His story is a paradigm of entrepreneurial visionary creation: Steve Jobs co-founded the company- Apple in his parents’ garage in the year 1976, was sacked in 1985, resurrected to save it from severe bankruptcy in 1997, and until the day he died, in October 2011, he had established it into becoming the world’s most profitable business. He managed to help transform several sectors along the way: animated movies, music, personal computing, retail stores, digital publishing, tablet computing, and phones.
With a successful venture into Pixar’s computer animation, Toy Story was produced as such a high-quality film that industry powerhouse Disney decided to pick the company. Steve Jobs’ last invention was the iPad, a portable device to replace the Desktop. Jobs needed a device to increase cognitive computing capacity for all the information in the world accessible on a smaller screen.
Steve Jobs, John Alan Lasseter & Pixar
When Steve Jobs decided to purchase Pixar in 1986, a talented animator named John Lasseter had to rope in Jobs for an animated short film. This was Lasseter’s first formal encounter with his new boss. Jobs only had a suggestion—”make it great. “The short film, Tin Toy, ended up winning the very first Academy Award ever granted to computer animation and laid the standard as to what eventually became Toy Story. Lasseter, who has become the chief creative director at Walt Disney Animation Studios (and Frozen’s exec producer), claimed it was the most in-depth guidance he’s ever got.
The company’s biggest achievement began in 1991 after Disney announced an investment in producing and releasing Pixar’s first motion picture. Initially more interested in NeXT’s prospects, Jobs immediately entered into negotiations and helped work out a three-movie contract for 12.5 percent of box office revenue. While Lasseter and the design team progressed on what would become Toy Story, Jobs recruited CFO Lawrence Levy to hammer through the mechanics of preparing the firm for a public offering.
In an interview with Steve Jobs in 1996, Lasseter said- “What Pixar does it so extraordinary that we have taken a look at this new technology- computer animation and we don’t look at it as a way to replace any of the creativity or any of the art of filmmaking we still we look at it as these are just not great new expensive pencils you know that’s what it says is this artist using these computers as a young artist at Disney use a piece of paper and a pencil and because the focus of what we do is still where it’s most important and that’s with the story and the characters I think toy story is a success not because it’s computer-generated, it is a success because it has characters of Buzz Light year and Woody and in the storyline that really has captivated audience.”
Jobs scheduled an IPO date following the release of Toy Story during Thanksgiving in 1995, linking the company’s future to the global box office performance of its first sizable endeavor. It turned to be a profitable game, as the convergence of Pixar ‘s technological wonders, a heart-warming movie, and Tom Hanks and Tim Allen’s voices steered Toy Story to an incredible $30 million opening weekend (on the way to a $365 million international revenue). Days later, following its first trade day, Pixar closed at $39 a share, the once-struggling business soon priced at $1.5 billion.
Tell a compelling story, unpredictable components that keep the audience on the edge of their seat.
Populate the story with really appealing and memorable characters and put that story in those characters in a believable world, believable for the story.
Do not go realistic; one should not be interested in reproducing reality.
Jobs acknowledged creativity, originality, and inventiveness was the result of unexpected gatherings. He believed, “You run into someone and ask what they’re doing. Then you realize the connections, and soon you’re cooking up all sorts of ideas.” The atrium of the Pixar building laid the groundwork for unplanned encounters. Official structures need to establish connections with sparks to fly and facilitate wondrous spontaneity.
The success of Apple Design
“What I love about the creative process, and this may sound naive, but it is this idea that one day there is no idea, and no solution, but the next day there is an idea. I find that incredibly exciting and conceptually actually remarkable.” – Jony Ive
Jobs had only just decided to return to Apple in 1997 and intended to reignite the company’s groundbreaking and inventive soul. He needed the design to be at the center of this regeneration. Because Apple was a tech corporation at that point, anyone might have anticipated Jobs to have been searching for an experienced machine designer — someone among the industry’s most regarded.
Well, he did not. Ive had been an independent design consultant in London before he joined Apple. His business, Tangerine, became engaged in the planning and designing of household products (for instance, Tangerine had been an advisor for Ideal Standard, then a dominant figure in the plumbing and bathroom industry). The young designer relocated to Apple in the year 1992, but his projects prior to 1997 just weren’t particularly successful. Hence, choosing him as senior vice president of industrial design at that point seemed like an arbitrary decision. Steve believed in looking into the future and not the past while collaborating with innovators. In hindsight, this turned out to be a brilliant decision. Jobs did not hire someone to create and design another beige box.
The very first product designed under Ive’s supervision was the iMac G3, which was launched in 1998. It was hailed as among the most innovative desktop computers ever launched, with a design layout that was completely unique to the sector: a pleasant shell in translucent reflective plastic and an ovoid design that defied the prevailing model of unpopular beige frames.
The gadgets designed by Apple under the guidance of Ive, with all their simplicity and elegance, have reiterated that design is all about fantastic people creating incredible stuff. By launching these smartphones or tablets and computers on a scale of splendor, they are enshrining the elitism of intricate design.
Steve Jobs excelled in the production of compact systems that smashed computing performance hurdles. Jobs’ interest was extended to both big and minor problems. Several other CEOs are fantastic creative geniuses, while some believe that God is in the detail. Jobs contribute to the legion of the true pioneers, inventors, and visionaries of America (and the world), alongside Nikola Tesla, Walt Disney, and Thomas Edison. Neither of these people was a paragon of virtue, but even after their identities are lost, history will recall how they implemented their ingenuity to technology, business, and engineering.
“Hypnotized people are marching towards the central hall where they are being addressed by a televised Big Brother. A blond girl in athletic shorts and a white tank top enters with a hammer. She runs towards the screen and hurls the hammer towards it. There is a huge explosion as the hammer hits the screen. It is followed by scrolling black text—“On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you’ll see why 1984 won’t be like 1984.”
That’s how the script of 1984 ad for Apple Macintosh goes on the screen.
Aired in 1984 during Super Bowl American football tournament, the ad aimed to create buzz for Apple Macintosh to be launched shortly.
The TV commercial is also appeared to be a spoof on the monopoly of its arch-rival, IBM.
The 60-second ad was directed by Ridley Scott who has already shot into the fame for Blade Runner and later made Alien and Gladiator.
1984 was inspired from George Orwell’s 1949 novel of the same name which depicted a dystopian future “ruled by a televised Big Brother”. George Orwell in his novel opined how computers would control the world like Big Brother. But the ad showed the end of that “control”.
Interestingly, the ad wasn’t well-received by experts who declared it a great flop. Thanks to its futuristic approach and strange plot with keeping the product in suspense.
John Sculley, then CEO of Apple, recalled the moment after the ad was showed to the board—
“The others just looked at each other, dazed expressions on their faces … Most of them felt it was the worst commercial they had ever seen. Not a single outside board member liked it.”
Even the marketing firm that was testing the ad declared it the “least effective” ad they’ve ever worked on. The average score for a commercial was 29, but the 1984 ad managed to score only 5 in their testing.
And this was the same advertisement that stunned the entire nation when released.
The impact was so huge that people used to rush to electronic stores across the nation to buy Macintosh.
The next three months after the Super Bowl witnessed the sale of Macintoshes worth $155 million.
