How to handle customer complaints?

Customer complaints are common in any product company.Customer complaints needs to handled carefully in order to ensure customer is satisfied and also we do not compromise on product quality and strategy.
                     Customer complaints can be basically divided into

1.Promotional complaints:These complaints ARE related to visibility of the customer's product on the portal

2.Process complaints:These complaints are basically related to the process which is followed for on-boarding and servicing customers.

3.Product complaints:These complaints are basically about how the product is working for the customer.It can be either related to the information being show,how it works etc..


Review the complaints:It is first necessary to review the complaints.What the complaint is all about?How many customers can be impacted by this problem?Is there any loss in revenue because of the complaint?How user experience will be impacted if we address the complaint?

Prioritize the problem:Next step is to prioritize the complaint.Is it worth taking the complaint or it can be ignored for time being.

Identify the solution to the complaints:Next step is identify the solution to the complalints. There can be various ways in which a complaint can be resolved.Check out best possible solutions and review them.If required get customer feedbac

Execute the solution:Once the solution is identified next step is execute the solution and then test whether the problem is resolved or not.

Improving crawl effectiveness in SEO

In order to rank various pages one of the most important tasks which a search engine does is crawling the website.Bots crawl the pages whenever they find new content on the page.However,there is a limit of the amount of data which google can crawl.Thus it is important to optimize your site so that only the required content get crawled.In this blog which discuss on how to improve the crawl effectiveness of your site

1.Load by Ajax.

There is certain limit of the amount of data that google will crawl from your site which means that once should avoid the crawling of the unwanted data.This feature is generally used to delay the loading of content. The content which is not necessary for the page to rank in SEO should be loaded with delay so that it does not get crawled by google.By doing this,unwanted crawling can be avoided which in turn can increase the crawling of important data on the page.

2.Block the unwanted pages

There can be many pages on the site which does not required to be crawled because the targeted keyword may not have enough search volume or may be the duplicate page.In this case one can prevent the crawling by making it noindex or deleting the page itself.By doing this one can reduce the crawling of unwanted pages.One can use various SEO tools to check crawls stats and search volumes

3.Update sitemap

Google uses sitemap to identify the structure of your site and using which it crawls different pages on the site.The site map so plays an important role in which pages needs to be crawled and what order.The pages which are important should be put on priority in the sitemap.The pages which are not important should not be part of sitemap.

Listing logic -what should it have

Listing logic is heart of any listing page.A good listing algorithm can not only help in meeting business goal but can also provide a very rich user experience. There are various algorithms available which can be used to implement listing logic.Based on the kind of product one can decide on the kind of algorithm.However,what are the parameters that are to considered in the algorithm also plays a vital role in the success of the algorithm.Optimizing listing logic is one of the easiest ways to improve conversion.
                                                       In this blog will discuss what are the different parameters one should consider while using one of the listing algorithms

1.Listing quality:

Every user has a need because of which he buys a product.There are certain data points which user looks into before deciding on which product to buy.It is therefore first necessary to identify those data points.Once it is identified those data points needs to given priorities based on importance.These data points then should be used in the algorithm to score various listing on these data points.This facilitate user in easy decision making.

2.Product Quality

Product quality is nothing but what are the basic things which are important to user while buying that particular product.For ex.in case of mobile phones 4G connectivity may be the most important thing which user looks while buying a phone.In that case these parameters which define  the quality should also be included in the algorithm to measure the product the product quality.

3.Business value

Each product which an online firms sell has different value.The margin on certain brands may be higher than other brands.So it is necessary to rate these products on the business value that an organisation get by selling these products. This data then needs to be integrated in the algorithm so that the listing logic can help in extracting lot of business value.                               

Easiest ways to improve conversion

One of the most important metrics which is tracked for any online product is the conversion.Conversion is different for different kind of product.It depends on the goal of the online platforms.In case of online selling platform it may be the number of customer who did transaction on the platform to the number of user who visited the site.In case of lead based model  it can be the responses to the user.

                             There are ways in which the drop in conversion can be fixed however in this blog  will discuss on the easiest ways in which the conversion of the site can be improved.

1.Order of the information

The order in which the information is shown to the user can help in improving the conversion.Identify the importance of the information to the user and place them in the right order.In the flow one can also try to cross sell other products which are related to the currently product which user is viewing.

2.Text of call to action button

The text which is displayed on the call to action button impact the CTR of the button and hence the conversion of the site.The text should be chosen such that it should be the most important action that user wants to perform on the page.When there are multiple CTA buttons the needs of the user should be prioritized and the the position of the CTA button should be decided.

