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Tag: content marketing

Mobile-first indexing: Should you worry about your current ranking?

 

From 2015 to 2016, Google has gradually rolled out the Mobilegeddon – a series of updates aimed to index and rank websites that are mobile-friendly. This update prompts most website owners to make sure their websites are responsive to the screen sizes of mobile devices.

With a few things going around the Google SERPs in the past weeks like FRED and other ranking changes, SEO experts have buried again in their desk figuring out what could be done to adapt to these algorithmic changes in the SERP. Until recently, Google confirmed that it is starting to roll out the mobile-first indexing in July.

Mobile-centric Culture

In the past years when the primary device to browse websites are the desktops and laptops, Google crawlers crawl and index websites based on their performance on the desktop. But as the lifestyle of being on-the-go become the new norm, people started to be mobile. The usage of mobile gadgets has increased drastically, especially in terms of personal searches. A year ago, Google announced that 60% of global searches were from mobile devices.

Other vital contributing factors are smartphone cost and internet connectivity. These two supports oxygen to heat up the usage of smartphones. With the continuous evolution of specifications, and rationalization of smartphone and data cost, people are more and more pushed towards mobile.

Mobile-first indexing

To support the increasing activity using mobile, Google has started to be a devout evangelist of better mobile experience. And other evidence of their commitment to this crusade is the release of mobile-first indexing on top of the mobilegeddon in 2015.

Mobile-first indexing is a little different and less disruptive than the mobilegeddon. It aims to prioritized indexing and ranking of websites based on their collective mobile presence. If mobilegeddon prioritized ranking based on mobile-responsiveness, mobile-first focuses on compliance and equivalence.

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Should I get worried about my current ranking?

If you are worried about your current SEO, you might be asking yourself whether that worry is qualified or not, and here’s the answer:

 YES and NO

YES – if you have a mobile version, but don’t deliver as a good as the desktop version

NO – If you are mobile-responsive and delivers valuable content, or with a mobile version that is equally the same with the desktop version.

Another issue that would cross your mind is, will affect my ranking and traffic?

Answer: There might be no great impact on the rankings, but there is in traffic. Remember the premise of having a mobile version which disconnects the user experience when one jumps from desktop to mobile? Well, that one can have a greater impact on traffic.

The bottom-line of mobile-first indexing is to make mobile searches better for all users, and that includes consistent user experience across devices.

FRED: Could this be the initial SEO shake-up of 2017?

Many website masters may have noticed lately that their ranking is gradually diluting, and that their website traffic decreases despite their SEO compliance. Some of them are probably thinking that there is something wrong with their SEO activities, but some had a hint that Google may have released an algorithm update somewhere in the first quarter of the year.

What really happened is that most sites saw 50 percent to 90 percent traffic declines from Google organic search. This was a massive organic ranking drop for these sites. It is somewhat believed that the update was released last March 08, when there has been as a sudden drop in the traffic and even rankings.

And according to some SEO thought-leaders, FRED (which they named the update) targets websites that are low in quality content but heavy on the ads. Other than confirming that it was targeting ad-heavy sites, Google hasn’t said much more about Fred. Since there are no other details about the update, it probably would help most webmasters to focus on their links, including the method of acquiring those links.

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Link building is always about quality over quantity. A few links from embedded within websites with outstanding domain authority are always better than a bucket of weak and spam-y links.

Since Fred has been making a shake-up in the SEO world, one thing appears to be a definite course-of-action for SEO experts and webmasters – to continue creating quality content and earn quality links.

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And in terms of on-page SEO, iManila’s digital marketing team is capable of helping small businesses to start their online presence through Google search engine’s results page. Visit our digital marketing page to know more about the services that we offer. For inquiries, please call (02) 565-4064 or send us an email at [email protected]

Don’t be a Scope Creep: Defining website project scope well

 

Having a physical store or an office is not enough these days as businesses move online at a faster rate. This prevailing business diaspora has made the website an in-demand business tool for most businesses who can afford to have one. But the usual pitfall of businesses wanting to have a website is that most business owners think that having one is just like setting up a social media page. Little do they know that a website is entirely a different story.

Like any other projects, doing a website isn’t just about telling your business objectives and showing your peg design, then that’s it. Many project owners, who are usually also the business owners, think that a little chit-chat with the provider is enough to keep the ball rolling. This is the most common misconception that brings a lot of confusion and finger-pointing between providers and project owners.

Now, the truth about having a website is, starting one needs a lot of preparations on the project owner’s side. And preparation usually includes extensive consolidation and finalization of the content that you need. The content should be aligned with your business objectives. Now, to give you an idea on what to do, what follows are things you should consolidate and finalize before sending out a project brief (or Terms of Reference)

  • Relax

Do not overwhelm yourselves with the ‘what ifs’. Focus on the important things that you think the website should address. Is your website merely informative and will serve as a bulletin about your company’s progress and new offerings? Or do you envisioned it to be more than that? Think clear about that kind of things – BUT, do not overthink.