While the ad made Mac one of the best-selling computers of its time, it helped Apple turn into a computing giant.
It also made into the list of the greatest ads ever made. In fact, 1984 is credited to start the current era of Super Bowl ad, in which ads are as popular as the game itself.
Why Apple 1984 was a dream success? How it influenced people to buy Macintosh?
The success ingredients of the ad go beyond those cinematic experience and futuristic approach.
It hit the bull’s eye because of these factors…
Rebellious Nature of Apple:
IBM used to have a monopoly over the computer market in the 1980s.
This was also the time when many new computer companies came into existence.
In the wake of all this, Apple, which rose from an electronic and hobbyist background, was looking to capitalize on its first commercial success, Apple II.
It was challenging to do in the market being dominated by IBM. IBM was alleged to remove “obstacles” in its way of glory.
The triggers of this ad can be sensed in the speech of Steve Jobs at the 1983 Apple Keynote—
“Apple is perceived to be the only hope to give IBM a run for its money. Dealers, once welcoming IBM with open arms now fear an IBM dominated and controlled future! They are increasingly and desperately turning back to Apple as the only force that can assure their future freedom!
IBM wants it all and is aiming its guns on its last obstacle to industry control – Apple! Will ‘Big Blue’ dominate the entire computer industry?”
Instead of adopting a mild strategy, Apple decided to take on IBM with its 1984 TV commercial. In the advertisement, the Big Brother is supposed to be IBM while the followers are its users.
Walter Isaacson, the author and journalist, said,”
“What the ad did was in Steve Jobs’ DNA into the soul of Apple. It became a company that was rebellious. That was for misfits and round pegs in square holes but people who wanted to control their own destiny.”
The theme of the ad was freedom vs. control and stagnation vs. innovation. And this message just clicked with the customers.
The Creative Vision of Steve Jobs:
Steve Jobs was a great visionary. He not only made his company grabbing market share from rivals but also revolutionized the way people work and communicate with Apple’s offerings.
No wonder that such “out of the box” ad was envisioned by Steve Jobs.
Talking about the work methodology of Steve Jobs, Brent Thomas, then art director of the Chiat/Day on the 1984 project, said—
“If the people that you had to first present to hated it, Jobs was going to like it. And conversely, if it went the other way, you knew Steve would kill it.”
Steve was a risk-taker and didn’t afraid of making a mistake.
Lee Clow, creative director of 1984, quoted Steve Jobs’ challenge,”
“I gotta introduce Macintosh. It’s gotta be dramatic; it gotta be famous, it gotta be different. I want something that nobody else would do.”
His creative risks can be seen in his approach to design, marketing and leadership. And 1984 ad was no exception.
The Promise of Innovative Technology:
The role of technology, according to Steve, is to empower people, not to control them.
His mission for Apple is better explained by Tim Cook as he says—
“His vision for Apple was a company that turned powerful technology into tools that were easy to use, tools that would help people realize their dreams and change the world for the better.,”
1984 ad seems to be the reflection of this vision.
The athletic girl throws a hammer at the screen—or in the face of Big Brother. It means that Apple Macintosh would break stagnant technology to provide innovative, fresh and useful devices to people. As stated in Steve Job’s speech, people were looking to overcome “dominated and controlled future” by a handful of computer companies.
The idea of Apple “to bring freedom, not control” worked. Apple really lived up to its promise as Macintosh turned out to be a game-changer of its time.
Bottom Line:
1984 was really an ahead of a time TV commercial. But that is not the only reason behind its success. The advertisement stands for the vision of Apple—to provide innovative and user-friendly technology. The theme of the ad was to break the shackles of monopoly and control to move towards freedom.
Apple has always stepped ahead of its competitors due to its belief in giving the world something innovative, something better, and something that can change their life.
The ad also teaches some valuable marketing lessons, from implying a fearless approach to aligning the product to the company’s vision.
What do you think? Let us know by commenting below!
How to optimize your content for improved traffic and visibility?
Generally, you insert keywords, create a meta-description, use heading tags and share it on other platforms.
Apart from ticking all these SEO boxes, you should do one more thing.
That’s optimizing the user reviews or feedback received on content.
User reviews speaks about the experience of visitors with your content. Some reviews can be good. Some can be negative. Whatever reviews you get, make sure to optimize them to improve your content.
For example, some readers ask you to update certain parts of your content. Or some are looking for video or some more tips. Once you make all these required changes suggested by your visitors, your content sounds better and efficient.
Here you will learn why and how to optimize user reviews to improve the performance of your content in SERPs. Let’s get started!
HOW OPTIMIZING CUSTOMER FEEDBACK CAN BENEFIT YOUR SEO?
The suggestions by your audience are useful in making your content relevant and potent. When your content sounds relevant and better, it can improve its ranking and visibility on the SERPs.
That’s not the only benefit associated with optimizing your customer reviews.
Have you ever thought that the reviews, whether they are good or bad, include certain keywords?
For example, a review that contains the phrase “the best SEO advice” can make your blog rank for the same keyword.
This also helps Google identify your blog or business, letting it to improve position in the SERPs.
As an added bonus, user reviews contain semantic keywords that are also useful.
Secondly, responding to the comments signifies to Google and users that your business cares for feedback and opinions.
You Don’t Have User Reviews? Here’s How You Can Generate Them
There is no shame in admitting that your blogs have little to no reviews on them. But it also prompts you to boost the engagement so that it attracts feedback from the readers.
Here are 8 tips that can help you in getting reviews on your blog.
1. Using CTA at the End of the Content:
Asking for feedback can be as simple as asking them for their thoughts at the very end of the blog. For example,
“Looking for your valuable opinion on this piece of writing!
It will encourage the readers to drop their feedback on your content.
2. Via Email:
Using email to ask for reviews is an effective approach. This is because over 90% of users open their email daily. And 58% of them check their email before doing anything else. Some readers might have subscribed to your blogs. If not, then you can go out to your user list.
Send emails to all of them asking for their feedback on your blogs or other pieces of content.
The message can be crafted like this:
“Hello Sam (it’s better if you personalize the mail using their name)!
Positive feedback from amazing readers like you helps us improve our blogs. Could you take a couple of seconds to go to this LINK and share your experiences? We will be grateful!“
3. Social Media:
Sharing your content via social media not only prompts the users to drop reviews but also encourage them to leave the feedback on the post.
4. Writing on the Trendy Topics:
Over the years, Quora has become a goldmine for webmasters to search popular queries posted by users. You can use these queries to create content.
5. Reddit:
Reddit is a great source of interesting and popular topics to choose from.
6. Email or Online Thread:
Ask your subscribers about their concerns so that you can create a blog on that. Online community or thread can be created to keep track of the most talked about things among your audience.
7. Competitor Research:
Look at your successful competitor’s to find out what keywords are they targeting to create content. The comments on their blogs can also help you figure out the relevant topic.
8. Google Search Console:
Last but not least—check out article’s queries in your Google Search Console to see if people are looking for your topics.
How to Run User Reviews Optimization for Your Content
We hope that the above-mentioned methods will help you attract feedback from the customers. Once you get sufficient amount of reviews on your content, it is time to optimize them.
