Tips To Improve Local SEO

There are many questions raised by most of when it comes to local SEO. As we are growing and connecting the people around the world, there comes up the question of local business. The current situation is like, its good to be globally recognized but local presence simultaneously holds the same importance even today.
Ranking local will not only be the stepping stones of your business but it also gives you a steady place between your competitor in the locals. Also due to Google’s trending keyword “near me” has changed the whole picture of the local business in the search engines. We will discuss the simple and impactful to your local business in terms of search engine optimization and branding.

1. Get Listing to Google Business

– For anything, people prefer search engines for any queries regarding anything. So it becomes important for every business to get their work online. Google provides business listing which provided the information in a well-defined way to the customers.

2. Google Maps

– Add the Google maps into your website which redirects to the maps app once clicked on the map. This gives the convenience to the user not searching for the address separately on the maps.

3. Multi-Location

– There are situations where your business has widespread along with multiple locations. Instead of targeting all the locations under on website try separating them. This will create the uniqueness of different locations and also help to rank well in those specific areas.

4. Optimize Business Profile

– Try to complete your business profile as much as possible. This will help new users to know about the services and products which are offered. Optimizing the profiles on regular intervals will help the user to keep updated about offers and deals too.

5. Google Virtual Tour

– Virtual tours attract users more towards the business. As it allows people to view your shops, restaurants, gallery, etc. in the actual way they are instead of imaging them.

6. Mobile Optimized Sites

– According to stats “Nearly 80% of internet usage is expected to have been mobile in 2018”. Mobile optimized websites load faster and are also responsive which fits in any device size.

7. Social Media

– For local business social media plays a vital role. Via social media, users can be updated on the current discounts, offers, deals, announcements, etc. Also, people react to the services and products through social media, where it can be utilized as organic marketing.

8. Local Listing

– Get listed in the local listing websites for that specific area and location. This will help the brand to grow locally and also increase the number of backlinks.

9. High-Quality Links

– Build and generate the high quality of the backlinks to the website. This will help the site to rank high on the search engines. Make sure that the generated links should be relevant and from high authority websites.

10. Customer Reviews

– Reviews from the customer play the most important role in the local business in terms of SEO. Types of reviews affect the ranking in the search engines, more positive review, users prefer going for those products or services rather than large negative reviews.

11. Reputation Management

– There are certain times when a business faces some difficulties and gain negative reviews. That time it becomes important to manage the reputation of the site. This is the time when reputation becomes mandatory.

5 Web Design Mistakes Your Business Needs To Avoid

As a web design and development company in Pune, we do a lot of work designing our client’s websites. Surprisingly though, we also spend a lot of time re-designing old websites and giving them a fresh look. Another reason we get so many website re-design requests is because of the relatively common web design mistakes that are previously committed. In today’s topic, we’re going to talk about the 5 most common web design mistakes most companies make that should be avoided at all costs.

Common Web Design Mistakes To Avoid

1. Not optimizing your website for mobile

One of the top cardinal sins of web design since 2016 is not having your website optimized for the smaller screens. Since 2016 Google has been focusing more and more on a better mobile-first experience and for good reason. People spend so much of their time on their phone that it only makes sense that your business should be represented well on the phone as well. People don’t take that into consideration while designing the website. They design the website to look unnecessarily flashy, too heavy with a lot of graphics and photos, but all that leads to is a heavy website that takes too long too long both on mobile and desktops and that the users don’t enjoy looking at.

2. Not optimizing your website for SEO

Now you may be wondering how Web Design affects your website SEO. Well if you read the previous point carefully you’ll notice how speed is a factor in both web design and SEO. Now a faster loading website won’t necessarily give you a higher ranking, but a slow website will definitely be penalized compared to its faster competitors. Web design plays a role in SEO also because if your site is designed well, your customers will love to visit it and spend more time on it. The more time they spend the better signals they send Google and the higher your rankings will progress.

3. Simplify the Layout

Another common error that most web design companies in Pune tend to make it that they make the layout of a website, web page too complicated and complex to show the effort they’ve put into the design. We at CodePlateau believe that the hardest design is a simple one where a lot of different elements work together seamlessly. Of course, clients tastes might differ from time to time but in most circumstances, we would definitely recommend something clean and simple.

4. Use Clear Communication

Within the first 10 seconds or less of having your customer visit your site, he should be able to tell what business you’re in. Even if he has never heard of your business ever before, the communication on your website should be crystal clear. While we’re on the subject of communication, we also need to talk about the typography you will be used as part of your web design aesthetics. Using clear easy to read fonts will go a long way in helping your content consumers enjoy their time on your site.

