6 Reasons Why you Should Get a Blog for Your Website
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6 Reasons Why you Should Get a Blog for Your Website

When you opt for website development services the first thing that should be on your mind is the fact that your website should be an active one, not a static platform that is lost in the Internet’s timeless limbo. The best way to make your website stay alive is to power it with inbound marketing techniques like business blogging, the benefits of which are manifold. Here is a look at 6 reasons why you must opt for a blog when getting a website developed.

  • Blogs generate traffic

Blogs are a cost-effective way of driving traffic to your website. All major search engines show a strong affinity to fresh, relevant and original content and they throw up search results based on this affinity. So your website has a greater chance of being indexed owing to its blogs. Moreover, insertion of industry- relevant keywords in blogs helps drive relevant traffic to your website.

  • Engage with customers

Engagement with customers online is a very crucial part of online marketing and branding. Blogs are one of the most interactive and engaging mediums of information dissemination and connecting with old and new customers. People on the Internet are hungry for relevant information written conversationally and your blogs can be a free gift of information to them. Moreover, if customers respond in the comments section, you can reply to their concerns and queries.

  • Build your brand

Every product or service has to have brand value in the market for it to sell. Building your brand and having a brand story is as important as selling your product or service because customers tend to prefer brands they can trust. Blogs help you spell out your core business values, what you essentially stand for, the nature of your products and services and how you value your customers and clientele. They serve as the book ends to your business.

  • Demonstrate expertise

Blogs are an excellent medium to flaunt your domain knowledge and expertise in your field of operation. You can write blogs on the production process or touch on topics related to your product’s market and trends – anything that catches the reader’s eye. And the more original and relevant the content, the more will your customers, clients and even competitors trust you.

  • Market Digitally

Blogs, if they are interesting, information-rich and unique, can find wide traction on the Internet and even beyond with people sharing the blog through phones and social media. This in turn helps market your brand widely and inexpensively. It can also lead to conversion to leads if people choose to click on your call-to-action buttons in the blogs they have particularly taken a liking to.

  • Pen down your thoughts

Blogs are a great way to express yourself and communicate to the world what you really believe in and stand for. It is a great medium to help you assert your individuality and stand apart from the crowd that is the Internet.

Now that you have a fair idea about the importance of blogs to your website, you should try to generate blog ideas and content regularly for visitors and search engines to know you are alive and kicking. Sprout Road, a premier website builder in Kolkata, recommends you enlist the services of a professional content writer for your blog section so you can put out quality content regularly.

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Why The COVID-19 Lockdown is The Best Time to Take Your Business Online
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Why The COVID-19 Lockdown Is The Best Time To Take Your Business Online

The deadly COVID-19 pandemic has forced economies across the world to a grinding halt. Countries have issued lockdown decrees and travel bans to abate the spread of the coronavirus that has, as of April 21, 2020, infected over 24 lakh people and caused 1,67,000 deaths.

Small businesses have shut shop, factory production has slowed down and consumption has dipped across the world. In such a situation, while we wait with bated breath for the pandemic to pass over, it will be wise to think of ways to overhaul your business strategy – in other words, take your business online.

Here are a few reasons why you should take your business online.

Online Shopping

In a post-COVID-19 world, more customers will be shopping online than they ever did for fear of contracting infection. In fact, a study by the NRF (National Retail Federation) says

  • 9 in 10 consumers have changed their traditional shopping habits.
  • More than 50% of consumers have ordered products online that they would normally purchase at a store
  • Nearly 6 in 10 consumers say they are worried about going to the store due to fear of being infected

Low Demand, High Supply

For some companies selling luxury or non-essential items, demand has virtually disappeared. Customers are refraining from buying expensive watches or handbags simply because they do not really “need” them though they might “want” to possess them.

In this new need-based economic atmosphere, it would be best to take your store online so that you might be able to make yourself virtually present, 24/7, before your customer even if she is not driving down to your brick and mortar store. Having an online store or a website might as well convert “want” to “need” in these days of a nation-wide lockdown.

Improving Company image

Taking your business online is like presenting your customers and clients with a well-designed and thoughtful calling card. It improves brand visibility on the Internet and it lends your company credibility. You simply lose to competitors who have a professional website to go with their businesses.