Overthinking is like a last-minute packing of your suitcase. Believe me, you’ll end up having excess baggage which you won’t like.

  • Clearly define your objectives

All projects begin with series of objectives; otherwise, what’s the point of doing so, right? On a website context, the business objectives always serve as the cornerstone of your website. The design, the content choices, the content architecture, and functionalities are all anchored to your objectives.

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  • Keep the non-negotiables and weed out the wish lists.

Drafting the scope and the brief for your website project is like making a list of the things you need to buy for your new house. Certainly, not all of things you want can be bought all at the same time. You can proceed with the essentials first, then buy the other stuff when the time is right.

The same thing goes for the website. You should always begin with the aspects that matter most to your websites like products and services page, and the compelling story about your company.

Fancying some cool transitions and functionalities? Or maybe drooling over the e-commerce module? Stop right there! Think again. Is this something that you really need to up on your website? If YES, then write it down and explain briefly the rationale of this element in your website.

When you’re done, go through it again. Does including it make any sense to your business and urgency? If it doesn’t, then weed it out.

  • Coordinate with other stakeholders or business unit people

The scope of your project should include all-encompassing business objectives from various business units. It shouldn’t just include yours as the project proponent, but also the other project owners. Get their feedback and seek what they intend to include or remove from the initial scope. Set up a meeting or a brainstorming session if you need to. That will be helpful in trimming down the scope to the most important ones and to keep the objectivity in the brief.

  • Make it official

Brainstorming is not the end of the line for the brief. Make sure all key people involved in the planning – even those who will benefit from it – are acknowledged with all indicated items.

This will also help the project proponent avoid blaming and finger-pointing internally.

  • Oops, make sure you are ready with the materials.

This is what most project owners and proponents tend to overlook – securing materials to be uploaded such as service/product specs sheets, images, and articles. They think that all of these should be under the website developer and provider. In most cases, it isn’t.  Clients provide content and other materials necessary for the success of the website.

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As a matter of fact, 75% of website project delay is attributed to insufficient materials for uploading or the lack thereof.

If you do not have these materials, web development companies like iManila provide content writing service for an additional cost. In some cases, even photo shoots can be provided too. However, like content writing, it comes with a premium cost.

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Nothing beats a well-written website brief. It is helpful for both the developer and the project owner to track the progress of the development. Also, it will serve as a binding document to check if everything in the website is well-delivered. After all, a happy developer has an equally fulfilled client (project owner).

Thinking of putting up a website? Or perhaps a revamp? Leave it to us! We’ll make sure you’ll get the website that you want. Just shoot us an email containing your project scope at [email protected] or call us at (02) 565-4064 to schedule a face-to-face meeting.

 

Usual Mistakes SMEs Do with Their Websites

 

Doing business this 21st century means having a website – even for the small businesses. However, in the Philippines, there are only a handful of small businesses who realized the use of the website in their operations. However, despite this realization, small businesses and even medium scale ones are prone to crucial mistakes with their websites.

Below are the usually mistakes that SMEs do with their websites that they need to address before its too late:

Top 6: Bad Mobile Experience.

  • In the Philippines, 66% of the population uses a smartphone in doing their searches or in doing inquiries in websites. Having a non-mobile responsive website ruins search experience that may lead to bounce rate.

mobile-browsing

Top 5: Fonts that are hard to read.

  • Simple and readable texts deliver more results than fancy and hard-to-read ones. Why? It is obvious for one good reason: readability. No one wants to go through a website word per word just because the fonts are outrageously exasperating to the eye. If you want your audience to digest the essence of your content or to grasp the exact message of your branding in your website, you should make every character easier to read for all – regardless of the ages.

text-that-are-hard-to-read

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Top 4: Unprofessional design or color scheme.

  • Design and colors are as equally important as the website’s content. The overall look and feel of your website are what greets your audience. And if they don’t like what they see, the greater the chances of moving out of your website (hence the higher bounce rate). Just like having fonts that are hard to read, a very strong and striking colors on the website – that don’t match – can hurt the eyes even more. Color schemes should be pleasing to eyes. Choosing the right Pantone for your website is the first step in correcting this mistake.
  • Tacky and obsolete designs can ruin a website surfing experience. Filipinos are natural suckers for beauty. It is always the things that are pleasing to the eye which always get more attention.

tacky-web-design-and-color-scheme

Top 3: No Product or Services information.