3.New action buttons

There are lot of actions which a user may want to perform on the page.It is first necessary to identify the list of action which user want to perform.Then prioritize them and integrate them on the page.This which help in improving the macro or micro conversion

4.Reduce the macro steps 

There are chance that there lot of steps which user has to go through before performing the final action.It is necessary to reduce the number of steps or make it more simpler to the user so that there it is easy for user to transact.The best UX practices should be followed in order to provide good user experience

5.Optimize page load time

High Page load time can negatively impact the user experience.As the page load time increases, drop off from the page also increases.It is therefore necessary to optimize the page load time.Lower the page load time better is the conversion as the drop off decreases.When new page is launched it is necessary to optimize the page load time.

6.Identify the device to concentrate on

When user searches on mobile he can be landed either to the mobile web or APP through deep linking. One should first analyze the performance of APP and web before doing deep linking. One can look at various metrics before deep linking.In case mobile APP is performing better than that conversion can be easily improved by deep linking.

7.Listing logic

Optimizing the listing logic can help in improving the conversion.There are lot of listing algorithms available which can be used to improve the listing logic.

Challenges before commerce companies

In online field there are basically two kind of companies: E-commerce companies which directly monetize the users who comes to their platforms and commerce companies which does not directly monetize users which means that just share the user to the vendors who are associated with the platforms.Thus commerce platform faces various challenges in terms of user needs ,vendor satisfaction etc.There are common challenges that online platform faces.In this blog will discuss on the various challenges which commerce companies faces and how they can overcome.

1.User need fulfillment tracking

The user who comes to the commerce platform meet their need through the vendors associated with the platform.In such scenario it is very difficult to track how many users are able to meet their needs using the platform.When such companies want to measure the effectiveness of their platform in meeting user needs,it becomes very difficult .This can be addressed by getting feedback from the user ,calling user to check their need fulfillment

2.Value delivered to the client

For commerce platform, it is very difficult to know how valuable has been the users who are shared to the client for need fulfillment because the transaction happens offline.In such scenarios,in order to monitor the value delivered to the client it is necessary to integrate UVN (Uuniversal virtual numbers) and BVN (Business virtual numbers) which helps in tracking the conversation between vendors and users and hence helps in understanding the conversation between them

3.Cost per lead

In commerce portals,where most of  the transactions are offline it is very difficult to know the value which vendors get from a user.Thus it become very difficult to fix the cost per lead which one should charge from the vendor for delivering the lead.This leads to underselling of the leads to the vendors.

Importance of Site Navigation

A site generally consist of many pages of different category types.Each page type has is own objective.The objective varies based on the content of the page.Navigation plays a important role in ensuring that user finds the information easily and also overall site objective is met.
                                                                            In this blog will discuss on site navigation strategy and how it should be formulated.

1.Clearly identify the goal of each page

First is is necessary to clearly jot down what are the benefits of each page to user.Based on stage of user purchase the pages should be grouped.The grouping can be as below

1. Knowledge enrichment/Research page
2. Information search
3.Product detail
4.Response page/Payment page

Now it necessary to move user to the right set of page based on user purchase stage.When the user is information seeking phase move him to knowledge enrichment pages.When user has decided on his requirement it is necessary to move user to information search page.In case user has decided on which product to buy it is better to move him to similar product pages.

2.Check the conversion of each page

When there are lot of pages which have similar objective then it is necessary to check the conversion of each of the page to identify where to push the traffic.The traffic should be push to pages where there is high conversion.
                 The conversion can be calculated based on the goal of the page.It is necessary to provide more visibility to the page which has higher conversion.

In short

Group the pages based on goals->Group the users based on need->Map the user to the page->Move to the pages which has good conversion

The Future of Big Data and Big Data Analytics

Big Data analytics is one of the most sought after technologies that every business needs. Big data innovation is now focus points of many companies.But the question lies, whether Big Data will continue to be important even in the future. nSimpl.com is one of the most reputed companies that has a team of data scientists specializing in Big Data analytics and data warehousing and companies, old and new alike are using their dashboards and tools to strategically manage and store the Big Data.

                       Though currently Big Data is one of the most important drivers of businesses , analysts and scientists are always coming up with newer tools and technologies that are better than those of the previous generation. So, companies as well as data scientists who work extensively with Big Data must know about its future. Listed below are some of the predictions relating to the future of big data:-

▪          There will be a constant increase in data volume thus reducing the importance of Big Data in future.

▪          Though SQL is most popularly used to day, but according to Ovum, Sparks will emerge as a complementary tool and will grow in future.

▪          More tools for data analysis without the analyst will grow in future.

▪          It has also been predicted that the business analytics will include intelligence, where it is required, by the year 2020.

▪          Streaming Data for real-time users will grow in future.

▪          Machine learning, according to Ovum, will be one of the most important elements for data preparation and predicative analysis in future.

▪          Big Data will face a huge challenge relating to privacy in future according to the new privacy regulation by European Union.

▪          Most Companies will appoint a chief data officer.

▪          Autonomous things and agents will continue to be important even in the future.

▪          Data staffing shortages will increase, thus including architects and experts for data management in the future.

