTM codes help you determine 3 main things. 1) Traffic Source This will help you know that from which source traffic is generated. Add utm_source to know traffic source parameter. Your traffic source could be facebook, Instagram, Google, Bing etc. 2) Medium It determines that what was the medium of generating traffic? It could be cpc, referral, email, display etc. Example – &utm_medium= email. 3) Campaign Name It allows you to determine the performance of a specific campaign. It helps you differentiate Facebook campaign from email campaign or any other campaign. By knowing the performance of every individual campaign, you can determine which campaign should be focused more or which one should be removed or just improvise your strategy. Example – &utm _campaign=example_campaign 5) Offline Tracking Why to keep account of only online deals? You provide your phone number in the Google Ad to contact you for any queries. This is also a medium where traffic is generated. It is important to track which campaign or keyword enabled them to call here. Google analytics keep an account for that but it does not show campaign name or keywords. Google analytics give you only start and end time of the call, call duration, area code and call type. You want to track everything like UTM codes. So you

Google Ads, Uncategorized

How To Set Up Your First Google Ad

Tanushri Saxena / June 5, 2019

Google Ads (earlier called Adwords) is Google’s advertising system in which marketers bid on certain keywords so that their clickable ads come first on Google search page results. This blog is all about how to set your first Google ad account, Google campaign and your first Google text ad. A step by step guide for creating a Google Ad Account. STEP 1 First you need to go on https://ads.google.com and click the START NOW button. Congratulations, you are now starting the process to make your first ever Google ad! STEP 2 You can use your own Google account to sign-in, or if you want to make a different account then you can set up one. STEP 3 You will land to this page. You can skip the “goals of advertisement: because here we focus on creating a Google ad account (not the simpler “Google Ad Express” account which has limited features). So just click on Experienced with Google Ads? STEP 4 You can select any type of campaign you want. But here we are skipping that part as we will cover it later, so just click on Create an account without a campaign. Alternately, you can also create a dummy campaign and then pause it immediately after the account is created. STEP 5 Now you have to fill up all the details about your billing country, time zone and currency. Everything here is by default in the context of your country. If you want to edit any of this, you can do it here. STEP 6 Congratulations! You are done here. Just click on Explore account and you will land on the dashboard of your new Google Ad Account. STEP 7 YOUR GOOGLE AD ACCOUNT DASHBOARD HOW TO CREATE YOUR FIRST GOOGLE AD CAMAPAIGN Now that you have made your Google Ad account, your next step is to create your first Google Ad Campaign. STEP 1 You can go to campaigns at the left corner and click the blue + button STEP 2 1) Google Ads wants to help you by asking certain specifications. You can now select a goal for your campaign. You can select from the following: Sales Leads Website Traffic Product and Brand Consideration Product and Brand Awareness App Promotion Without a goal’s guidance Here I am selecting Sales because it is a common purpose for running Google Ads. You can select any of them which suits your purpose. 2) Now you have to select the Campaign type from the following Search Display Shopping Video I want my campaign to be of Search type, where the user types in a relevant search query in Google and then my add shows up. So here I will select Search. 3) You can see the 4 options given to you for selecting a way to reach your goal. Website Visits Phone Calls Shop Visits App downloads In this example, I will select Website visits. Phone Calls is a good option if your business runs mostly on phone calls – such as if you’re a service provider. Shop visits and App downloads are, of course, relevant if you have a physical shop or if you have a mobile app for which you want more downloads. STEP 3 1) Give a name to your campaign. The name is not shown to anyone else, but it is for your own use. Keep it relevant to your business and its purpose. Here I have named my campaign as Digital Marketing Services. 2) Enter your location. You can be very specific here or leave it to the default state. It depends on your campaign type and your target audience. In Search ads, it is recommended to not narrow down your target audience too much unless you have a specific niche to target to. 3) Language You can select language apart from the default language, which is English. 4) You can add extensions for Site links, Callouts and Calls. They are not compulsory but are available and can help your ads’ performance. STEP 4 Now it’s time to create your Ad Group. A single campaign can have multiple ad groups. For example, you could have a campaign for generating sales on an ecommerce site, whereas each ad group might target different types of audiences or product categories. Here I am creating only one ad group as an example. My ad group is for “social media marketing services”. This is that product or service you want to sell. You can take the help of keyword planner tool to suggest the best ideas for the ‘keywords’ for your product or service. (Keywords are what the user will type into Google search for your ad to appear.) Google Ads also provides you many ideas relevant to your business. Select the best ideas for your ad and save and continue. There are four types of keywords which you can learn in detail about on this link. STEP 5 Now is the time to create your first ever text Ad. 1) First enter the final URL of the webpage you want your visitors to visit when they click your Ad. 2) Write Headline 1 and Headline 2 (maximum 30 characters) and an optional Headline 3, and a mini-description (maximum 90 characters) which will be displayed like this: Click on save and continue button and hey, congratulations! You created your first Ad Campaign on Google Ads. Google also came up with the new ‘responsive search ads’ which you can read about by clicking here. If you faced any doubts, feel free to reach out to us. About the Author: Tanushri Saxena is pursuing her MBA from GLS, Ahmedabad. Currently, she is interning as a content writer at WebKow. She enjoys an occasional cup of coffee.