1. Go through All the Comments:
There are many steps of optimizing reviews on your content. The first one is to analyze them. You need to read them all to get some key findings.
Are users happy with your contents? What are the points they do not agree with? Do they make any suggestions?
2. Respond to The Comments:
Whether the feedback is negative or positive, make sure to reply to all the comments. If some users are not happy with the details, assure them that you will make the relevant changes. And it costs nothing to say thanks to the visitors who appreciate your content. This will, as we have said before, will show that you care of your audience.
3. Make the Suggested Update or Changes:
Based on the feedbacks, add the relevant content as required by your audience as well as remove those irrelevant parts.
To understand this point better, let’s go through this example.
Your blog is on useful tips to create SEO friendly URLs. But some part of it becomes dated over time. Some readers are making you aware of this concern. However, that doesn’t mean you jump on making changes suggested by them.
Find out if they are right. If you conclude that their suggestions are worthy of implication, inform them that you have made or will make the required changes.
Otherwise, you can clarify to them why those changes can’t be made. Do it politely so that your response doesn’t seem rude to them.
4. Run the Feedback Optimization every 3-6 Months:
You can perform feedback optimization every 3-5 months as you get sufficient amount of review during this timeframe. Periodically optimizing the reviews of your audience will keep you content relevant, updated and fresh.
Bottom Line:
User reviews are one of the crucial parts of SEO. However, feedback optimization is not known to all webmasters. Only reputable digital marketing experts are using this strategy in best possible way.
Responding to your user reviews to create content accordingly not only keeps your content relevant but also keeps you in the good books of Google based on user engagement.
After all, your content is meant for your audience. Targeting their queries will make your content naturally engaging for them. If your content has a lot of feedback and you haven’t optimized it yet, the time has come to run the feedback optimization process. If you don’t have sufficient reviews, encourage your audience for the same through emails, CTAs and social media. One more thing—always choose a trendy topic to create your content. It will increase the chances of engagement over your blogs. Sharing is also important for user engagement. Here is some additional tips you can go through that will help your content to stand out in 2020.
What do you think? Drop your valuable feedback to the comment section given below!
You will find a stark difference in their creation.
A 2014 blog is an absolute textual blog and lacks references, visuals or sources. Talking about 2020 blogs, it includes all details, stats, and visuals to look appealing and engaging.
But they have one thing in common—both are created according to the content trends of their respective years.
The point is here that content creation has changed a lot in the course of these six years.
Content strategies that worked in 2014 will not work in 2020.
This is because the search engines have become more user-oriented while people like you and me look for a quick solution that appears as soon as we key in the query.
In 2020, content needs to be engaging, authentic, and “problem-solving” to ace the ranking game.
Avoid Writing Thin Content in 2020:
Review this piece of content:
“Are you looking for the best software development and consulting services? We are the best software development and consulting services.Our best software development and consulting services are available at reasonable prices.”
Being stuffed with unnecessary keyword usage, this piece sounds ridiculous. Isn’t it?
Interestingly, such pieces of content used to get good ranking before the advent of the Google Panda algorithm in 2011. This algorithm aims to drop the rankings of “thin content” or low-quality content.
However, spammed or thin content hasn’t gone out of practice yet. In fact, it has evolved in other forms like scrapping. Scrapping involves duplicate content or the content that is rehashed or manipulated with the use of synonyms.
But keep in mind that thin content only hurts your ranking and nothing else.
Cautioning against such practices, Todd Friesen, director of digital strategy and SEO at Salesforce, opines,”
“It’s (thin content) not going to work anymore in the content world. Everybody’s content has gotten good. I can go who wrote this piece of crap and they’re gonna move on because you know the bar has been set.”
The number one content strategy to imply in 2020 is to avoid thin or low-quality content. Instead, create the content that can boost engagement and prompt users to take action.
Here are some basic ways to ensure the quality of content:
Avoid keyword stuffing. Use semantic keywords.
Say no rehashing or sentence manipulation.
Read the content for relevancy and quality.
Address any plagiarized content issue.
Best Content Strategy is to Address the Pain Points of Your Audience:
Have you ever thought why most of the search results are Quora answers?
And this is even surprising when your 2500-word article doesn’t rank for the same search query.
The reason is pretty simple—Quora covers the solution for that query which your blog fails to do.
When you do not get solution in a 2500 word blog
Here we got our content strategy no. 2—the content should find and solve the customer’s problem. Most users expect blogs or any form of content to address their concerns.
It is worth to quote Carolyn Shelby, manager of SEO at ESPN, in this context:
“People are that impatient and crazy so the trick is just to make sure that you know what your users, your target audience wants and hand it to Google on a silver platter and make it easy for Google to ingest it and dice it up.”
She means that the content should be logical, easy to understand, and exceed the user’s expectations.
If your content is all about making tea, cover the points what to do when tea becomes excessively sweet as it can be a common problem associated with the tea prep.
Secondly, you should know how to present your information. It not only helps your content to be captured by Google but also makes it searchable for voice assistance devices or tools.
Therefore, present the key points with headings, bullet points, and short sentences.
Above all, you should be aware of your target audience and their problems. It will help you find the right solution as well as the way to present them.
Use Best Content Curation Tools as Part of Your Content Marketing Plan:
Content curation is another important part of your content strategy.
It is the process of gathering information from a variety of sources, including stats, expert quotes, and citations. This way, it helps determine the reliability and authenticity of your content.
And it is also true that this process is quite cumbersome. Maybe you need to burn your midnight oil to find the right sources for your content. Needless to say that such an exhaustive process can hinder your “creative juice” as well as time to create content.
That’s why using content curation tools makes up as our content strategy no. 3!
Content curation tools automate the content curation process. They help you locate relevant content or help you with new content ideas.
For example, there is a tool called Anders Pink that crawl millions of webpages to create daily briefings. These briefings can be then be sorted out for specific keywords.
And who can forget Buzzsumo that provides you a list for the most shared content on the subject you are looking for. Plus, you can sort the list using categories like content type, follow authors, date, and more.
As an added bonus, you can find out the latest trends as well as the most shared content. You can then use all these insights to create relevant and authentic content with all the latest information.
Even Buzzsumo helped me curate content for this topic. Here’s how…
Flipboard is also counted among quality tools for its ability to fetch content from reliable and trusted sources.
Freshen Up Your Old and Dry Content:
This new content strategy also requires you to work over your old and dry topics which can be as simple as “How to Plant a Tree” or “How to Choose Headlines.”
This is because such topics are available at thousands of websites, giving your visitor a range of options to choose from. Why one would read your blogs if they have thousands of such pieces at their disposal?
One thing you can do is to freshen up those old pieces by using infographics, quotes, podcasts, visuals, and videos. It will make your content attractive enough to encourage the audience to get engaged with it.
Optimize Your Content Marketing Approach for Voice Search:
Hello Siri, how to do push-ups? And Siri displayed these results—
Well, many people use voice assistance like Siri or Amazon Echo to get help with their daily tasks. Using such devices make sense as they are quick and simple than typing.
According to one study by Forbes, nearly 50% of all searches will be voice searches by 2020.
It simply means that your content should be activated for voice search. After all, voice search is becoming a key ranking factor.
