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You can Utilize the Potential of Semantic Search in Five Different Ways

As you know, semantic search offers a more meaningful search results by evaluating and understanding the search phrase and finding the most relevant results in a website, database or any other data repository. Among the popular search engines, Google considers semantic search seriously as it is evident from Google’s roll out of search features such as Knowledge Graph and the Hummingbird algorithm update. This forces SEO industry to turn back to the ultimate question: What does the user want? Even though semantic search is a simple concept, one that has been lost in a vortex of advice, assumption and some overly used techniques. For the SEO industry, semantic search gives a chance to go back to basics and provide information instead of forcing it. Here are five different ways in which you can use semantic search to your benefits.

First You need to Think like a User

If your aim is to optimize for the user, then you need to first think like the user. In the world of semantic search, keywords only don’t work and you need to think even beyond the long tail keywords also. For instance, if you just type ‘events’ in Google search, you can see that semantics for a generic term like ‘events’ already highlights a wealth of information that a search engine such as Google has matched to the keyword.

Assume that you are building up your semantic relevance of your online movie ticket booking service and SEO done on your site should be harnessed towards information surrounding that service, not only to gain a ranking benefit, but to provide answers relevant to your expertise. This could mean that you are providing relevant information about your ticket booking service, the management of your business and latest developments in the industry. If your website only focuses on keywords, opportunities will be missed and more importantly, if your site cannot answer a question about your ticket booking service, you are failing your customers.

Localized Search Efforts

You cannot make a considerable local search presence if you are not using Google Local. If you have set it up, then you have to do it immediately as it allows you to develop a presence within search engine result pages (SERPs) when users try to discover your brand. As Google, Yahoo and Bing advance, you and expect to see further developments through local search that allow you to develop your branding in relation to localized searches. Combining this with good SEO will provide you the ability to put your brand in front of target audience who are searching for information about your products/services in a particular area, placing you in a better position now and in the future.

Careful with Your Markup

For providing richer search results, search engines rely on structured data markup. Webmaster guidelines of various search engines provide details on how to effectively optimize your content. When it comes to data markup, there are important rules to follow, as schemas can help to develop how users see your search results within Google or Yahoo. Important aspects such as product reviews, profile information, events and organization details can all be marked up with a schema. It is therefore made sense to follow schema markup and develop your website to associate with the webmaster guidelines.

You cannot Ignore Social Presence

Brands rely on social media as it can strengthen relationship with their target customers. Also, social signals are now playing a significant part in search engine algorithms and they are being set up for an even greater role. If you haven’t started yet, then you must and make sure you are consistently interacting by offering information and answers. Establishing your social media presence clears a path towards success as the targeted traffic is diverted to your site and start reaping SEO benefits.

Prepare for the Future

If you ask any expert in the SEO industry he/she will tell you that global online marketing industry is constantly in a state of flux, and search engines are aiming semantic search as their future vision. SO, you need to plan on how your website can answer questions and provide users with information that doesn’t just read like terms and conditions. Choose the services, topics and niches that apply to your website and start optimizing your site and your content in a way that will benefit the users. You need to know that users will never stop searching using specific questions, but Google and Yahoo are actively encouraging them to ask a question or solve a problem. So you need to get your services or products out there by meeting user requirements.

According to many SEO experts, search engines are evolving beyond keywords as user queries are not keyword focused and SEO industry need to come up with new ideas keeping user intent as the top priority.

Targeting LinkedIn Followers using Inmail Messaging System

For B2B companies, professional social networking site LinkedIn proved to be an incredible resource and for sales experts, LinkedIn’s Sales Navigator is their favorite tool as it allows them to search, identify and connect with prospect clients/customers through LinkedIn’s Inmail messaging system. This type of messaging system helps you to email your lead without the need of their actual email id.

