Our never-ending quest of being slim does not always serve the purpose. Especially when we are talking about search engine optimization. More than anything, thin content has proved to be a curse for digital marketers and search engine optimization specialists.
What is thin content?
A thin content page is a page that exists for the sole purpose for building traffic and no other purpose whatsoever.
How do I know if my website has thin content?
Your website has thin or poor content if in case of any of the following issues:
Any of the above factors can be a signal for the existence of thin content pages on your website. And mind it, in 30% of the cases it might not have been intentional yet you can find yourself at the wrong end of the spectrum.
I am still not sure if my website has thin content. Want to re-confirm?
Okay I have thin content on my website. So, how do I fix it?
At this stage of the game, you have got two choices to make –
The answer to how to do search engine optimization is not rocket science obviously. The above tips for search engine optimization will go a long way in helping out. At the end, just a couple of words: Give every webpage a value / role to serve for you. And indeed, this would value to your business in the longer run.
Every online business understands that SEO plays a major role in their profitability by bringing in organic (un-paid) traffic to their websites. The focus has always been on what “to do” to ensure high search engine rankings and hence enhanced traffic. However, in order to do great SEO, it is equally important to know what “not to do” with SEO.
Unethical SEO techniques, known in SEO parlance as “Black Hat SEO” techniques are being used by certain businesses to dupe Search Engines into giving them a higher rank. This results in relevant websites becoming harder to find which neither augurs well for website owners nor for the search engines which strive to give their visitors the best search results. Most search engines therefore have systems and algorithms in place which can detect the vast majority of these spam techniques and demote it automatically or in worst cases, de-list them completely. This penalization is a serious issue and while it can seriously hurt even large businesses, it can potentially wipe out small ones. So, to make sure you do not head into dangerous territory, we’ve compiled a list of techniques which are rated as spam by search engines
1. Keyword stuffing:
While it is true that including keywords in your content will help in a better ranking, forced inclusion of keywords in your content or in Alt tags of your images can do more harm than good. Keywords should appear smoothly in your content as you write it and stuffing your content with keyword is definitely crossing the line. As a thumb rule, if your content doesn’t read well as your reading it, you’ve probably overused your keywords.
2. Cloaking and Hidden text:
Trying to force keywords on your site in a color which merges with the background or in any other way to ensure it is seen by search engines but not by site visitors is an old trick that search engines have become very good at getting hold of.
3. Sneaky redirects:
Attempting to redirect users to a different page than the search engine saw is a strict no-no.
4. Duplicate/Thin content with little or no added value:
Freshness of content and its recency plays a pivotal role in search engine ranking algorithms. Making regular updates to your website could therefore help in improving your rankings. However, trying to duplicate your content in an attempt to fool search engines will sooner rather than later get you on that dreaded blacklist.
Low-quality or shallow pages which do not provide users with much added value (such as thin affiliate pages, doorway pages, cookie-cutter sites, automatically generated content, or copied content) will also get classified as spam.
5. Unnatural links from/to a site:
Links play a good role in SEO results and are supposed to be earned by websites by virtue of excellent content. But trying to deceive search engines with artificial or manipulated links; purchasing or selling links, exchanging them or participating in any of those grey link schemes doing the rounds can attract strict penalty. Remember, quality links matter more than quantity.
6. Spammed Meta tag descriptions:
Matt Cutts, head of Google’s webspam team in a recent Webmaster Help Channel video said it would be better for SEOs to leave Meta tag descriptions blank than have duplicate descriptions. This may seem inappropriate to a lot of SEOs but that’s just what reality is. As Cutts added, unique descriptions for some pages definitely do matter but it’s not worth investing time and effort in coming up with unique descriptions for every single page on your site.
7. Guest comments on blogs:
Google's Webmaster Guidelines discourage forum signature links and consider it spammy. However, Cutts says that relevant comments on topically relevant sites is absolutely fine as long as it does not form the main part of one’s link building strategy. Having a large portion of back-links coming from blog comments can raise red flags with Google.