▪          All these predictions only make us believe that Big Data will lose its importance in future but one has to wait and see whether Big Data continues with its importance or loses its importance in the future. But one thing is for sure that Big Data will become bigger and bigger and companies who ignore its importance will be left behind in future.

Common challenges in Product Management

Product management is one of the most important roles in any product based company.The ultimate goal of any product manager is increasing the value of the product by growing users/customers so that company can grow in terms of revenue,top line and bottom line.There are various ways through product managers tries to achieve this goal.
                                                               There are separate set of common challenges in commerce companies. In this blog,I will discuss various challenges which are associated with product management role across various domains.These challenges are common irrespective of the domain in which a person is working in.

1.Predicting the performance of new features

Product managers launches very new features in order to achieve the ultimate goal of increasing value of product.Though enough background work is done before deciding on launching a new feature,it is very difficult to predict how successful a particular feature be.This is mainly applicable for unique features which does not have any past history or performance data.In such case it become increasingly difficult to predict the performance of the feature

2.On time product launch

Product launch requires coordination  of various teams which include development,design and testing team.When lot of people are involved there are high chances that product does not release on time because of lack of coordination and laziness of certain team members.Single bottleneck can impact the release of the product.

3.Conflicts with other product managers

Most of the time various product managers have to work with each other when the features being launched impact the performance of the other product manager's product.This is common situation across all domain.In such situation there are chances that the PMs have contradicting view on how a particular feature needs to be developed.This may lead to conflict between product managers

Best practices for UX

UX is the heart of any online platform. UX is all about how the design works for the user.A good UX not only helps in improving user experience but also helps in visual communication to the user.It creates a distinct image about a particular brand in user's mind.There are basically three components which defines UX interface,interaction and navigation design
                  In this blog will discuss some of the best UX practices which one should follow


       1.Differentiate primary and secondary action buttons


It is necessary to communicate user the many action which you want user to perform on the page.When there are two many action button it is better to keep primary button unique and the secondary button similar to each other.This help in giving visual cues to the user regarding the main button of the feature.

In the above picture the main action button "View contact" is shown differently from the other buttons.

       2. Standardize looks of common elements


There are certain buttons which are common across all the portals. For ex "Heart" denotes shortlist and it is same across all portals.It is best to have the same symbol for the common buttons so that user understand them easily.Some of the common action buttons are

1.Shortlsit
2.Check out
3.Search
4.Notifications
5.Home
6.Help
7.Account

These buttons have standard symbols which should be utilized for corresponding action.

      3. Use different colors to denote category

When there are different category of product which you have it is necessary to denote each category with a different color.This helps users in associating a color with a category.When user come next on the site it becomes easy for him to find the right information.I

      4. Use appropriate icons for visual communication

Right icons can really help user understand what the button expected to perform.It is necessary to visually communicate the meaning of the button to the user through icons.

      5. Optimize the information

The amount of text shown to the user should be optimum.When lot of information is shown it become very difficult for user to comprehend the information.The data points which are important to the user should be first identified and then shown to the user.This mainly applies for mobile platform where the space is limited .

     6 .Ensure proper elevation for buttons

There are chances that some of the buttons are so flat that user is not able to recognize them as buttons.This lead to lead usage of the button.It should be ensure that there is proper elevation for each button so it looks clickable element to the user.

Ways to push micro to macro conversions

Most of the online platforms has macro and micro conversions.Micro conversions are basically the intermediate steps which user takes before finally converting which can either be actual monetary sale for e-commerce site and response for lead based site.Macro conversion are the actual conversion which leads to the sale or response.

Though increase in micro conversion automatically leads to increase in macro conversion,it is possible to further increase the transition from micro conversion to macro conversion by following certain steps.In this blog will discuss on how to increase push from micro conversion to macro conversion.


It is first necessary to identify the distance between micro conversion and macro conversion.When there are lot of steps before a macro conversion can take place,it is necessary to push user to the next micro conversion.The various steps involved in conversion for any site are

Home->Search/Filter->View detail->Add to cart /shortlist->Check out/response form fill->Payment/response sumbission

Home->search

The first step in conversion is making user search for what he is looking for.When the search is low it means that macro conversion will be low.In order to increase search one should

• Make search simple:It should be easy to search which means that number of search parameters should be minimal.

• Faster to load:The results should be faster enough to load else user may close the session and leave

• Flexible search: Identify the different ways in which user would like to search.These could help in building the comprehensive search functionality

Search->detail page

Now when user is in search state it is necessary to move user to the detail page in order to move him closer to conversion.When user is not moving to detail page it can be because user is not able to find the right product/information,not enough listing etc.In order to increase push

• Integrate right filters:Filter helps user in finding the right product easily.Thus having right filters make information discovery easy and hence help in improving macro conversion.

