Getting into the journey of Search Engine Optimization ( SEO)

Online search has become way of life to billions of people across the world. In a way search has become one of the important stakeholder in decision making in the life of urban customers. The decisions ranging from buying a nickle worth of goods to vacation on the moon.

Well, its here since long and major business across the world are fighting to leverage search engines for their product or services. There are large number of agencies which help the organizations in doing Search Engine Optimization ( SEO) to get the major chunk of search hits on their website in order to meet their end of bargain.

 There are few things one needs to know before taking the roller-coaster journey of SEO -

The Kingmaker - Search Engine-
Its all about search engine, so one needs to understand the functional and technical aspects of the working of search engine. the way it operates, key ranking criteria, things to avoid etc. these basics understanding really helps to great extent to designed the appropriate SEO strategy for your business.

"Keyword" is the King-
Well, till now  Keyword(KW) based search is the dominant part of the search even though the search engines companies are trying to align the search engines with the conversation based search. Keyword plays  important part in SEO, Selecting right keyword is the most crucial part of SEO. Today, there are number of online tools are available which help to choose the right keywords, however I still think the businesses needs to adopt the dual approach for the KW selection, meaning use the tools available but also apply your functional business acumen to select the KWs.


KW is not end....its Start....-

A)
One may perceive that once we select the right KW everything will fall in place well the answer is No....
selecting the right keyword is defiantly a strong foundation however the due care is to be taken while tagging the web pages. I personally feel that tagging is the extraordinary skill and I think Ad Copy writer fits the bill, as they have very specialize skill of conveying meaning in crisp and clear way.

B)
Also, building content relevant to your target segment is the key for SEO. One needs to be very dynamic and research oriented to understand the content consumption behavior of the target segment in order to build the relevant content. No business would have objective to have one time visitors and so to have visitors to come again & again there is no option but the have quality content relevant to the audience. Well, I think building the quality content should be counted as one of the most critical responsibilities in SEO.

Patience is non negotiable-

It takes 279 days of natural incubation for baby before it comes in the world..........as its organic process....similarly SEO is organic process with no shortcuts. One needs to show huge patience to realize the results of the 9 -12 months of constructive efforts. The shortcuts in SEO may give results on short term results but in that case you have other more powerful tools available for short term results like Search Engine Marketing (SEM). 

Where the buck stops ?????.....No where.... Its continuous Journey -
 SEO is continuous journey, the moment you stop the, goal will slip out of your sight. achieving the top position is no fun.....staying there for longer is........

Building on Foundation-
Once the KW selection & tagging is correctly done, one needs to concentrate on building quality back links to website. Quality back links help to direct the quality traffic from other high ranking websites.

Commitment -

From Top management to junior executives everyone needs to be committed to SEO project and can contribute in their respective capacities in the due process.

The external SEO consultant and principle company both needs to work as strategic partners to get  desired results through SEO. It would wrong to appoint the SEO consultant and not provide them with appropriate support.  The principle company needs to be in action all the time to provide timely & quality content to the SEO consultant and check the progress at regular frequency.

Best Luck............

Digital Champion: Need for every organization

A recent Global Workmonitor survey 2013 by Randstad revealed one new dimension of hiring in today’s business practices. According to the survey, 91% of the employers have underlined the importance of digital skills in potential employees

The digital world is expanding like a Big Bang; it has impacted every sector, every organization however big or small and every function of the organization. Majority of the business today are practicing the digital marketing and those who have not started practicing yet don’t have any choice but to join the digital bandwagon in near future.

In such scenario, I believe every organization should focus on building internal digital competency in order to exploiting the maximum benefit out of new age digital practices

Yes, there are large numbers of digital consulting organizations available; however I think organizations need an internal expert who can understands their digital needs, set the smart objectives, channelized the resources, monitor the digital activities and work in synergy with external digital agencies if needed.

Internal digital champion may help the organization by addressing some basic questions like:-

Do we really need to go digital?

Do our stakeholders available on digital platforms?

If yes, how our stakeholders use various digital platforms?

Do digital deliver quick results?

Does it work alone?

Can everything be outsourced? Which are the things can be done internally?

How to design SMART digital objectives and define clear expectations from digital campaign?

 (It has been observed that clients frequently ask Digital marketers to do SEO within few months. Well, one needs to know its organic process and need good nine months to year to fully optimize the site for search engine. If somebody is promising you to do SEO within couple of months is probably a wrong guy to hand over your digital marketing to.)

What are good practices and what are wrong practices?