Here’s how to optimize your content for voice search…
Look for phrases and longtail keywords.
Focus on natural language (the way we talk is different than the way we write.)
Make it easy to read as well as scannable.
Create a FAQ section or blog around conversational but specific questions associated with your industry.
Optimize your content for Local SEO keywords such as “digital marketing agency near me.”
Add Content Based Videos to Stand out in 2020:
Over the years, a video has become an integral part of content strategy.
Video content is more appealing and shareable than its textual counterpart. This increases the chances of high organic ranking in search results and better conversions as well.
One of the key benefits of video content is that they make complicated concepts easy to understand. For example, explainer videos can be used to educate the users on your products. Or reviews can be made more authentic with videos as users can see a person using them. Facebook Live can be used to launch your new products.
Last But Not Least — The Frequency of Content Publication in 2020:
How often should you publish the contents?
Well, there is no straightforward answer to this.
Some say that quality is important. Some advocate for quality. However, the fact is that both are important for a fruitful content strategy.
It will be challenging to gain any traction with a sluggish or inconsistent publishing schedule even for your great piece of content. A single piece of great content might not benefit your business or brand in the long term.
Having a consistent content schedule and publishing frequent content can help you make the most of your content marketing.
HubSpot has found that the publication of four blogs per week can increase the traffic up to five times more than those that publish once a week.
But that doesn’t mean you need to work as a content mill. Providing quality and value in the content should be your topmost priority.
Over to you:
So these are some key points to be included and implied in your content strategy for 2020 and beyond. It is all about understanding your users and their needs and create content accordingly. Besides, you need to prioritize videos as well as optimize your content for voice search. Once you are done with all these parameters, make sure to create a realistic content publishing schedule.
What do you think? Let me know by commenting below!!!
Ever Since its outbreak in late 2019, Coronavirus pandemic has shocked the entire world with its severity and crumbled the economies all around the globe. The horrific virus first appeared at the Chinese city of Wuhan and slowly clutched many countries in its deadly grip. Sadly, not only had it cost billions of lives worldwide, but also, it has shaken up and altered the natural living standards and habits of the people around globe.
While any nations are in lockdown and following strict social distancing policies with other precautionary measures, many businesses are fighting for their survival. One of the major reasons for drastic fall in business, apart from the deadly infection itself is the fact that consumer’s shopping habits and their way to approach things have been deeply affected. Not only the pandemic and self-quarantine have left them economically challenged, but also people are immensely stressed with disruption to their daily routines.
Why SEO will dominate during Covid-19 time?
Apparently, the marketing seems to be the only ray of hope for many big or small scale business industries. The marketers currently are expecting low budget with high goal achievement as low cost Digital Marketing seems to be the top choice rather than other costly options such as paid media and reduction in headcount ratio.
In this situation, lowering down the budgets, limiting the channels and reduction in the staff numbers is eventually becoming one of the top concerns for many firms. Majority of marketers are considering that SEO services are way more beneficial during this time.
Moreover, despite the lower budget 40% out of total of 72% entrepreneurs predicted that their marketing goals will be increased while 32% of them anticipated that their goals will remain same.
Source: The Impact of COVID-19 on Marketing (2020)
Likewise 58% of marketers told that they will lower the budget and on the other hand 34% of them seemed to be more inclined toward investing in low cost channels like SEO.
Additionally, 63% of enterprises are predicting that SEO will be a prominent aspect in the current marketing scene.
In addition, the latest search results from Google have also corroborate the rising importance of SEO services as the searches for term “SEO” is rising at substantial pace.
With over 66% of markets reported that SEO was also the top most performing channel in last year, leaving behind other marketing channels in competition with a large margin.
Conclusively, Digital marketing and low cost channels like SEO are turning out to bet the major focus for many marketers worldwide and more than half of the firms are turning to the digital content for brand building as it seems more efficient, safe and high gain approach during the time of self-isolation and social distancing.
In my career since 2004, I have read many books. My favourite is the “The Art of SEO” all editions. Directly or indirectly, all articles and books have some similarity i.e. they talk about role of human mind and behaviour in the list of SEO activities.
Recently, I also started reading “A textbook on General Phycology” to explore more on the topic of psychology and get an in-depth knowledge.
However, I would lay my emphasis on below 4 pointers that relates to the importance of SEO and Psychology in 2020:
Keyword Research and Searcher Psychology
Creation of content and human Psychology
Link Building and Psychology
Website architecture and audience behaviour
Keyword Research – Understanding the searcher psychology:
Considering that, the short term phrases which were used by human has been replaced by long term queries.
Example: A person looking for a pizza shop in 2004 in Manhattan, New York – Would have simply typed on Google.com “Pizza Manhattan” whereas in 2020 the human mind with the growth of technology and AI would have searched or spoken to Siri “Best pizza restaurants near me with 5 star rating”.
This clearly shows how human psychology and searcher intent has evolved over the time with the growth of technology in terms of keyword interpretation and research.
What is the best strategy for keyword research in 2020?
We have one of the best tools like SEM Rush and Answer the Public for researching or spying on competitors.
However, if I have to talk about psychology and list one particular strategy that stands out for me then it will be using “Google Auto Complete” feature to get best maximum number of keywords based on searchers intent.
The process is simple: For example, if I have to search for possible search phrases that have been searched for my targeted term or niche i.e. “Plumbers in Manhattan”
I would simple type in Google search “Plumbers in Manhattan” as below:The screenshot showcases the auto complete listing of keywords:
2. You can further elaborate by using “A-Z” combinations in front, middle and Back of the keywords to get a possible list of best keywords for the niche.
Crafting a story that is rich in keyword topics and covers your targeted audience sentiments:
In order, to make your website content stand out:
You need something that can touch the right sentiment of the audience. In our in-house experiments at KVR Web Tech, we are using Google AI and sentiment analysis tool. The tool help us to get good insights VS competitors content and thus improvise.2. You need perfect amalgamation of selecting the right keywords and topics.
Example: Business selling insurance to Sole traders in Australia.
In order, to have a perfect list of topics that should be covered in the content, simply again used “Google auto complete” feature and make a list. Review, what type of topics are being covered. See below snapshot:
It clearly shows that I have to incorporate topic about cost, cover, comparisons and talk about sole trader cleaners, contractor and consultants.
Again, you can run different set of combinations to get a list of topics.
3. Researching on top competitors – Yes, what is their winning formula. Try to get an idea of how the top 3 competitors on search are drafting their content and how you can be unique in your own story and idea.
Important tip: For uniqueness, Gather stats and conduct surveys on relevant forums, groups on FB which covers your targeted audience to get high level data and convert that into statistical data.
4. Trending Data – Incorporating the trends in your story will surely help to stand out and gain exposure. We use “Buzz Sumo” to find relevant trending stories, sort them out and make a list of what will entice a reaction among our targeted audience.
Understanding the psychology, developing relations and garnering links
In 2004, when I started my link building career, we use to send emails for outreach, have conversations and then after developing a bond exchange links.
It was a clear process that had emotions and one loved to follow the process and get success that could last long from SEO prospective.
However, in later stages link building was bombarded by commercialization and paid schemes, which resulted in link farms and slowly Google and reliable website owners changed their outlook towards the same.