8. Doorway Pages:
Doorway pages (simple HTML pages that are customized to a few particular keywords and programmed to be visible only to search engines) trick search engines into giving these sites higher rankings. Once clicked on, they lead to a site totally unrelated from the search query. Search engines not only ignore these pages and domains but penalize those using them.
9. Low-Quality/Unresponsive DNS providers:
Site speed is one among many factors that Google takes into account when it is deciding how to rank sites. Using a low quality DNS provider may not only adversely affect your SEO but also increases the chances of spammy content on your website, which could result in you being blacklisted by search engines.
10. Search Engine Submissions:
Search Engine Submissions are a thing of the past. It is not required by search engines and serves no practical purpose. Don’t waste your time on it.
SEO is dynamic and ever-changing:
These are the techniques one must definitely avoid in order to stay in the good books of search engines. However, one must also be aware that search engines constantly change their algorithms and what may seem to be a correct or “White hat SEO” technique today may be classified a black hat technique tomorrow. To give you an idea of how unpredictable it can get, Google runs about 40,000 search evaluations a year and it made 665 changes to its Search Algorithm in 2012 alone. That is almost two changes every day! This makes it increasingly difficult, even for the most competent and expert SEOs to keep track of and to incorporate these changes into their work. So, invest your SEO budget rightly in a value-added long-term SEO strategy and focus on getting a good return on your investment instead of trying to find ways to bypass the system guidelines and get yourself in trouble.
Google and other search engines spend millions of dollars and hire the best brains with the best knowledge in the space to ensure that they provide their visitors with the best search engine results. So remember, just in case you think you’re smart, search engine Bots are a million times smarter. Don’t do SEO just for the sake of doing SEO. Don’t head into Black Hat territory. It’s just not worth the risk.
For information on the right SEO techniques, read our posts on the key aspects of executing an SEO plan and the key takeaways from the Google GDayX-Chennai conclave.
For a discussion on enhancing your website traffic using ethical SEO techniques, you can contact us here
12 Salient Points you shouldn’t miss before you hit the “Send” button on your Email campaigns:
Even tiny errors in your emails can have a big impact on their Open and Click Through Rates. Most mistakes can be avoided if we adopt a Checklist approach to sending each email. So, we’ve put together an Email Campaign Checklist with the most important practical points which need to be checked-off before the email is good to go. We usually recommend using Mailchimp or Sendgrid for sending out emailers and tracking its results.
Subscriber list:
1. Has your distribution list been revised and cleaned of opt-outs and complainants?
From & Sub lines:
2. Does your “From" line include your company name or brand?
3. Is your Subject line clear, catchy and answers the reader’s question “What’s in it for me?”
4. Have you checked that no spam trigger words used in subject line?
Copy (Text and Content):
5. Have your Emails been personalized with correct names? Improves open and click-through rates.
6. Have you used Headings with short paragraphs, bold and bullet formatting to enhance Scanability?
7. Is your Call-to-Action, if used, strong and strategically positioned?
Important Details:
8. Is the Unsubscribe button/link clearly visible and working?
9. Is the link to web-based version (View Emailer on the Web) clear and on top?
10. Are all links working and have custom parameters been added to track in Google Analytics?
Images:
11. Are all images alt-tagged with correct links?
12. Have you checked the Image-text ratio? (Ideally 50/50; 80/20 acceptable for E-commerce e-mailers)
If you’ve answered “Yes” to all these questions, you can go ahead and send the email.
For any queries on your email marketing campaigns or if you wish to optimize them, please contact us and we would be glad to help.
Social Media is the buzz word driving brands across the world. With countless number of tools available to monitor, manage and analyze the social media activity of your fans, you might feel like wandering in a forest. In this article, we present you the hand-picked apps that are tailor-made for social media analysts and content marketers.
