SEO Tips to rank your website in the first page of search engines.

Sharing is Knowledge
SEO Tips to be used during website development and design

What are SEO tips?

SEO tips are steps taken to improve a website’s position in the search engine result page. For every businessman, it is necessary to promote their business by ranking their website higher in Google, Bing etc. For example if you are an entrepreneur who is running a construction business, then it is necessary that when someone searches for ‘best builders’ than your website is listed in the first page of the search engine. The SEO tips that we are about to discuss will help achieve the same.

Search volume, relevance of content and existence of competing websites are the basic areas to be focused while thinking about SEO tips to rank a website among the search engine results.

5 easy SEO tips to rank your website higher

While there is no magic wand, there are various steps that you can take to take your website to the top of a search engine results page (SERP). These steps are called ‘Search Engine Optimization’. They are divided into two broad categories:

  • On-page Optimisation
  • Off-page Optimisation

In this blog, we will concentrate on the On-page Optimisation of a website. Here are the five most common and easy steps that one must execute to rank a website higher. The other complicated stuff will have to follow these basic steps.

SEO Tip – 1: Content should be relevant

Content plays a vital role not only in SEO but also in terms of likeability of the website by the readers. Like readers do not have time to browse through irrelevant long content, the search engines behaves similarly. Quality content created specifically for your intended target user, using the keywords and phrases that the targeted user uses to identify the website increases site traffic, authority and relevance.

For a business-man, it is necessary to identify keywords or phrases that his customers would use. He or his SEO agency needs to know the keywords when the website should be presented to the search results. The home page should be initially written with an overall focus, and then each page should have its own set of target keywords and phrases. Some rules that we should follow while writing content:

  • The keywords / phrases should be repeated especially in the opening and closing paragraphs,
  • The keywords should be highlighted using bold, italics and inside headings.
  • There should be one or two focus keywords for each page, and the others should be secondary keywords.
  • We must not however overdo it. Both Google, Bing and your readers are smarter than you think. Never sacrifice good writing for SEO. The best pages are written for users, and not for the search engines.
  • We should write shorter sentences, in active voice wherever possible.
  • We can use tools and plugins such as Yoast SEO to see if the content is up to the mark.
  • Lastly, everybody including the search engines love regularly updated content. It indicates a site’s freshness.

SEO Tip – 2: Title Tag

The Title Tag is what you can see at the very top of your browser for each website. It is populated by a meta tag called the Title Tag present in your page’s HTML source code. The title tag is not your page’s primary headline. The headline you see on the page is typically an H1 (or possibly an H2) HTML element.

The length of a title tag that Google will show will vary but in general 55-60 characters is a good rule of thumb here. We should insert our focus keyword into the title tag. If you can do it in a natural and compelling way, add some related modifiers around that term as well. Keep in mind that the title tag will frequently be what a searcher sees in search results for your page. It’s the “headline” in organic search results, so you should also take into account how clickable your title tag is.

SEO Tip – 3: Meta Descriptions

While the title tag is effectively your search listing’s headline, the meta description (another meta HTML element that can be updated in your site’s code, but isn’t seen on your actual page) is effectively your site’s additional ad copy. Google takes some liberties with what they display in search results, so your meta description may not always show, but if you have a compelling description of your page that would make folks searching likely to click, you can greatly increase traffic. (Remember: showing up in search results is just the first step! You still need to get searchers to come to your site, and then actually take the action you want.)

SEO Tip – 4: Alt Attributes

An Alt Attribute is an HTML element that allows you to provide alternative information for an image if a user can’t view it. It is necessary that you have a useful description which gives you another opportunity – outside of your content – to help search engines understand what your page is about. There is no necessity to include targeted keywords only into the alt attribute. You can use every possible variation of it into your alt attribute.

Every image should necessary have a sentence or a phrase in the alt attribute. So it is critical that we plan the attributes to the benefit of the overall website. It is equally critical to write the attribute as per the image. Irrelevant alt attribute will only harm the ranking of the website.