So let’s talk about 2020, the things have changed so have the strategies. We are somehow getting back to where we had once started.
Influencer Outreaching is not that simple now days. If you want to outreach a strong influencer in your field, you need to study them, understand them and then win your race towards getting a brand mention for your website. Below are some point that can help:
Follower Wonk, is a tool that you can use to get a list of top influencers.
Study them by reviewing their social profiles. Create a list of their like and dislikes.
Prepare an outreach pitch on an email that can get a reaction on the first go!
Generate a conversation by using your pitch elements i.e. “list of likes” and make sure you stay away from the “dislike list”
Provide a free giveaway if your business supports the model
Understanding the visitor behaviour and changing the website architecture:
I like Neil and had a great interview session with him. I believe he has contributed a lot towards our field of SEO. One of his contributions that I have been using since so many years is “Crazy Egg”. The tool we use to understand how the audience react to the various elements on our website.
The basic purpose is to:
View and analyse, if we have the placed all the elements correctly i.e. Call to action, images content and videos
View and analyse, A/B testing of which colour suits my audience in the best particular way.
Understanding your audience behaviour and improvising on the design is a must, if you have to win the race of getting quality conversion from your qualified organic traffic.
In a short summary, the above all topics can have their own articles. I have tried my level best to give you an overview and will keep posting more extensive information on the same.
Considering the latest update of Mobile First-Index and due to huge surge of traffic from mobile devices which surpassed the desktop traffic in recent years, the demand for Mobile Optimization has reached a new level.
The below graph illustrates the vast growth of Mobile VS Desktop from 2012-2020:
So the key question that hovers over the mind is “How do we compete and make sure that we are providing the best Mobile User Experience for our visitors?”
The answer is thorough Research and perfect implementation. So let us dig in and evaluate the meaning of these 2 powerful terms.
Research: How to conduct a competitor research for creating an advanced mobile strategy for 2019
One of the most important aspect for any kind of research is to get into the shoes of “What your competitors are doing?”.
Similarly for mobile optimization, the game begins with the study on your competitor abilities to dominate the mobile era.
Important Tip: Study both local as well as global competitors in the same niche to get the best strategy out of your competition.
Review of Design Implementation – What kind of implementation they are following i.e.
Progressive Web App Design
Responsive Design
Mobile Separate Design
Dynamic Serving
Accelerated Mobile Pages
to get a proper overview of “What is working in your niche and what is not?” is a must.
We will be discussing these implementations ahead in full detail in the “Implementation” phase.
2. Review of UX Elementsin the buyers journey –
With coming up of AI technologies and day to day advancements, it is very important to study what kind of new UX elements are being offered by the competitors to interact with the targeted audience at each level of buyers journey i.e.
Global Usage – What kind of navigation they are utilising, font size, content decoration styles and colour combinations.
Awareness Stage – Checkout the Main Blog and individual blog post representations, what kind of features and how they are represented to interact with users i.e. Social media sharing buttons, subscriber forms, banners and images, offers etc. Checkout how PDF and other type of knowledge based elements are used on the website i.e. example e-books and infographics. Some trending features like approximate time of blog reading, featured post/New Posts or Top posts representation can be reviewed as well.
Consideration and Decision Stage – E-commerce website have incorporated products, software website may contain demos. Studying their representations allow you to create the best layout for your website for the consideration and decision stages. Some powerful examples may be Reviews layout, Product Features Layout, Comparison Charts Layout, Feedback Form Layout, Customer Service Elements, Clear Product Images and Pricing. Also, very important is to review the check out process and the forms layout. Any leakage in customer flow can be a big loss.
3. Technical Aspects – Study the technical aspects of your competitors i.e. compare page loading speed, light house elements, AMP implementations using tools. Be the best out of the same, improvise where required. The best option is outrank the Top 3 competitors by creating an excel comparison sheet and updating it on regular basis for all the technical elements.
Studying the various implementation options for a mobile optimized website in 2018:
1. Separate Mobile Design
The design that is specifically made for mobile and is hosted on a separate sub-folder and sub-domain is called a mobile dedicated design. Mostly applicable for local businesses that wants to showcase “to the point content” or a website with “vast amount of content” which may be difficult to showcase in a responsive design.
Below are some of the things to remember:
Have a clearly defined Rel=Alternate Tag on the desktop version and Canonical tag of the desktop version on the mobile sub domain or sub folder to clearly represent the implementation of separate mobile design.
For further implementation you can also view the article of Stone Temple here.
The use of Vary:User-Agent Header – Whenever a visitor visits a webpage, it sends a User Agent of the particular device being used to the web server, a specific code is placed on the website to make sure the most suitable version of your website is detected using the Vary:User-Agent Header script.
The code can be found here with more elaboration on the topic.
Proper Meta codes to be used on each mobile optimised webpage – As each mobile web page has a different url of the desktop version so it is very important to make sure that all meta codes are present on the mobile urls as well, that are there on the corresponding desktop version of the same webpage.
Review of Structured Data as compared to Desktop – Another issue mostly found with the separate mobile design is the missing of the structure data. The structured data also has to be same for both the version of pages in order to not miss any SEO opportunities.
Appropriate use of Href-Lang tags, if you have an international website. Remember for the mobile dedicated structure you need to point the href-lang tags towards the mobile version of the website.
Proper Pagination as compared to Desktop – Many website auto load the rest of the pages in the mobile version rather than using the pagination rel=prev and rel=next tags. Need to have the same structure as desktop so that all the content is indexed.
Redirects – Redirect of 404 pages which has to simultaneously work for desktop as well as for mobile website, are often missed, so have to make sure the redirections are properly applied for both the variations.
Make sure to copy same rules in robots.txt as they are in desktop version i.e. unnecessary folders and pages must remain blocked on both the versions.
Verify the mobile version in Google Webmaster Tools – Yes, if it is a sub domain then it has to be verified separately in the GWT console, however you don’t need to do in case you are using a sub-folder. Here is a question answered on Google forums for the same query.
Review of content, headlines as compared to Desktop – After mobile first index, it is very important that you review the content density on your separate mobile website as lack of content means lack of rankings.
2. Responsive Design –
Most used, Recommended. Google Loves it! Easy to implement, cost effective as well and has been used by majority of the websites. The design that automatically fetches the same code or HTML of desktop and renders itself according to the device being used is called responsive design.
Some of the points to consider:
It uses a meta viewport tag to detect the resolution (Width and scaling) of the device being used by the user and thus render itself according to the same.
As stated “Google loves it” as it does not have to crawl another version of the website or duplicate content thus saving its crawler budget i.e. time and effort.
Page Loading Speed: Main painpoint for responsive website is with the page speed. As they have to load all the elements and content of the desktop version, it becomes a problem to get a good page loading speed. Make sure you check the page loading speed of each page using Google Page Speed Insight tool.
Google states not to hide your javascript and CSS, while most of the designers and developers does the same in order to achieve the target of a clean website. Has to be avoided at all cost. Make sure to “Fetch as Mobile” in GWT to check if all javascript, CSS and images are being crawled and are not blocked.