According to the social networking site, responses to Inmails are guaranteed, as they are directly sent to the inbox of your lead. In case you do not get a response to your Inmail within a week, the Inmail credit will be returned to your LinkedIn account. You can gain the benefits of using Sales Navigator for one month, which is free, and after that it is a monthly or yearly payment.

Sales navigator provides insights of your accounts and leads in real-time, and thus helps you differentiate by adding value when you try to connect through LinkedIn Inmail. According to experts, not all those who send LinkedIn Inmails find success in their sales lead campaign. Many sales professionals use lead builder for a targeted search, go through each profile for hours, and prepare Inmails of typical marketing value. They get only one percent response rate for their effort and here are few effective Inmail writing tips that will make sure your leads will open your mail, read it, reply and not just click ‘delete’.

1. A brief introduction would be nice and make it more personable. Your sales lead should not think it as an automated message, but a message from a real person.

2. You are browsing through the profile of your lead and mention how the LinkedIn profile interested you. You can briefly talk about how your lead’s recent updates interest you, mention your common interests, congratulate them on recent promotion or mention common causes you care about. It will add more credibility to you by your leads if you mention appropriate updates to them. The relationships built this way are much more beneficial than cold introductions.

3. Identify your LinkedIn connection and try to mention it in the opening lines. If you have never met you lead or are completely new to each other, then it is ok to begin with “We haven’t spoken before but I would like to...”

4. Utilize the opportunity provided to you for creating a first impression and it must be created within the moment your lead sees your Inmail. For that, your subject line will be the most decisive part of your LinkedIn Inmail. You can start with an interesting subject line such as “Congratulations on your new job”, or “Your Profile is very interesting” etc.

5. You can politely ask for a brief dialog over the phone call, chat or email. However, you need to put the ball in their court. Do go straight into “Let’s have a discussion over a phone call on how I can help you.” Rather doing that, you can be indirect and let you lead take control of the decision by saying”I was wondering if we could have a chat or call to discuss how I can assist you to get more business”.

6. Try to make an offer to your lead about how you could benefit his company and this where you sell yourself. Make the best use of your language skills here. If your leads do not see their profits out of reading your LinkedIn Inmails, then they will not be interested in your Inmails in the future.

7. When preparing LinkedIn Inmails, do not give too many details. You can commence with just enough to spark a conversation. With the above line, you definitely let your lead know you can help them grow, but aren’t overloading them for details.

8. Do not forget to include your contact details in your Inmails and in this you can keep the link between you and your lead active and engaging.

LinkedIn is another good platform for implementing your social marketing campaigns effectively. If you utilize the above mentioned tips in your Inmail marketing campaign, you can ensure that your leads will follow you for new information, interact and engage with you on diverse topics, may offer you ROI benefits for your business.

Five Best Tools to Detect any Negative SEO against Your Site

These days, people in the SEO industry are debating on negative SEO, asking questions such as whether it really exists, if it exists, then how can I discover and detect any negative SEO activity done against my website. Also, people define it in a variety of ways and most of them say that negative SEO occurs when someone makes attempt to lower a website’s ranking in Google or any other search engine. Some people consider it the wicked attempts of your competitors to either steal the high quality links from your site or build shady links to your website.

Other malicious strategies implemented your competitors to “harm” you include content theft, website hacking, brand impersonation and many more. In general, negative SEO is anything that could harm your search engine visibility, reputation or organic search traffic to your site. Even Google has admitted that a competitor can harm your search ranking or having your site removed from Google index. With that in mind, here are some proven and tested tools you can use to discover and locate negative SEO activity, and the harm it does to your site and brand.

• Google Webmaster Tools – As you know, this every webmaster’s favorite SEO tool which can be used for monitor traffic patterns, keyword research, site speed monitoring, authorship statistics and so on. Once you set up your own Google Webmaster Tools (GWT) account and verified your site, you can sign up for email alerts under Webmaster Tools Preferences. If there is evidence of malware attack on your website, GWT will alert you and also, when someone hacks your site, Google will mark it as infected in its search engine results. Furthermore, GWT will alert you to manually link penalties and if someone has launched a negative SEO activity against your site using cheap quality links, Google will notify you. You need to start disavowing the links sooner you know Google has penalized your site. 