•  Show the right information:User will go to detail page only when the information shown is as per his requirement.Indentify the important parameters use is looking for and show them at right place

Detail->Add to cart /Shortlist

Once user has seen the detail page he will add to cart the product only when he is totally satisfied with the product info.This means all the information which user require to shortlist/ad to cart should be provide.In order to improve  push to cart /shortlist

• Provide decision making information:This can be anything based on the product.For eg product compare which can help user identify the right product.

• Place the button at right place:User will perform the shortlist/add to cart only when the  button are clearly palace at the right place.

• Sending right push notification:When user has viewed certain properties it can be send/shown to the user again which can invoke him to shortlist the properties

Shortlist->Buy/responses

User will finally convert only when the conversion process it made simpler to the user which means the response form or the payment process should be made very simple with the least number of steps.In order to improve macro conversion

• Make the payment/response process simple:There should be minimal steps required to complete this action

• Failure backup:When the user fails cannot proceed in certain step their should be help provided at the step to proceed or there should be tracking option which helps in getting back to user with solution

These are the steps to be followed for the above flow.In normal cases the user may skip certain steps in that case new strategy should be adopted

                                                                             

Blog content strategy to drive conversion

Blogs are used by most of the online  portals to drive SEO traffic for various keywords which are related to the business but does not directly lead to conversion.Blog is also one of the most important tools  for user engagement.Companies invest in blog majorly for three  reasons which includes

• Knowledge enrichment
• Increase SEO traffic 
• Drive Conversion-Macro conversion

Blogs can be effectively used to meet all the 3 needs provided proper strategy is formulated for it.In this post will discuss on how the blog can be used to drive conversion.Conversion through blog is basically macro conversion which means push to the pages where user can be converted.

1. Identify the goal of the blog

It is necessary to understand what does user expect from the blog.This depends on the kind of business you are in. Broadly user expects

Reviews/Guidance

When product which you are selling requires guidance to the user then it is better to write reviews about the product.For eg to buy phones,properties one need guidance to identify the right product.Reviews can help user to understand the product better and therefore convince him to buy the product.

Research reports/Future prediction

When the success of product depends on how it will perform in future then it is necessary to help user know the logic behind the success or failure the product.This is majorly applicable to shares/Mutual funds and other highly volatile products

Rankings/Popularity 

When user want to pick from list of product then it is necessary to know which one is the best.This is particularity applicable to the travel industry where user want to travel to new places.Ranking helps him decide which is best place to go.

When a site create blogs it should ask following questions

•  What kind of product I sell?
• What does user expects from the blog?
• How the content should be formulated in order to drive macro conversion?

2.Identify the Right keywords

People read the blogs mainly for the reasons mentioned above.The keyword which the blogs target should be in sync with content of the blog.These keywords are generally not the same which your site target as these keywords are more engagement oriented and not direct intent to buy the products.The long tail keywords can be targeted through the blogs.

3.Post the blog on write platform

The blog will be effective only when it is visible at right place and to the right kind of user.The blogs should be posted on platform after analyzing below data

• What kind of users visit to the platform?
• Are they relevant for the blog?

Based on the above two questions one should decide on where to post the blogs.This will help in targeting right kind of user and thereby improving conversion

The above points is summarized in below flowchart

Product enhancement frameworks

When a product is launched it is important it is continuously changed in order to keep it relevant with time.There are chances that some product performing exceptionally well and some are not.Therefore,it is necessary to identify the right kind of features/changes that needs to be done for the product in order to improve its performance with time.
                                  Based on my experience,I will share various frameworks which can be used for this purpose.

1.Goal Push vs conversion Framework

This framework is about identifying whether the push to different pages is optimum or it needs to be changed in order to improve the product performance.In this framework , push to different pages can be ploted on X axis and the conversion of that page on Y axis.Conversion here can be anything based on company's goal and page goal.The page conversion can help in identifying the top performing pages.This framework help in identifying which pages should the traffic be pushed.Right changes can help in increasing the push to right pages.
                                                                                 Once the top performing pages are identified the changes should be made to improve push to the right pages.This may not be applicable to eCommerce site where there is a standard flow.However in this also it can help in identifying the right category pages to which user should be pushed.

2.Clicks vs position

In this framework one can find out which section in the page is most useful to the user and which particular feature can be enhanced to make it more useful.The number of clicks can given an idea about the usefulness of the section.Though number of clicks depends on position of the elements it is quite possible that a section which is lower down the order in page gets more clicks.In this case it is quit obvious that the section deserves to be moved up the order and also needs to enhanced.There are various online products tools available which can help in understanding the click behavior.

Mailer Optimization

Mailers plays a critical role in any Digital marketing strategy. They helps companies to reach out to broader user base .There are lot of challenges which one come across when using mailer as marketing tools.
          Mailer are used not just for communication but also for creating brand awareness, generating leads etc...A good designed mailer can help companies to easily achieve its objective.