5. Not using Social Media Icons

People love sharing what they love and you as a business owner should provide your customers with every opportunity to share your website or your blogs with them. You can do this by adding your businesses social links in the footer on your website while also providing sharing options across the blogs and other content you may have. The more viral your content, the more exposure for your business.

Conclusion

It’s easy to summarize how to avoid making web design mistakes by always remembering one mantra for web design. When designing a website, always have the customer in your mind before anything else, design only for him and you’ll go a long way to make your business successfully online. If you need help with your company website, get in touch with the professionals.

Why Image Optimization Is Relevant For Google Search Rankings

Most websites nowadays have tens of thousands of images. Some as a means to impress their prospective customers and some as means to display what their products and services could look like. While having a lot of images can be used to attract customers they can also slow down your website. On the other hand, images can also be optimized to improve the SEO for your website. We’ll be taking a look at what image optimization is and why it matters for your website SEO and Google Search Rankings.

What Is Image Optimization?
Image optimization is the process by which an image with the right message you’re hoping to deliver is published on your website in the right dimensions (height and width) as well as the right size (file size). It is important to note than larges images will require more space on the server as long as taking more time to be delivered to the customer. The better the optimization the better the customer experience will be. Another step in image optimization is to insert the right image alt tags on all the images. We’ll look into why that’s relevant a little later.

Why Image Optimization Is Important For Your SEO?

1. Using Relevant Imagery
Using the right images in the right place is very important for your website SEO. Let’s get this out of the way very quickly so that we can focus on how to optimize images for your website. Image search is really important. More than 6 out of 10 customers do an image search at least once a day. On your website if you’re using an image of a monkey but describing a cat it does not make a lot of sense, does it? This may seem like common sense but when you’re talking about obscure concepts like hard work and imagination what kind of imagery you use is totally up to you.

2. Alt Tags
The most important bit about image optimization is probably using the right alt-tags in the images. Just like website pages have SEO titles and headlines to make it easier to search, images have alt-tags to be able to find them more easily. Now you have think it’ll be easy to fool Google and try and use your business keyword on your images, which is fair but don’t overdo it or you will be penalized.

3. Using The Right Linking
Images on your website can also be used to link to pages and other images. Use the linking feature on images to take your customer on a journey throughout your website. As you probably know the more time a customer spends on your website the higher Google ranks your website in search. If you have the correct images linking to the right pages to take your customer to exactly where he wants to go then you will kill two birds with one stone, by improving your ranking and improving your sales.

4. Use Proper File Names
Ensuring that you use proper file names on your images is just a way to ensure that you maintain good hygiene on your website. Using file names like DSC00192.jpg is not at all helpful either too Google or your customer. If the image is taking time to load he can see the filename and at least understand if it’s relevant to them. If not, they can move to a different image. Having a proper file name also helps a search engine saving it in a relevant repository.

Conclusion
Do you need help in optimizing the images on your site for better SEO scores? Get in touch via email or leave a comment below and we’ll get in touch with you immediately. We’ve helped a number of our clients improve their SEO rankings simply by optimizing the images best suited for their website. Get in touch today!

Importance Of Web Designing In SEO

There are a lot of naysayers that don’t understand the link between a Web Designing and SEO process. While these two may seem complimentary to each other they need to work hand in hand if your business is to succeed. It is no longer about “if you build it they will come”, it is actually more on the lines of “if you build it well, they will come”. Here our take why website design is very important for your websites to search engine optimization.

5 Reasons Web Design is important for your business

1. Better Web Design More Visitors
Your website design will depend on the customers you would like to attract to it. For the younger generation a simple website without a lot of bells and whistles won’t be suitable while if you add too many “new age” features in your website and your customers are from an older generation they might not enjoy it as much. Now if you wonder what does SEO have to do with this remember that a lot of your SEO ranking has to do with the customers you can attract to your website and how long they stay on your website before moving on.

2. Site Speed
Another important aspect of SEO is how fast you‘re able to provide the required information to your customer. The quicker they receive the information they more they’re willing to stay on your website. Not only does the speed on your website matter for technical SEO, the speed at which the user can locate all the relevant information while on your website is another important aspect of how loyal of a consumer he becomes. Site speed itself is an important parameter that Google judges in ranking your website in its search.