Even if your business is not designed to be an online one, you can still have a website and generate leads through chatbots or customer care portals online. You can follow these up the next day from any-where you operate from. Taking your business online is the surest way to convert leads to sales.

So, if you have not already taken your business online, please start planning to do so today. The lockdown has given us ample time to rethink business strategies, so we might as well make the most of it. Best, Sprout Road

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10 Free Tools To Help You Work From Home
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10 Free Tools To Help You Work From Home

Slowly coming to terms with the changes forced upon us by the spread of COVID-19? It is difficult, shifting work to your home premises. But it is not impossible.

Here is a list of some free tools that can make the transition to working from home smoother and hassle-free.

  • Slack – It is a great collaboration hub that allows you to share files and communicate in groups as well as on a one-on-one basis.

  • Google Hangouts –It brings to life conversations through texts, audio and video connections on a one-on-one basis and for groups.
  • Zoom–It is a platform that allows you to hold video meetings and host virtual presentations online. It offers real time chats and video recording features as well.
  • Skype–It is a free communications tool that helps you connect with as many as 50 people through audio or video conferencing. 
  • AirTable–This is a strong tool that helps manage data and inventory on visually appealing spreadsheets so you can keep track of what your team is doing.
  • Asana –It helps teams structure work and tasks and helps team leaders and team members track progress and completion of tasks.
  • GitHub–It is a crucial free tool used to facilitate design and development, used as it is for version control and viewing, sharing and collaborating on code developed by team members.
  • Chrome DevTools–It is used for web development and the software is built directly into the Google Chrome browser.
  • Grammarly– It is a great platform used for writing on and editing documents with.
  • Google Drive– It is best for sharing files and collaborating on them with remote team members.

Try these tools out, according to your needs and preferences. For more on the subject, check out our previous blog here – www.sproutroad.com/how-you-can-work-from-home-during-covid-19-some-free-tools.

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Tips to Increase Your E-Commerce Sales
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Tips to Increase Your E-Commerce Sales

Have an online store and wondering how to boost sales in times like these? Every online store must be thinking on the same lines, actually.

It can be especially challenging to put in place effective business strategies when the spread of the deadly COVID-19 virus has affected economies the world over.

That is why we have put together this article to help you understand some ways whereby you can increase online sales. Read on to know more.

Email Marketing

While you must be engrossed in putting money into paid marketing strategies on the Internet, a less expensive and more profitable exercise is automated email marketing.

It allows you to directly communicate with a customer and send him or her relevant and timely messages, especially if you want to upsell a product.

Upsell a Product

Upsells refer to selling or showcasing a product of higher value and better quality to a buyer who has opted to buy a certain product.

For instance, if you are looking to buy a phone online and your online store advertises or pushes for a higher-grade model of the same series and the same company, it amounts to upselling a product.

That way, you might end up selling a more expensive product to a customer.

Showcase product benefits

Since all you have to showcase a product is photographs, ensure these are professionally clicked against a clear backdrop, preferably white. Ensure the lighting is right and the camera quality good.

Also, polish up your product descriptions and add as many details regarding dimensions, colour and terms of use and your return policy.

Customer Testimonials

Mandatorily ask for user testimonials on the checkout page of you platform so you have an arsenal of feedback that you can use to your benefit.

Be a proud seller and showcase these customer testimonials to prospective buyers. These testimonials can feature anywhere on your web site – on landing pages, on the product page or on the home page.

Manufacture Urgency

There is no harm in creating a sense of urgency around your product sale. It gives the buyer incentive and a time frame to buy you product in.

And do not forget to follow up sales with an after-sale email that is a thoughtful way of building a relationship with your customer.

There are more technical ways to boost sales as well (take optimising your website pages or getting more Ad Clicks with Ad Extensions). But this article sheds light on some of the humbler points to remember while strategizing for an increase in sales that often get overlooked. Hope this helped. Best, Sprout Road

To get an e-commerce website or to setup avenues for your business, get in touch with us here.

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Watch what you Search with the All-New Google Bert Update!
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Watch what you Search with the All-New Google Bert Update!

Every time Google releases a new update, it is almost like a storm running across the world of digital marketers and SEO enthusiasts. The Search engine giant released many such core updates with the likes of Panda, Penguin, Pigeon, and Humming Bird, to get the better of its rivals. Now, when we least expected it, BOOM, came the update, Bert, to watch over your content!

