Instagram Shadow Ban - What We Know About It?

Is Instagram is the key social media marketing platform for your business? If yes, have you ever heard about Instagram Shadow Ban? No! Then seriously you are in trouble.

Why??? Let's Figure Out:

Last Year, a growing number of users have been affected by the Instagram Shadow Ban, and it's killing their engagement!

According to Instagram:

"We understand users have experienced issues with our hashtag search that caused posts not to be surfaced. We are continuously working on improvements to our system with the resources available.

When developing content, we recommend focusing on your business objective or goal rather than hashtags. Having a growth strategy that targets the right audience is essential to success on Instagram.

Good content on Instagram is simply good creative. And it follows the same three creative principles you'de apply to any marketing channel:

- Have a distinct visual presence: Include your logo, an ironic brand element, a brand color, or even a product you're known to make your content distinct and easily recognizable for the community.

- Be a storyteller: Tell a story that supports your business goals. Whether you want to raise awareness or increase sales of a specific product, make sure the imaginary and copy latter up to your main goal.

- Put Thought Into Your Creative: Be well crafted to stand out. This doesn't mean you need to build additional content for Instagram. It just means you need to put as much love and care into the content to inspire as you do in your business.

We truly appreciate your understanding and patience in this matter."

Here Instagram is clearly indicating about some restriction to spammy content, which the community is calling Instagram Shadow Ban.

This detailed infographic by Digital Acharya will surely be going to help you understanding Instagram Shadowban and How to Avoid the Penalty.

The Instagram Shadow Ban – Myth or Reality - An infographic by the team at The Instagram Shadow Ban

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Best Image Optimization Tips for SEO

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Mobile SEO: Welcome to The Future of SEO

Well this is well known fact that the mobile phones are the most revolutionary product in this century. Not very far, mobile phone was just for making a call and receiving a call. But now everything is changed. Now mobile phone is not just for making call, sad listening to the calls; now you can use it for playing games, listening music, FM Receiver, and much more.But the most important application of mobile is “Using Internet”. And a prediction says, “Soon Mobile Will Overtake Desktop Internet Uses”.

Before moving further, let us have a quick look on some statistics on the mobile phone users:

(Source: Radicati)

Not promising enough? Data is not too much, why not have a graphical view and feel the difference.

Now that’s the clear vision, seeing the mountains of users. Yes that’s what I am saying,Mobile SEO is the thing you need to focus on. So did the bell ring your ears?

That’s why you need Mobile SEO for your business.

As you can see how the world is moving towards the mobile, that is why it has become necessary for every business owner to be smart enough to optimize their mobile platform/site by doing right Mobile SEO.

I Have Done Enough Desktop SEO and My site is Also 100% Responsive, Why should I do Mobile SEO?

Most of us have this thinking, but is it right? It’s well said that Think before act. The most important thing is that, most of the times search made in Mobile Phone is different then the search made on desktop. Thus mobile SEO is little different than the desktop SEO. Google also announced that they have separate changes for mobile and desktop.

What makes Mobile SEO different from Desktop SEO?

The answer is quite simple, The Search. Search made in Mobile is different than in the desktop. The thing to understand in this regard is how the user is engaged. So, here are some factors on which the Mobile SEO depends.

How Search Is Made: As I mentioned several times that the mobile has different search than desktop so it’s self-explanatory.

User Engagement: Desktop is a bigger screen than a mobile phone, so if search is made on desktop it hardly matters that you are at first position or fifth, people will click your link. But in mobile the scene changes because here drop in position means your link probably not get a hit. Understand what I am trying to say. No??? This will clear your doubt.

This is a Desktop View of a Search for “Top 10 Smart Phone”

And this is mobile View for the same

Now tell me what difference you got?

Yes you are right. In desktop you can see 4 to 5 search results in front of you but is it the same case in mobile device? No, it’s not. This is my point. And scrolling, don’t tell me you love scrolling. I hate scrolling for long time with my thumb. So now you can understand why it is an advantage of being on top for mobile search.

Different Ranking Algorithm: If you think there are same algorithm for desktop search and mobile search then you are absolutely wrong and also I can say your observation is not good. Sorry if I have said something wrong. But if you see the above two images carefully, you will get the answer. Go back and watch them properly. Till then I am waiting for you here…

Gone through it? What you noticed? Yes now you got the answer that there are different search algorithms because for the same keyword search there are two different sites at top position. In desktop search Techradar.com is at #2^nd position but in mobile view it is at the top position.