  • This is one of the most unforgivable mistakes in some of SMEs websites. One of the key search intent of users is informational (know). And usually, most of the key phrases searched in Google or in other search engines have products and service search strings.
  • In the Philippines, 60% of the population with access to the internet still uses search engines as their portal for searching products and services. If your website doesn’t have any substantial information about your products and/or services, then the higher the likelihood that you’ll lose business online.

Top 2: No address, directions or business hours.

  • Number two in the list is not including the business address, map, and business/operation hours. These details are some of the crucial information that should be reflected on your website especially if your business is gearing towards the retail side. This information should be present not just in your contact us page, but also in every footer of the pages in your website.

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Top 1: Outdated Contact information.

  • Of all, this is the most unforgivable mistake businesses do. You are putting up a website online as a tool to help or boost your online operations. And one of the most important information in your website is your contact information. Outdated contact information only assures you a failing online business.
  • It is a rule of thumb that as you change contact numbers, it is immediately updated on your web page to refrain from confusions.

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Keeping a website surely takes some resources. But keeping it well and updating it always pay you back. If you are having a hard time making your website look fresh and updated, iManila is the best digital service provider that you are looking for.

For more information about our web design and development service, email us at [email protected] or at [email protected]. You can also give us a call at (02) 490-0000 or at (02) 565-4064.

 

SMEs Guide: It pays to understand your market online

 

As we all know, marketing is an essential business element from small to large businesses. Marketing is both an art and science because it needs both the critical and the creative part of your brain to be executed well.

Having said that, understanding your audience and how they behave is a crucial element before starting with any marketing activities. And if you are considering digital marketing for this, you need to deepen your understanding by coming up with a buyer persona that specifically and analyze their behavior online.

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Because digital marketing revolves greatly on timing and a strong grasp of the online behavior of your audience or market.  That makes experimentation and open-mindedness as entrepreneurial essentials to utilize digital marketing well.

To give a strong understanding of Filipino audience online, below are quick fact check to help you make your first step in digital marketing:

1) OVERVIEW

Philippne-Digital-Overview

2) TIME INVENTORY

Philippine-Online-users-time-spent

You can see in the data presented above by We are social Singapore, that more than half of the country’s population are the internet and mobile users. That is a strong signal that a large chunk of the country can potentially see your online marketing efforts.

With such staggering statistics, one must be out of his or her mind to not utilize such data to his or her market advantage. Formulate a strategic business plan centered around the searching behavior of your market’s niche and voila, watch your following increase by multiple folds. Your market is online. You just have to do an in-depth analysis of the data and from there craft a marketing concept.

Shift in Online Behavior

The truth is, your audience behave a little different online. They can transform into a different person or they completely became their true selves without holding back, and that affects how they gravitate and consume content online.

Experiment, experiment, experiment!

The best way to approach this behavior is by preparing different personas that could relate to your brand. Dissect these personas and their possible behaviors online and do experiments. Release different sets of content to a single persona and do with the other. Check which content earns a better response per persona and compared it all together. The one that emerged as the best content that attracts the majority of your potential personas is what you need to stick to.

The key to understanding your market is going beyond one’s gut feel. What you need to do is to go again the same process of content experimentation until you get the right formula that your market really likes.

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With the advancement in the world of information technology, the audience behavior continuously evolves that it is hard sometimes for marketers and businesses to keep up.

The process could be a little tedious but the outcomes are very rewarding when done right. Always take in mind that success of your marketing campaign always lie in how well you know your market, especially online.

Jollibee Valentine Series: A content that delivers

 

The Philippine social media scene was taken by a storm of reactions as one of the most popular food chains released a series of ads in lieu of Valentine’s Day tomorrow. Jollibee has taken the heart of many once again with their all new Jollibee Valentine Series.

Some liked it, some had their hearts broken, and some even to a lighter “meme” approach to express their sentiments.

With all these mixed emotions and voices that users posted and shared in the past days, one thing is for sure – Jollibee delivered more than what it was supposed to.

This milestone in Philippine advertising proved that content truly delivered when they are done precisely and artistically. The question now is: How can other brands recreate, or maybe even top, Jollibee’s campaign?

The answer to this question varies. Here’s why:

For a brand that has witnessed generations of diners come and go, Jollibee has basically a solid foundation in terms of knowing exactly what its market profile is. The brand has been part of the different phases of a customer’s life such as parties, celebrations, meetups, dates, desperations, and probably even heartaches.

The point here is, Jollibee is few meters ahead in terms of market domination and profiling hence, their ability to pull some stories from their experiences.

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For start-up brands, breakthroughs are very rare especially in terms of marketing virality. You can start by profiling your market step by step. Know them little by little until you get the bigger picture of who they really are. Knowing them well is the initial step in creating the content that they’ll most likely engage with, the one that really appeals to them.