SEO Tip – 5: URL Structure

The URL structure is the last point in the series. The URL is not only a critical SEO factor, but also an important factor to structure the navigation of the website.

Static website pages are always structured in different folder, sub-folders and then files. structure. It is important to name these folders, sub-folders and files from a SEO perspective. The URL structure should not only be logical to segment and classify the website, but also have keywords within it.

Some content management systems like WordPress has different ways to structure the URLs. We should use the one that properly brings out the category of the page or post and the name of the page should have keywords within it.

If there is a need to change your URL structure, use proper redirects. A 301 redirect is a permanent redirect which passes 90-99% of link equity (ranking power) to the redirected page. 301 refers to the HTTP status code for this type of redirect. This is a common mistake businesses make when they redesign their websites.

Conclusion

So, the above 5 pointers are the easiest and most effective on-page SEO tips. We must remember to follow these steps. It will help to promote the business and gain new customers.

SEO is a vast subject and therefore needs a much detailed execution. There are many technical steps that require an SEO expert. Kuhipaat Communications and Technology Pvt Ltd, based in Duliajan, Assam has SEO experts to take care of the ranking of your website. Please do give us a call, or leave your number here, and we will call you back to understand your website requirements.

Sharing is Knowledge
Website Design Strategy by Kuhipaat, Duliajan

Website Design Strategy – Protech

Sharing is Knowledge

Kuhipaat Communications and Technology Pvt. Ltd. have strategized, designed and wrote the content of the website design of Protech Group. Protech Group is a pioneer Real Estate developer in Assam having developed over 12 prime properties over a period of 10 years experiences.

It is difficult to convince people to invest in a flat as home investment is a long term investment and people always try to research and know about all possible options in the market before investing in a home. Therefore, it was a communication & digital marketing challenge for Kuhipaat to design such a website for Protech Group that will satisfy the intense research that consumers do; and decide to buy a flat at one of the projects by Protech Group.

Click here to visit the website.

Objective

The primary objective was to create an informative platform which will provide information about the projects in a way that prospective buyers come to the website and leave their details for Protech Group to contact them later.

Strategies

We have taken various long term & tactical strategies to increase the effectiveness of the website to drive business, and to create awareness about Protech Group and their excellent standards of design and quality. Here is the list of the strategies that we have executed for the website of Protech Group.

Slider home page banner

Slider banner
Slider banner

We have decided to have header banners in a slider in the homepage of the website to showcase three of the top priorities of Protech Group. It was a given that Protech would have bookings ongoing for more than one property at any given point in time. Each slider contains some contents and a link that forwards the customers to a new page having more details about the projects.

Upfront Project Details

We have created a Portfolio section of all the projects of Protech in the home page by segmenting them on the basis of the projects’ nature and customers’ interest. We have divided the projects into completed projects, ongoing projects, commercial projects and RERA approved projects. Each project in the list is presented with a project photograph, the name of the project, the location of the project and a link to a new page that has the complete project details. If the mouse cursor comes over any of the images, the page visitor can see the project details. It was added to increase activity and engagement on the website.

Project Listing of Residential Properties of Protech - Kuhipaat

We have also created a menu option called ‘Projects’ right in the top navigation menu to create upfront visibility for the projects. The menu option ‘Projects’ has a sub-menu to divide the projects into residential and commercial projects. We know that a visitor will either be looking for a residential property, or be looking for a commercial property.

Lastly, we have made a detail page for each project that is segmented into information sections. It also flags the properties where booking are ongoing, against the ones that are sold out. Each visitor may be looking at a certain kind of information more closely than the other visitor. Further, segmentation increases the readability of a long elaborate content.