Also, we have been endlessly reading articles and research columns on either “SEO is dead” or “Is SEO dead?” from reputed writers. On the other hand, the myriad number of apps to optimize and efficiently use SEO is being launched day in and day out. SEO is not dead, at least for now.
When Gmail is opened, the most boring part on your screen is the right hand side panel. How about changing it into an interactive social media profile of the person to whom you want to send mail? That’s exactly how Rapportive works. As you type the e-mail ID of the person in the “To” field, you can see the recipient’s social media profiles in the right hand side panel of your screen.
Rapportive works with your Gmail inbox to give you near-instant rich contact information for almost everyone you want to reach. It is head and shoulders above any other Gmail add-in and a must-have for marketers. If you want more reasons to substantiate the efficiency of Rapportive, here is one – Paul Buchheit, the creator of GMAIL has been funding this start-up.
Do you believe in Benjamin Franklin’s famous quote “Time is money”? If yes, Boomerang is all yours. It is the best time management app available for Gmail.
You can schedule your emails for a future date, create a reminder for a mail to pop up on top of the inbox just before you leave for a movie (to take print-out of the ticket) or a meeting (to recollect the agenda) and the best feature about Boomerang is that it alerts you when someone doesn’t respond to your email after a specific timeframe (you can set that). No better app offers response tracking as good as Boomerang.
As I write this, Yoast has been downloaded over 6.4 million times and the rating out of 5 stands at 4.7, which is extraordinary by any yardstick. If you could choose only one WordPress plug-in for your website, the first would be from Yoast and so would the second. This one sets the standard.
Open Graph tags and managing Google Authorship are the two best features of Yoast. The former helps the posts from your website look appealing when someone shares it across Facebook or Twitter and the latter reduces your effort significantly to complete Google authorship. Get it right away.
It’s an easy A/B testing and analytics tool to help you move toward success in your CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization) efforts. See if you have mulled over these questions.
While working on new designs for your website’s landing page, have you ever had hunches about how the visitors will welcome the effort? Will the new-look show way to an uptick in site traffic? What would be the conversion rate?
Optimizely answers all the above questions in a simple manner one could comprehend.
Gravity Forms site says “Over half a million wordpress sites use Gravity Forms." That’s a testament to its productivity. With Gravity Forms, you can create complex and powerful contact forms for your website without any fuss.
It provides a simple drag and drop feature to create and customize forms with conditional logic fields. As the name suggests, Gravity Forms doesn’t stop with just support, order and contact forms creation. It also allows launching quick surveys and creating polls instantaneously. Site-building is no more a drudging task when you have Gravity Forms.
It is one of the best task management web apps available. Its best features include nested lists, tagging keywords (for better compilation) and implementation of brainstorming. Even when writing this article, it’s become inevitable for me to switch tabs to reach out to WorkFlowy to recall my thought-process. The UI is neat, quick and responsive enough for one to engage.
Be it note-making, jotting a list of ideas for your blog or planning an event, WorkFlowy makes your job easier than never before. It works offline too for iOS users. If you master a few keyboard shortcuts, task management is a cakewalk forever.
Trello is basically a more optimized version of WorkFlowy, taking list-making to the next level. It is the best and easy-to-use project management app available. If you want to collaborate with your team members for a particular project and assign specific tasks to everyone, Trello is the answer.
Trello is all about boards, lists and cards. You can organize your projects in boards, assign and organize topics in lists and arrange individual tasks in the lists as cards. You can add check lists, assign due dates and also attach PDF files up to 10MB in the attachment tab. Make it your default project management app for better collaboration with the team.
It is probably the best online image editing tool available for content creators and designers. If you’re ignorant about Adobe Photoshop, it is the go-to tool to design images in an effortless manner. It is chocked up with various image editing options and manipulation tools to create images on the go.
It comes with three versions – Pixlr Omatic, Pixlr Express and Pixlr Editor – in which Pixlr Editor is nothing but photoshop made easy. Pixlr Express offers amazing image adjustments, filters, overlay and borders all in an easy-to-navigate interface which makes it the best among the three.
