Mobile SEO

With the growing popularity of mobile web,it becomes important to concentrate on Mobile SEO. SEO on mobile does not differ much from desktop SEO but there are some additional ranking factors which google considers while ranking a page for Mobile.
                                                                                         Search engine bot crawls the mobile site separately so it is important the mobile pages are optimized for SEO. In the below will discuss the various aspect of SEO.

1.Mobile friendly:

While showing results on mobile, one of the most important factors which search engine consider is whether the site is mobile friendly or not.Mobile friendly means that the site is optimized as per mobile size.The various elements spacing has to be adjusted as per the size of device.When the site is not mobile friendly it negatively impacts the ranking on mobile even though it ranks well on other parameters.

2.Loading speed

When mobile page loads faster it helps when the internet connection is slow.The page load speed is taken into accoutn while ranking the page for mobile.The loading speed can be improved by

• Reducing the size of picture. i.e compressing them
• Removing unwanted content
• Caching the page

3.Meta Elements

Meta description and title are the most important meta elements.In case of mobile the description and title can be made precise to suit the mobile version.Due to the limited space the meta content should be precise so that it is easy to read.

4.Avoid unwanted blocking of content

When the content are blocked through popup or through some introductory element it increase bounce on mobile which in turn negatively impact the SEO.

5.Mobile specific pages(AMP)

Make the mobile pages AMP compatible this will help in getting them on the top in mobile search results.

                                                         

Home page -What should it have?

Home page is the face  of any online brand.People who visit any website ,generally visit the home page of the site at least once.Home page therefore plays a critical role in building the brand of the company in user's mind.When there are so many site competing with each other it is very important to leave an everlasting impression on user mind in order to make him visit your site repeatedly.
                                                    In this blog ,I will jot down the few important points related to home page

1.Easy search:

In case your site sells some product or leads it is important that the user who visits your site find those product easily.Therefore search become critical.The search should be simple and easy and ideally it should expose user to maximum product or listings

2.Past search history:

When user come repeatedly to your site there are chances that he may be looking for the things what he searched earlier.The search history helps him search without entering the criteria again.It works mostly in online commerce company but not in e-commerce companies.

3.Recommendations:

Based on user search behavior,there should be recommendation which helps user to easily find what he needs.Recommendation also helps in improving conversion.Recommendations should be place at the top of home page so as to ensure that people sees them

4.Testimonials:

The trust about the website can be built in user mind by showing the testimonials of the user who have used your website and products.This is more applicable for a high involvement product such as cars,property.Video testimonials can have a comparatively higher impact than the normal testimonials.

5.New features display

When something new is launched in your site it is best to showcase it on home page it helps in building awareness among the people.The awareness can help in building traction to your new features.

6.User engagement data

When there are blogs which your site creates it should be dispalyed on home page so that people who are coming just to learn can use them to improve your knowledge.It also helps in creating positive impact about the brand in the user's mind.

                                       

When to do deep linking

Deep linking has become a very hot topic in recent time.Deep linking refers to the technology which allows opening a web page searched on google or any other search engine directly on the APP instead of taking user to the home page of the APP.

                             Deep linking can be very useful when you have lot of user who are using your APP .This can improve the active user base for you APP.However,one should also check how the mobile web is performing before making a decision of deep linking on the APP.

                            In this blog will discuss the various metric to check before deciding whether to deep link or not.

1.Conversion

Check the conversion of your APP and Mobile web.Which is performing better?Is the mobile web is doing better than your APP.If it is the case then it is better not to deep link.The APP experience should be first improved before deep linking the web page to the APP

2.User experience

It means where the user are spending more time.Is your user spend more time when they enter through the APP or web.When they are spending more time on mobile web it means that the interface,navigation and interaction is better on your mobile web than on APP..In this case the deep linking should be avoided

3.Content

There are chance that some of the content available on your mobile web is not available to the user on APP.The content can play a huge role in conversion .In case all the important content is not available on the APP it should not be deep linked

4.Bugs and Errors

The ratings of your APP will depend on how seamlessly user able to use the APP.In case app has lot of bugs it should not be deep linked because it will adversely affect the ranking of your APP and also lead to bad experience for the user.

User engagement ways

User engagement is crucial for any company whose business solely depends  on the website or APP which they have build. This is applicable for any e-commerce site as wells as lead generation site.When user visit these sites for a need there are high chance that he may leave the site without doing any transaction.However,users may come back to your site in case they found your site valuable enough.User engagement play a crucial role in making site valuable to the users.User engagement is one of the important factor which should be taken care during Product enhancement.

There are various ways through which user can be engaged on the site.