How Uber Cracked India's Code For Digital Marketing

Case-Study, Uncategorized

How Uber cracked India’s code with Digital Marketing

Tanushri Saxena / May 31, 2019

SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY When it comes to online marketing strategy, an easy first step is to focus on social media. Uber is present on all social media platforms to connect to the millennial who form a major part of their customer base. Uber is deeply aware of its target audience and the ways to engage with them. SOCIAL MEDIA PRESENCE OF UBER SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM URL LIKES/ FOLLOWERS Facebook https://www.facebook.com/uber.IND/ 22,158,300 Twitter https://twitter.com/Uber 991000 Instagram https://www.instagram.com/uber/ 945000 LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/uber-com/ 1010700 Let’s get a glimpse of Uber’s Social Media presence through Facebook, where Uber has more than 22M likes. Uber’s Facebook account is more of a broadcasting account where it reveals all the latest offers and deals. Uber’s content comprises of Video marketing Updating Customers Repositioning Brand UBER SOCIAL MEDIA APPEALING OFFERS In India, Cricket is not just a game but an emotion and the Cricket World Cup is treated as a festival. So just before the 2019 Cricket World Cup, Uber has titillated customers by offering them a chance to fly to England by earning runs through rides. The highest earner will fly to England to watch the World cup. FOLLOWING THE TREND At the time of writing this blog, the Game of Thrones final season has been the buzziest topic to market. A key factor for audience engagement is to follow the trend which connects people, and Uber is doing exactly this. PROMOTING THE APP Mother’s Day is always celebrated by showing love, care and affection on social media. Many people surprise their moms with gifts and trips, and many brands use this opportunity to connect with people. Uber doesn’t miss these trends, and shares exciting and relevant details of its upcoming offers and updates in apps. One of the finest example is Uber app has a feature of sharing your Trip Status. You can now share your current status to your closed ones which will keep you safe and will provide a sense of security. Of course the one who is mostly concerned about your wellbeing is your mom. This is a creative way to advertise with the example of a mom and a daughter and highlight the trip sharing feature. UBER WEBSITE IMAGES MORE THAN TEXT Any advertisement, post or website only has a few seconds to grab the user’s attention. This can be done through simple and clear images. Uber’s website has clear and big images which make it easy to understand the service Uber offers. Customers with warm and pleasant faces are shown. To show that the customers are happy and you are at right place to have a pleasant service of a private driver. VIDEOS MORE THAN IMAGES At the time of writing this, the front page of Uber’s website has an emotional and sensitive video of a deaf driver, first transgender driver and a Saudi Arab woman driving. This is all pointing towards a radical change in the world. Videos of human and animal concerns connect with people. Indirectly, they also connect with the brand. https://www.uber.com/in/en/ PARTNERSHIPS WITH FACEBOOK People often make plans on messaging apps. Whether it be a birthday party or a college reunion, marriage reception or office work, FB messenger has been used to plan it all. There is no need to open a separate application to book a ride. You can now book a ride while interacting in the messaging app itself. Just check that your messenger app is of latest version. SOME AREAS OF IMPROVEMENT CALL TO ACTION BUTTONS Uber’s website contains very clear and big images. However, it doesn’t have a prominent call-to-action on the first screen that opens up. (Call-to-action buttons are for the actions websites want visitors to take – such as signing up.) Visitors have to scroll down the website to see the Call-to-action buttons. Generally, if a website wants more conversions then its Call-to-action button should be in the zone where it has the highest probability to get clicked – i.e. the very first screen. First Screen: Right at the bottom: Key takeaways: Social Media is all about timing. Use the current trends and whatever’s on your audience’s mind and connect it with your brand to get higher engagement. Wherever possible, try to highlight your product’s features by socially relevant messaging, such as the Mother’s Day example shared above. Have a website with clear messages and relevant images that make visitors easily connect with your brand. Give prominent places to the most important Call-to-Action on your webpages, especially your homepage. About the Author: Tanushri Saxena is pursuing her MBA from GLS, Ahmedabad. Currently, she is interning as a content writer at WebKow. She enjoys an occasional cup of coffee and is an avid Game of Thrones fan.

