Basics of Search engine optimization (SEO)

Image by sillygwailo via Flickr

The fact that still a bulk of the audience use the INTERNET primarily to search for information, gives a fair idea about about the prominence of search engines.

I thought it would be good to take a re-look at some of the very general tips on search engine optimization/search engine visibility for businesses. With the advances in Web 2.0 (social apps), the dynamics of search engines have changed a lot but in my opinion, the plain old fact that a lot of your customers are searching for you online, still remains the same. Today, the search engine optimization activity needs to be integrated very tightly with the overall goals of your business.

SEO Definition: SEO aka Search engine optimization is a set of activities which when executed correctly, help your website to rank better for specific keyword queries on search engines.

A broader set of activities are associated with SEO (Planning, Objectives, Strategy, Execution, Metrics), but just to get started, you can break-down an SEO project into smaller parts with further diversification at subsequent stages.

Planning

What do I want from SEO

For a lot of people search engine optimization is nothing more than getting into the top ‘10′ rankings on Google.This is a classic case, because ‘Rankings’ are just a part of  SEO and scaling up can be very hard for a new business during the initial stages. So before jumping on and saying, I want more traffic & higher rankings qualify your goals and try to be as clear as possible.

e.g. of a goal – I want to increase my sales leads through web-traffic. If you’re very specific, further classification would mean I want to increase my sales leads by 20% in the next 4 months.

With this as an input, you can now plan your search engine optimization activities in the appropriate direction.

Indians in Social Media (2009)

By-and-large most of us would agree with that  Social media is still in a nascent stage in the Indian context and there is a lot that remains to be explored in the Social media space.

Having said that the ripples in the social media wave created by many Indians involved are ensuring that Social Media is taken to the next level.

Note: For (businesses [small or large] or individual/s) who are trying to understand the online medium and how they can use it.  You should definitely follow these guys, not because some of them qualify as so-called thought leaders, but since they’re early-starters, they might have a degree of influence on your mind with their observations.

Royal Challengers Bangalore Fanatic Fans Challenge

Good friend Nidhi Makhija who works for a digital agency called Experience Commerce just sent me an email about the social media campaign for IPL’s Royal Challengers Bangalore, called the RCB Fanatic Fans Challenge.  If you’re a cricket fan or RCB follower you can apply now before the contest closes on 20th September.

Usability questions from a novice

During the course of my discussions with friend Ananda, we were thinking about certain aspects of user-sensitivity/usability to which we couldn’t find any answers. I don’t have a degree in user-experience, neither do I have any experience in it. So we searched, thought, searched hard, thought hard but we couldn’t succeed.

Here are some open-questions for you to answer.

Sign in v/s Login

Quite often we find the two of sign in, login, signup being used together in different combination. So what exactly is the difference between these Sign in and Login? What does logging in to a site/application mean and what does signing in to a site/application mean? When can/when can’t I use sign in & login?

Social Media Conversation series (Talk with Peter Bihr)

Background: This is the third blogpost in a series of conversations with Social Media change agents, thought-leaders, experts and mavens to answer some of the most important questions surrounding the subjects of Social media and Web2.0 ! The emphasis of this discussion series is to address ’socialmedia’ at a ground level and talk about the real world issues that are being faced by us on both sides of the road: i.e. as actual users and as consultants/agencies in this space.

Social Media Conversation series (Talk with Anna Farmery)

Background: This is the second blog-post in a series of conversations with Social Media change agents, Social media thought-leaders, experts and mavens to answer some of the most important questions surrounding the subjects of Social media and Web2.0 ! The emphasis of this discussion series is to address ’socialmedia’ at a ground level and talk about the real world issues that are being faced by us on both sides of the road: i.e. as actual users and as consultants/agencies in this space.

—————————————————————————————————————————————————

After the engaging conversation with Dennis D. McDonald, Ph.D, I am proud to have with me, widely read and heard social media and branding trainer, Anna Farmery.

At a personal level, I am a great fan of Anna’s  The Engaging Brand podcast series  which has been nominated for two years as the Best Business podcast. In addition, she consistently speaks and delivers workshops on branding, motivation and social media. You can read Anna’s blog or listen to her free weekly audio show at http://www.theengagingbrand.com