• Google Alerts – It is another useful tool from the internet search giant and it will email you or update an RSS feed each time it finds competitor mentions you are monitoring in Google search results. With Google Alerts, you can do some basic online reputation monitoring even if you don’t suspect that anyone is targeting you in a negative SEO campaign. Also, you can use this tool to stay on top of any mentions of your business, consisting of discussions, reviews and uses of your brand name in a negative light. 

• Trackbacks – Your website’s online presence can be harmed by stealing content if it manages to outrank your site content. Using internal links and trackbacks from your CMS platform, you can find out who is stealing your content. When you posted a new blog or an article, you need to simply link it to an older blog post within your site. Your WordPress or Joomla CMS platform will notify you that you have received a trackback to the older post each time someone republishes your new blog post. 

• Cyfe – If you are busy and do not want to take the time to go from one SEO tool to the next to monitor your presence in search engine results. Here is where Cyfe play its role. Rather logging into Google Webmaster Tools, Analytics and your favorite keyword ranking tool, you can get all of the information in a single dashboard. Cyfe is especially convenient for those who are monitoring multiple sites and multiple clients. To see the status for every site at once, you can set up a Cyfe dashboard. 

• Rival IQ – Rival IQ allows you to monitor your search result ranking for the keywords that drive traffic to your website. Also, you can use this SEO tool to see what competitors are doing to get ahead in search. You will be able to analyze the keywords that drive traffic to your competitors’ sites, their on-page SEO, their landing pages and their paid search strategy with information provided by SEMrush.

If you put all your efforts to boost your site’s SEO ranking and still your rankings going down, then you can conclude that there some negative SEO activity going on, after you verified that your SEO campaign is fully compliant to search engine guidelines. The above mentioned tools will help you to eradicate negative SEO elements and to restore your old SEO glory.

Startup Enterprises Can Utilize Five Lead Generation Techniques

Even as the global business economy still in the recovery phase, there are many start-up ventures cropping up in every nook and corner. Due to heavy competition in their respective fields with their bigger counterparts, these startups need better online exposure and require better lead generation for their products or services. Here are five tested and proven lead generation strategies that will ensure that your new business venture will get more returns and can expand your customer base to new territories.

Create More Opportunities using Opt-Ins

Most business owners or marketers just utilize only one or two opt-in opportunities such as webinars, live demos and free reports. If you want results beyond your expectations then you have do more such as giving away worksheets, resource guides, recipes, blogpost PDFs and many more. As you know, most websites got opt-in box which is placed at the side bar and you need to take it out and make it as a pop-up. This will force site visitors to make a decision. When the opt-in box is located at the sidebar it is easier to say no but when it appears as a pop-up users cannot ignore that easily.

Create Better Ads for Search Result Pages

If are an avid searcher then may have noticed ads in the first page of Google or Yahoo search results. Some of them may appear all the same, some are boring and one ad isn’t any more compelling than the other. Also, you really have no reason other than price to select one over the other. When every ad looks the same, there is a huge opportunity to come in with something different and blow the competition away. To raise your click-through-rate expectations, you need to bring out some interesting ads thereby giving your Quality Score a well-needed boost. You can see this Wordstream blog for learning more about writing killer ads and how it can help in lowering costs per click.

Bring Up Some Aggressive Remarketing Strategies

You need to roll out some aggressive Remarketing strategies so that those site visitors who left your landing page without converting into potential leads. For your information, Remarketing is a proven strategy that enables you to reach out people who have previously visited your site and show them ads that are customized to them based n which sections of your site they browsed. Your ads will appear in front of them as they browse other websites that are part of the Google Display Network. Many recent surveys have shown that businesses that use Remarketing strategy via Google Display Network gives them 92 percent reach in the US search market, across millions of websites, videos and mobile devices. If you want know more about Remarketing, check out Google’s Adwords site as it contains all the information related to Remarketing and how to utilize it based on your specifications.