It is a real-time social media search and analysis web tool. It brings together the content generated across the web in an orderly fashion. It divides your keyword search into four categories namely strength, passion, sentiment and reach.
Strength is measured using the phrase mentions and sentiment is assessed using the ratio between positive to negative mentions. Reach is the most crucial feature since it measures the ratio between the number of unique users to the total number of mentions. it is the best tool to analyze your brands’ social media activity.
Google's acquisition of 'Where 2 Technologies' will go down in history as one of the remarkable leaps in data visualization. What started as a simple C++ program almost a decade back has turned everyone of us into cartographers in our own right, thanks to Google's extraordinary vision.
With Google Maps Engine, one can create customized maps with their own references and collate your areas of interest before planning a vacation. You can also upload data source in excel formats to visualize the same on maps, share organized maps with your friends and compare the maps that you have already created. To conclude, Google Maps Engine has made cartography easier and lively for everyday users.
The recent Havell's advertisement "Havaa Badlegi" aptly sums up many of the changes we are seeing in Indian Businesses today. Entire industries are beginning to get disrupted by technology and innovation. While businesses have been doing things the same way for decades, the drastic changes in the landscape, both globally and in India, have prompted many senior executives to relook at their digital strategy. While some industries have already seen massive changes in the last 5 years, for some industries, the next 5 years are going to be even more impactful.
Sectors where we have seen significant impact already
Offline Retailers: Offline Book retailers have been one of the first casualties of the ecommerce space. With a standardised product and ease of shipping, ecommece players have undercut book prices to take away a large chunk of the book market. Similarly, mobiles and small gadget sales are growing significantly online. Apart from sales, pre-purchase research online now plays a decisive role, where one recent survey showed over 80% of urban consumers now look up for research online prior to buying a mobile. Window shopping at stores and then going online to buy has prompted many large players in the US to shut shop. We haven't seen a similar impact in India as yet, but this shift from offline to online is irreversible.
Travel Booking: Travel booking for nearly all segments - flights, trains, buses, taxis and now even Autos in some cities, have seen significant market share being taken by online players. While holiday booking has some strong online players (e.g. SOTC, Thomas Cook and regional players like Raj Travels), online travel companies are now going aggressively after the holiday market. Expect more people to book their holiday packages online in the near future. As per a report by the IAMAI, over 80% of online commerce is travel related, reaching Rs.15000 Crores in 2012 and growing at a staggering 40% annually.
Recruitment / Hiring: Technology has changed the way someone searches for a job. From mass market sites like Naukri to Linkedin and Referring friends for jobs on Facebook, technology disrupted the way the 1990's head hunter worked. The HR agencies adopted to add value on top of these platforms instead of taking them head on, ensuring profitable growth. Due to the smart repositioning by off-line players, Online portals account for only 3% of the $250M market, while still playing a critical role in the ecosystem.
Upcoming sectors where technology will drive change
Education: Elearning has been a buzz word for a while, but there have been no large education companies which have nailed learning in India. Schools have changes, with smart blackboards, digital media lessons and online report cards, but the fundamental way of teaching and learning has not really shifted. On the other hand, globally, there are companies really breaking out. Successful examples include Coursera which allows anyone to take a virtual class from the best universities in the world on a wide range of topics to Codecademy, where one can learn computer programming. These global companies are seeing traction, even from Indian consumers. Some Indian players like Sikkim Manipal University have started initiatives like the EMBA course. It won't be too long before innovations in elearning change the way we learn.
Healthcare: Hospitals and Doctors in India are being swamped by the number of patients. While the leading hospitals and chains have invested a lot in technology, seamless connect with the patients pre-treatment and post-care is missing. New initiatives like booking a doctor appointment online to storage of reports on the cloud are seeing traction amongst the more adaptable medical organisations. Read our Healthcare Digital Marketing Case Study.
In our upcoming blogs, we shall discuss more about the options you have in your industry to adapt and lead the digital revolution.