3. Navigational Ease
Another important factor that could decide your website SEO is the ease with which users can find the information they’re looking for. I touched on it briefly in the last point and while they may seem contradictory to one another, how fast your potential customer can find the information he’s looking for can go a long way in ensuring that he keeps coming back to your website anytime he has any trouble with your particular skill set and needs answers. You’ll be steadily increasing your brand loyalist and reducing your dependency on paid ads to grow your fan base.

4. Professionalism
Another reasons companies rely on trusty web design companies in Pune for their requirements is because a well-designed website gives an air of professionalism to their brand. According to research, a customer is more likely to choose a business based on the quality of their website. A higher quality website gives an assurance to the customer that the business is to be trusted and they can do business with them.

5. Changes With Time
As with most things your customer preferences will change over time. As your audience matures so will their choices. If you are planning to grow with the company, it then becomes imperative to be able to change as per their needs. While the keywords you target will most likely not change you can always aesthetically revamp your website to continue to make it more attractive to your prospective customers.

Conclusion
Don’t let people tell you that web design and SEO are not linked because as we’ve discussed it above they very clearly are. If you are looking to build a new website for your organization or overhaul your existing website to match the needs of your current customers, you’ll need the services of a professional web design company in Pune that knows their way around both SEO and Web Design. If you‘d like to know more about how we can help you change your website to get more customers, get in touch with us today.

Improving Your Brand Presence Using SEO and PPC Combined

SEO and PPC, when used together, are far more powerful than when you use either in isolation. Many digital marketing agencies sell them as different services when in reality they provide the best results when applied simultaneously. Today we will look at 7 ways in which you can improve your brand presence using SEO and PPC together.

How To Improve Your Brand Presence By Combining SEO and SEM

SEO and SEM both rely heavily on good keyword research based on your customer requirements. They are often complementary and are the sum of a whole – SEARCH. Here are a few strategies to use them together for a better brand visibility.

1. Sharing Keyword Research
As previously mentioned, the common denominator for SEO and SEM, search. Search relies heavily on your keyword research. To optimise your effort and reduce duplication your best bet would be to use the same keyword research in both SEO and PPC. In whatever campaigns you run find out what SEM keywords give you the highest clicks and optimise your content for the same keywords.

2. Using Site Search Data
Another fascinating source that most websites overlook is their own search bar. Many websites have enabled search on their website but rarely use the data. The search data your prospective customers are using on your website are the products and services their most interested in. Use those keywords in your SEM campaign and see a drastic boost to your clicks and leads generated.

3. Improved Visibility
The higher you are on the search rankings the more likely it is you will get a majority of the clicks. Imagine being so dominant in SEO and PPC that your website is top of both lists. Not only will you receive a majority of the clicks but the customers will also admire the tenacity with which you are dominating your field. They will definitely see you as a leader in your industry.

4. Shape Your Content Strategy
It’s no secret that search engine marketing can get expensive. When you have enough data from your pay-per-click campaigns you have a clear idea about what your most promising keywords are. The keywords that get the clicks. You should base your content strategy on the keywords that give you the most clicks in SEM. Use the keywords to create Page SEO Titles, SEO Descriptions, and Headlines. You can also use variations of their keywords in your long-form content for higher visibility in search.

5. Test Keywords Immediately
You can tweak the above concept to find out if a keyword will give you results or not. Instead of wasting your time forming a content strategy on a keyword you’re not sure will work, use it in a PPC ad first. See how the public responds to the keywords and its alternatives. You have almost immediate feedback on your choice of keywords and can decide whether to go ahead with it or not.

6. Use These Tools To Re-market
Sometimes it so happens that your page is ranking well for certain keywords and also getting clicks. But the leads do not convert to customers. Sometimes prospective buyers need a little push in the right direction which is why targeting them with an ad with a small discount on the particular product they were looking for can lead to better sales. Monitor their movement on your site and see what products they were interested in. Re-market and Voila, you have just converted better than you ever did using only one technique by itself.

7. Improve Your Brands Image
Chances are from time to time your brand might be embroiled in some negative news. You might rank for some negative keywords which will harm your business. Instead, run an ad that links to a blog post that shows people how you’re actively working towards making the situation better. Instead of receiving bad publicity you can use the keywords to put your brand in a positive light.

Conclusion
Next time you‘re meeting with a digital marketing agency ask them how they plan to combine PPC and SEO strategies to give your impressive and efficient results. While they sell SEM and SEO as separate services they are most effective when used together. If you‘re looking for a digital marketing company practiced in using these strategies and more to give you the best results, please get it touch today!