Test it but in the Right Way

There were many online marketing blogs which have repeatedly mentioned about testing your unique marketing strategies even if the results are negative. The most popular A/B testing is one method for creating better and traffic landing pages. You will be realize the importance of testing once you get the results, that will positive or negative to your expectations. You need to test other aspects of your site which include images, concreteness, immediacy and many more. Also, you need to do some A/B testing practices on your button copy, your headline and your background image. You will be making better, more informed optimizations even if the results may surprise you.

Only Clear Landing Pages can Induce Conversions

There are websites with landing pages which require users to process very much information such as a whole page of copy or a 3-minute video. It outperforms a free report since a lot of people are feeling information overload and do not want to download something even longer to read. You need to make your landing page free of these issues and make it a hot performer. For example, a landing page of an eCommerce site can contain information about various products that people genuinely want to know which of those products others are using. You need to showcase details that are necessary and this type of landing page can be set up in under a half an hour and is definitely worth trying out.

You Ask for Professional Help

There are many online marketing firms that are eager to help clients who are running start-up ventures so that these business owners can get better online reputation they desire for and are able to reach out audiences they want to target their products or services effectively.

Few Mobile Predictions that Going to Become a Reality in 2015

As you know, online marketing was first focused on desktop and laptop users and has expanded with mobile devices thanks to their ever growing popularity worldwide. Also, major mobile manufacturers are competing each other by rolling out smartphones and tablets every one or two months. Marketers and advertisers have leveraged this opportunity and come up with mobile marketing strategies to attract a major chunk of mobile search traffic to their website. Here are some predictions made by experts from marketing industry in terms of the impact of mobile in the year 2015.

Thanks to “Phablets”, a Mobile Traffic to Grow by 30% in 2015

It was in 2011, when major electronics manufacturer Samsung introduced its first Galaxy Note smartphone, which sported a 5.3-inch touch screen that has left many US mobile industry observers wondering about the viability of the “phablet” device. After the initial success, Samsung then rolled out three more Galaxy Note devices, each sporting a larger screen than the last. This has motivated other mobile brands such as Motorola, LG and HTC to release larger-than five-inch screen smartphones, and even Apple rolled out their first “phablet” few months ago.

According to Chitika Insights, the North American (US and Canada) mobile traffic by screen size is growing year by year. According to their recent survey report, the “phablet” web traffic driven by users of five-inch or larger devices grew from 6.9 to 17.9% between September 2013 and 2014. The survey report also points out that it is reasonable to expect that about one-third of North American smartphone internet usage will be driven by these devices, by the time 2015 comes to an end.

Rising Popularity of Domestic Mobile Payments in Emerging Markets

Mobile payments have authoritatively entered the wider US national consciousness with the introduction of Apple Pay. While Apple, Google and other major players are still in the beginning phase, the technology has already gained much more attention in other parts of the world. Popular mobile carrier Vodafone has introduced M-Pesa service which is an SMS-based mobile payment service and it has been successful in South Asian, Middle Eastern and African countries. The company recently rolled out this service in Eastern European areas where mobile devices are becoming increasingly abundant and low bank account ownership rates.

India, which is one of the major emerging markets in Asia has been seeing the rising demand for a variety of mobile payment services. This has been a de facto method of money transfer, especially for the country’s lower and middle class people. According to experts, this trend is unlikely to slow as the mobile ownership is expected to increase year by year. Marketers and advertisers operating in these areas will have the unique opportunity of interacting and engaging with a rising number of users that are not only comfortable in buying items with their smartphone but they disputably prefer it.