1. Similar things:This is basically about showing something which are similar to what is user currently browsing.This gives user more option to choose from.When more options are shown, user get more interested in viewing the content.This also increase the probability of user making a transaction on the site.

2.Photos and Video:Photos and videos help users to experience the product before buying it.They also help user to comprehensively understand the product and thereby ease the decision making process.Videos which are descriptive can be more helpful for the user.

3.Chat functionality:Every user who comes to the site may not find the thing he is looking for ,in this case chat can be very helpful option for the user.The chat also help in establishing connect with the user and thereby understand their need properly.Chat can also be triggered based on the user behavior so that it can be more contextual.

4.Research articles/blogs:A well written articles which enrich user knowledge can improve the engagement by leaps and bounds.Articles which are relevant to the need  of the user will really attract his attention and thereby improve his time spend on the site.Well written articles  also creates positive impression about the site in user's mind.A blog content strategy should be adopted in order to improve engagement.

5.User reviews: Real time reviews can help user to not only learn about the product but also can bringing in lot of traffic of user who just want to learn more about the product,

6.Contest and quizzes:Contest and quizzes attracts lot of user attention if they are coupled with attractive prizes.New site which want to gain popularity can use this medium to attract user and increase the popularity of the site

Useful SEO tools

SEO traffic is vital for every internet company.When a company is good  in SEO it helps in acquiring new user at compartively lesser cost than companies which lacks SEO traffic.Improving SEO traffic requires you to understand your competition very well.Once you understand how your competitors performing against targeted keyword you can realign your strategy to take advantage of keyword which are not targeted by the competitors.I would discuss very tools which one can use to improve SEO.

1. Google Webmaster

It is most widely used tool by SEO managers.This tool helps in understanding your site from SEO perspective.It can be accessed here. It provide features such as

Crawl stats

This features tells you about how many pages of your site has google crawled.Whenever a new content is added on your site google bot crawls the new page and add it to the index .

Search Index

This data provides you with how many pages of your site is in google index.When a page is indexed it means that page will come in search results when it ranks for the keyword user is searching for.It should be noted than pages which you dont want search engine to crawl should be set as No-Index

Crawl errors

When google crawls the pages and find some errors while crawling it logs it into the crawls error where one can check fix those errors.Fixing these errors can help in boost in ranking

Search Analytics

This help in analyzing keyword,impression,and CTR for your site.

Sitemap submission

The sitemap of your site can be submitted through this.Site map helps google in understanding the structure of your page and the various pages that has to be crawled

2.Keyword Planner

This tools helps you in knowing the search volume of various keyword.Keywords planner also help you in knowing the competition for various keywords.This tool can help you in identifying keywords which competitors are not targeting and therefore can help you in ranking better for those keywords.The tool can be accessed Keyword planner

3.Screaming Frog

Screaming frog is a tool that helps you in crawling a website.It provide you detailed information about the on page elements such as Meta title,description, H1, H2 of the site.It also provide other information such as broken links,duplicate contents ,redirection .The tool also helps you in downloading these information on an excel file which you can use to analyze the site properly.This tool is extremely useful when you want to crawl a website quickly.With free version you can crawl 500 pages for more paid version is available.

How to launch bug free product

Background

The quality of product launched not only affect the various product metric but also affect the perception of the brand .When the product launched has lot of bugs user may fill irritate and may not return back to the site.Launch a bug free product is therefore critical not only for improving product metrics but also for building good brand perception about the company.

There are various way through which the number of bugs can be drastically reduced.I would discuss here

Comprehensive PRD

 Quality of product mainly depend on how comprehensive the requirement is.In order to write comprehensive requirement one should ask following questions while writing PRD

• What is the goal of the feature?
• How will be the navigation of the product?
• What are the different area from which the product will be accessible for app /Site?
• What will happen when user click on particular interactive element?
• How the product will impact SEO? How to make it SEO friendly?
• What should be business  logic for various scenarios?
• How the  product behave in different devices?
• Is there a marketing plan required for the product?
• Is all the expectation from product covered in the test cases

These set of question can help in ensuring that all the requirement of the product is covered in the PRD.

Development team syncup

 The product will be developed as per requirement only when development team is clear with the PRD. Ensure that development team has clear understanding of the PRD .In case there are doubts it  should be clarified before the start of development so as to avoid unwanted iteration.

Regular interaction with the developer

During the development phase regularly interact with developer to ensure that everything is as per requirement.Regular interaction will ensure that any deviation from requirement can be corrected in the earlier stage and thus reduce the delay.

User acceptance testing

Though testing team would have done multiple round of testing there may be scenario which testing team would have not foreseen. Before the product is taken  live product manager should do comprehensive user testing so as to ensure that everything is working fine.It is also advisable to request other product managers in team to test the feature so that no scenario is left untested