SEO, Uncategorized

How to do an SEO Audit

Tanushri Saxena / May 8, 2019

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the practice of increasing quantity and quality of traffic to your website through organic search results. SEO audit is the process of analyzing how well your web presence relates to SEO best practices. Learning how to do an SEO audit is the first step of developing an SEO plan and strategy. Let’s get started with the basics. What is quality traffic? Of course your website has a lot of potential to attract visitors, but if Google tells foodies to visit your site because your restaurant MANGO is supposed to be a chill frill place with good ambience and delicious food, but actually you are the owner of a mango garden, it is not quality traffic. Quality traffic is when people with a relevant interest or intent visit your site. Quantity traffic – Once you get the right people clicking through from those search engine result pages, more traffic is better. However, quantity without quality can backfire, as it’d mean a very high bounce rate and lower reputation for Google’s algorithms. Organic results – Traffic that comes to your site from a search engine, without any paid advertisement campaign. What is the meaning of SEO audit then? It is the process of determining a website’s friendship with search engines. It evaluates how well the website is optimized for generating high quality and quantity organic traffic. And why on earth do you need to conduct an SEO audit of your website? In real life you adjust a bit to maintain relationships. You bow, you abide by certain customs, you cooperate, and this is how relationship go. The same is the case with search engines and your website. They are friends, right? Your website need to abide by the basic rules, principles and adjust a bit according to Google’s requirements, so that Google (as well as other search engines) keep sending you traffic! So how do you do an SEO audit? For that we need to go through the steps of SEO audit. SEO AUDIT STEPS: 1) CHECK FOR GOOGLE PENALTIES Yes, you read it right. As your teacher penalized you in your school for not obeying rules, Google could penalize your website. You may lose your Google traffic if you are in the blacklist. For avoiding this, you must know that there are 2 types of Google penalties. A) Manual penalty Remember how your classmates use to complain about you when you were a kid. In the same way users (mostly web spam team) can impose a penalty to your site. You can check what the complaint is by logging in Google search console >> search traffic >> manual actions. There you can find the message which discloses the reason why you are penalized, and also the solutions to recover it. Follow it and then send a reconsideration request. B) Algorithm penalty This penalty lies in darkness. You will not be able to find out the exact reason why your site is penalized. You need to be updated to all the amendments that take place with Google’s algorithm. For that you can get to Google analytics, compare your traffic which may have increased or decreased in comparison to prior to the date of update and take action accordingly. What to do if your site is blacklisted by Google? Go through the changes that Google has made and adjust your SEO strategy accordingly. For example – thin content issues are very common, so ensure you improve or change your content and make it relevant for the visitors. 2) SEARCH APPEARANCE It is all about how your website shows up in search results. You must check the following. Does your homepage appear first in the search results when you search your brand? Does it show the site links along with your listing? Is the small description below your homepage accurate? Are the rest of the pages listed on the first page relevant to your brand? If all the points are not ticked by you then the best approach to get it are Review and optimize your site structure Review your homepage on-site description, meta-tags, etc. Claim your Google my business page and give all the information correctly and accurately. 3) TECHNICAL SEO A) Search console – Is your website registered with Google search console? No? Then stop reading, go ahead and get it registered. It shouldn’t take more than a few minutes. It is a free tool provided by Google that discloses a ton of information and data that Google has for your site. It answers questions like – How many pages are submitted to Google? – How many pages are actually indexed? – Which keywords will generate Google traffic? It helps you to determine coverage by showing total clicks, total impressions, average click through rate (CTR) and average position, your web search clicks, your logos and many more. B) Site maps – The next thing you must check is your sitemap. Have you created a sitemap? But wait, what is a sitemap anyway? Sitemap is an XML file that contains the list of all webpages on your site. It allows Google to detect and crawl your website. If you want to control what must be crawled, then create a robot.txt file. A mistake in robot.txt file can cause some serious indexing issues. So getting your robot.txt file optimized should be a high priority for you. C) Are URLs SEO friendly? Pay good attention to your URLs. They must be perfectly formatted. Poorly formatted URLs are keyword-stuffed and messy, while a good URL is separated by hyphens and slashes. E.g. Bad URL – https://www.notgoodurl.com/12/badformattedurl/121358898 Good URL – https://www.example.com/good-formatted-url A secured website always has an upper hand over non-secure websites. Make sure your URL is of https version by having an SSL certificate installed on your site. Also never use ‘underscore’ (_) in your URLs, use hyphens (-) instead. D) Check your breadcrumbs You may have liked to prepare an index for your notebooks. You simply fill up the