Proximity Technology will be Play a Significant Role

For the past few years, marketers have been utilizing low-energy Bluetooth and other proximity technologies and their applications range from a promotional “ping” when a customer walks nearby a given product, to heat maps showcasing how they move through a brick-and-mortar store. Many experts say that many businesses, irrespective of their size did not completely utilize the potential of proximity technology in terms of experimentation and deployment. They will expect this situation to shift in next year with beacon-enabled technology becoming somewhat more stable.

Most experts in the marketing industry are suggesting the use of third-party SDKs to insert proximity functionality into existing mobile apps. They think this is the best strategy to increase adoption, which in turn will help to accelerate retailer initiatives. In addition, the user proximity application for manipulating things such as in-store displays instead of a push message to the smartphone itself is seemingly less intrusive and a better means of expanding the in-store experience of the customer.

With the expanding of mobile internet coverage, it is time for business enterprises turn their attention towards mobile users and come with campaigns that really will pick their interest and induce more conversions.

Four Possibilities that will portray Smart-watch as the Next Local Search Platform

It seems that most technology firms such as Google, Samsung and Microsoft are focusing on the development of wearable device’s technology. For the past few months, we have witnessed many of these companies introduced wearable and ‘smart’ devices such as Google Glass, Moto 360, Apple Watch and Galaxy Gear. Smart watch is one such category of wearable devices which local search industry is looking forward into because of the potential opportunities smart watch offer to local search marketers.

Many experts in the local search industry are saying people will prefer to use smart watches than Google Glass as the former are pretty similar to a smartphone and possess a screen-based UI interface. While you may not be interested in looking at Dick Tracy, as a marketer you are probably thinking of how this will impact local SEO. Also, you need to find out what kinds of marketing opportunities it can offer you and ways that people navigate the local search. Here the four possibilities which most local search experts think that smart watches will become the next marketing platform.

Interactions based on Location and Proximity

Smart watches have one main advantage over mobile devices and it is the increased use of the former when you consider location and proximity triggered interactions. For instance, to accept a coupon, users would simply have to wave their wrist over a sensor or look at their wrist and this means that it is more likely that people will respond to these types of interactions given how easy it could be. If it is much easier to attract a user’s attention, than local enterprises would be wise to start implementing some sort of proximity or location based interaction now itself. When these smart watches become a popular wearable device, local enterprises can develop content strategies for getting more visibility in those tiny screens.

Opt-in Messaging and Alerts

It is very difficult to read text content on your smart watch screen and here you need to optimize your content strategy so that you can come up with more concise content. Also, you need to post content that is truly relevant and useful to your target audience. Users can choose what they want to see and when, if there is opt-in messaging and alerting functions in smart watches. These opt-in messages need relevant keywords that will convey the core business of local enterprises. Businesses have to be more aware of the types of real-time local search campaign with this type of permission-based marketing and this will help enterprises to stay ahead of the competition.

Given the tiny screen and all, users might not want to put so much effort into getting the information they want. So, it is better for users to get their local search criteria per-filtered. This is the perfect opportunity for local businesses to create hyper localized and relevant apps for gaining more local search presence. Many experts say that more local search benefits can be gained if local enterprises collaborate together in the development of personalized search apps.

Optimized App development

As it’s difficult to read website content via smart watch, users will mostly prefer to read content in app form and thereby it will be easier to use than scrolling through website content in a screen that is very small. Local businesses have to introduce apps that help their target audience to digest information faster. Brands might want to consider apps that give streamlined, concise content and tools instead of mimicking their website. Also, businesses need to find ways to provide more search exposure for their apps as smart watch users use voice command using their watch’s built-in search engine.

Keyword Relevancy

As you are aware, with the popularity of smart watches, location-specific keywords will get more importance in local search. If a smart watch user is browsing for information on the go, surely they want information specific to their location. As location is one of the main determining factors that influence consumer behavior in a real-time environment, local enterprises need to focus more than ever on relevant local content and local SEO.

These are the four ways local search marketers can utilize to increase brand visibility via smart watch. With further development in the wearable device technology, more opportunities may arise and help marketers to fulfill their marketing goals successfully.