And the most important point is

Local Search: Search in mobile is localized. Why so??? Because most of the time people do search on mobile when they didn’t have desktop in front of them. So, there are chances that the person searching for something might be in hurry. Thus localized search will help him more. That’s why for mobile search results, Google places Listing now known as Google My Business will appear more than that for desktop Search.

Wait this is not over yet I also have a mind blowing fact for you that will surely turn your mind to mobile marketing and Mobile SEO.

Mobile Email: Increase in affordable smartphone in market has grown the Mobile Email Market very rapidly. Currently 46% of the email users access their email via mobile device. Strange??? But it’s true. So, if we see the future in 2018 we are expecting 80% of the email users will access their email account through mobile devices.

Have a look of the forecasted data

(Source: Radicati)

So are you ready with your mobile optimized site?

Mobile IM: Mobile Instant Messaging Services is also showing strong growth. In 2014 the number of accounts for Mobile IM is 1,423 Million. And it is expected that it will reach 3.8 Billion accounts by the end of 2018. Just imagine an annual growth rate of about 29%. Don’t you want to get the most out of it? So be ready now. Optimize your website for mobile and get great revenue out of it.

In the Next Blog I will come up with the best practices for the successful Mobile SEO till than Happy Reading. Cheers

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Why You Need To Hire an SEO???

First of all, I have few questions to you.

Are you a website Owner?

Are you soon going to create your own website?

Are You a Business Owner?

If answer for any of the above mentioned questions is ‘yes’ then read this and by the end of this blog you will surely be able to get double of the business you are expecting.

Whenever you have a query you just open internet and enter a query in a search engine. When you hit 'enter' you get a list of several websites related to your search query. What you do after that??? You visit only those websites that are at the top of this list because you think this can only solve your query. But if you go through more websites you will figure out your query was solved by several other websites or may be in better way. Have you ever wondered why some of these websites rank better than the others??? If yes then did you researched about it? Yes, then you must know that it is because of a powerful web marketing technique called Search Engine Optimization (SEO). But if no then you are certainly missing a great chapter of Internet.

What Is SEO?
SEO is acronym for ‘Search Engine Optimization’, a technique which helps search engines find and rank your site higher than the millions of other sites in response to a search query. SEO thus helps you get traffic from search engines.

Now comes the most important question,

Why Do I Need SEO Strategy For The Growth Of My Business?

I met several business owners with a common thinking that having a website is enough to get business. Their exact words were ‘I have a website and lots of people visit my site, so why should I Hire SEO’ (for them 50 visit per day was “lots of”). Are you one of them? Yes, then you need to know some really engaging facts that how the world is shifting to internet world.

SEO Statistics and Facts

·         75% users don’t go beyond the first page of the search results.

·         70-80% of users ignore the paid ads, focusing their visits/clicks on the organic results.

·         93% of every online experience begins with a search engine.

·         There are over 100 billion global searches being conducted every month (33 million a day!).

·         Search page is the No.1 driver of traffic to content sites (beating social media by more than 300%).

·         89% of users use search engines for purchase decisions.

·         46% of mobile web users are unlikely to return to a website they had trouble accessing from their mobile and even more are unlikely to recommend the site.

·         53% of the organic search clicks go to the first link in the first page of search results.

·         59% of users use Google every month to find a reputable, local business.

·         Google is still the king of search traffic (69.73% of all search traffic – June 2014).

·         70% of people have used the internet to find a local business in the last 12 months.

·         69% of local users trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.

Now I think some picture is clear in your mind. Only having a website is not a way to get business, but you need some efforts.

As breathing is a need to live, similarly Optimization is the need of a website to drive traffic on it.

Remember this first point.

75% Users Don’t Scroll Beyond Page One

These points are facts not myths, so if you are not present in first page then you are missing 75% of your potential customers and if you are also not ranked in 2^nd place then you are losing more 50% potential customers. Aren’t you missing a great opportunity of getting business?

Most of the Users Ignore the Paid ads and believe in Organic Results

Users believe that the organic result is better than the ads because organic search result is proven by the search engine.