Site Architecture – Most of the top websites like Microsoft, Disney etc which are critically acclaimed as one of the best responsive websites have lot of responsive issues which lead to bad U/X. For an example: the “Games” option on Disney website had huge bugs. Also, comes with this the burden of pixilate images, formatting of charts and graphs and size of CTA’s being used on mobile are smaller as compared to desktop so designer has to optimize for the touch rather than scrolling and then clicking.
Tip: Try to use CTA buttons of 44 X 44 pixels.
Hiding Content – Another issue is with hidden content, most of the responsive versions in order to showcase the best elements, hide their desktop elements, which leads to lack of content or copied content on the same version. Has to be avoided. Best strategy is of aligning Content i.e Make sure to use the CTA banner on Top mobile fold and long fold content after the same.
3. Dynamic Serving –
In dynamic serving, the URL remains the same but the content & HTML changes for different versions of mobile, tablet and desktop by detecting the user device.
Again, it uses the Vary:User-Agent Header to detect the user agent being used by the user and then fetches the appropriate version accordingly.
Note: The issue for using Vary:User-Agent Header tag is that it the user agent list has to be constantly maintained in order to give the right UX to bots as well as user, which is a hard job and often leads to redirection issues.
It is an expensive affair as it requires a lot of effort from design and development team.
Most of the points, as discussed with the separate mobile website exists with dynamic serving as well regarding to meta codes, structured data and content structuring. Have to make sure that the codes are same for both the versions.
Caching issue is another problem faced as only version is cached i.e. either mobile or desktop so there are many chances that a mobile visitor may get the cached version of the desktop. However, solution is to properly use the cache plugins to use only the desktop cache.
4. Progressive Web Apps –
A mobile website that behaves like a web app and can be used offline is called PWA. Aliexpress and Filpkart elite are an examples of PWA. Both the websites multiplied their sales and user interaction using PWA.
Uses service workers (A connection between your browser and device) to store, update data and send push notifications.
PWA stores data and cache once a visitor visits the websites and prompts visitor to add a PWA icon to the home screen, once done the service workers then help to send push notifications.
Requires lot of expertise for implementation and is recommended only if you need an APP like experience.
The downward side is that some of the browsers still does not support PWA so may result in a broken link.
From SEO prospective, make sure you have SEO-friendly URLs and not the ones with a # as Google will neglect everything after #.
Make sure to use a proper sitemap for indexing of PWA urls.
Check the “Fetch and Render” option for the PWA pages to make sure they are being indexed properly.
Make sure to copy all content, Structured Data and Meta data from the desktop version.
Make sure to use the canonical version of desktop pages on the PWA pages where there is copied content.
Use the Vary User Agent header to indicate the user agent and make sure the redirections are proper.
Website has to be secure in order to make a PWA.
Use light house to make sure the PWA has all the important elements incorporated.
5. Accelerated Mobile Pages –
Next in the league, come the introduction of Accelerated Mobile pages. The pages that are built by stripping of some desktop elements and javascript and uses AMP HTML, AMP JS which is stored in AMP Cache to give a top notch page loading speed i.e. 4X more than a regular responsive webpage
Tedious implementation – In wordpress, simple plugins and rework of htaccess file helps in the implementation, whereas in other platforms, developer has to download the code for AMP Project website. You need a developer for the implementation.
Canonical Tags – Canonical tags needs to be implemented on the AMP versions for desktop urls to showcase proper implementation and rel=”amphtml” tag has to be placed on the corresponding desktop webpage.
Mostly applicable for major content publishing sections such as Blog, News etc may not considered for product or service pages.
AMP Articles are favoured by Google as well. One can see AMP tag on the Google search engine which also is listed in the top carousel on the search.
Difficult for advertisers, as only one advertisement tag can be used on one page, which is also very difficult to implement.
Great UX – Studies have shown increased interaction, reduced bounce rate and even rise in conversions for websites that have switched to AMP.
AMP AD Landing Pages – Can help you create fast and attractive landing pages for your Google Ads. AMP Analytic can further combine with the same to run conversion tracking codes and re-marketing codes.Some common AMP Tags that can be used with-in landing page:
amp-bind: Add custom stateful interactivity based on JavaScript-like events.
amp-form: Create landing pages that require input from the user.
amp-carousel: Create an image carousel with standard controls for scrolling an image gallery.
amp-lightbox: Display a full-screen view of a component like an image when it’s interacted with.
amp-live-list: Render a live stream of content into the landing page.
amp-call-tracking Dynamically replaces a phone number in a hyperlink to enable call tracking.
AMP Analytics and GWT – AMP is supported by Google analytic, AMP Analytic provides you a desired script that can be used on AMP pages for tracking, as well you can review the results in the GWT for the same.
Domain Authority – All the urls resides on Google, so getting a link back for AMP towards your websites is not possible which results in loss of backlinks thus DA. However, by late 2018, Google plans to roll out publisher URL in search for AMP websites.
Design Issues – As major chunk of javascript etc is removed from the AMP version so the design is not lucrative as that of a desktop version. Main focus of AMP is fast loading and readability. Therefore, majority of the websites using AMP are content publishing websites.
Google Validation – Google Validation plays a major role in showcasing AMP pages on the search result i.e. until and unless Google is sure that there are no errors in implementation, it will not showcase AMP pages in the search result.
Continuous improvement – Still not being adapted by majority users, the AMP project still requires a major growth in prospect of design. However, as link-e-din, twitter and other major guns supporting the initiative it is bound to receive a major boost in coming years.
The question at the end of the day, comes with which mobile implementation is best for your business in 2019?
The answer is: It depends upon the nature of your business. As mentioned, content publishing websites may opt for AMP, e-commerce websites or website that loves APP may switch to PWA, while responsive may be loved by majority of the owners due to less cost, less SEO work as well as the reason Google favours the same.
However, i do believe, studying your audience plays a major role in the creation and optimization of mobile website. For example, Combination of PWA + AMP can do wonders if implemented correctly and can be considered as one of the powerful combination for coming year. Similarly, AMP + Responsive can also be combined together.
Some of additional checkpoints that you can consider while reviewing are:
Study Analytics – Best way to build a strategy is to study the analytical behaviour of the mobile visitor and improvise step by step i.e. mobile devices being used, avg time of site, bounce rate, conversion and traffic ratio etc. May be trying out A/B testing can really help as well.
HSTS – Though new, HSTS can be a replacement for faster loading speed for HTTP. It adds an extra security layer as well. And Google loves secure websites.
Monitor Rankings – Desktop and Mobile rankings are different. Keep a regular check on the same by using tools like SEM Rush.
If you are using QR codes, make sure they are not on the desktop version as they are meant to be for a mobile device.
A check on video is must, most of the websites still load videos with technical glitches which results in bad U/X. Make sure each video is working and easy to navigate.
Pop-up, Ad banners – Major source of high bounce rate are pop-ups and ad-banners that take important space of your powerful content and may frustrate user in their desired path of conversion. Avoid until it is necessary.
Maps – For local business or brands in which store finders are essential needs Maps to showcase proper address. Make sure they are not over pixelated.
If you are not investing time and money in content writing then you may be missing out on the most important aspect that run through the veins of Digital Marketing!