There are basically

Communication/Interaction mailers:

This mailers are basically about communicating to the user regarding the transaction which  user has done with a site. For ex.. when you buy a product from a site you get confirmation mailer. When you drop a lead on a site you get lead confirmation mailer etc..

Lead generation mailers

These mailer are basically product promotional mailer. In these kind of mailers companies tries to generate leads for a particular product. For eg.. companies send mails on promotional offers for products etc.. comes under this category

Brand awareness mailers

In these kind of mailers, marketers tries to make people aware of the new product or feature that is being launched in order to help the product to get traction. These kind of mailer tries to make product popular by highlighting its USP.

Design Guidelines for Mailer

1.Identify the goal of  mailer

It is very important to understand what one trying to achieve through the mailer. The design should follow the goal of the mailer

When the goal is communication about recent transaction then the mailer should ensure that the communication is the highlight in the mailer. The information should be comprehensive enough for user to understand

When the goal is lead generation it should be ensured that lead generation element is properly placed and highlighted. The mailer should ensure that there are not many option to click expect the lead the elements. The content of the mailer should contain the following

• User  needs that product fulfills: User will drop lead only when he feels the product is as per the requirement
• USP: What makes this product special will provide additional traction for the products
• Offer: In case there are any offer available it should be clearly highlighted

In case the mailer is regarding the brand awareness for a product it should contain the following elements

• Product detail: It should contain the complete detail of what the product feature are
• Launch date: In case the product is getting launched on some date it should contain the date
• Link: In case there is any link which explains what the product is, it should be share to the user so that he can learn about the feature

2.Determine what make user open the mailer

The open rate of the mailer depends on the subject of the mailer. The bench mark open rate for the mailer  is 8 -10%. The subject of the mail will decide whether the user will open it or not. Try with different subject lines and check which has better open rate and use it for future mailer

3. Ensure enough content to avoid going to SPAM 

When the mail does not have enough content there are high chances that mail will go the spam folder which will drastically reduce the open rate of the mailer. Avoid lot of images as google consider it as spam

4. Send from popular id

The id from which mailer are send should be popular enough. Ensure that user save the id in its contact which improves the credibility of the id. When the mailer are send form unknow id there are high chances that mailer which land into SPAM folder

Things to be avoided in SEO

SEO stands for Search engine optimization. When some one searches on Google/Bing  the links which comes below the ad are SEO links. These links are governed by the complex ranking factors which the search engines uses to rank various pages and site.

SEO is very critical for any organization which wants to grow its online business and survive in this cut throat competition. Growth in SEO traffic can be sustained for longer time in case one avoids doing common mistakes.

                                               Google and various other search engine uses 100+ signals in order to assign ranks to various pages of the site. Though no one can exactly say how various factors impact the rank of your page, there are some basic things which should be avoided while doing SEO.

1.Avoid multiple H1 tag

 Google considers H1 tag as one of the important signals in understanding the content of the page. In case there are multiple H1s on your site then google will not be able to understand what are the important keywords you are targeting which will negatively impact your SEO performance.

2.Avoid duplicate content as much as possible

 Though duplicate content cannot be totally avoided on the site it should be reduced as much as possible. Introduce self canonical for each page to tell google that this is the main page. Identify the URLs which have same content and keep one URL and delete the remaining.

3.Avoid Cloaking

 Cloaking may seriously affect the ranking of your pages. It happens when the content you show to the google bot is different from what you show to the user. It is allowed for some renowned site but for normal site it should be avoided else their can be heavy penalty on the rankings of your pages.

4.Avoid spam listings

 In order to increase listings many company upload listing which are not much different in content this reduces the quality of data on your site and can negatively impact the rankings for the keywords targeted by page.

5.Avoid dynamic URL

Dynamic URL is identified by "?" appended to the URL. When the URL is dynamic google would not able to identify the content of the page from URL and also user would not be able to make out what the page is about with dynamic URL. Always use static URL which contains information about he page content. This helps google in easy understanding what the page is all about

6.Avoid having too many links in footer

When there are two many links in footer the juice which google passes to the page get reduced as google not able to tell which are the important pages for you.

7.Avoid coding language which cannot be crawled

The pages will be ranked only when google is able to crawl your site property.Google can crawl HTML pages effectively.So ensure that the pages you want to crawl are in HTML.The crawl status can be seen in webmaster also you can user Cache:site name to see how the page looks to google.