It’s similar to how you try to learn everything about your significant other that getting the “perfect” gift for them becomes second nature to you.

The human emotion is a complex yet beautiful side of humanity. No matter how rational a person is, a dominant emotion – in some cases – overrides the most rational thoughts.

Human emotions are like test tubes of delicate and potentially destructive chemicals in a laboratory. There are vitriols, dopamines, oxytocins, and adrenalines – of which one cannot be mixed with another one without carefully getting the right proportion.

Jollibee has carefully picked the right emotion for each of its Valentine videos. The core emotion served as the binder and reference point of the content. From words, to shot lists, and down to the acting of the cast – all of these speaks to the core emotion of the entire concept of the content.

For start-ups, this process can be achieved by creating content with different emotional inclinations. Releasing it alternately on different channels can give you data where you can draw your conclusion – as to which one works well with your market.

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Admit it or not, we love something that we can fully relate to. Not just on the basis of what we felt when watching but more of the identifying ourselves as part of that content. How did Jollibee achieve that? By tackling social realities.

How many Filipinos have suffered a loss of a family member, a parent, or a spouse perhaps? And not being with the person you love in one of the most celebrated events of the year will definitely bring tears to your eyes.

How about being trapped in a “best friend zone”? How frustrating can it get for someone not to get the one he loves despite being close to her?

Oh wait, did I forget about our crushes? Every one of us has experienced a phase in our lives when we felt that piercing strike of cupid’s arrow.

These realities are what people gravitate towards. It is like speaking in behalf of those who cannot directly express themselves in their most heartbreaking, depressing, and even to the happiest times.

For start-up brands, these can be achieved by stringent observation of your market’s psyche. Frankly, this kind of approach can be achieved when the brand matures, or when the brand has identified its market and their common psyche. Because getting the right social reality to incorporate to your content takes a lot of years to perfect.

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Content is, and always be the best marketing asset until this age. The channels may have changed but the market is resilient. The best way to make content viral and successful is to always make your audience/market the center of your communications – not your firm or the people running it.

Do you want to know how to kickstart a good social media marketing? Contact Us at (02) 490-0000 or email us at [email protected].

B2B Blogging Best Practices

 

For some marketers, maintaining top quality blogs are a chore. The process of coming up with a content calendar, finding the right resources, and figuring out the right angle to make the blog much interesting, is such a tough feat.

But no matter how hard it is to maintain a decent and effective blogging tactic, it is still an indispensable method in bringing traffic to your website and to improve your website’s SERP (search engine results page) ranking. Here are some pointers to help you optimize your website’s blog.

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Word Length Performances

Truth be told, B2B blogs should be 500 to 1,000 words. Anything that goes beyond 1000 words is draggy, while anything less than 500 isn’t authoritative. In coming up with blogs for the audience whom you treat as potential clients, below are the following details to take note:

The topic should be beneficial to in terms of:

  • Their function at work,
  • Their output at work
  • Image to maintain at work
  • Image to maintain in their social sphere

Frequency of Posts

According to one of the leading marketing software provider – Hubspot, companies who published more than 16 posts per month saw traffic increase by 3.5x more than those who only published up to 4 posts per month.

This insight was put into test by an Internet consulting firm – Strategic and below are the findings:

  • The number of blog posts on our site grows 6 to 181
  • A 1271% increase in traffic
  • Organic traffic grows from 143 sessions per month at the outset, to1817 sessions per month in March 2016.

However, the bottom-line that marketers should always keep in mind to make this work is that all blog content should be well written and well mapped to resonate with specific buyers persona challenges of their respective companies. And, should be posted to target and relevant social media channels.

Key Takeaways For Effective B2B Blogs

These statistics show that for B2B blogs to produce best measurable benefit within Inbound marketing campaigns, they should:

Be regular: you should produce close to 16+ per month if possible.

Generally stay around 500-800 words long (though variation is fine!).

Your posts should also be written to address your persona’s common business challenges and be regularly promoted via your own company social media channels.

Quality, persona-targeted blog content can enhance search rank, boost traffic, attract higher quality leads and establish your brand as trusted niche expert.

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To get started with your blogging strategy this 2017, you need to list all the challenges your target personas have and link them to the services or products that your company provides. The end goal ALWAYS is that your offerings (be it a service or product) is the answer to put an end to those business challenges.

If you find it a little rough to get started with blogging, reach out to us. iManila, provides content marketing solutions such as website copywriting, blogging, email newsletters and content writing to pumped-up your content marketing. Call us at (02) 490-0000 or send us an email at [email protected]. You can also visit our website at https://imanila.ph for more information on our services.

 

Sources:

(1) Hubspot

(2) Strategic Internet Consulting