What should you know about Bert?

Google launched the Bert update recently, rolling out what they referred to as the most important update in five years.

Bert (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers) is the fruit of the rapid progress of Deep Learning infused with the dynamic Natural language processing technology. This update is mainly aimed at making the complicated search queries easier for our favorite search engine, based on which, you will be getting more accurate results.

The esteemed search engine has been grasping our queries quite accurately for a while now but what it lacked is the knowledge of the context and of the nuances of the English language itself. Due to this, the popular search engine may have got you some disastrously wrong results. However, it will no longer affect us, with this latest update.

This is what Google has to say about its brand new update:

“These improvements are oriented around improving language understanding, particularly for more natural language/conversational queries, as BERT is able to help Search better understand the nuance and context of words in Searches and better match those queries with helpful results.

Particularly for longer, more conversational queries, or searches where prepositions like “for” and “to” matter a lot to the meaning, Search will be able to understand the context of the words in your query. You can search in a way that feels natural for you.”

Particularly for longer, more conversational queries, or searches where prepositions like “for” and “to” matter a lot to the meaning, Search will be able to understand the context of the words in your query. You can search in a way that feels natural for you.”

Understanding Bert with Examples

Bert may seem confusing to you but it will help Google ease out. It is an algorithm update that will make things simpler for the technological juggernaut.

For example: if I searched “how to go fish?” before October, Google would have offered me articles, pictures/video links bearing “fish” and “fishing”. The query is a crucial one because “go fish” is also the name of a card game besides portraying the idea of “fishing”.

However, if you type the same query and search now after the update, you will only get relevant pictures and links of the game “Go Fish”.

Now, if you modify the query by changing “fish” to “fishing”, it would return you relevant details about fishing and how you can go about it.

Bert and its Effects!

Ever since the update was rolled out, Bert seems to benefit the websites with lucid, compact content, which are written interactively and punish poorly written/unclear content and subsequently, the websites bearing them.

So, if the thoughts of working on your On Page SEO strategy once again from the scratch are giving you nightmares, then you are in luck. This is because you won’t have to change anything from your end, but rather tweak your content and improve the overall quality of writing them.

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SEO for Business: 6 Mantras to Achieve Success
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SEO for Business: 6 Mantras to Achieve Success

Want to increase your brand’s visibility?
Want to drive more user traffic?
Want to enjoy high conversion rate?
Want to flourish in a slow economy?

A powerful WEBSITE is the answer. A strong digital presence is the key to success.

However, every day, thousands of people search for products and services online. So, how to make sure your business (website) secures a dominant position amongst a vast number of competitors?

An effective SEO strategy is what you need.

SEO for Business: Your Guide to Success

From Visually.

Finally, after all these updates, you get an SEO-optimized website that works better, attracts lead and trigger profit.

To partner with us, click here: https://sproutroad.com/contact-us

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The Biggest SEO Trends of 2019
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The Biggest SEO Trends of 2019

2019 has been a crucial year for SEO due to numerous reasons.

With AI, Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality driving the digital marketing landscape, it’s time we take charge before things get a bit overwhelming. As SEO professionals, we need to dominate the SERPs, generate more revenue and stay ahead of the curve.

Here are the top 10 SEO trends to watch out in 2019:

Understand User Intent and Audience

What does your targeted audience like? Texts, images or videos?

Answering this is all the more important this year, according to the experts. You need to understand what your audience is expecting from you and deliver them the solution in the easiest way possible.

Look Beyond Google Search Engine

 In 2019, we expect a steady rise of Amazon and Apple search engines. No more would it be enough to optimize Google; you have to take into account other search engines as well. You need to look beyond the websites, optimize for devices and drive engagement to your products, said Cindy Krum, CEO of MobileMoxie.

Use Structured Data As Much As Possible

Use Structured Data As Much As Possible

As AI is becoming the power tool for Google, the use of structured data is rapidly increasing simultaneously. JP Sherman, enterprise search expert at Red Hat shared that you should start comprehending structured data, active and passive search behaviors, and understanding how they adhere to behaviors that depict intent. Establishing contextual relationships between behaviors and topics is the key.

Content Is Still King

2018’s Google algorithm updates revealed that the search engine giant is acutely focusing on churning out high-quality content and rewarding sites that guarantee best in-depth content experiences. Last year, websites that offered incredible depth in quality content soared in page rankings while those that were weaker in content depth suffered.