8.Avoid posting multiple google reviews from same IP

Do not post multiple reviews about your site on google from same IP .Google consider it as SPAM and can penalize ranking of your site

Components of online products

Online Products are defined mainly by three major components
1.Interface:This is basically the various elements that you see on any website,mobile APP.
2.Interaction:This is about how user interact with the various component present on the Website,Mobile APP.
3.Navigation:This is about how user navigate through the various pages on the site/APP i.e the various links that are present on site and APP

The success of any site depends on how well these three attributes works for the user.Each of these components have various guidelines that needs to be followed

Interface

Reduce the clutter

Ensure that number of elements on the page are optimize to the space available.The elements should be arranged such that it become easy for user to access each element on the site.In case more number of element required for a particular action show them in different steps instead of showing them together on a page.
The major challenge arises when it is responsive design.In this case the design should be tested in various devices and should be adjusted to the size of device

Provide proper textual information

Each element should be self explanatory i.e user should be easily able to understand what is the use of that element.In case any additional information to be shown tool tip should be attached to that element

Arrange components as per user requirement

All the component should be arranged based on the user goal .For ex.E-commerce may have detail page about a product which may different information segments such as price ,offers,specification,Reviews,popularity etc...These components should be arranged as per the order in which user would like to see these segments.It helps in easily understanding the information and

Interaction

Make it easy to use:

The elements to be used for each steps should be chosen such that it is easy to use.For ex. in order to select a  product type we should check whether a drop down would be better or click based selection would be better.This should be chosen based on how many options are available for user to chose from.In case less option provide click base selection or else dropdown

Reduce the clicks:

Good experience also depends on the number of  events/clicks a user has to perform to achieve a particular task.For example when user want to search about a particular product on a e-commerce site ,how many clicks does he do to accomplish this particular task.The component should be chosen such that number of clicks get reduced.


Navigation

Provide appropriate links:

User comes on a site with a particular goal.Identify the various things which user want to accomplish through your site.The navigation should be defined by clearly understanding the user needs and providing the navigation which would help in achieving those needs.

Understand the current user flow through goals:

The current user behavior on the site helps you understand how user is navigating through your site.Identify the area where there is more drop out and improve those components through better navigation

Easy discovery of links:

User can easily navigate through your site only when he easily find the navigation links.Ensure that navigation link are placed at contextually right positions so that user can easily discover those links.

How to come in featured snippet

Featured snippet is the zero position search resultswhich come above the normal organic results.This snippet belongs to one of the top 10 results which come in organic search results.When one manages to come in featured snipped it can boost organic traffic by good percentage since the CTR is highest for zero position result.Feature snippet displayed mainly in below three formats based on type of query and the expected result

• Paragraph
• Table
• List

Google displays featured snippet taking into account various factors.In this blog will discuss on how to appear in featured snippet based on my real time experience on it

1.Structured data

The entire data of your page should be properly structured which means it should have proper heading tags,schema,meta information enclosed in right format.When data is properly structured it is easy for google to find out the right data to be picked and show it in featured snippets.When google crawls the page it looks for the right information which can be shown in feature snippet and it becomes easy to find when your data is structured

2. Valuable and comprehensive information

One site may be ranking 1 in organic search results but that does not guarantees feature snippet .The site which ranks below the 1st position results can also appear in feature snippet if the information it provides is valuable enough for the user to appear in featured snippet.The information should be comprehensive enough to attract google attention to it.The information should be added by asking below question

What are the keywords that user searches?

What information does user want from search results?

In what format user want the information to be presented?

Based on answers to above question one should collection the information and  format it as per user expectation

3.Rank in top 10

In order to appear in featured snippet one should ensure that the page is in top 10 organic search results.Google only shows one of the top 10 results in featured snippet.

4.Target the right keyword

Properly do keyword research on which keywords does google show the results in featured snippet. Identify the right set of keyword and create information which address that need of the user .This will help in ranking for that keyword in featured snippet

Top 5 Innovations in Advance Big Data Visualization

Today organizations are presented with the challenge of managing huge volumes of data that keep coming in from multiple channels. This data not only needs to be carefully stored but also has to be managed so as to derive useful insights from the same and this task can only be accomplished by data scientists.

There are lot of challenges in big data analytics.Thankfully, Business Intelligence companies like NSimpl have come up with innovative solutions that not only make data warehousing easy but visualization effective too. Here’s a list of the year’s best advanced big data visualization techniques and systems that have been applauded for their innovative and forward looking solutions:

·         IBM’s data visualization platform combines all three aspects, namely hardware, software and services. This technology also integrates desktop based data visualization and the system is ideal for what if queries. This system is also good with planning use cases which are generated from write-back functionalities.

·         The Web FOCUS platform that has been designed by Information Builders is ideal for data analytics that is done on a very large scale. It also has features like Info Assist and Active Reports. In-memory data exploration and discovery is also another added advantage of this software.

·         Microsoft may not be as upto the mark in terms of data visualization but users who are comfortable with the Excel User Interface will find this entry level system quite comfortable.

·         The Business Intelligence platform that Micro Strategy offers is ideal for organizations that need to visualize big data from various data sources. This is made possible due to the ROLAP engine that the organization offers. The system is a little complex and requires time to master but is quite effective in its functionality.

·         The BI systems offered by Oracle can be deployed across various work domains. The facilities that Oracle’s BI platform offer include dynamic planning, what if scenario queries, interactive big data visualization as well as data discovery.