Hiring an SEO will Save Your Time

Even if you know about SEO, get it done by the expert. SEO is not a onetime process for a website, it is a continuous process. Being an owner of a business surely you have to take care of several things. Also SEO is continuously changing and you because of your schedule you might miss some important updates that can ruin your business. So save your time and get rid of this headache by hiring an SEO.

So are you clear why should you hire an SEO?

Now you have a clear idea that you need an SEO to grow your business. Yes, I know what question is arising in your mind and I am coming to the question.

How to hire Right SEO?

This question really matters, why? Because wrongly done SEO on your website will ruin your organic ranking and hence ruin your business. So few points you must consider before hiring an SEO are:

What Are Your Needs: first of all make it clear in your mind that what are your goals. Setting clear goals helps the SEO firm to know what you want so that they can make strategies accordingly. If you are not clear with your goals, just figure out what it can be; like you need to grow the leads by 50% in 12 months or grow 20% of sales in 12 months. Quite easy right? So have a goal in mind.

Get Multiple Bids and Consultation: Done with your goal setting? Now it’s time to have a cup of coffee with SEO firm. To impress the customer most of the SEO Firms offer free consultation; so take advantage of that and have conversation with more than one firm. But keep it secret because best SEO firms want that there should be a mutual understanding between the two, not a fight to compete the other SEO Firm.

References – TheMost Important Factor to Consider:

Ask for the previous work and contact the owner to know their experience with that SEO firm. Consider a firm that have worked in your industry before.For instance, if you are an owner of a travel agency then ask for their work for your industry. If you get satisfactory reference than put this firm in your consideration list.

The most important question you need to ask an SEO is

·         How can I expect to communicate with you? Will you share with me all the changes you make to my site, and provide detailed information about your recommendations and the reasoning behind them?

Only put the name of firm into the consideration list if you get a satisfactory answer.

Well final words before conclusion, no one can guarantee the #1 rank on Google. So if someone is misleading you by guaranteed #1 ranking then you must not consider the firm because they may indulge in “negative SEO” which will only lead your website to be entirely removed from the Google’s Index.

Conclusion:

In order to grow your business you need to hire an SEO, but never forget these considerations and hire a right SEO for your business. And remember SEO is not a magic wand, it is a time taking process so you need to show patience and once you are at top you will be the king of the world.

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YouTube SEO: The New Way to Explore The World

No doubt YouTube is the Second largest Search Engine after Google. If you go through the statistics of YouTube you will come to know how much vital role it can play to get profit. Here are some Stats about YouTube:

·         More than 1 billion unique users visit YouTube every month

·         Over 6 billion hours of video are watched every month on YouTube—that's almost an hour for every person on Earth

·         100 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute

·         80% of YouTube traffic comes from outside the US

·         YouTube is localized in 61 countries and across 61 languages

·         According to Nielsen, YouTube reaches more US adults ages 18-34 than any cable network

·         Millions of subscriptions happen every single day. The number of people subscribing daily is up more than 3x since last year, and the number of daily subscriptions is up more than 4x since last year.

(Source: YouTube)

YouTube is owned by Google Inc. but yet it is having different Search Algorithm from Google Search Engine. “YouTube gets over 30 million visitors per day.” If one manage YouTube SEO well one can easily get enormous amount of traffic. Now one can easily imagine the potential of YouTube. In fact it is a awesome platform to get Huge Traffic. So if you are not using YouTube then surely you are missing a lot of potential customers.

Thanks to Sean (SEO Hacker) and Brian Dean (Backlinko) through them I come to know about the YouTube SEO, well I didn’t apply all the factors mentioned by these two guys but still my videos have done great. Thanks to you two.

First of All I want to list the projects I am working on:

You can see for the keyword Real Estate Scenario 2015, this video rank #1.  Well don’t forget to check the date of video upload.

It’s interesting right. How I did it? Sure I will tell you that.

Another Example:

For highly competitive keyword “History of Delhi” This video is on the first page of YouTube from about 550,000 results and it is just in one week.

You might don’t know about “Cost Per Action Marketing” but if you want to know about what it is just type this keyword in Google and enjoy the lovely video by Al Aberu, this video is ranking #5 for this highly competitive keyword.