Google Ads, Uncategorized

Google’s New Responsive Search Ads: All you need to know

Neeraj Ramnani / April 10, 2019

Last year when Google announced the Responsive Search Ads, many considered it a game-changer. According to many reports, these ads are improving CTR (clickthrough rate) of Google ad campaigns by 5-15%. So what exactly is so great about these responsive search ads? Here are four things you need to know about them: #1 Responsive search ads use up to 15 headlines and 4 descriptions With responsive search ads, you can write up to 15 different headlines and up to 4 different descriptions. Google will then automatically test different combinations of these headlines and descriptions and run the ones that perform best. Over time, the algorithm will learn to show the best message depending on the users past behaviour, the keyword they’ve searched for, their device etc. The length of the individual headline and description remains the same, but Google will pick the two or three headlines from the ones you’ve submitted. #2 You can pin your “first headline” Say you’re selling T-shirts online. You may want the first headline of your Google ad to show “Buy T-shirts online” or perhaps you use keyword insertion tool in Google ads. In such cases, you can pin the first headline within the responsive ads. If you pin more than one ad for the first headline, Google will pick any of the available options. You can also pin the second or third headline, if required. Note that pinning excessively will reduce the options you give Google to learn based on its algorithms, so don’t overuse this option! #3 Use responsive search ads with your regular ads If you’re running expanded text ads in an ad group, you may not want to pause the existing ads if they’re performing well already. But you could always test responsive search ads along with the existing ads! What’s cool is, Google automatically picks up the existing headlines in an ad group when you create a new responsive search ad, so it’s easy to pick out your favourites. #4 How to make the most of responsive search ads Here’s a quick check-list if you’re setting up responsive search ads for the first time: Make sure you’re using at least two regular expanded text ads in the same ad group in which you create a responsive search ad. Do not make more than one responsive search ad per campaign. Highlight something unique in each of the headlines in your responsive search ads. For example, if you are selling T-shirts online, you do not want a list of headlines like this: Buy T-Shirts Online Online T-shirt Store Online T-shirts buy Buy Online T-shirts Great T-shirts Online …. And so on. You get the idea. Instead, a better way of doing it would be Buy T-shirts Online (pin this one as headline one) {Keyword Insertion: Buy T-shirts Online} (pin this one at headline one too) COD available All new designs Free Shipping Biggest Summer Deals Top Brands, Best Prices Fashion is a click away …And so on For most ads, it may be important to pin a few options for headline 1. But apart from that, pin sparingly. Write headlines related to your keywords in the ad group. For example, if “buy t-shirts Cash on Delivery” is a keyword you’re targeting, you should include “COD available” or “Cash On Delivery” as one of the headlines. About the Author:Neeraj Ramnani is the founder of GrowthFoundation.in and WebKow.com. He is a digital marketer since 2011, and has pioneered some of the most innovative approaches in this field over these years. He’s worked with over 40 brands for their result-oriented digital marketing.He’s an alumnus of IIM Indore and SVNIT Surat.