The information sections are made into a menu so that the visitor can directly go to the section that he or she is interested in. The information sections are:

  1. Overview
  2. Architect’s Note
  3. Special Features
  4. Gallery
  5. Location
  6. Floor Plans
  7. Specifications
  8. Chargeables
  9. Brochure

Social Media Integration

Social media integration is critical for website and page ranking on Google search results. It also helps in the spread of information between friends and social connections. We have included the Protech Group social media page buttons in the footer for all the pages. More importantly, we have designed and coded share buttons individually for all important pages. The share buttons are present in all the project detail pages as well as in the About us page. It enables the visitor to share a particular page to his social media timeline.

Social media buttons on Protech website

Lead Generation

Lead generation was one of our key deliverables. We wanted each visitor who comes to the website to leave his contact details for further correspondence. We have executed the following strategies to meet our deliverable as efficiently as possible.

  1. We have made a red visible button on the header of the website with the phone number of the customer care team of Protech Group. It was planned in the header because the header is common in all pages and the phone number will be present in any page that the visitor hops onto.
  2. We have created a ‘Contact Us’ floater badge on the right hand side to be present in all the pages. A click on the floater badge opens up a modal window with a simple contact form linked to a database. Kuhipaat has made a web page for the CRM team to view the leads in real time to call them without any delay.
  3. We have another contact us form in the footer of the website. The footer of a website is always constant in all the pages. If anybody misses the floater badge, they may see the footer to leave their contact details and their project interest.
  4. As discussed in the previous point, we have an option for downloading the brochure of a project. We have created a form to collect the mobile number and email ID before downloading the brochure. A visitor who is downloading the brochure can be considered as a hot lead, and it was in our interest to collect his contact details.
  5. We have created an auto-popup that opens when the customer tries to close the web page. It highlights either a property or another topic with a contact us form.
  6. Lastly, we also have a ‘Contact Us’ menu option right in the top navigation that opens a webpage, which also has a detailed database connected contact us form.

Website Engagement

We have created the website with ideas that can engage customers when they visit the website. Keeping in mind about the customers’ interest, we have created two pages in the website: FAQ page and EMI Calculator. We have done the branding of FAQ page as “ProtechGuru” by starting a campaign of #GuruwarWithProtechGuru in social media channels. Protech Guru answers the questions related to real estate. We have created an option on the FAQ page for the customers to submit their questions to Protech Guru. Even when the customer is submitting a question, we are capturing his or her contact details.

FAQ of Protech Website

The EMI Calculator is an often used tool by any home seeking consumer. The tool that we embedded gives out the EMI amount, interest amount and the total payout amount, when we input the loan amount, interest and loan tenure.

SEO & Website Ranking

The Protech website is registered with Google and Bing. Kuhipaat has successfully worked on contents as well as the technical sides of the Protech website for the SEO purpose so that the website appears in the first page of the search results in some particular chosen keywords. We have successfully made the Protech website recognized in organic search. The website comes in the first page for all the chosen keywords.

We have done on page SEO in each page of the website (including Meta keywords, Meta description, alt tags, Social media tags, OG tags etc) and used focus keywords and phrases for each page. Sitemap and Robots.txt files were created and uploaded onto the root folder of the website. It tells the search engines about the different pages, and the pages and folders that needn’t be crawled. The kuhipaat team has used Breadcrumb at the top of the page above title and content which navigates the hierarchy level of user’s location in the site.

Protech website blogs

We have created and managed the blog section of the website to increase site ranking by increasing site visits. We have written interesting blogs related to real estate, interior decor, general tips etc. that attract the consumers. The blog writing was done by the team. Yoast SEO tool was used to do On-page SEO for the blogs written by us.

Device Responsiveness

With the increase in smart phones, and the lowering of data rates, mobile viewership of websites have increased significantly. 99% of the website visits come from mobile devices. It was therefore essential that the website looks equally good on a mobile screen. It should adapt to a smaller screen without any issue. We have worked on the responsiveness for different screen resolutions of different devices including tablets. One can open the site in any devices like mobile, tab or pad, it is device optimized.