E-A-T

Establish and enhance your expertise, authority and trustworthiness – collectively known as EAT- according to Google’s search quality rating guidelines.

“Although the E-A-T guidelines are written for Google’s algorithm raters, rather than Google’s algorithm itself, it helps us to understand where Google is heading in the short term,” said Dixon Jones, founder of DHJ Ventures. “I think this will help SEOs start to understand that ‘quality’ comes with context. You cannot rank so easily writing authoritative content unless you are already an authority on a given subject.”

Technical SEO

Day by day, websites are becoming more complex. Investment in technical SEO is now an absolute necessity. Corporate houses, who want to reap maximum benefit has to consider the glorious aspects of technical SEO. Speed, JavaScript and Progressive Web Apps are few technical areas in focus.

Focus on On-page Optimization

On-page SEO tactics continue fetching desirable results. Companies, big and small, are still witnessing incredible results from on-page optimization. It is great for driving traffic and increasing your online search presence.

2019: Year for Voice Search

2019: Year for Voice Search

Voice optimization is the strategy of the year. Last year, we saw the advent of voice search and how it gained immense attention. It is expected to become more popular and important in 2019. Michael Bonfils, MD of SEM International added that voice search is deemed to be a game-changer for multilingual and MNC websites shortly.

Impact of Machine Learning is Likely to Double

Machine learning is being adopted to curate unique content for SEO. AI coupled with data analysis and reporting is now the new imperative to decode failures and successes. Expect layout changes and a swooshing drive to address intents instead of questions.

Optimize for Feature Snippets and Google SERP Features

“Answer boxes, recipes, the knowledge graph, carousels, and who-knows-what-else will take an even bigger bite out of organic traffic,” pointed out Ian Lurie, CEO and founder of Portent. “That makes SEO even more important because exposure is as much about visibility in the SERPs as it is about clicks.”

As end notes, we’ve just scratched the surface till now. For more interesting updates on SEO trends and insights, follow us on Facebook and Instagram.

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In the Battle of Keywords, Short Tail or Long Tail?
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In the Battle of Keywords, Short Tail or Long Tail?

Keywords are the building blocks of Search Engine Optimization. The success and the failure of an SEO strategy are single-handedly decided by them.

Broadly speaking, keywords are of two types: Short tail and Long tail keywords. Now, let’s have a quick glimpse of what they are.

Short Tail Keywords

These are the smallest combination of words which might not make complete sense but apparently, makes some sense when typed on the internet. Most of the times short tail keywords are of 3 words or less.

They are not very specific but target a wide audience. For instance: “best smartphones”, “Vatican tour online”, “Chinese food delivery”, “temples” and so on. These keywords are basically the head terms out of the nascent idea, which first strikes our mind.

Vatican tours online

Long-Tail Keywords

Long-tail keywords can be defined as the mature version of the short-tail keywords. They are usually more than 3 words and make sense. Furthermore, they have specifications included which are tweaked according to the wants of the users. 

They are very specific and do not target a wide audience but the right audience. For example, “best psychedelic rock songs by Pink Floyd”, “TMT steel bars production in India”, “guitar tapping lesson by Guthrie Govan”, “credit risk modelling certification” and the likes.

credit risk modelling certification

Which one to go for? A Comparative Analysis

Speculations are always high when it comes to short-tail and long-tail keywords, with each having their own share of advantages and disadvantages. So, let’s dig deep into them:

Volume of Traffic

If you want to increase the volume of the searches, tirelessly, then you should desert your long-tail keywords and instead go for their shorter versions. So, opt for the short tail keywords and rank them first to get your website running with a good amount of organic traffic.

Thus, the short-tail keywords win it comfortably when it comes to Traffic Volume.

Competition

You would have to involve a large team or else you would need a while to rank your short tail keywords for sure. This is because the competition for the short tail keywords is extremely high.

This is quite obvious because the search volume for these keywords generally remains pretty high in contradiction to the long-tail keywords, which are easier to rank, with less competition and a low search volume.

Long-tail keywords score big in terms of Competition.

Focus

When it comes to short-tail keywords, as they are less specific, you would see irrelevant results popping up annoying you all the time. But, as far as the long-tail keywords are concerned, they are very much specific and adequately filtered to provide you with the results you want.

