Why outsource SEO from India?

15. April 2012 · Write a comment · Categories: SEO · Tags:

SEO work involves application of analytical mind and a lot of application of the analytics in manpower intensive efforts that go into the on page and off page Search Engine Optimization of a website. Following are the main reasons why you should consider outsourcing SEO services from India include:

  1. India has a rich pool of trained SEO professionals at all skill levels required for SEO work.
  2. The cost of manpower in India is much lower resulting in cost cutting to the tune of 60 to 70%
  3. India has proven track record for excellence in IT services.
  4. Indian Internet /IT infrastructure enables efficient execution of SEO projects
  5. The high level of ethics followed in the conduct of assignments makes SEO companies in India a preferred choice for customers worldwide.
  6. India has one of the world’s largest and best educated pool of English speaking graduates, post graduates and scholars who are quick learners and are highly Internet savy.
  7. Ongoing In-house trainings for the SEO team keeps them updated at all times.

Remember: Indian talent and not just cost cutting, is the main reason to outsource SEO from India

Role of Domain Name in a website’s SEO

14. April 2012 · Write a comment · Categories: SEO · Tags:

Domain Name plays an important role in the search engine optimiation of a website in the following ways:

a) The words that the domain name is comprised of: The domain name is also indexed by Search Engines and is also searched upon when a search query is processed and the words covered in the domain name get good weightage. This however does not mean that if your most important key words or key phrases are not in the domain name, your site cannot come on top in search results as this is just one of the parameters and not the only parameter. For instance sagaciousindia.com is almost always at no. 1 on google.co.in for the phrase seo companies in gurgaon, even though none of the words of this phrase are a part of the domain name. Good SEO makes all the difference!!

b) Age of the Domain Name: How long the domain name has been active plays a major role in SEO. This is one of the parameter that Search Engines use to assess the credibility of a website. If a particular site has been in existence for a few years it means somebody is paying for its domain and hsoting at least and there must be some sense in spending this money to keep the site active. The site has not lost or faced any legal battle and brought down all these years, so probably the content on it is not illegal or defamatory or majorly objectionable in any other terms.

c) Length of Domain Name: Length of a domain may sometimes make it difficult to remeber, but since a few keywords can be embedded in longer names, they do make sense sometimes. But, in long term if an online brand has to be built a samller name which is easy to remember is always advisable, ebay, gmail, yahoo, msn, google, amazon, dell, ibm being some of the greatest examples of success stories with small domain names.

What is SEO?

aside · 01. April 2012 · 1 comment · Categories: SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of bringing a website among top Results on major Search Engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing etc. so that it get more qualified visitors. For any business website, this can result in generation of increased business leads from the website and for an E Commerce website this would mean more direct online sales.

As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work, what people search for, the actual search terms or keywords typed into search engines and which search engines are preferred by their targeted audience. Optimizing a website may involve editing its content and HTML and associated coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines. Promoting a site to increase the number of backlinks, or inbound links, is covered under onging Off-Page SEO.

What all should be covered in an SEO contract ?

11. March 2012 · Write a comment · Categories: SEO

Contracts and technical jargon written in them is immaterial for a website owner. What actually matters is how the website makes its way to top in search engine results for the relevant Key Phrases and a regular transparent reporting of this progress during the course of the SEO contract. Also, to be measured simultaneously is the rate at which traffic to the website increases during the course of SEO efforts.

However, there are a basic set of activities that need to covered in SEO services. These include the following:

  • Keyword Research
  • Title and Meta Tags
  • Content Optimization
  • Image Optimization
  • Optimization of Alt Tags
  • SEO Compliance Checking / Audits
  • Robots.txt File
  • Link Building
  • On Line Press Release submission (These need to be periodically provided by the website owner with authentic information)

The above mentioned activities if taken up in right spirit and quantity can definitely make difference in website rankings as the SEO efforts progress.