Protech website mobile view
Mobile view of Protech Website

Conclusion

Thus, Kuhipaat has designed the Protech website with the above mentioned strategies. The strategies we have taken, increased the ranking of the website in search results page of the search engines like Google and Bing on some particular chosen keywords such as ‘Best real estate builder in assam’, ‘Best real estate brand in assam’ etc. Protech was able to sell almost 100 flats in the last year because of these website strategies.

Sharing is Knowledge

SEO & Inbound Marketing

Sharing is Knowledge
I can’t help but start with some of the great Seth Godin quotes when I am dwelling the topic of Inbound Marketing. I love his quotes even otherwise.

He says, “If you can’t sell to 1 in 1000, why market to a million?”. He also says, “People don’t believe what you tell them. They rarely believe what you show them. They often believe what their friends tell them. They always believe what they tell themselves.”

These statements make the basis of Inbound Marketing. Lets understand Inbound Marketing before really delving into how SEO would help it.
Let me intersperse this blog with some of my favourite Seth Godin quotes. Would that be boring. Please allow me. Why waste a sentence saying nothing?”
Traditionally, and most marketers today, generate leads and fill the top of their sales funnel through bulk email blasts, SMS push marketing to legal or illegal lists, trade shows, seminars, internal cold calling, outsourced telemarketing and advertising. These are “outbound marketing” activities where a marketer pushes the message out through different media options hoping that it will reach the target consumer.
Although there is a high probability that the message would reach the targeted consumer, yet there are a few basic concerns.
  • The message is a generic message designed to appeal the large target consumer set.
  • The message is one among millions of other messages targeting similar TG profile.
  • There are consumer & Government activism to block generic messages using Spam filters, Caller ID etc and frequent shifting of channels.
  • Once the message reaches the target consumer, the follow up communication strategy is not existent. Mostly the marketing team broadcasts the message, and then the business teams tries to track leads and conversions.
Basically, it was about buy, beg and bug consumers spending millions of advertising dollars to sell. These days are getting over, quickly, with consumers in control of the information they receive.

“Change almost never fails because it’s too early. It almost always fails because it’s too late.”

Inbound Marketing is the change. Its the Marketing 2.0. It is about the practice of bringing warm, qualified leads into the sales funnel and follow them up through communication till they explicitly or implicitly express dis-interest. The basis was again Seth Godin’s Permission based marketing.

“Permission Marketing is just like dating. It turns stranger into friends and friends into lifetime customers. Many of the rules of dating apply, and so do many of the benefits.”


Half of Inbound Marketing is about great marketing content. And the second half is about having strategies and techniques to engage the interested consumer till conversion. Human beings have a finite amount of attention. The attention is therefore spent only on things that interests you. Once great content attracts the attention, inbound marketing is supposed to capture that attention, engage with the attention, make a relationship to exchange more content. The attention would either become a customer, or become an ambassador of the brand/product.

SEO – Search Engine Optimization plays a critical role in capturing attention of consumers searching for content that resonates with the content provided by the brand. Search engines have become the default option to search for content. Students search before asking their teachers. Employees search before asking their peers or bosses.

“Expectations are the engines of our perceptions.”
If you want to dig a big hole, you need to stay in one place.”

SEO as I discussed in the previous blog, is not only about making your website optimized to be found in all relevant search keywords, but also about creating content in the social media and other Internet eco-systems. The latter simply means that others would equally work hard to get your content across to relevant consumers.

For instance, if you write a post in www.mouthshut.com, mouthshut would work hard to get that searched by relevant keywords. Then if you share that post through google plus, twitter, tumblr etc, they further work hard to get that searched.

Finally, even if your relevant website page is coming in the second page of the search result, the same content may come right in the front of the search result through other websites.

This is called Content SEO, and not Website SEO.

“Ideas in secret die. They need light and air or they starve to death.”

Let your content be that idea. Use proper SEO techniques and inbound marketing strategies as light and air, or they would starve to death.

The author has an experience of 18 years in the integrated communication domain involving traditional as well as digital media. He can be contacted at durlov@kuhipaat.in for consultancy and project execution.

Sharing is Knowledge