A glance at some of the interesting statistics that will surely change your prospective about content marketing:
A pdf at Oracle states, Content marketing generates 3 times the leads then a paid search campaign per dollar spent
90% of all organizations use content in their marketing efforts
On an average 27 million content are shared every day
Companies that Blog 15+ times in one month has 5 times more traffic than companies that do not blog
Well the above stats will surely “put a pen in your hand” … if still not impressed then please review a PPT shared by NewsCred on slideshare that highlights 50 Stats You Need to Know About Content Marketing
Factors to be considered for a compelling write-up:
What are the two important elements that come in your mind before you even want to proceed to write a powerful piece of content for your targeted audience?
UX refers to the user experience your write-up provides, whereas UI refers to the interface on which it is going to be displayed.
So answer the below 2 questions:
What are all the interfaces on which the content is to be displayed (Desktop, Mobile, Tab) and how does the rendering of content looks like on these devices? After Mobile First Index, you should surely consider giving Mobile a top priority.
What user experience does it offer (Content in form of videos, images, info-graphics, proper CTA etc)? – Is content clickable and shareable?
Did you know?
Article with images get 94 percentmore views than those without.
Posts with videos generate 3 timesmore inbound links than posts with plain text
If you are a SEO Expert or a Creative writer, you are bound around the words by your clients “WRITE QUALITY CONTENT?”
What pointers really define a quality content?
I will keep it simple and straight:
How to create trust? – Is your information correct, do you have supportive facts?
Is the content useful to targeted users? – Are those facts useful in anyway?
Is the content interesting for the targeted users? – How your content is different from other content? – Is there an emotional pitch, excitement, surprise, and admiration in the flow of content to create a reply from the visitor?
Answer the question – Why are you writing? For whom you are writing? What you want to achieve? Or simply fill in the blanks below:
We’ll become the best ________________ for ___________________ who are interested in __________________. This will help us become the ________________ and ________________. And unlike _____________, we do ______________ differently by _______________.
Scratch your heads and Get Deep Insight of the topic:
Understand the topic on which you have to write (Get deep insights from the team who is engaged with the project.)
Read other blogs (What are they writing, which content on topic has maximum shares etc)
Check Q/A for the topic on channels like Quora
Get to know the latest trends and hash tags on topic
Review any news in trend for the particular topic
Any Stats that can be supported
3 Powerful tips to get your message to the right people:
Tip 1: Segment and know your audience:
Who are the targeted audience?
Get stats from client or his sales team
Previous Demographic Data from analytics (if any)
Review stats around the world or local targeted region (if available)
Carry out a competitor analysis, you can use free tool like com
Tip 2: After segmenting the audience, get into their shoes and
Try to find similarities between their interests
How to make a No or Yes from them, how to generate reaction i.e. go against or support them?
Understanding whom they follow, what they follow? – Use Follower Wonk to get some insights.
In 2019, the smart move in link building strategies for ecommerce websites will help the aggressive and ambitious competitive business market to catch eyes of their online customers.
E-commerce Link Building
“Those brands that can visualise and accommodate or outstrip the needs of customer and can dexterously engage online shoppers via mobile as well, will be champions in 2016. But those online retailers that follow the conventional brand-centric e-commerce tactics will lose their potential customers and revenue.” – VarDish
How to make links for Ecommerce website is hard process. It’s not a hidden fact. Whether you are doing ecommerce link building services for a client or working to enhance the visibility of your own site, there are some exclusive confrontations you have to face when building links for an e-commerce website.
As we enter 2019, it’s important to have recap of link building approaches of previous year. It will help us to understand the future of link building tactics in a better way. Most of the tricks and techniques for building the links for ecommerce websites will be similar in 2019. It will just be an enhancement of 2018.
2018 Link Building Strategy for Ecommerce Websites which are promoted to 2019
1. Set Up Deal Pages:
Deals Page E-commerce Website
Ecommerce websites run numerous deals throughout year. The deal page can be used to earn more links. Below given points will be helpful:
It is better to have one common deal page. It will be useful in getting return business. It is better to check for the backlinks of similar deal pages and outreach websites who posts similar deals in your business targeted region for backlinks.
Keep track of the relevant competitors and customers. Let bloggers and media know about your deals. If they want to let their followers know about it, they will have to link back to the page.
It is better to keep the page up once the sale is done. You can alter the page contents to be more generic. It is good to include links to important categories on your website or give a way to chip in to your mailing list.
2. Run a Contest:
Contests gives an enormous chance to generate links.
Contest E-commerce website
You can form them to target specific customers, gratify to their requirements and in turn, make your contents go viral.
Nicely formed PR campaign which is built around crucial event for your business can give good quality editorial links. It is wise to observe services like ProfNet and SourceBottle for media story requests and pitch your ideas. If you’re chosen, you’ll get an editorial link.
4. Change Brand Mentions into Link:
Many times in a month people may refer your brand in their blog or website etc. They may even write about it on their sites, tweet or mention it in their Facebook on regular basis. But they do not regularly link back.Use Buzz Sumo or alerts to track your website mentionsof your brand or products and reach out to those who are using your brand for a link back.
5. Research your competition
:It is better to use a link tool to see where your competitors are getting their links from and candidly start noting them. You will apparently require unique and catchy content. This process will save your time that you would have spent searching for new sites. It is advisable to ignore the low authority sites. As long as you follow guidelines and give excellent content, it’s only a matter of time before you outshine them.
6. Guest Posting:
It should be the best way of having backlinks for an ecommerce website. The essential part of an effective guest post is targeting right audience related to your business.In your signature or the biography box, you can leave links to your site with specific key words. Search engines use the number of back links as an indication of ranking your website for respective keywords.
7. Get a link from the manufacturer:
It is a good idea to get a link from the manufacturer whose products are sold on your website. Just send them an email and request them for a link that will do the magic.
8. Article submission:
It is an efficient way to get back links. Every now and then they will renounce your submission or take a very long time to approve it, but it is still an ultimate way to boost back links.
9. Interviews:
This is a fantastic way to build links for your ecommerce website. Catch a forerunner in your business and take their interview. People like publicity. In order to find forerunners in your business area do survey. Send emails to them. If they have press page there are 100% chances that they will link to your website.
10. Broken Link Building Redefined:
Make list of products in your business that are terminated, not in stock etc
• Check 404 pages or websites for those products or keywords (Website can be used: https://www.expireddomains.net)
• Outreach them to replace the current page with a similar product from your inventory
• Check the back link of a broken website and outreach them for replacement links
11. Infographics:
Infographics are golden goose for having backlinks and a new technique. A functional embed code raises the amount of backlinks that you achieve from your infographic marketing campaign. whenever someone pastes your embed code on their website, it will show your infographic and a link back to your site.
12. Purchase expired domains
Expired domains in your business field are great sources of getting the links to your websites. First purchase the domain and then redirect it using a 301 redirect to your site, and see the flood of link juice.
13. Google loves Yahoo Answers
Google appears to adore Yahoo answers. Keep a watch on Yahoo Answers and reply to questions related to your field. Provide good answers and give your website as a source. It increases your chances of getting back link to your website. No doubt they are no followed, but if your answer is profitable and valuable, anyone who sees it in the future will click through to your site.