Thus, the long-tail keywords steal it from the short-tail keywords when Focus is concerned.

Cost-Effectiveness

Cost-effectiveness would depend completely on how experienced and efficient a person or his team is, in SEO. However, talking about the general expense, the short-tail keywords have a hell lot of money involved to get them going. Google AdWords would manage to squeeze a pretty large sum if you opt for the short-tail keywords. This is because of the higher volume of searches that they fetch. On the contrary, expenses are pretty less if you are looking for the long-tail keywords.

Therefore, if you have a limited budget, it is always recommended to get past the little amount of competition and rank your website on the long-tail keywords.

Conversions

If you look at the conversion rates, it is definitely high if you have the right traffic on your website. This is only possible with the long-tail keywords, which are pinpointed. The short tail keywords, on the other hand, will encourage huge traffic with a wee bit of conversions.

We hope this post has been helpful to you. In conclusion, you should be aware of everything and confident in your SEO strategies to rank your website. It doesn’t matter whether you use short tail or long-tail keywords and/or variations of them, but the keywords you choose and the niche of your website are paramount in importance. So, be focused and determined in the long run to succeed!

If you are interested in informative blogs similar to this, keep checking our website. You can also follow Sprout Road on Facebook and Instagram to get all the latest updates!


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How SEO Professionals Survive During Economic Downturns?
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How SEO Professionals Survive During Economic Downturns?

No second thoughts – SEO is all the rage now. The SEO professionals seem to be in a pretty decent state. The economy is thriving and there’s room for business for nearly everyone.

But, this won’t last long. The economy cycles through phases of growth and regression. Thus, an economic downturn is simply inevitable. During the slump phase, businesses cut expenses and marketing is one of the first areas to witness budget cuts.

Good News: As an SEO professional, you don’t have to feel bogged down anymore. Your ability to wield revenue is no more subject to economic oscillation. Ahead, we’ve rounded up 4 key steps that would help you survive (or even thrive) in a recession:  

Boost Marketing Activities

In a slow economy, businesses reduce marketing expenses, which sometimes leads to catastrophic outcomes. We won’t say you shouldn’t restrict your expenses, but we will urge you to review your marketing tactics and remove ineffective channels and outdated programs. Refinement is the key.

The money thus saved should be reinvested into new marketing campaigns or into the older ones that are already running. Plus, if you are in luck, you might avail advertising opportunities at lower costs. Slow economy, at times, drives out the competitors (reason: reduced marketing budget) – giving you leverage.

Target Direct Sales

‘Sales’ is a very tricky word for SEO professionals. But, you have to engage in significant sales activities if you want to succeed in a dwindling economy. That doesn’t mean you have to initiate high-pressure sales pitch, instead, plan a strategic sales campaign.

The goal is to build a relationship with the client. Try to establish communication through mail, phone or even face-to-face meetings. From there, you can start the qualifying process and decide if he/she is fit for the sales pitch or not, and at the right time, pitch them hard.

Establish Relationships As Much As Possible

Relationships dictate business success and failure. Many in the SEO industry hide in their glass-and-steel workspaces avoiding people…. That’s a big mistake. It results in several missed opportunities. Favorable relationships open doors of success. They can even generate new leads and connect you to valuable partners. The mantra is to build a positive bond and nurture it well. It doesn’t have to be always face-to-face. You can maintain it over the phone or online.

So, connect to people, establish healthy communication and build meaningful relationships, online and offline as well.

Implement a System That Generates Referrals

Business referrals work wonders! But, the challenge is to get a quality referral. Why? Because most of the organizations don’t have a proper system! That’s why we suggest you have a system that will enhance the process of receiving referrals. It should be easier and frequent. For that, you have to first stop playing the game of chance and request clients for a referral.

Most of the clients revaluate their marketing efforts several times a year. So, keep asking them time and again. However, make sure you are never too pushy or too blunt. Use the right words and the right tone.

“David, you know I’m always looking for more clients like you, so I wanted to ask a small favor. Would you be willing to introduce me to anyone you know who might want to grow their business?”

 Simple and to the point, this kind of sentences can help you get good referrals.

 For more such interesting updates, follow us on Facebook and Instagram.

The blog has been sourced from ― www.searchenginejournal.com/how-seo-professionals-thrive-slow-economy

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