Well I have a long list of such videos. Because of this, clients get a lot of revenue and this practice gave me a lot of things to learn.

How I manage to get my videos to first page of Google and YouTube

Same like general SEO campaign for YouTube SEO you need a strategy, a plan and execution of plan. There is never a right or wrong plan in SEO (except you are doing Black Hat SEO). But you need to focus on few things that I am going to describe.

1.       Create a Video

It’s obvious that you need an awesome video to engage your visitors. Remember make videos for viewers not for the search engine. Provide best and unique information because YouTube is all about user engagement. YouTube didn’t count your video for backlinks like Google, so you need to create a best video that can engage user. This is because the user engagement is the Most Important Factor that will rank your video. If your video is not engaging your visitors then it will not rank. So get a great video that encourage the users to view the video.

2.       Keywords, Keywords and Keywords:

Well without a great keyword research every SEO campaign is waste. This is the foundation of your SEO. So put strong bricks in the foundation to make a great pillar. Search for the keywords that perfectly fit to your video. Best practice is to get “Long Tail Keywords”. The importance of long tail Keywords is that it is highly relevant and this will surely improve your User’s Engagement Factor (Remember it’s the Most Important Factor).

Done with Keyword Research??? What's next to do??? Let’s figure it out.

3.       Title, Description& Tags

These are the basics, after uploading a Video. There are some “Video Content Factors” that are similar to the On-Page Optimization in SEO.

Title: Without an appealing Title you cannot encourage your visitors to watch your video. It is the direct factor that affects YouTube SEO. Put your keywords in it and make it very attractive. Again I am saying don’t make Title for YouTube Search instead make it for Users. I am emphasizing on it because, only this will help you out as YouTube is owned by Google and Google believe in user’s satisfaction i.e. providing best and most relevant results to its user.

Description: YouTube gives you ample characters to describe your video. Make best use of this opportunity and get more audience for your video. People will figure out whether the video is relevant or not for them by reading the description. Also this is beneficial for YouTube Search because YouTube Search Bot didn’t understand the video, it just figures out the relevancy by the title and its description. So, create the description of your video like it is defining the title of the video.

The more you describe your video the better it is. So you must wright around 400-500 words that describe your video. Remember again create description for the users not for YouTube Search.

Tags: Best practice is to use all your keywords as tags. This is the place for all extra keywords. So put as many you can but all relevant to the video. More tags means more wide approach so make best use of it. Tags help YouTube Search to find out what your video is all about.

Now it’s time for going live. Hit “Save Changes” and your On-Page is done.

Key Point:Keep SEO in mind because you are doing all this to get ranked so the best practice is to name your video according to the keywords. Consider an example, if you are targeting keyword “SEO Tutorials for Beginners” then name your video based on this like “SEO_Tuitorials_for_Beginners_video.mp4”.

You need to focus on keyword research and well execution of strategy. If you do this you will find your video on top spot even if the video didn’t get many hits.

What Next???

Now only thing to do is:

4.       Get Likes on Video

It’s time for the user engagement, the more hits your video will get the higher it will rank for competitive keywords. Simple formula, more hits = higher ranking.

Don’t try to fool YouTube Search by fake views, YouTube caught several videos for fake views and now they are nowhere available in YouTube Search. So never use any service which provides fake view count.

Getting views and a hit on Thumbs Up will certainty boost the User Engagement level and this will certainly boost your SEO efforts.

Advantage: If one subscribes your channel that means the user wants to see more videos from you that will work as supercharger for your video and for your Channel Authority. So, move ahead for rank your video on Top.

You can use various strategies to get views for your video. Some strategies are:

Share Your Video:

Sharing is always fun. People love to share what they like on social networking sites. So always share your video on relevant groups and business page of various social networking sites. If people like this video then surely they will share your video and this will increase your user engagement. This will increase views of your video.

Mention Video in Your Blogs:

If you have a blog then mention your video in blogs, your readers will surely take a look on that video and if the video is relevant to their interest then “bingo…” You will get another like.

Embed Your Video in your Website:

Website visitor always look for new things.If your website is not providing variety then you will not get enough visitors embedding your new video on your website. This will help in boosting both website traffic as well as YouTube Video Views. So, why not give it a try.