14. RSS feeds:
Feedburner is a fantastic place to submit your RSS feeds, whether they are product or news feeds. They have great domain authority and can send you huge traffic, as well. Other feed assembling websites are also important for submitting product feeds, and they add backlink to your website.
15. Focus on Social Media:
Most of the social media sites gives nofollow links. Therefore it is important to focus only on those websites that allow dofollow links. Here are some of the social media websites to get backlinks: YouTube, Hub Pages, WordPress, Reddit, LinkedIn and many more.
These are some of the most important ecommerce strategies for 2019. No doubt it will continue to grow in 2019. Therefore it is Important to observe the changes minutely in this arena because ecommerce world is going to get very competitive in coming time.
While 2018 saw content emerging from the shadow of SEO but 2019 seems to play a more significant role in SEO for Images.
Images can procreate a lot of traffic from image based search engines.
If you want more traffic to your website, you must learn how to optimize respective images to bring traffic.
The usage of images with other media constituents, has always been a way to engross your visitors and seize their attention. Following certain tactics of Image optimization in 2019 like using quality images in your content will give your business the possibility to be more visible on social media, encouraging more involvement of visitors and click through to your website.
Past, Present and Future of Image Optimisation
Image Based Marketing Past, Present and Future
Peep into the Past
In this fast moving world, the benefit of including images within search results is important than before.In comparison to the content of the website image results are more
Easily seen,
Understood
and Clickable.
The Google President, Eric Schmidt, mentioned that google images search was born because of the craving to see Jennifer Lopez in her outlandish green Versace dress.
Gradually the number of images indexed in google were increased:
250 million images were indexed in 2001
In 2005 the result expanded to 1 billion.
By 2010, the index enlarged to 10 billion images.
In July 2010, the image search results were over one billion views a day.
Glance into Present (2019) for Image Optimisation
Factors to keep in mind for 2019:
1. Image Assets
Choose persuasive images to maximize traffic to your website. Visuals are seen 60,000 times faster than text. Therefore to find the accurate image is always crucial. A meaningful image will always be help to give right information and convince your audience.
For Example: If a company wants to advertise multiple sales in one image, he has to be clear, specific and impressive as in above picture.
Basic factors affecting Optimisation of Image Assets
There are two outstanding ways to store and manage your images:
i) One of the reasonable and best option for storing all your digital photos is on photo-centric image hosting websites like flicker.com, imageshack.com, photobucket.com etc.
Create Account
Upload images
Give relevant alt and title tags, loc, description
Select the creative common license
ii) The second way is to Own the Image Gallery on website
Create a Gallery Page
Define Category in H1 Tag
Define Images in each category with title in h2 tag
Give relevant description to each image in <p> and alt & title tag.
Create the creative license code (4.0) and add to each image for copyrights
2. Add and Submit in GWT the image sitemap:
Google crawl those images more efficiently whose sitemap is submitted in Google webmaster tool. Therefore in order to let search know about these images, you must put their location as well as different image assets while creating an image site map.
3. File Names:
It is better to optimise your image file names logically. If you’re naming the image for your iphone 6 plus product page you should not name your image as mgs729942712.jpg. The accurate image file name is iphone-6-plus.jpg. The search engines not only crawl the text on your webpage, but they also look for the keywords within the file names of your images.
4. Alt Text:
The alt attribute gives SEO value to the images in your website. Providing appropriate alt tags to the images can help your website achieve better rankings in the search engines by giving appropriate and related keywords to the images. The reason behind giving alt attribute is search engines can’t read images. Therefore you need to use alt tags to help describe your image to search engines. So by not including alt attributes for each and every image on your website, you miss a big chance to be visible online.
5. File Size:
For example for the website Amazon.com if their pages slow down even by 1second they will definitely lose $1.6 billion a year . “Page Load Time” is one of the most important factor in determining ranking of respective page. The larger the file size of the images, longer it takes a webpage to load. If images on your website slowly drip down the screen and take over 10 seconds to load, you can bade prospective customer goodbye! It is always better to decrease the size of the image files on your webpage to speed up page load time. Many ecommerce websites may use thumbnails for their websites. Make thumbnail image size as small as possible.
6. Captions:
The caption of the image is the text that is included in the image optimisation. The captions which are under images are read 200% times more than the body text. Therefore if we don’t use them in a proper way, it means you are missing out on an opportunity to engage a large number of crucial readers.
7. How to get Copyright for your Images:
o Register with the Electronic Copyright Office:
ü Complete the application
ü Pay the registration fee
ü Upload or submit the copies of the images being registered
This is the best way of protecting rights for your images which help to protect and prevent other people from copying or using your image without your permission.
8. Image Optimization Tools for Compressing Images:
There are several free online tools available to squeeze and optimize images. Below are several easy and user-friendly tools for making your web images as tiny in file size as possible.
smush.it! is versatile tool for image optimisation. It is a tool that is available as a Firefox extension or as a simple web-based application (hosted by Yahoo!) etc.
PNGOUT is a robust image optimization tool which has set of choices so that you can easily optimise files compression to boost traffic via images.
RIOT has tremendous facilities to gain traffic with images for your website. It supports inputs in JPG, PNG, and GIF files. It has the facility to take out image metadata for reduction of file bloat and it also has some image-editing service such as pan, zoom, and rotate..
SuperPNG is a free tool for Windows and Mac OS users that optimizes your GIF images.
There are many wordpress plugins to optimise your website. But before hoping on plugins it is better to check other factors which are mentioned above to influence seo for image optimisation.
There are many options as far as WordPress image optimization plugins go. Choose one that suits your exact requirement.
10. Reverse Image Search:
It is widely used in 2015 and holds promising future in the image optimisation search technology arena. Reverse image search engine technology takes an image file as input query and returns results related to the image. You can use a picture on your computer or anywhere as your search to find the images which are similar to it around the web. When you are doing a search using an image, at that time any images or URLs that you upload will be stored by Google. Google only uses these images and URLs to enhance your products and services.
Snoop into the Future of Image Optimisation 2019
The below given factors may impact either now or in future:
EXIF Image Metadata: According to Matts Cutt software engineer at Google said that Google was not yet exactly using image meta data. Exif data could be included into search results in the future. Besides, Cutts recommended “if you’re taking pictures, I would go ahead and embed that sort of information if it’s available within your camera.”
Page Rank for product image search: In 2008, Google disclosed a paper named “PageRank for Product Image Search” that entrenched a way of computing a new image ranking factor. Precisely this method accumulates the images that are returned for a query and it recognizes the interest points within the images. It uses those interest points to provide resemblance between images and then ranks the image that has the maximum similar points as the highest.
There is no authentication saying this method has been triggered as a ranking factor, but hopefully it will be used in the future.
ImageNet Large-Scale Visual Recognition Challenge:
The ImageNet large-scale visual recognition challenge is the biggest academic challenge in the world of computer. It happens every year to test the in depth understanding of the image, both in the sense of identifying the objects in images and tracing where they are. These technological growth will acknowledge even better understanding of image and the progress will directly affect Google products such as photo search, image search, YouTube and many more.
Google is definitely going to deepen its understanding of image optimisation technique in 2019. Some of the above mentioned factors are going to get more advanced especially reverse image optimisation. We should be prepared for more aggressive competition in image optimisation arena.