(Buying database for email or SMS is not advisable idea likewise buying links is also not fair practice)

Organizations which could not afford or don’t wish to engage digital consulting can also practice digital marketing with the help of internal digital marketing champion to large extent for doing some basic things like;

Content management:

Blogs, articles by internal employees and updating on regular basis

Advertisement & Promotion:

Google Adwords, Bing Ads tools for doing PPC campaign

Social Media:-

Managing Facebook page, Facebook Ads, twitter account and other social media platforms

Communication:

Emailer and newsletters campaign management

Analyzing, monitoring and mapping competition:

With the help of user friendly tools like Google analytics, Google keyword tool, Google trend,  SEO book, HowSociable & Socialmention etc. to name a few.

Well at the end I just wish to conclude by saying, irrespective of size, every organization today must have internal digital champions to exploit the huge benefits offered by the new age digital marketing.

Leveraging Facebook Page:

Facebook has been in the integral part of the digital marketing tactic around since long; still one wonders how good some companies exploit the platform while some other could not. It's one of the best platforms to engage with the customers and get critical insights on consumer behavior in very fragmented market.

Facebook offers host of the services marketers can exploit to their benefits, however in this post I wish to explore Facebook page, which could be the first step in your social media campaign.

Do's & Don'ts on Facebook page:

Set the Objective:

One needs to set the clear objective for the Facebook page, which will have huge bearing on the contents or the kind of engagement one can expect from it.

Mange the content:

Updating relevant content is the key in social media. When I say relevant, companies should focus on their products or services over anything else. There should be judicious mix of text, images, and videos. The frequency should be managed properly to avoid clutter.

Updating & Responding:

One needs to set up clear process for regularly updating the content and at the same time responding to the comments, complaints, or queries of the customers on regular basis.

Don't ever forget - it’s all about engagement

It happened with me, when, I failed to receive proper response from CRM system of one of the leading  water purifier selling company, I tried to voice my concern on Facebook and to my surprise, I found that the company had deactivated customer comment's on their Facebook page.

Well, I think it's like a first degree crime, if you don't let your customers engage if you are on social media.

Address complaints ASAP:

It's also been seen as a very powerful tool for customers to voice their complaint on social media. The motivation to register complaints on Facebook page may be to get attention of large audience & quick solution.

If you visit the Facebook page across businesses, one can see complaints makes out considerable percentage of customer engagement. Well, in such situation, companies need to respond quickly, judiciously, which could convert customers into loyal customers and minimize the damage.

Integrate:

Integration is the key to success in digital age, one can leverage various platforms in integration with each other to optimise ROI on digital campaigns

Monitor to Act:

The team which manage the Facebook engagements needs to be on the toe to monitor the different levels of engagement, quality of engagement and work in continuous basis to improve the customer experience though this space.

Digital Edge for Business to Business Marketing:

Digital marketing has been around and is now established is one of the important strategic force along with traditional marketing Practices. Companies from all walks of business are trying to reach out to the customers and engage with them in a big way on various platforms, however when it comes to using the digital marketing for business to business marketing one can not use the same tactics as used for consumer marketing simply because results expected out of digital initiative in case of business to business marketing would be completely different.

Business to Business buying is more informed, multifaceted, high value purchase and direct process involving face to face interactions largely. However, in today's globalized business environment, where boundaries are blurred to great extent business to business marketers can't afford to turn blind eye towards the new age digital marketing force.

Digital marketing may not help business to business marketers’ in actual selling the products but it can be of great help in creating positive perception among the buyers and their buyers buyer, it also helps in attracting the talent, building positive perception in buyers end consumers and over long term it dose contribute in absolute monetary terms.Here are some ways in which business to business marketers’ can use digital marketing to their advantage. 

Website: A well designed, search engine optimized website is an asset to any organization. It can be good source to demonstrate your capabilities and achievement to the buyer or strategic partners situated in distant corner of the world. It has been found that, almost 50% of business to business buying process is being done on Internet which involves critical steps like identifying suppliers, analyzing the capabilities of the supplier, rating the suppliers, getting the quotes and other basic information. Dell is one of the first organizations to offer enterprise wide solutions online.

Blog: Well research and industry specific blog can be great asset for any organization wish to become the thought leader in the area operations. Companies can talk about the capabilities and their future endeavors and their resource capabilities to reshape the industry.

Email: As written in my earlier blog, email is one of the most powerful tools available in digital space. E mailer in the form of newsletter can be of great way information dissemination across the buyers and suppliers and all the other stakeholders involved in the process. Also can be use for sending invitation to be part of exhibition or conferences or product launch.