Along with these big players many other Business Intelligence vendors have come up with innovative solutions wherein they are using tools like Google charts, Tableau, Fusion charts etc. to present data in readable as well as visually appealing formats. So, if you are still struggling with the data that you have accumulated from multiple channels it is time that you take the help of Business Intelligence vendors.

Best practices for back links

Back-links are important part of SEO-off page optimization.Content marketers right the content with the goal of providing back links to the site/page. Backlinks from good sites help in boosting the rank of the page however when the back links are not from the right site it can even negatively affect the ranking of the page.Content marketers needs to put effort to ensure that they are getting links from the right kind of site.
       Based on my experience will explain what are things to check for existing back links and new back links.


1.Check the relevancy:

How relevant is the site which providing you the backlinks. Do the site deals in the similar category in which your site deals with?If not then it is better to disavow the link.Below are example of good links and back links.Only exception are partner sites which can provide link to the partner sites

Your site	Back linked site	Link status
Car discussion forum	Car Review site	Good link
Real estate site	Mobile selling site	Bad link
Movie ticket selling site	Movie review site	Good link

2.Remove Directory links

Directories are basically sites which only has links such site are considered as SPAM sites. Backlinks from such site can negatively impact your site rankings as google considers links from such sites as low quality links

3.No follow Forum post

There are chances that  people may post on your site to build back links to their site.The post may be just spam which are done basically to promote their site links.In such cases ensure that your site page has "No follow" rel attributes which tells google not to pass any link  juice to the backlinked site.SPAM posts can negatively your site rankings .

4.Check Domain authority of site

Check the domain authority of the site which is providing the back links to your site.In case the domain authority is pretty low then it is necessary to check out how old the site is and the content of the site.In case if you feel that site is of low quality then disavow the links from that site

5.Avoid paid links

In the past it was practice to pay a site to get backlinks from them.Google now has become smart enough to identify such links and site.When backlinks are coming from paid site it is necessary to remove those links as google considers it as unnatural ways of getting links.

In order to know more about SEO check out SEO mistakes to be avoided
                                                                     
Also check out:Common SEO issues
                                                                   

Usability testing -How to do?

To create user centric design, it is necessary to test design with set of users and get there feedback in order to know how good is the design from the user point of view.The feedback can guide the designers in making right changes to the design in order to achieve the goal of best in class user experience.User testing is all about getting the right feedback from the user.User testing may not be succeed in providing the right results in case it is not done properly.

                                                                   In this blog will discuss on how user testing should be done.

1.Pick the right users:

User who are picked will directly impact  the quality of the output of user testing.The users who are chosen for the testing should not have any direct involvement in the product .Users selected should be tech savvy and they should also be regular internet users but they should not be expert in the design as it may lead to bias in their judgement.User selected should be from diverse background since it will help in getting feedback from different perspectives.

2.Ask right set of question

The questions which are asked to the user should not lead them to answer what you want to hear as it does not provide the right feedback.The question should be centered around getting feedback on below point

1.Ease of navigation
2.Ordering of the data
3.What he did not like?
4.What he liked about the design?
5.What could be added?
6.Display text infrence

3.Create a complete prototype

The prototype which is being tested should be complete.It should have all the navigation which the original product will have so that you get better idea and the entire design can be optimized accordingly.The HTML should also show the right text for CTA button so that one can analyze user reaction to the text being displayed

4.Detailed documentation

User testing can be of little value if the user feedback is not recorded against each question.This should be done in order to identify the most genuine concerns of the users which help in addressing the right issues which users are facing.

New Product SEO audit

Whenever a new product/page is launched it is necessary to ensure that it is optimized from SEO perspective.If the product/page does not follow SEO guidelines then there are chances that it may negatively impact organic traffic and so it can lead to drop in value extracted out of the product.

                   It is also necessary to keep track of what is changing in the new page when compared to old page so that when something goes wrong in new page the reason can be easily identified and fixed.Below are the things that needs to be checked from SEO perspective when launching new page..

1.Meta title and description:

It should be known that when Meta title and description impact the keyword you are targeting. When meta is changed it may lead to drop in rank or also reduction in quality of the traffic.So it is necessary to check the meta before launching the page.In case the meta is automated ensure that logic is working fine

2.Link from the page:

The new page should be linked from the other pages so that google can find the page and crawls the  page.It also help google understand the links.

3.Rel attributes:

Rel attributes are the ones which signals the bot what it is expected to do the page.Ensure that all the rel attributes such as no follow,canonical,prev next etc... are properly place on the page.If these are wrongly placed or missed that it can create a lot of problems in terms of indexing and ranking of the page

4.Links not working on page:

Ensure that all the links on the page is working so that when google crawls the page it does not leads to 404 error  for page which can again impact your SEO rankings

5.URL path changes:

The URL for the page also plays important role in making bot understand what the page is all about if the URL is changed ensure that 301/302 redirect are properly placed so that link rank get transferred to new page

6.Heading tags

It is quite possible the current heading tags have been changed in the new page.It is necessary to ensure that all the heading tags are as per the requirement to ensure that google properly understands the keywords your page is targeting.