As you know, CPC Strategy, which has a retail market research firm released their Comparison Shopping report each quarter which is compiled from data comprised of four million clicks and more than eight million dollars in revenue. CPC Strategy’s report ranks the retail industry’s top comparison shopping engines for online retailers based on significant metrics such as revenue, conversion rate, cost of sale, average CPC, overall traffic and merchant response ratings. ECommerce retailers can use report to personalize their online marketing budget to increase product visibility on the comparison shopping sites and make more sales. Here are the top seven comparison shopping engines that you can include in your product search marketing campaign.

1. Google Shopping – Google’s cost per click (CPC) model has been around for some time and many of the five billion Google searches happen through the Google Shopping platform. According to the latest Comparison Shopping Report, Google’s CPC program is the top performer, which generates highest search traffic and conversion rates for online merchants. During the first quarter of 2014, Google Shopping drove the highest user traffic and ROI among the major comparison shopping engines online. When it comes to paid shopping engines, Google’s COS is the lowest with 14.27 percent and it offers the simplest merchant tools for advertisers and marketers. Online merchants need to review the new Google data feed requirements before signing up for the Google Shopping program. 

2. Shopzilla – It is another high search traffic generating CPC model which highlights similar products from various online retailers. For merchants, the paid shopping site Shopzilla offers easier bidding tools and allows merchants to zero-bid on products that are poor-converting. Utilizing the partnership with Bizrate, Shopzilla merchants can take advantage of Bizrate reviews i.e., both on Shopzilla and Google. According to the CPC Strategy report, Shopzilla has a high conversion score at almost four percent. In addition, the most popular comparison shopping engine supports bulk feed uploads through a File Transfer Protocol (FTP). 

3. PriceGrabber – It is a paid comparison shopping engine which offers weekly specials, coupons and deals. PriceGrabber is not a minimum cost per click model, but it allows online merchants to penny-bid or bid as low as $0.01 on their products. When it comes to low cost of sale PriceGrabber comes only after Google, but it is a leading shopping engine for search click traffic. If you are using PriceGrabber then you can send your product lists to yahoo shopping which is an added advantage. 

4. Amazon Products Ads – The most online shopping site Amazon.com have their own paid ad platform named Amazon Products Ads which consist of search, buy boxes, tower ads and product detail pages. Amazon’s CPC model mostly benefit from brand recognition and Amazon’s Marketplace traffic. But unlike Marketplace, Amazon Product Ads connect shoppers to a retailer’s external online store for transactions, including retargeting and branding value for the retailers. For retailers who are already have listed on the Marketplace, the Amazon Product Ads program is a viable option for them. 

5. eBay Commerce Network – Formerly known as Shopping.com, the eBay Commerce Network is a paid shopping engine and for retailers eBay’s CPC model offers greater flexibility with category level bids. According to CPC Strategy, eBay Commerce Network induced second highest traffic of all the comparison shopping engines for the second quarter in a row. It is because the merchant listings in the eBay’s CPC platform receive more exposure on Google Shopping. 

6. Become – It is a smaller online shopping engine which aggregates research on products consisting of consumer reviews, expert reviews, forums and buying guides. According to CPC Strategy’s report Become has performed impressively when compared to both eBay Commerce Network and Nextag with 18% COS. 

7. Nextag – It is a paid comparison shopping site that permit business enterprises to list products online which include travel plans, tickets and real estate. Nextag generated the highest revenue that is prior to Google Shopping and sales conversions for paid shopping engines With a 20.66% COS, the Nextag shopping engine converts at almost 3% although Nextag surpasses the majority COS of the comparison shopping engines. Also, Nextag’s CPC bidding platform allows retailers to bid even at the brand level. 

There are many other comparison shopping engines such as Pronto, Bing Shopping Ads and Yahoo Shopping which can be utilized by merchants for getting proper exposure to their products and for getting ROI benefits.