SEO strategy for a Professional’s website: Doctors, Architects, CAs, CPAs, Astrologers, Photographers

11. March 2012 · 7 comments · Categories: SEO

Generally SEO of  Professional’s website can easily begin to fetch results in the first quarter if the strategy is correct and the website is Search Engine friendly. Take for instance the following cases:

Case 1: SEO of a Dentist’s website or any other Medical Practitioner’s (Doctor’s) website

First identify the city and locality in which the doctor is located as patients in general always want to have medical assistance near to their residence or place of work. Therefore the major target audience in case of a doctor is the people in the radius of 5 kilometers from his / her practice. The next level of importance are people outside this radius of 5 kilometers but in the same city. After this comes the state and then country, but generally these are insignificant unless the concerned doctor is a super specialist possessing skills that are confined to a select few in the country.

Second step is to identify the areas of competencies and areas of interest. For instance a dentist may be good at doing most of the dental procedures but he/she may be an expert at Dental Implants and Single sitting Root Canal treatment.

Once the above 2 are clearly identified, the Keyphrases can be effectively formulated. If the dentist for eg. is staying in Green Park area in New Delhi, the key phrases that shall work for him are:

Generic: dentist in delhi, dentist in new delhi, dentist in green park delhi
Specific: dentist for single sitting root canal in delhi, dentist for single sitting root canal in green park delhi, dentist for dental implants in green park new delhi, dental implant expert in delhi … and so on …..

Case 2: SEO of an Architect’s website

Target audience of an Architect is generally the entire city and nearby cities as well. For instance an Architect stationed in Delhi shall be covering Delhi, Noida, Gurgaon, Ghaziabad, Faridabad easily just as an Architect stationed in New York can cover NEw Jersey easily.

Now, Architecture is a complex profession and there are specialists for everything. For instance Retail segment is a field for which there are experts. These people know best how to deign Retail outlets based on product range of the retailer and his target audience.

The key phrases for such an architect’s site shall be retail architect in delhi, architect for designing apparel store in delhi, interior designer for shops in delhi and so on and on the slightly generic side, architect in delhi, interior designer in delhi can be included as all searchers are not accurate.

Same applies in the case of other professionals as well. Photographers who have for instance, have specialization in product profiling activities need to get their websites promoted for that category only else they will get calls for making party videos, which can be a big turnoff for them…

SEO Strategy for a Startup Ecommerce Website

10. March 2012 · 1 comment · Categories: SEO · Tags:

If you have recently setup an E commerce Website, before jumping on to doing big budget SEO and SEM campaigns, you need to understand the following:

a) Your Target Audience

b) Geographies that your Target audience comes from

c) Age group of the Target audience

d) Buying Potential

and above all – What is easy to sell them online.

Generally products that are easily available in the neighborhood markets are not the easiest to sell online, unless they are gift able items.

In the SEO campaigns, focus on Product lines that are hard to get in the market. Sometimes, these products may not fetch great margins and you may want to focus your sales on the Product range that can improve your balance sheet substantially. In the beginning the most important task is to make customers irrespective of how big or small sale you make. Making customers and satisfying them is the most important aspect for long terms growth in E Commerce Business. This however is not as easy as it sounds.

To make a satisfied customer you have to make a lot of Offline efforts, just creating the site is not enough. What is required is:

a) Of course, firstly a Great Product (Value for money)

b) Great Packaging (The Product should not get damaged in transit)

c) Branding (Proper branding of the packaging so that the buyer feel that he has purchased from a professional enterprise)

d) Timely delivery (Use a good Courier Service)

e) Effective Reporting Mechanism (At all stages of the Order and Delivery cycle customer should be kept updated)

f) Effective feedback Mechanism (The customer should be able to voice his / her buying experience – This will get you testimonials as well!)

g) Discount coupons (You may consider sending  a few discount coupons with the delivery to get him back on the site)

h) A Printed Catalog of related Products (To lure him into buying more)

i) Great Customer support (Customer support Phone should always get picked up and a very responsible and informed person should be handling the call)

So, do the spade work, have all processes in place and then get, set, go!! Starting with Search Engine Optimization and supported by SEM…