Mention This Video in Various Question & Answer Site and Forums

This can be very helpful to get a lot of views if you mention your YouTube Video. If your video suits the answer and gets appropriate flag, then “it’s time for a party goof”.You are certainly getting enormous amount of views and likes.

Finally, don’t forget to check analytics because without analytics every effort is vain.So, if you are not looking over it, then you should focus on it now.

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5 Basic SEO Questions I Asked In Interview and Get Bad Responses

Are you preparing for interview for SEO Profile? Are you done with your homework? Yes!!! That’s great. Even if you are prepared it’s my request please go through it once. It will hardly take 10 minutes but you can gain a lot.

If you are from SEO background then you must know the importance of SEO in industry, SEO is the key online marketing channel for every company because nowadays every company has online presence to attract the client, customer and user base. Online presence has become an indispensible part for the promotion method if one is not present online then that company is surely missing a lot of opportunity to grow.

So if you are applying for this position then you must be ready for a very demanding Interview. I have conducted several interviews for SEO Profile. Most of them was nearly holding experience of one year or plus. Here I am going to tell you those basic questions about SEO and it shocked me that even the basic were unknown to most of the candidates. 

Here are those questions and tips to tackle them.

1. What is SEO?

This is very simple question and all know there is no proper definition of SEO because this is a very wide concept and it is very difficult to describe in a sentence. SO why this question arise and indeed an important question to be known not just a dictionary definition? Yes this is a good question though. When interviewer asks this, His/her motive is to what importance does SEO implies to his career and the application in the present scenario. So you need to answer that in your way. No bookish definition. Isn’t it quite simple?

2. Are you passionate about SEO?

One might think this is a silly question but for me this question is to keep the interview simple. This question helps me to figure out whether I continue or stop there with that candidate. Isn’t it very simple way? This is really time saving for me.

I know the Indian market is not offering much jobs, so to earn money people are ready to do any kind of job, if you conduct walk-in to fill up the vacancy of 10 people, you will find more than 100 candidates are lined up. But one can contradict that what if everyone says yes I am passionate about SEO. What will you do? My next question is the answer for your question.

3. If you are passionate about SEO tell me about the Latest Google Search Algorithmic updates?

One can trick me in above mentioned question but not here. Most of the candidates stuck there because they don’t know this. If you don’t know about Google Search Algorithms and its updates how you can work on my website or anyone’s website. So if you are going for the interview you should prepare this question.

4. Tell me the names of Google Search Algorithms at least 5?

Well this is a question where I found near about every candidate stuck. Is it a really tough question or irrelevant question for the candidates? No, not at all, this is very simple and very much relevant question. One must know the Search Algorithms and Its updates.

Now it’s enough about Google and its Algorithm. Let’s move to other points. My next question

5. Name any 5 Search Engine?

Now if one doesn’t know this will you consider that guy? Most of them didn’t answer my question. This is least expected question form any of the SEO aspirant, and for me also.

#Important

Also I want to tell you about some really serious candidates who are looking for job. It’s my humble request please don’t follow them. This will surely ruin your Interview.

* Ok I’ll tell it with complete plot. I was waiting for the candidate, he entered in funky tee and Jeans with no document file in hand. Without seeking permission sit on the chair In front of me. I asked for resume, am not going to take his interview, it was my decision still I want to see whether he is carrying one or not.

When I asked for his resume he stood up and put his hand in back pocket of jeans and here it is, his resume double folded.

I said thank you, you leave for the day. And when I saw his resume I found that, this guy was having an experience of 2 years.


*After going through few candidates I met with another serious candidate, dressed well, tip-top but he is one of them who carry rolled resumes. Seriously think by sitting on my chair will you consider these candidates. Surely No, so I also did same.


* Now it’s time to meet a pretty girl. Well dressed, with a document file on hand. I offered her seat. She sits on her respective seat. Now what’s the problem than. The problem is her replies. For my every question her reply was “I know this thing, and I can do this.” Confident enough, but Interview means you need to answer what you know, what are your views about that question. Same answer for every question. You are really out of the game.

I have seen several candidates doing blunder in Interviews I mentioned few those topped the list. So I must say before going for a Job do all your homework before appearing for any interview. Always keep updated resume with you and do not put false info in your resume.

We will discuss more in another blog. Till than stay tuned.

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