What should you consider while planning your website promotion??

Old SEO techniques are dead and we all know that old methodologies of increased back links and stuffing too many keyword is now an instant flagging on Google algorithms resulting into removal of your site and keywords from searches made on Google by the users.

This is no longer a mathematical algorithm but is a human one. It’s time to evaluate content and target keywords accordingly. You have to keep on updating your site and blog contents keeping in mind the above on regular basis (twice a week minimum).

Once you have done all the On-Page Optimization, placing robot.txt, Metatags and Keywords, Alt tags, keyword density analysis, Google analytics configuration, linking your Google adword account (if you run the PPC or searches), HTML site map, bad link removal and doing a Google Penguin or Panda algorithm audit for the site.

What should you address in order to rank your site or product on the top:

• Press release/Blog submissions with unique articles around one of your product or service (without too much of links)
• Web 2.0 properties
• Blog creation and regular updates (without too much or direct product promotion)
• "How to” articles
• Twitter page and updates
•  Facebook page and updates
•  Pinterest page creation and update with unique and attractive product/service images
• Video content around your product/service
• You tube page creation
• Google+ page creation
• Regular shares on Google+, Twitter, Reddit, Pinterest, You tube-  in order to establish your social back-links
• Anchor text diversity (you should avoid exact keywords)
•  Natural back-links with link worthy articles
• Active participation in various forums related to the product or service
• Social book marking and site submissions (to selected directories)

User experience is the key to success of your online business idea!!

A good online marketing is useless till the time you do not deliver the promised product or service experience to your customers.

In recent times, there have been a lot of e-commerce companies burgeoning around thinking in line to the growth story of big time e-commerce companies like Amazon who may be tossing up with new ideas like ‘Drone delivery’ or ‘logistics arrangement with Indian posts’. The success of e-com ‘poster boys’ remains the key attraction & motivates them, without knowing that much of this is hyped to entice the investors and people to compel invest or buy in their product or service concepts.

Every product company or an online marketing website feels like they can come online and sell without addressing to the fundamentals in running an online business. The AAP movement can be picked here as a case-study  to understand what all you would need besides the idea (published by ET).

Lets’ have a look at the key elements before you plan out:

•   Product offerings (for the customer this is online product expectation)
•  Target market (is how you clearly set expectations)
•  Reaching selected target audience through target based marketing  (connecting your channels)
•  Communication (keeping communication alive with your target audience)
•  Delivering the product or service (without any wrong commitment)

Having a website does not entitle you to say you run an e-commerce business until  you are clear on above thrust areas before launching your product/service online. I recently did a transaction for my data top-up and found that despite of attempting it for 5 times at 2 different portals, the service was not delivered. At one side, as a customer the account gets debited and the service i.e. the top up is declined. As a user, when we wrote to the customer care, they did not bother to even respond to the email (they promise the response time is 5 hours), whereas, in real scenario this is a cheating, first by debiting your account and then by not delivering the service and then by saying they would need 48 hours to reply back to the customer grievance.

A bunch of website development companies are miss-selling  you a site from any price starting INR 9999 but when you really start using it, you feel misguided later as its just 10% of what you know, rest you learn while you start the business.

What should you consider before starting an e-commerce business:

•          You should think of customizing the site as per your product requirement, if not owning the source code
•          Supply chain, warehouse and logistics (if you are selling a product on inventory model)
•          Please be prepared for situations when even after the payment receipt, the logistic company does not pick your packet leaving you approaching another logistic partner
•         The payment/COD module (ease and acceptance)
•          Budget- you should allocate budgets for online advertising, affiliate marketing
•          Key resources like an online manager, support staff and of course a good PR agency as your core team
•         The transaction would start happening onto your platform anytime between 1 to 3 months, after launching your online site
•          Basic marketing - including sending launch emailers, SMS or creating some awareness in your social contact list is the first activity
•         Build the business ( takes around 6 Months to 12 months to show substantial traction on to your site)
•          Investments  ( approximately for first 3 years to help you sustain & build the user base)

Mobile- a new digital world for Consumers, Brands and Service Providers

When mobile services were launched in India in 1996, little did we realized that mobile would become a day to day need and would replace the computer and internet- the first thing you do in the night when you wake up is you check your emails or check the messages on messengers like ‘whats app’ or you would  prefer to check the updates on facebook, Twitter among other social mediums. 

That’s the digital mobile world we live in today. The mobile penetration has offered tremendous opportunities for the marketers by enabling the push for a brand, sell products and services through  promotions in various forms of advertising, product promotion; considering your addiction and zest to keep yourself updated every minute in your life.

Let’s have a look at the numbers & statistics as per the TRAI for the month of August 2013 

•   431 million Internet capable phones
•  143 million Mobile Internet connections
•   86 million active mobile web users
•  36 million Smart Phones
•  5.5 million Tablets 

 1 out of 3 facebook users use mobile to access facebook.

And this is just the beginning of a new digital world- the industry experts projects over 30% growth in the mobile web penetration in the months to come.

Opportunity: There is a huge potential for the organizations working around mobile advertisement, enterprise mobile solutions, mobile applications and so on. The current limitation is a widely acceptable mobile payment app and as soon as the product is there, the market is expected double within a quarter.

As per Avendus and a report by ‘Mobile Internet in India in 2013’- by 2016 revenues from applications and advertising alone would touch 4800 crores.

What would matter the most for a brand owner in this scenario?

• An engagement program or a direct connection with your customer
• The Approach- Brand Building, Retention of customers, Engagement programs- you may call it ‘the process’ to transform into business.