Social media:- Specifically linked is great platform available to B2B marketers to explore and take advantage of. It ahead the highest response rate for mail communication. Companies which have offerings which can be influenced by buyer's buyer decision making then one can explore the social networking platforms like Facebook, twitter and Pinterest to build the positive perception and create a pull for their products from the end customers of their buyer. For ex. Companies like Intel, SAP etc. YouTube: YouTube is second most searched social site after Google. YouTube can be a great way for advertisement and product demonstration.

Webinars: Organizing regular webinars regarding your product and services for relevant audience can contribute to sales department by generating the qualified leads. Companies should organize webinars on regular basis to inform and update the potential customers about the companies next generation plans, new product developments or application of your offerings across the different sectors.

E-Mail marketing - Old but still relavant.............

Sent first time in 1971, E- mail has revolutionized the way of communication across the world. Currently, approx. 145 bn E-mails sent per day worldwide & still close to 70 percent people start their work by checking E-mail every day. E-mail has been undoubtedly choice of communication for digital marketers as it delivers desired results with high Return On Investment (ROI). In current scenario, even though marketers are focusing more on engaging platforms like social media, cloud based applications. I think E-mail marketing still is a force which can deliver the desired results. Based on my experience of E-mail campaigns & knowledge gain through reading, I have listed down some good practices to be followed for E- mail marketing. Some of the Do's & Don’ts of E-Mail Marketing: 

1. Objective: Marketers need to define the objective clearly, to achieve the desired results of any digital campaign. Clear objective guides the marketer to keep on track and do necessary changes required throughout the campaign. There can be different objectives like awareness, registration, Lead or conversion etc.

2. Database: Collect the database of customers from various touch points like on web registration, web inquiries, affiliated websites, CRM, feedback, store visits, exhibitions, events, trade sites referrals etc. Seek permission for future communication via Clear Opt-In declaration. Don’t buy the database from someone else, it may work sometime but may not deliver results over longer run. 

3. Segmenting the Database: It helps in designing the message strategy relevant to particular segment. With highly fragmented markets & changing consumer behavior, undifferentiated message strategy does not work with majority of product or services.

4. Subject Line: Follow "KISS" Principle for subject line; it should be between 4-15 characters. Short subject line E-mails get considerably high open rate compare to E-mails with long subject lines. To break through, 120 email/day in short time span calls for high level of expertise in digital space & core marketing. 

5. Size, Content, Placement & Landing Page: Size of the mail may act as deterrent for receiver to open it. Ideally E-mail size should be 40-50kb, at Max. should not exceed 200kb. Content should be relevant to the offering and in line with the objective of the campaign. Try to avoid heavy flash files & images in the mailer which may turn out the receiver. Placement of the content should be based on the E-mail browsing behavior of the receiver. Marketers need to do some experiment to get the optimum clicks for links in E-mailer. Landing page should have relevant content with the intention of conversion. The attempt should be made to have minimum bounce rate on landing page and it takes huge efforts to get customer on landing page.

6. Scheduling properly: As some studies suggest, E-mail communication have highest opening rate in first hour of receipt and subsides over as time moves on. It leaves out marketers with very short window to make a mark. Best schedule can be Tuesday or Thursday, 11.00am to 12.30pm or 2.30pm to 3.30pm for sending E-mails.  

Frequency matters: In case of regular newsletters or even promotional e-mailers, marketers should maintain the enough time lag between the two e-mailers. Once in 15 days, can be reasonable frequency for E-mailers. Bombarding customers with E-mailers frequently may repel them from receiving further communication. 

7. Clear Opt Out: Every E-mailer should carry clear opt-out link for receiver not to receive further communication. 

8. Optimize your E- mailer for Mobile: Writing on the wall is clear & loud, that MOBILE is the FUTURE. 1.08 bn smart phones worldwide 36 Mn in India smart phone users in India 86 Mn people access internet on mobile in India. Digital marketers can't afford to miss this segment. Recent trend shows that E-mail open rate on mobile has shown substantial growth up to 30 percent. Your E-mail communication must be optimized with the mobile for better results. 

9. Test Split test or AB testing: It is advised to do split testing / AB testing on the database of the particular segment to get better result from E-mail campaigns. 

10. Analyze & Learn: Analyze the campaign results using the standard reports & customized reports provided by E-mailing service providers. One may use Google analytics for the same. Analyze campaign for few certain parameters like Open rate, CTOR, CTR, Bounce rate (Hard bounce & Soft Bounce), Spam meter, unsubscribe numbers, Time spent, Landing page visits, conversions etc. It gives immense learning for future campaigns regarding subject line, message strategy and online customer behavior. Analyzing campaigns also help marketers in optimizing the database. If we consider the resources requirement & ROI for E-mail communication, E-mail still stands out as great strategic tool out of digital marketing tool mix. 

Yogesh Baviskar, Faculty Marketing & Digital Marketing