Low Involvement products-What online platform has to do

Low involvement products are the one in which risk involved in buying is pretty less.They are basically FMCG products,hotels which customers can get at pretty low price and can be easily disposed off.In these kind of products user basically looks for variety as the risk involved in trying out new things is pretty less.Most of the eCommerce companies sells these kind of products.
                                             In this blog I would cover what a online platform should do when they are selling these kind of products.The margin involved in such products is pretty low and so a site has to mainly depend on volume to make profit.

When an company tries to builds a online platform to sell low involvement product it should have

1.Product differentiation:

Customer looking for variety so they want to now how one product is different from other .Higher the differentiation,better the chance to sell the product provided it meets customer's needs

2.Strong and efficient supply chain

In case of low involvement products,customer requires products to be delivered in less time since these are urgent need of the customer.Lower the time of delivery higher is the chance of selling the product.When the delivery time is more people may opt to buy from offline stores.


3.Replacement and Return

There are chances that product is not as per customer expectation so it is necessary to have return and replacement policy so that customer has choice to replace the product he does not like

4.User ratings

Since customers are buying product without any physical touch for it is necessary to know how the experience was for the existing customers for the product.This help user understand how good the product is and is it worth buying

5.Complementary products

There are some product which works well with some complementary products this information should also be shown to the user in order to cross sell the other products

Check out part 1-High involvement product here

High Involvement products-What to do

Products can be classified as high involvement product or low involvement products.High involvement products are one in which risk is pretty high and variety is also pretty high.There are basically four quadrants in which any product can fall.

1.Low Risk,Low Variety:In this kind of products the user follows a picking behavior which means price is the single most important factor in deciding which product to buy eg..Salt,sugar,

2.Low Risk,High Variety:In this kind of products user is more looking for variety.He wants to try out new things.He can give higher price in case he finds it valuable.For ex..Toothpaste,restaurants,chocolates etc..

3.High risk,high variety:In this kind of products user is very careful about what he should buy and does lot of research on what he should buy before finally buying.This are basically high involvement products such as home,Cars etc.. as  wrong decision can bring in lot of trouble to the buyer

4.High risk,low variety:When the risk is high and variety is low buyers generally follows a habitual behavior in which he does not want to change or switch products.This mainly applies for medicines,baby products etc.When the product belongs to this category it is necessary to create the felling of trust among the buyers in order to get repeat business.



In this blog I will discuss what a online platform should do to be successful in selling high involvement products like property ,Cars

High Involvement product-How to build online platform

1.Expert advice:

When a product is high involvement it requires guidance for the user to identify the right product.The expert guidance can be in form of chat or any tools which helps user/guides user to a right decision.It should be basically a recommendation based on user requirement.

2.Verified/Trust:

The risk involved in buying high involvement product is very high so it should be ensured that what ever product being sold is verified so that it reduces the level of risk for the user to buy

3.Step by step guide:

In buying high involvement product there a long process which user has to follow in order to avoid any kind of problems in future.User should be guided through the process which he should follow to own/buy the product

4. Comparison of different products:

Due to high variety a buyer may get confused on which product to buy.In this case it is important for the buyer to identify which product is better than other based on his requirement so that he can make the right decision

5.Richness of information

Due to high risks people want to be sure that they are buying right product which means that customer wants information in detail in order to make right decision which means that it is important to have as much information as possible in order to help customer in  making right decision.The information can be in form of videos,pictures,reviews,text etc..

Check out Part 1-Low Involvement product Here

What does SEO team do?

SEO requires lot of work both off page on page and also technical SEO. There are different skills require for different tasks in SEO. There can be people who can perform multiple roles at a time based on his talent and caliber.In this blog I will discuss in detail what are the different things which SEO people do in an organisation

   1.  keyword Research

This person is responsible to identify the keywords that the site should target and also researching on new keywords that are used for searching the same information.There are lot of tools available in market to do keyword research one of them is Key word planner,

   2.  Link building

This role involves identifying new sites from where one can get back links. This also involves tie ups with various credible sites which has good domain authority to provide back links.

   3. Meta changes

The Meta  such title,descriptions needs to be changed or optimized based on search queries so that a site ranks better than others.This requires CMS system to update the meta.The meta changes are done based on current rank.

  4.Reporting and analysis

This job requires checking various SEO metrics on daily basis and reporting to the concerned team.It also involves checking out if there are any errors in webmaster and fixing them.

5.Technical SEO

SEO team has to ensure that site is as per google guidelines and also all the errors in the google webmaster are resolved.There are various common SEO issues which crops up frequently SEO team has to ensure that all the technical SEO issues are resolved.