Uncategorized

5 Digital Marketing Tips For 2019

Neeraj Ramnani / February 2, 2019

Tip #1 Use effective (and free) digital marketing tools Very few people bother to use the simple hacks that can make your digital life easier. For example, if you’re on multiple social media channels, you can post on all of them from one place. You can also schedule posts for weeks or months in advance. Simply use a free service like HootSuite (It is free up to 3 channels and 30 scheduled posts.) Again, if you want to create awesome social media graphics, use free tools like Canva. If you want to do competitor research, use something like SimilarWeb. For YouTube, install VidIQ. For selecting hashtags, use the hashtag generator at all-hashtag. For easy video creation, use lumen5. These tools are free and very easy to use. Here’s a full list of 41 digital marketing tools. Most of them are free. Tip #2 Read the “classic” books I recently wrote about 10 must-read digital marketing books for 2019. If you take a look at that list, you’ll find that many of the books are relatively old. Digital marketing trends and platforms transform quite quickly, but it is important to get a basic grasp of the core concepts so that you have your feet planted firmly on the ground. You can then stay updated about relevant trends for your industry, but reading the “classic” foundational stuff is the most important. It will help you see the ‘big picture’ and not get carried away and tossed around by ‘what’s hot right now’. Tip #3 Get good at the basics of copywriting Copywriting is one of the most nuanced and yet game-changing skills you can learn for your business. Whether it is an ad headline, a blog piece, text over a social media graphic, or even an email subject line; sound copywriting principles will go a long way in helping you succeed in the digital jungle. A simple rule of thumb is to not make it too complicated. You do not have to be a poet to write good copy. Simple beats elegant in most digital marketing scenarios. For the most important copy (such as headlines), use these checks: make sure your product is easy to understand in under a second (vague, curiosity generating headlines underperform compared to simple and clear-cut headlines) try to use powerful words at the beginning, such as ‘introducing’, ‘announcing’, ‘all-new’ generate curiosity, but never at the cost of point (1). (Example of good curiosity: Learn how to triple your social media followers with these 3 tips. Example of bad curiosity: This will change your business forever.) Tip #4 Get the best information easily A great way to stay in touch with recent trends is to select 4-5 blogs of experts that you like (and who speak about your industry). You can also tweak your Reddit account to only follow subreddits like SEO, digitalmarketing, facebookads etc. That way when you open your Reddit, you’ll have interesting conversations and questions that will teach or stimulate you. Another way to use Reddit effectively is to go to these relevant subreddits, and then filter by “Top Posts” for “All-time”. You will typically find the most insightful posts and discussions from that subreddit in the first 20 posts. Tip #5 Only market to one person You heard that right. Of course, I’m talking about customer persona (aka customer avatar). Once you have written down a clear, realistic document about who your average prospect is, you need to do your entire marketing as if you’re speaking only to that one person. The more specific you get in writing down your persona, the more chances you will have of being able to speak to your target audience. This is a powerful idea and yet not many get it right. Use it! Here are great tips and examples on generating a customer persona. For more tips, do check out our free eBook on 12 Rules of Digital Marketing. About the Author:Neeraj Ramnani is the founder of GrowthFoundation.in and WebKow.com. He is a digital marketer since 2011, and has pioneered some of the most innovative approaches in this field over these years. He’s worked with over 40 brands for their result-oriented digital marketing.He’s an alumnus of IIM Indore and SVNIT Surat.